Random Ramblings

This weekend promises to be as fun as the last one. The company I work for will have a seminar in Selma Lagerlöf Spa. We will leave today and come back on Sunday. The idea is to spend some time with your colleagues and get to know each other.

I missed that kind of thing in Ireland. The last company I worked for in Estonia had those seminars too and they were very fun. In Ireland the company I worked for was too big to be willing to shell out for a weekend somewhere.

The bus ride to the spa is four hours, perfect for some knitting. I've considered knitting in the lectures, but decided not to. My command of Swedish is not good enough to knit and take part of the discussions at the same time. I wouldn't hesitate to knit if the lectures were in Estonian or English.

I've applied for a Swedish course that begins in October — SAS A (Swedish as second language, first part). I could probably study by myself (watch TV, read newspapers and books, speak, etc.), but I believe that I'll learn faster in a structured course environment. I'll be practising by doing those other activities anyway.

I've also decided which gym I want to go to and I'll check them out next week when they have free intro on Tuesday. I hesitated to get a membership in a gym close to where I live now because it probably won't be close when I move. Procrastinating? Who, me? Never! We were talking about it during my visit to Tallinn, and then Mum said: "Even if you move in two months, you'll still get two months of training if you start now." So I'm going to their first available intro next Tuesday.

This is going to be very busy Autumn, but I'll make sure that I also do things that I enjoy. That is something I forgot to do in Ireland and probably one of the reasons I was so unhappy there.

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Back again

The passport issue was not solved in time and I did go alone. It was a total luxury to have a four person cabin for myself. I usually share the cabin, but this time it was really nice to take time out and think about life, future and everything without interruptions.

I worked some on Daisy and watched TV, shopped a bit and took a tour on the deck. I had a very relaxed trip. In Tallinn, I was picked up by Dad and taken to their apartment. Then we went to the Old Town with Mum. We visited Tallinn City Museum, had lunch at Le Buonaparte (French pastries, yum!) and shopped in a bookstore until it was time to go meet my brother. The whole family gathered to have dinner together, chat and have a good time with good food.

After the dinner I got a lift to the harbour and had another relaxed ride home. We all had a good time and I am very glad that I've moved back closer to family. I'll be definitely doing this again!

Yesterday Mao got hold of the leftover Lemon/Lime yarn. Since the blanket was finshed, I didn't rescue the yarn immediatly, but snapped this.

I am amazed to report that I'm happy with life. The nagging doubts and insecurities are gone, things are clear and I have pretty good idea how to continue. Happy! :D

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Off to Tallinn!

I am taking a cruise to Tallinn today. We had planned this cruise together, but R is not coming. I've asked a friend to come with me, but there are some passport problems and it looks like I'm going alone. Oh well.

The Everlasting Bagstopper is finished, but the weather has not cooperated with enough sunshine to take pictures. I've begun to knit on my Hogwarts Sock Swap partner's socks. These socks and Daisy will be my travel knitting. I'll get quit a bit done if I'll be alone on the ship.

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Lemon/Lime Baby Blanket

I finished the baby blanket I've been working on. I've called it "Lemon/Lime" because of it's green and yellow are very much like lemon and lime colours.

It came out 120 cm (47") square. Now, I have never knit a baby blanket before, but I suspect it is big enough.

I need to wash and dry it away from the cats because I knit at home in the end. I was very careful about storage and not knitting hairs in, but you never know. They have amazing capabilities of teleporting the hair where they will (and you least want). We have a communal washing machines in the basement and there is a drying room as well, I just need to find time.

P.S. I've gotten over the shock, accepted the situation and I'll be fine.

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Something very unexpected happened

R has broken up with me. He wishes to remain friends, and as painful as this parting is I do not wish to be enemies.

The first thing I need to do is to find a place to live and then figure out what to do with my life.

I will survive this.

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We're back

Visby was fun, there were so many things going on all the time. The weather was very warm even with some rain on Saturday. Fortunately I could strip to my linen underthings instead of having to wear a thick wool dress.

I have so many ideas for improvements for next camping event, things to make, things to buy, etc. For example:

1. shorten the sleeves of the shirt;
2. make new shirts;
3. make a light colour light summer wool dress;
4. buy better eating utensils.

The first I can do right after the shirt is washed, the next two have to wait till I get my fabrics and I begun the last point by buying a drinking jug at the market on Sunday. I want to find some pewter plates, a small bowl and a spoon to reduce the weight and volume of my kit. I've been researching eating knives and forks too, but these probably have to be custom made.

Visby itself is just as beautiful and interesting as people have been saying. I didn't have much time to take pictures, but here's a taste of Visby.

I knit at the airport on a Daisy sweater, but realised that 4,5 mm pins were too big and I'd run out of yarn before finishing. Yesterday I ripped and begun again on 4 mm pins.

On the way back I worked on the baby blanket. It is almost finished, I have one more yellow stripe to go before beginning the seed stitch border. I have no idea how big it will be, right now it is just a shapeless blob on the pins. I hope it will be big enough.

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More Ravelry and Wisby Medieval Week

Putting up projects in Ravelry is educational. I learned that I like to knit with strong colours and that I prefer small projects. Another interesting things is how much I've knit in which year. Thanks to the blog I have a better record of what I've made than my memory.

In 2004 I had lots of projects going and finished, participated in swaps and have blogged a lot. In 2005 there were far fewer projects and none after the move to Ireland, blogging was sparse. In 2006 I began exactly 3(!!) knitting projects and finished one, blogged about one that was ripped eventually. That year I sewed a new SCA wardrobe instead of knitting. This year, I've begun and finished a moderate amount of projects, whether I'll finish them all, remains to be seen. I've found my blogging mojo again as well.

Mao has been "helping" me to take pictures of my yarn for Ravelry stash. He thinks that the shawl I use for background is for his amusement only.

Tomorrow I will go to Wisby Medieval Week. I'm exited (I seem to be exited a lot lately :) ) about it, I've never been to Wisby before and I've heard so many tales about it. I've been told it's a lot like Tallinn Old Town. We'll fly back on Monday and I've got the rest of the week off. Yay, vacation!

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Ravelry!!

I received a Ravelry invitation! Oh my, oh my, oh my! What a resource! Please excuse my overuse of exclamation marks, I'm just so very exited.

I signed up back in the beginning of June just to check it out. Then I became more and more exited about the project as I learned more about it. It is a fantastic tool to log your stashes (yarn, needles, hooks, books), associate them with projects, see what others are making and stashing, add them to your wishlist queue, interact via forums and groups, and there are features that I probably haven't found yet.

Ravelry is still in the beta testing phase, so it is by invitation only. Go enter yourself in the queue, if you haven't already. It will take a while to receive the invitation because they only add people as the capacity of the system allows. It is well worth the wait.

Most of my yarn and spinning fibre is in Ireland, so there is not much yarn stash to add. Or so I thought. 16 entries already and that's not all. That's only the yarn I've bought recently, there's still the yarn I left behind 2 years ago to photograph and enter and I'll be very busy when the rest of the stash arrives.

But I think that's part of the fun of Ravelry — to finally have an overview of what yarn I have without spreading it all out on the floor.

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Under the weather

I was ill this week, too sick to go to work, too sick to even knit on Wednesday. I slept the whole day instead. Yesterday I was feeling little more coherent, not enough to think about databases and reports, but enough to knit a little on the Bagstopper.

I tried to find a bronze/brown yarn for the Hogwarts Sock Swap Two socks, but couldn't. My swap partner prefers the book colours which are blue and bronze. I did find this yarn, which has the movie colours. Fortunately, that's allright with her.

I had planned to cast on on Wednesday, the official beginning of the swap. I decided to postpone that until my head was not filled with cotton candy anymore. And that's today.

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