Clara III

Today's post features another FO: my absolute favourite when it comes to baby girl handknit items - and the third I've knit this year - Clara. This one is for the same little girl who got the first one I knit; her mother was brave enough to request another now that the little girl had grown out of the old one and worn it a lot. Well, here it is! I love how the mixture of a pink yarn and an orange one gives such a vibrant colour :)

Info:

Pattern: Clara by Karin Vestergaard Mathiesen
Yarn: some soft and smooth orange wool bought at Henrichsens Uldspinderi (600m/100g) and some single-ply wool bought at Lystbækgaard. The single-ply makes the vest twist a bit, but I don't mind.
Needles: 4.5 mm to make it larger that the 6-12 month sizes it's given in (CO 110 sts).
Size: Well, something like 1-2 years - I'm not that good at baby sizes, but this should be quite large for its recipient who is approx. 9 months old.

Raveled here.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of knitting this pattern. There's the stockinette part in the beginning if you need some easy knitting, and then when you reach the yoke you're almost done and the lace pattern flies off the needles... Well, almost. And the result is great! :)

Shooooes!

Thank you for all the overwhelming comments on the cabled sweater dress - they make me very happy! :)

Today's post is going to quite a lot briefer, but I just wanted to show you my most recent acquisition in the Camper department, because I find them too gorgeous not to share! They are my... uhm... 11th pair of Camper shoes... But then about every other pair of shoes I have are Camper's!

You can find them online here. I must say that I paid considerably less for mine - possibly because they were bought in London - the only thing I could afford in New Bond Street! ;) - and not in Denmark, nor online. I've had that same experience about prices on this particular brand of shoes before :)

Cabled Sweater Dress for Winter

I have so been looking forward to showing you this one!

It's my new and very own cabled sweater dress:

Complete with waist shaping and a saddle shoulder construction where the sleeve cable continues onto the shoulder and the centre back cable continues on the extra rows knit in the neck to create back and front round the neckline.

I started this back in September and didn't really knit much on it until the weather started getting colder and I couldn't wait to wear it - the final enticement was that I wanted to wear it on our 4-days-in-London-where-we-bring-hand-luggage-only-and-must-have-room-for-heaps-of-shopping-anyway trip in the middle of November. The photos are indeed shot at Exchange Square in London, where we happened to pass by a not too crowded place, perfect for a photo shoot.

I wanted to give it a name (as I made it up myself, it doesn't come with a name), and initially thought of Newton, because, like Isaac Newton, I stood on the shoulders of giants for this one: Kim Hargreaves, Helga Isager, and Marianne Isager for design ideas, and not least Elizabeth Zimmermann for the ingenious saddle shoulder construction. Then again, Newton sounds more like the SI unit of force than a cabled sweater dress, doesn't it? :)

This may very well have become my favourite piece of clothing for this (and the next) winter!

Info:
Pattern: my own, but with no intention of publishing, at least not at the moment; if you want to make something similar, but with a less ingenious shoulder construction (if I do say so myself...) I'd suggest Aaren by Kim Hargreaves
Size: mine, that'll be a small/34" bust
Yarn: Cushendale Woollen Mills DK, almost 6 skeins, colourway Wine, bought online at The Yarn Room
Needle size: 4.5 mm
Raveled here - with many more photos!

NaBloPoMo

= National Blog Posting Month.

That's what I'll try to have in December: a blog post a day!
I've been wanting to do something like that for some time now, and as I handed in my MSc thesis today and is not starting of the PhD until January 4th, I now have plenty of time on my hands for Christmas shopping, Christmas preparations, knitting, gift knitting, cleaning, cooking, celebrating my Master's degree after the defense on the 10th - and blogging... :)

I'm looking forward to posting tomorrow :)

In which our heroine goes to London and acquires a negative Sock Yarn O-Meter balance...

Here's my new sock yarn stash! From the left: 1 skein Colinette Jitterbug colourway Vatican Pie, 2 skeins of ShiBui Sock colourway Chinese Red, and Madelinetosh Tosh Sock one skein each of Vermillion and Thunderstorm. Three skeins (the Colinette and the Madelinetosh) fell into my basket along with a skein of Malabrigo Worsted in Ravelry Red when I visited Loop in Islington (Northern London) last Friday - a lovely little shop with gorgeous yarns! The two skeins of ShiBui were bought locally in Sommerfuglen when my mum visited the week before last. All loooovely yarns!

The only bad thing about it is the impact on Sock Yarn O-Meter II... There are 488 g of lovely sock yarn, i.e. -61% on the Sock Yarn O-Meter! Uh-oh. Even so, there is no way I could resist buying these yarns when I had the chance to feel the yarn and see the colours IRL. Do you think I love red?

As a small consolation I did in fact finishing some sock yarn using projects! (Or should we call them Sock Yarn O-Meter neutral projects these days...?). I've been knitting baby gear on commission - a friend of a friend of mine is having her first baby (a girl), and so I've been set up for knitting an haute couture collection ;) Here it is:

And all in sock yarn! Alas, it's only 136 g of sock yarn... i.e. +17% on the Sock Yarn O-Meter II. That leaves the poor O-Meter at -44%. Well well, I guess I can enjoy even more sock yarn knitting then! :)

Methinks winter is upon us...

- at least my urge to knit scarves and shawls is quite pronounced. My current plan is to knit the following:

• Ysolda's Peak Island Hood
• A cowl inspired by Thermis
• Karen's Transition Stash-buster Shawl; I think I'll stick to one colour, but I liked this shawl better than the other ones I found
• Ysolda's Scroll Lace Scarf

Well well, off to finish (and blog about) some of those 14 WIPs - some of them even with pre-Christmas deadlines! - to make room for some more knitting. And oh, there's this MSc thesis I have to hand in on December 1st... 

New Layout

What can I say? I got tired of the dull old one. And I love red, I love Converse All Stars, and I love straight modern lines and simplicity.

I hope you like it, too :)

Now I just need to figure out how to remove that orange box...

Sock Yarn-O-Meter no. 2

I liked the first Sock Yarn-O-Meter so much, that I want to make a second. Trouble is: I don't have 1000 g of sock yarn to use up! I've counted and it seems I have around 900 g when I include all scraps. Therefore, new rules:

- 800 g used = 100% (i.e. 8 g used is +1%)

- all sock yarn counts

- I can knit whatever, not only socks

- If I buy new sock yarn before reaching 100%, 8 g will equal -1% (setting the limit so close to the max. amount I have, I can't really have 'double punishment' (here: -2% per 8 g), or I'll end up never being able to finish this one!)

- Prize: whatever suits my fancy :)

BTW, I realised I didn't mention this in my Sock Yarn-O-Meter I wrap-up: I didn't buy any sock yarn during the first Sock Yarn-O-Meter! But seeing as the second version is likely to be more slow going - I'm knitting sweaters and baby gear and am no longer on a sock knitting frenzy - I may not be that good this time... :)

Sock Yarn-O-Meter done!

With the second last pair of my A Year in Socks pattern collection I reached 100% on my first Sock Yarn O'Meter. Here they are, the July Socks:

I used 112 g of Socks That Rock Lightweight, colourway Firebird = 11.2 % added to the Sock Yarn O'Meter - which brings it above 100%!

The Sock Yarn O'Meter comes with a prize upon completion. My prize?

Well, I went overboard on Tante Hanne's August/September sale on Isager Alpaca 2. I can't think of anything better than having a nice stash of high quality yarn in (small) sweater quantities (with this yarn, 250 g is enough for my size). Yum!

Pattern Collection Release: A Year in Socks!

Finally, the mystery is over! Some of you have been wondering and waiting to know what all those secret socks were for (nobody have been more impatient than I) and here it is:

A Year in Socks - a collection of 12 sock patterns

by me :)

A knitting pattern collection of 12 different sock patterns - one for each month of the year - where I've let each month inspire me. I've always found calendars and their division into days, weeks, and months fascinating, and I take great pleasure in the seasonal change we experience here in Northern Europe - especially just now, in late September/early October where summer turns into autumn; my favourite time of year!

The product is a collection of 12 different sock patterns reflecting the seasons and featuring a variety of stitch patterns and designs all using the same foundation - the sock.

With this, I hope to inspire you, too, even if you feeling about each month is not the same as mine.

The pattern collection is up for purchase in my Etsy shop - 12 patterns for $22 USD!

Each pattern includes:

- one or more photos of the socks

- information on gauge, suggested yarn, and needle size

- brief description on how to make larger/smaller sizes (the patterns are written for a woman's size medium)

- instructions on how to knit the sock, i.e. the pattern :)

- charts showing the stitch pattern

The collection is a 43-pages .pdf file.

Now, I want to show you all those socks I've been working on. Chronologically, of course:

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

(yes, you've seen this one before...)

December

You can find more information on Ravelry and more photos and details on my Flickr page.

Finally, I want to thank Britt for indirectly giving me this idea: a sunny day in June where I ought to be studying for my exams at the terrace I started knitting a sock to add some percentages to the Sock yarn O'Meter that Britt just got me started with. The sock was knit in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Multi in the colourway Shadow; the colourway made me think: This is so January! And there it was. I already made the November sock last year and thought: Hey! I'm making a collection - a sock for each month! The rest, as they say, is history and so is the Sock yarn O'Meter I - all this sock knitting over the summer made me pass the 100%; more on this later.

FOs: More secret socks

It never ends, does it?

Well, it does, quite soon, but up until then you'll have to do with another of those toes only photos of the two pairs of socks I've completed recently. In fact it's all about sock knitting around here these days.

Two lovely yarns and two lovely colours: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Solid colourway Firefly and Colinette Jitterbug colourway Velvet Damson.

It's another 188 g = 18.8 % added to the Sock yarn O-Meter. That adds up to 91.4 % on the O-Meter - another pair of socks should bring me over 100 % then - yay! :)

FOs: The Cardigans

Or rather, a cardigan and a vest (but I couldn't help it choosing this title...:)).

First up is Twinkle's Biker Vest from Big City Knits. The pattern is meant for the Twinkle Cruise Yarn, but I wanted it to be more like those small quilted vests that were in fashion earlier this year (and hopefully will be for another few months... ;)), so I adapted the pattern to the super bulky wool yarn and knit on Needles size 9.00 mm to get a dense fabric. My Ravelry project page is here.

Next up is my 8th garment for NaKniSweMoDo: Polly from Kim Hargreaves' Thrown Together. It's knitted in Araucania Nature Wool Chunky (a really nice yarn!!) in a semisolid dark grey colour (a bit overexposed in the photos). I used the well-known trick of swapping skeins every two rows to avoid pooling or visible skein differences. According to the pattern and several Ravelry project pages the yardage I had in my stash was insufficient, so I decided to make the sleeves 3-4 cm shorter to be able to use this stash yarn anyway (I've used quite a lot of yarn from stash recently - yay!). It turned out that this wasn't at all necessary as I still have a bit less than half a skein left over, but I didn't really want to redo it after seaming it all together... :)

Like most Kim Hargreaves' designs this is a really nice one too. Simple yet effective - and wearable. As you can see, I used four different buttons; I didn't have four similar ones of that size in my inherited button stash (yes, my grandmother's again), so I found it better to use four different ones of similar size and colour - a bit more fun to carry these buttons and their history around than heading off to buy four new ones.

And here's my Ravelry project page for Polly.

FOs: Accessories

Right... I have quite some FOs to show you this time - mainly because I must the laziest photographer/photo uploader known to mankind. The 8 FOs I'm going to show you (divided into 3 posts or so) have finish dates from the middle of August up until last night. That is to say - I didn't finish it all at once! :)

To avoid drowning you in FOs I've split it up into 4 posts, this one showing hats and scarves:

This vibrantly yellow shawlette is Damson by Ysolda knit in two strands of Posh Yarn Eva 2 ply (55% silk, 45% cashmere = incredibly soft and smooth), colourway Daffodil. It's in Ysolda's new collection Whimsical Little Knits 2 and already all over the place.

Speaking of said collection, another item from there is the slouchy hat Ripley:

It's available in 2 versions: a smaller, more girly one with lace edging and the slouchier unisex version which is the one I knit using two strands of Posh Yarn Lei (also incredibly soft and smooth), colourway Vermeil.

(I sense a pattern here: Ysolda accessories in Posh Yarn...)

Finally, some chunky knits to use up every inch of my super bulky stash (Cascade Magnum and Twinkle Soft Chunky): the Aspen Hat from Twinkle's Big City Knits. I tried out another of her hats first, but I didn't like it - luckily knitting a hat with this yarn is not so time-consuming... :)

The other item in the photo is a (rather short) scarf using up the very last inches after I knit the hat (and a vest you'll see in another post).

In case you're interested, links to my Ravelry project pages are here:

Damson

Ripley

Aspen Hat

Chunky Scarf

Next up: Open front garments aka cardigan and vest :)

Clara

A cute little vest for a cute little girl. Started knitting this one for a number of reasons: wanted to see how much yarn it used up in this size, wanted to knit up that odd ball of yarn, wanted to knit this pattern.

As it turns out, I've now found a recipient for it, too :)

Info:

Pattern: Clara [Rav-link] by Karin Vestergaard Mathiesen

Size: 1 year

Yarn: Noda Junik, colourway Redcurrant, 42 g (washed as well as unwashed)

Needles: size 3.25 mm

Chest circumference: 50 cm

Link to my Ravelry project page here.

I'll definitely knit more of these. Very satisfying.

Paper Dolls and Selbu Stars

I finally got the photos out of the camera and can now present my latest garment: let's call it Paper Dolls and Selbu Stars.

I see the Selbu stars alright, but where are the paper dolls? you might ask. Or maybe you already know that Paper Dolls is the name of the pattern for this knitted T-shirt (as my boyfriend incredulously calls it) by Kate Davies.

I love the i-cord edges and the corrugated ribbing - a nice finish, if you ask me.

For quite some time now I've been wanting to knit something with the Selbu star. And not just any Selbu star. No, it had to be this particular Selbu star found in one of my mom's ancient books "Den Ny Strikkebog" ("The New Knittingbook") published sometime during the first half of the last century. I love how the star has all these small curls and details - and it was a pleasure to knit.

From knitting the Owl sweater I was quite fond of Kate's way of doing yoke decreases: waiting until after the yoke pattern and then decreasing rather steeply. It worked on the Owls, but this time it turned out to be much too tight in the neckline.... It lingered in my knitting basket for some weeks before I finally picked it up again during WIP WrestleMania in July. I still haven't made any decreases until after the Selbu star pattern (which works fine) but I've done fewer decreases this time around. That gave me the more open neckline I wanted. There are no photos of the short row neck shaping on the back, you'll have to trust me that it works :)

No modelled photos this time, but I can tell you that it's tight-fitting. A real knitted T-shirt ;)

Info:

Pattern: Paper Dolls by Kate Davies

Yarn: Isager Alpaca 2 (grey 011), Isager Tvinni (dark red and pink)

Needles: size 3 mm for the most of it; 3.25 mm for the corrugated ribbing, and 3.75 mm for the i-cord edges.

Link to my Ravelry project page here.

The Isager yarn knits up in a fine gauge and makes the T-shirt very light and soft.

I started this garment back in February not knowing if I had enough of the grey yarn to finish it; the yarn was the leftovers from Pine - I thought that almost 2 skeins (50 g each) of this exquisite were too much to just hide around in the stash; I wanted to make something from it. Turned out I didn't have enough yarn. A stroke of luck - a fellow Raveler answered my ad on Ravelry as she had one skein of the same dyelot(!) left over from one of her projects! My supervisor usually says that luck follows the well-prepared, but I can't really say that I was exactly that this time around - I was just plain lucky! Thanks, rei!

Sockyarn-O-Meter Progress IV

Another round of secret sock projects. This time I have 4 pairs finished - 3.5 of which where finished thanks to WIP Wrestlemania in July... :)

In total they are 338 g (80 + 82 + 86 + 90 = 338), i.e. 33.8 % added to the Sock yarn O-Meter, which has now reached 72.6 % !!! Yay!

I promise to reveal more about all these socks soon...

I heart my Cornflower

I started knitting Buttercup (Rav link) about a month ago in this adorably blue and shiny linen yarn by Karin Öberg - the best linen yarn I've ever tried to knit with. Having prepared it for a holiday spent partly on the European roads with only the stockinette stitch to go, I've managed to finish it during my holidays. And the outcome is just like I wanted it to be! I love the neckline, the A-line design, and the colour. 

The pattern is very well written, so if you're tempted by this design, I'll recommend it :)

Ravelry link here.

This was NaKniSweMoDo #5.

Amimono Endeavours III

Coral #2 is done. In black Viscolin and a tad of blue linen by Karin Öberg. A nice and useful summer top.

Granite is on the needles... :)

This was NaKniSweMoDo #6.

Roo

I think I have to knit this - the surprise from the Summer Twist Collective.

WIP WrestleMania 2009 - Take I

Here's my first WIP smacked down! A little girl's dress I made up in order to use up these 3 yarns lingering in my stash in amounts insufficient for most things... Filcolana New Zealand lambswool in heather and light grey, and Drops Alpaca in heather/rose. Raveled here.

I like it a lot! I have one more - in green - coming up (well, eventually).

Now I just need to find a little girl (6-12 months old) to give it to... 

Autobahn, here I come!

I've spent the morning preparing my knits for the road trip holidays - miles and miles on end on the Autobahn, narrow mountain roads, and the autostrada. 

The photo shows the two projects that simply can't fail as holiday knitting. I've finished the "hard" parts, i.e. neck edging, sleeves, feather-and-fan pattern (I've even sewn up the neck edging and sleeves and woven in ends), and yet to go is endless rows of plain stockinette (with a few increases and decreases here to keep me awake, but easy to memorise) - in total I have a little over 1 km of yarn to be knit into stockinette before these two projects are finished.

And when they are done? They'll be wonderful summer garments - I've tried both of them on and they are definitely winners! I'm confident they'll get quite a lot of wear. Right now the Danish weather is perfect (25-30 celsius!!) for wearing them, but I hope the summer returns when I return. 

What are they then?

The (beautifully) blue one on the left is Buttercup (in this case I think Cornflower would be more appropriate, though...) by Heidi Kirrmaier. 

It's knitted in the most exquisite linen yarn I've ever tried - it's Kalinka by Karin Öberg (and I can't believe I camped a few miles from her knitting café hosting house/shop three years ago without knowing anything about it...). I guess the Swedes are skilled when it comes to linen. Alas, this gorgeous cornflower deep blue colour is not longer produced (booo...), but is still available in other nice colours - and I do think I'll need more of it at some point... Locally, I can get it in Sommerfuglen in Copenhagen, but the way the Swedish currency looks at the moment, I think I'll import some from Sweden instead! 

This yarn was a random purchase I made in Kunstladen at Fanø two years ago at the knitters' festival. I loved the colour and originally intended it for Marianne Isager's Karpen (March's garment in Japanese Inspired Knits), but then I didn't want to knit that anyway. And now I'm happy I didn't. The yarn is perfect for this simple yet very pretty tunic - just my style. 

The black one on the right is Coral by Amimono. It's knitted in Isager's Viscolin. The yarn is alright, but nowhere near the Kalinka linen. 

... And I never thought I should be fond of knitting with anything but wool. Well, I guess I was wrong :)

Right now...

A nice little meme that I've taken the liberty to translate into English, having seen it here and here in Danish.

Outside my window there is... grass. Grass and lovely sunshine. Summer has hit Denmark and will stay for at least a week! 

I'm thinking about... if there's something crucial we've forgotten to think about for our holidays; starting on Friday. 

I'm grateful for... my life. 

In the kitchen there's... a mess! As in: a huuuge mess. I was home alone last night cooking myself an exquisite all-homemade burger. And I tend to leave a huge mess in the kitchen when combining cooking and being home alone. 

I'm dressed in... black. What can I say, it's my favourite colour. 

I'm doing... a lot of knitting. Trying to prepare and select the right knits for the road trip holiday and the WIP WrestleMania in July. I'm almost there. 

I have to... go to the library within the next hour (before it closes) to pick up a guidebook on Alsace. I also need to eliminate some of those laundry mountains...

I'm reading... well, the newspaper. I ought to read some scientific papers, too, but my mind is said on holidays, and I'll stick to experiments (no reading) this last week before said holiday. I'm not reading any fiction at the moment - in fact, I'm really bad at reading fiction while studying...

I'm hoping... that the floods won't spread to the Western part of Central Europe. In fact, I'm hoping they'll go away so people can have their houses, etc. back (and our holidays won't involve floods...).

I'm listening to... the noises from the fridge, the clock, and my typing. 

Around the house/flat is... even more mess!

One of my favourite things is... hmm, in a month it may be our new car... right now, well, my 16-year old teddy? And a lot of other items with sentimental value.  

During the weekend I must... get a lot of stuff sorted for the holidays. And definitely go for a run! And eat some nice food like we usually do at weekends. 

A photo I'd like to share... this one from two weeks ago when Peter and I had a lovely day in Copenhagen shopping some nice stuff, wandering around in the sun, having a wonderful lunch at a restaurant owned by two brothers our age with just the right spirit - right next to an antiques flea market. Never have I seen that many clams on one plate... 

Amimono Endeavours II

I just wanted to give you an update on this part... 

Helga's book launch a couple of weeks ago made the list even longer - and changed it a bit. Here's what I'm now planning to knit - at some point within the next years, that is... (sorry for the titles of the patterns in the new book being in Danish, but that's what they are):

Coral (on the needles)

Granite (on the needles) 

1900'erne: Cardigan med klokkekant

1960'erne: Sweater i tofarvet patent

1970'erne: Barnetrøje i hulkrus 

1980'erne Bluse i hulmønster

Olive

Daffodil 

(I couldn't be bothered linking this time...)

I've already picked out 4 colours of Tvinni that I want to order - 200-250 g of each, for 4 different projects. Now I just need to go and find 1300 DKK somewhere... or maybe I should just learn to settle for less (yes, I definitely should! I've got more plans than knitting time after all...) :) Next thing must be to go out and look at the colours IRL to see which one(s) I want to start with. Decisions decisions. 

Firstly, though, I've signed up for WIP WrestleMania (running all of July) over on Ravelry. I've got some 15-16 WIPs that need handling.... 

Decipede!

A couple of weeks ago I finished my second Decipede, which I made for little Valdemar, who was very happy with it :)

It's knitted from the pattern I made some time ago - you can find it here (Etsy) and here (Ravelry). 

I sure like the little decipede a lot :)

Sockyarn-O-Meter Progress III

It's all very secretive, but I finished 3 pairs of socks. That gives me an extra 282 g = 28.2 % on the Sockyarn-O-Meter :D

WIP Personal Record

I think I may have set a personal record in number of WIPs. I'm now officially at 16 WIPs! (You can see for yourself in the sidebar: the Ravelry-linked progress bars. However, there isn't much to see as I don't waste precious knitting time shooting photos...)

It's a mix of designing socks, suddenly a lot of spare time, and wanting to use up the odds and ends in my stash. 

I'm moving forward at a steady pace, finishing them one by one, but I can't promise there won't be more... BUT I'm not allowed to buy more needles to fit in more projects ;)

Baktus scarf

Inspired by Britt, I dug out the softest and most luxurious yarn in my stash - a single skein and an odd ball I've been wanting to use in the quest to get rid of old bits and bobs - and cast on for the Baktus Scarf. It is one skein of Posh Yarn Eva 4 ply (55% silk, 45% cashmere) in colourway Flamingo (pink-orange) and the leftover Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk from my Rosa, colourway Guava (deep pink). 

Pattern: Baktus Scarf

Needles: 3.75 mm Addi Lace

Yarn: Posh Yarn Eva 4-ply (Flamingo; 1 skein) and Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk (Guava; 0.6 skein).

It is sooooo soft and thus nice to wear at the neck - and very pretty, I think. 

I have a cunning plan

- a plan so cunning that you can put a tail on it and call it a weasel! *

It involves reducing my sock yarn stash (and gaining percentages for the Sockyarn-O-Meter), fulfilling some of my designer aspirations, and having a good time. And lots of knitting, obviously.

So I might be a bit secretive in the future :)