NaKniSweMoDo

I signed up for the National Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon here (Ravelry link). 

I've already completed the first two: Owls and Pine (see below). :)

Yum!

What a coincidence

I just found two good things about the dear boyfriend going to Dubai and Bahrain for 10 days from tomorrow:

1) Kate just published Paper Dolls! 

2) I have quite a lot of the beautiful grey Isager Alpaca 2 left over from Pine (I might need to buy an extra 50g skein, but hey...)

Oh, oh, OH! :D

P.S. If anybody has approx. 100-200 m (leftovers) of Isager Alpaca 2, colourway 011 (dark grey) they want to part with (at a cost, of course), it would make my day! :) 

What I'm knitting...

While I was at it (blogging, that is) I thought I might as well show you what I'm knitting at the moment (I shot photos for my Ravelry project pages on Saturday).

Sommer i Tokyo by Marianne Isager (Raveled here) - I did the sleeves first to swatch...; not the same colours as in the book, but I like these (the blue ones are Filcolana NZ Lambswool, the pink is Isager Tvinni, and the orange is Henrichsens Uldspinderi's own label):Kim Hargreaves' Ripple (with however long sleeves I can get with the Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk (colourway Guava) Peter brought me home from the states last summer); Raveled here:
AND - for the first time I've now got 2 sets of 2.25 mm double pointed needles (my favourite sock size) so that I can't knit 2 pairs of socks simultaneously! I bought KnitPicks Harmony dpns (15 cm) and I love them! The two pairs of socks are:

Komet in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (colourway Firefly), Raveled here:
and Leyburn Socks in some Koigu colourway (you can see which on my Ravelry project page):
And for quite some time now (but I like the process) I've been knitting Woodland in 2 strands of Posh Yarn Eva 2 ply (silk/cashmere); Raveled here:

I also just cast on for a green project as green is the colour for Project Spectrum in March/April. You can see which on Ravelry. More later.

FOs on parade (yes, I've used that title before...)

Right, I guess it's high time I post all those FOs which have been done for up to two months now that I've finally photographed them (thanks to getting up early on Saturday - amazing what you can accomplish on a Saturday morning instead of sleeping...). 

I think I'll go anti-chronologically (if that was a word...):

Yesterday I finally finished Amimono's Pine; I got the kit for my birthday (Dec 8) and started knitting on Christmas Eve:

I love the yarn, the design, the beautiful grey colour, and the buttons I chose (notice the little Selbu star! I know this cardigan isn't exactly Norwegian, but I really like these buttons, which I inherited from my grandmother, and I wanted to put them on something I expect to use a lot).

I'm sure some of my fellow knitters would appreciate to know whether I found any mistakes in the pattern. I didn't - at least not in size s/m. In fact, I don't often find mistakes in the Isager patterns - perhaps I'm just lucky.

My Pine on Ravelry: here.

Next up is my is an instant gratification project: the Wham Bam Thank You Lamb! cowl in my favourite purple Cascade Magnum (leftover from Twinkle Dress and Twinkle Best Friend Cardigan):

I love the structure and shape of it. And it's almost too easy to knit. Raveled here.

Next up is my Owls sweater - published in January, the pattern now has 538 projects on Ravelry. What a success! It is an ingenious sweater - and the shoulder and waist shapings are clever!

Mine is knitted in Icelandic Istex Álafoss Lopi - a bit itchy, but it fits this sweater well. Oh, and the 36 buttons were 0.90 DKK each (i.e. nothing), and they had exactly 36 of these discontinued buttons left in the store! Lucky me. My parliament of owls is Raveled here.

What's next? Oh, my redone Shopping Tunic. I frogged the Shopping Tunic, as I didn't really use it (even though a woman in a shop complimented it), and found that I used my other Twinkle dress a lot more. Et voila, the tunic is now a dress (Raveled here): 

And then there's my Charade socks in the famous Wollmeise 100% Sockenwolle, colourway Drachenblut, which I won in a contest (otherwise I'd never have been lucky enough to get my hands on it). 

The Wollmeise colourways are wonderful, but the yarn seems to twist a bit? Though it's not an uncommon feature of yarns, I find it a bit odd that such a pricy yarn isn't more well-balanced... or should I have treated it differently? The socks are really nice though. The Charade stitch pattern is a bit tedious, but the outcome is good. Raveled here. 

The last FO is this catch up is my red bowtie scarf, which I'm really happy with! 

It's as chunky as I wanted it, knitted with two strands of Posh Yarn Lei (wool/bamboo) and 1 strand of Hifa 2 (wool). I like the style a lot - oversize children's scarf (the latter was underlined by my father asked if it was the one from my childhood :D). It's Raveled here.

Right, that's all for now. Let's see if I manage to post more regularly in the future :)