Short Rows

 

The short row experiment turned into s small little hat, much appreciated by M. There is a hat craze going on at their school at the moment with most of the children wearing hats all the time…. This one was very good, according to M, since I added the small flowers at the brim.

It was a very nice experiment, short rowing for shaping is such fun. The yarn with the long color repeats helped too although I wouldn't buy this  particular yarn (Let's Knit of Svarta Fåret) again though, splitty is my complaint. I actually do not complain a lot about splitty yarn, but this one is. The coloring and the texture of the knitted fabric are quite nice though. Any light fingering yarn would do for this pattern and I guess I will make some more of these hats in the near future.

Since it was fun to knit and quite easy I made it into a pattern (Short Rows) which one can get at Ravelry for free here or

download now

In Between Days

 

The "mellandagarna" (in between days) are upon us. Christmas was quiet this year, no traveling (for the first time in years) and that was actually quite nice. We watched "A miracle on 34th street" (the old black & white one) on Christmas Day and yesterday we went to the movies to watch Arrietty (by Ghibli Studio).  That meant also some knitting time…. Arrietty is really wonderful, just want to stare at all the details, of the house of the borrowers, the doll-house, the meadow and so on and so on…. S wants to go again (already)….

Present-wise, I got some real nice things as well, mitten-kits and a real nice book. First of all, there are so many smart cardigans and sweaters in it, and I also love it that it is details that are high-lighted in the book and most designs are in sports to DK weight, which suits me well, since that is my favorite range as well. But my first item from the book will be in worsted weight; the Albero Cowl.

Why…..well I splurged a little bit just before Christmas and have a Sweater amount of this:

It is Madelinetosh Erin in "tart" and I think the little jacket will be just perfect in that yarn

So knitwise, I finished Astrid in Quince Lark "Iceland", loads of stockinette followed by a huge cowl in garter. Just the thing that S loves. I a way it is a shame that it is so mild here at the moment, since this is a real good comfy winter sweater.

and I started this:

a hat in short rows just improvising…. it is a quickie, a "mellanprojekt" for in-between days….

 

 

Comfort Cat

 

This is Totoro, our comfort cat…. not only does he have a nose to find anything soft (and knitted) within seconds of me putting it down, he also is very pettable . Simply, he has a very huge "aaibaarheidsfactor", so he gets away with quite a bit. So him sleeping there was a photo-opportunity…..

Anyway the item he found comfort on a couple of days ago, was my almost finished shawl "Highland Fling", made in Madelinetosh Alpaca Dream. The color is "Teddy Bear". It is a singly ply mix of alpaca and merino wool. For a single ply it feels very "heavy" and it is really lovely to knit with.

Now at work they have installed some "fresh air" thing in my office. The place of my office is totally enclosed within a building and the windows that I have give me a look onto loads of equipment. So fresh air is an issue, especially in summer time. But right now it just drops down on me and I just feel a very cold draught. So I need shawls and such more then anything else. I spotted this design on the back of an interweave knit magazine and I know that it would go really well together with this yarn. It is called Highland Fling and comes from a Classic Elite brochure.

Today I wore it, and yes this will be so good for potting my shoulders… I  have a soft spot for garter stitch, and this yarn really shines in it.

Now I have to excuse myself for my wet hair, but we were in a hurry and daylight being scarce these days, S just made some quick pictures before we were off for the last bit of christmas presents shopping in town.

Colour confusion

 

There are so many colours of Spindrift, it is easy to get confused….. I thought I lost a skein of "Sorbet", but when I got the replacement skein it was a more muted color pink then the one I had been using. I also got an amazing colourcard with that skein, so I could check.

My colour pink turned out to be "Sherbet" and not "Sorbet"…… I guess I can be excused for that mistake….

Anyways, I bought another skein, another week of waiting and then finally I could knit the yoke band...

I love how it tried out. It is understated, but vibrant as well. The yoke is a mixture of a raglan followed by a round yoke for the colourwork band. I did series of short rows to bring the back up.

I was lucky with the buttons too. I found some neat vintage buttons in a gentle pink colour. I opted for many buttons (11) and I do think that works well with this type of cardigan. When I was knitting it, M tested it for size a couple of times, but she found it was a bit "itchy". Luckily she I had blocked it and neatened all the loose threads, she thought it was not bad anymore at all. In fact she likes it so much she wants a beret with the same motifs….. I have left-overs so, who knows….

The sleeves and body are slightly log, but that is on purpose as she will grow into them and then hopefully it can worn a bit longer.

Storm

 

 

Last night, a small but violent storm visited the south of Sweden. During the day the wind picked up in speed and in the late afternoon it started to be "full-on". D was supposed to play a concert in Denmark, but just 3 minutes before he wanted to cross the bridge from Sweden to Denmark, the authorities decided to close the bridge for all road-traffic. He came home safe and I was actually glad that he didn't make it to the other side of the Sound.

Anyways around 10 to 11 in the evening things started to get really spooky….. and somewhere around that time the first one of our elms came down. We actually didn't noticed at first, there was too much noise to do so. Little background, our elms are a group of 5 to 6 elm trees that are in our garden. When we moved in they were grand trees with a really impressive canopy during the summer. About 3 to 4 years after we moved in we were told that they had gotten "Dutch Elm Disease" and they would die. Indeed they did, within 3 years they were all dead.  They are not very close to the house and birds (especially woodpeckers) were around the trees a lot, so we left them for the time being. Elm wood is a bit strange since it actually gets harder and we were told that they wouldn't really cause big risks. Last summer our neighbour  (a farmer) proposed to help to finally remove them and that was more or less planned to happen next year.

But now it happened a bit faster than that…. We were lucky since the wind was pure west and the tree fell onto the road and not on the garage.  We were also lucky that it was the farmer-neighbour who spotted the tree around 11 since he just went got a saw & tractor and rowed the debris from the road. When he & D were dealing with the first tree, a second one came down too… Scary stuff.

As said we were lucky with the direction of the wind, OK the fence is pretty much destroyed but it could have been much worse, and yes the remaining trees will go now a bit faster too..

But for cats & girls it has a positive side as well:

And to finsih, I have started a test-knit for In Transit, see this post on Ravelry for the details.

 

Sad Case

 

A couple of weeks ago, it happened….. D managed to felt this cardigan that I had made only a couple of months earlier this year. I know accidents do happen, and as one says in Dutch "waar gewerkt wordt vallen splinters"  but still…. It wasn't the first time it happened and yes I got a bit upset. Yes it takes a bit of time to sort the wash, but there is a reason to do it nevertheless…. I guess I was also upset since I had finished it so recently, I hadn't really  worn it a lot either.. And it just hurts…..

 

Anyways D realized that I had reasons to be upset and he bought me replacement yarn. It came earlier this week, so now I have started to make Cecily's Cardigan again. It feels sad to do so, but I did like this little cardie, so…. Anyways it is a quick easy knit, so second time around it will be even better?

I'm also in a "hat" state of mind. I had a bit of Pashmina left from a Audrey in Unst that I made earlier. Quite a bit actually, so I thought another hat would be perfect for it. It is almost black yarn, but a lace pattern goes well:

This is a Soft Linen Lace Beret from the Classic Elite newsletter. Quite an easy fast pattern and I really have to say, I love this yarn. It is soft, lovely to work with and the colors are so nice. Just great stuff!

Grrrrrrrrr

 

Last week i came home quite late a couple of nights, traveling by bus.  We had a small conference at the start of the week and a dinner attached to that, the next day we ran into technical problems at work and they had to be solved. Late nights….. But anyways that isn't the cause of the grrrrrr itself…

I do most of my knitting during the week when I'm commuting so I knitted those two nights on the bus home as well, but it was dark and I was tired. And then I discovered yesterday that I had lost the ball of one of the contrast colors on one of those nights. So now I am stuck on the yoke, and the finish is in sight and I can't make it. And that makes me go grrrrrr. Of course I searched the whole house, our car, my office at work and whatnot, but it is gone and the bus is just so likely. Especially since I did one of the stranded motifs  for a sleeve in the bus and I did cut the thread…..

I ordered a new ball from Scotland (no supplier around here), so it will be at least a week before it will arrive. Ah well that just shows me to be more careful, even when being tired after a long day….. But on the bright side, I did order a colourcard for Spindrift….. so maybe it was just meant to be so….

 

 

Thistle

Even though D is from Scotland, I have never knitted with true yarn from the Shetlands. I have admired the colour work produced with it, but for one reason or another never done anything with it myself. I didn't see it in the shops, and on the net it is difficult to make a proper choice from all the colours available. Until this summer in Edinburgh….

There they had a small selection of Spindrift and I just had to try it. They didn't have a lot of colors so I just picked 2 greys and  2 pinks and thought this should do for a light-weight cardigan for M.

So now I'm knitting with it, and it has to be said, never has colour work knitting been so easy. The yarn grabs and is extremely easy to tension and even before a slight block it looks beautiful. Yes it is a bit scratchy, but this is to be worn over a long armed T-shirt anyways. And I do guess it gets a bit softer when it is washed. But what a dream to knit colour with, maybe I should try to order some colour-cards…..

Grading

 

I had the last two days off from work. It is autumn holiday and I thought it would be good to have some days off as well. On Thursday we went to Copenhagen, yesterday we stayed at home and baked cake & cookies. Copenhagen was nice, we went by bus & train and the connections we excellent. It was a nice busy day so it was nice to relax and do not so much on friday.

I also started to work on the last bits of  pattern writing: grading. It requires a bit of concentration & attention so it is good to do it on a quiet day. I have still some parts to go but it is not much so I guess it will be done by tomorrow. Pattern writing can take up more time than I normally plan. One thing is that while I can do knitting on a bus or a train (yes lots of knitting time on thursday), I can only work on a pattern when children are not interrupting me and on my desk. That makes it a bit more difficult to plan. But I'm not complaining!

 

Since I had all that knitting time while travelling, I also finished  a real speedy knit: Idlewood by Cecily Glowik MacDonald. S spotted this sweater almost on the same day that the pattern came out. She just loved the very big cowl. I got some yarn for it in the beginning of the year, but for one reason or another I only casted it on last weekend.

The yarn is Rowan Pure Wool Aran in "forest". I have used this yarn before and the item I knitted with it held up really well. I think it is a nice yarn, but there is one problem with it and that is knots. I remember from the last time that I have many many knots. So that made me a bit hesitant to use it again. This time however, I had only 1 skein with 1 knot…. so I'm pleased. I knitted it with exactly 4 skeins, I had 10 cm leftover. I have a fifth skein, I guess that will get made into another hat, one never can have enough hats even if cowls can do sometimes too.

Autumn

I finished my In Transit 2. As it turns out, it has Autumn all written over it. The main thing is of course the yarn, which was Quince & Co Chickadee in "Honey". The color is a kind of yellow, amber, golden hue that really fits with this time of year. The trees are now almost bare, and there is a musty autumn smell in the air. Today the clocks changed backwards. I don't like it, now it will be dark when we come home…. But on the bright side, next week the children have holiday and I'll be taken 2 days off for a small break...

 

Anyways for some reason I think this one has more vintage feel then the one knitted in Madelinetosh yarn.  I guess it is the fact that the yarn is uniform in color and the color itself is kind of old-fashioned.

I put more buttons on the deep rib, and the straps are a bit wider & longer. I was lucky since I had cute vintage buttons in my button stash that were just perfect for this cardigan.

Now writing the pattern…..my goal is still to have it finished at the end of December (test knitted and all), I have most of it written down, just grading the sizes remains.

 

Other news, This morning when having breakfast there was a strange cat sitting in front of our kitchen window miaoing very loudly. D opened the door and without hesitating she came in. She was quite thin, very hungry and very very friendly. She also looked as if she is well-looked after in general, with a nice shine on her fur. I guess she got lost some time ago and since she made herself (after eating a lot) comfortable next to me on the sofa we decided to let her be.  So for the moment she stays in our house. If she is still here in a couple of days, we will put out an advertisement since I am sure someone is missing her...

Myrten Hat

 

Since there was such a big lack of hats in our house, I spent one evening last week looking at hats on Ravelry. There are so many patterns there and some are so very nice. Some are also amazing in the sense that so few people actually used the pattern. I spotted the Myrten Hat by Hiroko Fukatsu and there were only 5 projects….

I really liked the flowers and the way they were put on the hat in only two colors. The very clever way of having the solid flowers and the outline of flowers and I was also up for a bit of stranded knitting. My smallest one choose the colors and the yarn. It is Drops Baby Alpaca in a purple and natural color. This yarn is like a thinner version of Blue Sky Alpaca Alpaca-Silk, it is very soft and has a nice sheen. It is more loose than the Blue Sky yarn and thus just a little bit splitty. Not that bad to work with and I can imagine it works really nice for a shawl or something lacy. I think it works well with this hat and I hope it will keep some child warm this winter….

 

Frost

 

Just two weeks ago we had the lovelies Summer days of this year, but now the seasons have caught  up with us….. Sharp frost in the mornings and lovely sunny afternoons. Lovely Autumn days even though it is sad to see the last blooms now destroyed.

But I also quickly discovered that M didn't have any warm fitting hat anymore and she really needed one. The one I spotted was the Effie Beret by Melissa Labarre, since I do like the way the decreases are organized on the crown of the hat.  Also, I had quite some Osprey leftovers from the two Camillas  but not enough to make a solid color Effie beret. So instead I made the brim in Crocus and the rest of the hat in Winesap. Since her winter coat is grey, I do think the brightness of the hat goes well. Finally I will be able to spot her from afar….

 

In Transit

Some time ago in the spring, I was at an airport. Bored and waiting for the flight to board, I started to draw small items. There was one of a cardigan with some ties. I quite liked it but just a plain cardigan with ties didn't completely make it. So I wanted to have some lace too. Back home I browsed through my stitch books and in Barbara Walker's first book there was one that I liked a lot. It is a simple lace pattern over a small number of stitches: English Lace Mesh. So it is good when there are slopes and all that involved. I wanted deep ribs and a vintage feel, but still modern too.
The drawing and some notes lay unused over the summer, but now in Autumn time it was good to start it. So here is the first version in Madelinetosh Tosh sport. The colours is "Stovepipe" a grey with steel-blue undertones. Lovely stuff. I wanted to make a very slightly variegated version and this yarn is just perfect for that kind of thing.

There are some things I want to tweak, so I'll start another one. For this one I have actually kept copious notes so it should go speedy. The tweaked version is going to be in Quince & Co Chickadee "Honey". I will be fun to see how that one will develop.

But until then:


To end ,just a small picture of my lovely assistant and photographer:

Goodbye

 

This morning, my Kara died. She was old and the last couple of days she got worse very very rapidly. Yesterday morning she had still great appetite and cuddled up to me. During the day she enjoyed the sunshine while laying in her cat bed in our bedroom, but in the evening she wasn't interested in either drink or food. During the night she woke me and it was clear she was saying goodbye. I cuddled her, she lay down and fell asleep. This morning she died, peacefully.

I miss her already, but I'm happy she said goodbye.

 

The photo was taken a couple of summers ago, she loved to lay in the sun. I don't have many photos of her, she was a shy cat. Of all our cats, she was really mine and she was the first cat I got as an adult. As I said, I'll miss her very much.

Indian Summer

 

The last couple of days have been really nice. We are having an Indian summer and after the very wet summer it feels so good. I was at a meeting in the country-side for work the last couple of days and on Thursday we walked to the beach and dipped our toes in the sea… Lovely to be able to do so in late September. Not that we spent a lot of time on the beach, we had quite an intense meeting and so on, but we are embarking on a very big project at work so it felt good to get the extra energy.

Anyways, I like an Indian summer, the colors right now are so intense, the leaves on the trees are going into their autumn colors and spiders weave their webs everywhere. The flowers are putting on their last show and a last glut of autumn raspberries and tomatoes should be harvested. In the morning there is quite a heavy fog  and everything is covered by small drops. Just all very nice...

Knitting related; I'm  working slowly on a new cardigan, will not say to much on it yet, just a teaser:

In Transit….