Elise Sophie: the nieces

A week ago today I was revising for my last exam here at the University of Edinburgh. It was - and still is - a very strange feeling knowing that the next day it would all be over, that there would be no more exams. At least not here, at this point. It is refreshing and daunting at the same time, not knowing what the next year will bring. As I walked out of the exam last Friday I sighed a sigh of relief, and thought about what's next. The last year has been hard in many ways, but now I'm happy I finished and that I proved to myself that I could and can if I want to.

The day after the exam, the rain came, and it has been raining on and off ever since, for the past week. It's been therapeutic, in a way, as if Edinburgh decided to wash away all the exam stress.

And I'm sure you've guessed already what I've been spending these rainy days doing. Exactly - knitting! And this is basically what my days look like now:

This is my attempt at the new shawl pattern from Gudrun Johnston, Halligarth. Earlier this spring I decided I'd like to knit a shawl for each of my grandmothers, and this is for my paternal grandmother, Karen, who told me she loves deep red. Since this pattern was inspired by a wood on the Shetland Islands, I decided I'd like to use wool from Shetland for this shawl, and since I love Jamieson's Spindrift, it was an easy choice. They have so many incredible colours, I had a hard time picking a red that I thought would be perfect for my grandma, but I think this one, Sunrise, fits my criteria perfectly.

This close-up picture shows the colour more accurately:

For my maternal grandmother, Anna Elise, I quickly decided I'd like to knit Kate Davies' new pattern, A Hap for Harriet. After having read the beautiful story behind the design on Kate's blog, I was even more determined. I haven't started knitting this one yet, since the yarn I'm going to use is currently in Norway at my parents' house.

While I'm loving the lace pattern of the Halligarth, I also quickly cast on a new cardigan for one of the 'nieces', Olivia, in a simpler stockinette stitch, to knit while watching X-Files and other things. Here's a photo of my progress so far:

I'm making a Cricket! I've unravelled a scarf I'd initially planned on giving to Olivia's mum for Christmas, but it got too tedious, in order to knit this instead. The yarn (Cascade 220) is not the right weight, really, for this cardigan, but I'm only a few stitches off the right gauge using 4, 5mm needles, so I'm sort of counting on it to end up somewhere inbetween a 4 and 6 year-old, which is a good thing, right? Olivia will turn three right after Christmas, but she is a very tall girl with very tall parents, so fingers crossed she'll be able to wear it for a full year at least (maybe even longer?). I'm planning on using some of my moss-green left-overs from a shawl knitted in the same wool for the lining of the pockets (which, incidentally, I'm super excited about knitting, since it'll be my first time!).

So that was that for this time, but it feels wonderful to have rested and to have knitted guilt-free for nearly a whole week. May the next year be very knitterly and wooly!

Soundtrack: Ella Fitzgerald – (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons

Welcome September! How I've wanted you... I'm sipping some jasmine tea while listening to some '40s blues, while the weather is trying to decide whether it should be raining as well as windy. Perfect! The rest of the day will be spent knitting and cleaning, also perfect.

This summer my boyfriend's sister got married. It was a beautiful ceremony, and the day was really lovely. I took a bunch of photos with my Pentax MX and here are some that I'd like to share with you. I'll be posting another post with colour photos soon; expect a whole lot of flowers!

We also got to meet this little one, which was every bit as cute as he looks in the photo. Holding him is his proudest cousin.

Hope you are all having lovely Septembers so far!

All photos taken with my Pentax MX, on expired 35mm B&W film, 125 iso.