Praising cotton

 

At work the other day we ended up in a discussion on diets and such. Me, myself, I don’t really believe in dieting. From my point of view, eat varied and not too much of anything is probably best. And love your veggies…. And try to make things yourself…. And I guess somehow that goes for my knitting too. Every now and then the question comes up, which yarn is your absolute favourite… I just can’t answer that one… Favourite for what? I would not want a winter sweater in Linen and neither do I want a summer tee in Alpaca and apart from that I would also be pretty bored if I just could knit with one yarn… So a bit of variation and not too much of one thing is best for me. 

The other thing that happened this week is that I saw a thread on Revelry where someone asked, could this pattern be knitted in cotton….  The pattern was designed in a cotton yarn, so obviously the answer should be yes. But somehow cotton got the worst reputation. Yes it does not have many give and I can see that this can make your hands hurt, but the right cotton for the right project works really well. And it is a great summer yarn, can have really nice sheen, picks up colours very well and can be easy care too. But yes worsted or thicker cottons are very very heavy and gravity will do its work on a project knitted in those. But a good quality cotton in the lighter weights, is just very good for summer wear. And children’s wear.

So my next project, cotton, a very nice one, Cascade Ultra Pima for a girl’s cardigan… summery and bright! 

Flex

Some projects are so quick that they over before you know it. This one certainly was. Of course no sleeves helps a lot, as well does knitting aran-weight…especially when knitting so much fingering and sportweight…. And no lace or cables either to hold your speed back. 

The main reason however for the quickness was the construction, or rather, how does it look like when it is done. Like the Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman, sometimes the construction is so ingenious that that drives the knitting forward.

This one, Flex,  is all about the construction, about the meet of directions on the front, just very lovely and it the end wearable as it is a very good match with the yarn which is another reason why the knitting went fast. this was knitted in Kestrel another linen yarn from Quince & Co. Their Sparrow is one of my favourite yarns ever, smooth cool linen. This one is a chainette linen and it gives a more rustic fabric than Sparrow does. It has drape and sheen and everything else that is so lovely about linen. It also has some give, which makes that it is pretty easy to knit with.

Not surprisingly I have some more in my stash…. 

An experiments that ends well.

It is nice when you have a theory and all the evidence you have kind of shows that you are on the right track. The Japansk Bomuld worked really well as a yarn for the Jan Sweater. It made indeed a breezy, very light-weight sweater that is just excellent for the summer. Personally I always find it hard to wear knitted short-arm sweaters (too warm for the days I can wear short-sleeved anythings), but in this yarn, I think I would not mind it myself… But this one is for S as she spotted the yarn in the first place…..

Crunchy stuff

 

Every spring there is in Malmö a “Symässan” ( a kind of crafts expo) and some years I go and in some I don’t. It is basically focused on sewing and quilting and while I do sew and have made quilts, it is not like knitting for me. But the last years, knitting has become more and more popular, the local yarnshops do carry more yarns, there are Swedish knitting magazines (I do not like them very much, but they are there at least) so there have been more yarn people at the mässan as well. This year I didn’t really want to go, busy at work, and then a weekend just pottering around the house can be quite OK. But S, who is sewing more and more to make costumes for cos-play, asked if we could go, so in that case….. So I went with S and M and this year, there was so much more yarn….. Lovely really!

I came home with too much, Kalinka linen and a linen/wool blend and then a cotton yarn which I just could not not buy. It was Isager Strik Japansk Bomuld , a cotton tape yarn that really feels papery. It is made in Japan and probably quite like some Habu yarns. It is a fine fingering cotton and it just looked to be tested (the price is nice as well). S choose the colour, an apricot-pink to match with a skirt bought in Japan. I wasn’t completely sure what to knit with it, but for sure a summer top, so after a good browse at Revelry, we decided that Jan might fit the bill. This is a kind of experiment, as Jan is knitted with a fine wool and a cotton is of course drastically different. The yarn knits up more like linen than cotton, it gives a bit uneven effect but very pleasing nevertheless. And it is featherlight. So far I do like this one, with the back (or front as they are the same) finished. It is a pretty easy pattern, hardly any shaping (except for the set-in sleeves) and a very easy lace. 

I do think this will be an experiment that works, a blousy small pullover for summer days….

Back to normal

 

Back to normal with a summer project for me. Pomegranate in Hempathy, nice yarn, sturdy and crisp, and a nice lace decorated pullover to go with it. Just right for Swedish summers….. (I can now start to complain, but May until now hasn’t been great).

My gauge was off, so I had to tweek a bit, not a lot but just making a XS to get an S. I also had to figure out where the neckline should be and thus where the sleeves had to start and I made it a bit longer. I also did one more increase round in the shaping. In the end I actually like this length better, I find it easier to wear so that is good too.

 

I am wearing it with no ease at the bust, which I think works really well for this kind of pattern where you want to show of that delicious lace…. The sweater i skin in the round, with short row set-in sleeves . The pattern was easy to follow and apart from issues created by myself, no problems whatsoever.

And now for something different

M is quickly becoming our pastry sous-chef. She loves to browse through my dessert cook-books and every now and then I buy her a Swedish baking magazine as she loves them. She also loves it in a practical sense, baking, whipping cream and all that. So during the weekend she made a batch of vanilla ice-cream mixed with Macademia nuts and toffee sauce (yes I have to start to watch my weight) and there were quite some egg-whites left over. No avail, egg-whites,  are needed for meringue or a pavlova… so next project a pavlova it was. Also that left-over toffee sauce (home-made) can be used on a pavlova…. So as it is the start of a long weekend here, a bit of summer feeling with a pavlova with bananas, passionfruit, cream and toffee-sauce…. like I said, I better watch my weight…...

Summer knitting

 

Every year sometimes during the spring I switch from animal fibres to plan ones. Sometimes it is late, end of May, sometimes it is early, beginning of April. This year was an early one, I went to cotton for my latest project. The last years have given us warm springs, so there is that, and I also saw this yarn at a shop and just thought, I have to test this one. So I did, maybe not the best pattern to really test a yarn (a lot of knit togethers, purl ones as well!), but I do have to say, I really liked this yarn. Soft, with some give, maybe unusual in a 100% cotton. Nice colour variation and the pattern was fine too. The yarn is called Rowan Tetra cotton and the pattern is Lapsang. 

Also today is Valborg, the day to celebrate that spring is really here, with fires, songs and (in some places, especially if there are lots of young people around and uhm universitiy dominated, basically Lund or Uppsala) copious amounts of alcohol. Not that we do any of that, a bit of a chilly day today and the 15-yo old is just too well adjusted to go for that…. ( bit of sarcasm here, but on the whole she has her head screwed on in the right way, so I really can’t complain….).  But spring is here and that is of course a thing to be happy about!

Only misgiving, the sleeves are too long (well at least I would be slightly annoyed by them), but for a teenager they are apparently perfectly fine…. which is a good thing then!