I've been challenged...

- to think! How's that for exercising my brains on a summer holiday Sunday night (soon to be Monday morning if I don't go to sleep!) after a weekend of too much partying. 

Tora challenged me to make lists to go by for the next year. Well, I've been a bit apprehensive about this, since I'm feeling that I don't quite know where to go with my knitting at this point. On one hand, I want to create my own designs, but on the other hand I also want to take the easy road and knit up some of those incredible designs that have already been made.

I'm going to stray a bit from the original concept and replace one of the list of things I want to learn with another one as I can't really think of things I want to learn at the moment. I learn enough at university, I guess. 

Things I want to create:

1. Marianne Isager's Sommer i Tokyo from the book Japan. 

2. A pattern for the double-knitted scarves I've been making.

3. Asymmetric Cardigan from Knit So Fine

4. Twinkle's Best Friend Cardigan

Small things I might want to knit:

1. A pair of mittens; want to design my own, but let's see what happens

2. Tudora neckwarmer

3. Celestine docahedron "ball"

4. A pair of socks, possibly Charade

Non-knitting thing I want to create/finish/accomplish:

1. The pair of gloves I started this spring

2. The embroidered pillows I started too long ago

3. Read Jonathan Safran Foer's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (in less than a month since I went to the library to get in its original, wonderful language, English - and numerous other books, as I only read literature during the summer holidays (can't cope with it while reading for university), but I have to start somewhere

4. Finish my 5 kms at the DHL relay race in less than 27 minutes, preferably in 25. 

I think I am going to challenge another 5, but I won't (at least not at the moment). If you want to play, feel free and let me know :)

Not much knitting being done!

... as this arrived yesterday!

Me being a PC user up until now, this beautiful little white wonder is a bit challenging to me, but I think I'm learning quite fast. I've now got all my browser bookmarks set and my favourite software installed. And don't worry - I know it looks like the screen has already been damaged, but it's not! It's merely a blur I made in the photo editor cos you're not supposed to be able to read the title of the draft paper I'm about to read through - this will be my first paper ever if it gets published! Exciting! (No, my name is not first on the list, as I didn't write the paper, but as there are only 3 names on it - my two supervisors' and mine - I'm quite excited! :D)

We have a winner!

I had a great time reading all your comments - I thought a contest might be a good enticement for you all to comment, i.e. for me to get some new links to bloggers from all around blogland. So here's my thanks to you - including those of you I already "know"; so nice to know that you're reading here!

Well, as many of you correctly guessed, my new sport is: rugby!
As pointed out by some of you, you (most often) do not need the gumshield for ordinary football/soccer. On the other hand, more equipment is needed for american football, etc. Still, some other sports may require the exact same equipment, but this was a guessing contest and not a math problem, i.e. all possible solutions to the problem needn't be correct ;)

Having fun reading your comments, I simply have to draw everybody's attention to Eve's comment as it really made me laugh: "My thought after rugby (in case I was wrong) was some sort of game where you have to run really fast somewhere and at the finish line you get punched in the face. Which is really what rugby is all about, anyway :) Do you have to tape your ears for each game?" You may not be completely wrong, Eve, but I tend to think that rugby is slightly more sophisticated than that! ;) The answer to whether I have to tape my ears in for each game will be no. Taping the ears is only necessary for those who have to put their heads between other players thighs in the scrum - and that'll not be my task :D

Reading the comments, I also found out that Karen watches this (to a Danish person rather odd) game on TV and like many people lost her heart to the haka-performing New Zealanders! ;) Which TV channels show the games, Karen?

I listed the names of those of you who got the right answer, used the random number generator, which picked the winner:

knitmomma

Congratulations! I'll send you an email.

Thank you all for participating!

News + contest!

It's been a bit quiet around the blog for a while, so I thought I might drop you a line. No big news, though. So - to make some fun out of it, I made a contest (see below) for you! The subject is not knitting-related, but the prize is!

I received a parcel from Posh Yarn today! Alas, there's no sign of my purchase from May 21st yet (I'm beginning to convince myself that it's been lost in the mail - oh horror, good yarn gone to waste!) but the one from this Sunday's sale arrived quickly. Do you think my favourite colour is red?





On another note, I almost finished knitting the Alpine Shrug from one of Rowan's magazines in this linen/alpaca blend that's been lingering my stash for ages:

It's a beautiful yarn and colour, but the predominant feature of it is that it dusts all over the place! Yeah, some yarns do dust, but this one dusts with long black fibres sticking to clothes, the couch, etc. and very short grey ones that floats in the air, let alone in your airway! So, I ended up thowing the whole shite away! I figure I should have done so a long time ago, but it has been too hard for me to part with this beautiful yarn until now.

The summer holidays started 10 days ago, but I haven't really been knitting much anyway. I think the non-knitting exam period is still clinging to me - still getting used to having all this time off. Additionally, I've also started the 12-week training programme for the DHL relay race in September. Not that it's anything huge, but I've been running regularly (1-3 times a week) for a year now, and I found it high time to do something seriously about becoming faster - and it gives me something to do in these many many weeks of summer holidays (12 to be exact), and as Peter (the dear boyfriend) has joined in on the training as well, we have something to do together.

And now for the contest:

I've recently taken up a new sport that has started to take up some of my time as well (one has to hang out for the socials and games as well, you know). Can you guess which one?!

Clue: you must include all items shown in the photo to guess the right sport.

If you guess correctly and I draw out you name afterwards, I'll send you a small prize including a homemade item (knitted or felted), a ball of yarn, and some goods.

Edit: The contest is now closed! I'll be drawing the winner in a moment!

To enter the contest, just leave a comment to this post. If you don't want to enter, but want to comment anyway, just state so in your comment :)

BTW - aren't these boots just fancy? ;)

___________

Info for Stashalong:

Yarn thrown away: 532 g

Posh Yarn purchase: 464 g

A soft one

Last week I finished the Backyard Leaves scarf (from Scarf Style) in the Emily yarn from Posh Yarn in colourway Raddle - a mix of oranges and reds; hence, these leaves are beautiful autumn leaves and they are incredibly soft around my neck. I actually wore it twice last week despite the summery weather.

I bought the 100 g of yarn from another Raveler, pictish. I used 98 g of it for this scarf. Both numbers now added to the Stashalong stats.