Thistle Vest

I have finally learned to knit fair isle. I didn't even know there was a specific technique for continental knitters! All my english and american books just show various diagrams of holding this and that yarn in this and that position. I didn't know none of that works for continental knitting, but what I could tell was how ugly my earlier swatches were. An hour or so with a Danish book worked wonders. At first I was sceptical. Holding one yarn over one finger and the other over two? But it really works, and is actually quite comfortable.

So then I just wanted to get straight to business. Well, that is the kind of business with only two colors, and not more than 7 stitches in one color. I still haven't figured out how to cross the yarns on the back without switching the skeins around, which I'm sure is not the way to do it.

I wanted a round and flowery pattern, so I was happy to find that Pinneguri's beautiful thistle pattern doesn't have more than 7 stitches of one color.

After some swatching (yes, indeed), I decided to cast on 288 stitches, which is 9 pattern repeats. I cast on with the dominant color (which in my case is an orange-blue-brown multicolored Kauni, I used a grey one as background) and tried a tubular cast on first, my new favorite for rib! But it really does not work for a two-color rib. It was too bulky, so in the end, I used a standard cast-on, and - IMPORTANT - one row of all knit stitches in alternating color, followed by the two-color rib proper. This way, bumps of wrong color are avoided.Then, after a few rows of rib, 28 cm of the pattern followedI have to admit that the blue color blends more into the gray background than I had expected. But, this is really just an experiment, so I guess that's ok. As you can see, I've started decreasing for arms and V-neck (more about that later - I'm using some numbers I came up with, so we'll have to wait and see how it works), with some stitches for steeking inserted. I've of course never made a steek, so in that respect, too, this is an experiment. In other words, don't worry about the colors when the whole thing may still fall apart later!

A gift, and some shopping...

In addition to the puke mill and winder, I got this fabulous gift for X-mas (I know, it's so long ago, but I haven't blogged much all winter in Denmark):As you can probably tell, it's a crochet hook case. It is beautifully made by my sister, who (of course) also put it on ravelry, where it has 39 hearts as of now :)

There was also time for a little bit of shopping. But I was very thrifty, I promise! In one second hand store (in the town of Christiansfeld, which was founded in the 18th century by a religious order from Herrnhut in Germany), I found these amazing bone needles. They are hand made, and not completely regular, but they are about 4 mm. I wonder how old they are. They were relatively expensive for a thrift store find (100 kr, about $20)
This find was much cheaper! 3 sets of double pointed needles and one standard set, plus 6 Norwegian style metal buttons. All together 25 kr or about $5. Well worth the time picking through all the other junk! The needles are all metal - hard to get your hands on nowadays. The dp's are 2, 3.5 and 4 mm, and the standard ones are 2.5 mm

After a Long Battle: Mermaid Mittens Finished

This project was a battle at times. It started as my X-mas present to the women in the family - 2 skeins of Koigu each. This turned out to be a strategic move, as it is less bad to suffer together.
Actually I am really happy with the result, so let's not overdo the suffering part:I knitted tightly on 2.25 mm needles (a bit hard on the hands) and followed The Yarn Owl's instructions for thumb gusset and fingers, which worked out perfectly after switching left and right to their meaningful places in the instructions. But that's OK, I also still have problems with those words myself.
I made a tubular cast-on with these instructions, works beautifully for this project, but did give rise to one problem - I wanted the bind-off to be 1) identical and 2) invisible. This is where the project hibernated a bit, but after some practice rounds with these instructions, I did pull myself together and got it done. And I am very happy with it, the beginning and end do look very similar: