Knitter's Favorite Season

Is there anything better than winter? Yesterday, we got this snow in just an hour:
The perfect time for knitting, and for wearing knits. Although I have enough already, here's a new WIP:
It's an Evelyn Clark Heartland Shawl. It calls for Buffalo Gold, and even has a hoofprint incorporated in the pattern, so it is appropriate to use my precious, long-stashed Greenlandic Arnica qiviut (moskusokse fra Grønland). So my excuse for starting something new is that a) it has been stashed for a looong time already and b) it was actually already started, but with a pattern I didn't care for. So, what I was in the middle of was Japel's Forecast. Started with a size M (with an extra 10 stitches cast on under the arm) and the correct gauge, which should fit... but knitted the whole body according to pattern and it did not fit at all. I had tried it on several times, but it came out much to small. I think this happened because the size fit just under the arm, but it should be larger than that to fit over the bust. Ahem. Will not make that mistake again. Also, I didn't like how the front was wavy because the different textures have such different proportions. That could possibly be solved by blocking, but still, the thing just didn't fit.
So, without any pictures, ripped it out to above the arm/body split, knitted to size L, and cast on 10 stitches under the arms again. Just to get a little vaiation, I them knitted the sleeves (2 at a time of course). I made them tapered, and finished with a seed stitch cuff to match the collar:
So now, it's the body. I'm making it fitted, without the original rib. More about that later - this is as far as I got, because then the Heartland came along.
A bit about another project that is not just hibernating, I think it's stone dead. This is 3 skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted knitted into a long scarf on 6 mm needles, with quarters tied in (with elastic bands) to make a shibori pattern. I first tried some smaller glass pebbles, but they popped out between the stitches. So then went with the quarters instead. Each is only covered by a few stitches:
Because this was very heavy, I decided to try hand-fulling instead of throwing it in the machine. Immediately, quarters started popping out between the stitches. Grrrr! In a couple of minutes, at least 10 had popped out. I had to give up. This is the point where i should have thrown the whole thing out of the window. Instead, I decided to take the elastic bands off (out of wet wool) and dry the scarf to think about my options. So, it took almost 2 hours to plan out the wavy pattern, mark it with threads, and tie in the quarters. The felting attempt and getting all the stuff out of there another hour. With no result whatsoever. Grrrrr!
I don't think I'll make another shibori attempt soon. The problem was obviously the ratio of stitch size to quarters. But you're supposed to knit big for fulling, right?? And I don't want to use something much bigger for the bobbles, that would look ridiculous. Shibori is on the compost pile for now. As far as the Lamb's Pride is concerned, it will be frogged and used for something else. But I might stash it for some decades for punishment before I do anything with it again.

Noro Love

This project has been hibernating for a while. I initially bought the Noro Silk Garden for edges on a planned black jacket, but after a good amount of swatching, I was never happy with it. So then I stumbled on Brooklyntweed's post about a Silk Garden scarf, and the decision was made.
It makes for wonderful knitting, so suspenseful! Which color combination will be next???
I finished it and cast off, and then the big sleep came. The cast off edge looked like this:Yuck! Not only does the color change to pink in an unfortunate way, the cast off edge is also too bulky. Fast-forward some months, I finally unraveled this edge, and tried a sewn cast-off from the Fall '08 Interweave magazine. This did not work out at all! Mostly because of the knitter, I think, not so much the method itself... Then, removed some of the pink, and cast off in the standard way a bit tighther, and it looks much better. The two ends now look similar:So I'm happy now. Some other details: 37 stitches wide, 4 skeins Silk Garden total (2 each of colorways 270 and 84), 4.5 mm needles. Used shadow knitting edge according to Vivian Høxbro's book, it results in a smooth edge where the color changes are hidden:

Fuzzy Feet

Our house is typical American, built like there was no tomorrow, and OPEC was a brand of candy... single windows in metal frames to be sure the outside temperature is efficiently transmitted to the inside. Luckily, a knitter can take it into her own hands to do something about those feet that are chilled by the constant draft.
I had been wanting to try felting, or rather fulling for a while (I believe fulling is actually the correct term for what we refer to as felting of a knitted item - det samme som forskellen mellem filtning og valkning på dansk), so Fuzzy Feet seemed like the perfect thing, curing the cold feet situation at the same time.
The knitting is really ugly, because of the loose gauge and frogged yarnSo the project was actually hibernating for a long time due to the ugliness. But I managed to finish, and went to a laundromat with top-loading machines. All the descriptions of fulling tells you how careful you must be, how the process suddenly speeds up and it's a matter of seconds to save the piece before it turns into a tiny lump of felt... So I was watching carefully as I ran them in one warm cycle with a towel for agitation. Good thing a laundromat has so many special types of people to keep you company while you wait... Well, after the warm cycle, the stitches were drawn much more together, but the overall size of the slippers was still very large. I wasn't sure the temperature was really 40 C as a warm cycle is supposed to be, so I ran them again, this time in a hot cycle, which is supposed to be 60 C, but didn't even feel like 40 C. Well, it helped more than the warm cycle, the stitch definition beginning to go away, but the size still much too large. But by now, my strange activity had caught the eye of the laundromat owner. He didn't tell me to stop it, but I decided to quietly slip out with my wet wool before accused of anything.
Also, each wash was $2.5, so it was time to take matters even more into my own hands. Transported the thing home, made some really hot soap water and a bowl of really cold water, and scrubbed them around in the two by turn until the size looked right. Then, the really fun part. Put some plastic bags on my feet, stepped most of the water out of the slippers in a towel, put slippers on, and walked around on the carpets for a while. The slippers are now perfectly moulded to my feet, and here they are the next day after drying: Looks like something that would do in the Sherwood Forest :)
After about a week of use, they have softened a bit, but the size has not changed much. They are very warm and comfortable. The only worry is that they may wear out too soon!

Quickly, booties

A quick project as a gift for a baby that will be arriving shortly. The ubiquitous Saartje's booties pattern. It's popular for a reason. Very easy to follow, with a nice result, my only complaint is the vague sizing, since I myself am certainly no expert in baby foot sizes. How long is a baby's foot? I used a thicker yarn than called for (Mirasol Samp'a 50 g is 110 m), but tightly on quite small needles (2.5 mm), and knit the small size. The booties are 8 cm long. Probably bigger than a baby's foot?
Well, one thing babies can be trusted to do is grow, and they (the booties, don't know about babies) look cute:

Shetland Lace Shawl, Blocking

Whee! Finished the border of my red shetland lace shawl in what may be called a knitting marathon. Here it is blocking:I blocked it to 130 x 130 cm, hope this is enough. I think it looks good, although the faggotting between the middle and outer borders is not completely square. Was not sure what to do about this - thought about blocking it too, but thought it would look worse...
The shawl is blocking without sewing in the (two, but anyway) loose ends, on the assumption that it will easier to see how tight they should be sewn one blocked.
I was not sure about how to knit the faggotting around the corners. I made about one extra repeat (10 rows) at each corner, and made extra faggotting as well. But the extra stitches are really not needed on the inside of the corner, and the faggotting is somewhat clumped together I think. Looked at pictures in Victorian Lace Today, and they show extra faggotting as well... still not completely convinced, though.
Besides that, the verdict is: happy!

Finally February, Baby!

Everybody is making the Zimmermann February Baby sweater, and I always want to be like everybody else! Bought the wondrously cheap Knitter's Almanac and some cotton (3 skeins Mirasol Samp'a, 50 g and 110 m/120 yds per skein). The pattern of course calls for wool, but had seen the February knitted in cotton and wanted to give it a try. Why, I actually don't recall, as I really don't like knitting cotton....
Well, here's the beginning, the neck opening is at the bottom in this picture.So far so good, but here is a close-up of the armhole:What's the problem in this picture? The knitter is trying to out-smart EZ. Don't try this at home. The pattern tells you to work the sleeves first, and then continue with the body. I did it the other way round, saving the stiches for the sleeves until the end, so the knitting had to strech a lot when I continued because of the extra 7 cast-on stitches on each side of the saved sleeve stitches. This would not happen if I had followed the pattern... the good thing is that it did not show in the end, though. I worked the sleeves until all 3 skeins were used up, that looked like this:
Hmm... are short-sleeved cardigans in fashion?? Well, the good thing was that the cardigan was bigger than the baby, but could actually be used anyway because of the short sleeves. Meanwhile, I went back for another skein, and the sleeves have now been lengthened:
It actually wasn't too annoying to do, as I only had to unravel the lower garter-stitch edges. The sleeves now measure 20 cm from underarm to edge. Hope it fits now! The overall proportions still look a bit strange to me, but I think it actually really does fit, as the shoulder area just under the garter-stitch yoke stretches, so the distance from top to armhole is not longer than the distance from armhole to bottom when worn

NYS Wool and Sheep Festival

What to do when you discover that the famous NYS Wool and Sheep Festival in Rhinebeck takes place just in the days you planned a trip to NYC? Jump in the car and go, only 4 hours each way. But it was really worth it!
Such a big festival... just from the number of cars parked outside - here is one happy knitter making her way through the car jungle:We satisfied our urge to fondle fiber animals,
and to be honest, I should admit that we also fondled lots of fibers not on animals anymore... maybe we also bought some of said fibers, but as husbands may be reading along here, better not to be too specific about who bought what and how much!
Just on our way out, we saw these people walking their llamas - much more classy than just walking a boring dog:
...although to be fair to dogs here, they do give very soft and nice fibers, which are supposed to stop smelling bad if simmered for a while, and are supposed to give very nice yarn if spun mixed with sheep wool to bind the fibers together.

Shetland Lace Shawl New vs. Old Method

There has been some progress with my lace shawl. Also some unraveling, but in the end more knitted than removed. The pattern describes how to knit the edge panels one by one, so here is the first one:and in close-up:
nice, I think. But then the trouble started. The next panel needs to be knitted together with the first one at the edge, which will form a corner. This did not look good. Tried to convince myself it was OK for a while and continued... but in the end had to face the facts. So unraveled, and I am now knitting the entire border in the round, with alternating purl rows. I thought this would be ugly because of different tension in knit and purl rows, but that's not the case at all. The corners now look very nice, and all four look the same (I thought the corner where I change between knit and purl would not look the same as the others, but with yo's on every row, they look exactly the same). So the only problem is it doesn't look like much bundled together on the needle:but think it will turn out very nice in the end. Of course, knitting the border in the round seems to be the traditional way, and is in every respect much better than knitting back and forth.

Oops, I did it again!

I was peacefully working on my Noro project, and then suddenly... I had a new project in my hands! I'm using a pattern for a Shetland lace shawl from a book called "Illustrated Guide to Knitting The Creative Way" edited by Janie Ryan. I bought it from a pile of used books, price $1, which I must say is cheap for this book: half of it is an 80's horror show that really belongs in The Museum of Kitschy Stitches, the other half is useful classic patterns. One of them said pattern for a Shetland lace shawl:I'm using some Spinni Tweed from my stash, bought from Henriksens Uldspinderi. I am knitting it very loosely on an Addi Turbo Lace 3.5 mm circular, and it feels great! It really almost knits itself in my hands. So the center is already done, and I've started the first border:

Noro madness

In one illustration of chaos theory, the flutter of a butterfly's wings can start a hurricane on the other side of the Earth.
This story is in some way similar. After recieving one skein of Noro Kureyon for my birthday, I ran off and bought 6 more. So now I have 7 (seven!!). And the headache of figuring out what to do with them. My first 3 or so swatches were about finding the right number of stiches for the full circumference of a cardigan, knitting back and forth on a circular needle. It looks like this:
I love the colors, but I think the stripe is too massive. And this yarn repeats the colors in the same sequence over and over, so the cardigan would just have wide stripes.So in the next try, I striped two skeins together, knitting one from the inside and one from the outside. This means that the colors will "meet" at some point, it happens twice in this picture (the black stripe with light green on both sides, and the dark green with cyan on both sides). But besides that, this is so much better, and does more justice to the wonderful Noro

Hat and mittens, done!

Finally! Hat and mittens are done:The mittens have a braided string (70 cm, hope it is long enough) between them, in theory rendering them impossible to loose. The hat has a picked-up edge around the face, picked up through both knitted layers and sown to the inside:
The verdict: the set turned out quite cute in the end. Very fluffy, warm, soft. I wish I had a (much) smaller head.

Baby mittens, as promised

Here's the story about the mittens. A never-ending story, I am tempted to add.
To at least have the feeling that the end is in sight, I decided to knit both at the same time (also improves chances that they will have similar size). Here are the cuffs: white rib for the inside, sage stockinette for the outside:I then picked up stiches at the lower edge, folded the cuff, knitting the two parts together and continuing with the outside (in white). Each mitten is asymmetric, and they are of course mirror images, so a bit of brain activity on the way... and even more fun when I picked up stiches on the inside and knitted the cotton lining which is of course the mirror image of the outside. And they say women's brains are useless for spatial tasks! Here are the mittens in their near-complete stage: the left one only knitted (and seen inside-out), the right one with the lining sown (and seen outside-out):

Baby hat and mittens

This is the hat and pair of mittens I am making for Iris aka "the Worm" as a peace offering. The design is by Birgit Østergaard for Marianne Isager. The main color is a white Tvinni Tussah (merino wool/silk), with a sage green contrast of Tvinni (wool). Hat and mittens are lined with sage green mercerized cotton.
The hat is knitted in one piece, starting with the rib around the neck, then a stockinette piece for the head. There is a contrast stripe on top. Then, the stitches for the lining are picked up on the inside (of course with the wrong sides facing each other), and the lining knitted in stockinette to the same length as the outside. I finished both inside and outside with 3-needle bind-offs. Here is the hat seen from the side:

I'll pick up stitches in both outside and lining, and knit an edge in sage wool that will surround the face (the lower edge in the picture).

The outside is wonderfully soft, and with the lining, the whole hat is very warm and fluffy. But I have to say this is some of the most boring knitting I have ever done. It just went on and on. On 3 mm needles with this thin yarn (100 g/3.5 oz is 510 m/558 yd), the number of stitches was maybe the same as in an adult sweater. So Iris, we are more than even now!!

About the mittens in the next post.

Giant knitted bra!

Well, not quite. This is the beginning of a diagonally knitted cardigan. At least, that's the working hypothesis at this point.
I started with two identical pieces, casting on 3 stitches, and then knitting back and forth in garter stitch, increasing 2 stitches in the middle of every other row. This is of course the same as the 90 degree angle in a Zimmermann surprise jacket.
In order to make the angle less than 90 (to shape the waist slightly) I didn't actually increase on every other row, but skipped it on certain rows:














and above the point decided to be waist height, I increased four instead of two on some rows. Then, when the lower edge was long enough, I joined the pieces and continued with increase and decrease on the same row.
The yarn was bought in a greasy little stall somewhere in New Delhi. The little clerk in the little stall smelled a good sale coming when he saw me (very tall and pale according to New Delhi standard) enter. He showed me 30 different acrylic yarns. Apparently wool was the good stuff, and only came out when I was still not satisfied with what I saw (I had hoped for silk and cashmere...) but this is what I got:














two "beautiful" boxes of 200 g each, complete with stench of coal smog.

Tulip time baby sweater

Tulip time is a baby sweater by Patricia Tounge Edraos. I knitted it in Cascade 220 on 4.5 mm needles.
I think it came out OK in the end but... there was a reason they warned me against this pattern at the knitting store. I was looking at the pattern, liking the finished model, but being told the pattern was really badly written. Meanwhile, another lady was eyeballing it, clearly wanting it too - there was only one copy. So despite warnings, I had no other choice than quickly snatching it in front of her!

I have to say the pattern is quite confusing, and has a pattern chart where I had to decide what must have been the intention. I have no problem reinventing a fully functional pattern as I go, but in this case there was no choice, so I would not recommend this to anyone who really needs a pattern to follow.
The nice part about the design is the way the sleeves are made. The entire sweater is knitted in one piece, starting at the back. The sleeves are added by casting on additional stitches. I finished them by three-needle bind off, so there is no bulk under the arms. The only finishing is the sleeve and side seams, the designer gets points for that!

The legendary trip to Henriksens Uldspinderi

I was visiting my sister, who lives in Denmark, in a small town called Holstebro. I had persuaded her to take me to Henriksens Uldspinderi in Skive, another small town about 40 minutes drive from her home.
I was excited. As you may have guessed, Uldspinderi means wool spinnery. I had heard a rumor that they sell some of their yarns in a little shop in the spinnery, at lower prices.
So my sister strapped her then 4-months old daughter Iris into the car chair, and we were ready to go. Iris started crying before we reached the car, but that didn't stop us. After driving for approximately 3 minutes, the color of her face started turning from burgundy to purple because of her intense screaming. I wondered if something was wrong with the poor child, but she just dislikes sitting in that stupid chair facing backwards. We decided to pull over, and I got in the back to try to talk to her. But she was beyond reach. I tried speaking to her, but she had by then worked herself into such hysteria that she was in a bubble of isolation. I felt more and more guilty. Only my desire for wool had brought this anguish upon the poor child.
Just a few minutes before reaching the spinnery, she fell asleep, a light and upset sleep that was punctuated by hiccups from excessive crying.

The shop at the spinnery is camouflaged. You actually have to walk through the spinnery with all its exciting cones of yarn sitting on machines, and up some stairs to reach the shop. But it was worth the trip. They spin yarn for the Danish knitting designer Marianne Isager, whose books are also published in english (at least the one called Knitting Out of Africa). Henriksens spin the yarns called Spinni and Tvinni, both are 100% wool, 100 g is about 600 m. They sell it for about $17 per 100 g, half of the retail price (remember, the dollar is not worh much these days).

Iris was feeling better. I decided to make a peace offering, compensate her for the pain and suffering. So we picked out yarn and pattern (from Marianne Isager) for hat and mittens, in angora Tvinni, lined with cotton. More about this later. I didn't walk away empty-handed myself. I got enough Spinni and Tvinni for at least 3 large projects, 4-500 g each of the black, red, and dusty blue.