Be it spring, fall, middle of winter or the hottest of summers, there are always beautiful colors to be found.  Often it’s the smallest things that I notice, one little leaf or a beautiful colored flower.

I love all the beautiful greens in this photo, the bright and popping green against the greenish/greyish background, so pretty!

What an interesting orange that is, and I love it against that pale color in the back.

I can totally see myself knitting something with all the colors in this picture combined, it would be an interesting mixture.

And this photo I just love.   To me it looks like the entrance to an enchanted magical kingdom.  I want to step right into the picture to see what adventures await me.

Just look at that glorious yarn that found its way to my basket.  Beautiful shades of yellow.  I could just eat it, add a little whipped cream and mmm mmm mmmmm……delicious!

Kristín hand dyed this beautiful létt-lopi/lopi light using rhubarb.  I love how it turned out in different shades of rich yellow colors, I cannot wait to dig in and eat knit it up.  The ideas are swarming around…..

And talking about ideas.  I have a thing for note books (and paper in general):

I fell head over heals for these two and  gave into temptation…..say no more……

The pattern for these fingerless mittens, and the cowl, is finally ready…….as you can see  on the sidear to the right.

I used blue sky alpacas  alpaca and silk but other DK weight yarns should work just fine.

Yarn:

approx 5.28 oz / 438 yards of DK / 8ply. I used 3 skeins of alpaca silk from blue sky alpacas. ( Approx 1 skein for mittens).

Needles:

3.5 mm / US 4 circular and five double pointed for the fingerless mittens ( or you could use 2 circulars for the mittens

instead of the dpns).

Notions:

12 buttons and a stitch holder.

Gauge:

18sts and 8 rows in pattern  = 2.5 x 8 cm ( 1 x 3 1/8 inch) after blocking.

Finished measurements:

Cowl:

length is approx 26 cm / 10 ¼ inches and circumference is approx 61 cm/ 24 inches.

Fingerless mittens:

length from top to bottom is approx 35,5cm/14 inches and circumference at widest part is approx 22cm/ 8 ¾ inches.

My littlest man turned 3 last week!  And here  he is in all his awesomeness:)

His favorite movie is Toy Story (1 to 3) so the theme this year was Buzz, who happens to be his favorite character in those movies.  I found a Buzz cake pan and figured it wouldn’t be too hard to whip up a cake for him.

Well, it happened to be rather humid that day so the icing really wasn’t that great to work with, plus my piping skills aren’t the best……….but I’m working on it;)

This was chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream filling.  It tasted very good, and that was the most important thing (or so I tell myself).  My 9-year-old told me it looked JUST like Buzz and that it was awesome……and he is the one I can always count on for honest opinions …………that’s how I know the black icing didn’t taste so good

The ”baby” got a space ranger suit to wear, it came with a ”helmet” that he put on all by himself, and it looked…………well, let’s just say it looked like he was taking a break from shooting Little House on the Prairie:

The last 3-year-old I’ll have.  I love seeing him grow and learn, and at the same time I miss every moment before it even happens.  He is the most resourceful little man I have ever met.  My heart flutters every time I think of him.  I love kissing his cheeks and hugging him tight.  I feel so lucky and grateful that I get to hang out with this spirited creature every day.

Ég elska þig.

Now, I might not wear this color combination myself, but I think it’s absolutely adorable and would be perfect for a cute little knit for a cute little someone!

My littlest man and I went for a walk around the neighbourhood this past week, we have plenty of these trees around and those flowers always catch my eye. I love passing them and walking under them, it’s so…….spring-y!

I LOVE the blue tone of the sky, it’s gorgeous!  And the more subtle colors of this flower are very sweet, with the blue  as a back drop, an interesting combination!

I love the pink and blue (and green) against the grey.   The shadow on the tulips create such interesting depth, my eyes are always drawn to it.

Yesterday we took a walk in a nearby park and oh all the pretty colors!!

All the different shades of green have me thinking: Oh the possibilities!!

This tree is covered with clusters of these white flowers.  From afar they looked like giant, fluffy cotton balls.  So pretty!  It makes me want to knit something in white, chunky yarn…….the ideas come springing to life!

The white against the bright and dark green is so gorgeous to me.  It’s so, sophisticated, prim and proper some how, classic even……..love it…..

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We surprised him with a cake when he came home from school.  His little brother ran away crying when he blew out the candles…………..he wanted to blow them out too!  So we re-lit them and he got to help his brother out……team work:)

My original plan was to make a Lego cake but I ran out of time to figure out the best way to make it and so I made a last-minute decision and came up with this one:

The b-day boy loved it and it tasted good……..and that’s the most important thing!

I made these for him to take to school so he could celebrate with his classmates:

I cannot believe how big he’s gotten.  Time went by so incredibly fast.  I remember the first time I held him, it feels like yesterday.  I love my determined, hard-headed (literally too), smart and beautiful boy and I cherish every moment I get to spend with him.

Happy Birthday!!

I can´t show this deliciousness in it´s entirety just yet, but I had to let you see how beautiful this hand dyed yarn looks knitted up.

This is the yarn Kristin dyed and gave to me last year.  Here´s the picture I posted:

The first picture shows the actual color better, the second one is much too dull.

This is Kambgarn and I have used that before and love working with it.  But this yarn was special to work with.  First of, the color is uneven and that makes the stitches just spring to life!  So pretty!  And second, it smells absolutely wonderful……after all these months waiting to be used I thought the fragrance might wear off, but nope, it´s still there.  Every time  I picked it up to continue knitting, the wonderful scent surprised me…..

This is my ”bake-one-new-cake-a-month” for Mars. I just bought this magazine, better homes and garden Desserts, everything in it looks SO good but this one just screamed BAKE ME when I turned to the page.

I’ve been into lemons this spring, just love them, so this cake was perfectly perfect! The only thing I would do differently if I make it again is to put about 1/2 a cup less of sugar into the icing…..not that I heard any complains about it being too sweet:)

My cake did not turn out quite this pretty, but it was Delicious!!

I did make the carmalized lemons for the top but I had them in the pot for about 5 seconds too long so they burned……better luck next time.

I loved working with this yarn and the pattern is just so pretty, the combination of the two: priceless!

I like the fingerless part of my fingerless mittens to be long, but it can be convenient when they are not.  So I decided  to knit that part in a rib that could be folded over:

And then there’s the cowl:

It is soft and cozy, wide enough to hang loosely around the neck and long enough to pull up so it will line the inside of a jacket collar.

You could pull it over your head for “a hat that is not”:

Now, if this isn’t the perfect look for when you’re milking those cows………..

…….I don’t know what is:)

For about 1/3 of this photo ”session” my eight year old son helped me out, then he got tired and bailed on me!  I did manage to get a couple of pictures of him first:

I cannot believe this guy is turning 9 next month!!  Where did the time go???

Well, anyway, then my daughter stepped in to help.  She really gets into it and can be very theatrical.  While she is snapping away I hear a lot of:

-Release the Doves!!!!

-I need the flower petals!

-Show me angry, you’re angry!

-He left you…..

-You’re scared, you see the monster!

Just to give a few examples.  She is a lot of fun to hang around with, I must say………except when she’s not, but she’s turning 13 this year and I’ve heard that “they” are not always fun to be around, so I guess it’s normal ehh??