KnitterNutter

Tutorial, provisional cast on without scrap yarn

2011-01-22T21:14:00.008-06:00

I'm a big fan of the provisional cast on. It works perfectly, if you need to attach the cast-on edge to anything in the rest of your knitting, such as a picot edge, and it is essential in the tubular cast on. But what I don't like is working with scrap yarn in the cast on, and especially pulling it out from the provisional afterwards. (I may or may not have a pair of socks with a picot edge, where one of the socks still after years of wearing has the scrap yarn in it -it's on the inside and not visible...)

I have worked out a way to eliminate the scrap yarn, using the cable of a circular needle. I was using my method in another Tychus hat (free pattern in a 2005 Knitty by Brooke Higgins), and thought I'd do a little tutorial on the cast on. I know some people don't mind sewing pieces together, and good for them, but I'm not one of those people, and if I can do it with a 3-needle bind off or some other method, I will. But to do that, I need a provisional cast on. On the other hand, using the scrap yarn method and having to remove it is at least as much of a pain as sewing the cast-on and bind-off edges together so that you lose the benefit of the 3-needle bind off.

First you need a circular needle with a sufficiently long and pliable cord. Make a slip knot and slide it on one of the needles. Hold the needles so that they point in the same direction, and pull the lower needle (the needle with no yarn) out so that you are holding the cord.

Holding needle as you would when you knit (I'm using my left hand to hold it only because my right hand is holding the camera) alternate wrapping the yarn over the needle (just like a regular yarn over) on top/in front of the cord and under/behind the cord. Do as many yarn overs as you need stitches for your project. Never mind the wraps on the cord -you will worry about those much later.

Now you will turn your work, leave the bottom stitches (the "hibernating stitches") hanging out on the cord, and knit your project as usual with the stitches that are on the needle (the "working stitches"). Here's what my Tychus looked like after a couple of hours. I started from the green side, and finished on the red side (the yarn is Lion Brand "Amazing" in color Mauna Loa). See the loop of cord between my working stitches and the hibernating stitches?

After you're all done, use a 3-needle bind off from the wrong/under side (or knit the stitches together, depending on what you're doing).

Here's what it looks like on the right side. I drew an arrow where the seam is, otherwise you can't even tell (except maybe from the color change from red to green).

Now finish it off with a pom-pom and twist cords, and voila! I also crocheted around the ear flaps to even out the edges.

This method also works in the round in things like socks or bottom-up hats and sweaters, but can be a little tricky, and will be easier (possible?) to do, if you use a second circular to hold the hibernating stitches.

My modifications on the Tycus: I knit 5 sections instead of 6, and in the bottom of two of them I increased 3+3+2+1+1 stitches for the ear flap and then decreased the same symmetrically. The width of the ear flap is the same as one section, and the front is two sections and the back is one. And then I of course added the pom-pom and the cords. I cast on 40 stitches and the shortest short row was 24 stitches. In the ear flaps the middle rows end up being 34 stitches.

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

2011-01-20T10:08:00.005-06:00

he'll want some jam to go with it...

And if you give a girl a hat, she'll (naturally) want some mittens to go with it! There may be no end to the demand of knitted girly items now, but I'm not complaining. Knitting for girls is so much fun! The endless possibilities of colors and designs... bring it on!

Twin Peaks

2011-01-10T00:02:00.008-06:00

Long time, no see, eh? I promise I haven't quit, I've just been busy! Here's a pictorial presentation of knitter in law school:

"Oh, but wait!" you're thinking. "That's lace yarn... there's no way she was reading two books, studying her notes and writing an outline while working on a lace project!" And you'd be right. This picture may give you a false impression of what's doable... but it's not completely staged! I was using the lace project to calm my mind and cool my brain, while taking a break from reading. Knitting and reading is just fine, but lace and reading don't go so well together. Mostly my knitting has been simple things like socks, and such. I also started Mara, which is perfect for reading with all that garter stitch.

Fortunately, part of the fun of law school is a looong Christmas break. Like, really long! I don't remember the last time I had 4 (yes, four) weeks off! I've been relaxing and recharging and doing all kids of things that I haven't had time to do during the fall. (Although looking at the condition of the apartment, you'd think I've been too busy to even pick up dirty clothes off the floor... oops.) I don't want to abandon the blog, and I'll try to post here, when I get pictures taken of knitterly things that I've completed since the finals were over. And maybe even before finals were over.

The latest project was the Twin Peaks:

Hats for a friend's twin girls (age 9), head circumference about 50 cm. I used left over yarns from my stash, and made up the designs on the fly.

The red/gold hat is made of Tahki Donegal Tweed and Malabrigo Silky Merino. There is a two-inch lining on the inside of the Malabrigo to prevent itching and to keep the ears warm.

The purple hat is Malabrigo Merino Worsted, one of my all time favorite yarns. In this one the picot edge is about an inch and a half tall, also to keep the ears warm and toasty. The embroidery and tassle are Louet Riverstone.

Gifted

2009-12-20T19:34:00.007-06:00

Remember the yarn I gifted to myself as a birthday present? Sometimes a yarn speaks to you and tells you exactly what it should become. This yarn was destined to be paired up with Jared Flood's Girasole pattern, no doubt about it. But when I compared the yardage I had with my six skeins and what the pattern required, I wasn't quite sure if I'd have enough, and at about $ 10 per skein, I wasn't really excited about buying any more. This pattern is written for two weights of yarn (aran for a blanket and fingering for a shawl), and could also be knitted with any weight for different sizes and uses. My yarn was somewhere in the middle of these two weights.

I decided to settle for a solution that would also take care of my other problem, namely how to wear a round shawl. Do you fold it over, or scrunch it up in your neck? And wouldn't it make sense to have just the part of the circle that you can actually see? In a blanket it makes more sense, but I've always wondered how you'd wear a round shawl. So I knitted a wide wedge, with six tenths of the pattern repeats.

This meant knitting back and forth, instead of in the round, and some of the patterns ended up having pattern rows on the wrong side, too, but nothing too challenging so that didn't turn out to be a problem. Most of the time every other row is just plain knitting. I also had to figure out what to do with the edges -both edge stitches, and the shape of the edge for when the pattern wasn't straight. I used two garter stitch edge stitches, which is pretty typical of lace shawls/scarves. The leaf pattern I knitted out so that the total stitch count increased in the first part of the leaf and then decreased for the second part. The diagonal rows of holes I cut off so that I got a straight line for the edge.

Otherwise I had no problem knitting just six tenths of the pattern, and the patterns and stitch counts all behaved very well and caused me no issues.

The needle size for lace depends on the amount of empty space that is desired and how airy the resulting fabric should be. My yarn was buttery soft, quite substantial and heavy, and I didn't think it could necessarily hold up to a very "lacy" or airy structure. Plus I wanted the shawl to be quite substantial, as well, so I used a 4 mm needle. If I had just gone based on the ratio of my yarn weight and what was recommended for the yarn weights in the pattern (4 mm was recommended for the fingering weight and 6 mm for aran), I should probably have used at least 5 mm needles. The 4 mm needles produced, however, very good results, and the size, I think, is pretty perfect!

Tweedie

2009-11-29T16:15:00.004-06:00

Here's a project that has been in progress for a long time:

Hanne Falkenberger's Tweedie. Lately I've been pushing myself to finish up old projects and get some loose ends tied up (quite literally). This is one of the few sweaters that I purchased as a kit, and it was quite spendy, so it didn't make any sense to leave it lying in a basket half finished. I liked the style, the color and the fit, so really no reason not to finish! The only problem was that it was quite tedious... And every time I picked it up, I had to figure out the instructions all over again. The instructions, including color patterns for 11 different colorways, had been fitted into as small a space as possible, onto just two pieces of paper. For a lot of patterns that's plenty of space, but this pattern used some creative and unusual techniques, which could have been explained more clearly using more space. All in all, this pattern would really benefit from using just one extra piece of paper, and for the $130-plus that the kit costs, I don't think that would be an unbearable additional cost.

The texture of this sweater is created with a clever use of garter stitch and slip stitches. The colors are created using three different color yarns at all times, changing one color at a time when moving from one section to another.

The yarn is fingering weight 100 % wool and quite unprocessed, which means it is quite rough to the touch. I plan to wash the sweater with some Eucalan to see if I can soften it up a bit... I'm also thinking about adding a couple hook-and-eye closures, since there are no buttons.

Warm and fuzzy feeling

2009-11-08T16:33:00.004-06:00

This gives me a warm and fuzzy:

Specs:

pattern: Something Red by Wendy Bernard

yarn: Rowan Kid Classic, 8x50 g balls

needles: 4.5 mm Addi Turbo circular

size: M, adjusted for gauge

I really enjoyed knitting this. The pattern is well written and easy to follow. The fit is great, partly due to the fact that the sweater was easy to try on when it was in progress.

The other day, this appeared on the fridge door:

It reads: "Watch out because it will be slippery". Mr S. (5 yrs) decided to clean the kitchen floor on his own initiative. Afterwards he told me "Mom, now you have to give me one of those green things." That would be money -the green kind, as opposed to the metal kind. So he got paid $ 1, and I got a clean kitchen floor. Not a bad deal at all, if you ask me! I sure hope this is a precedent for times to come, and when he's 17, I don't need to tell him to go get a job to make some money. And as I'm doing all this knitting, I don't have to worry about house work!

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T12:56:00.007-05:00

Since the last update, I've been working on a few different things. The amorphous mystery sweater has only progressed little, and is currently out of favor and out of the knit cycle. This always seems to happen, when I get back into the knitting groove. I frantically go back and forth between a few projects, trying to figure out what I really want to, or need to be working on, before actually settling on something that feels right. In addition to the mystery sweater, I've been working on Tweedie, started a shawl and another sweater, and even finished something:

This is Amelia, Laura Chau's pattern from the -08 Winter Knitty. I used Louet Riverstone in color Burgundy. I think it's a very nice, solid worsted wool, one of those basic yarns that is always good to have around. I was between sizes, and cast on something in between M and L, because I didn’t want the sweater to be too tight around the bust. A couple of other changes I made were:

Button holes every 14 rows instead of every 10. I wish I would have started them an inch or two earlier.
I modified the sleeve cuff to twisted k1p1 rib, and I did the sleeve increases slower and made fewer of them than specified. Looking at other people's projects, sometimes the sleeves seemed too wide, at least to my taste.
I made the front neck line decreases one stich further in (k1, p1, ssk), and I added a button hole in the neck band.

Overall, a nice project, and a good, well written pattern!

After finishing Amelia I thought, what I really need is a couple of new sweaters I can wear to work. I searched through patterns and rummaged through my entire yarn inventory, and paired up yarns with patterns, deciding what is going to be what. The first sweater that got on the needles was a silvery gray version of Wendy's Something Red:

I'm using Rowan's Kid Classic and Addi Turbo 4.5 mm circulars. (Shocking news: Addi has changed the color of the cord in their circulars from the familiar gold to a transparent blue!) This sweater should take me another couple of weeks with the sleeves and the neck band, if I manage to stick to knitting monogamy from now on.

October is birthday-month for me, and despite having made a resolution to be on a strict yarn diet, I figured I'm allowed to splurge on my birthday. Right?

This was my "happy birthday to me"-gift: a soft pile of Malabrigo Silky Merino in color Topaz. I'm thinking a shawl, something in the style of Jared Flood. Jared is one of my favorite bloggers and designers, and I'm really fond of his use of thicker yarns for lace patterns. By using a DK or a worsted weight yarn in a lace, you really get the best of both worlds; the intricate texture and pattern, but also the substance (and warmth!) of the thicker yarn.

The weather has been absolutely miserable lately around these parts of the world, but only during the weeks. Somehow magically it always seems to clear up for the weekends, and this weekend is no exception. This of course makes me very happy -not only for the kids, but for poor old me, who has to take them trick-or-treating tonight, and if the weather was as bad as last night, no amount of knitwear could keep me warm! I hope you all have a happy (and scary!) Halloween. Stay warm!

End of hiatus

2009-10-03T18:45:00.003-05:00

I didn't even realize how long it had been since I last posted... Seems like time to end the hiatus and bring the blog back to life! The past year has been chaotic, stormy and challenging on a personal level, and posting in the midst of all that just didn't feel very appealing. But life goes on, and now that the dust has settled (and the weather is getting colder!), it's time to come out of the hiding, and take out the needles and yarn again.

So what is going on on the knitting front? Some of my work that I finished between the last post a year ago and before I completely stopped knitting for a while (that's right! completely stopped... didn't see that coming!) I have posted on Ravelry, available to those of you that are members there. Recently, I tried on a lovely cardigan at a store and thought, no way am I paying $ 119 for that! A two piece construction in garter stich, fairly simple and should be a quick knit. This and the afore mentioned cold weather were enough to get me to go rummaging in my yarn totes for something suitable that could produce the same cardi, albeit in a prettier color. I found a bag of fingering weight Knitpicks Gloss in color Cosmos, knitted a 5x1.5" test swatch, and cast on for a sleeve.

This will be one of those "make it up as you go" pieces. Yes, I'm taking a risk here, and yes, you may slap me, if it doesn't turn out because of the lack of planning. In my defence, I do have a couple of scetches in my notebook, and I have taken one measurement! The back piece measures from my elbow to my knuckles. Very scientific, no? And the reason I think this has any chance of working out? Well, the shape of the sweater is very "organic", not fitted in the least, so the exact measurements aren't absolutely critical. Famous last words, before a knitting disaster...

Maybe I want to think that I've still got the touch, and I can figure this out without spending two days planning. Maybe I'm just delusional... Or maybe I've totally forgotten anything I ever learned, and that unplanned pieces of knitting rarely turn out. We shall see. Until then, let's admire the magnificent October sky (the sky is so big here in South Dakota!) and the pretty view from my deck:

End of Summer

2008-08-24T22:43:00.006-05:00

The Leafy Lace cardi got finished a while ago, and I've worn it a few times already.

After that got done, I started on a Very Secret Birthday Project on a rather tight schedule. What caused the schedule to be tight was not so much the upcoming birthday, as my mother turns a year older on the same day every year (very helpful), but the fact that I just couldn't decide on the pattern or the yarn. I finally ended up reverse engineering a pattern that I'd seen pictures of, but that was only available in Russian, and a similar pattern that would have been in past issue of a Norwegian craft magazine. It actually was a very simple crochet stitch pattern, which is used quite a bit in shawls. I had my mind set on crochet for whatever reason, I've already forgotten why, but I was very determined that it had to be crochet. I started the project twice with yarns that I had in my stash, but at the end ended up going and buying a new yarn, as I didn't have anything that would have fit just right. It was either too woolly, too stiff, too thin, too something. The yarn got is Berroco Twist, wool and viscose, a very nice and drapey yarn with a nice sheen.

The main idea I stole form the Norwegian pattern was the pseudo fringe. It's constructed from single crochet loops that are attached to one another, it's fringy without being too much so. I very much like it.

As far as I could tell, mom was very pleased, and I liked the shawl so much myself that I bought yarn for one for myself, too. As far as progress on that one... well, I've started, let's just say that. The yarn I bought (not the same one as my mom's) is very splitty and a pain to crochet, so I quickly came up with other projects that were more urgent.

Last weekend I started a new cardi, which I'm calling the "End of Summer Cardi". The yarn is Elann's Callista (no mom, it's not expensive), a blend of cotton, linen and viscose. I've planned a one piece construction with slightly puffed sleeves (we'll see how those turn out...), V-neck, and raglan sleeves. So far I'm about half of the way done.

A bunch of my co-workers have been reproducing lately, and baby gifts are in order. So far two girl gifts and one boy gift are needed, plus one unknown, due within the next two weeks. I've worked on some baby bootie patterns, and here are two of my favorites:

Now a couple more pairs of cuteness, and maybe a pair or two to have in the stash for future small people.

Summer knits

2008-06-17T21:25:00.007-05:00

I'm in need of some more summery knits than all the wool sweaters I've been cranking out lately. I was working on a lace cardigan design, but found a free pattern that was so close to what I was doing that it just wasn't worth re-inventing the wheel.

This is the back of the Lacy Leaf Cardi by soobeeoz. The yarn is Lily Chin Chelsea, a wool/cotton/acrylic blend, perfect for summer clothing. I'm already done with the body pieces and one sleeve, so this cardi should be finished pretty soon.

A few weeks ago I bought some Jojoland Melody yarn that was on sale at Needlework Unlimited, and thought it would be perfect for a shawl. Something fairly simple that would benefit from the beautiful color changes of the yarn. I found the perfect pattern in Ulla; Revontuli by AnneM.

One thing I wasn't too excited about was how the stripes would get progressively thinner, as the shawl got wider, and I wanted to somehow work around that. I contemplated a couple of strategies, and ended up knitting each section (or actually each two sections) from a separate ball of yarn. I wasn't quite sure how it would work, if it would look weird or stand out too much that the sections are all different, but it worked out ok, and I'm very pleased with the result.

I really like the three-dimensional look that is created by the pattern and the slight sheen of the yarn. I've worn this to work a couple of times already, and the really nice thing about it is that it goes with almost every shirt that I own! :)

Spring has sprung

2008-05-08T22:17:00.005-05:00

My excuse for not posting for a while is that my dear little laptop had an accident a while back, and I had to take it to the PC doctor. Because of a misunderstanding, it took them a whole month to fix it. Well, not quite, but because they ordered and installed the wrong cover for it, it took twice as long as is should have. I got it back now, and I have to say, I really missed it! And mom started complaining already that there aren't any new blog posts, so I better write one immediately. Here comes, mom!

Since the last time I posted, I had to go on another trip, this time for more unfortunate reasons. My 84-year-old Grandpa passed away, and I went to Finland for the funeral. The whole family came together for the event, and even though a funeral's a funeral, it was great to see everybody. We spent a lot of time reminescing about the last, oh, 60-some years. Or however long each one of has had known Grandpa. The things that everybody seemed to remember about him were that he was fair, just, honest and hard working. What an honor to be remembered as such an exemplary individual. I will miss him greatly! The whole time I kept thinking that he had such a great life, and that I wish people could say the same, when my time comes.

It was great to go back home after a two year long hiatus. I'm going again this summer, for happier reasons and with more time. This time I was there for only a few days, and without the kids or my husband. This of course meant a lot of uninterrupted knitting time on travel days. I usually travel through Amsterdam, and this time was no exception. On my way back I had a long lay-over, and I went on a little tour of the Amsterdam area:

What a great way to spend those few hours that otherwise you'd spend sitting around at the airport!

On my trip I finished Salina -it is one of my favorite patterns, and I just love wearing it. The fit is just perfect, the style is nice and simple, but not without a couple of interesting details. I love Rowan Felted Tweed, although it could be just a little softer. I might have to try and give it a vinegar rinse and see, if that would take off the scratchiness.

I knitted the whole thing in the round, sleeves and all. That is my preferred way, because I just love miles and miles of plain stockinette! And piecing the thing together was a breeze! I also knitted the sleeves quite a bit longer, because I don't like short or even 3/4 sleeves on wool sweaters. I'm always cold, and my hands especially, so I like loooong sleeves. I also made just 3 button holes, as I really didn't see the need for the fourth one.

I have this yarn in 3 different colors, so I'll probably be making another Salina at some point. There are also a couple of other patterns in the same book that I might want to make.

Because the airport security people in Europe aren't quite as understanding of knitters as they are here in the US, I also took along a crochet project. I thought, if I have a very much not-sharp, large size crochet hook (5 mm or larger) with me, I just can't see them taking it away! I got this book called Amazing Crochet Lace by Doris Chan, and it's got some really nice shawl patterns in there that are designed after traditional crochet doilies. One of my favorites is the shawl on the cover, which is the one I started.

The yarn is Berroco Seduce, an interesting blend of linen, rayon and silk. A lot shinier than in the picture. You can also see, where I was getting my crochet mojo from: straight from the bottle! ;) I'm usually not a Pepsi drinker, but the European Pepsi Max (diet) tasts much closer to Diet Coke that Coke Light does. It's just one of those things.

Kauni and her friends

2008-04-05T22:52:00.003-05:00

Have you heard of Kauni? If surf the knitting circles, I'm sure you have. Kauni is a Danish yarn with beautiful colors and wonderful color work patterns. Actually Kauni is the name of the designer, who is originally from Estonia. So the name actually means "beautiful". How appropriate! :) The Kauni yarns aren't really easy to find on this side of the pond, and I ordered mine from Astrid's Dutch Obsessions. Great prices and a very good color selection.

After I got my yarn, I had to start right away! But I didn't want to go with the popular Kauni cardigan pattern, because it has a very boxy shape and that just doesn't do for me. I immediately gain 50 pounds when I wear boxy sweaters... So I decided to go with Veronik's Colette pattern from IK winter 07. It's got nice shaping, and is a nicely constructed sweater, but I wasn't crazy about the cats, so I searched for another stitch pattern to use. There is a nice website full of free colorwork patterns here.

As much as I love knitting this, it is very slow, and requires a lot of concentration. I have been knitting on this exclusively for a couple of weeks, and I'm almost up to the arm holes now.

But I felt like I needed a break from all that concentration, and wanted something that was mindless stockinette that I could knit while reading or watching TV. So I started Salina, the sweater on the cover of Vintage Knits. I've been wanting to make this sweater for the longest time, and I'm really enjoying the pattern.

I've got this same yarn (Rowan Felted Tweed) in three different colors, so there might even be more than one Salina in my future.

New FOs in New Orleans

2008-03-08T17:35:00.007-06:00

Another work trip and another chance to get hours of undisturbed knitting time, if you don't mind security checks and boardings of planes, and a few times when I actually had to work. I went on a trip to New Orleans (not one of my favorite cities, FYI), and instead of taking a new project with me, I actually took 6 UFO's in hopes of finishing at least on or two. I took so many, because I couldn't decide which ones I'd want to work on, plus I wanted to be able to just pick up what I was in the mood for.

The first thing that got done, was a We Call Them Pirates hat, in the works since over a year ago:

The yarn I used was the same as last time, Rowan Wool Cotton. It is super soft, holds up well, and is the perfect yarn for a hat. You need just one ball of each color for this hat. I made a couple of modifications (shocking, isn't it): I left out part of the colorwork in the bottom to make the hat slightly shorter, and I sloped the decreases a little slower, because I'm not a fan of the squarish top in the original pattern.

The second thing I finished was a pair of socks for Mr S, in the works since maybe a month ago:

I even managed to make them match! I usually don't even try, so this was one of the few times I actually made matching socks.

The yarn is one of the OPAL sock yarns, another bright colorway, perfectly suitable for kids. The socks are size 4yr.

I also worked a little on the Eyelet Cardigan that I started about a year ago:

This yarn is Bluemoon Fiberarts Cotton. I still need to make one more sleeve, piece it together, and add a collar and button bands. Maybe I'll get it done by the time the weather is warm enough to wear it.

I also made a little bit of progress on my Seawool socks:

These I'm continuing to work on today, so I should have them done by Sunday night.

I was quite proud of myself for being so productive, and also for not taking a brand new project along. :) And like I usually do where ever I travel, I found me a yarn store and bought some yarn as a souvenir. Now, I know Louisiana is probably not the knitting hub of the world, and my expectations for the yarn store weren't great, but even so, I was just a tiny bit disappointed. The store was large, and had a lot of different yarns, but the color selection for all of them was extremely poor. The store was also messy and felt dirty, which never gets me excited about shopping. And I was after some pretty basic stuff (for example, more yarn for Pirates hats), but couldn't find anything I was looking for. I did find something, though:

It's Chrystal Palace Maizy, a yarn made out of 82 % corn fiber. It's really quite soft, and I think it's meant to be mainly a sock yarn. I might still use it for something else, such as a hat. The gauge is pretty small, in the picture I used a 2.25 mm needle.

Herring bones

2008-02-26T23:11:00.004-06:00

Herringbone mittens, that is! I had these old rose and dark chocolate Opal sock yarns that I knew I wanted to use for some nice colorwork mittens and maybe also a pair of socks. I went back and forth between different patterns, but I really liked the Herringbone mittens by the great Elliphantom, and these two colors would be perfect for that pattern, I thought.

The pattern is written for a heavier yarn, so I had to adjust for that. I added a stitch to each of the "bones", which in the original pattern are 4+4 stitches, for a total of 48 stitches plus two for the sides, so that equals 50. I went with 5+5, for a total of 60+2=62 around the palm. I also like two color ribbing better in colorwork, so I decided to use that, instead of a single color ribbing. And I wanted the thumb to match the rest of the mitten, so I change from straight vertical lines to herringbones on the thumb, too. You can see that in the thumb gusset, but it will of course be more obvious, when I actually finish the mittens.

Here you can also see the three needle bind-off in the tip, which worked perfectly and is much simpler than grafting. I'm not a big fan of pom-poms, so those will be left out, as well as the crocheted cord... I think it's probably starting to sound like I'm not even knitting the same pattern, as many changes that I've made, but Elli still did all the hard work writing the pattern, and what I'm doing are minor details. I always end up changing every pattern I use, some more than others, but that doesn't mean I didn't like the pattern. If I didn't like the pattern, I wouldn't be using it! So I guess what I'm trying to say is that despite all the changes, I still really like that pattern and would recommend it!

I also got some shots of the finished baby sweater, now with a button:

The button is polymer clay, sliced out of a cane I made already a while ago. So handy having all those canes made up! ;) I can just take a slice and bake it, and voila, I have a unique custom button or earrings or whatever!

I used a little crocheted chain for the button loop:

Cleaning up the bead stash

2008-02-17T20:24:00.006-06:00

This weekend my husband asked me. if I could clean up my bead stash. He might have meant, whether I could move it somewhere else, or just get rid of it alltogehter, but I took it as "Honey, could you make some more jewelry?" ;) So I did. I mean, when would I not do what my darling hubby asks for?

I had a ton of polymer clay beads that I'd made a while ago, and a lot of already planned projects. I like to combine the beads with other materials, like glass, wood and semiprecious stone beads. This necklace only has a polymer clay focal bead, the rest of the beads are wood, ceramic and carnelian.

I also made earrings to match:

Here you can see the making of the Squiggly Necklace, with polymer clay squiggles altered with silver beads:

This bracelet is retro color polymer clay beads with some miscellaneous stone beads and some buno cord on a memory wire:

This isn't really craft related, but I just wanted to show you my tastiest accomplishment this weekend, a multigrain bread baked in a cloche baker that makes the absolute best crispy but not hard crust:

The only wool related activity this weekend was a felted space alien that we made with the kids:

I made absolutely no progress on the entrelac sweater -maybe I'm just a little too optimistic about the weather getting warmer. I better get on it and finish the thing, because if it really warms up, I'll never get it done...

Have a great week, and thanks for all the comments on the finished sweater a couple of weeks back! I know I'm really repeating myself, but I'll say it again: I'd love to reply to the comments, but Blogspot doesn't allow me to see the e-mail addresses. I don't know if it's a setting that I should change, or if that's just how it is with blogspot.

More sweaters

2008-02-09T17:50:00.000-06:00

I continued to knit on the Henley sweater (perfect TV knitting, by the way, lots of stockinette), and got to where the lace pattern starts:

That was all good, until this showed up:

It's Berroco Foliage in color walnut. I just couldn't resist casting on! I already had a project in mind, or I actually ordered it specifically for this:

The free pattern is in Finnish, but Gedifra has also published it somewhere in English. I found it on Ravelry as "Entrelac sweater". Anyhow, I saw this pattern and just HAD TO try it. It has a very interesting construction, starting with the entrelac in the back, then you add stitches for the sleeves, make a neck opening like a buttohole, knit over the shoulders, cast off the sleeve stitches, and finish in the front at the bottom of the entrelac portion. After you sew the seems together, you add the ribbing, and are done.

Very cool, if it just turns out like the picture. ;) I'm at the point where you cast off the sleeve stitches:

I've also been working on a sweater for my friend's daughter. I'm using a one-piece raglan sleeve construction:

It's from the make-it-up-as-you-go collection again. After finishing the body, I took it off the needles to block it and check the measurements.

Everything was right on, so now it just needs the collar and sleeves and a couple of finishing touches, and is ready to wear. Hopefully finished and maybe even modeled pics next time!

Trying to keep warm

2008-01-24T23:30:00.000-06:00

I had a lot of incentive to finish this one fast. It has been about -10 F, or -25 C here for a while already, and I'm running out of warm sweaters to wear, unless I want to wear the same clothes for weeks on end. So, enter new soft and warm cardi:

Like I said, this was a fast knit. Possibly even the fastest sweater I ever put together, right around two weeks from start to finish. I used my own pattern - raglan sleeves, pieces knit flat, with garter stitch details in the hem, collar and sleeves. I wanted to keep it simple, because the yarn was so smooth, and every small little detail really stands out. Plus I like simple cardigans with one or two interesting but subtle details.
I ended up re-knitting the collar and button bands once, because the first try was just too bulky and not nearly as neat as I wanted. The second time I used a smaller needle and knit less rows for both, and ended up with a much more satisfying result.

I happened to have the perfect buttons in my stash. I think the warm wood color adds just enough interest so that the cardigan doesn't look dull.

Technical details:
Yarn: Adrianne Vittadini Trina, 16 x 50 g
Needles: 5.0 mm Clover bamboo circular, 3.5 mm Inox aluminum circular for collar and button bands

New year, new FO

2008-01-13T23:29:00.000-06:00

Since my last post, I knit like mad on the Oblique, and did get it finished.

I absolutely adore this sweater! It must be the warmest thing I own. I wore it to work one day, and I was actually hot! Now that hasn't happened for a while! :D And the yarn is sooo soft, and the fit is great. It is fairly lose, but that how it's supposed to be. I don't have any picture of actually wearing the sweater -maybe another time.

Notes on the pattern: I very much enjoyed knitting this sweater, and only could find one minor error in the pattern. (I've already forgotten what it was...) I had to change a couple of things mainly, because I was running out of yarn. I adjusted the front so that it doesn't overlap as much. Only the button band overlaps. And I left the extra length off the sleeves that you would fold over, when wearing it. Otherwise, the only thing I think I may need to change yet is the collar. There aren't quite enough stitches (you decrease half the stitches after picking up), and it puckers just ever so slightly. So what I would have to do is to rip out the collar, and leave a few more stitches on there than what the pattern calls for.

The next thing I started was another sweater with some Adrianne Vittadini "Trina" that I got on a clearance from the Needlework Unlimited Outlet in Minneapolis.

It is also a super soft yarn, feels almost like a very soft cotton, although it is a merino/micro fiber/cashmere blend. The yarn is a little splitty, but a very quick knit on 5 mm needles.

The pattern is my own, just a basic raglan sweater with a couple of simple details, like the waist increases that are 10 stitches in from the side seam:

I also started on the Zephyr scarf, but I think I may rip it back, and start over. I'm only 20 or so rows in, although it starts with 300 some stitches. But I'm not entirely satisfied with the color changes, so I'll have to think that over one more time.

Last bits of 2007

2007-12-30T23:16:00.000-06:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and had a chance to relax, and maybe even get some knitting done. I sure had a good time, but the knitting part, well I didn't have much time for that. I did, however, get a nice gift card to my LYS from my coworkers. I was so surprised that they had thought of that! Not that there's anything wrong with getting a bottle of wine, or something like that, but yarn... for me that is a much more personal gift. I went to spend it yesterday, and here's what I got:
Zephyr silk/wool lace weight in three colors, for a scarf from the Icelandic Three Cornered and Long Shawls. I had to get started last night already, but I don't have a progress shot. Not that it looks like much, yet, as you start with 329 stitches, and it takes a while to get just 4-5 rows done...

Another new (to me) yarn I thought I'd try was Reynold's Soft Seawool:I'm going to use it for a pair of socks. It's a little thicker than what I usually use, but really squishy! Can't wait to get started with this one, too.

The other in-progress project is still Oblique:

I've got a good start on the second sleeve, but I'm running out of yarn... The yarn requirement in the pattern seemed low to begin with, but I thought I'd go with it. Now Webs is of course all sold out of this yarn, and I had to order 2 more balls from somewhere else for twice as high a price, and a different dye lot. Grr... Fortunately it's a variegated yarn, so I'm not terribly concerned about the dye lot issue. Just seems like such a waste to spend almost half as much for two balls as for the rest of the sweater together. But I'm still in love with the pattern, and I've got high hopes for it! I've read several people's comments about Veronik's patterns, and how they thought they were confusing and hard to follow. I haven't had any problems with this pattern and I think it is extremely clear and well written. I'm very tempted to buy her recent book.

As far as getting help with my knitting projects goes, I'm still doing good. Suzy is training to knit socks:

And I didn't even have to ask her...

Happines is...

2007-12-12T23:29:00.001-06:00

This new little gadget moved to our house last week:

It is of course Ashford Joy! The perfect little spinning wheel:

I started by practicing with some yellow corriedale I had in the stash. Not the prettiest wool ever, but very suitable for the purpose.

And of course I had some help:

My creation, 100 % novelty ;)

And in the knitting bag:

Veronik's Oblique from the fall Knitty:

I'm in love with both the pattern and the yarn. The pattern is very carefully written, I haven't found any errors or illogical solutions, and it is a pleasure to knit. The yarn, Maldi Fusion, is super soft, and makes the project even better. The only problem I'm having is that I don't think I have quite enough, and Webs, where I ordered this yarn from, sold out in no time. For that reason only, I'm changing the front of the sweater a little, and crossing my fingers that I'll have enough.

New skills

2007-12-02T14:32:00.000-06:00

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I had a chance to try my mother-in-law's spinning wheel. I've only spun once before, and it was with flax (home grown, mind you), and I couldn't remember a thing about how to do it. I had some kind of an idea from tutorials on-line, and she (MIL) had some kind of an idea from taking a class, and so we tried to put everything we knew together, and gave it a shot. Her wheel is one on those made after and antique spinning wheel, and doesn't have a lot of adjustments one way or the other, so it wasn't the easiest thing to use. But nevertheless, I had a blast, and even ended up with some yarn!

The wool I was spinning was very nice and soft, but there were no details available about it, where I bought it. I got two half pound balls in two shades of dark red, which I was mixing as I was spinning.

I of course had to try to knit with my "fun novelty yarn" (my favorite quote from a tutorial: don't worry, if your yarn has thick and thin spots, you're making a fun novelty yarn!") My yarn had a little too much novelty in it at times, but at the end, I actually ended up with something you could call a thick-and-thin yarn, instead of the hard and snarly over-spun wire I made first. The hat is grownup size, but I asked the kids to model so I could get some pictures:

I also finished the socks for E:

A basic sock with 2x2 rib cuff and a heel flap. The yarn is Trekking XXL. I first attempted to make the socks symmetrical, but then noticed that the stripes just don't repeat the same at all, and I gave up. That's fine though, I think this is a real fun colorway for kids!

Progress...

2007-11-11T22:01:00.000-06:00

Long time, no see, eh? I apologize for not posting... I don't really even have a good excuse, except that I've been too distracted, and too busy (read: lazy) to take proper pictures to post. I still have a whole bunch of polymer clay projects that I'd like to share, but haven't taken any pictures of, so that'll have to wait. As far as knitting goes -well, remember this cardi from a while back?
I actually did finish it. And it actually turned out absolutely horrible. I was thinking all along that the instructions weren't too good. The design is really pretty, but to get form the instructions to something that looks like garment in the photo is another matter. The construction is terrible, just a plain bad design. I'd look up the designer, if I hadn't lost the magazine, so I'd know to avoid them next time. It's not that there were too many errors, but the whole thing just wasn't going to work out. And I was wondering how it could, but thought I'd just knit all the way to the end and see. And it didn't. And I'm pissed. So I ripped the pieces apart, and I'm redoing the shoulders and the tops of the sleeves, as well as the collar. We'll see, if I'll be able to salvage it, or if I'll have to rip out the whole thing and start over. With a different pattern.

On the other hand, I've made progress on the black alpaca cardi, and I was actually determined to piece it together this weekend, so I could wear it to work tomorrow. My office is getting increasingly cold as the fall progresses, and I need to wear WOOL every day, or I'm not going to make it.

Here are the pieces taking a bath: Blocking went smoothly, since I had help again, as usual:

So much nicer, when you don't have to face a big job like this all alone! Now all I got to do, is piece it together and add a button band and a couple of buttons.

That was my plan until last night, when both the kids came down with The Flu. A nasty stomach virus that changed my schedule and made laundry and cleaning my first priority, and forced me to put the cardi on the back burner. Bummer. But I'll get there, should only take a couple of hours now.

I've also been knitting on some on-the-go projects, namely sock in sizes 3-years and 8-years:
This is the "hurts-your-eyes" colorway of some unknown sock yarn (not really unknown, but one of my helpers likes to remove the bands from balls of yarn, as you might recall.) The next ones weren't quite as bad, as far as colorful yarns go:

I actually started to like this colorway of Trekking XXL a lot, as I kept knitting. The color changes are slow, and there's always more than one color going on at once. Even when it looks like it's just one color, there are speckles of other colors in it. The socks are actually already finished, but I just don't have a picture yet.

Now back to knitting... got to finish that cardi!

Weekend fun

2007-09-23T23:55:00.000-05:00

Oh, the crazyness that is polymer clay...

This is a technique called "Cutting Edge" by Dan Cormier. He doesn't have a web site that I could find, but he gives a lot of classes, and has published some instructions in the Polymer Cafe magazine. The beads are made with a silver (or alternatively gold) clay mixed with a color clay. Those tiny little silver mica particles reflect light differently from different angles, which is what makes the beads interesting. (Carissa Nichols gives a pretty good explanation on mica shift here.) Also the lines are sort of under the surface, and all the beads are polished to a fine silky smooth finish.

This is a crazy curly-swirly bead that I made with the left over clay from the cutting-edge-beads:

Black sheep -no, black alpaca!

2007-09-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to post a little more often than once a month, so tonight I had to practically force myself to post something. The issue isn't that there would be a lack of crafts or knitting, not at all. I've just been way too lazy to take pictures and edit them to have something to show. But since my goal is to get back to posting once a week, I thought I really should do something about it tonight!

I have the pieces to the sweater from the last post just about finished, but I still have to put them all together and knit quite a bit of border to finish it. Not a very good mindless project, so I had to start something new. I wound the black alpaca I bought in Seattle into balls, and oh, my goodness, it is sooo soft! I just can't get over how this yarn feels! So even though most of the yarns in my stash have been waiting for much longer to be turned into something wearable, I started a sweater with this yarn. Modeled after my current favorite cardigan, it is going to be very plain, with a slightly shaped waist and a V-neck, button-down front and possibly small pockets (I haven't quite made up my mind about those, yet). It is a very true black, and therefore quite impossible to photograph, as you can see:

It has a bit of a sheen, and looks wonderful in a moss stitch, so I decided to do an inch of moss stitch in the cuffs and the hem:

If you can only see a black square, don't worry. That's pretty much what it is...

I also started a pair of socks to have a small portable project. I let the boys pick their own sock yarn from the stash, and this is what Mr S. picked:

And I thought I'd never get rid of that yarn... ;) I'm not sure how it ended up in my stash, but it certainly isn't something I'd pick now, so it must have been there for a while.

SSS

2007-08-19T19:45:00.000-05:00

That is Second Sleeve Syndrome. A major case of it, to say the least... This is where I'm today, after finally picking up and starting yesterday:

I have not as much as touched it all summer, although I have to admit that knitting has been slow over all. But I know that with a few days of knitting, I can have this thing done, and can feel better about moving on to other things. The pattern (in the picture) is from last winter's Vogue. Surprisingly the pattern is written for Cascade 220, which is an unusual choice of yarn for Vogue, since the cost of the sweater only ends up being around $ 50, instead of at least double that. I'm enjoying the pattern, but there are a couple of weird things about it. In the front pieces, the stitch count is reduced in an odd way before binding off for the shoulders. Not sure how it will work when I'll piece it together -I may end up having to re-do the shoulders. The other thing is that in the pattern they don't mention any other closure than the belt, but obviously in the picture there's something holding the front together at least at the tip of the shawl collar. I think I'll just add a couple of buttons but that would mean I also have to add a button band. Or maybe I'll use some hooks instead.

The way I was able to overcome SSS was to compile a list of unfinished projects, and projects on my to-do list. I don't have a ton of things on my unfinished list, but there are 4 sweaters that are only a couple of days worth of knitting away from finishing. So I thought I should pick up the slack and stop feeling guilty about them. Here's the list:

1) Petrol blue cardigan, I have to re-do the shawl collar
2) Oxblood sweater, needs second sleeve and collar
3) A sweater for E, needs the collar finished and sleeves lengthened (I've piddled around long enough on it that the sleeves are already too short...)
4) A light blue cotton sweater, needs 1 1/2 sleeves
5) A hat for E
6) Socks for S

The things on my to-do list are all projects that I already have yarn for. I actually don't have any yarn (at least not in large quantities) that doesn't have a project planned for it.
1) Cable sweater from moss green wool
2) Cowl neck sweater from brown boucle
3) Mohair sweater
4) V-neck sweater from Art Yarn's light green wool/silk
5) Christmas scarf
6) Christmas scarf 2
7) Sweater from black alpaca
8) Sweater from blue wool
9) E socks
10) lace scarf from blue-green wool
11) lace scarf from purple silk (could be a gift)
12) lace scarf from Art Yarns silk
13) Sweater from brown/tan wool

Obviously, I don't have to go buying any more yarn for a while, at least until most of these are finished...

Stop and smell the roses

2007-07-30T19:14:00.000-05:00

I do still blog, I swear I do! Life just got in the way for a while. I have not only enjoyed the summer (and smelled the roses), but also covered North America from Seattle to New York in the last two weeks. In knitting terms, this means one finished object and lots of time thinking about new ones, and even some swatching (no photographic evidence of this).

May I present to you, Rose:

Rose is made out of Plassard Coton-Lin, a 60/40 cotton and linen blend, about sport weight, I would say, 195 m to 50 g. I used about 8 balls, I think. The finished fabric has a nice drape to it, and feels cool to the skin, like linen fabrics usually do.

I used a 3.75 mm needle for the lace in the bottom of the body and sleeves, and 3.25 mm for the stockinette top. I didn't like how loose it looked with the bigger needle -I'm usually more a fan of a smaller, tighter gauge, than a looser one.

I used an I-cord edging for both the front and back. Or in the front I actually just took advantage of the rolling of the stockinette, but the back side is true I-cord up to where the neck curves. And the cool thing is that you can't even tell where it switches from I-cord to stockinette.

I took the measurements from one of my favorite sweaters, and it fits perfectly. Me love Rose. :)

And if I ever get to it, there might be a pattern available for Rose. At least I wrote my notes so that it would be possible.

The other craft(s)

2007-07-08T12:10:00.000-05:00

You know all these babies I've been talking about? Well, with each gift, there needs to be a card. So off to shopping for cardstock and paper I go... (by the way, I've calculated that I'd have to make well over a 100 cards for this hobby to pay off, assuming the average card from the store costs aout $ 2.50... oops...)

Here's two "boy-cards" and one "girl-card" (click for bigger).
Materials used: cardstock, patterned paper, plain paper, bubble stickers, glue, color pencils.

I was going to make more, but ran out of ideas and inspiration. Oh, well.

I was also going to take pictures of my jewelery, so here goes. These are all from the last 2-3 years. I combined the pictures into collages so I wouldn't have quite as many pictures in the post. Again, click for bigger. First the bracelets:

From the top left, specks: 1. a three strand bracelet with amazonite and silver, 2. a garden themed bracelet with mostly glass beads and silver charms, 3. a two strand bracelet with pearls, mother-of-pearl, citrine and gold 4. Check glass, mookaite, mother-of-pearl, silver, 5. my 4th of July -bracelet with glass beads, silver and pewter (I lost the cutest charm ever, a small stage coach with moving wheels and all -boo hoo!) This bracelet tells a story of immigration to America. The first charm is a US map, the second one Statue of Liberty (connection to early immigrants and Ellis Island), the third one was the stage coach, because that's how the settlers got across the country, especially to our neck of the woods. Fourth is a map of South Dakota, fifth is a baby, because Mr S is my American baby, and he connects me to this country more than anything else. The last one is an American flag. Where was I... ok, 6. One of my most used pieces of jewelry (I like green!) with handmade glass beads, silver, yellow jade (I think), and pearls.

My latest addition to the bracelets is this, with matching earrings:

This is one of my favorites, made with fire agate, carnelians and gold. It oddly reminds me of a plastic bracelet from my childhood. The problem with this is that I can't stop touching the smooth oval beads. :)

I've also got a bunch of earrings that I've made:

From top left: 1. amazxonite and silver, 2. rose quartz, pewter and silver, 3. handmade glass beads, gold, 4. glass beads, pewter and silver, 5. jade and silver, 6. glass and silver.

And my favorite pair of earrings:

Made with citrines, mother-of-pearl and gold. Love them!

And the only necklace I've made, that I'm also in love with:

The dark wood beads are bayong. For the crocheted beads I just used whatever wood beads from the craft store and crocheted in mouline thread over them. The cord is leather and the closure silver.

I get most of my beads from Artbeads. They have a large selection, free shipping and no minimum order. So for someone like me, who doesn't order large quantities, it's perfect. Even if I need just one thing, I can get it without worrying about shipping. I make jewelery mainly out of "necessity", that is, when I want a pair of earrings or something else to wear with an outfit. It's at a very random frequency, even though I enjoy doing it a lot.

Travel knitting

2007-07-01T19:21:00.000-05:00

Another work trip, another chance to spend hours on end just knitting and minding my own business. :) I sort of like work trips! This time I flew to Houston for a day, which meant two travel days with a total of 14 hours of time at airports and planes. The result?

Two baby sweaters using the Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby surprise jacket -pattern, and a little felted cozy for my new phone/toy from work.

I really enjoyed the EZ pattern -this was a first for me. The Baby surprise jacket is a fun knit and a perfect way to use leftover yarns! I used up 5 balls of miscellaneous yarns in making these two sweaters. Pretty good, I would say. So the total cost for making two baby gifts was $ 3.50 for the pattern (plus shipping) and about $ 3.00 for the buttons. Not bad.

Here's the front of the first one before finishing the shoulder seams and weaving in the ends:

The back with the shoulder piece folded down to show the construction:

The back with the shoulder piece up:

The finished sweater:

This one was knitter using a dark green, a sage green and a white DK weight yarn and 3.25 mm circular needles. The fabric is maybe a little on the dense side, and the sweater is quite small (0-3 month size), so I used a 3.75 mm needle for the next one, and added a few stitches across the back and sleeves. The pink and the maroon are left over yarns from the Argyle vest, and the white is the same as in the first sweater above. Here's the sweater from the inside, spread out:

The front folded up:

The back:

The sleeve:

And finished:

And the felted phone cozy, using Paton's Soy wool:

Pattern from the "make it up as you go" collection, using 4.5 mm needles, 48 stitches around, attached I-cord edging and loops. The stripes just happened to turn out symmetrical, which made me very happy.

More baby stuff...

2007-06-23T12:37:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that knitting baby stuff is addicting. Everything gets finished so quickly and it's all so cute! But this addiction is actually ok, since so many of my coworkers are having/have recently had a baby (the baby in the last post is not mine, she belongs to a friend -just thought I'd clarify). So I can easily knit a whole bunch of baby garments without feeling weird about it. ;)

This is for a little baby girl that was born last week:

It shoul fit her just as the weather starts to get cool again sometime this fall. The pattern was the usual "make-it-up-as-you-go", using Blue Sky Dyed Cotton and 4.5 mm needles. It's a little thick for a baby, but I had ordered this yarn and the color wasn't what I expected -not something I'd wear, but fits a baby perfectly. And the yarn is soooo soft!

I've also ordered the pattern for the EZ Baby Surprise Sweater, and I think I'll be making a couple of those, once I get the pattern in the mail. Unfortunately Schoolhouse Press can't send their patterns electronically, so you have to wait for the mailman to bring it. (What business these days doesn't have the capability to PDF documents and e-mail them?... I just wonder...)

I finished Pippa last weekend, and I have to say I'm most happy with it. I love the color, love the softness of the yarn (I hope it wears well) and love the fit. This sweater will get used a lot!

Pattern: Pippa by Anna aka Amelia Raitte
Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton, 11 balls, 50 g each
Needles: Addi bamboo 3.25 mm circular
Mods: I started the neck line a little earlier than specified in the pattern.

This was a very nice basic sweater pattern, nothing goofy or too complicated. It is fairly short, so there are no waist shaping or decreases, just increases for the chest. The sleeves are pretty long, which I prefer, and my arms are quite long anyway. But if your arms are short, you might want to make them a little shorter.

And one more shot of the matching earrings I happened to have:

Which reminds me, I should take and post some pictures of my hand made jewellery some time...

The Dark Side

2007-06-14T22:06:00.000-05:00

Yes, I admit it. I take occassional trips to the dark side. Every now and then, the urge hits me, and I just have to do it. It doesn't last long, but passes fairly quickly. This time it was inspired by the fact that I noticed a little friend of mine was missing a summer hat. And a fine lady can't very well go around without a hat! This problem had to be fixed immediately.

Enter Rowan Cotton Glace and a crochet hook and two days later, The Hat:

Modeled here by a very conveniently sized foam ball:

This would have taken even less time, had I had a pattern and had I crocheted a test swatch, or at least done some planning. But without any one of those, I made the whole thing at least 2 or 3 times with all the ripping back.

I added a little flower to hold the brim up:

And here's the young lady with her new hat. It ha a little room for her sweet head to grow yet, but all in all it fits pretty well.

Sweater progress

2007-06-10T00:03:00.001-05:00

I guess I'd better write an update on my progress on the green cardi, since Maud said to come look at my blog for another version of Anna's Pippa. ;)

I've actually made pretty good progress, what with the trip to Quebeck and a quick turn-around in New York a couple of weeks ago. I was actually hoping to finish this weekend, but the good weather and gardening interrupted my knitting in a very effective manner. It's about midnight, and this is the first time today that I sit down and have a moment to knit.

I have both the fronts, the back, and one sleeve done, and have just started on the second sleeve. I initially bought 10 balls of yarn, but half way through the sleeve it was obvious that I was going to run out, so I went and bought 2 more. Now I may actually have a full ball left over, but this being one of my favorite yarns (Rowan Wool Cotton), I don't mind.

Yesterday at the garden store, we got something a little different just for fun. We saw these water plants that are for fish ponds, and I thought why couldn't we have a little pond in a pot and a couple of plants in it.

The big one is called water lettuce, and is such an interesting plant. The leaves are all thick and puffy. The little things floating on the water -well, I can't remember what they were called, but those were sold by the quarter cup. They are very cute up close: In the water we also have a few long skinny plants that Mr S calls snakes and I would call just water weeds. They are the same ones I just hate when they touch my leg or foot, when I'm swimming. But in a pot on the deck, they are just fine. ;)

Here's a few more garden shots for your enjoyment (click for bigger):

The container garden on the deck, mainly herbs and salad greens:

Some berries and vedgetables, and a garden helper:

FOs

2007-05-31T21:48:00.000-05:00

As you may have noticed from the added photos in the last post, I finished the red Pinheads and Picot socks. They are super comfy, and even though today was a fairly warm day, I've been wearing them all evening. I just love how hand knitted socks feel on your feet, and whenever I get a pair done, I have to wear them right away. And talking about wearing your hand knitted socks, I ordered a pair of shoes that will allow me to wear them to work, too. When the weather cools down again, that is.
I think these will look very nice with wool socks. They are Red Wing Alexandrias -a brand I've never worn before, but they look comfy. Most of my shoes are SoftSpots, because they have really nice ones for wide feet. And I order all my shoes online, because so few store carry wide sizes any more. I could go on and on about this...

But there's something I've been wondering about when it comes to wearing your own handmade socks. Do you wear them to work? And do you have certain ones that you can wear to work and others not? (I'm thinking black or other more subtle colors that wouldn't be too obvious if you have any kind of a dress code.) I've wondered about this for a while, and would like to hear from you.

I also finished something else, namely the Clementine shawlette. I actually finished it over a week ago already, but didn't get a chance to take pictures, other than of the blocking.

I used sock yarn to knit this to get it a little heavier than lace weight. This took almost 200 g of yarn on 3.5 mm needles. I really enjoyed knitting it, it was fairly mindless with the easy to memorize pattern and all. I made a couple of changes to the pattern, though (hey, that's new! Who would have thought...) Other than knitting with a different weight yarn, I added two pattern repeats sideways, because with just 5 repeats it would have been way too narrow. I also added some short rows on the last row to make the join work better. The zig-zag pattern would pull otherwise, when you join it head to head. I thought I'd try short rows (very short, 6 stitches for each pattern repeat), and it worked. So the zig-zag is still a zig-zag even at the join.

Here's a couple of modeled shots, too. It works perfect for keeping me warm in my chilly office.

My husband says I look too serious... but look at those pretty skies and the slough in the back of our house getting all green! It's full of birds, as you might guess. So much so that we can't sleep with the windows open, because the birdies start screaming EARLY in the morning and wake us up.

"Pinheads and Picot" sock pattern

2007-05-27T20:19:00.000-05:00

Pinheads and Picot socks

*edited to add photos.
The socks are knitted using a main color and a contrast color. You will need about 100 g of the main color and a few grams of contrast color. The instructions are written for 60 stitches. Choose a stitch count that fits your foot and the yarn you are using. I used Inspirations Yarn Java on 2.5 mm needles, but this yarn is no longer available. It is similar in thickness to Koigu KPPPM, and some other a little thicker sock yarns. It is easiest to work the sock on a count that is divisible by 6, but any count divisible by 2 will work. (The flower pattern in the leg repeats 6 times. If your stitch count is not divisible by 6, the flowers will not be evenly spaced. It is up to you, if you feel that this is critical, or not.)

Abbreviations: MC = main color, CC = contrast color

Cast on 60 s using the main color and provisional cast on.

Picot: Knit 4 rows (you will have a total of 5 rows in main color, including the cast on). Knit 1 row in contrast color. Next row: *k2tog, YO*. Repeat *-* to the end of row. Knit 1 row. Switch back to main color, knit 4 rows. 5th row pick up the cast on stitches and knit together with live stitches. Pick out the waste yarn in the provisional cast on.

Leg: Knit 3 more rows in main color. Next row: *k1 MC, k1 CC*. Repeat *-* to the end of row. Next row: *k1, p1* (knit over MC stitches, purl over CC). Repeat *-* to the end of row. K 3 rows in MC.

Flower pattern: *k3, (YO, k1) 5 times, k2*. Repeat *-* to the end of row. Next row: *k3, (drop YO, pick up s) 5 times, place the 5 stitches back on left needle, knit through all 5 stitches: (k1, YO, k1, YO, k1); k2*. Repeat *-* to the end of row.

Knit 3 rows in MC. Next row: *k1 MC, k1 CC*. Repeat *-* to the end of row. Next row: *k1, p1* (knit over MC stitches, purl over CC). Repeat *-* to the end of row.

Knit 29 rows in MC, or to desired leg length. With the last 15 s of the 29th row, *k1 MC, k1 CC*, and continue through the first 15 s of the 30th row.

These 30 s are the beginning of the heel flap. Turn the sock. K3, *p1, k1* to the last 3 stitches (purl on top of MC, knit on top of CC), k3, turn. *Knit across, turn. K3, p to the last 3 s, k3, turn.* Repeat *-* until the height of the heel flap is 24 rows (including the 2-color set up row).

Turning the heel: Knit 2 stitches past the middle point of the heel flap (k17). Ssk, k1, turn. S1, p5, p2 tog, p1, turn. S1, k6, ssk, k1, turn. Continue in a similar manner until all the stitches have been used. 18 stitches remain on the needle.

Gusset: Knit across the heel flap and pick up 13 stitches from the side of the heel flap. Knit around the top and pick up 13 stitches on the other side. Knit in the round and decrease 1 s every 2 rows on both sides of the foot until 60 s remain.

Foot: Knit until the sock just covers your pinky toe.

Toe: On the top of the sock, *k1 MC, k1 CC*, repeat *-*. Wrap the last stitch on the top side without knitting, turn. *P1, k1* to the next to last stitch, wrap the stitch and turn. Continue in stockinette with MC, working a short row toe until 12 stitches remain in the center. Turn the toe and knit until all the wrapped stitches have been used up. Kitchener stitch the opening shut.

Weave in ends.

You may copy and use this pattern for your own personal use, but, please, don’t sell, distribute, or copy it for others without my permission.

comments

2007-05-21T21:58:00.000-05:00

For some reason the comments in the last post aren't working, but if you'd like to leave one, please e-mail me through the link in the left side bar. I think it's a Blogger issue that hopefully will get fixed sometime soon.

I'm here...

2007-05-19T22:25:00.000-05:00

Sorry for disappearing like that for two weeks, but I was in Quebec for a while on a work trip, and didn't really have internet connection at all, while I was there. A beautiful city, by the way. It was my first visit to Canada, and I really liked it. Except for the airports. Canadians are almost worse than Finnish people, I think they actually like standing in line. There was a line everywhere. Slow and long. Oh, well. I made all my flights (thanks to long lay-overs), and enjoyed the trip.

As usual, I got a lot of knitting done while in the air and at the airports (I wasn't knitting while standing in line, though, which is probably why I didn't actually finish anything.) I'm going through a spout of startitis, and so I started another new project before finishing the previous one. But I wanted something good for travel knitting, which a sweater is usually not, because you have to measure so often. And what would be more perfect than a scarf! I'd had my eyes on the Clementine shawlette from the Interweave Knits spring 07 issue. I decided to use the blue sock yarn ("Sea glass") that I recently dyed. I ran out of yarn, though, and had to dye some more, when I got home to be able to finish.
This shawlette is knit in two pieces starting from both ends, and then grafted together. I've got a little more to go on one side, but that should be a nice Sunday evening project.

Talking about Interweave Knits, I think the patterns get weirder and weirder in every issue, and I've actually decided to let my subscription expire. I'm voting with my dollars, because I feel that the number of quality patterns is diminishing in the magazine, and it's not what I want to read any more. The only pearls in the bunch in the last issue were Veronik's Spiral boot socks and Kate Gilbert's Syncopated hats. But what is up with Blouson? or the Wing top? They look more like a combination of all the mistakes and bad knitting or design that I always try to avoid. Every magazine is going to have something that I wouldn't necessarily want to knit, but I think the majority of the patterns shoud be decent. At least so that they are inspiring and nice to look at, even though I may not want to wear the particular piece of clothing myself. What I want to see is well thought through designs and clever details, not a bunch of stuff thrown together without a single thought towards fit or novel ideas. I can't wait to see what Eunny can do with this magazine...

About the red socks in the last post, I will definitely write up the pattern, it's very easy. I'm trying to decide how to write my patterns, though. Should I write them in great detail so that even a beginning knitter can figure out what to do, or less detail so that you would have to know how to do certain things without explanation. Such as, "rnd 87, begin neck steek". Should I explain how to do a steek? Also sock heels, somebody who has knitted at least a few pairs of socks, knows how a heel works and only needs a few numbers to be able to replicate the heel in the pattern. And experienced knitters have a bad habit of changing the pattern anyway, especially when it comes to the heel -everybody's got their own favorite. Anyhow, I'm sort of leaning towards the "less details" way of writing them, mostly because it takes so long to write a pattern describing every little technique, but then the patterns would be less universal, and maybe not usable by less experienced knitters. What do you think?

Spring weather

2007-05-06T22:04:00.000-05:00

We feel lucky to just have missed the severe storms that were moving across the area this weekend. Some towns got about 10 inches of rain, and there were several tornadoes going around. But as is typical of South Dakota spring weather, it fluctuates so much that you literally don't know what to wear each morning. I'm compromizing with one warm foot and one cool foot:

Or maybe it's just that I only have one of these done... :) Here's a detail shot of the cuff:

I got the idea for using the blue as an effect yarn from doing a provisional cast on and using the blue as my waste yarn. It just looked really nice together with the red, and I decided to give it a shot. I have to say, that I tried a few different things, before ending up with this design. The picot was pretty clear in my mind, but the rest of it I made up as I was knitting, and I think each part I ended up frogging at least once or twice.

Here's the heel detail:

And the toes:

I have to admit that I'm quite pleased with the result. And as always, this yarn is a pleasure to knit with. (Sorry I can't link to the yarn any more, it has been removed from the store web site. I'm looking for new sources of undyed yarns, so if you know of any good ones, please let me know!)

I might have to slow down with the second sock a little, because there's a competing project. I know, I know, I have more than enough unfinished projects that really should be competing, but Maud corrupted me. She knit this beautiful spring green sweater that really hit the nerve with me. I had to run and buy the yarn for it and start right away.

The pattern is Amelia's (Anna's) Pippa. It has a similar small cable that I tried in the pink swatch in the last post:

I'm using Rowan wool cotton instead of Debbie Bliss Baby cashmerino. The gauge is very similar and the LYS had a better color available in the wool cotton. Plus it's one of my favorite yarns, so it all worked out ok. I'm not quite sure, if I have enough yarn, but I'm using the age old method of knitting really fast to try to make it last longer. ;)

knitting?

2007-04-29T15:18:00.000-05:00

Yes, there's been knitting! Like I said last time, I've been swatching. Nothing specific, I just wanted to try some of the stitch patterns form the new book. And somehow I've felt like doing just short little projects lately, nothing big and intensive. And by small I mean... well, small.

Don't ask me why, I don't know. This little tiny sock is obviously more decorational than functional, and I just felt like making one. That's all. The other small projects are a little bigger:

This is a cabled rib that I found particularly pretty. I think it would add a lot of interest to a basic ribbed sweater. I have no further plans for it, though, I just like it.

The same thing stretched out:
Here's another little square that I just felt like knitting:

A cotton wash cloth. I've never really used them, and wanted to find out what the fuss is all about. Now I can. ;)

I also got the Trekking socks done:

I almost feel bad about the hot weather now (almost), because I can't even think about wearing any of my hand knitted socks. Today the temperature was 33 C (90 F), and there was no way I was going to wear any kind of socks. Thankfully it was Sunday and our schedule consisted of gardening and grilling.

I was playing around with PhotoImpact a little:

I like PhotoImpact better than PhotoShop. I think PhotoShop is unnecessarily difficult for an amateur to use, it's insanely expensive, and PhotoImpact can do just about everything I would do in PhotoShop, anyway. And I'm not talking about professional use here, just me and my amateur photo editing needs. ;)

The next sock project is using the newly dyed yarn, colorway Pomegranate and a little bit of leftover blue from about a year ago:

I'm just having fun with the colors, and making the pattern up as I go. We'll see how it turns out.

new trend...

2007-04-22T20:28:00.000-05:00

This seems to be a recurring trend: I have very little knitting progress to report. This time the reason is this:
Meet Suzy, our newest family member! She's a 6-week-old beagle, and about the cutest thing you'll ever see! Knitting time has been limited, and the most I've gotten done is half a sock and some swatching from the Japanese knitting books. Also, summer has finally arrived (we basically skipped spring this year), and the warm weather is not very inspiring, when it comes to knitting. Not that I would ever quit, but I might slow down a little. In fact, I think my family will appreciate that...

Liz asked, if the books are in Japanese -yes, they are, and no, I don't know Japanese, but I like a good challenge. ;) I don't think I'll try to learn Japanese just to read the patterns, but everything is fortunately charted down to a very close detail, so I should be able to figure them out. And what I can't figure out, I might just have to make up.

The winter is not over...

2007-04-11T22:01:00.000-05:00

It's been snowing here for the last two days, and I have to say that I've had just about enough of that stuff... but it's been a good excuse to dig out the heavier knits again. My favorite is a Clapotis out of Malabrigo -so soft and so big, so comforting! I haven't shown it here in the blog, because I made it before I started blogging. BTW, have you noticed, did Malabrigo change their yarns? Where is the alpaca??

Over Easter weekend, I didn't get much knitting done. The socks? -not done yet. The sweater? -not done. I was just completely overwhelmed by the beauty of these:

Three Japanese craft books that are so cram packed full of pretty patterns that I want to make almost every one of them and don't know where to start! Well, this is of course a good problem to have, I'm not complaining, but it's slowing me down.

I will definitely make a couple of these sweaters:but also the accessories are just unbearably pretty:

I almost can't take it!! And I feel like I have to start knitting every one of these things right away!But that of course won't happen... that's ok, though. I'm just happy that I have a ton of really nice patterns waiting when I'm looking for something to knit for next winter. Because these are mostly winter knits, and I don't think I'll be starting a scarf (except for lace) or a pair of gloves any time soon.

I did start a swatch from the "300 Stitch Patterns":
This is pattern numbre 071, in case anybody is interested. I used a leftover ball of Elann Peruvian Alpaca and 3.5 mm needles. I made it 20 x 20 cm, so I can use it as an Afghan square later. This is a very fun pattern and looks nice on both sides, so I might even use it for an Afghan project myself. I have a bunch of some chunky weight wool somewhere that would be suitable for that.

I also found the time to do some dyeing, since I promised Pat I'd send her some hand dyed sock yarn. I had enough undyed yarn left for three pairs of socks, and decided to dye it all at once. This is the colorway I dyed with Pat in mind:
Pat gave me free hands and didn't have any special wishes about the color, so I looked around in the blog to see what kind of colors she usually picks. Bright, clean colors, nothing too muted. Am I right, Pat? :) So I dyed this with thoughts of fruits and flowers in mind, watermelons, poppies and sunflowers. A color that would make you think of warm sunny summer days, when you wear the socks. I decided to name the color "Tutti Frutti". I hope you'll like it, Pat, I'll be sending it your way soon! (I know you're on a trip right now, so I'll wait a few days before putting it in the mail.)

The colors I dyed for myself were a sea blue with lighter greens that remind me of sea glass:
You can only see a little bit of the lighter colors here, but they are in there, trust me. ;) I made it with wide stripes, and after I had started, I realized that a smart person would have divided the yarn into two 50 g skeins before starting, instead of dyeing it all in one. Now I'll either have two unmatching socks, or a lot of ends to weave in. Oh, well, I guess I learned something there... Anyhow, I'm calling the color "Sea glass".

The last one is "Pomegranate", a somewhat muted dark pink:

And here are all three:

Warm toes

2007-04-04T22:40:00.000-05:00

Last week I had to get some socks on the needles, especially considering that I have grown my sock yarn stash much bigger than it really needs to be, but also just because I didn't have any. On the needles that is. Except the swirl socks, but they are way too complicated to take them with and knit a little here and there, or even knit while watching TV or reading blogs. So I started a pair from the OnLine sock yarn that matches the Oxblood yarn and shoes.
I don't really have a "standard" pattern that I would always use for socks, but this is about as close as it gets. Top down, 72 stitches, 2.5 mm needles, k2p2 ribbing at the top, a few decreases in the leg, a Dutch heel (my new favorite that will replace the square heel I used to use most often), decrease back to 72 stitches, kitchener toe. I have "shapely" (someone with a poor selfesteem would say fat) calves, and I always need to do a few decreases in the leg to help keep the socks up, unless I do ribbing all the way to the heel.
Once I finished these, I immediately started another pair:
This is one of those wonderful Trekking colorways that I ordered from Germany (I think this is 76, 78 is what I used for the Pomatomus wrist warmers). Looks very close to the ones I just finished, but this is really much more purple, whereas the OnLine socks are more brownish. The gauge of Trekking and OnLine in almost exactly the same, but Trekking is much softer. Not that OnLine is hard, either, and I certainly don't mind it for socks, but Trekking is easier on my hands while I'm knitting.

Now to the contest for the promised sock yarn. I used Excel (my favorite piece of software, of course) and a random number generator to find the lucky winner. Therefore no pictures of drawing from a hat, or anything. But this way it's absolutely fair, and the geometry or the way I folded the pieces of paper don't matter. ;) And the winner is... (*drum roll*) ...PAT! Congratulations, Pat! Could you please e-mail me using the link in the left side bar, and let me know your name and address, and also what colors you would like in your yarn. I am going to dye some for you in the next week or so, and send it your way.

As far as my favorite project to knit... aagh, I can't choose!! But if I really just think about the knitting part of it, I think Hyrna Herborgar was my favorite. The yarn was very nice and soft, the pattern was interesting and the result pretty. All the other guesses were very good, too, and I could probably come up with a way in which every one of those projects was my favorite. Some are my favorites to wear, some I think are the prettiest, some were fun, some fast, many tought me something new, some gave me a huge sense of accomplishment... I can't think of anything that I didn't really enjoy knitting. I guess it makes sense, since I wouldn't have knitted it, if I didn't like it.

I have also been working on writing out the pattern for the stripy vest. I know a couple of people were interested, so I'll try to get it posted soon. After that, I'll do the same with the zippered cardigan.

Warm wrists

2007-03-28T22:55:00.000-05:00

I was going to draw names for the winner already today, but I think I will give people one more week to get their names on the list. I know I have more readers than that! And mom, this would be a good time to learn how to leave comments! ;) Anybody who didn't comment on the last post, go ahead and leave your name down there, and you might get lucky and win some yarn.

This leads me to another subject -it's interesting to see these ups and downs in then (knitting) blog world. Ups and downs in posting and in commenting, how they vary with seasons and holidays. Lately I myself have been exploring other blogs, ones that I don't normally read. I have found a couple of amazing ones. One is this cupcake blog. Yes, cupcakes! I didn't know people blog about cupcakes, but then again, I've gotten weird looks and questions from other people, when I told them I have a knitting blog... I've been asked why anybody would want to read about knitting, and this particular person was not trying to be mean or anythig, they were just honestly wondering. The other new blog I found is this Japanese fiber artist's blog. Her English is not perfect, but her art is just unreal! Make sure you browse the archives!

The sweater that I had in the works (still do) a couple of posts ago was the Bell sleeve jacket (number 15) from the Holiday Vogue Knitting from last year. I finished the back and the front pieces, but then felt like I needed something that didn't require for me to read the chart or instructions constantly. But first I needed to free up one of my 2.5 mm circulars, so I had to finish the Pomatomus wrist warmers:

I really like the texture of this pattern, but it was such a pain to knit with all those twisted stitches (and this is just my opinion ;) that I don't think I'll use it again. Very pretty, but too much pain for the gain. Oh, well. The yarn in the background of the first picture is OnLine Supersocke in Sierra, and it's my next brainless project, plain stockinette stitch socks. I really like the color(s) of this yarn -it's "oxblood" with some moss green and some lighter color speckles. By the way, oxblood doesn't sound quite as poetic as "chartreuse", but I guess it makes sense. :) But better colors of that next time, and maybe a progress update on the sweater. (I really don't want to call it the oxblood sweater... I'll have to come up with a better nick name for it...)

a year in review

2007-03-21T21:51:00.000-05:00

This is kind of embarrassing, but… I managed to miss my own blog anniversary! I didn’t completely forget, but I just didn’t check the date early enough, and the actual anniversary passed already. And I was going to make a big deal out of it and everything… oh, well. I’ll just have to do it now!

Happy birthday my blog! :)

It has been so much fun sharing my work with you, and starting to get comments has been just thrilling to me! I’m so glad I started a blog, and even though time might be scarce sometimes, I try to keep a fairly regular schedule of posting, because that’s what I appreciate in others’ blogs, too.

I wanted to reflect back at the things I made during the year, and especially all the new things I learned. I usually try to incorporate something new in each project I start so as not to get bored with the process. I rarely knit the same thing twice and even if I do, I try to do it a little differently the second time. Here are some of the new things I’ve learned/done this past year:

A lace scarf (believe it or not, I had never made one before)

Provisional cast on

Provisional cast off
Kitchener stitch

Toe up socks

Short row heel

Dutch heel

Entrelac

Dyeing yarn using different methods

Twist cables and frilly cast on in the Latvian mittens

I-cord edging

Twisted stitch ribbing

Steeks

Swirl knitting

Attaching a zipper to a knitted cardigan

Felting in the washer

Beaded stitch markers

Crochet cast off

Three needle cast off

Slip stitch patterns

Quite the list, huh? I’m not sure if I can find as many new techniques to learn this year, but I’ll try! If it weren’t for all the knitting blogs out there, I would still be knitting all my projects using the few basic techniques I learned years ago. Reading blogs has taught me so much, and I am a firm believer in the power of the global community! And not only have I learned new things, but I’ve also gotten new friends that I otherwise would never have met.

To add a little excitement, I want to give away a prize, and I want to do it by the way of a contest. Sort of. The task is to vote for your favorite FO (finished object) from the past year, and we’ll see, who can match mine. Now, I know that those, who know me well have the advantage of being better able to guess what my favorite piece of work might be, so I will draw the winner of some hand dyed sock yarn from all the commenters (heh, that word doesn’t pass the spell check…), not just the ones that guessed right. So if you haven’t been reading this blog since the beginning, browse through the archives and find your favorite thing! In my next post I will reveal what was my favorite thing to knit.

color fixation

2007-03-12T22:27:00.000-05:00

Does it ever happen to you that you find yourself obsessed with a color? Maybe a color that isn't your usual choice, but something a little outside your comfort zone? This happens to me every now and then. I seem to pick things in that particular color quite unconsciously, until I've had my fix. Then I can move onto other colors again. This time the color is this deep reddish brown, or brownish red, I can't even decide which to call it. And I don't know one of those fancy color names for it, like "chartreuse" or "turquoise" and the like (I'm terrible at those... for me it's red, dark red, light red, bright red, orangy red, bluish red and so on.) I realized after I got home that the Cascade 220 I bought on my trip matched with the sock yarn I had also just bought, as well as with my new shoes:
Later on I noticed that it also was the color of the purse I dug out and wanted to start using again. We'll see if this will extend to my whole wardrobe, or if this will be enough for now. :)

By the way, I'm in love with Cascade 220! It is yummy soft and sooo nice to knit. And not terribly expensive, either, and the amount of colors that are available is just mind boggling. I've started this (actually just finished the back piece, but it's not blocking yet, just pinned down for the picture):

Can anybody guess what it is? Here's a hint: the original (from a knitting magazine) is knitted in the same yarn in a lavender blue.

Thank you all for your comments again lately. I'm sorry for not being more diligent about replying to you, but lately I haven't had a lot of time to devote to blogging. I wish I did. A lot of the comments also don't link to your e-mail, so even if I wanted to, I can't always reply. Nevertheless, all comments are greatly appreciated and are very important to me. Thank you!

A very good trip...

2007-03-04T23:09:00.000-06:00

I just got back from Chicago, where I attended a conference with a coworker for a few days. A "Nerd conference", according to my friend. :D This still cracks me up, and we made fun of it every day of our trip. Weather was lousy both there, as well as back here, so I got quite a bit of knitting done. Delays on airports, flights, spending evenings in the hotel room (we're nerds, remember), and an extra day of travel because of the snow storm in the upper Midwest.

I finished the blue stripy vest just on time for the end of the yarn diet, and actually wore it to class on Thursday.
Ta-daa!!I am very happy with the fit, and the thickness of it is ideal. It's thinner than the Argyle vest, and not as hot.

I also started a pair of Pomatomus socks in one of the Trecking colors I just ordered. I LOVE the color, but the sock leg turned out too tight, so I decided to turn them into wrist warmers. I neede pretty ones anyway, so these will definitely fit the bill:
It's a crappy picture, but trust me, they are really very pretty!

I also went yarn shopping (in March, mind you! I didn't break the rules of the yarn diet.) at Loopy Yarns, that was a very nice little yarn shop with a very nice selection of yarn and not too high prices. I'll have to post about my purchases at another time, as it's getting way too late, and I need some shut-eye.

Change of plans

2007-02-24T11:26:00.000-06:00

Last week I was going to start another sweater after the one I finished, but then I changed my mind. I've been wanting to make another vest for a whole, but just haven't found the perfect yarn. Or, well, there's a lot of perfect yarns out there, but I was looking for the perfect color combination, and just hadn't found it in any of those otherwise perfect yarns (price was also a factor -I didn't want to pay upwards of $ 50 for a vest). And since I'm on a yarn diet, I decided to take a close look at my left over yarn bin. And lo and behold, enough of blue yarns in DK weight to make at least one vest, if not more! Who would have guessed! :D

I'm going for just simple stripes, nothing fancy:

With 3 mm needles it's kind of slow going, but I'm still enjoying it very much.

Just in time!

2007-02-18T13:40:00.000-06:00

Just in time before it gets too warm to wear anything thick and woolly, that is! I finished my burnt red cadigan:Pattern: my own, started on Feb 2, finished on Feb 17
Yarn: Tahki Donegal Tweed
Needles: 4.5 mm circular Knitpicks

I very much like how it turned out, but the yarn wasn't the most pleasant to knit with. It was quite rough and non-elastic, so it was very hard on my fingers. Especially since I was only knitting this and nothing else for the last two weeks. But again, I like the end result, so I guess it was worth the pain.

This tweedy yarn is very light, it only took about 550 g to knit a medium size sweater, which is not very much at all! I had bought a full bag, which was 8 100 g skeins (not 10 as usual and as I thought it would be), and first I wasn't sure if it would be enough. Well, it was plenty, and now I have over 2 full skeins to figure out what to do with.

As far as I can remember, this was the first zipper I had put on a cardigan. It wasn't as diffucult as I thought, actually it was easier than most zippers, because you don't even have to fold the fabric under, so you can just sew over it once and you're done.

When I find the time, I will write the pattern out and publish it here.

Next is another sweater from a fine boucle yarn. I'll tell more about that when I have finalized my plans.

Bag

2007-02-08T22:48:00.000-06:00

I know this is supposed to be a knitting blog, but I just have to show you all my new tote bag. I found this coolest ever fabric (I'm sure you'll agree) at a store in Minneapolis, and made a bag out of it. I'm one of those people who are always hauling a whole bunch of stuff with them everywhere, and sometimes I feel like I look like a bag lady... So I needed a nice new bag, so that I can at least look like a stylish bag lady!

Here's the inside (they also had very cool matching fabrics for lining):

And a close-up of the coolest ever fabric:

I think the name of the store was Calico Corner. Very nice little fabric store -I could hardly get out of there, because I wanted to buy just about everything they had, but my pocket book just wouldn't allow it. I did also got a couple of other fabrics for more bags, but those will have to wait till later.

There has been some knitting progress, too, mainly due to the thicker-than-usual yarn.

I've finished both front pieces and have started the back:

(Lankahamsterit: tässä on vähän vajaa 200 g lankaa. Erittäin riittoisaa, muuten...)

Socks and sweaters

2007-02-04T12:51:00.000-06:00

Remember the yarn diet I was participating with? Well, that started February first, and one of the ideas of this whole thing is to try to knit as much as you can during the month of February. The winner takes home a prize that -of course - is yarn. But only projects started during this month count, so I was trying to finish off a couple of projects. The first one was E's sweater that has been in the works since Thanksgiving. And I have to admit that it still isn't quite finished, I need to bind off the collar, and find a suitable zipper.

I used a crochet enforced steek for the front:
Cutting the steek:And here's what it looked like after cutting:

The steeks were folded under and stitches picked up from the top:
I don't have a picture of the collar yet, but maybe some day you'll actually get to see the finished product.

I also worked on my travel project, a pair of stockinette stitch socks from Koigu KPPPM. I haven't really shown any pictures of these before, because they've lived in my bag and in my car. I don't remember the colorway, and my Little Helper took care of shredding the bands before I got a chance to write it down. He's very helpful that way. ;) Anyhow, here are the finished socks:
I liked the color much better on the skein than knitted up. The colors, even though lovely, turn out a little messy looking. But I love my new socks anyway!

Then onto the new project. I started from scratch, planning the pattern using my Excel spreadsheet again:Not the best picture ever, but you get the idea... I like it how once you've got the spreadsheet, figured out, doing the math for a new project is a breeze. Then I just print out the sheets, and off I go. I'm using Tahki Donegal Tweed and 4.5 mm needles, so it's coming out pretty fast:This is the right front. It will have a zipper closing, raglan sleeves and minimal shaping at the waist. I might add pockets, not quite sure yet.

2007-01-21T10:21:00.000-06:00

Last Friday the UPS-guy brought me this:The Unexpected Knitting by Debbie New.

It's not so much a pattern book, but more of an art book. Knitted art. A wondreful resource that opens your mind to new ways of doing things. Debbie New proves that you don't always have to knit everything straight from top to bottom or bottom to top. You can go in swirls, circles and labyrinths. The fashion is a little dated, but it's not the style of the garments that matters, it's the techniques. You can always adapt the technique to your own style.

After reading this book, I feel... liberated! I've had several ideas for socks that can't be done very well using any traditional technique, but now I know what to do! I think using the ideas from this book, I can not only draw the ideas I have, but also knit them. This will be so much fun! I can't wait to start experimenting! Here's a picture from the book of swirl socks:

I wanted to get started right away, but planning for socks made out of swirls is a little tricky. It's hard to wrap your mind around it -what shape should the swirls be that it actually makes a sock? And a sock that would fit somebody! So I started by cutting up an old sock into swirly strips of fabric. Then I drew my pattern:

Yup, that's a sock pattern! And here is one of my pieces:

The pieces of red yarn are just markers to mark the different sections of increases, decreases and straight knitting. I'm not quite sure yet how I will piece them together. This is definitely an experimental and a "learn as you go" kind of project. I've wanted to do something like this with yarns such as Trecking XXL that have slow and gradual color changes, and now I have the perfect technique to do that. So expect to see some very odd looking socks in the near future. ;)

Talking about Trecking, I'd seen some colors that I couldn't find anywhere, at least not more than one or two of them in the same place. But then I found this German yarn shop that had tons of colors! Maybe even all of them... I think I have almost all of the darker, more saturated colors from the row with numbers 71-77. And ordering from there with overseas shipping was actually cheaper than buying from here at a local yarn store. And once I had the kinks worked out with Paypal, my shipment came very fast! I was most happy with the service, and will definitely order from there again.

Entrelac cap

2007-01-18T22:22:00.001-06:00

I promised to write out the pattern for the entrelac cap/beret, so here comes. If you want a less slouchy cap, leave out one repeat of the 7-stitch squares. I've included instructions for making an Excel spreadsheet that will do the calculations for you. I highly recommend doing that, it will make your life a lot easier! You won't have to worry about finding the same yarn or getting gauge. I actually haven't even specified my gauge. I used a DK weight yarn and 3.5 mm needles.

Here's a couple more pictures of my cap:

Modeled by the wire basket.

Laying flat on the table.

Here you can really see how neat that tubular cast on edge is. This is one technique that is really worth learning, if you don't know how to do it yet!

The Entrelac Cap

By Lotta Breyer

*These instructions are written using centimeters, but you can easily substitute inches, it will not change how you do your measurements.

** At the end, you will find instructions for how to do your calculations in Excel. Enter the measured values and the formulas into your spreadsheet, and the rest of the numbers will be automatically calculated.

Knit a swatch! This is very important, since I can’t possibly tell you how many stitches you will need, unless you knit a test swatch. It can be any size, but a bigger swatch gives you a better measurement. You can knit the swatch in stockinette stitch. Measure your stitch and row gauge.

Measure your head circumference in cm. Calculate the amount of stitches needed: (HeadCirc/10)*gauge, for example, (56/10)*22=123.2. Round this down to an even number, such as 122 or 120.

The cap is knitted using tubular cast on. Start by casting half the amount of your calculated stitches (e.g. 60) using provisional cast on¹. Join in the round and knit 2 rounds. This seems like not enough stitches, but you’ll just have to trust your measurements. On the third round start picking up the stitches from the provisional cast on while undoing the waste yarn at the same time. Purl the first stitch from your needle. Knit the first stitch from your cast on. Purl the next stitch off the needle, knit the next one from the cast on. Continue in this manner until all the stitches are used. You should now have your calculated amount of stitches on your needle. Knit in k1p1 for 8 rounds.

Start the entrelac. The entrelac squares are 7 stitches wide (you can also use 8 or 9, if it better suits your stitch count). Calculate the closest number to your stitch count that is divisible by the size of the squares. (e.g. 120/7=17.1, so I could use 119=17*7 or 126=18*7; 120/8=15, which matches perfectly.) If you need to change the amount of stitches, knit one more round of rib and increase by the needed amount.

Start entrelac by knitting a row of triangles: K2, turn, P2 (or knit left to right), turn, S1 K2, turn, S1 P2, turn, S1 K3, turn… until you have used up 7 (or 8 or 9) stitches, and start the next triangle. Make as many triangles as it takes to finish the round. The direction of the rows of entrelac squares alternates between clock- and counterclockwise, the first round of triangles being clockwise. Because the first square of a row is attached to the first and last square of the previous row, this still results in a tubular piece of fabric.

To start the second round or entrelac, pick up 7 stitches from the side of the first triangle and knit them. Turn, S1 P5 P2tog, turn, S1 K6, S1 P5 P2tog etc. until you have used up all the stitches on the side of the square. Pick up the stitches for the next square and knit similarly. Continue to the end of the round.

The next round will be worked clockwise again. Pick up 7 stitches from the side of the 1^st square of the last round and purl across them on the wrong side. Turn, S1 K5 SSK, turn, S1 P6, turn, S1 K5 SSK… continue until all the side stitches are used up. Pick up the stitches for the next square and knit similarly. Continue to the end of the round.

Knit 4 repeats/rounds of 7-stitch squares. On the 5^th and 6^th entrelac round, only pick up 6 stitches from the side of each square. On the 7^th round, pick up 5. 8^th round 4.

After the round of 4-stitch squares knit a row of triangles again. Pick up 4 stitches and knit them. Turn, S1 P2 P2tog, turn, S1 K2, turn, S1 P1 P2tog, turn, S1 K1, turn, S1 P3tog,. Continue in the same manner to the end of the round.

Top decreases:

Count the amount of stitches you have, e.g. 18*4=72. Using the Excel stitch calculator, calculate your decreases, for example every row in 5 places. Decrease until you have 4 or 5 stitches left. Put all stitches on one DP needle and knit an inch of I-cord.² Pull yarn through remaining stitches and weave in ends.

¹Provisional cast on: Take a length of waste yarn and make a slip knot with your knitting yarn. Cast on stitches like you would with long tail, the waste yarn being the tail. The waste yarn can later be removed to reveal a row of live stitches.

²I-cord: place all stitches on one DP needle and knit across. Push the stitches to the other end of the needle, bring the yarn around and knit across again. Repeat until desired length.

You may copy and use this pattern for your own personal use, but, please, don’t sell, distribute, or copy it for others without my permission.

Excel calculation:

Your spreadsheet should look something like this:

Enter numbers into yellow cells. The rest will be calculated automatically.

Measure:	Head circ.	56	cm
Swatch:	Stitches:	21	s per	7.5	cm
	Rows:	24	r per	7.5	cm
Gauge:	Stitches:	28	s/10 cm
	Rows:	32	r/10 cm

Cast on:	Head circ.	117	stitches
	Cast on:	58	stitches

Entrelac:	size of entr square	7	s
	number of squares:	18
	Stitches for entrelac:	126
	Add:	9	stitches
	add 1s every	13	stitches
	Entrelac rows with full size square	4

Top decreases:	Number of stitches:	72	s
	First decrease	2	s
	Number of rows left:	13	r
	Decreases per row:	5	dec
	stitches btw decr on first row	12	s ->	K	12	, K2tog

Now I will tell you exactly what to type in into the cells. If you start at the corner of a spreadsheet, your column for calculations will be C. The First cell with a number is C3. That is where I have the number 56 above for head circumference.

EDIT: The contents of cell C9 have been changed below. Simplyducky was paying attention and found a mistake -the reference that was there before was for the unadjusted row gauge. Thank you! I also changed the I's to C's and the K's to E's. Don't ask me how I got off by so many columns -my only excuse is that I'm always writing these posts way too late a night, and even though I try hard, I'm usually not thinking straight any more at this hour... hopefully the whole thing makes more sense now to anybody, who wants to attempt making their own spreadsheet!

EDIT: one more time for C9! Thanks again for the comments!

Enter into cells:

C3 enter head circumference

C4 enter counted stitches from swatch, E4 enter width of the counted stitches

C5 enter counted rows from swatch, E5 enter height of the counted rows

C6 enter =C4/E4*10

C7 enter =C5/E5*10

C8 blank

C9 enter =ROUNDDOWN(C6*C3/10,0)

C10 enter =ROUNDDOWN(C9/2,0)

C11 blank

C12 enter size of entrelac square (7)

C13 enter =EVEN(C9/C12)

C14 enter =C13*C12

C15 enter =C14-C9

C16 enter =ROUNDDOWN(C9/C15, 0)

C17 enter =4-(C12-7)

C18 blank

C19 enter =C13*4

C20 enter =C19-(C22*(C23+2))

C21 enter =ROUNDDOWN(C19/6.28*C7/I6,0)

C22 enter =ROUNDDOWN(C19/C21,0)

C23 enter =ROUNDDOWN(C19/C22,0)-2 and E23 enter =C23

And if entering all that stuff is just too much work, you can always e-mail me and ask me to send the spreadsheet as an attachment. :)

Socks for the cold weather

2007-01-17T22:54:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I got a head start on working on some of the stash yarns, although the yarn diet (which includes a competition on who uses the most stash yarn during the month) doesn't start till February 1st. But I can't possibly not knit until then! I started with the LL sock yarn, the colorful one for the 2-year-old. This is both the knit and the purl side:

I actually like the purl side better!
I wove in the ends so that they can be used either way. Here's Mr S trying them on:

After I got these done, I actually started working on a sweater I started a year ago. It was only missing a shawl collar, so not too much work left on it. I don't know why I haven't gotten it done earlier... It's finished now, but I don't have any pictures yet, plus I have to block it. Maybe this weekend.

Yarn Diet and The Stash

2007-01-12T16:02:00.000-06:00

I have a confession to make. I have been terribly bad at sticking to my knit-along commitments. Please don't shoot me! I signed up for Socktoberfest, and guess what: didn't submit a single pair of socks. I just didn't make any during that time ( :-O !!), and didn't feel like starting new ones just for that. I also signed up for Lonesome skein, and, well, you guessed it, haven't submitted a single thing. I haven't even been following what others have knit -shame on me! But this time I'll do better. I signed up for a yarn diet that I found through Kristel's blog (her blog is in Finnish, but don't be scared away, her knits are beautiful and worth looking at even if you don't understand a word she is saying.)

A couple of weeks back I organized my stash, and inventoried everything I have. I wasn't actually even doind as bad as I thought. Half of my yarns were leftovers from previous projects, which I don't think counts against me. It just means I knit a lot. But during the yarn diet I'll try to use up as much as I can of the new yarns in my stash. Here's what I've got to work with:Three totes full of yarn. Well, actually more like two and a half, and only one of them is full of new yarn. But to be honest with you, all my sock yarns are elsewhere, and if I'd put them in these totes, I'd most likely have all three of them full.

Some Misti Alpaca lace weight in a delicate green color for a lace scarf. Haven't decided on the pattern yet.

Nashua Handknits Creative Focus worsted weight. I was originally going to use this for some mittens, but now I'm not sure. We'll see what comes out of it. This stuff would felt nicely, so maybe some felted slippers...

Artfibers Sylph, 1060 yards, which should be enough for a sweater. Adorably soft, I can't wait to start knitting with this stuff!

Undyed yarns, both worsted for a kid's sweater, sock yarn and mohair for a scarf. Or two. There's a lot of yarn in there!

Tahki Donegal Tweed. This is a sweater for me. Still haven't decided on a pattern, but I've got some ideas. I should get started on this and get it done.

Jo Sharp Classic DK wool, also a sweater's worth. This I was planning on dyeing, but I haven't really thought about it any further than that.

Patons soy-wool, a very nice yarn, and the colors are beautiful, but I have absolutely no idea what to make out of it! Felts very nicely.

Artfibers Hana, 100 % silk. This will be a scarf.

RY Cashsoft, 9 balls. I bought these for making scarfs, but when I got them, I just loved all the colors together, and now I think I should make a sweater out of it. I might have to get a ball or two more to have enough, and I have absolutely no idea of how to combine them (stripes? Fair isle?...), but I love the yarn and want to use it.

Koigu and Lorna's Laces sock yarn. The parrot colored LL will make socks for the 2-year-old, and the Koigu is for me.

So plenty of projects for the next month or two. Or even more. :) I did place an order for some Treking XXL last week that hasn't showed up yet, so that'll be a part of the stash, too.

Last week we made another trip to New York, and again I had a lot of knitting time on planes and at airports. I started a new project just for that, and started a week ago on Friday and finished yesterday. Perfect little travel project, the Diamond Fantasy Scarf:

The yarn was Lorna's Laces Shepherd sock in Black Purl, 100 g. Needles 3.5 mm Inox aluminum.

P.S. You probably noticed that I changed my blog template. If you find anything that isn't working out -colors, links, etc., please let me know!

Last day

2006-12-31T13:24:00.000-06:00

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

2006-12-25T10:35:00.000-06:00

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...

2006-12-03T19:31:00.000-06:00

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

2006-11-19T16:28:00.000-06:00

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

2006-11-12T21:40:00.000-06:00

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...)

2006-11-05T13:57:00.000-06:00

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...

2006-11-04T12:12:00.000-06:00

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

2006-10-29T13:47:00.000-06:00

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...

2006-10-23T22:15:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-10-21T18:26:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-10-16T23:32:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-10-15T15:44:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-10-08T17:29:00.000-05:00

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

2006-10-04T22:28:00.000-05:00

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

2006-10-01T22:16:00.000-05:00

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

2006-09-25T21:54:00.000-05:00

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

2006-09-17T16:40:00.000-05:00

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

Some Argyle

2006-09-14T22:48:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I gave in.

I started the argyle vest before finishing the scarf... slap me on my fingers!

The colors on the vest are a dark plum that almost looks brown in some light, and an old rose-ish pink. I would have preferred even more old rose and less pink, but I couldn't find anything like that in a suitable yarn, so I went with this. The colors reminded me of something -my favorite ice cream! Look:

Blue Bunny Bordaux Cherry Chocolate. Mmmm...

I know I will have to get to a certain point on the vest, before I can put it down and do the 3 (!) finishing rows on the scarf. Three. I know, I know... but mind you, they are some very long rows! At least a half hour of knitting per row. Or maybe it was more like 15 minutes... but I know that over my lunch hour, I can only get 2 rows done, so that tells you something. It's slow going, and I don't really care for that.

Talking of speed, I had to time myself one day, when I read a couple of other bloggers' posts about knitting speed. So I took a pair of needles (chrome plated, if you must know), and some worsted weight yarn (7 Veljestä, if you insist), cast on 50 stitches, located a timer and a helper, and went to town (for my Finnish friends: "started knitting".) First try, I asked my helper to time me for 1 minute. Naah... I must be faster than that. Again. Still no improvement... So I said, let's do at least 4 minutes, and we'll reduce the measurement error considerably (the science geek that I am). I'm knitting like crazy, smoke is rising from the needles... this is going to be my record! How are we doing on time? Oh, so he forgot to push the start button. I take a deep breath and we do another retake... 4 min and 40 s later, I've got 280 stitches. Exactly the same speed as the first try, so apparently there was no measurement error working against me. Sigh. The bottom line is that I can knit 1 stich per second, no more, no matter how hard I try. And for lace and fair isle -I can't even think of how much slower that is! Quite a bit, that's all I know.