Sock Yarn-O-Meter Progress

Recently, I set my mind up to use up some of all the sock yarn leftovers in order to make it easier for myself to see what interesting sock yarn stash I actually have. So far, it's resulted in a white-grey-black pair of socks for myself and a very colourful pair of self-composed baby boots for an unknown recipient (at my age, you can never have too much baby knitting in stock - people seem to pop out babies all the time :)).

Socks: Arwetta Classic in black and dark grey and Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Multi in Shadow (the latter is leftovers from the January Sock). Ravelry project page here. 72 g for Sock Yarn-O-Meter.

Baby Boots: ShiBuiKnits Sock in Jewel, Socks That Rock Lightweight in Firebird, and J. Knits Superwash Me - Sock in Tampa, i.e. leftovers from the May Socks, the June Socks, and the March Socks. Ravelry project page here. 20 g for Sock Yarn-O-Meter. 

I've also been using some of the sock yarn scraps for this scrap yarn blanket:

It's a long term project and I'm only approx. 40% through; so far I've knit 64 squares in 47 different yarns. It's very nice to knit, and it's a project I pull out when I've collected enough odds and ends from other projects to knit a few squares. As you can (hopefully) see, I try to keep some kind of order as to where I put the colours. You can follow the blanket on it's Ravelry project page. The sock yarn scraps I knit into this one this time around add up to 32 g for the Sock Yarn-O-Meter.

Another addition to the Sock Yarn-O-Meter comes from the November Socks and December Socks. Why, how can I have published the sock collection and not having finished the socks until now? Well, part of it is a matter of second sock syndrome. The red December Sock was indeed finished in August before I published the collection, but the second one - which is grey and red because I ran out of red yarn... - was a long time coming. 

The sock on the left in the photo is the November Sock. I knit this second pair because the first pair was too worn out to be put on display. The first sock is absent in the photo because it is indeed on display, so you'll have to take my word for it that I actually finished two :)
Addition to Sock Yarn O-Meter: November Socks: 104 g; December Socks: 75 g.

All this sums up to 303 g of sock yarn used, i.e. +38% for the Sock Yarn-O-Meter. However, I couldn't resist a tip that Kemps was selling the Kaffe Fassett sock yarn - I've been eyeing the Landscape Fire colourway for a long time, but never bought it - at I price so low that I could get two skeins sent to my front door for less than 50 DKK (~10 USD). These two 50 g skeins thus add -12.5% to the Sock Yarn-O-Meter, so the net result this time around is +25.5%. I'm getting closer to a positive balance! :)

The Asymmetrical Cardigan and a yarn recommendation

I'm sure most Danes will remember the winter of 2009/2010. The country has been covered in snow since the middle of December, and there is no reason to believe that will change within the next two weeks (i.e. as far as the forecasts go). Some people find it rather annoying, and Denmark is - like the rest of Europe - about to run out of road salt, but really, this is what we've been wishing for all those green winters with only a few days of snow - let's enjoy it! I love that we can now walk across most of the lakes, and I like to see how much the children seem to enjoy playing in the snow - I know I would have if I were 5! 

Another reason for me to enjoy this extraordinarily long winter is that I finished this perfect winter cardigan 3 weeks ago. May I present another winner: the Asymmetrical Cardigan!

Pattern: Asymmetrical Cardigan by Norah Gaughan, published in Knitting Nature. It is my 6th(!) knit from this gorgeous book! This is not the only book from which I've knit 6 different items (Twinkle's Big City Knits is the other), but it is certainly the one from which I've produced so many successful knits that get regular wear - among these are sweaters I'm likely to wear out, namely the all-time favourites: the Bubble Pullover and the wonderful Cabled Spiral Pullover. My mum also knitted the Asymmetrical Cardigan ages ago in a beautiful tomato colour - and with little tomato buttons! - in a smaller gauge to give a more elegant look than that of my very wintery and very cosy cardigan. If you haven't yet seen this book (published in 2006), you should!

Yarn: New Lanark Aran [shop link | Rav link], colourway Iris. I can only say one thing: Try this yarn! It doesn't matter if you prefer DK or Aran, just try it! The colours are gorgeous, and if a yarn can be honest this one is - it's well spun, it's nice to knit with, it gives a good texture and drape, and it holds up well to wear. And not least: it's so inexpensive! My mother and I have had to behave ourselves and not order more than we have room for. It's harder than it sounds :)

Needles: 6.0 mm Addi Turbo.

Buttons: Red mother of pearl buttons bought in Sweden. I love how these buttons emphasise the hint of red that this blue-purple colour contains (a tiny bit of red has been spun into the yarn to give this complex and beautiful colour - that's one of the reasons why I like this yarn so much). 

Modifications: My fewer sts/inch and my small size demanded that I construct a new size: extra-petite. (It has to be said that I'm not that petite - it's the sizes in Knitting Nature that run large). Mathematically, it was very simple: I found the difference in stitch count between sizes petite and small, and subtracted that number from the petite stitch count. For everything length-related directions are given in inches, and there I just followed size petite. I also knit the button bands as I went along rather than attaching them afterwards. Doing as Norah says (i.e. attaching collar and button bands afterwards) gives a more elegant finish because the buttonbands can then be knit on smaller needles, but I think my solutions goes well enough with the more chunky look that my cardigan has. 

Link to my Ravelry project page: Here.

Two red neckwarmers...

With daylight being something I see through the window while at work, all the projects I've finished since Christmas have been in need for a weekend photography session before I could blog about them. Today, I finally have plenty of time on my hands with dear boyfriend away in Jutland hunting (foxes, not girls :)) and the weather is on my side with some nice sunshine to aid the photography.

This will be the first of several FO posts, and it contains two bright and lovely red items for keeping my neck warm and toasty. First, Thermis:

This one got a lot of attention during the knitters' event day two weeks ago, and it is indeed a pretty little thing.

Pattern: Thermis [Rav link] by Kris Knits. A great cowl design; the "Thermal" stitch pattern gives a nice texture and the addition of buttons is ingenious.

Yarn: Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Ravelry Red; this may very well be the exact match of my favourite colour - the photo actually shows it quite well. I'm afraid I only bought a single skein when I visited Loop in London in November, but then again, it makes it all a bit more exclusive to have only this single accessory in that particular colour and this gorgeous yarn base (especially gorgeous because the inherent Malabrigo pilling will be a long time coming on an item like a cowl...). 

Needles: 4.5 mm bamboo dpns.

Buttons: 3 different ones of similar size and colour from my inherited button stash; I think the dark grey and black buttons makes it perfect for wearing with black (which is what I mostly wear...).

Modifications: I got fewer sts/inch so I cast on fewer sts (only 100). I made it a bit longer, also in the button section, so that I could get room for 3 buttons and wear it the way I do in the photo instead of the way it is shown in the pattern with the buttons buttoned at the top. Wearing it buttoned will make it good for outdoor wear, while much I prefer the other way indoors - and I do mostly wear this cowl indoors. Versatility is good thing.

Link to my Ravelry project page: Here.

The second one is Ysolda's Peaks Island Hood - though not worn as a hood:

Like mooncalf, I find wearing this one as a hood a bit too old-lady-ish, but I imagine it will be good for activities like winter shopping since hats tend to mess up my very (let's say: much too) fine hair, when I have to take them on and off all the time while leaving/entering shops. I do however like the way the Peaks Island Hood works as a scarf - it's easy to wear, it's warm, and it looks pretty! 

Pattern: Peaks Island Hood [Rav link] by Ysolda.

Yarn: Dansk Merino Kamgarn [Rav link] from Naturfiber A/S, colourway 4013. 

Needles: 6.0 mm Addi Turbo.

Buttons: 3 of the Selbu star ones I also used for Pine (follow the link for close-up) - also from the inherited button stash.

Modifications: None.

Link to my Ravelry project page: Here.

A great day of knitting

I'm sure you'll agree that knitters are such a lovely bunch of people!

Last Saturday, the 16th of January I spent a wonderful day with 50-60 of them and it was truly great!

The library in Vinderup hosted a knitter's event - 5 hours of chatting, sharing knitting tips, knitting, and learning new aspects of knitting.

I were to give a talk on 'Knitting on the Internet', where I introduced fellow knitters to the endless possibilities the Internet provides, especially blogs, Ravelry, and how to get started with 'knitting in English'. People seemed happy with my talk, and I was just happy to pass on all these resources that have meant so much to me as a knitter and that I use daily.

There were also talks by other knitters - on special techniques and a special way of purling used in a Lithuanian sock (very interesting!) and on the life and knits of Elizabeth Zimmermann.

This day of knitting also marked the end of the exhibition of my 12 pairs of socks from the A Year in Socks collection, which have been on display in the library for a bit more than a month.

For me, however, the focus of the day was definitely on spending a day in a delightful company - I had such a great and inspiring time!

The exhibition is now on display in another one of the libraries in the municipality, namely the one in Ulfborg, until the end of February.

It is all very exciting for me - and I'm very happy that people enjoy seeing my socks.

Help Haiti while knitting!

I know I'm quite a late starter for this, but better late than never! Like so many other knitting pattern designers, I've decided to donate 50% of the price of all my published knitting patterns to UNICEF's work in Haiti.

I've chosen UNICEF, because it's the organisation closest to my heart, and I already support them with a donation each month.

In short, if you purchase one of my patterns, be it the A Year in Socks collection, the Decipede, or the Letter & Pocket scarves, I'll give 50% of the price to UNICEF. This goes for patterns purchased from January 25th (today) to February 5th. 

On Ravelry you can find a list of all the patterns, of which a certain percentage is donated to help Haiti - here. You can even find which of the patterns in your queue is a part of this. My percentage is 50% and I hope you'll help me - or other designers - help others!

How do you like to work?

It's been exactly one week since we moved into the new offices and nine days since I started working on my PhD. By now, my desk looks like this. Looking at the desks in the other offices, I feel like the most untidy person in the world. But this is how I work best! The mess inspires me; I have to be able to see a lot of papers at the same time, as they remind me what I just read, what I should be reading next, etc., and I actually take care to place all the piles in a certain manner depending on how they relate to each other and to my current work; and at this point where I'm trying to find out where to start the project and where to go next, this is very important to me.

How do you like to work?

Are we breeding penguins in here?

Dear boyfriend made me these cute little ones just 10 minutes ago. Does he mean to say we should turn up the heat? ;)

What I'm reading...

In my previous post, I mentioned that one of my resolutions for 2010 would be less Facebook'ing and more reading. I've already started reading eagerly as my boyfriend gifted me 1100 pages of great and also educating reading: a brand new and very well written two-volume biography on H. C. Ørsted who is mostly famous for discovering electromagnetism, but who was apparently also so much more. Oh, and the founder of my university.

I'm usually not into this kind of literature - my favourite authors are Ian McEwan, Mark Haddon, and Jan Kjærstad - but I highly recommend this one, if you're so inclined. And can read Danish, that is. :)

10 resolutions for 2010

Inspired by Mooncalf and an urge to set some goals for myself in 2010 (I work best with goals, rules, and guidelines) I've put some thought into what resolutions I'd like to make for the new year, and when I had come up with 8 I thought I might as well make it 10 as it sounded better!

I can't promise that I can keep them all, but I want them to serve as inspiration - then I can always look back at the good intentions I had and reconsider.

Here we go:

1. Knit down (some of) my stash. For economic reasons as well as spatial ones. And I do have a lot of really nice stash and several plans for it, so this isn't exactly a punishment. I'll put some more thought into whether I want to make an actual Stash-o-meter or something similar, and then return to the topic.

2. Try to be less spend-y and save money for more important things. I liked Mooncalf's Saving Sunday concept in early 2009, where she was keeping tally with money spent each week and saving for the wedding trip to NYC; I don't think I'll be quite as structured (and I'm not saving for a wedding either :)) but I'd like to think twice before spending and saving money for larger things such as new specs, Italian classes, our (maybe) trip to Florence, and our new plans for saving money to be able to buy (a tiny part of) a house.

3. Improve my Italian. I learnt (some) Italian in high school, then forgot most of it, but remembered the basics. I used it a bit in Piemonte this summer, and now I want more. This autumn I've been brushing up with Linguaphone and now I want to do some more brushing up to be ready for actual Italian classes starting in February. I've decided that now is the time because it's now certain that I'm going to spend another 3 years with my fluently Italian-speaking Spanish(!) supervisor during the PhD, and I might as well take advantage of being able to practice daily. I'd love to be able to keep up a real conversation in Italian. Let's see how it goes.

(this one is ridiculous, sorry :D)
4. Keep flossing. I don't think I should add any details here, but I'm sure my dentist will be pleased and my teeth won't fall out ;)

5. Less Facebook, more reading. Books, news papers, audio books, anything.

6. Learn how to do tubular cast-on and use it. Ysolda once had a great video tutorial, where I tried it out, but never really used it and then forgot.

7. Keep running regularly, i.e. 3 times a week. I'm going to join Sparta, where my boyfriend is already a (very happy) member, so that I can prepare for the half-marathon across the bridge to Sweden in June. Then the goal is to keep up the good work rather than turning into a couch potato. And no injuries please!

8. Keep doing Pilates regularly. Maybe I should decide on a certain weekday or two where I am to do this.

9. Knit 12 sweaters. Once again, I'm participating in what is now called IntSweMoDo2010. These should mainly be knit from stash, cf. #1!

10. Try to knit 10 shawls. I also signed up for 10 shawls in 2010. I don't think I'm going to make it, but it will help with reducing the laceweight (and other) stash and give me some nice (large!) shawls to be worn as triangular scarves - I wear those all the time. Again, this should help in knitting down the stash.

What will you do in 2010?

The knits of 2009

Another year has gone, and the final count shows that in 2009 I managed to finish 49 knits, most of which are pictured above. I've stopped weighing my FOs, but an estimate would be somewhere between 5 and 10 kg of yarn knit up. I've knit 6 scarves/shawls, 12 sweaters/cardigans/dresses, 12 pairs of socks, 2 shrugs/vests, 1 pair of gloves, 5 hats, 9 baby garments, a Decipede, and an iPod cozy.

The winners of 2009, i.e. the knits that get the most wear must be: the Cabled Sweater Dress and Pine. Next on the list are Owls, Sommer i Tokyo, the Decipede, Buttercup I, the Blue Mittens, the Lengthwise Garter Scarf, the three Claras and all the pairs of socks for the A Year in Socks collection, which I'll hopefully get to wear next winter, post-exhibition.

Thanks for reading and commenting in 2009 - it's very much appreciated and makes me very happy :)

I hope you'll keep reading through 2010, where I'll be knitting more sweaters and shawls than socks, I think...

Christmas gift knitting

Christmas is over, and now it's time to show the Christmas gift knitting I did this year in order to wrap up the knits of 2009 (in a later post). One of the gifts - an earflap hat (Thorpe) for my dear old friend Karen - is not documented, but I do have photos of the other two:

A pair of wonderfully blue mittens for my mum:

Pattern: Green Autumn (Druid Mittens) by Jared Flood, #3 in Vogue Knitting Fall 2008.

Yarn: Rauma Finull, colourway 448, a bit less than 2 skeins

Needles: 3.0 mm

Modifications: I did one extra repeat on the front; I added a few rows to the cuff pattern, and I added a 2x2 ribbing inside hem to the cuff as I had seen other people do that successfully; I felted the mittens a bit upon completion - by hand, not in the washing machine! - to make them a bit warmer and nice-fitting. I'm really pleased with the result! Fortunately, so is my mum. 

Link to my Ravelry project page here.

The second gift was a Paul Smith-inspired scarf for dear boyfriend Peter:

It's knitted lengthwise in garter stitch, breaking the yarn at the end of every row to give frills. I made two-row stripes throughout, but I prefer the wrong side, where the stripes are thinner. No pattern link for this one as it is rather generic, but here's the info you need to make your own: I cast on (and bound off) 480 sts on a 3.75 mm needle and knitted the rest of the scarf on a 3.0 mm needle and fingering yarn stash. Combining the colours was a lot of fun!
Here's the link to my Ravelry project page.

Happy New Year!

Some of the snow is still here and it seems the beginning of the new year will be cold here. I hope you'll have a nice New Year's Ewe.

"A Year in Socks" on display

The 12 pairs of socks I've knit for my sock pattern collection A Year in Socks (Etsy | Ravelry) can currently be seen in an exhibition on the library in Vinderup, western part of Denmark. You can find information about it here on the library's website.

I'll also take part in an event for knitters in the same library on January 16th where I am to talk about how to use the Internet as a source of inspiration, help, social networking, etc. related to knitting. I'm told that there will also be talks on the life and knits of Elizabeth Zimmermann and a case story about a Lithuanian sock - and plenty of time for any knitters that may show up to knit and talk about knitting.

I hope you had a lovely one

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day came and went with no time for blogging, and thus no time for wishing you a Merry Christmas in time. I'll wish you a belated Merry Christmas with a photo of our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve and I do hope you had a lovely one!

Safe trip!

Today - only this...

Not even the snow could stop me...

Almost ready for Christmas!

I went into town today to buy the last Christmas presents. All done now :)

I forgot to shoot any photos of the city dressed in snow and Christmas lights, but I found this photo set on Flickr - quite interesting to see what Copenhagen looked like in the winter time approx. 100 years ago.

Kalenderlys

On films and Christmas shopping...

I just watched The Queen - my favourite kind of film.

Today we finished most of the Christmas shopping in less than two hours - only two more presents to buy on Monday...

I hope you have a nice weekend :)

Not just an ordinary Friday

With Obama just arrived about 10 km from here despite the (to some people, who seem to be surprised by it every year, extraordinarily) snowy and windy weather which has caused our Christmas tree to tilt, and reporters trying their hardest to repeat themselves as many times as possible on every aspect of the COP 15 conference, I'm having a much more calm day winding many meters of red yarn on my yarn winder, planning even more new projects (including this stranded vest), knitting a bit, listening to my Italian Linguaphone course, writing the last few Christmas cards, and preparing myself for this week's much anticipated event: the Christmas dinner thrown by my dear boyfriend's employer at one of the top gourmet restaurants in Copenhagen - this year the one-Michelin-star Kong Hans. Yum! Here's hoping that neither demonstrators nor Secret Service will prevent us from arriving there later today! :)

FO: Center Square Hat - no. 4

Back in the early days of blogging, I knit this hat pattern a total of three times: at first one for Peter, then an attempt at one for myself which ended up too small for me but fit my friend Karen, and then another, larger one for me. Then, earlier this year, Peter went and lost his old one at a football match in Parken.
I don't have a very large grey stash (and that's a mistake I can tell you! ;)) and Peter is very afraid of girly colours, so these two were the best I could find in my stash.

It's knit on needles 4.5 mm with 3 strands of Noda Junik held together for a very tight fabric.

Very keen observers may notice that I have skipped one row in the stitch pattern on all four hats; at first it was a mistake I didn't notice, and then the geek in me liked how it looks like the schematic representation of either sugar molecules or benzene rings and kept it that way... :)

Time flies in good company...

Adorable miniature pointsettas...

Today, I've been watching Christmas TV series (Jul På Slottet), baking, cooking, cooking, cooking, knitting a bit, watching detective stories on TV, and observing the snow falling again after it melted away last night.

I hope you had a nice day :)

Swatches

I just wanted to show you two swatches - the top one is the one for Arietta, which I wrote about a couple of days ago. I wish the colours were more true here, but you can at least get an idea. I linked to the actual colours in the aforementioned post if you're interested...

The other one is for a very recently started project: the Asymmetrical Cardigan, which will be my sixth project from Norah Gaughan's fabulous book Knitting Nature. My mum made a beautiful tomato-red version a while ago, and it's just great, so I'm confident this one will be a success, too. I'm knitting it a bit more chunky than in the book; using New Lanark Aran (such a great yarn! Try it! The colours are gorgeous! this one is called Iris, but Blueberry is just as pretty) I get a gauge of 16 sts per 4 inches rather than the 18 it should be. Therefore, I'm knitting size extra-petite, i.e. I'm knitting a size that is just as much smaller than size petite as small is larger than petite (well, it makes sense to me...). I've already finished one and a bit of the front pieces - it's a speedy knit. I should be knitting Christmas presents, but this is such a great project I can't put it down!

10 days to Christmas

Tomorrow is baking day. Yum and yum! :) The latter - brunkager - is a classic, which I know works (although I'm using a slightly different recipe from one of my favourite recipe books); the former - the Tuscan panforte - is something I've only ever bought pre-made. Let's see how that works out...

New sweaters on the needles

I participated in NaKniSweMoDo09 (National Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon 2009) this year. Although, I'm only likely to finish 11 within 2009, I'm absolutely ready for a similar challenge next year, IntKniSweMoDo10.

WIPs and UFOs also count in the challenge, and I will have a few of those come January 1st. Granite and Kingscot have been lingering for a while now, but they are both incredibly nice sweaters, so I'm sure they will be done eventually.

Of more recent projects (cast-on and swatched, respectively, within the last week) I have Helga Isager's Sweater i tofarvet patent from the book Strikketøj (see really poor photo above for an idea) and then I discovered a cardigan in an old Knitty called Arietta. It looks like stranded knitting, but it really is a mosaic pattern with only one colour per row - very nice! I swatched with three different beautiful colours of Holst Garn, one from Noda, and one from BC garn. It looks really nice - and washing did wonders to the swatch! The thinner yarn gives more stitches per 10 cm, but I think I can make it work with size M. I'm looking forward to some more knitting in the new year, when all secret gift knitting is done...!

Goodnight

I've been so tired - even too tired to knit! - for the past two days. Guess that comes with finally having time off? I hope I'll be ready to do some knitting and enjoy the time off tomorrow, though. More then.

Inspiration

Sorry, no post yesterday. I was too busy celebrating my acquired MScEng degree! It was a day full of celebrations, a quite overwhelming amount of presents from the many dear friends and family I invited, and a jolly good time! Once again, we proved that our modest flat can easily have room for a party of 32 people - and a baby :)

Today, I'm a bit tired, but managed to attend a 1.5-hour meeting with my two (future) main PhD supervisors. It all sounds very exciting, but for now I'm a bit more excited with the fact that I have another 23 days of Christmas holidays - with plenty of time for knitting! :)

And now for something actually related to knitting!

This being a knitting blog, there is one of the presents I want to share with you: my mum gave me this intriguing book for by birthday this past Tuesday: Stickning - Ett hantverk att utveckla by Britt-Marie Christoffersson.

It's in Swedish, and loaded with inspiration. You can see some of the fascinating knitting Britt-Marie Christoffersson does in this photo set from a fellow Danish blogger, Lise, who shot these photos when Britt-Marie presented her exhibition (I think it was) in Silkeborg, DK. These samples and sweaters and many more are shown in the book along with instructions on how to knit them. So very inspiring! I'd recommend this one for your wish list ;)

The end is nigh...

At first - Thank you for all the nice birthday wishes yesterday!

Secondly, tomorrow is the day! The end of five and a half years of studies to become a Master of Science and Engineering in Biotechnology - also known as cand. polyt. or 'civilingeniør i bioteknologi' in Danish - is nigh! Tomorrow at 10 AM I'll start my 20-minute presentation and after a bit more than half an hour of questions from the examiners, I will (hopefully, well, most likely) be able to call myself by the above titles. Can you tell I'm excited?!

December 8th -

- will always be a special date for me. Today is my birthday :)

Nothing much to report...

I've been very busy shopping for my graduation party on Thursday all day - along with going to an appointment at the dentist and looking at new specs I can't afford :P

Now I'm really really tired, and tomorrow is a special day...

The view

We're so lucky as to have the common Christmas tree right outside our windows. It's beautiful with all its lights and the star there in the dark.

(This photo wasn't shot today where the weather is a bit more gloomy, but this was how it looked some time last week...)

Christmas TV nostalgia

I've spent several hours today watching the Christmas TV series (julekalender) of my childhood - and before then - at DR's (the Danish national broadcast channel) website; they've provided access to the archives on the site called Bonanza, and now some of Christmas TV series are on a special Christmas site. Oh, there are some of my favourites in there: Jul På Slottet, Nissebanden, and Vinterbyøster.

The link is probably only interesting to Danes, as it is all - of course - in Danish :)

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!