Last day

I've been working on a little coin purse to take part in Sia's NeuleIdea (Knitting Idea) contest that ends at midnight tonight. Last minute? Oh, no, I've still got several hours left! I'm hoping this isn't too close to the "bags" category that is not included in the contest. The purpose of my coin purse is to have something to carry with me that I can take to a store to carry some money and credit cards in, instead of my giant purse that is very heavy. At least if you're strolling around the mall for a couple of hours.

Here's my little purse:
I used some left-over sock yarn, maybe about 50-60 g of it, and size 3.0 mm needles. The pattern is mine, nothing too special, just a tube knitted in a lace pattern. The strap is 7-stitch I-cord.


I lined the inside in some quilting cottong I had laying around. The side facing the knitted lace is red, because the underside of the red-and-green fabric didn't look too attractive showing through the holes in the lace.

Here's another shot for scale:


That is my hand inside the purse, and that's about all you can fit in it. Actually, if I made another one, I could use them as pockets to keep my hands warm. Hmm... :D

22 days later

Merry Christmas to you all! It's been way too long since the last time I posted, but I'm sure most of you can relate, when I say that the few weeks before Christmas have been a little crazy. There has been knitting, though, and lots of it. Quite a few Christmas gifts were started and almost as many finished. My trips to San Francisco and New York facilitated lots of undisturbed knitting time at airports and on air planes.

In San Francisco I managed to find time to visit Artfibers, which was a very nice experience. I small cozy yarn store tucked away on the second floor of a building. Fortunately I had read about how it might be hard to find, so I didn't give up when I didn't see it right away. I completely lost track of time while fingering all the absolutely wonderful yarns in the store. So many merino, silk and alpaca blends in mesmerizing colors... I got some of Sylph, enough for a 3/4 sleeve sweater (I'm thinking fitted with a V-neck) in a water green color (04). I also got a few balls of Hana that I'm planning on using for a two color lace scarf (the pattern is yet to be determined). The time at the Oakland airport and on the plane was spent knitting these socks in Trecking XXL:
These were gifted to the FIL last night. The picture doesn't really do justice to the colors, which are very nice and very suitable guy-colors. I have to find more of this stuff! I really like Trecking, but I find it hard to find all the different colorways. If anybody knows of a yarn store that would carry a lot of them on-line, please let me know!

My trip to New York was spent knitting this:
We Call Them Pirates hat, of course. The yarn is Rowan Wool Cotton, which I totally fell in love with. It is just soooo soft! I already have more bought for another one of these. Here's the inside of the finished hat:
I think it will be very warm! I'm not so much into this pirate stuff myself, but if I had a hat this soft and warm, I'd be wearing it with skulls or without. Here's E modeling the finished product:

Those are some scary pirate teeth! ;) This hat will be gifted to my godson, and E already ordered one for himself in blue and black, so that is now on my list of things to knit. I enjoyed the well written pattern, although I changed the top decreases a little bit, so the hat would be less square.

After I got the hat done, I had to rush into these socks:

They are "More fun than cables" from Stitches of Violet. Also a very nicely written pattern with a little bit different heel than what I'm used to doing. I think it has a name, but I just can't think of it now... They were supposed to be the Christmas gift for the MIL, but I didn't manage to get them finished on time, so she will get them for her birthday, which is in January. But now my wrists are sore from all the knitting, and I just need a break!

22 days till Christmas...

I've had an odd two weeks, where I've been fretting over undone projects and my incapability of making desicions and getting started. I had finished so many projects that I didn't really have anything in progress, and I wasn't sure what to do next. But Thanksgiving and driving to the in-laws provided me with 12 hours of sitting in the car and therefore 12 hours of knitting time. I finished the gloves from the previous post and started and finished one of my secret projects (not shown here for obvious reasons). I also got started on a sweater for my older son:The yarn is Filatura Di Crosa Andina mix, very nice and cuddly soft. I had first planned to knit a sweater for myself from this yarn, but I wasn't sure I had enough, and the color was quite suitable for a boy, so I changed my plan.

I also found the perfect pattern for another Malabrigo scarf -Kathy's Shifting Sands. I saw Jared use the pattern for Malabrigo, and I really like how it looks. Again, I have a hard time photographing this yarn/color. All these blue tones show up that really aren't there. It's really very red (the colorway is called Velvet grapes).
This picture is terrible, but shows the color and texture pretty well:
It's 22 days till Christmas, and I've got a ton of projects to plan/start/finish. So off to work...

Mission accomplished

Remember my mission from last week to knit a bunch of thumbs and get all of my unfinished mittens off the UFO list? Well, I stayed on task, and finished two out of three pairs:These have already been worn to school a few times, and I can see the wear already. The yarn is Novita Nalle -a yarn that I think has a lot of good qualities, but also problems, and something I probably wouldn't choose to buy any more. However, I have a ton of it in my stash, so it's slowly being turned into mittens and hats. Mainly for the kids, since they wear out (or loose) their stuff so fast anyway, that the quality of the yarn matters less in my mind.

The Latvian mittens also got thumbs. Here you can see how well the thumb is camouflaged against the palm:
I also finished something else:

Another pair of mittens for the 7-year-old. You know how kids need about 10 pairs over one winter, since they (the mittens) always get wet and lost and whatnot. So eight pairs to go... but that's ok, these are so fast to knit that I can crank out a mitten in an evening with little effort. The yarn is the same as in the other ones, Novita Nalle in variegated blues. I actually really like how it pools with this stitch count. And the dark blue swirls around the thumb - a very cool effect, I think.

I also felt that I needed a pair of nice gloves. The two pairs that I have now are both getting so worn that they don't look very attractive any more, so it's time to make new ones. One down, one to go:Here's a cuff detail:
And thumb increases:

I do prefer thumbs made like this, versus the traditional straight tube mitten and straight thumb, like in the Latvian mittens. This just fits so much better. My hands are very wide right under the thumb, and without increases mittens are often a little tight there.

The yarn I'm using for these gloves if Wildefoot by Brown Sheep, the same as for the Latvian mittens. I have to say that I enjoy knitting several projects with the same yarn, and knowing the yarn and the gauge really well. There's no surprises, and deciding on stitch count for example for these gloves involved much less guessing than if I'd just based it on a small gauge swatch.

Three things

What do these three things have in common?


No, they are not all missing a pair, just a thumb. And taking care of that common factor will be my mission this coming week. It's getting cold here again, and we need some mittens! The middle one in the picture is going to be a pair for the 7-year-old, the black and white are for me, and the orange/brownish pair is still looking for an owner. They are actually a little tight for me, which is the only reason I'm not keeping them for myself. I have an older pair worked in the same pattern (different colors) that I've worn to shreds. They are really nice and warm because of the double thick fabric, so I wouldn't mind a new pair of the same.

And the past weeks accomplishment? Well, while we're waiting for a better (or a little older) photographer and a hair cut, this is all you get for a picture:


(The Husband was too busy to take my picture and the 7-yr-old wanted to help, of course. It's hard enough trying to explain to a 38-year-old how to take sharp pictures, let alone a 7-year-old...)

It's a funny animal, this entrelac. At times, the whole thing travels in the "wrong" direction, left to right. Even when I'm knitting in the round, it's really not in the round, but back and forth, although it does produce a round tube of fabric. I have to say I am most fascinated.


I first started by revisiting a couple of entrelac instructions that I'd read before, but never really tried. k2, turn work, p2, turn, k3, turn, p3, turn.... what!?!? There was just no way I was going to be turning the work every 2 or 3 stitches. Not even every 7, which was going to be the size of my square. So I had to remind myself of how to knit backwards. I'd once tought myself how, when I hated purling so much, because it was so slow and often gave a looser gauge (purling that is), but gave up on it, because knitting backwards was of course even slower, and the gauge was whatever. But it's actually not that hard, and now I'm to the point, where my gauge is about the same both ways, and I can even watch TV while knitting again.


I decided to go with the version where you slip the first stitch of every row. I tried it both ways, and even though slipping makes the stitch appear larger, I still preferred the neatness of it.

Now what's it going to be? Well, I'm trying to make a hat, although I'm very unsure of the shaping, even though the entrelac is working out just fine. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it'll turn out.

too fast...

A couple of nights of sitting on the couch and watching movies (long movies, mind you, we were watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy), and MIL's scarf was done:
(in it's unblocked form here)

Even the Husband commented that you knit that pretty fast, didn't you! Yup. And the reason? It is TI-NY!! About the size of a cub scouts neckerchief! And the pattern? It says 80 cm top to bottom, I have maybe 40. Here's my (medium sized) hand for scale:
I know my yarn isn't anywhere close to what they used, but still... If this was 100 % wool, it would probably block to one and a half times this size, but as it is, I don't think I can strech it much. So I'm going to start over with two more pattern repeats on both sides (the pattern starts from the outside edge with 6 pattern repeats on both sides) and go up a size in needles.

I'm not quite sure what I'll do with this tiny little one, but I've been wearing it on my shoulders today as a shrug, and I'm actually starting to like it a lot...

And since it is a nice sunny day today here in South Dakota, perfect for drying stuff outside, we did some dyeing. I've been eyeing other peoples entrelac socks and mittens and other items, and been wanting to try some, but I needed a nice yarn to do it with. I still had some of the Inspirations yarn Decaf left, so I decided to try that.

Two different shades of a very berryish color, still wet in the picture. I always think the hardest part about dyeing yarn is waiting for it to dry before you can use it! I'm again using the "hand-dyeing" method, pouring the diluted dye solution onto the yarn in my hand. You have so much more control that way than immersing! You see right away what it'll look like, you can stop when the saturation is what you want, and you can control exactly where the color goes. After I'm done pouring the color, I put it in the microwave for 3 x 1 min.

Another thing I tried (and wasn't quite as succesful) was to dye some yarn brown. Now the dyes I have are primary colors, and I'm mixing all the colors I'm using from them. And anybody who has ever done any painting and mixed their own colors, knows how difficult browns are! It is so hard to hit the color you were looking for, usually it just looks ugly and dirty. So I'm still working on that, and it may very well be that you'll never see any pictures of my experiment...

Secret projects

Santa's work shop opened it's doors yesterday, and in the next two months there will be many secret projects around here. Some of them can be blogged about, some not until after Christmas. I hope you all understand!

I made a little trip to LYS #1 yesterday, and was a little disappointed with what they had available, it being Christmas season and all. I mean, if I was the owner of a yarn store, I would make damn sure that I'm stocked up to the ceiling two months before Christmas! But LYS #1? Oh, no. Even the yarns they had before were all picked over, only few weird colorways left and some shaggy looking balls of yarn in half empty bins. Sad. My list was rather long, but I only found two things (Blogger is not allowing me to download pictures right now, so you'll just have to follow the links), one being a nice fluffy lace weight yarn called Fishnet by Suss Yarn (color Aqua) for making a scarf for MIL. It has a lot of acrylic in it, but since I'm not sure how sensitive she is to itchy yarn and it being a scarf that you'd wear on your neck, I thought I'd play it safe and get something very non-itchy. The other thing I got was a skein of Malabrigo in Velvet Grapes (scroll down into the variegated colors). They only had 1 skein, though, and I would have wanted 2, because from experience, I know that 1 skein makes a rather small scarf. And they only had 4 colorways left of Malabrigo anyways.

I'm using a triangular feather and fan type pattern for the scarf for MIL, and I've already got a pretty good start on it. Maybe next time I'll even be able to show you a picture! The Malabrigo will also turn into a scarf for a friend. Not quite sure of the pattern, yet, but it'll come to me. ;) I may have to order another skein, though, to make it a decent size.

Answers...

to more questions than you knew you had!

I was going to answer Michelle's (Not an Artist, her blog title SO lies about what she is! Go look at her amazing photography!) question here, since I realized I didn't really talk about the pattern much.

The pattern for the brown tweed sweater is my own, the idea was just something that popped into my mind, but the basic measurements were taken from my favorite sweater. This trick always works like a charm -I warmly recommend it! The way I see it is, why would you make a pattern that somebody decided to make for an imaginary body, or maybe not imaginary, but most likely not yours, anyway, and think it would fit without adjustments? Think of it this way: how many sweaters do you try on at the store, before finding one that fits you perfectly? Would you like the odds for your hours and hours of work paying off to be as small as that? I sure don't, and I never make a sweater pattern as written. Well, most often, I don't follow patterns, anyway. It's just like cooking, I'm incapable of following a recipe, even if I try.
(And if you remember that I'm a chemist, that might scare you a little... ha ha!) But that's not the point, the point is that if I'm going to spend that much time on something, I'm going to do my best to make sure it fits before I'm all done. And I hate to tell you this (in case you're one of those people who don't like swatches), but you can't do that without a gauge swatch! And if you knew what an impatient person I am, you'd be very impressed with how diligently I always knit a swatch and measure everything before starting. See, the alternative is a lot of frogging, and as much as I hate to wait for getting started on something, I hate frogging a million times more!

And here's a little thing I copied from Michelle's blog: it's the 48 Things You Could Care Less About. It makes more sense to me than the "100 things about me", since first off, it's half of that, and I don't think anybody would have the patience to read a 100 things about me, and secondly, I don't think I could even come up with that many. So here's 48:

1. FIRST NAME?
Lotta

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
My mom claims dad wanted to name me after some Swedish athlete at the time, but dad denies this.

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY?
Yesterday.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Yes, I think it’s fine.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT?
Double smoked ham, definitely, and a close second is a peppered salami.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Sure. Well, not everybody is friends with me, I’m not cool or popular, but I hope that if I was another person, I wouldn’t be one of those things, either. :D

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL?
No.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
No, lost those years ago.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Why on earth would I do that??

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Muesli, or granola. I also like Honey Nut Cheerios, but they get boring after a while.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Depends. Most often not, but I also don’t have a lot of shoes with laces.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
Mentally? Yes. Physically? No!

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
I like ice cream. Lot’s of ice cream, and many kinds. Right now my favorite is the cherry dark chocolate one that appeared on the blog with the argyle vest, but I also have other favorites.

14. SHOE SIZE?
39, or 8W

15. RED OR PINK?
Red

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
My critical nature.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
Many things about and in Finland.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS, SHIRT AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
I haven’t changed since I got home from work, so I’m wearing black pants and socks. I’ve already taken off my black shoes.

20. LAST THING YOU ATE?
A Caesar salad.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Nothing.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
An orangey red, of maybe more like a burnt orange.

23. FAVORITE SMELL?
peppermint, fresh bread, rain after a hot summer day, fall forest.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
My husband.

25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO?
Smile, voice.

27. FAVORITE DRINK?
Hard cider.

28. FAVORITE SPORT?
What?

29. EYE COLOR?
Brown.

30. HAT SIZE?
56 cm.

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
No.

32. FAVORITE FOOD?
I couldn’t possibly name just one! I really like sandwiches on homemade bread with the above mentioned fixings (and cheese), but I also love good pizza, and about a million other things!

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings.

35. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Spring and fall, please!

36. HUGS OR KISSES?
Hugs.

37. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Creme brule.

40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING?
I just finished Ilkka Remes' last novel, and started a book called “Simon”, but I forget who the author is.

41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Periodic table of elements.

42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV?
TV on Sunday night? There’s nothing on! Tonight I watched Two and a Half Men.

43. FAVORITE SOUNDS?
Rain, newborn baby sounds.

44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES?
The Beatles.

45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME?
My other home. And other than that, I think Morocco and Dallas, TX.

46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT?
Hmm… Being able to “think outside the box”.

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?Helsinki

48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?

No one.

and a sweater!

A headless me:

I've already worn it a couple of times, but just didn't get around to posting a picture. The sweater is very warm, perfect for my icy cold office! I really like how it fits, and I almost want another one in another yarn. This is Filatura di Crosa 501 in a brownish tweedy color, not the softest yarn ever, but I still like it.

And another projet that would fit the Lonesome Skein knitalong:

A simple hat for the 7-year-old in a worsted weight superwash wool/nylon blend. It probably tells you something about the chaos in our basement that it was faster to knit him a new hat than go find the old one, stashed away somewhere in a pile of dozens of boxes. Oh, the joys of remodeling...

It's a collar!

This yarn is just impossible to photograph... the cables totally get lost in the little speckles of the yarn. They aren't very well visible even in real life (I wish I had picked a more solid color to display the cables better), but are even worse in pictures. So just try to see the cable, because I assure you, it really is there!

It continues around the back, and I love how it looks like a neclace when I wear it!


And maybe soon you'll get to see me wearing it, too... :)

It's a sleeve!

I finished it! Well, at least the knitting part. :)


This is the second sleeve, but obviously nothing has been sewn togethter yet. After working on all kinds of lace and color work, this stockinette on 4 mm needles was just super fast! The only reason this sweater has taken so long was that there always seemed to be something more interesting to work on. But now that the weather is getting cooler (we even got a sprinkle of snow this week!), I'm much more motivated to get it done. And hiding somewhere in my closet, there is another almost done sweater that needs a shawl collar knitted on it. Maybe (just maybe) I'll get that done next.

I'll probably have time to work on piecing this thing together later tonight, so you can expect an update maybe in a day or two. Until then, happy knitting!

One more picture of the Argyle vest, as promised, and then moving on to new knits:
I knit a size between 38 and 40 inches, but the yarn relaxed quite a bit during one day of wear, and now it's a little too big (this picture was taken in the morning, so it's still the right size.) My final gauge is quite different from the test swatch I knit (and I even washed and blocked it!), so even that doesn't always save you ... the benefit of thoroughly knowing the yarn you knit with would have been huge! Oh well... I'm going to give it kind of a rough wash, and see if I can shrink it just a hair. The yarn I used was Brown Sheep Company's Nature Spun sport weight wool, colors Victorian pink and Plumberry.

And while I'm trying to decide what to do for the Lonesome Skein KAT, I'm working on this:


That's the brown sweater with cabling, that I've been working on for just short of forever. I just cast on for the first sleeve, and it dawned on me that I could knit it in the round. What a revelation! This seems to be the project that only gets worked on when I don't have anything more interesting to do, but I'm trying to do it justice, and get it finally finished.

A brown package

hmm... what could be in it?
Could it be?? Is it she?

Even the Helper is helping! This is a big job! (Notice the book he is carrying around: "Writing Research Papers" :D -gotta start them early!)

Maybe this will give you a hint:



Oh, wow, you guessed it! It's the Argyle vest! Hooray! Finally all done, and even the shoulders fit:

Although I apologize for the subpar picture -it was taken with the timer late at night in bad light. It was a little too late to wake up the Husband to take a picture of the finished product. Somehow I don't think he would have appreciated... Maybe tomorrow, when the vest is completely dry (yes, it's still quite damp in that picture), I'll model it with a button down shirt, like I'm planning on wearing it to work, and have him take a proper picture.

Almost there

For a while today, the Argyle vest was actually done. All done, except for weaving in the ends. But that didn't last long. The shoulders were way too big, both up-down, and sideways. So big that I didn't even take pictures, it looked too goofy. The thing with this pattern is that you can't really try it on very well before it's all done. Before cutting the steeks, it looks like a sack of potatoes (nothing against the pattern, don't get me wrong, but that's just how it looks, before you cut it), and after you cut the steeks, they are too fragile that you don't really want to pull it over your head before you stabilize them. So you end up going all the way before trying it on.


Right now all the rib has been frogged, and is back into balls of yarn.

I still like the pattern, though. I think the fit issue was mainly caused by the gauge being so different, plus not all the measurements were given, so that you could confirm you're on the right track (such as the width of the shoulders). What I'm planning on doing is first taking an inch off at the shoulder seam, and then pick up the stitches for the arm hole rib closer to the center of the body to make the shoulder bands narrower. I will also use a size smaller needle for the rib, I wasn't really crazy about the looser rib with size 3.5 mm needles. These are both fairly quick and easy fixes, and even though I hate frogging, I don't mind fixing the misfit, because I really want to wear this thing!


If I were to do this pattern again, I would either use a different method for securing the steeks (this pattern uses the crochet method), or I would work the crochet line one stitch away from the center of the steek. Now it's so close to the edge that some yarn ends have actually sneaked out of the securing crochet line, and I've had to add another line of crochet in some places.

To say something positive about the pattern, because, really, I do like it, the fit is very good basically from the arm pits down. And once I have the shoulders fixed, I think it will be one of my favorite garments. And I think I need a similar vest in shades of green, with a round neck line. Hmm...

More Argyle

First, thank you all for your kind comments about the shawl! I wore it to work once already, and it really amazed me how warm a lace shawl can be, even though it only covers your shoulders.

Now it's time to work on the vest, again. I'm just past the point where you start the arm hole steeks, and there really is a lot going on on every row. Keeping track isn't very easy, especially since I can't just follow the chart because of the different gauge. I'm about 4 pattern repeats into it:
I'm really enjoying the pattern despite not being able to simply follow the chart. I'm even thinking I need more than one of these things! But of course, let's see how this one fits first... and not to forget all the other projects that are already on my "to knit" list, some of which I already have yarn for.

Here's a close up of the neck steek:

I've never actually made anything using steeks, so this is my first time. And now I'm thinking, why didn't I do this before? It's just too smart for color work not to do it this way. So fast!

Here's also the fake side seam:


My feelings about the seam are kind of neutral. I'm not sure, if I like it or not, but if I had disliked it a lot, I would just have left it out. I don't think it's something I would use in a pattern of mine -I'm fine with no seams, if it's knitted in the round. (I feel like my hand looks very naked without my wedding band, but one of the diamonds became loose, and I had to take it to the ring doctor to be fixed!)

My blog roll was long over due for an update. It now better reflects the blogs I really read on a daily or weekly basis. There are still some missing that I like, but didn't manage to save into my bookmarks an now don't remember how I got to them, but usually I end up finding the same blogs again, so I'm not too worried. They'll pop up somewhere, I'm sure.

The finish line

I pushed myself through the finish line last night, and the modified Fina Hyrnan was born. Here she is, stretching her leafy wings on the floor, feeling all pretty:


See the part with the small leaves? That's the part I added to make the scarf bigger. Now it measures 70 cm length wise, 140 cm sideways.


It was a bit of a stressful knit because of the size issue, and then I wasn't sure how the added border was going to work. And those last few looooong rows were torture... but I like the end result, it turned out ok, I think:


Specs:
Pattern: modified Fina Hyrnan from Three-cornered and Long Shawls
Needles: 3.5 mm Knitpicks circulars
Yarn: Color Your Own from Knitpicks (seems like they changed the name to "Bare")
Size: 70 cm x 140 cm