A button-y little neckwarmer

I finished this neckwarmer today. I found the inspiration here. I knitted it in moss stitch and with a cable edging do get another (and in my opinion better ;)) look. I also added decreases at the edge and short rows to get some shaping.

It's knitted from Jo Sharp's Silkroad DK Tweed, colourway Celestine - I bought just one skein of this to see what it was like when it arrived for sale in Denmark about a month ago. It's a lovely yarn - I think Nanna of 123knit.com can expect another order from me :)

The thing I like the most about the original neckwarmer is the all different buttons. Some time ago I inherited a sewing box from my grandmother (my mother's mother) and it was full of lovely old buttons - so I went for a button hunt, and found this:

I especially like the metal buttons; and the one on the bottom with the "Norwegian knitted star" in particular. Fortunately, there are still plenty of those in the box! The button second to the top is made of glass - I've never seen glass buttons before. Peculiar.

50 g of stash used - and no longer with this (deliberate) odd ball in stock.

Coincidental blogland adventures

As you probably all know, browsing through blogland can lead you on numerous adventures. The one I had today was a little out of the ordinary - to me at least - so I'll share my way round it with you.

Starting on Ravelry browsing for yarn from my I-would-love-to-have-this-yarn-but-I'm-not-willing-to-pay-tax-on-a-U.S.-shipment-list I came across projects made from one of the Habu Stainless Steel yarns. That lead me to Olga's profile, where I saw a lovely Wenlan Chia sweater she made (links to Ravelry). That lead me to another profile because Kelli had made another beautiful version of this sweater. That, of course, lead me to Kelli's blog. I discovered that Kelli has a wonderful eye for fashionable knits and went on looking through her blog. At some point, I encountered a post, where she showed her new necklace from - and here comes the interesting part seen from my point of view - Jennifer Zeuner Jewelry. Apparently, Jennifer Zeuner makes jewelry, which is somewhat popular, even in the Hollywood circles.

In case you're still wondering why this is so interesting... jewelry designer Jennifer and I share the same last name. To say the least, this is not an awfully common surname - in fact, I've never met anyone apart from my father and his mother with that name, yet. As some of you may have guessed, our name is of German origin, but it is not as if Germany is crowded with distant family members of that name. I know some people in Denmark share my last name - 55 to be exact - but I've never met the 53 of them. Hence, when I encounter someone with my last name on a blog, and find out the woman grew up as far away as in Puerto Rico before she became a U.S. jewelry designer - well, I smile a little and wonder :)

WIP knitting

I'm very pleased with my self as I reach the end of this weekend (and my day off on Thursday: pre-weekend): In between lab work and correcting Peter's master thesis I've been knitting on WIPs only! I haven't started a new project!

As you can see in the sidebar, I have only(!) 4 WIPs. I've even taken up the Color on Color scarf, which I thought I'd never finish. I'm almost done with the last section, meaning that all I need now is to knit a .... lot of i-cords, weave in even more ends, and make some buttons. I don't say that it'll be done by the end of the week, but I'm confident that it'll be done by the end of the year.

Thursday I plugged away on the neckwarmer (inspiration here) in Jo Sharp DK Silkroad Tweed. Today I washed it, and it's now ready for the 6 different buttons that I dug out of the fully equipped sewing chest that I inherited from my grandmother. I think it's going to be nice!

This weekend I've been knitting on the Colette Pullover: I finished the first sleeve and cast on for the second. I'm suprised how incredibly fast one can knit the rounds on the sleeve when being used to the body rounds! I want to finish this one soon as it's going to be very thick and warm. The weatherman spoke about the winter arriving by the end of the week.

I've also taken a few rounds on the Cabled Pullover. I'm almost at the chest shaping (I'm knitting in the round although the patterns says otherwise - I adhere to EZ: avoid purling by all means!). I'm thinking about casting on for a sleeve for lecture knitting as the semester starts next Monday. Unfortunately, I have no bamboo dpns size 4 mm; bamboo needles are required for silent(!) lecture knitting!

Meanwhile I'm contemplating what to start next. I'm thinking that it'll be MI's Solen and a well-known little elephant.

I'm wearing the Amimono Oak again today - apologies for forgetting to photograph it...

I wish a nice last week of the long month of January :)

Comments

By coincidence, I saw on Britt's blog that not everyone has been able to leave a comment here. I went and changed the settings immediately - I hadn't noticed that only Google Account owners could leave comments as it was.

Now everyone can leave a comment! :)

Thanks to Britt for drawing my attention to the problem - and for giving me the award! :) - and to all of you who leave comments now and again; I really do appreciate them!

Award time!

I'm very honoured to get this You-make-my-day award from Lise:




The rules are as follows: “Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times.”

According to Google Reader - the very nice tool (when you install the "Next"-button in your browser) that I use for reading blogs more easily - I read 36 blogs regularly; and even more a little more randomly. I picked out the 10 blogs I appreciate the most, and here they are - in random order:

Hverken fugl eller fisk
Knit in Denmark
Pindsvinet
Lykke & Løkker
Knitting Hurricanes
Aalerusen
Ysolda
Mettetations
Slagt en hellig ko
Brooklyntweed

Now I'm off to commenting on all these blogs to let them know about the award :)

I would have liked to link to even more of the blogs I read, since there is so much inspiration out there in blogland. Maybe I'll do that some other time.

Happy knitting and blog-reading to all of you.

Amimono Oak and EZ Tomten finished; first free day used

Some day (I forgot which) this week I finished the Amimono Oak:

I wore it today for my boyfriend's nieces baptism, but I didn't manage to take any photos of me wearing it. Yet.

The design is made by talented Danish knitting designer Helga Isager; her company is called Amimono, the Japanese word for knitting. As I have waxed poetic about earlier, she makes fabulous and fashionable designs. Looking forward to seeing her spring collection. The yarn for this garment (a long vest, it must be) is her own, (or mostly, her mothers?) and you must buy a kit including the yarn to get the pattern. They are fairly expensive, but I must say the yarn and the pattern is quite word the money.

I followed the smallest size (small/medium) of the pattern, but I knit on needle size 5.0mm and not 5.5mm as suggested by the pattern although I normally have to use larger needles since I'm knitting tightly. I did however make this modification to get a denser and more rigid fabric; it turned out like I wanted it to! This, of course, made me use more yarn than I might have, but since the kit comes with enough yarn for the largest size, I had enough: the kit includes 700 g of yarn; I used 696 g!

I'm looking forward to flashing this fashionable knit in the time to come; I'll try to post some photos later.


As soon as I finished this 2nd project of the year I went and spent the first free day earned in this year's Stashalong (my rules are here):

A very modest purchase, I must say: 100g of New Zealand lambswool and 50 g of Arwetta sock yarn. The latter for an upcoming project; the first is not quite the colour I wanted it to be, so I guess I'll order something else for the project I have in mind when I earn my next free day.

I did also finish another project this week: The EZ Tomten jacket (link for Ravelry) for the above mentioned niece being baptized today. I sew in the buttons in the car on our way there, hence, I only managed to take some photos of it with my mobile phone. Alas, it turns out that none of us have Bluetooth on our computers! What a shame! I've never got so many compliments on my knits as I got today from the baptism participants :) The child's father even called it cool ;)


All I can show you is this progress photo, where you can see the raspberry main colour. I also used some coral yarn to underline the sleeve construction - and some pink alpaca when I ran out of the original yarn... :) 194 g stash reduction; and an immensely cute baby jacket which I assume the child can grow in.




Stashalong status:
Used: 934 g; 3 projects = 1 free day earned.
Bought: 150 g; 1 free day used.

A nice progress so far; and 2 projects crossed from the list, as the EZ Tomten will replace the EZ February Sweater on the list.

Working on a Sunday

Clearly, it is quite possible to knit while reading scientific articles. Obviously, that makes reading a lot nicer ;)

This is the last day of my 5-weeks Christmas holidays. Oh.

My first finish in 2008

A small one, though. 44 g of Arwetta ekstra fin merino in a grey-green colour used for this baby vest/shirt from Lene Holme Samsøe's book Sødt & Blødt which I got at the library. I knit size ½ year on 3.0mm needles. I added a button opening on the shoulder to make it go over the baby's head easier.

It'll be my first project for Stashalong 2008 and for 12 projekter.

Stashalong 2008 starts now!

I photographed my stash and weighed it: 9122 g! But doesn't it look nice? As I claimed in one of my previous posts, this year I have an improved stash quality with yarn for several already planned projects; I guess it shows from the photo.

I did some yarn shopping over Christmas (or rather, my gorgeous mother paid for me :)), and added the Amimono Oak knit kit to the count; that gives me this large number!

A lot of this amount is already WIPs or upcoming, planned projects, so I'm confident that I'll manage to reduce this amount considerably.

By the way...

... I have finished 50 projects in 2007! According to my list in the sidebar.

Some might say that my list for Stashalong 2008 (below) is quite short compared to that, but

• most of the projects on it are quite large
• I plan to spend more time studying and less time knitting this year (unfortunately)
• there's plenty of room for improvement on that list... :)

Stashalong Goals & Rules 2008

Last year I went by the rule that I could only buy 40% of what I knit up, but I could get gifts and use free days apart from this. This lead to a minor stash reduction (~800g) and a stash quality improvement which I am quite pleased with.

This year I’ll do something different, though. Part of my stash improvement was to shop for specific projects, so that I now have yarn for several planned upcoming projects. Consequently, my Stashalong 2008 will be project-based: I’ll be knitting a number of projects from my stash:

1. Amimono Oak (WIP)
2. Colette Pullover from IK Winter 07 (WIP)
3. Cabled Pullover from Norah Gaughan’s Knitting Nature (WIP)
4. EZ Kangaroo Pouch from red/pink/heather stash
5. Cardigan in red Posh Yarn Eva 2-ply (laceweight silk/cashmere)
6. Solen from Marianne Isager’s Japan (Danish book)
7. Karpen from Marianne Isager’s Japan (Danish book)
8. Red Bubble Pullover
9. EZ February Baby Sweater
10. EZ Baby Surprise Jacket
11. Gentleman’s Fancy Socks (Nancy Bush’s Vintage Socks) in purple-brown-black Admiral degradé
12. Socks in purple Arwetta

I think I’ll go with 12 projects in 12 months. Not that I have to finish a project every month, but I think it is an appropriate number. I am allowed to change the projects on the above list. I think I’ll revise the list in June or July to see if I should add more projects. Any project that I knit from my stash will count in my Stashalong 2008 adventure.

EDIT 30/03/2008: I've posted an updated list here.

My rules for 2008:

• I’ll finish (at least) 12 projects knitted from my stash only (see above) – this number will be revised in June/July
• I’ll have a free day for purchasing yarn every time I have finished 2 projects
• I can also use free days earned in KAL in KALs, that is if I get any
• By the end of the year my amount of stash must be smaller than it is now, January 2nd (I’ll count it next week); gifts, free day purchases, etc. must counted in altogether
• I must post on Stashalong whenever I finish a project

These rules are quite simple, and I think I like them.

I’ve already put all my stash on Ravelry (I’m “BirgitteStrikker”), and I’ll keep doing that – it’s such an easy way too have an overview instead of having to dig out all the stash from all the baskets in which it resides.

Happy knitting to all of you!