Sweets

Last summer I found that I had three shawls named after drinks and this Easter I seem to be into sweets. The first yarn is named Dubbelnogat and it is a tasty, shiny silk. The yarn is from a small collection of hand dyed silk from Färgkraft, where they usually dye lovely, thin woolen yarns in unexpected colourways. I spotted this yarn last summer at Cina's garn and hinted to Mr P that if no one else had bought it by Christmas I wouldn't mind taking care of it. I got two 400m skeins to wrap myself in and after a lot of dreaming about the result it is finally on its way. It is interesting to see what happens to the mix of colours when you start working with a yarn that is hand dyed, so I took pictures of the process from skein to swatch.











































The yarn is actually very shiny in silver, gold and bronze but the pictures were too bright for the screen. The pattern is Tuscany by Amy R. Singer from her book No Sheep for You. This pattern is made for silk and suits the drape of the yarn and the pattern works with the colours. The first swatch is on 4mm needles (right) but it was too loose and 3,5mm (left) works much better, I will just have to add som extra repeats at the end.

Another sweet project is the Madli's Shawl by Nancy Bush from Knitted Lace of Estonia. This yarn is Nef Lace from Fyberspates in Toffee Chocolate. I made most of this on my trip to Iceland last year. Short wooden needles worked well on the plane. The yarn is extremely soft and the pattern isn't very well defined so I am not quite sure if I will follow this through to the end

Estonian lace

This blog was started two years ago when I last visited Tallinn, Estonia. Therefore it is quite fitting that I relaunch after half a year of neglect with another visit to Tallinn. A couple of weeks ago my family and some of our relatives went on a four night cruise on the Baltic Sea. One of the stops was Tallinn and of course we did some knitting related shopping. This is what my kids fell for:















Personally I prefer patterns and yarn, and this time I found a really good selection of books but no yarn that had my name on it. Since my last expedition to the book stores of Estonia several new titles on various traditional crafts had been published. One stood out from the rest and it is one of the best knitting books I have ever seen, even though I can't read the language. (The key to the charts is also given in English.) That is high praise from someone who has collected knitting books for 20 years. The book is Haapsalu sall and it is a collection of lace patterns used for making the superb Haapsalu shawls. These shawls were hand knitted in the seaside resort of Haapsalu where the elite of the Russian empire spent their holidays 100 years ago. The patterns are still very much alive and the shawls are still used as gifts to foreign dignitaries visiting Estonia. Regular turists to Tallinn, like me, will have a hard time finding any but now we can make our own.

I have started out with a sampler with some of my favourite patterns. The yarn is regular Estonian 2-ply that I bought on my last visit. The patterns should be made from much finer yarn, but this is what I had at hand. The shawl was just improvised until I ran out of yarn and then the second edging, which I had knitted earlier, was grafted on. I will post more detailed pictures on Ravelry.

All for me

Don't get me wrong, I love being generous and practical and knitting for my family. Lately I have been stressed out and knitting for relaxation, and then I find that gorgeous things for me work best.

During the holidays I was obsessed with Vivian Höxbro's Abstract Stole. Now it has been finished as well. The original has squares of 6-7cm, but mine were 8.5cm before felting and 8cm after. This means that since I made the entire length of the pattern but only five out of nine rows it is very long. The other modification I made was to leave tabs along the lower edge only, instead of the original random pattern. The ends are knitted into the following row as you go along, so there was little finishing. I felted it by washing it in the mashine accompanied with a pair of jeans. I would have liked it to felt more, but since the colours felted very differently I decided to leave it as it is. The pink felted best, but the yellow and orange hardly felted at all. That is the risk with herbal dyes I guess. Thanks mum for the yarn, and for modelling!















I admit that the I have not yet worn the stole myself. It is a bit demanding. The next shawl has been worn for a few days, and I was even stopped by a stranger at the bus stop who liked it. First she wanted to know were I had bought it (knitted it last week...) then she asked for the pattern (Icelandic lace book...) but I could give her the name of the yarn shop (Garnkorgen). I have also promised to translate the pattern for a colleague who has already "copied" the other two scarves I have used this winter. The pattern is called Hyrna Herborgar and I made a smaller version in pale pink before Christmas. This time I used Kauni yarn and 4.5mm needles for a more practical version. I love the way the stripes turned out, I only knew that I wanted the dark purple at the center, but then the purple returned just in time for the edge pattern.















Finally my new pair of Knotty gloves. Knitting these on a long circular needle only took a few nights. They look and feel great, and the purple goes well with my new shawl. The yarn is Ranco multi by Auracania, and it is new favourite. It is not only soft and beautiful, but also seems durable and I have half the skein left.

Lace and drinks

No, I don't recommend drinking and knitting, especially not lace. When I was preparing to write this post I discovered that all the lace shawls I'm working on have colours named after drinks. The first two are finished, and this is how yummy they looked before blocking:















Let's start with the green one. It is designed by Jane Sowerby and it is a variation on a pattern from her book Victorian Lace. This version appeared in Knitter's Magazine summer 2008. A free version will be on their website, but it isn't up yet. The original is knitted in Zazu by Twisted Sisters in a colour called Blue Curacao, but I'm more familiar with the green version of the drink so I made it in a nameless green lacewool from Fyberspates that is hereby named Green Curacao. As you can see it is very thin and transparent, but the yarn feels strong and when I wrap it around my neck it is warm enough. I like the shawl and it was fun to make, but there is one problem. I knitted it during the Olympics, from opening until the closing cermony. Then it got stuck because the ruffle meant there were 1925 (!) stitches to bind off, and with added picots there were 2053 actual stitches. Then a thread had to be sewn through all the picots for blocking... I don't think I will make more ruffles for a while.















The next drink is Sangria, which tastes very good on a warm Spanish night. Red wine with slices of oranges is also a fiery colourway so I thought it was just right for Icarus from Interweave Knits. The yarn is Suri Blue from Fleece Artist and it turned out to be more pink and less red than what it looked like on the skein, but it is still beautiful and so soft. This was all quick and easy and since this will be a Christmas present I might make one for me as well. I used larger needles, 4mm, and the shawl measures over 2m across the top, which made it almost to big for the bed I use for blocking.















Last night I cast on for my third drink. This is Rosé by Färgkraft, a soft pink dyed on a light grey yarn. When I bought it I thought it would be an Icarus, but when it came home it wanted to be Hyrna Herborgar from Thrihyrnur og langsjöl instead. I've loved this pattern since I got it in 1991, but I had a bit of a problem with the table cloth look of the pattern and it was hard to find a yarn that could counteract that. I think this will be just right, and it will look great with my coat. The skulls in the background is my table cloth in the kitchen, left from my son's Halloween/birthday party last week. I hadn't planned the picture, but it is sort of right with the pink and the lace.

Knits for the kids

This summer I thought about my reasons for knitting, and realized that I should think more about the result and less about the process and make things that someone would need, want and use. I'm still very much a process knitter, and I have to find the work interesting, but I have tried to be more practical. One top priority is to involve my children more. I made a pile of baby garments for them, but they were big and could hardly use them. Since then I have made very little for them, because it felt like a waste of time. Now they have shown some interest in what I'm doing and I've tried to listen to their ideas.

Some time in July my daughter asked why I didn't knit for her. She has strong opinions, so I told her to make me a drawing of what she had in mind. She came back a few minutes later with a picture of a dress with long sleeves. I immediately thought about the pattern Sand Dollar from The Children's Collection by Alice & Jade Starmore and showed it to her, and she approved. A few days later we went to the LYS to pick a yarn that was light and cool and not too expensive, and most importantly very red. We chose Blend/Tendens by Hjertegarn in cotton and acrylic. The deadline for this project is her birthday in December, so I havn't worked that much on it yet but it is small and quick to knit even if the pattern is extensive.















A couple of weeks ago I came across a Spiderman blanket made by Liisa. I had seen the pattern before, but I hadn't realized just how big and beautiful it was. When my son saw the picture he was spellbound and asked me to make one for him, so now I'm knitting as fast as I can without letting him see it. I hope to have it finished for his fourth birthday in three weeks.















Finally the best news of all. My 6-y-o daughter knits! Maybe it is because she gets hot chocolate at the knitting café and not at home, but I don't care. I gave her some cotton to start with, but it split and was hard to work with. Then we went shopping for something funnier and more suitable, and got some printed, heavy sock yarn for a scarf. Her brother wanted a ball too, for when he learned to knit. I said that might be a while but then his sister offered to make a scarf for him too. I volunteered to make his scarf, otherwise it might take a few years, and he got his favourite colour as well. I knitted half of his scarf in the car last weekend, but my daughter made slow progress and needed some more encouragement. This week I got her some domino needles that made it easier to knit with small hands

Major events week

This has been a very exciting week in my life as a knitter. It started last Tuesday when a local TV-show invited my knitting club as guests for a 25 minute program. I'm only sitting in the background, but it was still fun to see how it was all done. Those who were interviewed did a great job, as well as our speed knitter who had to knit the opponent's design. Check it out here.

The next day I got an e-mail from a big publishing company. They asked if I wanted to review a book for them if they sent me a free copy. How could I refuse? The review will appear around the date when the book is due to be released. It's a book I could have bought anyway and my expectations are high, but more about that next month. I´m a commercial blogger!

Yes, I have knitted a little too. I needed something I couldn't mess up and that would look good on TV, so I started on a little blanket. I still had to rip the TV part, but now it is growing fast. As I wrote last week I tried entrelac and a few other ideas, but it didn't look good. Finally I resorted to a pattern that I had already tried and that I had seen in this yarn. It is actually a scarf, but I'm making five sections 20X100 cm and knitting them all in one piece. If my math is right I won't have to break the yarn at all and I will need about 1.5 km of thread.
















Tonight I also cast on for the new pattern at Sockklubben, but so far it is just the same rib as last month so I can't say much about it yet. This time I am going to make it large enough for my mother so I added 8 stitches. Hope it will work.

Presents revealed

Finally knitting life can get back to normal. Seven homemade gifts and a shawl for me were ready by Christmas Eve. Some have been seen here earlier, but a few were not ready before we left the house last week. Here are a few late entries:















This is a family kit in soft, 100% wool Visjö by Östergötlands ullspinneri. Mother gets wrist warmers in crochet with two colours and loops designed by Maria Gullberg for the Hemslöjden magazine and her new book. Father gets the Henry scarf from Knitty fall 07, but with this yarn I got away with five repeats instead of seven for 20 x 160 cm. The son will be very warm in Katarina Brieditis' wasp design. My own kids have hats in blue and purple and they wore them all last winter. The mother hinted that she liked all the pieces and might be wearing them as a set...

The next picture is from the singing and dancing we did before opening the presents. I'm wearing my new Sea Silk shawl in Sangria red. There will be a better picture, and maybe a pattern, later. (Click the picture to make it bigger)

Hexagons completed

The fun is over. This is the sholder and sleeve section of the Russian coat. I decided to block it before sewing the sleeve seams and picking up the collar, because it was very bubbly and wierd looking. Now it is more presentable and I hope it stays that way when it dries. I've made an attempt to get the shades of gray symmetrical, but other than that I'm true to the pattern so far. My yarn is very different from the original though, it is probably much softer and to get 19st/10cm I use needles 4mm instead of 6mm as the pattern says. I hope the end result will work out well anyway, as I'm thinking more of a shrug than a coat.

Here is a closer look:















I found a picture of the finished Russian coat here. I'm not going to make the back that long, because I don't think it would look good on me and I don't want to buy more yarn. So far I've used almost 2/3 of the 600g in my stash. Besides, it was the shoulder section that caught my eye and it is stunning enough with a shorter back. I will shorten the pattern by knitting a triangle at each side but make the hem straight at the back.

When I ran out of hexagons yesterday I started on another Christmas project. After Cina's complaints about the endlessness of Henry I decided that it would provide mindless, bring-along knitting for a long time. The yarn is my favourite, Visjö by Östergötlands ullspinneri, and it might become a little bigger than the original, but not much.