Et par tvangsvanter - og mit første garn

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!

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.