(no subject)
Did some running around with my mom yesterday. Spring is here and it was unusually warm out, 18 degrees (64 in Fahrenheit). I even bought her icecream. We went to get her glasses, which she has refused for years, but has finally realised she needs. I did a check on my eyes as well, and it turned out that I need new glasses. Sigh. But! Glasses are a lot cheaper here than they are in the US. The ones I'm wearing now was $150, with a $75 off coupon and the cheapest lenses possible. I found some that were close to the ones I have, but thinner and stuff. With some anti-reflex lenses and all that good stuff it was still around $150 in US-dollars. Wow. I was pleasantly surprised. Of course I had been meaning to buy a new sewing machine, now that my cloth pad-selling is about to take off, but I guess I'll have to do with my grandma's old relic for a bit longer. I think I'm going to ask them to buy me one for my birthday instead.
I went to the yarn store and had my first bad experience ever. Well, I've had bad ones in the US, but here in Sweden people have always been nice. This time I went in asking for help to pick out a periwinkle lace weight yarn for a shawl, since what I had just didn't cut it. The lady working there was in her 60s and clearly of the "if you haven't been knitting for 25 years you're not a real knitter" school. The conversation went something like this:
- Hi, I need some yarn for a lace shawl in this color, do you have any recommendations?
- Yes, you can use this yarn (holding up a 80% acrylic, 20% mohair yarn, sort of like Paton's Divine) on really big needles, it looks almost like lace.
- Well, I want to do actual lace, so, something thinner maybe?
- What about this? (Holding up a pink, glittery ladder yarn) Novelty yarns are so nice for shawls! You could get away with using size 10 or 11 needles with this.
- I'd like something that was not acrylic, something plain.
- This yarn is kind of plain (holding up worsted weight acrylic/cotton blend). If you want to spice it up you can always knit it with a strand of this glittery nylon thread, it's popular among younger knitters.
- I'll just look around myself, thanks.
So yeah, she wasn't rude per se, but it was easy to tell that she thought that I could not do proper lace. She kept pulling out acrylics and glittery crap, and I just wanted some regular lace weight yarn! In the end another, younger, employee came back from her lunch and in about two seconds flat she had found me some really gorgeous alpaca in the right color.
And just because I thought you would like to see what a Swedish small town (and one of my best friends and her daughter) looks like, here's some more pictures:
Yesterday my friend Kajsa and her three-year-old Tuva came over for a
cup of coffee, because I was too shaky to go out and play with them in the
nice weather.
Three-year-olds sure know how to cut to the case.
I made the mistake of showing Tuva what a measuring tape
was. She spent the following thirty minutes measuring everything
in sight. And interestingly enough it all came out to "ten".
Swedish milk. The left one is regular, the right one low lactose.
From the balcony right outside my room.
In the US the downtown is always dead. Of course I've never lived in an
American small town, but this is typical small town for Sweden. The
very center of the town has a square, usually with a fountain, like in the
upper, left corner. The water hasn't been turned on yet, because it got
warm soo fast. You gotta drain it in the winter or the whole thing will crack
when the water freezes.
One of the corners of the square, with an old school pay phone and bike
parking spots. All these pics are taken from the roof of the mall, which is
also a very modest parking garage.
The square is surrounded by stores on all sides, and also very typical for
Sweden, no cars are allowed, so that people can walk freely from store
to store.
Something I really missed when I was away - a bulk candy store!
My haul of candy!
The before mentioned alpaca yarn.
I went to the yarn store and had my first bad experience ever. Well, I've had bad ones in the US, but here in Sweden people have always been nice. This time I went in asking for help to pick out a periwinkle lace weight yarn for a shawl, since what I had just didn't cut it. The lady working there was in her 60s and clearly of the "if you haven't been knitting for 25 years you're not a real knitter" school. The conversation went something like this:
- Hi, I need some yarn for a lace shawl in this color, do you have any recommendations?
- Yes, you can use this yarn (holding up a 80% acrylic, 20% mohair yarn, sort of like Paton's Divine) on really big needles, it looks almost like lace.
- Well, I want to do actual lace, so, something thinner maybe?
- What about this? (Holding up a pink, glittery ladder yarn) Novelty yarns are so nice for shawls! You could get away with using size 10 or 11 needles with this.
- I'd like something that was not acrylic, something plain.
- This yarn is kind of plain (holding up worsted weight acrylic/cotton blend). If you want to spice it up you can always knit it with a strand of this glittery nylon thread, it's popular among younger knitters.
- I'll just look around myself, thanks.
So yeah, she wasn't rude per se, but it was easy to tell that she thought that I could not do proper lace. She kept pulling out acrylics and glittery crap, and I just wanted some regular lace weight yarn! In the end another, younger, employee came back from her lunch and in about two seconds flat she had found me some really gorgeous alpaca in the right color.
And just because I thought you would like to see what a Swedish small town (and one of my best friends and her daughter) looks like, here's some more pictures:
Yesterday my friend Kajsa and her three-year-old Tuva came over for a
cup of coffee, because I was too shaky to go out and play with them in the
nice weather.
Three-year-olds sure know how to cut to the case.
I made the mistake of showing Tuva what a measuring tape
was. She spent the following thirty minutes measuring everything
in sight. And interestingly enough it all came out to "ten".
Swedish milk. The left one is regular, the right one low lactose.
From the balcony right outside my room.
In the US the downtown is always dead. Of course I've never lived in an
American small town, but this is typical small town for Sweden. The
very center of the town has a square, usually with a fountain, like in the
upper, left corner. The water hasn't been turned on yet, because it got
warm soo fast. You gotta drain it in the winter or the whole thing will crack
when the water freezes.
One of the corners of the square, with an old school pay phone and bike
parking spots. All these pics are taken from the roof of the mall, which is
also a very modest parking garage.
The square is surrounded by stores on all sides, and also very typical for
Sweden, no cars are allowed, so that people can walk freely from store
to store.
Something I really missed when I was away - a bulk candy store!
My haul of candy!
The before mentioned alpaca yarn.