Mission accomplished

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three things

What do these three things have in common?


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

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


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

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


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


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

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

too fast...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Secret projects

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

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

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

Answers...

to more questions than you knew you had!

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

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

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

1. FIRST NAME?
Lotta

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

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY?
Yesterday.

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

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

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

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL?
No.

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

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

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

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

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

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

14. SHOE SIZE?
39, or 8W

15. RED OR PINK?
Red

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

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

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

20. LAST THING YOU ATE?
A Caesar salad.

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

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

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

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

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

27. FAVORITE DRINK?
Hard cider.

28. FAVORITE SPORT?
What?

29. EYE COLOR?
Brown.

30. HAT SIZE?
56 cm.

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
No.

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

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings.

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

36. HUGS OR KISSES?
Hugs.

37. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Creme brule.

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

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

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

43. FAVORITE SOUNDS?
Rain, newborn baby sounds.

44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES?
The Beatles.

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

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

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?Helsinki

48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?

No one.

and a sweater!

A headless me:

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

And another projet that would fit the Lonesome Skein knitalong:

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

It's a collar!

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

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


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

It's a sleeve!

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


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

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

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

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


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