Garn Boet - The Yarn Nest

First, thank you for all your comments about the Seiskari mittens! I had a pretty busy week, and haven’t got time to answer you, but thank you to everyone who left a comment!

The kids were playing cards and eating candy

I have actually two FO:s, but only one will be presented today. The bear coat is done, all ends sewn in and blocked, but I haven’t got an opportunity to take pictures of the coat yet.
But finished and pictured are the Seiskari mittens.

The Seiskari mittens got finished just in time before spring breakout. It’s warm in the sun if it isn’t a windy day, but when it’s cloudy, and in the mornings it’s still very cold. There will be need for mittens and gloves at least a couple of more weeks, I think. The son has already used the mittens, you can see they have been a little bit wrinkled from having been in the mitten basket. He approved them. Do you want to see a close up? Click, click! My intention was to knit these mittens with a flat top, but I decided the pattern would end in more beautiful way with a pointier top. The decreases on the top are three stitches band decreases, and on the thumb one stitch band decreases.

Project details:
Pattern: Seiskari mitten, traditional colour pattern, mitten pattern my own.
Yarn: Isager Tvinni, about 57 grams for teenaged boy hand.
Needles: 2mm dpns.
More: 80 stitches for the rib, 84 stitches for the hand.

And so the WIP pile is once again shortened. And that is a good thing. I have started a sock for my mum, it‘s my “handbag” knitting, small and portable, a basic from the toe up pattern with a feather and fan leg part. I'm using Regias bamboo sock yarn, and it's very nice to knit with. I’ll also be knitting like a busy bee on the spring cardigan. You see, I have ordered yarn for a sweater/pullover, and I’m afraid what is still in WIP stage when those yarns are delivered by my doorstep will remain as a WIP for quite some time. Can you guess what I have ordered?

Posted by Maud at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)

The Seiskari mitten, knitted in Isager Tvinni bought last autumn in Copenhagen, is growing with medium speed. The yarn is a 2 ply merino, and it is very nice to knit with. It's not superwash treated, it’s soft to knit with, and after the first wash it softens even more. To knit with two colours in this yarn is also no problems, the tension is so incredible easy to keep. It was on the expensive side, if I remember right (but we tend to forget about these details, don’t we) and if I had my currency conversions right (no guarantees here, standing infront of the shelves with Isager yarns can turn even the head of persons with no math problems inside out), but few good things comes cheaply, a rule applicable to yarns also. A big problem in acquiring more of this yarn from heaven is however that it is not widely sold over the internet. The yarn is thin; on 2 mm needles I get a gauge of 42 stitches and 42 rows for every 10 cm, and in the patterns in the Isager books I bought it is usually kept doubles. And it is light: one Seiskari mitten, size teenager boy (a small man’s hand I would guess) weights 28 grams, when a mitten in the same size, knitted in thin Pirkka yarn weights 32 grams. So far is my experience of the durability also good: my younger son got his new mittens in the end of the autumn, and they are still like new (this being the same boy who got that terrible hole in his Estonian mittens). The colour work has also stayed very clear, the yarn has not rugged up in use, something that easily happens on mittens, making the colour pattern unclear (this doesn’t happen with Satakieli either, my second favourite mitten yarn). Well, what I’m trying to tell is that Tvinni is at the ten top list of my dream yarns. And did I mention that the colour range was amazing?

The backyard yesterday

But I have to hurry up with these mittens, and they have got first priority on the WIP list. Spring is fast approaching us, as you can see in the mitten picture, taken yesterday at midday. It has been raining and the snow is melting in an admirable rate*. The backside of the rain is of course that the sky is grey all day long. Midday was the light so bad even outside that I didn’t get better light in the pictures than what you see above. Looks like today will be a bit better, as I write this in the early morning the sun is sending some tiny rays of light through the clouds and I can even see some blue sky.

*Who me, a winter person? Never. I love spring, no matter how wet and grey it is. Spring brings with it the promise of warmer days, sun, less clothes, gardening. I can stand winter only because I know it makes my children happy to ski and skate, to build snow castles and snowmen, and to generally tumble around in the snow.

Posted by Maud at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

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!

Posted by Maud at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)