A sea of swatches

Life has been incredibly hectic these past few weeks. I wake up on Monday mornings, and when I wake up the next morning, it's already Friday. I can't believe that half of the year has already past, and the list of things that have to be accomplished this year keeps getting longer and longer.

So to keep you updated, I spent these past few weeks knitting a lot (obsviously), and swatching even more than ever, practising different stitches, and trying to incorporate them into pre-designed shapes. That's a lot of work, because when you have a clear idea of what you want, but the whole thing doesn't work out that way, you can end up spending days and days brainstorming the same idea, and try to put 12 into 10. But it stil doesn't work. So you have to modify, and admit that the initial idea that you had in mind will not work that way. Thus the growing pile of swatches...

Now back to my knitting!

Highlights in May

As you know, I was in France in the first half of th month of May. I spent the first week travelling and exploring Britanny. Eating lot of seafood, finding mussles & oysters on the low tide, knitting a little bit and taking pictures of the glorious Spring.

We visited the cutest little farm ever, spending most of my time int he nursery, cuddling these adorable mohair goats.

The second week was spent in Paris, trying to recover from the wonderful things that I experienced in the countryside. Two packages arrived while I was away: the ginormous Homestead Light skein from Skein, & a couple of alpaca skeins from Drops. Both of which are already use/ have been used. I completed the second version of my Blóm pattern with the first one, and the drops skeins are beeing used from a Quill shawl.

On the very last day, we stopped for coffee & cake, and of course yarn shops.

The month of May has been the best of the year so far! Yay for May!

Blóm 2.0

Sorry for the radio silence of the past month, but if you follow me on Instagram, you know that I spent the past couple of weeks in France, enjoying the countryside and my family. I've had such a wonderful time there, which made the month of May the best of the year so far. And you have no idea how much I want to go back, and explore every tiny village in the french countryside. But I'll keep that for later as I'm planning to sum up my trip to France in another post.

So today I'd like to share what kept my hands busy during my second week in France instead. When I came back from Britanny, not one but two packages were waiting for me on my doorstep. One of them contained some drops alpaca wool - which is already on the needles. But I'll share that later too. And the other one made its way from sunny Australia. The package itself was quite small compare to the gigantic skein that was inside: 590 yards of luscious untreated Polwarth wool. I'm certain that my face was pretty funny to see when I saw the first glimpse of the skein. I kept my precious in my arms for a good ten minutes, walking around the house, showing it to anyone that would cross my way. After the euphoria, I sat down, and realised that the next hour wouldn't be spent kntting but rather winding by hand these 590 yards of luscious untreated Polwarth wool. (Haaaa).

Then the time flew by. What must have been hours, felt like minutes. I was already more than halfway through the shawl when I realized that the light was very poor when my mom called me for dinner. I knit a bit in the plane, and finished the shawl in Latvia. I waited for my pin blockers to arrive, then gave it a good wash and pined it on my yoga mat. The next evening I was taking these photographs outside between two storms, and right before the end of the glorious blooming lilac season.

• Pattern: Blóm
  
• Yarn: Skein, homestead Light in the Mademoiselle colorway (one skein)
  
• Needles: Knit Pro, 4mm metal
  

Blóm

And here it is! Let me introduce Blóm, my newest shawl design.

Blóm is a semi-circular shawl that features a simple and delicate lace section in the central panel.
The pattern is both written and charted, and a video explains in more details how to knit the flower stitch.

Winter lasts for a very long time here in Latvia. Days are very short and dark, and there’s not a lot of light to enjoy. Back in January, when the whether was very gloomy, I took my camera and headed out to one of my favourite places: the Botanical Museum. This place is such an oasis in the middle of Winter!

Ideas started to overflow in my head, and I imagined the very first draft of this pattern while walking the aisles of the greenhouses. By the beginning of Spring, Blóm was finaly born. I went back to the Botanical Museum in April, the very first time since January, and photographed the pattern that was inspired by this very same place.

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Yarn
Quince&co Tern, in the Terra cotta colorway (3 skeins), OR Skein, Homestead Light (1 skein) OR appr. 570 yards of fingering weight yarn.

Needles
US 6 circular needle/4mm

Finished Measurements
160cm long/ 60 cm light

Botanical embroidery: the project bag sampler

I placed an order the other day for a stunning handmade dress that is made out of a 100% lithuanian linen (get ready to see me wearing it on the next couple thousand posts). The dress was carefully wrapped in a little linen pouch, and the first idea that came out to my mind was to use it as a project bag.

I used it for a little bit, and then I thought that it would be wonderful to cover it with botanical elements that I would embroider. I don't have a lot of experience in embroidering, I'm just following what my heart and mind tell me to do, select colors from my modest collection, and thread the needle!

Are you doing some embroidery too? (I would love to see your work).