Hello everybody!! I am back! :) Now, a little bit about December

Ufff! After some time off I am finally slowly coming back, hehe. I don't really know know what is it about December that has ALWAYS dragged all of my energy! It always takes me a while to recover from it!

But, here I am again!

I would have to say that my life  has been rather quite knitting-wise. December was an ALMOST-NO-KNITTING-AT-ALL-MONTH! All I managed to knit was a shrug that under normal conditions would have been done in less than a week! But no! It took almost a month (and I actually really did most of the knitting after New Year!).

This is the second one I knit. It is a very, very simple project but the result is always very nice. I think that women look kind of good in these kind of shrugs but I have always wondered how comfortable they really are?

So, here it is:




Details:


* Pattern: Ermar (available for free at Ístex)

* Yarn: Létt lopi. The colors were chosen by the owner of the shrug. Black and three shades of gray.

* Needles: 4.5mm







Notes:

* As  I said before this is a perfect quick knitting project. It gives almost instant satisfaction, I would say to both the knitter and the recipient :)

* The only change I made to the pattern was to make extra long sleeves.

* Picking up the stitches all around (every other stitch) was a piece of cake but the problem began when it came to make the bind off. I had my friend try the shrug three times! And it was always a bit too tight around the shoulders (because the cast off edge was too tight, even though I used needles a lot bigger and the knit 2 together cast off with usually works pretty well). So I had to unravel the moss stitch ring three times until I discovered something AMAZING!!!

Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind off!!! 

Everything about is amazing! Starting with the name! And it is indeed SURPRISINGLY stretchy and most importantly VERY EASY to make!

I saw this video of Cat Bordhi to learn how to make it. If you ever need a super stretchy cast off... don't hesitate and give it a try!

Now, after having finished this shrug I began a new shawl... of which I will be talking about on my next post :)

Among other things, in the middle of Demember my friend Juan from Argentina came to visit me! He stayed in Iceland for five days and it was just pure fun! Even though we couldn't travel as much as I wanted because of the weather we did some nice day trips (including a failed attempt to go to a place called Krýsuvík in the middle of a heavy snow and wind storm that led us to fall of the road and be stuck in the snow in the middle of nowhere for a good while until a guy driving a monster truck drove by and helped us!).

These are some pictures of our little trips:

Grótta in Seltjarnanes

Bláa lonið - The Blue Lagoon

Bláa lonið - The Blue Lagoon

Strokkur

Icelandic horses are so friendly! They all come to you so you can pet them for a while :)

Strokkur in Haukadalur

Þingvellir

Þingvellir

Þingvellir - Öxaráfoss. The waterfall was almost completely frozen. There was just a little stream of water running under all the ice. Here, Juan is actually standing on where the river is supposed to be running.

Me looking at the frozen waterfall.

Reykjanesviti - Reykjanes' Lighthouse

Valahnúkur. For those who like Sigur Rós, the final scene of this video was made on this cliff (and all the video was made in this area in Reykjanes)

Valahnúkur.

Video taken from the top of the cliff. It was very windy! And then it began to snow like there is no tomorrow!

Well. I think this is it for now :) I am very happy to be finally back!! Have a great weekend!!