my creative space this week... crocheting the pieces for my blanket together!!!! 

that's right, no more squares to crochet.. all i have to do now is crochet the bigger pieces together into a blanket! unfortunately i am running out of white yarn (the yarn in my picture is the last bit i've got and it won't last much longer)... but new yarn is on it's way. :)

(the cookies are home-made by the way... cashew nuts with chocolate... yum!)

it is so weird that i finished crocheting the squares now... it was always my "on-the-go" project, in the car, bus, train,... what am i to crochet now? hexagons for my next blanket? it would probably be better to finally finish some already started crochet projects... :)

more creative spaces here, by the way.

today we woke up extremely early - 5 am - because we were selling at the fleamarket! once a year there's a big fleamarket in turnhout, my boyfriends hometown. when we moved last year, we sorted loads of things out and we decided it was about time to finally get rid of all the stuff. 

it was an extremely busy fleamarket, and we almost had to return home because there were so many sellers! but we got lucky and had a great selling spot in the end... :)

the fleamarket is also the reason i've been neglecting my swatch-a-week project. i am currently two swatches behind... oops! i've been really busy sorting, cleaning and washing all my stuff, which was actually a lot of fun to do and brought a lot of memories too. the blue floral dress, for instance, was my favorite dress in my first year of art school. :) now it will make a nice summer dress for a pretty blonde girl (who looked great with the blue)! that's really what i love about fleamarkets... all the stories!! :)

 hurray, my socks are finished! i really like how they turned out. :)

 more details on ravelry!

and ofcourse, i couldn't help but start a new pair! i had this gorgeous yarn (scheepjeswol invicta colour) but it has been driving me crazy so far! the yarn is very irregular, it goes from thick to thin... and at some point it simply broke off when i was knitting! (i am a very tight knitter, but i never broke the yarn!) i also wonder how durable they will be once finished... but we'll see!

i started following a nice sock pattern with a broken rib, but it didn't look the way i wanted. way too messy and weird. not at all like the pictures.

so i started over and i went for the basic sock pattern... which really shows off the beautiful colours of the yarn... eugh... i really wish i liked the yarn more... just look at those pretty colours!!

i have all these basic t-shirts in my closet, t-shirts i only wear for gardening or cleaning. there is nothing wrong with basics, ofcourse, but basic shirt + basic cardigan + basic pants equals a pretty boring outfit, i think. so i decided it was time for a little round of "pimp-my-tee". :)

i saw this tutorial on pinterest and i wanted to do it immediately. i went to the thriftstore and i found this really ugly magenta-green-grey-ish tie that looks like it was made to match my green tshirt! i pinned it to the neckline, stitched it, and ta-dah!! a new t-shirt!

next up... a crocheted collar! i actually wanted to try out a pattern for our crafty club: we were gonna make a peter pan collar. but i found the collar way too small so i doubled all the stitches... which looked fine in the beginning but i ended up with a huge collar... too big for what i had in mind, but the perfect size for my grey tshirt! so i stitched it on the neckline, added a little button and now i have a cute peter pan collar-shirt. :) (if someone is interested in the modified stitch pattern, do let me know!)

so there you have it: two new old tshirts! yay! :)

there seems to be something missing on my right foot...

i wonder what it could be... a second sock maybe?

 no second sock syndrome here, i'm already halfway through the second!

the sock, by the way, fits perfectly. i really love the ribs, they make the sock nice and snug. i do have some notes for the next pair: a double toe decrease looks better than a single decrease, and picking up 18 stitches when turning the heel is a bit too much. i'm knitting the second sock exactly the same, but i am keeping notes for my perfect sock recipe!

my creative space today: 

unraveling and ripping out the neckwarmer i knitted some years ago!

i was cleaning out my winter clothes and scarves, found it, and realised that i only wore it about 5 times. i made the pattern up myself and it is somewhere in between a cowl and a circle scarf but it is too big and loose for a cowl but too small for circle scarf.

so i decided to rip it out! and look, now i have two balls of "new" old yarn, enough for at least 2 pairs of socks, or mittens, or... :)

let me show you my new swatches today!

this grey swatch is called the honey-stitch, it has a honeycomb-kind of structure.. 

it was a pain to knit though, i was happy this one was finished. :)

swatch no.17: structure/color #3

i liked the following swatch better! it's an ajour swatch, ajour blocks to be exact. it think it would look better if i blocked it, but i was too lazy for that. :) knitting with the green yarn made me a bit nervous... this particular shade of green, is actually so NOT my color! (it's brighter and less pistachio in real life) but i decided to let go and let the randomness take over... :) the randomness is what will make it pretty! (i hope!)

swatch no.18: ajour #3

i also think i have to find a better technique to bind off the swatches. some swatches end up crooked because my knitting and casting on is looser than the binding off technique. 

tips, anyone? :)

lots of loose ends in my creative space this week...

i've been finishing and putting together all my squares for the granny square blanket this week. i think i finally have enough squares for my blanket! (if i counted correctly!)... and now i'm cutting off all the loose ends! check out this post if you want the see how big my blanket is already... i can't wait to finish it and throw it over my sofa!! :)

(the loose ends, by the way, are all put in a jar and will be excellent stuffing for the next toy i knit... frugal crafting, i love it!)