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

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.

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):

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

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.

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.

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.