Sivert Knits

Granite is grey, trellis is pink

2010-10-21T06:38:00.000-07:00

My sister knitted Granite by Helga Isager a while ago, and it came out really nice. She washed it and put it outside to dry. And a disaster happended! It was made out of silk/alpaca, and there is a reason they always tell you not to dry silk in direct sunlight. Instead of a lovely white sweater, a strange, yellowish garment came back in. She had it sitting in the closet for while, until we dyed it the other day. It is now considered saved!
We had lots of little helpers, one of them helped simply by sleeping through the whole thing:

others were more vocal in their assistance:

3-year old Iris wanted to "color something too", and after some negotiation settled for a lone sock

It turns black!

The Granite sweater didn't actually turn out black, more of a dark grey, similar to what it looks like here

In other news, I've also finished the Trellis cardigan for Dagmar, here she is sporting it

It's the 12 month size, a little big still on 8-month Dagmar, so it will fit through the winter. It's less than 3 skeins of Lamb's Pride worsted on 5 mm needles. Modifications: I knitted the body in one piece and picked up the sleeve stitches and knitted them both at the same time (with 2-at-a-time sock technique). Voila! Almost seamless.

Hello again, blog

2010-10-11T12:36:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged for ages. Dagmar is now almost 8 months old. Here she is, all covered in my mother's knitted pieces:

I guess I've been busy. In other news, we're just back from a trip to Boston, and more importantly, a trip to WEBS in Northampton. This is what my sister, my mother and I got for ourselves:

and my sister wasn't even there. Don't tell our husbands!!

I've been knitting Trellis for Dagmar. After almost completing (save one sleeve), I decided to start over....

almost finished sweater on the left, beginning of new sweater on the right. I am using Lamb's pride, but it just wasn't knitting up as soft as it should on 4.5 mm needles. I decided to knit it on 5 mm's instead, and the drape is wonderful, and the fabric is soft. I still used 4.5 mm for the lower seed stitch border, which now fits better in size relative to the cabled section.

Also, I have just started my experiments with avocado pits and shells, for dyeing red colors. I ate a lot of avocados when I was pregnant. They also make good baby food. So in the end, I had almost 3 kg of pits and shells in the freezer. I give them a simmer almost every day to extract the color. Let's see how long I can keep it up. Here they are just out of the freezer

Fiona tunika

2010-02-03T04:36:00.000-08:00

A cute and quick project, the Fiona tunic by Sanne Bjerregaard. I love the result, but feel compelled to warn you about the pattern. It really really sucks. And it costs $9. Don't knit this if you have high blood pressure.

Et hurtigt lille projekt er færdigt, en Fiona tunika i Tvinni alpaca efter Sanne Bjerregaards mønster, og jeg er meget tilfreds med resultatet. Luftigt og kært:

Så nu kan jeg godt sige hvad alle problemerne var:

Mønster
Mønsteret er ganske forfærdeligt, så det passer jo perfekt at man også kan købe det hos Isager. Det er skrevet ud i tal hele vejen igennem, og man ved jo ikke om de passer (det gør de ikke alle sammen, på den sidste side skulle der i række 5 have stået k4 i stedet for k5). Så er der ingenting at holde sig til når man kommer i tvivl, og det gør man! Det hjalp heller ikke at jeg brugte det engelske mønster, det er nemlig direkte oversat fra dansk, og fyldt med sproglige og stavefejl. Men så hjælper det selvfølgelig at være dansk selv, så man kan udlede hvad der skulle have stået.

Poor you if you try to follow the English pattern and you are not a native Danish speaker (in which case you can reverse engineer the wording). It was clearly directly translated from Danish, word by word. Many terms are incorrect - e.g. the buttonhole instructions tell you to "k1 twisted in the next yo" - but English speakers would expect this instruction to say something like "knit the next yo tbl". Just a small example.
Also, I found the first number on the last page to be wrong. For the 1 year size, it starts with k5, but it should have been k4. Of course most knitters can figure this kind out, but it's just not good enough in a $9 pattern.

Konstruktion
Det er meningen at tunikaens for og bag skal strikkes for sig. Det betyder at hver anden pind er vrang og at der kommer TO sømme ned langs siderne. Helt tåbeligt, så jeg strikkede den selvfølgelig rundt, men det betyder at man skal sidde og bladre frem og tilbage i mønsteret konstant. Hvorfor er det ikke bare skrevet til at strikke rundt?

Why wasn't the pattern written for knitting in the round? Really, two seams in a garment for a small child... But it's easy to modify.

Garnmængde
Jeg strikkede størrelse 1 år, og mønsteret påstår man skal bruge 100 g tvinni - men den færdige top vejer kun 46 g. Det er selvfølgelig bedre at have lidt garn tilovers end at komme til at mangle... men at ramme SÅ langt forbi er godt nok irriterende. Især når man tager så mange penge for mønsteret.

The 1 year size was supposed to require 100 g of Tvinni, but I used just 46 g. That's way off...

Farvning med løgskaller

2010-01-26T12:30:00.000-08:00

Hvem der bare havde vidst at der gemmer sig sådan en farve i ganske almindelige løgskaller:

Jeg farvede mit første eksperimentelle, spundne garn med løgskaller, og det er pludselig blevet noget jeg gerne vil strikke noget af!

Fremgangsmåden for 100 g garn:
- bejdsning i 10 g alun fra Matas. Opløste alunen i lidt kogende vand, tyndede op med koldt vand, kom garnet i og lod det varme op, simre ca. en time, og køle ned til næste dag
- kogte 75 g løgskaller i ca. en time, lod det køle ned, fiskede løgskallerne ud, kom garnet i, simrede det ca. en time, og kølede ned i farvebadet til næste dag
- fiskede garnet ud, håndvaskede til der næsten ikke kom mere farve ud, centrifugerede, lod det hænge og tørre.

Triinu

2010-01-25T05:30:00.000-08:00

Last year some time, I tried knitting a Triinu scarf, but had to give up because the slipped stitch on the edge was just never going to block to the correct measurement. The rest of the scarf was fine, beautiful actually. So I've cast on again, this time knitting all edge stitches, and it seems to be working out this time.

Sidste år engang prøvede jeg at strikke Triinu fra Nancy Bushs lækre (men meget fejlbefængte) bog Knitted Lace of Estonia, men projektet strandede. I opskriften, og hele bogen for den sags skyld, står der at man skal tage kantmasken løs af hver anden gang. Den kant blev bare alt for stram, og efterhånden som jeg havde strikket 7 mønstergentagelser blev jeg også noget stram i betrækket og trevlede til sidst op.
Men nu er jeg i gang igen, denne gang med alle kantmasker strikket ret, og det ser ud til at skride fint fremad:

Garn: et nøgle Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca Lace, strikket på 3,5 mm Addi Lace

Et par tvangsvanter - og mit første garn

2010-01-21T13:29:00.000-08:00

Endnu et færdigt projekt her i januar - et par bittesmå vanter af moskusuld til babyen, der snart ankommer:

Der var simpelthen ingen vej udenom, for min kære moder helmede bare ikke:
- "Hvordan skal den holde hænderne varme på vej hjem fra hospitalet???"

I finally succumbed to my dear mother's unrelenting pressure and knit a pair of tiny mittens out of quiviut, so the baby, due very soon, can keep its hands warm on the way home from the hospital.

Og så er jeg blevet færdig med mit allerførste håndspundne garn, her i helt ubarmhjertigt nærbillede, så man virkelig kan se hvad der foregår:

Det lider noget under at fremskridtet faktisk var enormt fra spindingen af den første til den anden enkelttråd. Den første var alt for snoet, og man kan faktisk se flere steder, hvor den bare sidder i en stor snoet kage uden at være tvundet sammen med anden tråd. Nå, men det næste jeg er i gang med at spinde ser faktisk allerede meget bedre ud.

My first handspun suffers from all kinds of... imperfections. It's only going to improve from here!

Elephants Baby Blanket

2010-01-17T04:01:00.000-08:00

The elephants baby blanket is finally finished, after months of effort :) I'm very happy with the result, and it will suit my Danish/Indian baby perfectly, I think. The yarn is Danish, from the island of Læsø, and the motif looks Indian (although Alice Starmore is actually a Scottish designer, but let's forget about that for the time being).

The finished measurement is 50 x 58 cm, to fit the pram.

I don't have the pattern, it's out of print, so I can't really say what my modifications are, but here's what I did:
In Starmore's design (which I just copied down from a photo), the background is 4 colors and the elephants 3 colors. Læsø Uldstue Klitgarn doesn't come in that many colors, so I couldn't find just that combination. Instead, I have 4 elephant colors and 3 background colors.

So then, I just knit a tube with 8 steek stitches, seamed through the steek a few times with the sewing machine, and cut it. Sounds easy. Then, a back-of-the-envelope calculation to find out how many edge stitches I should pick up with my gauge where 31 stitches x 33 rounds is 10 x 10 cm. My edge is different from the one in the pictures of the original Starmore design. I used the same pattern as in the main section, then just did some diamonds to make it a bit wider. Then, a k2tog, yo picot row, and then, knit the same pattern on the back. The front corners have m1, k1, m1 increases on every other row, the back corners have corresponding decreases on every other row. If I was to do this again (ha!), I would decrease a little more, as there was some surplus knitting in the corners on the back side.

Now came the difficult part. Or at least the part where I procrastinated for a good couple of months. The lining is corduroy, just cut to fit approximately, the edges closed on the sewing machine, and put between the layers of knitting. I seamed the knitting on to the corduroy rather loosely once, then permanently in every bind off stitch. An involved process, but really worth it in the end. Here's what the back looks like in the end:

Så fik jeg endelig fingrene i en rok!

2010-01-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

Efter et års plagen og afståen fra fødselsdags- og julegaver lykkedes det endelig at slæbe min (ok, indrømmet, noget modstræbende) mand hen i Garngalleriet og få ham til at forære mig en rok. En Kromski Minstrel. Han mener at der heller ikke bliver nogen gaver de næste par år efter denne her investering, og det er helt underordnet, for nu har jeg jo rokken!!

Desværre manglede der en footman, men jeg fik lov at låne en til den kommer fra Polen, så nu er jeg endelig kommet i gang. Det er altså ret svært, men også ret vanedannende allerede, synes jeg. Det garn jeg spinner ser allerede bedre ud end i starten:

men helt godt er det jo ikke... alt for twistet, men tykkelsen er allerede ved at blive mere ensartet. Mon ikke det hurtigt bliver bedre :) Jeg købte 500 g lækker bluefaced leicester uld med, det er så blødt og lækkert at det næsten er synd at bruge til at øve sig med, men et eller andet skal jeg jo spinne, og jeg håber da egentlig at garnet godt kan bruges når jeg får det lagt dobbelt.

Hentesæt

2010-01-01T04:26:00.000-08:00

SÅ! Nu er mit fine hentesæt af silke/alpaca endelig færdigt, og der er over en måned til jeg skal føde!

Kysen var en katastrofe, som har ligget og ventet på redning i nogle måneder:

men det tog ikke lang tid at redde den da jeg indså hvad der egentligt stod i mønsteret på et vist tidspunkt "fortsæt i retstrik". Hmm. Man skal altså kunne læse for at følge et mønster...
Da det først var fikset blev sokkerne også færdige på et par dage.

En babycardigan fra helvede

2009-12-30T07:28:00.000-08:00

Så er den endelig færdig, cardiganen til det lille hentesæt af silke/alpaca. Det har taget sin tid. Mange overspringshandlinger, senest blev ærmernes glatstrikning oversprunget af anden glatstrikning i form af et Kusha Kusha tørklæde. Det kom jeg så til at sidde fast i da mønsteret gik over til delen med ren silke/rustfrit stål, for det er ret levende og irriterende at strikke med. Men det er vel egentligt også meningen med en overspringshandling, at den skal tvinge en tilbage til det man egentligt var i gang med??

Men nu er den altså færdig. Den er 5 cm kortere end mønsterets vanvittigt lange rør, men jeg fandt selvfølglig først ud af at den var alt for lang da hele kroppen var strikket og skuldrene lukket af. Jeg er nu godt tilfreds med, at jeg fandt selvdisciplinen til at lave det om. Eneste anden modifikation er kraven, som jeg lukkede af før ombukket, for jeg kan ikke se hvad en baby, der kun kan ligge ned, skal med sådan en bukket krave.
Og her er den så:

Endelig ferie

2009-12-19T07:18:00.000-08:00

Så! Nu er jeg endelig færdig med mit eksamensprojekt, så nu er der virkelig tid til at strikke... og skrive om lidt af alt det jeg har fået strikket siden jeg sidst skrev på bloggen, det viser sig det var i september.

Jeg har været i gang med hentesættet af mintgrøn silke-alpaca i flere måneder, og bukserne er jo i hvert fald færdige. Huen er i teorien også færdig, men den er alt for spids, så jeg skal have fundet på en måde at redde den på. Mere om det en anden gang, hvor jeg også vil underholde mere med cardiganen. Kroppen er strikket og strikket om, men så kom jeg til at sidde fast i ærmerne. Glatstrikning...

Så pludselig hoppede et projekt, der har været i kø et stykke tid, frem fra gemmerne. Et Kusha Kusha tørklæde af merino og silke/rustfrit stål fra Habu i NY. For at det skulle fylde mindre på turen til DK havde jeg vundet garnet af paprørene det var på, og det havde altså fået den rustfri stål til at danne en stor, kaotisk fuglerede. Og det trængte jo til at blive filtret ud, og så kunne jeg lige så godt gå i gang med at strikke for at være sikker på, at det ikke filtrede sig sammen igen. God undskyldning, ikke?

Swallowtail

2009-09-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

After a long battle, interrupted by so many other projects, I've now finished by swallowtail shawl.
It's a very easy pattern, but two things made this difficult. First, the 14 repeats of identical simplicity in the beginning was boring me out of my mind. Now that it's finished, I can see that it really works well with the edge, but... too boring.
The other problem was the yarn, Cherry Hill Suri Alpaca. I don't know if this is characteristic of this type of alpaca, but it is a very stiff yarn. Very difficult to manage. If the stitches slip off the needle, they don't stay in shape. They just immediately unravel. Not to talk about knitting nupps. They can be bad enough as it is, but become disastrous with this yarn. All the stitches and yo's just fly apart.
But enough complaining. The process was a little hard, but I think the result speaks for itself:

Jumpsuit

2009-09-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

The jumpsuit I started in August is now finished. It came out very nice, the transitions from knitting with dpn's almost went away when I washed it.

Of course I couldn't help but modify a bit... so the top part, which was supposed to be knitted back and forth and sewn together, is just knitted in the round. I know, I had to purl every other round to get garter stitch, but it meant no sewing :) To hide the transition, I did a fake seam in each side, knitting that stitch every other round and slipping it every other. Finally, added some cute, asian-looking buttons from Fandango:

Warm Set for Tadpole

2009-08-19T02:09:00.000-07:00

I've started knitting a set of clothing to keep the little Tadpole warm when it comes out i February. I was allowed to use some gorgeous yarn from my sister's stash, Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca & Silk. I know, the Tadpole will probably puke on it immediately and it's handwash only. But it's so soft. A entirely decent thing to wear when you have never been encumbered with clothing before.

The pattern is from Drops, here it is in English og her er det på dansk. The Danish version actually says it will look good on a little girl, but I think it is unisex enough when knitted in green:

The legs are knitted separately in the round, which probably makes good sense, I'm sure the pattern would look bad sewn together. But it is quite problematic to put the legs together. OK, the pattern says to knit 2 cm back and forth to make it easier, but it doesn't make it easy. Also, a circular needle that would be small enough for this number of stitches would be annoyingly short to knit with, so I had to continue with dpn's after putting the legs together. But because the legs were pulling in each opposite directions, there are some ugly transitions although I pulled all stitches really tight. Oh well, here's to hoping it goes away when washed.

Cardigan for Tadpole

2009-08-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

This project is a quick little knit that wasn't really that quick, as it involved some finishing. The pattern for this little cardigan is from "Simple Knits for Cherished Babies" by Erika Knight. I was seduced by the wonderful photography throughout the book, but I guess I should have researched the case a bit more before buying. The book is filled with errors, so beginners definately can't knit most of the projects. Advanced knitters can probably reconstruct most of it from the photos. The pattern for this little cardigan did not have any errors, possibly the only error-free pattern in the entire book! Earlier, I tried making a little garter stitch wrap top, but had to give up because the pattern was so unclear. Well, also ran out of yarn, and didn't want to buy more for such a dubious project.

But this little cardigan turned out very nice - from the front:

and from the back:

It's made of Rowan wool cotton, knitted on 3 mm needles though the pattern recommends 3 3/4 mm. But I think garter stitch needs to be tight to look good. I made a couple of modifications:
- added 5 stitches to the sleeve length
- knitted on edge around neck-fronts-back in the round with alternating purled/knitted rows

Aeolian

2009-08-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

I've been working on Aeolian for a while... for some reason I got really bored in the middle, and put it away for a while. But then it came back with a vengeance, and I finished it in no time. Here it is:

For some reason I can't capture the beauty of this shawl in a photo at all, but I guess everybody knows what it looks like.

But the result is what I hoped for, soft and with good stitch definition. It is the shawlette size, but big enough by far - i used a 4 mm needle, so that gave some size too. I hated working the pearls, and they don't even show that much. So this may be my last beaded project as well as my first.

Mixed WIPs

2009-06-30T23:47:00.001-07:00

I haven't blogged for a while, but I also haven't finished anything for a while!

But I do have a truckload of WIPs. First my Noro Bohus vest. It's coming along, I'll be at the underarm quite soon. Meanwhile, the patterns and color combinations are proliferating in unexpected ways

I've also had some good progress with my Bog Jacket. I'm past the critical point - the point where you remove the thumb trick stitches and graft the two ends together. Quite nasty, but it came out... not invisible, but not that frankensteinian either

Some other TV knitting (and lots of episodes of The Wire) is my Cobalt Jacket. A top-down raglan of my own design. The earlier version was knitted on bigger needles, but the most recent incarnation is on 4 mm, relatively small for the thick mystery yarn I'm using

Last, but not least, I've knitted most of my Aeolian for Vibeke, shhh! My first and probably last piece of beaded knitting. But it does look good, and I'll be done soon (just unraveling several rows tonight, but that's a temporary step back. Lifelines? No)

Winning the lottery without playing

2009-05-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to NYC, I stayed with an old friend. At some point, she told me she had a sewing project that didn't fit her. Maybe it would fit me, so could I try it on? Well of course I could, and this is what it looked like:

Perfect. Like it was tailor-made for me. And as it turns out, it is. Several years ago, we made a jacket for me by mutual effort (well, mostly she made it), and in a moment of confusion, this was the pattern she reached for when she made this jacket. How lucky can you really be??

In NY, there was also time for a little bit of shopping. I have been wanting to go to the Habu showroom for a while, and this time I did. It is very small, but there are so many treasures packed there, all of the exquisite Japanese type. And I suppose it also helps that the place is so hidden. No signs outside. Just go into the camouflaged building, say "Habu" to the doorman, and take the elevator to the 8th floor:
Habu Textiles
135 West 29th St. Suite 804
New York, NY 10001

I've been eyeballing the Kusha Kusha scarf for a while, so I got the yarn for that (two right skeins). And, I ordered A-4 2/10 Kusaki Zome silk for another project on my shortlist, a 1932 blouse from "A Stitch in Time". The darkest color was not in stock, so it was sent from Japan, and here it is (on the left):

Yay! Thistle Vest Pattern Available

2009-05-23T06:28:00.000-07:00

It took a while, but my thistle vest pattern is now available as a free Ravelry download.

You can get it here.

If you are not a member of Ravelry, sign up immediately :)

One More Vest!

2009-05-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

After my recent self-proclaimed success with the Thistle Vest, I've jumped straight to another fair isle vest. I must have been bitten by some kind of bug?

This one is made from my stash Noro Kureyon Sock, that I have been experimenting with earlier, but was never convinced the experiments were going the right way. So the new deal is fair isle, heavily inspired by Bohus patterns. I love the Bohus style, the only complaint being that the patterns only cover yokes or front panels. It looks beautiful, but it means you have to knit almost an entire sweater in plain stockinette! So I zoomed in on the color pattern itself, fusing and modifying different Bohus designs. I think it's going well so far:I really like the way the dusty colors blend but still stand out.

Thistle Vest

2009-05-14T21:13:00.000-07:00

My thistle vest is finally done, and it turned out very close to what I had imagined. Many times, I can "see" exactly what I want to make, but it turns out to be different in reality. This one not so! I get compliments when I wear it.The beautiful flower pattern on the vest comes from Dale of Norway, and was originally published with the name Damask. Lots of people have since made their own versions, many with Kauni, so this is just one of them.

But because I am actually so happy with the result, I have written a pattern (describing just the stitch count and centering the flower on the front of the vest).
It will be available as a free Ravelry download shortly. Apparently, they have to link user names to designer names manually, and this takes time. I've waited some days already, so I assume it happens soon.

Shalom!

2009-04-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

I really liked the yoke pattern on Meghan McFarlane's Shalom from first sight. It is similar to Mini til voksne from design-club.dk, which I had been looking at for a while. But design-club only sell their patterns with yarn, so that would be something like $100. Their yarn comes from Henriksens Uldspinderi, and I can just drive there myself and buy directly from them at a discount. I understand that knitting designers have to make money, but we costumers don't enjoy being treated like idiots. I'll pay a reasonable price for a good pattern, but I'm not going to buy your overpriced yarns.

So. In addition to being free, Shalom also has a nicer pattern on the yoke. I found that purling tbl is not as bad as its reputation, and it really makes the pattern so much more elegant.

I changed a number of things. First, I knitted long sleeves. If it is cold enough to wear something this bulky, chances are my arms will be cold, too. I used some mystery Icelandic wool, which I believe is 100 m per 100 g, knitting on a 6 mm needle. Did not try to get gauge, just made up some numbers on the way. The pattern only has one (small) size, so I made it larger by adding a 4th pattern repeat to the yoke:

After the 3rd repeat, I had 159 pattern sts (plus 10 edge sts). I increased 46 sts more or less evenly over the pattern part, for a total of 215 sts. I arrived at this number by looking at the previous increase. 159 is 130% of 123 sts, so the next number should be 130% of 159 = 205 sts, plus 10 edge sts = 215 sts. Don't know if this logic fits with general rules of yoke shape, Zimmermann percentage system, and so on, but it seems to have worked well.

So I knitted the 4th repeat, and then the next problem was how to split the stitches for body and sleeves. McFarlane splits the stitches to make bit fluffy sleeve caps on purpose, but my situation was different as I wanted sleeves. So I just put the yoke on an measured on myself. This resulted in 46 sts for each sleeve, 59 for the back, and 32 for each front.

The sleeves are only very slightly tapered, decreasing 4 sts on the first 20 rows. I increased a few stitches in each side on the last 10 cm of the body, to give a bit of illusion of a waist (I have none).

That's that. Love how it turned out:

Thistle Vest

2009-03-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-03-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-01T12:27:00.000-08:00

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:

Thrummed Mittens

2009-02-17T03:20:00.000-08:00

Last week was our official family knitting week! Inspired by Knitting Daily's thrum theme, we chose these mittens as part of the program. We bravely made the thrums (despite warnings that this can act as a gateway drug to spinning, which again can lead to a farmhouse filled with sheep, goats, and alpacas) out of roving that I have also used for my felted hat , so they go very well together:I used Yarn Forward's pattern, with quite a lot of lazy modifications instead of obtaining gauge with my random stash Harrisville Orchid Yarn:

entire mitten knitted on 4 mm needles, so ribbing was 32 stitches and mitten 40 stitches
8 stitches saved for thumb
when mitten was long enough decreased 4 stitches per round until 4 were left
17 stitches for thumb

Sooo proud of myself

2009-02-09T09:12:00.000-08:00

Look at this:

Wow! It's a swatch. First time I both 1) made a swatch 2) washed it before measuring!!!
I know. 1) should be automatic and actually 2) should, too. But for me it took some unexpected happenings with the gauge of my forecast cardigan when I washed it, to actually start doing this.
The wonderful swatch is for Sukkertrøjen, designed by Marianne Isager. It is knitted with half Tvinni and half Spinni Alpaca (50% wool, 50% alpaca), both from Henrichsens Uldspinderi. I went on another trip to their factory outlet, and I promise I bought almost nothing there and it was very cheap...

Fitted Forecast

2009-01-30T09:11:00.000-08:00

Here's my version of Stefanie Japel's Forecast. I've made quite a lot of changes, replacing the ribs on sleeves and body with shaped knitting in pattern. And, of course, removed the bobbles in the cable, because I don't want to be covered in nipples, especially not on the arms. Also, I made the button bands and cuffs in seed stitch to match the collar, and I have to say I like it better with less pattern confusion, and I think my version looks nicer on my body, while the original looks better on skinny girls!

Here are the changes in more detail:

I knitted size L, with 10 extra sts cast on under each arm, for a less tight fit under the arms (176 sts).
I knitted the 176 sts to just under the bust, then started decreasing, 16 sts over 11 cm, which with my gauge was 4 sts on every 10th row, 2 in each side with 6 sts between decreases
Then, I increased 4 sts (2 on each side) on every 4th row 6 times, then on every 7th row 3 times. I also increased 8 sts between the cables that run down the back, so they flare a bit away from each other (saved the sts for later).
The sleeves are tapered, starting with 67 sts and decreasing to 47 sts by decreasing 2 sts on every 8th row. I finished with 4 rows of reverse stockinette, 12 rows of seed stitch, then cast off with knitting on the wrong side.
Then, I picked up all the sts of each front and the bottom edge, and knitted 3 rows of reverse stockinette (2 sts increase once on each corner), then seed stitch button bands (8 rows each) on front and cast off like on sleeve cuffs.

The back, showing off the increases between cables, and on the sides:

Rescued Baroness

2009-01-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

I needed a gray hat. And how often can you really truthfully say that you need to knit something?? I wanted it simple, so I picked the Baroness Beret pattern by Susan Power at Knit Therapy. A pretty good pattern, with the exception of the use of k2tog tbl which looked bad, so I used ssk instead. It uses a tubular cast-on, which I hadn't tried before, but it was not terribly difficult with these directions. The hat turned out perfect, but when I washed it, it sort of collapsed into a streched huge bag. Noooo!!!
After storing for a few days to consider my options, I rescued it with a very thin elastic thread through the rib:This solved the problem perfectly, so now the hat looks like this, just what I imagined (although maybe a hot iron wouldn't harm it):

Puke Mill

2009-01-20T12:01:00.000-08:00

You may know of a type of Christmas decoration where hot air from candles make an angel-decorated propeller turn, and the motion rings some bells and makes the angels sick. Thus the name of this decoration according to ancient German tradition, puke mill (German: Kotzenmühle, Herr Dr. Maly please correct my spelling if I'm wrong - ahh: Kotzmühle is the correct spelling, thank you Herr Dr!!). This puke mill is indicated in the picture below as the old puke mill. You see, there's a new puke mill in town. The best puke mill!! Wheeee! The new puke mill was my Christmas present, and arrived along with its companion, the japanese winder. Winding is very addictive, and we are in the process of winding our stashes.

PS By some interesting coincidence, both the old and new puke mills are Swedish

Felting

2009-01-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

Here's the story of some real felting, not "just" fulling of something knitted. Annie invited us (Debi and me) to try it in her studio. Tusind tak, Annie! Det var virkelig hyggeligt og spændende at lære.
We made two hats, each constructed on a ball, in three layers of wool. In the first layer, the fibers of the roving are vertical (right hat), while the second layer is wrapped in a spiral (left hat), putting the fibers horizontal:
The third layer is again vertical, and is - more or less - the only layer that shows in the end, the second layer peeking through just a bit. We decorated the third layer with different colors of roving and scraps of yarn to give interesting effectsNow comes the part with the hot soapy water. The entire ball with wool is wrapped in nylon stockings with the legs cut off (two pairs) that are knotted tightly. This keeps the wool more or less in place during the bouncing stage (yes, technical term) where the entire assembly is bounced in the hot soap water for 10-15 minutes. This felts the wool together, forming a fabric (which is strong because its three layers are at right angles to each other).
Now comes the fulling stage, in which the hat is rubbed against a washing board, or in our case a tray for paint. This makes the fabric shrink and thicken (the only stage you go through with items that are knitted, because they are already a fabric when you begin)We fulled the hats until they fit, trying them on several times on the way, and shaping them to our heads and taste. I kept my hat round, Debi made hers flat on top. This is maybe the most interesting stage, where the wool can be bent and worked. In the very end, we ran the hats on a wool program in the washing machine to wash out the soap, followed by some final shaping (as the machine washing shrinks the hat somewhat).

Hello there, we may look a bit funny, but so would you if you had wet wool with lots of soap on your head:

Knitter's Favorite Season

2008-12-20T22:20:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-23T13:41:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-15T23:26:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-03T22:02:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-31T01:00:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-09-09T15:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-02T19:57:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-08-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-14T03:40:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-24T22:35:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

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.