FO accomplishments of 2010

With New Year's Eve only a few hours away, a tally of the finished knits of 2010 seems appropriate:

7 sweaters
1 silken wedding shrug
5 pairs of socks
5 shawls/scarves
2 cowls
2 necklaces
6 bracelets
6 pairs of fingerless mittens
21 baby gear items
and
18 Christmas pigs

A quick calculation will give you 73 finished items, but as I counted especially baby gear and Christmas pigs as projects with more than one knitted item in them, I've finished a total of 35 projects in 2010. That's 14 less than last year, but I guess that's to be expected from this being my first year with an actual job. I'm still a happy knitter :)

At the moment I have 9 WIPs: 6 cardigans, 1 pullover, 1 vest, and the never-ending stash-busting blanket. That's a good starting point for 2011, methinks. Sweaters are my thing!

Quarterly report - 4th quarter

Very soon it'll be time for making new New Year's resolutions (or refraining from exactly that), so here's one final look at the 10 resolutions I made for 2010. 


1. Knit down (some of) my stash
I did knit up a lot of odds and ends this quarter, but not being able to resist some quite good and new offers on the Danish market [garnudsalg.dk and byslavi.dk], I think it's safe to say that there's no negative stash balance this quarter, even without counting!

2. Be less spendy and save money for more important things.
Wedding, Christmas, new interesting yarn stores popping up... I don't know. However, the next big thing to save for is the...

3. Improve my Italian.
I've been too busy at work this quarter, but now we've booked part of our belated honeymoon trip to Northern Italy (surprise!), which means there's still hope for this one!

4. Keep flossing.
Yes.

5. Less Facebook, more reading.
I think I've been fairly successful here. I've recently started to keep a list of my reads - I've read 10 books in 2010*; I'm sure many of you would think of it as ridiculously few, but to me it's quite alright. I've also become a fan of the newspaper we've kept throughout 2010, WeekendAvisen. I still get my daily news online only. 

6. Learn how to do tubular cast on and use it.
No, but I've finally found a project, I'd like to learn and use it for: Tora's Attitude.

7. Keep running regularly.
Oh yes. I've been good and managed to run 3 times a week the past many months. I've recently started training for my first marathon, Copenhagen Marathon on the 22nd of May. Here's hoping for no injuries, as that seems to be the only thing that can stop me right now.

8. Keep doing Pilates regularly.
I didn't do any at all over the summer, but recently I've started focusing on the core strength again since it goes well with running and should improve my running technique. There's still hope.

9. Knit 12 sweaters.
No. Granite was my #7 this year. I have 6 sweater WIPs on the needles, though, so I'm happy enough with my result.

10. Knit 10 shawls.
No! I finished my new favourite shawl, Camomille, this quarter, but that only brings me to a total of, uhm, 4 shawls/scarves when not counting one that was finished but not started in 2010. 


Summing up: I was very ambituous back in January - I like being so, even if I know I may not get there in time - but being my own judge I'd say that I failed at 6, 8, 9, and 10 only. With such overly ambitious goals (and results I'm fine with at 9 and 10) I think that's quite alright. 


I'll be back with new resolutions for 2011 in the new year. Maybe. Until then - have a wonderful New Year's Eve!


Finally, the FOs of this 4th quarter. The knits are dominated by the frantic knitting in the four weeks that passed between being invited to go to a Christmas fair in November with all my knits and actually going to the fair: lots of small project for babies as well as accessories such as mittens and bracelets. You can still find some of them for sale here and here, btw. Among the knits of the 4th quarter are however also my new favourite scarf, Camomille, and the long anticipated Granite. 

*In case any of you are interested, these are the 10 books I read (links in English when available - I read only two of them, Solar and The Chinese Shawl, in English, though):

Jens Smærup Sørensen: Mærkedage [da]

Ian McEwan: Solar [eng]

Leif Davidsen: Dostojevskijs sidste rejse; Den ukendte hustru; På udkig efter Hemingway; Min broders vogter [eng] 

Andrew Taylor: Bleeding Heart Square [eng]

Patricia Wentworth: The Chinese Shawl [eng]

Peter Høeg: Elefantpassernes børn [da]

Jostein Gaarder: The Castle in the Pyrenees [eng] 

Mærkedage, Elefantpassernes børn, Dostojevskijs sidste rejse, and Bleeding Heart Square were my favourites. I was slightly disappointed by McEwan this time. 

The last FO of 2010

I hereby give you my last FO in 2010. I've done lots of holiday knitting - especially on the three cardigans Acorns (everything but the sleeves done, but I didn't bring more yarn with me), Larch (two sleeves done and a few inches knit on the body), and Vanilla (two sleeves and 10 inches of the body done) - but none of it will be finished by tomorrow night. Therefore:

An ingenious little knit that appeared just before Christmas on Olga's blog. I started on the 19th of December, let it dry overnight, finished it on the 20th of December, and wore it on the 21st.

Pattern: Cable Braided Necklace by Olga Buraya-Kefelian (free!) [Rav link]
Yarn: Posh Yarn Diana 2ply, colour Hoopla, using 2 strands held double
Needles: 3.5 mm
Ravelry project page: here. I also urge you to go to Ravelry or Olga's blog to see how it can be worn. I'm wearing mine 'inside-out'.

Stay tuned for my fourth and last quarterly report of 2010.

Pomegranate Granite

It's been 1.5 years in the making, but now it's here - my pomegranate red Granite. It was done a few days before Christmas, and therefore came with me on Christmas holidays as my Christmas sweater. Here it is:

It's not that it's a particularly hard or time-consuming sweater to knit, but I'm sure you're familiar with those knits that just linger in the WIP pile much longer than anticipated. Nevertheless, now it's done and I'm happy with it!

Pattern: Granite [Rav link] by Amimono/Helga Isager, size S/M.
Yarn: Isager Alpaca 2, colour 025, and Isager Spinni (Wool 1), colour 28s.
Needles: 3.0 mm for edging, 3.5 mm for the rest.
Mods: No important ones.
Link to my Ravelry project page: here.

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and thank you so much for reading and commenting here - I truly enjoy your inputs! 

Transformation

I have just frogged the beginning of my Amimono 80's sweater. For some time now, I've been feeling that I was not completely in love with it and suddenly came the reason for actually doing something about it: I wanted to use the yarn for a brand new cardigan pattern which looks very promising indeed: Larch [Rav link only]! You might like it, too?

I went to my LYS two days ago hoping to find a matching Spinni (Isager Wool 1) teal colour, but no such luck. Instead, I found the perfect match in a skein of Grignasco MerinoSilk - weightwise it's perfect and it makes for a nice, soft, and slightly shiny look. So far it seems perfect! With 50% wool in the Alpaca 2 and 75% merino in the MerinoSilk it should be fairly durable but I do expect some pilling to go along with the incredible softness. I've decided not to worry, though. A bit of a halo might actually be a good thing.

P.S.

Granite is blocking!

Two little Clara vests

This one, Clara by Karin Vestergaard Mathiesen, is an all time favourite. The photo shows only one, but I actually made two because I wanted to make a size 3 years (a Christmas gift order from a friend of mine), but this one (the first one) turned out as a size 2 years. These two were my #4 and #5 of the same pattern!

Pattern: Clara by Karin Vestergaard Mathiesen

Size: 2 years: CO 100 sts. 22 cm before 2nd moss st. 38 sts in each sleeve (a bit too much). Chest circumference: 54 cm.
Yarn: 2 strands of Holst Garn Supersoft, Sloe

Size: 3 years: CO 110 sts and followed pattern but with 23 cm before moss st. Chest circumference: 59 cm.
Yarn: Holst Garn Supersoft, 1 strand of Sloe, 1 strand of Aubergine.

Needles: 4.5 mm

Ravelry project page here.

As always, it's a winner!

It's for real...

My Granite is finally close to being finished!
I still need approx. 10 cm on the front, some sewing, and the neck edging, but seeing as I started the front only a few weeks ago and it's already come this far, I'm quite confident that this might actually be my Christmas sweater (yes, sweater, I gave up the idea of a cardigan). Yesterday, it was exactly 18 months since I started it... Wish me luck!

Camomille & a few other FOs

First up a few of the small FOs that were the repercussions of November's Christmas fair. To use up the New Lanark Aran stash (completely), two pairs of baby booties and two (rather thick) baby vests:

Read more about the project on Ravelry if you wish :)

And properly for the season I've also knit 18(!) of these little Christmas pigs. Perfect for decorating your own home or for using as a funny and personal gift when the season is right. I came up with my own pattern, but you can find a similar one here (the Danish version is free). My Ravelry project page is here. It's cute, isn't it, hanging there in the bay tree?

The major recent FO is what may just be the perfect shawl: Amimono's Camomille from the recent knit collection. It took me a trip to Aachen and two weekends at the Christmas fair to finish it. That's two weeks ago and I've been wearing it pretty much all the time ever since. Except when I took these photos, apparently.

You can see how pretty it is in use by looking through the project pages on Ravelry. It's huge, it's soft, and it's fashionable. What more can I wish for?

Pattern: Camomille by Amimono
Yarn: Isager Alpaca 2, colourway 2105, 5.5 skeins (yes, my shawl is huge).
Needles: 4.0 mm - and 3.5 mm for the edge.

I can only recommend knitting your own asap! :)

Better photos & a new shop!

Firstly, I've added some much better photos to the baby hoodie jackets and fingerless mittens for sale in my Etsy shop, now that daylight permitted me to do so. Take a look! Maybe you'll find a present for the upcoming holiday season?

Secondly, I also wanted to try out the Danish version of Etsy, called Amio.dk. The concepts are completely identical, except that Amio.dk is a bit more expensive to use for the seller. As I cannot put the same item up in both shops (I'd be in trouble if the same item was sold twice!), I've put up the knitted bracelets and hats in this shop. It's all in Danish, but shipping is international, so don't hesitate to contact me by email (see sidebar) if there's anything here you'd like, but can't understand how to buy. You can visit my Amio shop here.

ETA: If you want to see more of those bracelets, my Ravelry project page is here.

Jeg har nu strikkede julegaveidéer til salg både på Etsy og i min nye butik på Amio.dk. Kig forbi! :)

In need of a Christmas present?

Although the sale at the last two weekends' Christmas fair went very well, I still have some hand knits perfect for Christmas knitting left. I know most of you who read here are knitters yourselves and therefore not interested, but in case you are I just wanted to let you know - and Siena was so kind as to ask for it :)

I have put these lovely baby hoodie jackets and 3 pairs fingerless mittens for grown-ups up in my Etsy shop. (Sorry for the not perfect photo quality - you can use the photo above for colour guideline!)
When daylight permits, I'll also be putting up a few hats and some fancy knitted bracelets!

Jeg har sat hjemmestrikkede julegaveideer til salg i min Etsy butik. Jeg håber, du finder det interessant! :) Alle priser er i USD, men kan omregnes her.

This is what I've been knitting lately...

Exactly one month and one day ago I got the opportunity to take part in a Christmas fair the coming two weekends (Nov 13-14 and Nov 20-21). Since then, I've been knitting steadily to add to the gift piles of clothes for babies and accessories for grown-ups I already had. Here's some of what I've produced:

Baby hoodies in New Lanark Aran [Rav link]

Fingerless mittens w/horizontal stitches in New Lanark Aran [Rav link]

Baby vests and a hat in Cascade 220 Wool [Rav link]

Bubbles and Cables Cowl in Posh Yarn Laura & Rowan DK Wool 

[Rav link]

Not bad, eh? :)
I do have some more bits and bobs including knitted bracelets, but no photos yet. Oh, and some old knits too.

Should any of the locals be interested in going to this Christmas fair, here are the details:
Birkede Gl. Skole, Møllevej 16, Viby Sjælland. Sat-Sun Nov 13-14 and Nov 20-21, from 10 am to 4 pm. 
There will be lots of other stuff for sale, too - Christmas-related and gift ideas.

Quarterly Report - third quarter

Ooops. In my last post I advertised the upcoming quarterly report - and then forgot all about it! If I am to make it before the fourth one is due, it'd better be now :)

You can find my previous quarterly report here.

The major accomplishment this quarter must be getting married! But let's look back at those 10 New Year's resolutions:

1. Knit down (some of) my stash
I destashed 2 skeins of yarn and knit up some odd balls for the four baby vests. But then I also bought another 200g - and I may just have bought some more, but that (and 2 of those 4 skeins) have already been knitted up for a Christmas fair [info in Danish] I'm taking part in two weekends in November. All in all I think I'm a tiny bit on the good side. Thing is, I haven't actually finished many projects this quarter, but I do have loads of yarn on the needles, so in the end I will have less yarn than I started with.

2. Be less spendy and save money for more important things.
Well, there was that wedding, but I think we already established that it files under 'important things' :)

3. Improve my Italian.
I did make my way through the Michel Thomas course including the Advanced part during my summer holidays, and we did go to Italy in September and managed to practice a bit. Since then, life has taken over, but I want to get back into learning more!

4. Keep flossing.
Yes :)

5. Less Facebook, more reading.
I have actually read something like one or two novels a month this past quarter. May not sound like a lot to you, but it is to me. And Facebook is on its way out, isn't it?

6. Learn how to do tubular cast on and use it.
No. I'm beginning to doubt I will cos I have so much other knitting going on just know.

7. Keep running regularly.
Yeees. You may recall I managed to finish my second half-marathon in 1:59:52. I also set PR on 10 km at the DHL relay race in September. Recently (but that's actually in the fourth quarter), I joined Sparta to keep up my running over the winter.

8. Keep doing Pilates regularly.
Uhm, no. I would like to, but I just never get round to it.

9. Knit 12 sweaters.
Haha. I did show you all my sweater WIPs during Sweater WIP Week, but so far I have only finished one of them. Right now I'm terribly busy finishing stuff for this Christmas market, so no sweater knitting is going on. I don't think I'll reach 12 this year either. But maybe all those sweater WIPs will be a good starting point for next year, or is that cheating?

10. Knit 10 shawls.
I knit one, the Haruni. That's one per quarter so far. Definitely not going to accomplish this one.

A combination of being busy and having numerous large WIPs on the needles has left me with (wait for it!) 4 finished project this quarter! You can see them here:

Time for a quick FO presentation!

Thank you for all the happy wishes on my last post! It sure feels good even if not too different to be Mr and Mrs :)

I meant to post some more of my recent FOs right after the last one, but right now time seems to be rushing by with plenty of unanswered emails and more than 30 unread blogposts in my reader all the time (and with my usual procrastination habits, that never happens). Why? I'm writing up the first paper for my Ph.D. and it's due next week...

Anyway, I managed to find a short break today (the brain does need to rest, doesn't it?), so here we go:

You can see more photos on my Ravelry project page.

Pattern: Still Light Tunic (Ravelry link), size S
Yarn: BC Garn Shetland wool, colourway ny24
Needles: 2.5 mm
Mods: None that I remember...

It was a very nice project to knit, despite the much stockinette stitch. You can read my progress report from Sweater WIP Week here. And it's just as nice to wear! I love wearing this sort of knitted dresses, including my Cabled Sweater Dress.

And now we're at it, here's my other recent FO:

Pattern: Haruni
Yarn: Madelinetosh Sock, colourway Thunderstorm (Rav link), bought at Loop in Islington, London
Needles: 3.75 mm Addi Lace
Mods: None. 12 leaf stems as the pattern suggests
My Ravelry project page is here.
I encourage you to go browse the Ravelry project pages if you want to see the beauty of this shawl when unfolded - I didn't manage to capture a nice pic of that myself.

I'll be back for the third quarterly report of 2010! And the projects I've just shown you will be in it, seeing as I actually finished them in September...

ETA: That was 130 g =16 % added to the Sock Yarn O'Meter!

A wedding and a silken shrug

Here we are, Peter and I, leaving Grundtvigs Kirke (mostly known as Grundtvigskirken to the Copenhageners) last Saturday. It was a wonderful day! :D
I also wanted to show you the silken, blue shrug I'm wearing - it's been an FO since August, but I couldn't really show you until now, could I?

It's knitted from 100% mulberry silk. I have started both sleeves at the hem, made short rows approx. 1 inch before the centre back to improve the fit by making it wider at the top, and then grafted the two halves together. All this to get identical sleeve hems and short row turns.

Pattern: My own. You can read a bit more about what I did on my Ravelry project page.
Yarn: Mulberry silk - nowadays called Jaipur Fino. Colourway H31.
Needles: 2.5 mm

As you can see, I'm wearing the shortest veil possible, and therefore needed something to cover my shoulders in the church. Other than that I also found the shrug very pretty - and it matches my shiny blue shoes, which I'm afraid you can't see in the photo. Take my word for it - they are cool! And, being me, I also sort of needed to wear something I'd knitted myself, didn't I?

Btw, the floral decoration in my hair is a custom order from SchickiMickis' Etsy shop. She makes wonderful headbands, brooches, etc. in leather and satin - fascinating combination and a nice design.

Knitting on the road...

Photo taken on the train somewhere between Düsseldorf and Aachen, where I travelled this morning to get to a summer school at RWTH on biocatalysis in non-conventional media.  

The knitting is the Camomille shawl from the new Amimono booklet.

Aachen is a pretty enough city town, but having been up at 5 AM - early enough to spot the world's largest passenger plane in Copenhagen Airport just before take-off - and having summer school classes all afternoon, I'm now pretty tired and will let Aachen be Aachen until tomorrow.

And what would one do without hotel room WiFi? ;)

Last, but definitely not least, thanks for all the kind words on my last post! They make me feel even happier about my achievement - so much I've now almost forgot I felt like dying the last km :)

Totally not knitting related...

... but this is me a few hours ago, still looking happy with another 19 km to go :) I managed to finish my only second half marathon a few seconds below the magic 2 hours (well, at least they are magic to me, who thought I'd finish in 2:05 this time and not get below 2:00 until next spring) - 1:59:52. Yay!

Now it's time to rest my legs with some knitting and Top Gear... :)

I feel the itch of startitis...

With last week's Sweater WIP gallery, you'll know that I really don't need that. It's just that I'm tempted by Kunzite, Semele, Peasy, and (surpriiiise!) several different patterns (yes, almost all of them, actually) in the new Amimono booklet.

Speaking of the new booklet, I just need to have the Camomille shawl sooner rather than later. My wardrobe has been craving such a shawl for almost a year now - its well-hidden inner fashion-obsessed self needs it. So why haven't I started it yet? I can't decide which yarn to use! I wanted to use something from my stash, but I can't find the right combination. I also have to consider which colour I actually need a shawl in. Red is always my first choice, and therefore I do not need another red shawl. I'm thinking a light/medium grey this time...

Matching colours

I just wanted to show you what I meant when I said yesterday that I liked having a lot of matching colours in the same yarn weight. Can you tell that I like reds and blues, but don't care much for greens? ;)

New Yarn

Just 50 g of each. Top: Mandarin; bottom from left to right: Geranium, Red Clover, and Aubergine. From Holst Garn.

Why? Just because I love this part of the colour palette, and because I find that one can never have too many shades of this sort of yarn (~600m/100g - not necessarily of this brand) to mix and match.

Sweater WIP Week - Sunday: Kingscot

The last one of my sweater WIPs is a hibernating fellow: Kingscot [Rav link] by Norah Gaughan.

I have no real explanation as to why this has only become the two sleeves you see in the photo even though I started it more than a year ago in August 2009... The yarn is gorgeous (ÅLJ), and I think the finished model will be brilliant. All I can say is that other projects got in the way before I reached the fun part.

Let's see when something more happens with this one... It's Ravelry project page is here.

----

Now, that's the end of my Sweater WIP Week - I told you there were seven of them! ;) Other than that, I have only two WIPs: the stash busting blanket that isn't meant to be finished anytime soon and the Haruni shawl. Looking at my Ravelry page, you'll notice another WIP in there - a secret project that is actually finished, but I will not change its status to finished until I can reveal it as an FO.

I've tried to put words on my expectations for each of the WIPs along the way. If I were to put a deadline on these seven projects, it would be December 31st 2010. I'm taking part in the IntSweMoDo (International knit/crochet a Sweater a Month Dodecathon), and it was part of my New Year's resolutions to finish 12 sweaters in 12 months. So far I've only finished five, so if I finish these seven, I'll have reached that goal! Last year I 'only' managed to finish 11. I guess my next project should be to figure out where to make space for all these sweaters... Fortunately, I don't mind passing old hand-knit sweaters on to charity shops if they don't get any wear.

Sweater WIP Week - Saturday: Acorns

Finally! For the first time since Monday a non-Amimono design! ;)

This is Acorns [Rav link] from the new Fall 2010 Twist Collective, designed by Carol Sunday. It was published early August (or late July?), and is now the 3rd most popular pattern from this issue, with 43 projects listed on Ravelry. Mine is one of them. You may remember me putting some nice words on this issue of Twist Collective in a previous post.

The pattern is 7 pages long, and I have read forum posts by people complaining that it is hard to sit and knit in their usual place when having to look at 3-4 different pages at once to figure out what's going on (written instructions on construction/shaping is on one page, the chart on another, chart legend on a third (at least in the beginning), and chart legend explanation on a fourth). I understand what they are on about, but I have to say that once you get past the first row or two of Acorns, it gets easier to remember, and you only need to pay attention to the shaping constructions and the chart.

That being said, I am very happy to have learnt a new way of making neat increases in rev St st from knitting this one! In total, the pattern uses 3 different kinds of increases (times 2 because there's always a left version and a right version), but two of these are actually the same being the St st and rev St st versions of each other. I already know another two ways of increasing, so I think I should be pretty well off in that department by now ;)

What you see here is actually my second attempt at this cardigan. I started out in a different yarn - New Lanark DK in Pebble - and not paying too much attention to what kind of increases should be used, thinking I knew better (I was wrong*). As it turned out, this otherwise wonderful yarn was not right for the project - a bit too 'rustic' for showing off the acorns pattern - so I started over using a much less rustic yarn, namely Rowan Pure Wool DK (colourway Kiss). In fact, this yarn has (in my opinion) such an industrial, smooth look to it, that the colour becomes quite flat. Therefore, I paired it up with a strand of Holst Garn Supersoft in another (but deliberately not exactly similar) red colour, Poppy. A match made in heaven for this project, if you ask me ;)

I started the first version on August 2nd, and I am now at the point where I've just divided for body and sleeves. That means the fun part is almost over, but I'm confident it'll be done in a few months...My Ravelry project page is here.

*You may be interested in why I was wrong, if you're into knitting techniques. When doing increases, I often do like this: make a yo, and then twist and knit it on the next row to avoid the squeezing-together of stitches I find that happens when you just pick up the strand between two stitches on the row below, twist and knit it. However, as it turned out, this squeezing-together of stitches is what gives the 'acorns' some of their shape and is thus absolutely necessary at least in the acorns part of the pattern (not so much for yoke and waist increases, where I've gone back to my way of doing it).

Sweater WIP Week - Friday: 1980's

Just to complete my tour of Helga Isager's book Strikketøj, here's my third and final WIP from there: the sweater from the 1980's. My photo is hideous, but I'll direct you to some beautiful finished versions.

It's knitted sideways. I cast on a long time ago (that's April... :)), knit a few rows, and then let it rest. During a few days in my summer holidays, I finished the first sleeve and the increases for the body - I've now just started the garter stitch panel for the neckline. Like most Amimono patterns, the knitting has to be quite plain (to some known as boring) in order to get the simple design, that I like so much. So endless *yo, k2tog, k2* it is :)

The yarn is the recommended one: Isager Alpaca 2 (yes, I did get 1 kg of that on sale once...) in the teal colour 023.

Sweater WIP Week - Thursday: 1960's

As you can tell from the headline, today's sweater is very much related to the one from yesterday. Same book, but a different decade/design: this time the 60's. This design is not registered on the book's Ravelry page yet, but you can see a photo of the finished model (from the book) on my Ravelry project page.

I love how easy it is making this two-colour brioche stitch, considering the intriguing effect. It does however also take some time to knit - that's one of the properties of brioche stitch, isn't it? - so I've picked this one up again now with the hopes of finishing it before this upcoming winter ends. Ravelry tells me that it's been hibernating since December last year.

As far as I remember, the pattern suggests Isager Alpaca 2 for the black colour and Tvinni (Wool 2) for the white colour (though it could be Alpaca 2 here as well). I sort of reversed it, having black Tvinni and white Alpaca 2 because I want the softest yarn on the inside, against my skin, and where it doesn't matter too much when it starts pilling.

Again a brilliant design from Amimono, along the same lines as usual: simple, yet effective and fashionable.

Sweater WIP Week - Wednesday: 1940's

Thanks for the comments on yesterday's post. They are much appreciated! I'm still considering whether it should be a sweater or a cardigan... :)

Today's sweater WIP is another Amimono design (surprise! and not the last one this week, in fact there are another two...), but a modified one this time. I've based the design on the children's cardigan from the 1940's in Strikketøj [I've been told that the book is available in English, too], but scaled it up to my size.

I'm using 3 lovely colours of Holst Garn: Sloe (the main colour), Heather and Gladioli (for contrast).

I haven't been knitting on it for a few months, but I think I'm going to pick it up soon now that autumn is getting closer. I would like to wear it this winter.

Sweater WIP Week - Tuesday: Granite

Yes, it's true, I never did finish it back in May in the Granite miniKAL. I did finish the back, though. Now all I have left to knit is the front and the neckline. What's holding me back?


I still don't know if I want to keep it as a sweater or make it into a cardigan.

Pro, sweater: the front of the sweater looks very nice, especially the detail with the increases towards the neckline. Here's a link to the FOs on Ravelry.
Con, sweater: The neckline is quite open, and I'm afraid I won't use it enough, since I usually want a winter-y sweater to warm my neck...

Pro, cardigan: the open neckline will work well for a cardigan.
Con, cardigan: Will a reconstruction of the front take away some of that design element that makes the sweater look so pretty?

What do you think?

Sweater WIP Week - Monday: Still Light Tunic

I think it's time for a Sweater WIP Week! I happen to have 7 sweater WIPs (don't ask!) at the moment and that fits nicely with a post about each of them each day of the week, doesn't it? That doesn't mean I'll be knitting on that particular WIP that day, though! :)

Today I'll show you the one that's closest to becoming an FO. Very close in fact!



This is the Still Light Tunic designed by Finnish designer Veera Välimäki. I think the brilliant design deserves that I provide you with a link, where you can see the finished, blocked version... :)

As you can see, I have only one sleeve left to go, and I trust that it will be done and blocked within the next few weeks. I have tried it on and it looks promising! At a first glance, this may look like a never-ending project, being endless stockinette on 2.5 mm needles (that's what I used, but I think the pattern says 3 mm), but I've actually been fairly quick with this one, mainly because July and August had a lot of roadtrip knitting, and nothing could be more perfect for that than this one.

Destash...

I'm having a mini-destash of some luxurious yarns over on Ravelry...

Four little baby vests

During my two weeks of summer vacation I've been working on the two WIPs I brought. They [i.e. Still Light Tunic and 80's Lace Sweater] both require a lot of knitting, so none of them are finished yet despite the effort. Fortunately, I also brought four Rauma Finull oddballs left over from another project that I wanted to clear from my stash. One blue, one pink, and two reds. Here's the result: four lovely little baby vests. All different, but all simple and with a one-button closure on the back.

Pattern: My own - very simple, but with short rows to increase the height of the neck and thus improve the fit.
Yarn: Rauma Finull, colours 439, 445, 448, and 456. One of my all-time favourites, not least because of the colour range. I used approx. three and a half 50 g balls for these four little vests.
Needles: the brilliant Knit Picks Harmony wood dpns, 4.0 mm - the large needle size gave a nice and soft fabric.
Ravelry link: here.

What makes a hand-knit a favourite?

I've been thinking a bit about this, having found a new favourite among my recent FOs during the past two weeks of summer vacation: The Twenty Ten Cardigan [blog link | Rav link]. I just love wearing it! The fit is great and so is the yarn and its complex colour. And all those red buttons make me smile :)

Other favourites in my (rather overwhelming) sweater pile are my Cabled Sweater Dress [blog link | Rav link], Pine [blog link | Rav link], and the Cabled Spiral pullover [blog link | Rav link] - long-time readers will know this by now :)

I'm very happy to have found a new go-to sweater, and I'm asking the headline question because I'd like more such successes in the future. Knitting a new sweater, I very often have a feeling whether it's going to be a favourite or not, but I can never be quite sure. One could also ask whether sweaters I think are not going to be favourites should frogged immediately, but I think you need to have some not-quite-favourites in order to have the favourites. Kinda lies in the definition, doesn't it?

So what makes a sweater/cardigan/etc. a favourite for you? And can you tell before finishing it?

On a related note, I'm impressed with the new fall Twist Collective. Having been quite disappointed with printed as well as online publications lately - thinking that it's all been seen before or that it's just plain boring - I'm very happy to find one cardigan I need to cast on for immediately (that's Acorns - I also love how they've set up this photo shoot) and another cardigan I think I might make (that's Cityscape - I think I'd make it in black rather than white, though). I'm also happy to see some new or at least more interesting ideas in the other designs, e.g. Kiloran, Red Oak, and Stratocumulus. And as usual with Twist Collective, the photography is pleasing.

Quarterly report - 2nd quarter

It's time for another one. This year seems like a fast one! You can find my previous quarterly report here.

Back to look at those 10 New Year's resolutions.

1. Knit down (some of) my stash
Well, I am knitting as much as I can. I did buy 1,6 kg of yarn from Holst Garn (versatile! with plans for projects! yes, the excuses are many) recently and 100 g of silk, but other than that no yarn has entered the flat. And I've decided to let the 4 uhm 5 baskets that currently store my yarn, WIPs, and not-yet-gifted-gifts form the limit of how much yarn I can have.
ETA: I forgot to say that I sold 8 skeins (650 g) of yarn on my destash - that gave a lot of room, too :)

2. Be less spendy and save money for more important things.
Well, a wedding came up - what can I say? If you need something to spend your on, I'll suggest getting married ;) But I guess that qualifies for 'important things' :D

3. Improve my Italian.
Yup! I went to evening classes 7 times this spring. And listened to a lot of Michel Thomas. Molto interessante ;)

4. Keep flossing.
Yup! Let's see what my dentist says on Monday...

5. Less Facebook, more reading.
The news paper reading has gone down recently, but as far as literature goes I'm doing quite well. I'm on my way through Ian McEwan's most recent novel Solar.

6. Learn how to do tubular cast on and use it.
No.

7. Keep running regularly.
Yeees. Despite a serious foot injury 5 weeks before the big race, I made it across the Øresund bridge to Sweden (half marathon, 21.1 km) in the beginning of June! 2 hours and 12 minutes is not exactly a glorious time, but being worried whether the foot would actually make it past 13 km, I'm very pleased with the result. And what a stunning route! A very nice memory. Also a bit peculiar to be running on the highway and the 4 km through the tunnel and all that. I also fulfilled my (maybe rather cautious) goal of running 10 km in less than an hour at a women's race last week. The next goals are already set: the DHL 5 km relay race in late August, another half marathon in September, and the Eremitageløbet (13 km) in October.

8. Keep doing Pilates regularly.
I think I failed at this one. Must be the nice weather. I think I'll pick it up again when winter returns.

9. Knit 12 sweaters.
I finished Daffodil, Twenty Ten, and the Rhombus Wrap (I think that qualifies as sort of a sweater!) this quarter and I have no less than 6 sweaters on the needles, all working their way towards completion at a veeeery steady pace. Knitting time hasn't been plentiful lately.

10. Knit 10 shawls.
I knit one, the Tilia. Definitely not going to accomplish this one.

With a very productive WIP Wrestling April (6 WIPs wrestled - and a new project started and finished) followed by a period where I've been switching back and forth between my numerous large projects (sweaters), I managed to finish 8 projects this quarter. (Think about it: seven projects in one month, then one project in two months...). You can see them all here:

FO: Rhombus Wrap

The Rhombus Wrap. It's been done for almost a month and I've worn it once before the weather got too hot, but never got to take any photos of it. Now I've given up on the modeled shots (just for this one) and give you these.

As you may be able to see from these two photos, it's a reversible knit and to me both sides are equally nice. I like that a lot. It's a very simple 4-row stitch pattern, but it has a great effect here, methinks.

However, the best thing about it may be that I found the perfect use of this slightly variegated yarn - Laura 4ply from Posh Yarn in a delicious red colourway called Sassy. I've learnt that I'm not really fond of variegated yarns in sweater-sized knits. Semisolids are alright, but when sprinkled with another colour like this one is (a bit of golden yellow here and there), I don't like it. My Buttercup II was knit in the same yarn, and I don't really like the variegation here. So why does it suddenly work here? There are two reasons:
1) I paired it with a yarn in a solid colour (Holst Garn in Poppy)
2) The stitch pattern was like made for a bit of variegation. I think it's because it has these accentuated stitches that these golden sparks look great in there.

I think it's time for the info part:

Pattern: Rhombus Wrap from Ori Ami Knits
Yarn: 1 strand of Posh Yarn Laura 4 ply (80% merino, 20% cashmere) in Sassy (discontinued; Rav link) + 1 strand of Holst Garn in Poppy (love that colour!)
Needles: 5.0 mm

Hot or not? I think fairly hot. It's not my Cabled Spiral Pullover or Pine, but I think once the colder temperatures return it'll be great for wearing round the office!

10 things

A huge thanks to Mooncalf who nominated me for the Beautiful Blogger Award. 

The instructions say to write 10 interesting [not sure about that here!] things about oneself and then relay the award on to 10 beautiful bloggers.

First my 10 things:

1. I have a thing for Camper shoes. I recently bought my 12^th pair. 

2. I’m an ISTJ according to the Jung Type Indicator (JTI) – you may be more familiar with its sister, MBTI. 

3. As far as learning styles go, I am an extremely visual learner. Figures and graphs, please! 

4. I wear size S (6-7) in lab nitrile gloves even if the fingers are much too short. I just prefer them to be tight. 

5. I love liquorice. I also like chocolate, but only if it is high quality. 

6. I love TV detective stories. And when I say that to my peers, they always state that they love CSI, too, and then I have to add that by detective stories I mean those that their parents watch. My favourites are Lewis, Inspector Morse, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Midsomer Murders, and A Touch of Frost. No, I cannot choose.  

7. I want a house in Italy. And vacation time to spend in it.  

8. I like numbers and systems. I’ve always been good at maths, and that is where I got the best grades ever. I never wanted to study maths, though, I just think I like the simplicity that there is only one correct answer (at least until you get beyond the first year at university level, which is where I stopped). Maybe that’s why I like grammar, too. [I do sound really boring, don’t I? :)]  

9. My favourite author is Ian McEwan. 

10. My favourite geeky joke is the one where Einstein, Newton, and Pascal play hide-and-seek...

And then the 10 beautiful bloggers. You may already have gotten this one, or you may not want to participate in this. I'm completely fine with that - I rarely pass these things on, but I thought I would just for once. 

Lykkefanten

Travelknitter

Aalerusen

Strikkeforsker

Lenas strik og quilt

GrenDesign

Pischi Days

A Piper Knits

Unikarina

and

Ullaib

I'm looking forward to reading your 10 things! :)

 

Knitting in the sun

I've spent the weekend knitting and tanning on our two terraces (one on either side of the flat - one for morning sun and one for afternoon sun). I feel very well prepared, starting to tan (carefully) now in order to be just a little less pale when I'm going to wear that certain very white dress in October :)

I'm happy that summer is finally here (at least until tomorrow) and I hope I'll get more knitting time (and desire to knit all the time) over the summer than I have had the past few weeks, where I've only knit around 3 times a week! :O

Granite miniKAL

Britt suggested a Granite miniKAL and I immediately accepted - one can never get too much motivation, right? I started it back in August, then let one and a half sleeve rest for quite a lot of months before picking it up again during the WIP Wrestling last month. Now I have both sleeves done and the part of the back you can see in the photo done. Ravelry tells me that Britt has finished 65%, so I'm still a bit behind :)

Turning Trash'n into Fashion

That's the slogan of a little New Jersey-based Etsy shop - Seven Ply - selling incredibly cool jewelry hand-made from broken skateboards. I've never been a skateboarder myself, but I find the idea ingenious and incredibly cool, and dear boyfriend - although being a 'boring' chemical engineer - loves skateboards. What I like the most about skateboards in this case is the beautiful wooden effect created by their interior on the back of this neckpiece. Which might as well be the front cos it's completely reversible. You can see the front - which is what used to be the back of the skateboard with some cool black, white, and turquoise print - on the shop page here (it is of course now listed as sold since all pieces are unique). There are all sorts of necklaces, earrings, rings, cufflinks, and even buttons. Just in case you find the idea as cool as I do :)

April FO #6: Nissen / The Elf

I've reached my April WIP Wrestling goal! The 6 WIPs are done and I've blogged about the 3 I finished in March.

The sixth and last FO this month is a baby suit. I've known it for long, it's an almost classic Danish baby garment: Nissen (The Elf) by Marianne Isager. I started it back in January during my 'streamline the stash' mood. I'm not much into greens, and wanted to use up these few greens in my stash together. Nissen seemed like the perfect project. I didn't have enough yarn for the hood, but think it will work well without it. I also had to use some contrasting red/orange colours on the back to have enough yarn, but I think it works well since the contrast on the edges is also orange-red. For a few months, all it needed was the zipper. A few weeks ago I finally went and bought the zipper when I also went to get the red buttons for the Twenty Ten Cardigan, and carefully following the advice from Britt not to stretch the knitted fabric when sewing on the zipper I finished it this morning. The zipper gave it a truly complete look and I'm very pleased with it! All I need now is somebody to wear it, but I'm quite confident that I will - in time - find a happy little recepient. Until then it will be placed in my finished-baby-knits-ready-for-whenever-friends-and-family-pop-out-babies stash.

Pattern: Nissen (The Elf) by Marianne Isager (Isager | Ravelry)

Yarn: Various leftovers - see my Ravelry project page for more info

Needles: 3.0 mm and 3.5 mm

So I reached my April goal with 2 days to go. Having decided to leave Arietta as a pretty swatch for now, I am down to 4 WIPs only!!!

• Amimono's Granite (started June 2009), which I've taken up again after a long break and now have almost 2 sleeves done. For a while I was contemplating frogging it because I wasn't sure about the boxy shape and I don't tend to use woolen sweaters with very open necklines like this one. Then it occured to me that all these problems would be solved if I turn it into a cardigan - so that's what I plan to do.
• Helga Isager's Sweater fra 1960'erne (started December 2009). It's resting in my knitting basket since it is a very wintery knit and I don't want to finish it and then be unable to use it right away.
• Norah Gaughan's Kingscot (started August 2009). I have 2 sleeves done; I've used the sleeves as something I would knit on when I needed a very simple TV/reading/etc. knit and didn't have any other straightforward knits to turn to, so they've been taking a while to knit. This week I finished the second sleeve, and then started to worry that the fabric was too dense (very unlike the usual case I had to go down from 4.00 mm to 3.25 mm to get gauge) and that the sleeves were too tight. I decided to wash, block, and sew up one sleeve, and all my worries were blown away: the yarn relaxed giving a fabric with a nice drape, and the sleeve fits perfectly. Yay!
• The scrap yarn blanket. The never-ending project, which I enjoy knitting on occasionally when I've collected sufficient amounts of odds and ends to knit a few squares.

So what's next? Other than continuing to knit on the above now that I've refound the joy in knitting Granite and Kingscot? Cast on, obviously! Earlier this week I planned, (swatched), cast on, and knitted 3 rows on 2 new projects - both from the same book: Strikketøj by my favourite knitwear designer Helga Isager (yes, that will by my 9th and 10th Amimono knitting project...):

• Bluse i hulmønster (1980'erne) in a teal blue Isager Alpaca 2.
• Pigecardigan (1940'erne) - scaled up to my size - in Supersoft from Holst Garn with a lovely dark colour (a black-purple-pink mix) called Sloe as the main colour.

Mmmmm.... :)