and here I thought 2011 was going to be different

There were supposed to be two major differences. First of all, 2011 was supposed to be a happy year. Not so. My best friend's father died yesterday. And just like M., who helped me during my father's illness, because she had experienced the same a few months earlier, I am now able to help him. It still sucks, though, and I really want noone else to experience this kind of grief.

Secondly, 2011 was supposed to be the year of knitting for myself. Ah well ... there is no such thing. I made two lovely things for a friend of mine and my brother's girlfriend. As a matter of fact, they turned out so cool that I almost regret giving them away, something that happens fairly often when I knit things for others.

These are the Mountain Form Slippers, a Japanese pattern, with modifications as developed by another knitter. It took me a while to get them right and I'm still not 100% convinced ... maybe I should have knit them even more tightly. The yarn used is Lana Grossa Bingo and a bit of Lana Grossa Nuvola for the skulls.

When I thought about what I could knit for my friend V., whose birthday was in January and who was my main support throughout the whole writing process and proofread many parts of my thesis, I thought about socks. Or slippers. And then inspiration hit me. I've always wanted to make a Yorick scarf, but the yarn wasn't available. Then Lana Grossa Nuvola came out and seemed like a good match. I just needed to test how it would felt. Ta-daa, felted skulls. Only now the winter yarn season at my LYS is over, so I need to wait until next winter to buy more Nuvola. I've also thought about embroidering the skulls to make them look like Mexican sugar skulls, but couldn't find my embroidery yarn. They're still extremely cool - I called them Mountain Goth, since she also is a capricorn and likes many things gothy.

These are the birthday fingerless gloves for my brother's girlfriend. I call them Lilac Butterflies. She loves cool purple and this yarn caught my eye at the yarn shop. It's Lana Grossa Cool Wool 2000 Melange, i.e. heathered. I absolutely love that Lana Grossa developed this kind of yarn, it adds such depth to the color and makes it a little less in your face at the same time.

When I saw the yarn at the yarn store, I already knew what design I would use. The pattern came from a sock pattern in the book "Socks, Socks, Socks", one of my first knitting books and is pretty simple to knit, except it takes up a lot of space (6st repeat).

And now it's time to stop knitting again. I'm supposed to study for my final exam, but got sidetracked today, cleaning up the chaos of finished projects, wandering yarn balls, tangled needles and knitting notions that had taken over my couch. The plan is to block something every day, so I can put it away. That means weaving in ends on a lot of projects, though - and I hate that so much. But since I have guests coming and the couch still isn't entirely cleared, I had to make some kind of effort. Tomorrow: studying.