Baby Sweaters

Here's my second post in the series of knitted baby garment adventures - the first one on baby vests was here.

No. 1: Sloe Cardigan

Pattern: Generic, made up as I went along. This was a commissioned knit so I made a swatch and made sure to match the measurements I got. Raglan. Moss stitch borders. The shoes are loosely based on this pattern (Rav link). Sized to fit a 6 months old baby - and for her to grow in.
Yarn: Holst Garn Supersoft in Sloe.
Needles: 3.25 mm.
Ravelry project page: Here.
Comments: A basic, thin cardigan. Seems very useful.


No. 2: Malachite Alfred

Pattern: Alfred's Raglan by Britta Wilfert (Rav link). Not sure about the size (made my own), but I think approx. 1 year.
Yarn: Regia Hand-dye Effect in Malachite (Rav link). A bit different from other sock yarns. Comes in some interesting colour combinations.
Needles: 4.5 mm.
Ravelry project page: Here.
Comments: I saw this sweater on Anne's blog, liked it a lot and wanted to try it out. I think this is a good, basic pattern for many sweaters - also for larger children. The reverse of the ribbing pattern is also quite interesting (see photos on my Ravelry page). I like the effect that comes from using two strands of this long-colour-repeats yarn together.


No. 3: Red V-Neck Cardigan

Pattern: I originally started knitting the Baby Sophisticate cardigan, didn't like the size and the (IMO) too many sts on the front, frogged it and restarted making it all up as I went along (in a larger size). Size is approx. 6-12 months, I think.
Yarn: The project was intiated with the sole purpose of eliminating the small quantities of these two yarns in my stash: Rowan Pure Wool DK in Kiss (Rav link) and Naturfiber Dansk Merino Kamgarn in colour 4013 (Rav link). Mission completed. After making the hat, you may be able to see a bit of on the left, that is. The hat pattern is (again) the same used for the CPAP hats for Cuba (here), just larger due to the thicker yarn.
Needles: 6.0 mm (5.5 mm for the moss stitch borders).
Ravelry project page: Here.

Comments: Not much to report. With the fear of repeating myself, I'd say it looks like a useful cardigan for a wee one.

Quite a nice stash of baby garments I've built up, right? Not a bad thing when the late twenties appear to be "baby age" for everybody I know.

Baby Vests

It's very likely that it's the combination of the need for instant gratification projects, the income of single 100g skeins of highland wool, the opportunity to get rid of some odd ball leftovers, and some commissioned knitting that has caused me to delve into the baby vest knitting field lately. Anyway, it has lead to quite a lot of baby vest knitting (and baby sweater - post is upcoming) lately.

No. 1: Raspberries & Blueberries

Pattern: My own, a favourite, similar to this one.

Yarn: Blackhill Højlandsgarn in Nattehimmel (2 strands together) and Isager Highland Wool in Cranberry with Blackhill Højlandsgarn in Dahlia.

Needles: 4.5 mm.

Ravelry page: Here.

Comments: Not the best of photos, and it still needed buttons on the shoulder when the photo was taken. This was a last-minute commissioned knit (asked for on Monday, finished on Friday at a party...), but by sheer coincidence it lead me to discover a great new colour combination (hard to see from the photo though): Nattehimmel vs. Cranberry/Dahlia.

No. 2: Poppy

Pattern: Babys uldne undertrøje from Familie Journal (in Danish only), smallest size. Ravelry pattern page.

Yarn: Holst Garn Supersoft in Poppy, 30 g.

Needles: 3.5 mm.

Ravelry page: Here.

Mods: The original pattern as a smaller neck opening and a slit. I made it more like a singlet, and like it much more that way. I also made it longer than the original pattern suggests. Slipped the first st on the rows around the neckline and the armholes.

Comments: This is a new favourite (as you can see below). VERY fast to knit, uses very little yarn, and seems to work well for a baby.

No. 3: Blue Baby

Pattern: Lille livstykke by Isager (in Danish). Ravelry pattern page. The hat pattern is generic, almost the same as the one recently used for the CPAP hats for Cuba.

Yarn: The leftovers from my Larch cardigan. 

Needles: 4.0 mm.

Ravelry page: Here.

Mods: None that I remember.

Comments: Also a very useful pattern, though not quite as fast as the one above for some reason (maybe it's the lack of alternating ribbing that makes you want to knit 'just one more'...). The hat was to use up the last bits of this yarn.

No 4: Sea Singlet

Pattern: Babys uldne undertrøje from Familie Journal (in Danish only), second smallest size. Ravelry pattern page.

Yarn: Blackhill Højlandsgarn in Oprørt Hav, 38 g.

Needles: 3.5 mm.

Ravelry page: Here.

Mods: See above.

Comments: See above. It obviously works equally well for boys and girls, depending on the colour.

FO: Vanilla

What's not to love?

This is my most recent FO: Vanilla from the Amimono Knit Collection 2010.

Although I like the subtlety of the original Isager Highland Wool colours (Thistle or Chiffon are my favourites) I chose the vibrant Gladioli colour from Holst Yarn - who carry the same beautiful colours as the Highland Wool, just in a slightly thinner (unwashed) version, btw.

Sorry for the poor modeled photos - despite daylight saving time it was almost dark when we got round to the photos. I think you can get an idea of the fit, though. 

I decided not to continue the (beloved) horizontal stitches all the way up the body, but to keep it more like on the sleeves. I like it that way. And I like the versions where the horizontal stitches go all the way up, too. I could use both versions.
Again, Helga Isager is brilliant - repeat: brilliant - at details. In this case the subtle horizontal stitch pattern and the buttonband pipings.

I also decided to add an extra 5 cm to the length. Again, I did see a short version today on Ravelry and thought this might not have been necessary, but I like it both ways.

Info:

Pattern: Vanilla by Amimono (link / Rav link), size S. 

Yarn: Holst Garn 100% Supersoft, Gladioli (link), 196 g (!). 

Needles: 3.0 mm.

Mods: Added 5 cm to the body length + larger spaces between buttonholes to account for this. Did not continue horizontal sts all the way up the body. 

Buttons are from 123knit.com

Link to my Ravelry page: here.

Twelve hats for Cuba

Twelve little hats for Cuba.

I used every last bit of these 3 skeins of cotton yarn I bought for the project. I don't usually stash cotton yarn, so unfortunately I couldn't use this project as a stashbuster.

The deadline is April 1st, so you still have time to knit a few. It's a lot of fun actually :)

Ravelry link.

Oh, the silence...

I didn't mean to stay silent for two months. But doesn't every blogger say so once in a while?

There's a reason for me coming back to blogging just now. Yesterday I sustained a serious injury to my right thumb (don't ask - you don't want to know the macabre details) which means I almost cannot knit. Well, I can, but only something where tension isn't vital and only for short periods of time since my right hand becomes quite tense when I can't apply pressure with my thumb. Good thing I've just started reading this 900-page book... (Btw, how do people watch TV without knitting without becoming insanely restless?!)

Anyway. Two new knits from my hands. Both have been finished for at least a month. 

The one on top is a cropped silk/wool cardigan that I was obsessively knitting on for a few weeks, having come up with the idea that I needed a new cropped cardigan/shrug to wear for a wedding on February 19. I made it in time. This is all you get to see of it for now - I'm still contemplating publishing a pattern for it; of for something similar. 

The blue thing underneath it is my Larch cardigan (remember?). Cast on December 23, finished blocking  January 25, photographed February 26, blogged March 17. Oh well.

What I first fell in love with was the two button loops and the button placement on the original mustard yellow beauty. As it turned out, a single button and a more central button placement worked better on my version. Well, there you go. I still love the button loop, though.

It's finished but to improve it just a tiny bit I think I need to take the time to crochet a tighter (fake) BO in the shoulders and the back of the neck. I'll do that as soon as I'm actually able to crochet again.

You can see more details, pattern link, etc. on my Ravelry page.

Upcoming is my Vanilla cardigan. It's a winner. I was expecting to show it to you this weekend - it's blocked (for the 2nd time - blocked prior to sewing in the sleeves, too) and all it needs is six buttons, which are just lying there ready, waiting for me to be able to use my thumb again...


*Oh, the silence... When your head is always full of your favourite artist's lyrics, there'll always be an appropriate one at hand.

FO: Acorns

Here it is, my first FO of the new year, the Acorns cardigan. The colour would have made it perfect for Christmas, but there you go.

I'm not sure the colour is right in these far from perfect photos. We're saving for a new camera and word is that it won't be long before we'll be the happy owners of that wonderful camera. Can't wait!

Back to the cardigan! I fell in love with the pattern as soon as the Fall 2010 issue of Twist Collective came out in August and started it right away. In fact, I started it 3 times: 1) In the more New Lanark DK which turned out too 'natural' to show off the pattern well; 2) in the current yarn combination (Rowan Pure Wool DK and Holst Garn Supersoft) but thinking I knew how to do increases myself and didn't need to pay attention to the more than 3 different ways of doing increases used in the pattern; and finally 3) the final version, where I actually learned some very clever new ways of doing increases!

The fit is not spot on - the yoke is a bit too high (measurement from underarm to neck edging too long) when combined with this very wide neckline - but the acorns pattern still makes me smile. I'm sure it'll be great for throwing on during cold spring/summer days and nights, even if it'll never be my favourite sweater. The Cabled Spiral Pullover [Rav link] still holds that title. Btw, it's been almost 3 years since I finished that sweater and despite getting loads of wear, it still looks as new. Talk about durable yarn.

Pattern: Acorns [Rav link] by Carol Sunday published in Twist Collective Fall 2010.
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool DK, colourway Kiss, and one strand of Holst Garn Supersoft, colourway Poppy.
Needles: 5 mm Addi Bamboo.
Mods: None. If I were to knit it again I'd make a less wide neckline (maybe by adding an extra row of acorns like on this beautiful version), shorter yoke, and place the buttonholes myself and not as stated in the pattern (following the guidelines the buttonholes should be evenly spaced even when fewer sts/row are picked up along the acorn pattern than along the rev St st, but it doesn't quite work out... it's alright, though).
Link to my Ravelry project page: here.

Next up: I'm speeding through my Larch cardigan - I think it may be done in less than a month(!).

Stash status

I've only setup two goals for 2011 as far as knitting goes:

1. Have fun and be happy with what I knit
2. Use up more stash than I get in

For the #2 I thus need to know how much stash I have now at the beginning of the year in order to compare once December 31st 2011 arrives. I spent some time with the kitchen scales tonight, finding out exactly that. So, here it is:

12232 g of yarn!

of which ~1.7 kg is already knitted up in the lingering WIPs - this needs to be counted as well as it still qualifies as unknit yarn, seeing as the WIPs are indeed WIPs and not FOs. This means that I have a bit more than 10 kg lovely yarn in my stash! If I recall correctly, that's approx. 2-3 kg more than I had in 2008, my blog's childhood, which was the last time I kept track of stash going in and out as part of Stashalong.

Summing up, my goal is as follows: To have less than 12232 g of yarn on December 31st 2011! 


It's not a yarn diet as such, seeing as yarn purchases are allowed as long as they are balanced out by actual knitting. That's a good thing since I have some more yarn coming from garnudsalg.dk any day now... Oh, and I already added 100 g to the stash today: Rasmilla's Luksusgarn. Mmmm. I'll keep a tally in the sidebar - let's call it Stashdown 2011!


And now off to dream about all those lovely knits that my wonderful stash can be turned into... :)

FO accomplishments of 2010

With New Year's Eve only a few hours away, a tally of the finished knits of 2010 seems appropriate:

7 sweaters
1 silken wedding shrug
5 pairs of socks
5 shawls/scarves
2 cowls
2 necklaces
6 bracelets
6 pairs of fingerless mittens
21 baby gear items
and
18 Christmas pigs

A quick calculation will give you 73 finished items, but as I counted especially baby gear and Christmas pigs as projects with more than one knitted item in them, I've finished a total of 35 projects in 2010. That's 14 less than last year, but I guess that's to be expected from this being my first year with an actual job. I'm still a happy knitter :)

At the moment I have 9 WIPs: 6 cardigans, 1 pullover, 1 vest, and the never-ending stash-busting blanket. That's a good starting point for 2011, methinks. Sweaters are my thing!

Quarterly report - 4th quarter

Very soon it'll be time for making new New Year's resolutions (or refraining from exactly that), so here's one final look at the 10 resolutions I made for 2010. 


1. Knit down (some of) my stash
I did knit up a lot of odds and ends this quarter, but not being able to resist some quite good and new offers on the Danish market [garnudsalg.dk and byslavi.dk], I think it's safe to say that there's no negative stash balance this quarter, even without counting!

2. Be less spendy and save money for more important things.
Wedding, Christmas, new interesting yarn stores popping up... I don't know. However, the next big thing to save for is the...

3. Improve my Italian.
I've been too busy at work this quarter, but now we've booked part of our belated honeymoon trip to Northern Italy (surprise!), which means there's still hope for this one!

4. Keep flossing.
Yes.

5. Less Facebook, more reading.
I think I've been fairly successful here. I've recently started to keep a list of my reads - I've read 10 books in 2010*; I'm sure many of you would think of it as ridiculously few, but to me it's quite alright. I've also become a fan of the newspaper we've kept throughout 2010, WeekendAvisen. I still get my daily news online only. 

6. Learn how to do tubular cast on and use it.
No, but I've finally found a project, I'd like to learn and use it for: Tora's Attitude.

7. Keep running regularly.
Oh yes. I've been good and managed to run 3 times a week the past many months. I've recently started training for my first marathon, Copenhagen Marathon on the 22nd of May. Here's hoping for no injuries, as that seems to be the only thing that can stop me right now.

8. Keep doing Pilates regularly.
I didn't do any at all over the summer, but recently I've started focusing on the core strength again since it goes well with running and should improve my running technique. There's still hope.

9. Knit 12 sweaters.
No. Granite was my #7 this year. I have 6 sweater WIPs on the needles, though, so I'm happy enough with my result.

10. Knit 10 shawls.
No! I finished my new favourite shawl, Camomille, this quarter, but that only brings me to a total of, uhm, 4 shawls/scarves when not counting one that was finished but not started in 2010. 


Summing up: I was very ambituous back in January - I like being so, even if I know I may not get there in time - but being my own judge I'd say that I failed at 6, 8, 9, and 10 only. With such overly ambitious goals (and results I'm fine with at 9 and 10) I think that's quite alright. 


I'll be back with new resolutions for 2011 in the new year. Maybe. Until then - have a wonderful New Year's Eve!


Finally, the FOs of this 4th quarter. The knits are dominated by the frantic knitting in the four weeks that passed between being invited to go to a Christmas fair in November with all my knits and actually going to the fair: lots of small project for babies as well as accessories such as mittens and bracelets. You can still find some of them for sale here and here, btw. Among the knits of the 4th quarter are however also my new favourite scarf, Camomille, and the long anticipated Granite. 

*In case any of you are interested, these are the 10 books I read (links in English when available - I read only two of them, Solar and The Chinese Shawl, in English, though):

Jens Smærup Sørensen: Mærkedage [da]

Ian McEwan: Solar [eng]

Leif Davidsen: Dostojevskijs sidste rejse; Den ukendte hustru; På udkig efter Hemingway; Min broders vogter [eng] 

Andrew Taylor: Bleeding Heart Square [eng]

Patricia Wentworth: The Chinese Shawl [eng]

Peter Høeg: Elefantpassernes børn [da]

Jostein Gaarder: The Castle in the Pyrenees [eng] 

Mærkedage, Elefantpassernes børn, Dostojevskijs sidste rejse, and Bleeding Heart Square were my favourites. I was slightly disappointed by McEwan this time. 

The last FO of 2010

I hereby give you my last FO in 2010. I've done lots of holiday knitting - especially on the three cardigans Acorns (everything but the sleeves done, but I didn't bring more yarn with me), Larch (two sleeves done and a few inches knit on the body), and Vanilla (two sleeves and 10 inches of the body done) - but none of it will be finished by tomorrow night. Therefore:

An ingenious little knit that appeared just before Christmas on Olga's blog. I started on the 19th of December, let it dry overnight, finished it on the 20th of December, and wore it on the 21st.

Pattern: Cable Braided Necklace by Olga Buraya-Kefelian (free!) [Rav link]
Yarn: Posh Yarn Diana 2ply, colour Hoopla, using 2 strands held double
Needles: 3.5 mm
Ravelry project page: here. I also urge you to go to Ravelry or Olga's blog to see how it can be worn. I'm wearing mine 'inside-out'.

Stay tuned for my fourth and last quarterly report of 2010.

Pomegranate Granite

It's been 1.5 years in the making, but now it's here - my pomegranate red Granite. It was done a few days before Christmas, and therefore came with me on Christmas holidays as my Christmas sweater. Here it is:

It's not that it's a particularly hard or time-consuming sweater to knit, but I'm sure you're familiar with those knits that just linger in the WIP pile much longer than anticipated. Nevertheless, now it's done and I'm happy with it!

Pattern: Granite [Rav link] by Amimono/Helga Isager, size S/M.
Yarn: Isager Alpaca 2, colour 025, and Isager Spinni (Wool 1), colour 28s.
Needles: 3.0 mm for edging, 3.5 mm for the rest.
Mods: No important ones.
Link to my Ravelry project page: here.

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and thank you so much for reading and commenting here - I truly enjoy your inputs! 

Transformation

I have just frogged the beginning of my Amimono 80's sweater. For some time now, I've been feeling that I was not completely in love with it and suddenly came the reason for actually doing something about it: I wanted to use the yarn for a brand new cardigan pattern which looks very promising indeed: Larch [Rav link only]! You might like it, too?

I went to my LYS two days ago hoping to find a matching Spinni (Isager Wool 1) teal colour, but no such luck. Instead, I found the perfect match in a skein of Grignasco MerinoSilk - weightwise it's perfect and it makes for a nice, soft, and slightly shiny look. So far it seems perfect! With 50% wool in the Alpaca 2 and 75% merino in the MerinoSilk it should be fairly durable but I do expect some pilling to go along with the incredible softness. I've decided not to worry, though. A bit of a halo might actually be a good thing.

P.S.

Granite is blocking!

Two little Clara vests

This one, Clara by Karin Vestergaard Mathiesen, is an all time favourite. The photo shows only one, but I actually made two because I wanted to make a size 3 years (a Christmas gift order from a friend of mine), but this one (the first one) turned out as a size 2 years. These two were my #4 and #5 of the same pattern!

Pattern: Clara by Karin Vestergaard Mathiesen

Size: 2 years: CO 100 sts. 22 cm before 2nd moss st. 38 sts in each sleeve (a bit too much). Chest circumference: 54 cm.
Yarn: 2 strands of Holst Garn Supersoft, Sloe

Size: 3 years: CO 110 sts and followed pattern but with 23 cm before moss st. Chest circumference: 59 cm.
Yarn: Holst Garn Supersoft, 1 strand of Sloe, 1 strand of Aubergine.

Needles: 4.5 mm

Ravelry project page here.

As always, it's a winner!

It's for real...

My Granite is finally close to being finished!
I still need approx. 10 cm on the front, some sewing, and the neck edging, but seeing as I started the front only a few weeks ago and it's already come this far, I'm quite confident that this might actually be my Christmas sweater (yes, sweater, I gave up the idea of a cardigan). Yesterday, it was exactly 18 months since I started it... Wish me luck!

Camomille & a few other FOs

First up a few of the small FOs that were the repercussions of November's Christmas fair. To use up the New Lanark Aran stash (completely), two pairs of baby booties and two (rather thick) baby vests:

Read more about the project on Ravelry if you wish :)

And properly for the season I've also knit 18(!) of these little Christmas pigs. Perfect for decorating your own home or for using as a funny and personal gift when the season is right. I came up with my own pattern, but you can find a similar one here (the Danish version is free). My Ravelry project page is here. It's cute, isn't it, hanging there in the bay tree?

The major recent FO is what may just be the perfect shawl: Amimono's Camomille from the recent knit collection. It took me a trip to Aachen and two weekends at the Christmas fair to finish it. That's two weeks ago and I've been wearing it pretty much all the time ever since. Except when I took these photos, apparently.

You can see how pretty it is in use by looking through the project pages on Ravelry. It's huge, it's soft, and it's fashionable. What more can I wish for?

Pattern: Camomille by Amimono
Yarn: Isager Alpaca 2, colourway 2105, 5.5 skeins (yes, my shawl is huge).
Needles: 4.0 mm - and 3.5 mm for the edge.

I can only recommend knitting your own asap! :)

Better photos & a new shop!

Firstly, I've added some much better photos to the baby hoodie jackets and fingerless mittens for sale in my Etsy shop, now that daylight permitted me to do so. Take a look! Maybe you'll find a present for the upcoming holiday season?

Secondly, I also wanted to try out the Danish version of Etsy, called Amio.dk. The concepts are completely identical, except that Amio.dk is a bit more expensive to use for the seller. As I cannot put the same item up in both shops (I'd be in trouble if the same item was sold twice!), I've put up the knitted bracelets and hats in this shop. It's all in Danish, but shipping is international, so don't hesitate to contact me by email (see sidebar) if there's anything here you'd like, but can't understand how to buy. You can visit my Amio shop here.

ETA: If you want to see more of those bracelets, my Ravelry project page is here.

Jeg har nu strikkede julegaveidéer til salg både på Etsy og i min nye butik på Amio.dk. Kig forbi! :)

In need of a Christmas present?

Although the sale at the last two weekends' Christmas fair went very well, I still have some hand knits perfect for Christmas knitting left. I know most of you who read here are knitters yourselves and therefore not interested, but in case you are I just wanted to let you know - and Siena was so kind as to ask for it :)

I have put these lovely baby hoodie jackets and 3 pairs fingerless mittens for grown-ups up in my Etsy shop. (Sorry for the not perfect photo quality - you can use the photo above for colour guideline!)
When daylight permits, I'll also be putting up a few hats and some fancy knitted bracelets!

Jeg har sat hjemmestrikkede julegaveideer til salg i min Etsy butik. Jeg håber, du finder det interessant! :) Alle priser er i USD, men kan omregnes her.

This is what I've been knitting lately...

Exactly one month and one day ago I got the opportunity to take part in a Christmas fair the coming two weekends (Nov 13-14 and Nov 20-21). Since then, I've been knitting steadily to add to the gift piles of clothes for babies and accessories for grown-ups I already had. Here's some of what I've produced:

Baby hoodies in New Lanark Aran [Rav link]

Fingerless mittens w/horizontal stitches in New Lanark Aran [Rav link]

Baby vests and a hat in Cascade 220 Wool [Rav link]

Bubbles and Cables Cowl in Posh Yarn Laura & Rowan DK Wool 

[Rav link]

Not bad, eh? :)
I do have some more bits and bobs including knitted bracelets, but no photos yet. Oh, and some old knits too.

Should any of the locals be interested in going to this Christmas fair, here are the details:
Birkede Gl. Skole, Møllevej 16, Viby Sjælland. Sat-Sun Nov 13-14 and Nov 20-21, from 10 am to 4 pm. 
There will be lots of other stuff for sale, too - Christmas-related and gift ideas.

Quarterly Report - third quarter

Ooops. In my last post I advertised the upcoming quarterly report - and then forgot all about it! If I am to make it before the fourth one is due, it'd better be now :)

You can find my previous quarterly report here.

The major accomplishment this quarter must be getting married! But let's look back at those 10 New Year's resolutions:

1. Knit down (some of) my stash
I destashed 2 skeins of yarn and knit up some odd balls for the four baby vests. But then I also bought another 200g - and I may just have bought some more, but that (and 2 of those 4 skeins) have already been knitted up for a Christmas fair [info in Danish] I'm taking part in two weekends in November. All in all I think I'm a tiny bit on the good side. Thing is, I haven't actually finished many projects this quarter, but I do have loads of yarn on the needles, so in the end I will have less yarn than I started with.

2. Be less spendy and save money for more important things.
Well, there was that wedding, but I think we already established that it files under 'important things' :)

3. Improve my Italian.
I did make my way through the Michel Thomas course including the Advanced part during my summer holidays, and we did go to Italy in September and managed to practice a bit. Since then, life has taken over, but I want to get back into learning more!

4. Keep flossing.
Yes :)

5. Less Facebook, more reading.
I have actually read something like one or two novels a month this past quarter. May not sound like a lot to you, but it is to me. And Facebook is on its way out, isn't it?

6. Learn how to do tubular cast on and use it.
No. I'm beginning to doubt I will cos I have so much other knitting going on just know.

7. Keep running regularly.
Yeees. You may recall I managed to finish my second half-marathon in 1:59:52. I also set PR on 10 km at the DHL relay race in September. Recently (but that's actually in the fourth quarter), I joined Sparta to keep up my running over the winter.

8. Keep doing Pilates regularly.
Uhm, no. I would like to, but I just never get round to it.

9. Knit 12 sweaters.
Haha. I did show you all my sweater WIPs during Sweater WIP Week, but so far I have only finished one of them. Right now I'm terribly busy finishing stuff for this Christmas market, so no sweater knitting is going on. I don't think I'll reach 12 this year either. But maybe all those sweater WIPs will be a good starting point for next year, or is that cheating?

10. Knit 10 shawls.
I knit one, the Haruni. That's one per quarter so far. Definitely not going to accomplish this one.

A combination of being busy and having numerous large WIPs on the needles has left me with (wait for it!) 4 finished project this quarter! You can see them here:

Time for a quick FO presentation!

Thank you for all the happy wishes on my last post! It sure feels good even if not too different to be Mr and Mrs :)

I meant to post some more of my recent FOs right after the last one, but right now time seems to be rushing by with plenty of unanswered emails and more than 30 unread blogposts in my reader all the time (and with my usual procrastination habits, that never happens). Why? I'm writing up the first paper for my Ph.D. and it's due next week...

Anyway, I managed to find a short break today (the brain does need to rest, doesn't it?), so here we go:

You can see more photos on my Ravelry project page.

Pattern: Still Light Tunic (Ravelry link), size S
Yarn: BC Garn Shetland wool, colourway ny24
Needles: 2.5 mm
Mods: None that I remember...

It was a very nice project to knit, despite the much stockinette stitch. You can read my progress report from Sweater WIP Week here. And it's just as nice to wear! I love wearing this sort of knitted dresses, including my Cabled Sweater Dress.

And now we're at it, here's my other recent FO:

Pattern: Haruni
Yarn: Madelinetosh Sock, colourway Thunderstorm (Rav link), bought at Loop in Islington, London
Needles: 3.75 mm Addi Lace
Mods: None. 12 leaf stems as the pattern suggests
My Ravelry project page is here.
I encourage you to go browse the Ravelry project pages if you want to see the beauty of this shawl when unfolded - I didn't manage to capture a nice pic of that myself.

I'll be back for the third quarterly report of 2010! And the projects I've just shown you will be in it, seeing as I actually finished them in September...

ETA: That was 130 g =16 % added to the Sock Yarn O'Meter!

A wedding and a silken shrug

Here we are, Peter and I, leaving Grundtvigs Kirke (mostly known as Grundtvigskirken to the Copenhageners) last Saturday. It was a wonderful day! :D
I also wanted to show you the silken, blue shrug I'm wearing - it's been an FO since August, but I couldn't really show you until now, could I?

It's knitted from 100% mulberry silk. I have started both sleeves at the hem, made short rows approx. 1 inch before the centre back to improve the fit by making it wider at the top, and then grafted the two halves together. All this to get identical sleeve hems and short row turns.

Pattern: My own. You can read a bit more about what I did on my Ravelry project page.
Yarn: Mulberry silk - nowadays called Jaipur Fino. Colourway H31.
Needles: 2.5 mm

As you can see, I'm wearing the shortest veil possible, and therefore needed something to cover my shoulders in the church. Other than that I also found the shrug very pretty - and it matches my shiny blue shoes, which I'm afraid you can't see in the photo. Take my word for it - they are cool! And, being me, I also sort of needed to wear something I'd knitted myself, didn't I?

Btw, the floral decoration in my hair is a custom order from SchickiMickis' Etsy shop. She makes wonderful headbands, brooches, etc. in leather and satin - fascinating combination and a nice design.

Knitting on the road...

Photo taken on the train somewhere between Düsseldorf and Aachen, where I travelled this morning to get to a summer school at RWTH on biocatalysis in non-conventional media.  

The knitting is the Camomille shawl from the new Amimono booklet.

Aachen is a pretty enough city town, but having been up at 5 AM - early enough to spot the world's largest passenger plane in Copenhagen Airport just before take-off - and having summer school classes all afternoon, I'm now pretty tired and will let Aachen be Aachen until tomorrow.

And what would one do without hotel room WiFi? ;)

Last, but definitely not least, thanks for all the kind words on my last post! They make me feel even happier about my achievement - so much I've now almost forgot I felt like dying the last km :)

Totally not knitting related...

... but this is me a few hours ago, still looking happy with another 19 km to go :) I managed to finish my only second half marathon a few seconds below the magic 2 hours (well, at least they are magic to me, who thought I'd finish in 2:05 this time and not get below 2:00 until next spring) - 1:59:52. Yay!

Now it's time to rest my legs with some knitting and Top Gear... :)

I feel the itch of startitis...

With last week's Sweater WIP gallery, you'll know that I really don't need that. It's just that I'm tempted by Kunzite, Semele, Peasy, and (surpriiiise!) several different patterns (yes, almost all of them, actually) in the new Amimono booklet.

Speaking of the new booklet, I just need to have the Camomille shawl sooner rather than later. My wardrobe has been craving such a shawl for almost a year now - its well-hidden inner fashion-obsessed self needs it. So why haven't I started it yet? I can't decide which yarn to use! I wanted to use something from my stash, but I can't find the right combination. I also have to consider which colour I actually need a shawl in. Red is always my first choice, and therefore I do not need another red shawl. I'm thinking a light/medium grey this time...

Matching colours

I just wanted to show you what I meant when I said yesterday that I liked having a lot of matching colours in the same yarn weight. Can you tell that I like reds and blues, but don't care much for greens? ;)

New Yarn

Just 50 g of each. Top: Mandarin; bottom from left to right: Geranium, Red Clover, and Aubergine. From Holst Garn.

Why? Just because I love this part of the colour palette, and because I find that one can never have too many shades of this sort of yarn (~600m/100g - not necessarily of this brand) to mix and match.

Sweater WIP Week - Sunday: Kingscot

The last one of my sweater WIPs is a hibernating fellow: Kingscot [Rav link] by Norah Gaughan.

I have no real explanation as to why this has only become the two sleeves you see in the photo even though I started it more than a year ago in August 2009... The yarn is gorgeous (ÅLJ), and I think the finished model will be brilliant. All I can say is that other projects got in the way before I reached the fun part.

Let's see when something more happens with this one... It's Ravelry project page is here.

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Now, that's the end of my Sweater WIP Week - I told you there were seven of them! ;) Other than that, I have only two WIPs: the stash busting blanket that isn't meant to be finished anytime soon and the Haruni shawl. Looking at my Ravelry page, you'll notice another WIP in there - a secret project that is actually finished, but I will not change its status to finished until I can reveal it as an FO.

I've tried to put words on my expectations for each of the WIPs along the way. If I were to put a deadline on these seven projects, it would be December 31st 2010. I'm taking part in the IntSweMoDo (International knit/crochet a Sweater a Month Dodecathon), and it was part of my New Year's resolutions to finish 12 sweaters in 12 months. So far I've only finished five, so if I finish these seven, I'll have reached that goal! Last year I 'only' managed to finish 11. I guess my next project should be to figure out where to make space for all these sweaters... Fortunately, I don't mind passing old hand-knit sweaters on to charity shops if they don't get any wear.

Sweater WIP Week - Saturday: Acorns

Finally! For the first time since Monday a non-Amimono design! ;)

This is Acorns [Rav link] from the new Fall 2010 Twist Collective, designed by Carol Sunday. It was published early August (or late July?), and is now the 3rd most popular pattern from this issue, with 43 projects listed on Ravelry. Mine is one of them. You may remember me putting some nice words on this issue of Twist Collective in a previous post.

The pattern is 7 pages long, and I have read forum posts by people complaining that it is hard to sit and knit in their usual place when having to look at 3-4 different pages at once to figure out what's going on (written instructions on construction/shaping is on one page, the chart on another, chart legend on a third (at least in the beginning), and chart legend explanation on a fourth). I understand what they are on about, but I have to say that once you get past the first row or two of Acorns, it gets easier to remember, and you only need to pay attention to the shaping constructions and the chart.

That being said, I am very happy to have learnt a new way of making neat increases in rev St st from knitting this one! In total, the pattern uses 3 different kinds of increases (times 2 because there's always a left version and a right version), but two of these are actually the same being the St st and rev St st versions of each other. I already know another two ways of increasing, so I think I should be pretty well off in that department by now ;)

What you see here is actually my second attempt at this cardigan. I started out in a different yarn - New Lanark DK in Pebble - and not paying too much attention to what kind of increases should be used, thinking I knew better (I was wrong*). As it turned out, this otherwise wonderful yarn was not right for the project - a bit too 'rustic' for showing off the acorns pattern - so I started over using a much less rustic yarn, namely Rowan Pure Wool DK (colourway Kiss). In fact, this yarn has (in my opinion) such an industrial, smooth look to it, that the colour becomes quite flat. Therefore, I paired it up with a strand of Holst Garn Supersoft in another (but deliberately not exactly similar) red colour, Poppy. A match made in heaven for this project, if you ask me ;)

I started the first version on August 2nd, and I am now at the point where I've just divided for body and sleeves. That means the fun part is almost over, but I'm confident it'll be done in a few months...My Ravelry project page is here.

*You may be interested in why I was wrong, if you're into knitting techniques. When doing increases, I often do like this: make a yo, and then twist and knit it on the next row to avoid the squeezing-together of stitches I find that happens when you just pick up the strand between two stitches on the row below, twist and knit it. However, as it turned out, this squeezing-together of stitches is what gives the 'acorns' some of their shape and is thus absolutely necessary at least in the acorns part of the pattern (not so much for yoke and waist increases, where I've gone back to my way of doing it).

Sweater WIP Week - Friday: 1980's

Just to complete my tour of Helga Isager's book Strikketøj, here's my third and final WIP from there: the sweater from the 1980's. My photo is hideous, but I'll direct you to some beautiful finished versions.

It's knitted sideways. I cast on a long time ago (that's April... :)), knit a few rows, and then let it rest. During a few days in my summer holidays, I finished the first sleeve and the increases for the body - I've now just started the garter stitch panel for the neckline. Like most Amimono patterns, the knitting has to be quite plain (to some known as boring) in order to get the simple design, that I like so much. So endless *yo, k2tog, k2* it is :)

The yarn is the recommended one: Isager Alpaca 2 (yes, I did get 1 kg of that on sale once...) in the teal colour 023.

Sweater WIP Week - Thursday: 1960's

As you can tell from the headline, today's sweater is very much related to the one from yesterday. Same book, but a different decade/design: this time the 60's. This design is not registered on the book's Ravelry page yet, but you can see a photo of the finished model (from the book) on my Ravelry project page.

I love how easy it is making this two-colour brioche stitch, considering the intriguing effect. It does however also take some time to knit - that's one of the properties of brioche stitch, isn't it? - so I've picked this one up again now with the hopes of finishing it before this upcoming winter ends. Ravelry tells me that it's been hibernating since December last year.

As far as I remember, the pattern suggests Isager Alpaca 2 for the black colour and Tvinni (Wool 2) for the white colour (though it could be Alpaca 2 here as well). I sort of reversed it, having black Tvinni and white Alpaca 2 because I want the softest yarn on the inside, against my skin, and where it doesn't matter too much when it starts pilling.

Again a brilliant design from Amimono, along the same lines as usual: simple, yet effective and fashionable.

Sweater WIP Week - Wednesday: 1940's

Thanks for the comments on yesterday's post. They are much appreciated! I'm still considering whether it should be a sweater or a cardigan... :)

Today's sweater WIP is another Amimono design (surprise! and not the last one this week, in fact there are another two...), but a modified one this time. I've based the design on the children's cardigan from the 1940's in Strikketøj [I've been told that the book is available in English, too], but scaled it up to my size.

I'm using 3 lovely colours of Holst Garn: Sloe (the main colour), Heather and Gladioli (for contrast).

I haven't been knitting on it for a few months, but I think I'm going to pick it up soon now that autumn is getting closer. I would like to wear it this winter.