Granite is grey, trellis is pink

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.