Garn Boet - The Yarn Nest

We had pretty hard winds here yesterday, but nothing happened on our yard, no fallen trees or such. The good thing was that all the oak leaves were thrown from the tree by the winds, so we spent Sunday collecting leaves and taking them to the compost heap. The work went so well that I almost forgot to take pictures of my finished Haruhas.

I did knit them with my winter coat in mind, you see those slits? They can be pretty cold when the wind is whirling around one's arms. The Haruhas are much longer than the pattern model, just because I wanted them to cover my lower arms. I will of course also wear gloves, but my gloves are just and just reaching the end of the slits, and from there on will the Haruha take over. But I think they will be pretty useful in cold libraries too.

Project details
Pattern: Haruha by Kristel Nyberg for Ulla neulelehti.
Yarn: 100 % wool from Greece, given to me by my still very Secret Pal.
Needles: 3 mm.
Alterations: I did knit them longer. There are four medallions on the cuff of the model, I have seven.

See all entries on Haruha.

And there has been some progress made on the Rosebud mittens too. They look even more uneven than in real life, sight. But they will even out after a good soak and blocking, I know. The Bayrische socks are also coming along nicely, but I forgot to take a picture before it got too dark for it. Another day, friends.

All this knitting on small needles has made me long for a bigger needle project. With father's day coming up, I'm thinking about a Sharfik by Grumperina in lovely soft Jaeger Extrafine Merino and 4 mm needles. And I do still have some Rowan Linen Drape, that would need to be knit up on about 3,5 mm. The two balls in light lilac would make a lovely shawl for my younger daughter, but what to do with 5 balls in dark purple. A top would be one solution, but I'm open for ideas.

Posted by Maud at 04:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

I got a web-card from my Secret Pal a couple of days ago, and as promised in the card, the postman had mail for me twice this month. Yesterday did a comfort pack drop into my mailbox:

Chocolate-raspberry coffee that smells good, and tastes good, dark chocolate (i'm one for dark chocolate, so it was a perfect hit. It did last just for the picture to be taken, not many seconds more), a lollypop, a seasonally suitable reflector, a beeswax candle, stitch markers (I'm always dropping them and in a constant need of them) and cute Teddy bears to put on the ends of the needles. And a Mickey card! Thank you secret pal, I'm looking forward to know who you are!

Remembering the Secret Pal yarn from Greece? The Haruha wrist warmers are finished. There will hopefully be modelled pictures in a couple of days, and close ups. Let's keep the thumbs up for blue skies and no rain, and outside picture possibilities!

Posted by Maud at 07:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The first basket weave mitten has hit the top-of-the-mitten finishing line! This mitten is finished with a top that one see quite often on older pictures. Instead of decreasing the top until there are only eight stitches left I stopped the decreases when there were sixteen stitches left. I put together a small demonstration of how to finish a mitten this way.

	The last stitches are still on the needles.
	The stitches have been moved to safety pins.
	The mittens has been turned inside out and the safety pins moved to the wrong side of the mitten. Here have the stitches already been moved to needles again.
	The top stitches have been bind off with a three-needle-bind off. The mitten has been turned with the right side out again.

This way to finish the mitten gives you a slightly broader top, with fewer decreases. If a broader mitten is the goal, then this is a perfect top, with more than sixteen stitches at the end. My daughter's hand is very small and in no way in need of this finishing, but since it was the one Eeva Haavisto has drawn her pattern for, I decided to go for it anyway. The result is very much like what you would have got if you hade grafted the stitches together. I followed the directions given in Mary Olki’s book Kirjokintaita ja muita kansanomaisia neuletöitä for how to do this traditional finishing.

The ribbing of the second mitten is already started. And as my commuter knitting has the Haruha wrist warmers worked perfectly. The yarn I got from my Secret Pal is perfect for this project, and the wrist warmer has a fit like a glove. The pattern is very easy to follow, I warmly recommend it!

Posted by Maud at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

I got this parcel a couple of days ago, but the weather has been grey and the outcome of my pictures poor. Today there were some rays of sunshine, and I took everything from the parcel out on our garden table for a picture session. Well, everything except the candy, that was already gone. But I took a picture before I started, so there is evidence of what was in the parcel. The candy that the seller had said was popular by the Englishmen had an, hm, interesting taste. Not bad, in no way, but it didn’t taste like anything I’ve eaten before. There is a difference between English and my Finnish taste buds ;-) But the Estonian chocolate, it was good. Really, really good.

The yarn content of the parcel was more than welcome. My pal visited Greece some time ago, and managed to find a yarn shop over there. Two balls of 100 % wool by EL.D Mouzakis, Classico (this is about all what I understand of the label). I think these will be turned into a pair of wrist warmers, perhaps the Haruha from Ulla (even if these will be more in the colour of aki - autumn). The colour will match my winter outfit perfect.

And then there were two hanks of Satakieli from Vuorelma, natural and blue-green. As soon as I saw them I knew what to do with them. There is an interesting, kind of basket weave patterned mitten in Eeva Haavisto's mitten book, and these yarns will fit the bill perfectly. There is only the problem of finding the third colour, the one that will be outlining the squares. I have tested with a rusty red (too bright) and with this blue. The blue matches in colour perfect, but has a tad too little contrast to match the beautiful blue-green. So I'll probably test on other colour, in order to get the blue-green to stand out more.

Thank you Pal! A wonderful autumn greeting! And thank you for the compliments on my knitting.

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