Garn Boet - The Yarn Nest

Here we have the project that was supposed to be presented on Friday. It’s the beginning of a mitten for my older son with a pattern called Liisan kirjat. This pattern was known in a biggish area in south-south-east of Finland, Kymenlaakso and east Savo and on the outer islands. I have seen pictures of mittens with this pattern giving the credits to Seiskari (the outer most of the Finnish islands lost after the second world war to the Soviet Union), to Lavansaari (also lost after war), and to Sippola and Luumäki (both in Kymenlaakso). The pattern is also known in Estonia and in Gotland, Sweden (a mitten with this pattern can be found in The Mitten book by Gottfridsson & Gottfridsson).

The mitten is cast on with 80 stitches, and four more is increased after the ribbing. The yarn is Tvinni, a thin Danish 2 ply merino yarn I bought last autumn (click here if you want to read my report on yarn shops in Copenhagen). The green is the same green as I used in the Rosebud mittens, but it looks much brighter together with this brown yarn with an undertone of green. It is quite interesting how colours look so totally different in another colour surrounding. I’m using 2 mm dpns for these mittens. The thumb will be a straight peasant’s thumb, and the mitten top a flat Finnish top. Click here for a close up of hte pattern!

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Attention, attention! The fifth day of holiday blogging interrupted! Important news just out! The Swallowtail shawl is blocking! So far everything is looking fine.

I have a question to you more experienced lace knitters: when does a lace shawl do better with a starchy dressing? Any general rules out there?

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Yesterday’s post got postponed. The weather has been very cold, and we decided to pack the children in the car and spend the day in Helsinki, shopping, eating and watching a movie. Today is the weather warmer, and there has been sleighing and swimming on the program. I think the children will fall asleep easily today!

Today’s knitting project out in the flashlight is the bear blanket. The pattern for this blanket is the modern log cabin blanket from Mason Dixon knitting. The yarn is Sandnes Sisu, a yarn I got from my Secret Pal last year. I’m knitting it on 2 mm needles. The reason why this knit has come this far without being presented on the blog is that it has been my knit while helping the kids with their homework. It has not been together with the other knits, and I have never had time to blog on it after having worked on it, it has usually been time to start dinner or drive to football practises. Anyway, here it is. The last boxes are almost done, and then there is the border to finish after that. Pretty close to FO!

Swallowtail news: the nupps are finished, and I have moved along to the edge pattern. Blocking tomorrow? Let’s hope so!

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Today's project to step forward is Pippa*, a design by Anna Bell (scroll down to find the right model). It is a very plain and classic cardigan, knitted on 3,25 mm needles out of Debbie Bliss' Baby Cashmerino yarn. The yarn contains, according to the label, 55 % merino wool, 33 % microfibre and 12 % cashmere. This yarn is as close to heaven as you can get among the yarns, it's soft, it feels luxury and it's a dream to knit with. Sadly has this cardigan had to step a bit to the side after initial cast on and first sleeve ribbing, but it's only because Swallowtail is having a deadline. I'm eager to continue knitting with this yarn!

The model is as said plain and classic, but I see before my eyes this cardigan paired with a flowery summer dress, in the style Laura Ashley had in the 90's, with a wide skirt and tight fitting bodice. I had a dress like that (okay, I guess I have to admit I had several, but one that is just what I think about), that I used until the fabric was worn to treads. Sadly I haven't since found a substitute, and to be honest, I haven't lately found very much in my taste over at Laura Ashley either. So I will perhaps end up having to sew a dress like the one in my imagination.

The ribbing is knitted with twisted knit stitches and a small cable. The cable is then continuing up on the sleeves and the body, and will be very subtle against the stockinet between them. So far is Anna's pattern very clear, no problems in understanding it or in the descriptions.

* When I was small child, about ten or so, I had a doll the manufacturer called Pippa. She was smaller than a Barbie, and had an own horse and all the things you need to take care of a horse, and riding clothes. I totally loved that doll, and the name of this pattern brings back very happy childhood memories.

And a short update on Swallowtail: I finished the bud pattern yesterday, and have moved forward to the Lily of the valley patterns. The nupps, oh my, the nupps! I knitted one row of nupps before popping over to the old needle case, bringing out a 1,25 mm crochet hook. I was able to knit the P5tog with just needles, but it took eons. It is fiddly even with the hook, but it cuts down on time considerably. One has just to be careful, not taking the yo after the nupp stitches into the P5tog (don't ask how I know about this specific problem). The nupps are eating yarn pretty fast, but I do still have yarn left of the first ball, and just Lily of the Valley 2 and the border pattern left. Strange.

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Today’s project to be presented is the bear coat. For those not recollecting this knit, it’s a coat for a 25 (or perhaps 20) cm long teddy bear, knitted in Regia Silk on 2 mm dpns. The pattern is Eunny’s Anemoi mitten pattern, repeated 5 times in the coat. Last time showed was the front steek cut open. One reason why this knit is advancing so slowly is that I try to make it without showing it to the girls. A new edition of the Bear Catalogue is about to be published with brand new knits. And this time, in order to reduce the stress on my self, will most of the models be ready before the catalogue is issued. I love knitting miniatures, but having the girls hanging over my shoulder asking me when I think the garments they ordered from the Bear Catalogue will come is an effective way to take away the joy of knitting.
The system is that the girls put an order (pre delivered order forms) in a letter box in my office. Normal delivery time for an item is two weeks, but there can of course be force majeure of different kinds. In that case will a letter be sent to the girls, explaining why the order is delayed. And when the order is finished will the item be delivered with Rabbit post to our main mail box. I got the idea for this Bear Catalogue thing from Tasha Tudor, famous American children’s book author and illustrator, who made a very similar thing for her own children. They paid for the orders with buttons.

I have since last showing the coat sewn the arm steeks, cut them open, and knitted the first sleeve. The sleeves will be slightly bell shaped, ending as you can see with a blue-white-blue striping, the same way as the hem of the coat. The needle is there to keep the sleeve straight, I have not blocked it, and the interfacing is rolling like h*ll. I have picked up the stitches for sleeve number two, but not knitted anything (you see, Tuesdays are the days of my time hog lesson, and the only knitting time I have got today was while watching the children swim,
as I was down with a flu last week and doesn’t yet feel up to exercising).The front will be striped in the same way, but perhaps with slightly wider front bands. This bear has been at home when dinner has been served, and her belly is round. Rounder than what I had taken into consideration when counting stitches for the coat. But one good thing with bear knitting is that they don’t complain if a garment is too tight. And if the coat won’t fit over the belly, well, they don’t complain over cold clothes either. And they don’t get the flu, blessed small teddies.

I’ll be working on the bear clothing gallery today too. There are some pictures of clothes and knits made in the pre blogging era, but I have not yet uploaded the knitted items I made last year. And the layout of the pictures is not optimal either. Anyway, the link can be found in the sidebar.


As an update on Swallowtail I can report that the twelfth repeat of the budding pattern is done. I’ll try to finish the budding pattern today, and move forward to the lily of the valley pattern and the much talked about nupps tomorrow.

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This week is winter holiday week here in the south of Finland. The children are at home and hubby managed to take the week off too. I have to attend a lecture tomorrow, and I should write a short essay, but I feel partly as if I also were on vacation too. So in order to entertain myself, I’ll try to post a daily update on the WIP pile. You see, I have, since Argyle was finished on Saturday, started a couple of new works. And there are still the old ones to update. Very suitable, all in all five projects, and five days.

First up on the line is Swallowtail shawl. This shawl has in my opinion got a very crappy colour on the picture in Interweave knits Fall 2006 number. Fortunately it has been a popular shawl, and there are lot of beautiful shawls out there in the blog world to admire.
I have dear friend who is about to have a quite even birthday soon, and I decided to try to finish a shawl for her. If it goes trough the quality check after blocking that's it, if not I’ll have one nice shawl more. I chose Wetterhoff’s Sivilla yarn, a soft and shiny yarn in 30 % silk and 70% wool. There is 250 meters to 50 grams, considerably less than in the alpaca yarn used in the pattern. I decided to go up one number in needle size, and it seams to be a good choice. The lacy fabric is airy, but still not too thin. I’m using Addi bamboo needles, and they feel very nice. The first budding strip is knit, and ten out of fourteen sequences of the main bud pattern. It will be followed by two different charts of the lily of the valley pattern, and then the spiked swallowtail edge. I have 100 grams of the Sivilla, and it should be enough, Tikru made one with the same yarn and needles, and used 90 grams.

We have about -10 degrees Celsius today. We have already been out ploughing snow away from the small lake in order to make a skating area, and the sleighs are on the afternoon program. I’m afraid it will take quite some time before we see the migrating birds arriving from the south.

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Wih the sun in my eyes

Argyle is finished. Lovely Argyle, oh how I love you! The fit is almost perfect, it could have been a tad longer in the body (this is a common problem I have with British pattern, I do often have to put a little more length in the body), but the arms are perfect, and the fit over the shoulders just as supposed to be. The Jeager yarn is soft and warm, and was a dream to knit with.

The pattern was easy enough to memorize, even if I have to admit that on the first arm was several mistakes made and frogged. Big thank you to Anna Bell for giving out this pattern for free!

With this knit I decided I wanted to try some new cast ons. I took help from my Vogue knitting: The ultimate knitting book, and made an alternate cable cast on for the sleeves, and an ordinary cable cast on for the body. Both took a bit more time to perform, but I’m very pleased with the result. They both feel very sturdy, yet elastic. The alternate cable cast on is according to Vogue especially good for K1P1 ribbings.

Project details:
Pattern: Argyle by Anna Bell for Magknits.
Yarn: Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Aran 10 balls in the colour Dahlia and a little bit light blue for the sleeves.
Needles: Addi circs 4 mm (bamboo) and 4,5 mm (metal).
Gauge: 18 stitches and 26 rows to make 10x10 cm with the larger needles.

Close ups! The colours are a bit weird, since I had to take the pictures without flash inside. I don’t know why this colour is so hard to capture, it goes over to a red mass as soon as I whisper flash. Well, learning to use the colour adjustment tool on my Photoshop could of course help the situation. One of those days, I promise I’ll look in the all the features of the program!

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What started yesterday evening like this:

was today finished as this:

Modelled pictures and project details tomorrow! I'm off now to celebrate FIL's birthday.

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With an exam lurking in the very near future, this is all I have managed. A weekly update again. I must break this boring trend the week after the exam, I promise.

Argyle is growing steadily. Front and back are done, as is the first sleeve, and the second sleeve is halfway to the sleeve cap. I will not have a lot of knitting time this week, but I hope to be able to finish the second sleeve, and if luck is on my side, have an Argyle finishing party next weekend.

And I have made some progress on the bear coat too. The front steek is machine stitched and cut up. The green yarns show where the sleeves will be stitched and cut up. The pattern is Eunny’s Anemoi, repeated five times over the width of the coat, each repeat mirrored to the one on the side.

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Look! I have had a limited computer time, but more knitting time, and the result is to be seen here: one sleeve and a back-piece completed on Argyle. The tension is perfect, the yarn a dream to work with, and with a 4, 5 mm circular needle is this work just flying!

I’m still humming over my colour-work plans, having problem making up my mind on weather to knit Eunny’s Venezia pullover or not. I like the design, but not the amount of colours. I have never been a huge fan of this kind of fair-isle for my self, I admire it but I don’t want to wear it. So I think about knitting it up using just two colours, perhaps two different reds, and a contrast colour for the insides of all hems. Who me, a fan of Solveig Hisdal? Where have you got that from ;-) Do you have an opinion on changing the colours? Please, tell me!

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