A small ps!

Today I learned that Margaret Atwood is interviewed in the current Vogue Knitting about her favorite hobby…. How cool is that:-)

 

me myself I'm knitting cool too, Harmony by Kim Hargreaves, summer tweed…..

Solidarity

 

On sunday i knitted the fastest knitted object I have made in a long time. A little womb…. Why I did this, well the main reasons are described at this place and yes I am not from the US so yes I have no say in their politics. But what I can give is my solidarity and that's why I knitted this small object and blog about it.

Now I am of course privileged to live in Sweden and no-where is equality between men and women closer than here and I would like that kind of system more widespread. What is happening in the US right now is however frightening going back in time and one needs to be aware and speak out, which I do in my little way here.

I always thought that the Handmaids' Tale was a frightening book, it is even more so today!

It has gone of by post to Texas now and I hope it will serve its cause well!

 

 

A girl and her cat

 

I like this photo, mainly since it depicts Zai so well…. he is just a big loveable cat, who loves to be carried round and then just tries to cuddle you.  I asked S if I could make some photos of Miette, and Zai had to come too…. So here he is.

 

Miette was a fun project. The pattern comes only in a limited range of sizes, but by using a thinner yarn and a bit tighter gauge, I got the good size for S. The rest of the pattern, I just used it as it came, with the exception for the sleeves. These I actually knitted "flat" since I was using cotton and I didn't want to have a change in gauge. I like knitting in cotton and it doesn't feel like rope to me, but I am aware of the gauge changes that can occur when switching from back& forth in knit and purl, to in the round and only knit, so I was not let that happen… Also, I don't really like knitting sleeve in the round. Too tight to fit fully on a circular needle, just a bit too big to really fit well on DPN's…. and since I don't mind a Mattress Stitch, this was really the best of options. I added 1 sts to each side for the seam and that was that.

A happy S today:

Learning Things

 

I do like it when I come upon something that just shouts to me: try this, it is clever and you can learn from it! The thing I stumbled upon was the contiguous method (thank you SusieM)  to make set-in type sleeves without the seaming. While I do not think it replaces the set-in sleeve completely, it is very nifty indeed...

So I needed to try it out. I figures the best way was to use a pattern and I used Same, Same which is nice, but unfortunately I do not like tables too much (I like it if patterns to be all in the text and start to over interpret things if I have to look at too many different places) and so I just used the start and went from there since I do love these little garters at the shoulders.

I'm quite pleased with the result, but  also think there could be improvements. I would make the button edges bigger, these ones are not very stable and although I have a bit of positive ease, they gape slightly. I have put in quite a lot of buttons, but not even that helps… I would make the neckline lower (this is just personal taste) and I would make the sleeves a bit wider (they are narrow now) . But overall this is a nice light-weight cardigan, good for the change of season since spring is really coming soon!

Happy as a Bug

Damson is ready, even M thought it was quick…. and she is very happy with it, so of to school this morning, wearing it:-)

On Ravelry there were luckily nice notes on projects how to make a smaller Damson, so I followed those and got a good M-size shawl. The shape is very good as well, since it really sits nicely on her shoulders and no pin is required to keep it were it should be.

 

All in one, a nice little project and more stash used in a very nice way!

Waiting for buttons

 

I nearly finished my "Not quite similar", but I didn't have the buttons I thought would work well with this little cardigan. It was quite an easy knit, but still having that cold and not doing much except watching old episodes of House probably made that this one was knitted really fast. And that is one of the advantages of loads of stockinette, excellent TV knitting :-)

I didn't do any alternating skeins for this one. The yarn I used is Madelinetosh Sock "grove" and I had the feeling that I wouldn't need to do so.

I thought a small neckband would work best with this one, so I picked up the sts up & knitted them, 1 more row of knit and then an I-cord bind-off. A very neat and small neckband that is still giving structure to the finished object.

My next project is giving me a dilemma….

M wanted a small shawl, so I thought, well that makes a good change of projects. So we went to Ravelry and M thought that Damson was a good little shawl for her. Next thing was the yarn, she wanted a green shawl, and my stash does contain a bit of green fingering yarn, so after some thoughts she wanted "Eat your Veggies" (Claudia hand-painted fingering). Now comes the problem, I have only 2 skeins, 350 yards. The pattern needs 440 yards…. So either I need to make it much smaller, or I need to find a third skein that goes with it, or I need to buy 1 more skein of "eat your veggies"...

For the moment I have decided I will make a smaller version, M is small so that will work out anyways…. but I also will have a proper excision when I have used the first skein. That will give a bit of a better feeling on how big/small it will be...