All Continental part 2

I am more than happy for Mr JK to do the driving whilst we are abroad, especially on the autobahns. I am in charge of the sat-nav, and keep an eye on where we need to go and when. I know I am a terrible passenger and poor Mr JK has to put up with me telling him to slow down or to watch out for another car! I don't mind driving around once we are there, but I find the German motorways quite terrifying. On many of them, there is no speed limit and cars appear behind you out of nowhere! So I try to focus on my knitting. The journey from Hoek van Holland to Bremen was particularly awful because of the heavy rain, but at least once we got into Germany, there were almost no lorries. In Germany, most lorries are banned from using the autobahns at weekends or public holidays. What a great idea that is! 

My head and hands were kept busy with my stripy socks - knit using the Magic Loop technique and Continental knitting! I know! Get me!! I had decided after my class at Loop earlier in the year that I needed to work on my Continental knitting in order to be able to tackle some colourwork more confidently. So, using some really bright (get your sunglasses ready!) yarn from Easyknits, I set to. I have to say that I am a total convert to both Magic Loop and Continental knitting. Once I got over the awkwardness of holding the yarn in my left hand so that I gave it enough tension, I found myself on a roll with the Continental knitting and find it much easier on my wrists. My technique for Magic Loop improved from sock one to sock two, so much so that it's pretty hard to see where I changed from one needle to the other. This photo is pre-blocking and I am hopeful that the slight lines will disappear once they have been washed. I am feeling rather smug about how well matched they turned out too!

I also had to finish Hermi's toe socks. I had got them to the point of knitting the big toes! I tried them on just to check them out for size. 

Hermi tried them on too and I was able to measure how long to knit the toes so they'd fit him nicely. He was really pleased with them. I found them pretty uncomfortable to wear. I can remember crazing my Mum to buy me a pair of toe socks when I was a teenager. I think I wore them once, for about five minutes and hated them! I was so disappointed. 

I also knitted a hat while I was away. It's in a fun self striping yarn that I spotted back at Festiwool. Mr JK decided that he liked it, thank you very much, so who was I to say no?! He declared it to be a pompom-free zone, so I was able to finish it. His cousin was amazed that it was possible to knit a hat in a day, more or less. 

I am making one for me, mine is slightly deeper because apparently I have a bigger noggin than Mr JK, and mine will also have a pompom, yarn permitting. I shall forbid Mr JK to wear his hat at the same time as me. I refuse to be 'Mr and Mrs Matching Hat'!!

Having knitted up two balls of sock yarn, there was, of course, a gaping hole in my stash (hahaha!) so Mr JK bought me a couple of balls to replace them (Happy Easter to me!) from the yarn shop in Delft. Two rather lovely tweedy balls - the Delft blues will be socks for Mr JK and the multicoloured will become socks for yours truly. 

I must share with you the amazing crocheted lampshade that was in the yarn shop. I had those paper lampshades when I was a student, but would never have thought about covering it with a layer of granny stripes. Seeing that makes me want to get back to my Cosy crocheted blanket, so I'll say farewell for today and have a bit of hooky time. xxx