Utmaning (challenge)

I've been asked by Maria to answer some questions, and since my policy is to stick to knitting and write in English, I will translate the questions and do my best to find a knitting angle...

Jag har blivit utmanad av Maria att svara på några frågor, och eftersom jag har bestämt mig för att hålla mig till stickning ska jag försöka vinkla det dit...

* Hur ser din att-göra-lista ut i fem punkter för idag?
1. Skriva lite på bloggen
2. Åka och titta på persienner till vardagsrummet, så jag kan sitta där mitt på dagen och sticka
3. Kontakta dagis och fritids inför höstterminsstarten
4. Göra klart min första Pomatomus, juli i Sockklubben
5. Laga en god middag till min man som börjar jobba igen efter semestern idag


* Vad gjorde du för 10 år sen?
Bodde själv i Kramfors det året och for till Island med familjen på sommaren. Köpte mönster och material till två islandströjor, en till min lillebror som inte kunde följa med och en till mig. Brorsans var ljusgrå med keltiska slingor i brunt på oket och den fick han i julklapp. Min supersnygga har jag inte börjat på än... Den största upplevelsen på resan var nog annars att se musikalen Grease på isländska med min tremänning. Vi bestämde det med hjälp av e-post, första gången jag använde det som jag kommer ihåg. Under året kandiderade jag i kommunvalet, spelade i klassisk orkester och lärde mig konversera på franska också...

* Vilka platser har du bott på?
Fränsta, Umeå, Kramfors, Sörberge och Sundsvall, alla i mitten av Sverige utom Umeå som ligger lite nordligare. Sommartid i Rinna i Östergötland tills jag var 15 år, inte så långt från Östergötlands ullspinneri, men det fanns nog inte då.

*Fem saker du skulle göra som biljonär!
1. Utbilda mig till textilkonstnär och skapa och hålla kurser
2. Skapa stipendier för andra som vill ägna sig åt sitt hantverk på heltid
3. Resa på långresor; hyra hus i Frankrike, Irland och andra platser som lockar
4. Fixa till huset lite lagom och skaffa en pålitligare bil
5. Skämma bort mina föräldrar, men inte barnen

Regler som följer med utmaningen:

- Svara på alla frågor

- Välj ut fyra personer som du vill skall svara och utmana dem i deras bloggar

- Låt personen som utmanade dig veta när du svarat på utmaningen

Jag skickar utmaningen vidare till några jag är nyfiken på: Eva, Cessi, Emma och Ulrica.

Hade tänk skriva om alla mina nya stickningar, men det får bli nästa gång.

And in English...
* What five items are on your to-do-list today?
1. Write something on my blog
2. Go and look at blinds for the living room, so I can knit there during daytime
3. Get in touch with day care for the children for the coming semester
4. Finish my first Pomatomus, July in Sockklubben
5. Prepare a nice dinner for Mr P, who started work again today after his vacation

* What did you do ten years ago?
Lived by myself in Kramfors that year, and and went to Iceland with my family in the summer. Bought patterns and yarn for two Icelandic sweaters, one for my younger brother who couldn't join us and one for me. My brother´s was light grey with a brown, Celtic pattern on the yoke and he got it for Christmas. My superb sweater hasn't been started yet... The greatest experience on the trip was probably seeing the musical Grease in Icelandic with my second cousin. We arranged it over e-mail, the first time I used it as far as I can recall. During that year I was also a candidate in a local election, played in a classical orchestra and improved my French.

* In what places have you lived?
Fränsta, Umeå, Kramfors, Sörberge and Sundsvall, all in central Sweden except Umeå which is more notherly. Summertime in Rinna in Östergötland until I was 15 y o, not far from Östergötlands ullspinneri, but don't think they had started back then.

*Five things you would do as a billionaire!
1. Educate myself in textiles and become an artist and give workshops
2. Create sholarships for others who would like to work full time in crafts
3. Go for long trips; rent houses in France, Ireland and other fascinating places
4. Do some work on the house and get a more reliable car
5. Spoil my parents, but not my children

Had planned to write about all the new things I'm knitting, but that will have to wait until next time.

Family summer

This year we have stayed close to home and had our relatives come here to visit us. This has meant more work around the house, many short excursions in the area and nights spent over long dinners rather than knitting in the sofa. This has given me more time to reflect on what I really want to knit, rather than just starting new things all the time. I really want to get back to knitting more traditional patterns, with my own modifications and modernisations. I also want to look more at what the family wants and needs and not just fall for new yarns and patterns. All the craft shops I've seen this summer have inspired me to think about what I could knit and sell. It would have to be of high quality but affordable and quick to make, and not something that is already out there. I have an idea, but I'm not sure I have the time to do it...

Another thought that I have had for some time is to start spinning. As I wrote last time I have made my first serious attempt, and here is the result.















After spinning, plying and washing my 50 g of corriedale wool left me with 27 m of bulky yarn. I need to work on making it more even and with less twist, but I think I got the general idea of it. I also ended up with a z-twist since I used the "wrong hand" compared to the directions, so I'll try it the other way next time and see how that works. My favourite part was the plying, when those unruly strands suddenly became yarn. I used a center pull ball and my hand spindle and it was so much easier than the spinning, but I should have used the larger spindle because it got so much more volume compared to the first thread.

I've also finished my "late night easy knitting" again. Even though I have other things I should work on that easy piece by the sofa gets all my attention these days. This is the lovely Cheshire Cat Stole made in Färgkraft 1-ply in the colour Sommarnatt (Summer Night). The yarn started out in a more complicated pattern, but the colours dominated and it needed something with cleaner lines. One skein was enough for a 170 x 50 cm stole. Since the yarn is heavier than the original I made it narrower by making one repeat less, and then just knitted until I ran out of yarn.















Finally a picture taken outdoors which does the colours more justice. The shawl is modelled by my mother-in-law. She got a pair of socks for her trouble, those red Seduction Socks that where too small for me.

Knitting among friends

Lately I've had many reminders of the how great it is to be able to say that we are part of a "knitting community". Saturday the 12th I got a lot of knitting energy when Cina opened her house for a night of knitting, thanks! Then last Wednesday I went to our weekly knitting café and the group had gotten a few new interesting members during the weeks I had been away. I think it is good that we can keep the group open and diverse.

On the web I have also had a few interesting experiences. I've been corresponding with Jody at Knotions magazine about her design Unwrapped that I finished last week, and now she has posted my picture on the site blog. I can ad that I wore it all day yesterday, and it was very comfortable on a hot and humid day. Also the blanket I made for my new niece last month has gotten a life of it's own on Ravelry with an amazing response. If you weren't around to see it, here is another picture of it.















Yesterday I showed about 57 pieces of knitting at a summer feast at the local museum in my home village. I tried to find as many different techniques as possible, like two-end knitting, Moebius shawls, double knitting, lace shawls and also traditional sweaters from Scandinavia and the British Isles. My father was one of the organizers and asked if I could help out with an exhibition, and it was fun to go back home and show old friends what I'm doing these days.















I shared the room with a family that has just bought ten alpacas and they had some wool and textile samples and a lot of pictures. They hope to get proper production going next summer. There was also a woman who demonstrated spinning on a handspindle, and she taught the 8-y-o-daughter of the alpaca family how to do it. Only days before I had bought a beginners kit at Spinspiration and the girl borrowed my little spindle, and her father will be making one for her a.s.a.p . When I got back home I was really inspired and I spun most of the white Corriedale wool in the picture on the little spindle last night. The bigger handspindle is my mother's and she has used that model for plying the yarn that her father spun when she was a child in Iceland. Now it is my turn to try out plying my yarn, and it is fun to be an eager beginner every now and then.

And then there were three

Third sweater finished. Well, I only made the sleeves and finishing this week, the body was knitted about five years ago, probably when I was on maternity leave, and has been in the UFO pile since.















The pattern is a traditional Danish Nattröje (night sweater) from a book on Nordic knitting by Susanne Pagoldh, with a few modifications. It is knitted in flat pieces and the sleeves are shortened for comfort. I also used the same border on both body and sleeves. The yarn is far from the thin wool of the original. It is the cotton yarn Muskat Soft by Garnstudio from an old stash of about 40 balls in various colours that I got from a closed down yarn store. The pin at the neck is a traditional Estonian model in bronze.

In my study there are now some plastic boxes with about 55 projects on their way to my little exhibition tomorrow. Back to work on that...

Two sweaters so far

Finally! I've bit of a bit more than I could chew lately by trying to make family gifts, sweaters for me and planning an exhibition that is due this Sunday (report on that next week). On Monday I sewed up the final ends on two sweaters and now they are blocked, dried and photographed.

First up is Unwrapped from Knotions. This is a fitted modell that has many neat details, like the linen stitch edges and the diagonal line that imitates a wrap model. I enjoyed making it and was happy to get help from the designer on a few unclear parts of the pattern. The yarn is 100% linen from Garnstudio, and this is the first time I use this material for a top and it looks just as I wanted, rough and shiny at the same time. I made the belt to go with it, but I liked the look better without it in the end.





























The second finished sweater is a very cropped version of the February Lady Sweater. I used all the Silke Alpaca I had and this is as far as I got, and it is quite a wearable experiment. The yarn is extremly comfortable, but too much of the red colour spilled over on the off-white parts in the washing and gave it a slightly pink tone. Maybe that is a good thing, because when my 3-y-o son saw me when I first tried it on, he said that now I just had to make a hat as well. When I asked him why, he said that would make me look even more like Santa Claus...































Right now I'm working on an old UFO from five years ago that needs sleeves before Sunday, so I had better get back to that if I'm going to finish three sweaters this week.

February is late this year

Couldn't resist any longer. Last Christmas Mr P gave me a challenge when he bought me 12 balls of Garnstudio Silke Alpaca, 7 red and 5 white. I decided to use them all in one project, but it is not quite enough for a sweater. Have been searching for a vest or bolero pattern since then. Then the February Lady Sweater came along, and after seeing Marias sweater half done I realized that it would work just fine in two colours and could be made with short sleeves. Last week I finished knitting Unwrapped, but it needs a little finishing before I can show it. Three days ago I cast on for February Lady "Vest" and this is what it looked like yesterday morning when I divided the stitches for the sleeves and tried it on. It fit perfectly!
















Some technical notes: I'm making it in large, but at a slightly looser gauge. I cast on a couple of times before I got it right with a knitted cast on recommended in Alice Starmore's books. The one row button holes are neat but a bit tricky and I learned how to make them in a class with Britt-Marie Christoffersson. After the eyelet row I only knitted the compulsory three rows of garter stitch, after hearing about bulkiness at the armholes. Then I made one purl row across the white part only before starting the pattern, for a neat colour transition. Now I'm working a little bit more of the body, but I will make the (short) sleeves before continuing so I can use up the yarn as efficiantly as possible.

Red seduction

Finally my summer vacation has started. Has been working hard this week to get everything finished at work with a cold on its way. When I got home on Friday I slept for twelve hours, but woke up to find this behind a curtain, where it should have rested quietly until Christmas.















I'm not sure what I'm doing right, but I've had this amaryllis for four years and it usually gives me two stalks with 6-10 flowers each every winter. This year I've treated it worse than usual by forgetting to give it new soil, and this is the result.

However this is not why I named this post red seduction. In between extra naps yesterday I completed the Sockklubben sock for May, which was Seduction Socks by Ann Budd in red Opal Bambu. They are a bit small, but improved with blocking. The pattern is nice, but not that special. The best part is the yarn, which is really great; soft, durable and beautiful. I will be looking for more!















Finishing the socks I should have turned to Unwrapped, which is in its finishing stages, but my brain capacity wasn't good enough. Instead I made a few more rows on Cheshire Cat Stole, which was a better choice for this yarn than the Laminaria I tried earlier but decided to frog.















Now I'm just waiting for my brain to start working better again. Slept another nine hours tonight, but my sinus infection isn't gone yet and tomorrow MrP has to go to work so I'll be home alone with the kids. I hope it gets better by then, and that I can finally get my new top done.