Sant Jordi

Once upon a time there was a terrible dragon which viciously attacked men and beasts. To pacify it, lots were drawn and a person was chosen to be given as a sacrifice to the monster. One day, the misfortune fell on the king's daughter, who would have died in the beast's claws if it had not been for the arrival of a handsome knight who challenged the dragon and killed it by throwing an arrow to his heart. When the blood of the dragon touched the ground, a rosebush appeared.

This is the legend behind St. George's Day, and the story behind the Catalan tradition that calls every man to give a rose to the woman they love. This day has also become the day of the book, and many catalans give and receive books on this day, as there are tables with books on the streets and writers are around to sign copies of their most recent book.

I love this day! roses and books, what a great combination! I love walking around Barcelona on Sant Jordi, watching at people going through books and with roses in their hands, especially if I have one myself! :) Every year the streets ar packed on this day, it's even hard to walk in certain streets! and I just love it.

Here are a couple of pictures, so you can have a feel of it!! enjoy!



I feel a little bit homesick when I cannot be there on this day, but I still celebrate it here in Nottingham! hopefully my husband will remember to buy me a rose when he comes back (I've already reminded him before he left... just in case!) and we've ordered two books from amazon, altought unfortunatelly won't arrive at least until tomorrow! oh well... I've bought the novel called Brethren for my husband and he has bought me the The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, by Ann Budd. I've heard so many wonderful things about this book that I couldn't leave it for much longer! ahh, just one more day....

I know that I just started Arisaig and that I still have a long way to go with that, but I've already been thinking about what else to knit. I'm thinking about something not too complicated, but that I could knit whilst watching TV, for example. Arisaig is my challenging project, so now I need a relaxing one, so I can choose depending on the mood I'm in. I have 6 balls of Jaeger luxury tweed (already discontinued) and I was wondering whether I could use them for my new project, whatever it might be. They are a lovely blend of merino wool and alpaca, so very warm!!! the colour is quite nice, lime green I would say...

however, I'm not sure if I want it to become a clothing item, as it might be too greeny and I might end up feeling like a lettuce!! so I thought maybe a shawl would be better... I find shawls quite relaxing, as normally there is no shaping and the pattern normally is the same all the way through. I haven´t been able to find a shawl that I like and that uses a DK yarn, so I might have to adapt a pattern for a different yarn. Here is a shawl that I like, from Cool Crochet:

The pattern is designed for an aran weight yarn, I think, so I will have to experiment a little bit with different hooks. Another good thing of shawls is that gauge is not so important!! I might have a play later, if I can have a break from addictive arisaig! I'm not going to post a picture of it today, as I´ve only managed to finish the ribbing, so it's hasn´t changed much since last time.

Here I am again. These last couple of days I've been "busy" working on the look of my blog: I've added some links, lists about my projects and I've posted some pictures on flickr. Not bad! Specially because I'm so rubbish with computers! I have to admit I haven't knitted at all this weekend, as I have been busy studying and enjoying this lovely weather!!! who says England is grey and rainy all the time??? Today we went for a picnic in Wollaton Park with some friends and I can say now that I have a light sun tan!

Let's go back to knitting matters... At the moment I have only one project on the needles, the Arisaig from Knitty. I've started with the back (I'm still in the ribbing part) and I'm a little bit concerned. I read in a few places that there are some problems with the sizings, mainly with the sleeves, so I decided to go for the size actually knitted by the designer (yes, I measured it first and hopefully it will fit). However, at the moment it looks tiny!!!! I know that ribbing will expand after I've blocked it, but still! hmm, not sure... here you can have a look:
Without expanding it, it measures 7.5 inches. Very, very concerned.

We'll see how it goes, knitting with such fine needles it takes ages to grow! Perseverance... this is what I tell myself everytime I finish a row!!! I'm looking forward to get to the lacy bit, although it is also quite scary, as this is the first BIG project in lace.

I'll post more pictures soon.

bye for now!

laia

Finally I've decided to create my own blog! But this is not just a blog, this is a knitting blog! the main reason why I'm here now, in my little corner of this huge net is to be able to share my knitting ideas and projects with fellow knitters! The thing is, I don't know many people my age who are as knitaholics as I am, so I hope through this space I will be able to share with anyone what's going on in my knitting world.

I'm wondering whether wanting to write a blog in english is too ambitious for a spaniard for whom english is her third language, but here we go! I live in england, english is the language of my marriage and I learned to knit in english. In fact, I would find difficult to talk about knitting in spanish or even catalan! English is my adopted language and I love it as my own :)

I'll leave it here for now, but I'll soon post the first pictures! See you later!

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This is my first post, just to see how it looks like!!!