Some autumn photos

I almost finished the essay I had to get done today, so now I'll finally allow myself to have a free afternoon. And guess what I'll be doing? This:

Chilling on the sofa, drinking tea and of course planning what to do with all my yarn. And then I'll try to finish a pair of mittens I promised to make for one of my friends already long ago. But better late than never, right? :)

Then I also managed to take some autumn pictures before all the bright colours rained away. I was a little bit dissapointed with the colours my camera showed me, though, so I have to admit that I slightly brightened them on my computer. The last pictures is taken with my phone, so I blame the weird colour (even after the first-aid session on the computer) on that.

But still they do look a little bit flat. I've been looking at photos taken by other people, and I've finally understood how important it is to have a good camera if you want to take nice pictures. Our small camera is ok if the light and everything is perfect, but if it's a little bit dark or the light is too bright, the pictures can turn out horrible. So next on my wishlist: a new camera. Let's see when on earth I can afford that one...

Seeking inspiration

The past few weeks have been so hectic that I haven't really had the time to do anything else than sleep and run from one place to another. All the spare time I've had, I've just been spending in front of the TV. Haven't even felt like knitting. All the project I have in progress felt so dull. But now I've finally found my inspiration again, and that is thanks to these:

I went to the library for no particular reason and a few moments later I found myself at the crafting section. Most of the knitting books were pretty old and didn't really have anything that interested me, but these books are different and I just had to borrow them and take them with me home. My aboslute favourites are Haiku Knits and Neulekirja. Haiku Knits has beautiful japanese-inspired knits and Neulekirja is a quite new finnish book with lovely, happy and slightly different patterns. I immediately had to start knitting on a pair of socks. I hope I'll be able to show them here soon.

Then I also did something I had promised not to do until I've used most of the yarn I already have in my stash: I went to the lovely Lankamaailma Nordia. It's the biggest yarn-shop in the Nordic countries. Therefor it's very deceiving and dangerous for my wallet. But now that I saw they had an autumn sale, I just couldn't resist. But I'm actually really proud that I managed to stick to yarns I already knew I needed for some specific projects. Here's what I came home with:

Looks so soft and lovely, doesn't it? Oh, I can't wait to see how they turn out in real, finished projects :) The yarn with the beads I actually got for free, so I don't yet what I'll use it for, but I'm sure it'll find its' place.

Now I have to study some more again, but I promise to catch up soon!

The owls are hooting in the morning mist

You remember the knitting project I started in July while I was at my parent's place? Well, I did finish the knitting part itself only three weeks from there, but then it took me ages to find the inspiration to "decorate" it. I've been working on it on and off every once in a while, but this morning I finally sewed on the last pearls. So here's the result:

The pattern is called Owls and I found it so cute that I just HAD to make one for myself. And I really like it. It's soft, warm and sweet :) Although the knit itself turned out a bit too loose, but I don't actually mind. At least the size fits perfectly. The original pattern suggested just buttons for eyes, but after looking at some other versions of this sweater, I decided to take it one step further:

Although these two owls are a bit special. There's one girl owl with eye-lashes and then a guy beside her that can't seem to believe his eyes :) The rest of the owls are just basics with eyes pointing to different directions. And then there's one owl with a beak.

The weather has also been lovely autumn-ish today. The mist never cleared, but the sun was still shining. I actually love this time of the year when the sun is getting a bit lower. It brings so wonderful colour-variations to the nature when the upper parts of the trees are coloured by the yellow sunlight while a shadow is covering the lover parts. I think it's really beautiful. And the mist makes the lanscape so mysterious. Lovely.

Weeruska!

I'm sorry that I haven't updated anything in two weeks, but I've just been so busy with studies, work and other stuff. And then, most of my freetime I've been working on my new knitting project. The minute I saw it on Jatta's blog last spring, I hoped she would write down the pattern for it, and finally, in August she did! So I've been knitting on it since then. Especially for the past week I've just been knitting, knitting and knitting as often as I had the chance, because it felt that since I was so close to finishing it, it was almost impossible to put it down and go to bed in the evening. But now, after hours of "hard work", it's finally finished! And I aboslutely LOVE it! It's wonderful!

It's not too hot since it has short sleeves, yet it's not too cold either since it's made out of woolen 7 Veljestä yarn by Novita.

Although, it ended up a few centimetres shorter than I had intended (I don't know if I miscalculated it or if my gauge was so different to Jatta's), so even though I wanted it to be a dress, I think I'll mosly use it as a tunic in stead. I don't like showing as much of my legs as I do now with it. But there's nothing wrong with a new knitted tunic either! Maybe I'll knit another version of this later and then I can make it longer.

This colorwork I actually had to redo once, since I knitted it too tight the first time. It felt horrible to rip it, but now I'm glad I did. It fits much better now :)

But in short, this Weeruska dress is most likely my favourite knitted project so far! It's aboslutely marvellous! <3