Pine Cone Lodge

Getting excited about spring!

2010-02-28T19:40:00.000-08:00

Spring is coming, I know it! Of course, it's March 1st, and in this part of the world, that means spring will show up in about three months. But these tiny cherry blossoms are starting to come to life inside.

In January we had a snowstorm that took down our old cherry tree. It was always beautiful every year, but it's trunk was so damaged that it was only a matter of time. I clipped as many branches as I could, and put them in a bucket of water to force them. It's something I think of doing every year, but don't usually get around to. This time it was now or never.

It was rather slow at first. After several weeks, nothing had happened. But suddenly last week, green buds started coming out.

This week, tiny little flowers are beginning to show! I am so happy to see them! They are pretty miraculous, really.

I hope that spring comes quickly for all of you in the northern hemisphere! If you are in the Southern hemisphere, I hope your summer is starting to get a little cooler!

UFO Number 2 - Fleece Mittens

2010-02-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

Finished mittens, yay! Fleece mittens, a.k.a thrummed mittens (Ravelry link), for husband are done. It feels good!

This was a kit by Nancy Erlandson. The yarn was called Ponemah yarn from Quinnehticut Woolen Co. and had a lot of lanolin in it. It really did make my hands feel soft when knitting it! I wish I could make another pair in this same yarn, but this mill has been closed.

Maybe some people would not have bothered to finish such an old project, but I am compulsive about hanging onto old stuff, so I couldn't let them go. Plus, my husband really likes them!

I am still working on the Glittertind sweater, but it's not exactly tv-knitting. I have completed the first step on my list from last post. It's slow going.

The ufo spreadsheet has been rearranged. Projects that have not yet been started will not be called ufo's. Hannah is getting frogged. So I am down to 8 ufo's and that makes me feel more sane. Next, Setesdal Hat II.

UFO Number 1 - Glittertind

2010-01-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

The Beast:
Glittertind, not to be confused with Dale of Norway's Glittertind. That came later.

The Book:

Norsk Strikk: Fra Tradisjon Til Mote. Editor Kari Hestnes, 1992.
The cover model is called Lillehammer, also not to be confused with the Dale of Norway Lillehammer from 1994. All the sweaters in this book are either from, or inspired by, a place. Most are sort of traditional.

This is Glittertind:
Norway's second highest mountain. From this page which makes me all homesick.

Hard not to like a mountain with the word "glitter" in the name. Beats Galdhøpiggen, Norway's highest mountain.

Progress so far:
Well, ok, I have only done about four-five rounds, this sleeve was already underway.

Steps to finish:

Knit second sleeve.
Reknit first sleeve.
Cut the sleeve openings wider.
Reknit the ribbing. It's too tight because I liked the way the stiches looked when knit tightly. I knew better.
Knit the neckline.
After attaching the sleeves, check the fit and possibly lengthen the body.(!) Does this seem like a lost cause? If I could redo the body, I would. It's way oversized, like in the 90's when we were all getting the large and extra-large sweaters (it wasn't just the 80's.)
Graft on the ribbing.

Sigh.

The UFO List

2010-01-19T09:26:00.000-08:00

Kind of a long list! Working on them (almost) in order of which can be finished first. It's the maximum impact in the shortest time principle.

I love making lists like this.
Makes me feel like I have actually done something.

Happy 2010!

2010-01-10T08:03:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I just found out that one blog I had, the Poetry In Stitches along, has been deleted. I guess none of us had looked at it for a while. Sorry if anybody thought I deleted it. So, anyway, this is just a "touch" to make sure this blog stays up. I plan on blogging and knitting again. Soon. ;)

My resolution for this year might be a 12-in-12 project. I have at least 12 ufos so in 12 months they could all be done! Notice my use of "might" and "could"! It would be cool, though. Good discipline, too. I already made a spreadsheet checklist to post on my bulletin board. The organizing and making of the list is of course a big part of the fun!

I just have to stop getting so distracted by all the new projects available.

I am just sitting here on a sunny Sunday morning, looking at the birds at our feeder and getting ready to start a fire. I love it when there is snow and sun at the same time! Instead of knitting, I have been browsing Ravelry and found lots of new groups to join. I am now a member of 71 groups which is slightly ridiculous. I am just a dilletante! It's just so much fun to see what is out there! And I am completely addicted to information.

I hope all my friends are having a great new year!

Alpaca Lace Scarf

2008-11-09T15:10:00.000-08:00

Clearly I like the crumpled look, because even after blocking it still looks that way. White lace looks so frothy and fluffy, and the little zig-zagging edge makes it even better.

Pattern: Rectangle in Leaf and Trellis Pattern, Victorian Lace Today (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Lace in natural, less than 2 skeins
Needles: 3 mm

It only took a year to finish, but finally it got done. Maybe will be a Christmas present for somebody. Being such a slacker, it usually works better for me if I don't decide something is a present until it is done.

Modification: making the Large Rectangle in Leaf and Trellis Pattern with only one repeat made it a scarf instead of a shawl.

The chart had two extra stitches on the one side of the chart, which made the lace leaves wider on that one side (left side of the chart). Attempting to be helpful, I tried to write a comment about that on the pattern page in Ravelry, but at that time there was no function for reporting problems. So now it looks kind of wrong where it is, like I am saying something negative. I feel bad about that, and maybe I can get them to remove it. I was not intending to say anything negative, because I love this pattern! And this gorgeous book!

Pippi displaying her combover

2008-11-09T15:02:00.000-08:00

She makes the couch look good.

Selbu glove

2008-10-23T14:53:00.001-07:00

Dear Friends,

I sure have missed all of you. The last year just flew by! I have been working very hard and not been able to fit in much time for knitting, blogging or other fun stuff. Reading bloglines again is exciting, but I almost forgot all my usernames and passwords for everything!

There has been a very, very small amount of knitting going on. Though there has been some buying of yarn... ahem! I fooled myself into thinking that buying the yarn makes a project halfway finished... It almost gave me a sense of accomplishment.

One Selbu glove (unblocked, unpressed) from the booklet Selbustrikk which I got from Nordic Fiber Arts. This is Damevante No. 16. There are three different charts for the back of the hand in this pattern.

The yarn is Rauma Gammelserie (this means Old Series, so it's an oldfashioned, tightly twisted yarn). I am knitting with 2mm double-pointed needles (us 0), which were quite hard to find! The only manufacturer of 2mm dpn's I found was Addi.

Well, I hope you are all doing well. I look forward to seeing what you all have been up to!

xoxx

What we can learn from spiders

2008-10-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

I have knitting posts coming, I promise! In the meantime:

Blocking, who needs it?

2007-10-26T11:22:00.001-07:00

Soft, white, and fluffy like a cloud.

This is how I like my lace to look.

The Large Rectangle in Leaf and Trellis pattern, from Victorian Lace Today, in a scarf version. I am working on the edging at the moment. This project is renewing my love for Misti Baby Alpaca Lace yarn! It's so wonderful!

And it does come in 22 gorgeous colors...

Maybe I will have to flatten the project a tiny, tiny, little bit at the finishing stage. But not too much!

Meanwhile, though I love the white alpaca, I am hankering after colors... Who knows what will come out of this?

Local yarn and fabric store closing

2007-10-09T05:12:00.001-07:00

I am so bummed. For those who live in South-Eastern Mass, the Randolph location of Fabric Place is closing. Everything is on sale. They have yarn as well as fabrics, and in fact they were the biggest MA yarn shop south of Boston. I just discovered them last spring, and was really happy to find such a great big store reasonably close to my area. It was too good to last, of course.

Their selection includes Classic Elite, Berrocco, Brown Sheep, Malabrigo, Fleece Artist, Karabella, and lots of other goodies. And their fabrics are awesome. They also have their Pfaff sewing machines on sale... This always happens when I am on a budget.

This is the second time this has happened in a year here... I plan to take good care of the remaining smaller shops.

Their Warwick, RI, location is also closing.

Well, I just thought I would pass on the word about the sale, if anybody lives in the area, and is in need of yarn. :)

A Pine Tree Sock

2007-09-09T07:17:00.001-07:00

Pattern: Pine Tree Socks by Katherine Misegades, free pattern here

Yarn: Dale Heilo, 3 skeins of 50g

Needles: 3 mm

The Katherine Misegades sock is made with a special heel, which is very cool. There are no short rows, and no picking up stitches. There are no special heel stitches and this allows the patterning to flow all the way down the back.

They are super comfortable. I love that they are nice and long. Also, the way the sock is angled gives it a shape that fits my foot very nicely. Now I am almost looking forward to the cold so that I can wear my Pine Tree Socks. As soon as I finish the other one, of course.
Thank you, Katherine!

Also, my user name on Ravelry is mohairkid. Or The Mo-hair Kid as we like to say it 'round these parts.

Lace Knitting

2007-08-21T12:39:00.001-07:00

We liken lace knitting to making a souffle: To the uninitiated, it exudes an aura of mystery and difficulty; but when the work is done, you realize it is mostly air and no trick at all.

Elizabeth Zimmermann and Meg Swansen, Vogue Knitting, Winter 92-93.

Mostly air

I love this quote. Elizabeth Zimmermann had the gift of expressing things succinctly!

In between working on the Pine Tree Sock, my little wall quilt, and my Brocade Leaves sweater, I cast on for another lace project. Resistance was futile.

The pattern is again from Victorian Lace Today, the Large Rectangle in Leaf and Trellis Pattern (p 52). Though I am only doing one repeat across, instead of two, so that I will have a scarf instead of a shawl. See gorgeous full size versions of it here and here.

For the yarn, I am again using Misti Baby Alpaca Lace, in natural. I love this yarn. Very nice and extremely generous with the yardage. So generous that I have tons left of the red from my last scarf.

The pattern is bothering me slightly, though. If you look at the picture, you can see that the stockinette section is larger on the left side than the right side. It has two extra stockinette stitches, so the pattern is not completely centered. It's a tiny error in the chart. I have already done six repeats, so I don't have the heart to frog it. It will be one of those imperfections that shows it was handmade. Handmade with love :)

On a Lace related topic, I have good news for North American lovers of Japanese knitting books. They are now available here, at the Needle Arts Book Shop. The lace sweater at the top of the page is spectacular. I can see this becoming a new obsession for me... Lace knitting, finally in Japanese!
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Pine Tree Socks

2007-08-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Anni, I have discovered some wonderful socks. They are the Pine Tree Socks from Katherine Misegades. Her name may be familiar to you from her beautiful collection The Tongue River Farm Sock Collection.

The Pine Tree Socks feature knit and purl trees along the front and back and a small cable decorating the sides. Aren't they sleek and pretty? Don't they look warm? I think they will be perfect for living at Pine Cone Lodge this winter. And not just because of the name, though that's a bonus. Pine Cone Lodge can be pretty chilly!

Like Katherine, we also have tall spruces around our house, and I can see why she would not want to take hers down. They add so much character and atmosphere.

Katherine Misegades' blog features many beautiful designs for both socks, sweaters, hats, and scarves, along with thoughtful, inspiring quotes. This awesome sweater reminds me of a traditional Norwegian pullover called a "vams". She also has several free sock patterns.

My last pair of socks had some lace, and maybe it's not so practical to have wool socks with holes in them... doesn't that defeat the purpose of staying warm? I think it might be a good time for me to start on some socks again. :)

Photo from Katherine's blog.

Lipstick red lace

2007-07-29T17:10:00.001-07:00

This was so much fun!

Pattern: Scarf with No. 20 border, Victorian Lace Today
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Lace, in color Lipstick, 2 skeins
Needles: 3 mm Addi turbo

Width: 29 cm
Length: 142 cm
Pattern repeats: 22

I did twenty-two repeats of the lace pattern, which is exactly the same as the much larger stole in the book. I thought I would have to knit more than that because my yarn is thinner than what they used in the book, but that's just how it worked out. Check out the picture at the end. If I had made a narrower scarf I could have easily gotten by with just one skein of this yarn. Good to know!

I tried modeling on the pretty one:

Is this my color?

She ran away into her safe corner, but I followed. Just as well, the wood makes a nicer background. See how her right ear leans in? It does that when she in insecure. Poor thing, the tortures she has to suffer through.

Outside was better. As a bonus we got a better representation of the color as well.

This is taking forever...

I am not sure it was worth modeling it on her. I spent half an hour trying to pose her, which was impossible. Every time I tried to move so I could get her from the side, she followed and wanted to face me. And then I spent half an hour afterwards picking out white dog hairs with tweezers. They worked themselves in really well!

I love the way the second border is knitted on. And look how far I got with the first skein of yarn! Ten cm short of the end! So about 97 percent of this scarf from one skein...

I really learned a lot from this project. The knitted on border was definitely cool, and I found that a crochet bind off works better for lace. For me at least. The book recommends suspended bind off, but it worked out tight for me. I tried a few different ones, but none of the others worked. Lace is addictive, I think it's the most fun knitting there is. I had to force myself to put it down.

One amazing thing about the book, is that the author, Jane Sowerby, knitted every single shawl herself. There are forty items, most of them quite large!

Thank you, Jacqueline and Stephanie, for the fun knit-along!

I love rock'n roll

2007-07-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

Put another dime in the jukebox, baby! Rockin' girl Agnes kindly nominated me as a Rockin' Girl Blogger, so now I am pretending to be Joan Jett.

I know I am silly, but I can't help myself. It seems Joan Jett immediately springs to mind for a lot of people my age when you say Rockin' Girl. Though Joan probably wouldn't be showing you pictures of quilts and lace.

Now I am supposed to nominate five others. I nominate Meg - for all the fascinating topics she writes about, Blossom - for her beautiful sewing and style, Liz - for her beautiful art works and photos, Mel - for her beautiful spinning, Marina - for her gorgeous fair isles, and Marianne - for her caring and thoughtfulness. Of course all in addition to beautiful knitting. Okay, maybe that was six. I must do two more: Katy and Brooke, who both share their lives with lots of beautiful greyhounds and have so much fun with it. Pippi and I get our daily must-read greyhound news from them.

I would really like to nominate all the bloggers I read. I want to say something like "You all rock!" but honestly, I am too old. I can't use an expression like that with a straight face. So let me just say that all of your blogs are an endless source of inspiration to me, and I get a lot of joy from reading them.

I am picking up some UFO's:

The first is this wall hanging. It represents the four seasons, and there are some autumn leaves still to applique. I won't tell you how old this ufo is. Well, ok, ten years. Blossom came to visit me a few years ago. I was showing her my projects, and I couldn't find the book for this. I have since turned the house upside down several times, and it has never appeared!

Every time I thought about starting this again, I would feel compelled to search for the book, thus keeping myself from actually working on it. I can hardly believe that I would have owned a book and forgotten its' name. It was a Japanese quilting book, and I think I bought it in Copenhagen at Quilter's Paradise. I have the pattern sheet, but I wish I had the picture so I could see how they did their quilting and surface embellishments. I now have decided to face the fact that I will never find it, and I will have to improvise. How scary.

Putting something on your blog causes it to get finished, right?

November, 2007, edited to add: A very kind reader sent me a sweet email and the name of the book! I was able to find it here. I really enjoyed seeing it again. I know I would never have been able to think of such a nice frame for the picture, so I am really happy. Thank you very much, M.C.!

The second thing I have picked up again is the "Scarf with No. 20 Edging" from Victorian Lace Today. This has hibernated for about six months. The funny thing about this is that many people have done the same scarf as part of the KAL, and all except one have done it in red! And no, the picture in the book is not of a red scarf, it's yellow! This is a scarf that just wants to be red.

Plus, there is still the Brocade Leaves sweater, Poetry In Stitches p124.
Nordic Fiber Arts has a "one per customer" notice for this book and for Norsk Strikkedesign on their page now.

One of our rhododendrons which is blooming at the moment. I think it may be a 'Rosebay' rhododendron, and it blooms well after the other rhodies. The weather has been misty for a few days and I feel like I am in Oregon or Seattle. It's so nice! After the drought, this is better for the plants. Tourists are not happy, though.

Poetry in Stitches Camisole

2007-07-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

The Poetry camisole is finished, and I really like it! After spending more time on the finishing than the knitting (typical), it's ready. This pattern is a copy of an actual vintage under garment. Maybe it was worn over a corset? I love learning about what people wore underneath their Victorian and Edwardian finery.

The shaping makes the top very comfortable, and I believe it would be flattering on most body types. The only adjustment that I made was to knit it size small on the length, but size medium on the width.

The instructions for the button holes were written for the medium size only, so I had to do that calculation for the size small. But I think it was good for my brain to be forced to do a tiny bit of math. It is getting old and creaky.

I found some flower shaped buttons to bring out the summery feel.

Details
Pattern: Poetry In Stitches p126
Yarn: Hifa Luxor cotton in pale blue 315. (Click on the button that says "Fargekart" to see the colors) Kit was special ordered from Nordic Fiber Arts.
Needles: Addi Bamboo circulars, 3 mm, 60 cm (24 in) long (An awkward Addi size, stick with 80 from now on!)
Crochet hook: 3 mm
Started: May 21, 2006, Finished June 28, 2006. A record!

The weather is not cooperating. Sometimes it's too sunny for pictures! I hope to be replacing this picture shortly.

I love the Hifa cotton yarn. It's smooth and makes a pretty fabric. I would love to make something in plain stockinette using this yarn to really bring out the sheen.
The only problem was that the plies tended to separate some when crocheting, but I don't mind, because this is what makes the yarn so smooth and silky. Crocheting was much harder on my carpal tunnel than knitting, though. I think I need one of those ergonomic hooks!

I had a problem with my cast-on being looser than the bind-off (the cast-on side is the button hole side), and when I tried it on, I realized that it would not look good. One side was a little longer than the other. So I picked out the row before the double seed stitch area, picked up the stitches, and reknit the 14 rows in the opposite direction. Now it's great. There is not any gapping between the buttons at all, even though the top is quite form fitting.

The garter stitch was quite stretchy, but the crochet edging firmed things up nicely.

I really liked knitting sideways like this, and I am thinking of making this Solveig Hisdal jacket from Norsk Strikkedesign later! I also love this Hanne Falkenberg jacket, the Mermaid. Isn't it the coolest, most awesome design ever?

Pippi the burrowing greyhound

2007-06-20T16:01:00.000-07:00

A little princess.

The Pipster is the worlds most pampered and decadent little greyhound. And the most affectionate.

At night, when she runs upstairs to go to bed, she refuses to lie down on her super cushy L.L.Bean bed. She stands there looking at us until we bring out the blankets from the closet. Her bed must have her blankies. Only then will she lie down.

She has heard the story "The Princess and the Pea". And since she believes she is a princess (she misunderstood the title, in her mind she changed it to "The Princess is The P"), well, she wants to be treated like one and sleep on many, many mattresses and blankets.

She likes to be tucked in. Even if it's 80 (27) degrees outside. Now she is happy. She'll stay under her blankies all night.

In the morning, this is Pippi:

Come on, Pippi, we got to wakey, wakey!

Where did she go? You probably didn't know that greyhounds are burrowing animals. Notice that she got up, turned around, and lay back down again. Some mornings we see no part of her at all. Other times she just hides her head. Time to play the game Where is The P? No energetic jumping out of bed for the Pipster, she likes to be woken up with morning spoiling*. Morning spoiling is the best**.

Greyhound owners are a little nuts.

* The word spoiled is a very positive word in our house. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that other people may misunderstand when we say that a dog is spoiled. In our house it just means somebody who likes their spoiling. We love for all dogs to be spoiled.

** Morning spoiling is especially good for shy greyhounds, the ones who pretend that they don't care about being petted. In the morning, when they are relaxed, they forget to keep up this pretense.

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The camisole is getting there

2007-06-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

I felt compelled to post, even though the weather is very dark and dreary and I can't get a great picture. I have the crochet edging and the buttons left to do. I still have to actually buy the buttons. But this is a pretty fast knit, and I had lots of plane and airport time to knit when I went to Mexico. I was inspired by Sandra (I love her colors), who did hers so fast, and knitted whenever I had a minute. I love the little wedges which give such a good shape, and they also break up the project, knit twelve rows, knit a wedge, knit fifteen rows, knit a wedge. Somehow that was very motivating.

I almost don't want to post, I kind of want the Mexico pictures to be at the top of my blog forever and ever. I thought about putting one in my header, but pictures of palm trees don't exactly scream "pine cone lodge". :)

Travel, food, and textiles

2007-06-02T04:56:00.001-07:00

My husband travels to meetings in cool places. I tagged along to Acapulco.

We were lucky enough to go to a party here and see this beautiful view.

Seafood on the beach every night, watching the sunset from this deck. Food in Mexico, what a wonderful experience. The breakfast tortillas, the papaya juice, the soups, the seafood... I was taking notes.

It was funny to see all the cabs.

Shopping for embroidered dresses in the market, I was able to get a blouse

and a dress. I could look at this forever:

I would have loved to buy more, but aggressive bargaining was so much work.

Some knitting happened as well. I am almost done with the camisole now, but I loved this floor so much, I had to show this picture.

I didn't have internet available except for about an hour and no cell phone service either. It was relaxing. But now I am slightly behind on my emails. Hope you all forgive me.

Cotton for summer

2007-05-20T08:53:00.001-07:00

Tired of black and white yet? No way, not me! Though I am feeling compelled to set aside the wool every now and then, and play around with this cotton camisole from Poetry in Stitches.

Hifa cotton in ice blue from Nordic Fiber Arts.

It was a treat to choose a color out of the 60 or so on the color card. I seriously considered at least four or five different blues, but in the end I went with this one, the palest of the pale. The yarn was special ordered, so it took a while for it to get here, but it is beautiful. Smooth, sleek, mercerized cotton, quite unlike their rather rustic (but lovely) Hifa 2 wool, which I am using for the Brocade Leaves sweater.

The camisole is knitted sideways in garter stitch and "double pearl" stitch (I may have to find what the English name for this is), and is copied from an actual antique under garment! Isn't it cute with the short row shaping at the waist?

Twin dogwood trees in our yard. Finally it's spring! Though of course it's still raining.

Variations on a sweater

2007-05-20T06:18:00.001-07:00

I hope everybody who is knitting fair isle is reading Nanette's blog, Knitting In Color. Her blog is like a class in color knitting, with lots of details and pictures. She wrote the booklet, "Stranded Color Knitting", which is a must for anybody who is new to fair isle knitting. It's like having a friend to show you what to do, how to hold the yarn, how deal with tension problems, the best ways to weave in the ends, and much more. Her latest series of posts has been a master class in knitting gloves. She is so very generous.

The sharp eyed among you may have noticed that two of the sweaters in the recent "inspiration" post were the same. One is a copy of an antique*, knitted in very fine yarn and cut up the front to be a cardigan. It is edged with woven bands. The other one is an updated version in Susanne Pagoldh's Nordic Knitting, knitted in heavier wool and with ribbing at the neck and on the sleeves. If you want to make the cardigan, just follow the pattern in Nordic Knitting, but use thinner wool. Eliminate the sleeve and neck ribbing, and cut up the front. Edge with woven braid.

The Pagoldh book is the only place I have seen a pattern for this sweater, known as "spøta-trøje" from Stord, an island on the west coast of Norway outside Bergen. Though I have seen several other antique examples. Here is another as pictured in Traditional Knitting by Sheila McGregor.

Note the initials and the year 1860 knitted in. I love the way the different star patterns are combined. As usual, click on any of the photos to see them larger.

*1975 copy of an antique sweater from 1846 pictured in "Trollstål og Kjerringspinn" ("Sorcerer's Steel and Women's Webs - Norwegian craft traditions: knife-making, knitting and weaving").
Published by De Norske Bokklubbene in association with the Lillehammer Olympics 1994. This beautiful book reminds us that these three crafts were crucial to survival, knitting and weaving to keep warm, and knife making to keep fed in a country with very little farm land. Lillefix, you would like this book ;)

Some Selbu mittens for your pleasure

2007-05-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

From left:

1. Korntrø-rosa, named for Korntrø Farm,
2. Hjart-rosa (Heart rose),
3. Skaltroll-rosa, also named Pine Cone Pattern (I believe)

4. Værhorns-rosa (Rams Horn rose),
5. Endløs-rosa (Endless rose), also called Grankvist (spruce branch),
6. Kinn'tyrill-rosa (though I have also seen this named Rams Horn rose)

Wouldn't they all make beautiful sweaters? Any of these patterns could be either done as bands or all-over. They would fit my criteria perfectly. I am considering designing my own.

In my quest for black and white patterns, I looked through some of my Norwegian text books. I found the above graphic in this book, The Mitten in Norwegian Tradition, which is written by Ingebjørg Gravjord and was published in 1986. Unfortunately I don't believe it is available in English, but I just read that it is being republished, so there is a chance that could spur a translation as well. I hope so.

It is a very comprehensive academic book, written by an expert in cultural history. She is a historian, as well as instructor in textiles at the Academy of Applied Art and Design(?) (Statens håndverks- og kunstindustri skole). It covers mittens in all forms, whether woven, nålbinding, twined knitting, or ordinary knitting, and the regional traditions and history associated with them.

Click on the picture to get a close up of the the gorgeous embroidered mitten from Telemark on the cover, with the year 1730 stitched on it. This mitten was done in nålbinding.
There are no patterns in this book, though it does contain some instructions on unusual techniques. This book, along with another by the same author called Knitting in Norway, are my main sources of historical knitting information. This is how I find out all about the olden days!

I also have a blog to share with you. Kathy has started a new inspiring blog where she is compiling all kinds of resources on Fair Isle and Norwegian knitting in one place, such as links to lots of tutorials and other informative sites. Check it out, she's an excellent writer, and it's a great resource!

Black and White Inspiration

2007-05-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

I discovered a curious thing this winter. When the weather is gray and gloomy, and everything kind of blurs together, black and white is soothing to look at. I think my eyes got tired from trying to focus with all the gray and found it very comforting to gaze upon a certain black and white item. It was very surprising.

Therefore, to prepare myself for next winter, I want to knit a new sweater to wear all of January. (And, as it turns out, April. But I am not bitter.)

I have made a list of vague criteria:

1. Black and White
The colors must be deep dyed black and bleached unnatural white. Not natural white and natural black sheep colors. It has to have maximum contrast.

2. Balanced
The balance between the two has to be close to fifty-fifty. Or sixty-forty white-black. My jacket from long ago called for 600 g white and 400 g black.

3. The "Right" Scale
The patterns have to have the "right" size. For example lice patterns are too small, they are visual noise. Solid blocks which are ten cm (four in) across are too big. On the old jacket I really like the large rose pattern which is called "rams horn rose".

4. Norwegian Style
I want to do it in a Norwegian style pattern. Though this could work in an Op Art style pattern as well. (I found these socks by Laura Andersson. How cool are they!)

I have scanned through all my books and booklets looking for inspiration. Here is a little selection. Click for close-up.

Dale of Norway

Oleana. I could probably handle the red border.

Ellinor Flor from "Rosa Heimafrå". I love her. This coffee table sized book is one of my favorites!

Sandnes Garn Maybe if I reversed the colors on the sleeves and shoulders.

Traditional sweater from Nordic Knitting by Susanne Pagoldh

Viking ship action from Sandnes Garn

So hard to choose! The Oleana of course is not available to knit, only as ready-to-wear. But I better get started on this asap. At my speed, seven-eight months is probably reasonable.

Ooops, and I did some socks, too...

2007-04-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

Ribbed Lace socks from Sensational Knitted Socks.

Yarn: Silja from Gjestal
Needles: 2.5 mm
Pattern: Ribbed Lace from the Eight Stitch Patterns chapter.
I love this book, and I can't wait to see the new one from Ms. Schurch!

For my second pair I thought I would try top down socks. These were started for me by my mother back in October. I liked toe-ups better for a couple of reasons. First, here I ended up with a small amount of leftover yarn, and second, it took me forever to get around to grafting the toe! Should I admit that the second sock was actually done about a month ago?

Trying to get creative while looking for a suitable background for my sock portrait. Turns out granite makes socks fuzzy!

Where are my peonies?

2007-04-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's three months later and this is the state of my peony border:

It's pathetic. I guess this kills my chances of having this done before winter was over, now that it seems I can finally stop wearing long johns. (I am still however, wearing a thick Fana wool sweater as I am typing this.) Wonder if I should start on the cotton camisole for summer now or keep on trucking with this.

I am including a shot the back of my sleeve to show the increases in pattern.

I usually draw in the increases on my pattern just where I can, like on the flower pattern, and then I eyeball the rest, but see comment from Kathy for a more thorough solution.

Also, on the Hisdal patterns I have looked at, there is no indicator for where to start your pattern on the sleeve. You just have to do a little counting to place the pattern in the center of the sleeve. Another good reason for drawing on the pattern. Not a big deal though, sometimes it's nice to engage the brain.

It's been so long since I posted, I had almost forgotten how to do it!

Sssshhh

2007-03-20T07:36:00.000-07:00

Mommy got up from her knitting spot, and if I am really, really stealthy and make myself really, really small, maybe she won't notice me here. I won't touch the knitting or the knitting book she likes to look at when she is thinking about summer. If she notices me, I'll just pretend like I don't know anything. Down? I've never heard that word before.

I am not sure why Blogger reposted my post from one year ago, sorry about any confusion... Thank you for the sweet comments....

Yarn dieters, don't worry

2007-03-03T15:40:00.000-08:00

I am picking up the slack. No yarn shops should go out of business in the near future.

Since I don't have the lovely Blossom here to lend class to the operation, I am resorting to other measures. Yarn porn. Gratuitous, wanton, sizzling, Scandinavian dirty blond yarn porn.

First the neutrals:

Regia Silk, Misti Alpaca Chunky (love this), and Classic Elite Blithe (100% baby camel, this is ridiculously, unbelievably light and soft. )

The blues:

Purple Sisik, turquoise Koigu KPPPPPM, purplish Cascade Pastaza wool/llama

The reds:

Pink Koigu KPM, hot pink Lang Jawoll, Lornas Laces in Bittersweet, Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Ruby Red

Ok, so I am a little overboard. I knew it was a mistake to start knitting socks. The sock yarn multiplies so easily. By the way, this spectacular guy from the neutrals category reminds me of this character from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Except a little softer.

It's the crow's nest for you.

Boston traveler

2007-02-24T17:25:00.000-08:00

My dear friend came to chilly Boston, so it was a perfect time for her to model her hat.

Blossom wished for a Norwegian hat, and I picked this one because I thought it was a little more urban and sophisticated than the standard Norwegian hats. Doesn't she look chic?

We had a great time checking out shops (Yarn and Other) and totally stuffing ourselves with delicious food. Now I want to eat out in the North End every week!

Yarn: Dale of Norway Falk (charcoal backgound) and Heilo (all the contrast colors) , gold lame thread.
Pattern: Dale of Norway book 161

Details:
The edging is knit with standard color stranding. The stars are duplicate stitched after the hat was finished. On the back of the edging I used black cotton instead of the wool.

The pattern called for using a strand of gold thread together with all the contrast color and duplicate stitching, but my gold thread was too thick, (you can see it obscures the companion color) so I only knitted in the gold on the two stripes on the edging. It would have been too much otherwise.

I hope it will keep her warm!

All the pretty creatures

2007-02-05T13:28:00.000-08:00

Five-fold symmetry is always pretty:

Starfish

Sand Dollar

Sea Urchin

Dale of Norway Hat

Hat in progress from this Dale of Norway pattern (book #161) using Falk and Heilo yarn. A little bit of finishing and embellishing still to be done, but it should be ready for recipient in a week or two when she is coming to visit the frigid North!

My lucky day

2007-01-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

I won a contest! I never win anything. Marianne had a birthday contest on her blog and I was the lucky winner.

She sent me this gorgeous KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud lace weight in beautiful heathery blues and greens. My favorite color combination. It's called Tide Pool, so cool and pretty. It will make a lovely, lacy scarf. And she also sent beautiful stitch markers. The blues go perfectly with the yarn, I may have to knit one in, a la Amelia! Marianne also sent me several other sweet smelling and delicious treats.

Unfortunately those are no longer available for photographs...

But look how pretty this yarn is... So incredibly sweet of her.

Then, the very next day I won a ticket to an orchid show at a garden club raffle. I started to get a little bit full of myself and my luck, and thinking this might be a winning streak, I hurried out and bought a lottery ticket. Alas, the streak was not be.

Thank you Marianne! I am so excited about my new luxurious yarn. I think I want to make something like this. Or this.

Works in progress

2007-01-19T23:35:00.000-08:00

Apologies for rewriting the previous post on color dominance and consistency (the bad and the ugly) so many times :) I don't mean to make it sound as if my two handed method is the only way to go, it is more about the consistency in yarn placement no matter what method you use. I wish I could manage to control the yarns with both strands in my left hand, that would be ideal, but in addition to tangling the yarns, I can't control the tension that way. I'm working on it, though.

Liz and I have started a knit-along for our Poetry In Stitches projects. Becki has also joined us. If anybody else would like to join, they are welcome. I have yarn for one more Poetry project coming, the camisole in pale blue, so this will keep me going for a while. My goal is going to be able to wear the Brocade sweater this winter and the camisole this summer. It's no fun to finish something just in time for the season to be over, which is my usual strategy!

The Brocade Leaves sweater has had its peony border redone, so that's just now finished. I procrastinated a lot in frogging it, but then once I did it was fun to reknit the border. The big repeat kept it interesting, and I am liking the amount of detail in the flowers. It's a consolation for knitting with fine yarn where the rounds take a long time.

The Victorian Lace scarf has 17 repeats today, but yesterday it had 18. Funny how that goes. I don't know yet how long I will make it. The pattern calls for 20 repeats, but with my thinner yarn that is not going to be long enough, so I will just keep going for as long as I feel like. I am using one of my lovely new Addi turbo circular needles, which were sent to me by Kris. It's perfect.

For both Poetry In Stitches and Victorian Lace Today I have seen comments about of the lack of "names" for the patterns. It's funny how blogging makes it necessary to name our projects, I myself made a name for my "brocade leaves" only so that I could blog about it. I am fine with designers not naming their creations. Good designs speak for themselves. I sometimes even think it's a distraction to see everything named in a pattern book, it starts a whole subconscious process of wondering how that name fits the garment, when really what I should be thinking about is how the garment fits me. But giving something a cool name definitely makes people want it more. And having the names makes it easier for blogging. Maybe I should just go back to calling my sweater the "p124 sweater", it's a very pure kind of name.

I don't want to catch anybody not drinking

2007-01-19T16:07:00.001-08:00

I can't resist this.
From the Philosophy Depahtment at the University of Wooloomooloo:

What Monty Python Sketch Character are you?

G'day, you're Bruce! You think like a philosopher, especially after you've had a few cold ones...Australia RULES!
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

For the complete text of one of my fave Python sketches, courtesy of the University of Adelaide, click here.
.
.

The bad and the ugly

2007-01-03T19:53:00.000-08:00

(Edited May 11, 2007)

For knitters who are new to color knitting, I thought I would share an experience from my distant knitting past. This is a sweater I made in 1992. It was not my first try at color knitting, but I guess it's the first one I finished. (I do remember some brown and orange legwarmers in the late 70's when I was in middle school. Probably a good thing they didn't get finished).

This is one of my favorite patterns, but I can't wear the sweater without embarassment, because I know that everybody can see that halfway through the body I learned a lesson. I didn't rip it out, because I really had no idea it would be so obvious.

You all have heard about how you always should keep the same color in front at all times. Or that you should always keep one color in the left and the other color in the right hand as you knit. This is where I learned it. Up until a little more than half way, I was keeping both colors in the left hand (I knit continental) and just picking one up at random. I did not pay any attention to the fact that sometimes the black was in front, other times the white. Then I realized (well, my mother showed me) that keeping the contrast color in the right hand, though slower, would make a much more even pattern. I started keeping the white always in my left and the black always in my right which automatically keeps the white always in front of the black.

Edited to add: I don't mean that my method is the only way, lots of knitters do this while holding both strands in the same hand. The main thing is that the yarns are always in the same position relative to each other. Usually I keep the color there is more of in the left, regardless of whether it's background or contrast. In this case, the white stitches will be more prominent than the black.

Edited to add: Note that with the way I knit, the white background color ends up being the more dominant/prominent color. Most knitters probably want the contrast color to be most prominent, but this works better for me.

Let's see the back of the sweater. See how half way up the diagonals go from fuzzy and irregular to crisp and even?

On the inside, it's also obvious:

The effect on the rose pattern panels is more subtle. But you will see, the minute you start thinking about the colors like this, your stitches and motifs will start to look very even.

Kris wrote about yarn dominance today. This is one of the side effects of that! I don't do this for the sake of the color dominance, but for the sake of keeping the pattern neat. For me it's more of a "color consistency".

It's very simple but it makes a big difference.

I learned so many lessons on this particular sweater, for example about picking up stitches for button bands and collar (they had to be redone), and how white could have obvious dye lots... (when I redid the button bands and collar of course I couldn't get the same lot). I also learned that some shapes might make me look like a football player....

Hope you enjoyed this visit to my hall of shame!

I vant to be alone

2007-01-03T18:52:00.000-08:00

Pip was able to get into her special corner after all...

Tweedy hat and scarf

2006-12-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

Back to knitting! This week I finished the scarf for my husband and made a hat too, while watching a lot of good movies and Poirot mysteries. The Sisik yarn is beautiful and warm, a tweedy mix of mohair, wool and a small amount of acrylic and rayon. I might have to make a simple hat like this for myself, too!

Yarn: Dale Sisik, 5 skeins, from Kris.
Needles: 3.5 mm
Pattern: Trial and Error
Sisik: Here is a picture of a sisik for which the yarn is named.

We are having really bad lighting today, I should maybe take new pictures tomorrow...

Pippi is wondering when we can get rid of this pesky tree which is keeping her from her corner. She likes to hide there.

I wish everyone a fabulous new year. Don't make too many new years resolutions!

Chandelier

2006-12-29T13:35:00.000-08:00

I saw this picture in the last issue of Fiberarts Magazine. It is a chandelier, made by the artist YaYa Chou. It's striking and beautiful, and I bet you can't guess what it's made out of. Click here for a closeup.

The artist created a series of sculptures which are commentary on the artificiality of the things that we eat and our alienation from nature.

Here is a link to the page it originally appeared on, and you can see that the chandelier has been hanging for a year and a half with no signs of deterioration! She thinks it might last for ten years!

When I think about how many of these things I have eaten over the years...

Link to the webpage of YaYa Chou.
Link to Fiberarts Magazine.

It's a start

2006-12-21T14:27:00.000-08:00

The Brocade sweater is underway, and I love working on it. The Hifa 2 yarn is great, it's very soft, and the colors are very saturated and rich. It's so cool the way the peony is revealing itself as I am knitting, because it's not a shape I am used to seeing while knitting, no straight lines anywhere. Since the yarn is thin, you get a lot of detail, but it takes a long time, the entire weekend was spent on these measly 5 inches.

I am, again, experimenting with my 16" (40 cm) long double pointed needles and knitting belt. They are defeating me! I am very unhappy with my tight and uneven stitches. I guess I should find a project to practice on, and this sweater I definitely don't want to be a "practice sweater". By now, I have a love-hate relationship with the long needles. They are so comfortable to hold, and so easy on the wrists and arms. But I have to sit upright on a straight-backed chair in order to maneuver them, otherwise the work is held too high. That's not what I want to do when I am ~~watching tv~~ knitting. I added a fifth needle from a different set, so that I am using four 2.5mm and one 3 mm, which is much easier than just four, but they are still awkward. I love these needles, and I will use them, but it's going to be back to the circular needle for this sweater.

I also started a scarf from the new book Victorian Lace Today. This is a great book, so I went ahead and joined the Victorian Lace Today knit-along. This book has such a wealth of information, and I can't wait to try more of the patterns. I am doing the scarf with No. 20 edging (p. 84) in Misti Alpaca Lace, color Lipstick. I have done two pattern repeats, and it's so much fun! I love knitting lace!

The pattern in the book was made with a heavier yarn than the lace weight, which makes a large 20 inch wide scarf, so I am guessing mine will be about 12 inches wide.

I wish you all a happy holiday!

Ripped Off

2006-12-18T16:15:00.000-08:00

It's been all work and no play at Pine Cone Lodge recently. So not much to show in the Poetry in Stitches department. I finally was able to knit all weekend, but I have not even gotten the first flower border finished.

I am THINKING about knitting a lot though. For example, let me show you a sweater named Marius, named for this guy, Marius Eriksen, a popular skier in the fifties:

The picture and caption above is from "Strikking i Norge"
(Knitting in Norway, Kjellberg, et al., 1987).

This is one of the most popular sweaters in Norway ever, and was designed in the 50's. It was loosely based on the borders of Setesdal sweaters, but I have never seen it exported much, since it was not a real "traditional" sweater. It was more one that just "everybody" wore.
Here is another updated version which is pretty cute.

But since it's not a traditional sweater, but actually a recent and copyrighted design, imagine my surprise as I am walking down the street and I see this window:

See the sweater on the left? Okay, maybe the nighttime, through the plate glass window, is not the best shot...

But still! Ralph Lauren has blatantly copied the Marius sweater. This is just so wrong!

Wonder if I should alert the knitting authorities. I will have to go and cheer myself up by reading some Threadbared...

Brocade leaves sweater - ready to start

2006-11-19T12:30:00.000-08:00

I am going with the Brocade Leaves sweater this time (my name for it). The others are gorgeous, too, and I hope I can make them in the future. I have still not yet made more than one sweater out of any one book, but it's good to have dreams, right?

The saturated colors in the brocade leaves are just so beautiful to me.

The yarn came in 100g hanks and 50g hanks. I love yarn that comes in hanks like this. They look so sensual, compared to the usual prosaic skeins.

Gorgeous blues for the body

And the peach, pinks, green, ochre, and white for the border.

I leave you with some shots of my original Oleana jacket, which is the same one you can see in the sidebar. I hope they inspire. The colors are more beautiful in real life, among other things, the light colored stripe is a pretty green, but at least you can see the pattern. It's knit of a finer wool, so it is more detailed than the patterns in the book, and it has velvet trim. I loved it, and dreamed of it for years, before I managed to buy it.

What to make next...

2006-11-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite knitting books is Poetry in Stitches by Solveig Hisdal, which sadly is in its final printing run right now. I have always loved this designer, and I even own one of her sweaters for the Oleana label. Her style is very romantic, inpired by Norwegian traditional crafts, bunads and other historic garments. Most of the short sweaters in the Oleana collection have a "special occasion" feeling to them, and there are matching long, full, silk taffeta skirts in rich colors which make you feel like a fairy tale princess. The book contains more casual looking sweaters as well.

I need to knit one of her sweaters now. Deciding which one is hard. I have been speculating on this for months now:

Should it be a Peony cardigan with a large floral border?

Or an all-over floral Peony sweater? Both inspired by a painted chest from Lofoten.

Or maybe a sweater based on brocade leaves? Inspired by a bridal gown from Hallingdal.

And for the summer:

I definitely need a cotton camisole, maybe pink. A copy of an antique garment.

I want to make one of the wool sweaters. AND the cotton camisole, which looks like such a flattering shape. Several other Oleana sweaters can be seen in this article on the Knitter's website. I plan on getting the yarnpack from Nordic Fiber Arts.

This is going to be my little feel-good, feel-Norwegian project for the winter.

For pictures of Norwegian bunads, this is a link to Husfliden, the Handicraft Guild. Follow the link which says "Bunads in Norway", and then select a county, such as Buskerud to see what a Hallingdal bunad might look like, or Hordaland, to see bunads from Voss and Hardanger with beautiful beaded bodices.

All Blue

2006-10-30T12:54:00.000-08:00

Thank you so much for the great compliments on the Glowing Colors sweater. Pippi thanks you, too!

I have a new favorite distraction now, which is watching the live Elecam, from the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. I became aware of this sanctuary a few years back when seeing a National Geographic program about elephants being retired from zoos and circuses and allowed to move there. If you have ever seen this program, you know how touching their story is, and how happy they are to be able to live in a big family again, and not be living singly as most of them were. Both my husband and I cried when two of the elephants were reunited after thirty years. I love watching this webcast and seeing the animals just move around closely together. They are so sweet. If you are lucky you can catch them having a blast in one of the ponds.

In knitting news, you all were right, socks are fun! My first socks are finished, and actually they have been finished since last week, but the thought of making a "modeled" shot kept me procrastinating. It's cold, and I don't want show off my purple long-johns, and besides, purple doesn't seem to photograph well anyway.

Pattern: Beaded Rib toe up socks from Sensational Knitted Socks
Yarn: Gjestal Silja in denim blue

My only problem was that I didn't stretch out the ribbed fabric before measuring my gauge and calculating the number of cast-on stitches. Silly me! Therefore they are a little bit big and are going to be for the husband. Good thing I picked a dark color!

They were fun to make, but not nearly as interesting to look at as all the cool socks you all are making out there. I have ordered some handpainted sock yarn for future fun, though.

I have also started working on a scarf in beautiful, tweedy Dale Sisik, which I was lucky enough to get in a swap with Kris a few months ago. The colorway is Camel, and the yarn is delightful! So soft and silky. It's a mohair, wool, acrylic, viscose blend. I join the chorus of people wishing it had not been discontinued.

And there is more! My next sock project is this turquoise lacy sock, also from Sensational Knitted Socks. Top down this time. Actually my mother started this one for me when she came to visit me from Norway, so I am kind of cheating. The yarn is again Silja.

While she was here, she also knitted me some mittens. She was really inspired when we went to Knitting Treasures in Plymouth, where she found this pattern for Newfoundland Mittens (click on the picture to see the pattern better). The yarn is Brown Sheep Lambs Pride Worsted, and I was the one who picked out the bright colors, Kiwi and Sapphire. I keep finding myself gravitating towards brights recently. They are really warm and the Lambs Pride wool/mohair mix is super soft.

We also picked up the book Jackets for Work and Play from Knitter's Magazine which is excellent! She took it with her of course, and I may have to go and get my own copy. It was so interesting that my mother, coming from Norway, was finding all the knitting interest here inspiring. She tells me that all the yarns stores near where she lives have closed!

Glowing Colors Sweater

2006-10-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

The second of my three projects. It's been so long since I published FO number one, that it seems lame to now bring out FO number 2. We will just forget about that whole numbering scheme... Instead I am naming it the Glowing Colors Sweater, formerly known as the yellow, red and green sweater.

I finished this on Saturday morning, and I have been wearing it ever since. It is so incredibly comfortable, nice and warm, but not too warm, very lightweight. I love the square neckline, and the tapered sleeves. It is practically windproof with that double thickness of wool, but not too hot at all. This yarn is perfect. I have usually worked with worsted yarn before (worsted type, not worsted weight), and this is woolen yarn. It traps a lot of air, and therefore is very lightweight, and seems to keep the perfect temperature indoors and out. Most knitting yarn is worsted, and therefore heavier.

I tested it out by walking all around Cambridge Sunday, in alternatingly sunny, windy and overcast weather, and then sat down on the ground to watch some of the Head of the Charles regatta, and never got cold, never got hot. It's also been great for walking Pippi.

Detail of sleeve patterns

Only problem, you don't get to see this sleeve pattern much, because the sleeves are too long on me and bunch up a little. I may have to make them shorter... Arrgh! Blossom, I am ready to swap this now, for a bottle of tequila...

The finishing for the neck and the sleeve.

Pattern: From "Norsk Strikkebok", 1990, Tone Takle and Lise Kolstad
English version known as "Sweaters: 28 Contemporary Designs in the Norwegian Tradition".

Yarn: Rauma 3-tr Strikkegarn, from Nordic Fiber Arts

Size: Unisex size Small

Colors: Yellow 131, red 144, green 198, honey 146, brown 199
(I think of the colors as Saffron, Red Pepper, Apple, Honey, and Chocolate. I am always thinking of food). The red is one of the most beautiful dark reds I have seen.

Modifications: Square neck instead of round, tapered sleeves with cuffs and picot edge, changed the dark natural brown with a lighter brown. I kind of wish now that I had stuck with the original dark black/brown color; it would have been a much better contrast.

The great thing about this book is that it's kind of a recipe for making sweaters. It has modular sweater instructions in the back where you pick the neck style (boat, round, square), the size (kids to adults), the gauge (baby wool to bulky). But there is so much more than sweaters though; there are several jackets, child's dress, a cape, a long coat and many really cute hats. I have made a few in the past. Too bad this book is out of print, it's one of my favorites.

Thanks to the husband for taking the pictures!

Fall colors

2006-10-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

As the leaves outside turn a happy yellow and red, here are some shots of my yellow and red sweater. I think I am going to need these happy colors soon, so yesterday I finally started finishing it.

Armholes were stitched,

armholes were cut,

and shoulders were grafted.

One sleeve is almost attached.

Left to do:
Attach the second sleeve, darn in all the ends, and pick up and knit the neck edging. At my speed this could take all week.

Brrrrr, I need to hurry.

Elspeth Bolero FO Number 1

2006-09-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

It's very lovely at the moment. Mostly sunny days, a little crisp at night, dry and clear. Whenever I think of September in Southern New England, I picture the clear golden light and the green trees all around me just on the verge of turning a beautiful yellow. This is my favorite month here. Maybe except for October...

And just in time for summer to be over, The Amazing Lace entry was all knitted up on Labor Day. But not quite done. The seaming and edging remained. It has taken me FOREVER to do the finishing on this. But I can still wear this for a little while as the days grow cooler.

The edges and the ties are crocheted. It goes perfectly with this tan and denim colored dress.

This photo shows the required laciness better

It also goes perfectly over a t-shirt.

Pattern: Elspeth in Rowan Magazine #37
Yarn: Berrocco Denim Silk, color 1414 Unwashed Denim. 5 skeins. Gift from Blossom.

For the edging, I had to reacquaint myself with crochet. It was much like riding a bicycle though, and I used my good and trusty "Harmony Guide to Crocheting. Techniques and Stitches" just to verify how many times to wrap around the needle for the different stitches. I stuggled some and pretty much had to make up the edging as I went along, because I didn't know that English and American crochet stitch names are completely different. What I mean is that they are the same, but they mean different things. British double crochet is American single crochet. Et cetera. I just realized this yesterday when I got Rowan #40! There are still some mistakes in the crochet pattern directions, though, I'm just saying...

On a completely different note, I saw a childrens movie the other day, Nanny McPhee, with Emma Thompson and Colin Firth. Was I the only one who thought that it was like a Kaffe Fassett fairy tale?

I was really into the sets. If you have ever admired the photos in the Fassett books, the ones where he shows inspiring interiors in glowing, amazing colors... the set of this movie was like one of those books. Deep saturated colors everywhere, acid green walls, cobalt blue woodwork and floor, with fuchsia and lime green costumes. Green and aqua woodwork with yellow walls. It was a visual feast! I want to buy this dvd only so that I can admire the colors! I wish I had better photos to show you than these stills...

In the childrens bedroom, and there were seven children, each bed had a different quilt or blanket in jewel colors. Every single one different, patchwork, granny squares, log cabin, plaids. The effect was so rich. I just wanted to make some quilts!
To top off the textile inpiration, in a beach scene the boys had on ganseys, which looked like they came straight out of Rowan Magazine. Too much fun.

Sensational Sock

2006-09-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

I finished my first ever sock, and I am very proud of myself. I must show a picture. The pattern is Beaded Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks, and it's a toe-up pattern.

Now, I have a question for all you sock knitters out there. What is your favorite way to cast off for toe-up socks?

Turns out that knitting toe-up is not completely idyllic. I don't usually knit things where the cast off is very important, so I always cast off in the most basic way. But the basic cast off flares with ribbing. I tried several different methods, and they all looked equally mediocre. So I went back to the basic, and cast off in pattern. I found this to be the least offensive. It's not all that elastic, however. These are intended for my husband and he found it loose, while I found it a little tight on me.

Is there a perfect ending to my sock?

What I did on my vacation

2006-08-31T16:36:00.000-07:00

While I am looking for the tapestry needle to bind off my first sock, I just wanted to share with you all my funniest pattern book. I know many models have done knitting patterns in their early days, before going on to become famous. For example Cindy Crawford, Andie MacDowell, the actress who plays that crazy Sheila on ~~that one soap opera~~ The Young and the Restless (or as we called it in college, The Dumb and the Useless)... all did a few knitting patterns before they hit it big.

I am guessing that didn't happen with these models.

mc78 did some hilarous captions for the pictures. You absolutely must check them out here!

Shot entirely on location in Switzerland.

I would like to see a modern pattern book with cocktails.

We have all the most high tech toys.

Going for the intellectual look.

Even the fake braids can't get the attention of these guys.

Nice classic sweaters. But I wonder what they are so concerned about.

I love the expression.

You went to Switzerland with your model airplane?

Striking an action pose to look like an outdoor guy. This is my favorite.

Please, no fishing jokes.

The sweaters are very nice, like all Spinnerin patterns. But I can't even see them, I am too distracted!

I give in

2006-08-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

Socks, socks, socks are everywhere. I love handknitted wool socks, and I still wear some made for me by my grandmothers. Thick socks for winter boots. They are so comfortable and they could never, never be duplicated by something store-bought.

Myself, though, I was never interested in knitting socks, except for replacing my grandmothers' socks when they wear out some day. When Nancy Bush started coming out with her sock books, oh more than ten years ago, I thought why would anybody want to knit socks enough to write a book about it? How many socks could a person possibly want? Socks are just for utility, kind of dull. I mostly associated handknit socks with Birkenstocks, and I was never one for Birkenstocks either. Knitting socks was just silly when you could be knitting a sweater, or a jacket, or a scarf, something that can be seen while you are wearing it. To me, knitting was all about the glory of a beautiful sweater, the drape and warmth of a large knitted fabric.

Forgive me for my prejudice. My resolve to never make socks is wearing down. First of all, there are all these magically beautiful sock yarns. Here is one that Kris showed on her blog, and here is the result. Turquoise, lime green, with a touch of yellow, such a gorgeous color combination. Here is another on Yahaira's blog. The stripes are so cheerful, looking at them just make me smile. I drool over Lornas Laces Bittersweet and Socks That Rock County Clare and Curious Yarns Ocean. The truth is, I really just want more reasons to handle beautiful, gorgeous, soft, colorful yarn.

So, I determined to knit some socks. I started my preparations by buying a book. I like to do my research properly. The Charlene Schurch book Sensational Knitted Socks seemed like a good comprehensive intro. Charts for making all the patterns in any gauge, and toe up, toe down, any way you want. The patterns are divided into chapters with four stitch patterns, five stitch patterns, cable patterns and so on, all of which you can make in any gauge and any size. I LOVE this kind of layout. And after a while I had to have Nancy Bush Vintage Socks, who could resist?

And then I started picking up a sock yarn here and there. First secretly some Wildfoote in brown and gray, handknit socks were for boots after all. This was months before I even acknowledged that knitting socks might be ok. Then I got a bunch of Silja, in solid colors, I had to stock up as it was being discontinued in this country. And some Plymouth Sockotta. And some Patons Kroy. And some GGH Marathon. Last week I got a ball of Trekking. It doesn't seem so expensive to get a skein here and there. Wait, is this some kind of marketing ploy?

The time is right for my first basic, solid colored sock:

I decided to do a very simple pattern for the first pair. This is the Beaded Rib in Sensational Socks, knit with Silja sockyarn. I am extremely paranoid about either running out of yarn, or making the sock too short, so it's toe up for me this time. I am also extremely picky about wanting socks that are very stretchy, so I went with a variation of rib. For the same reason, I will probably never do anything really fancy in patterning.

I am enjoying it. It's going pretty fast in spite of the thin needles. Each round is so short, that when I tell myself I'll just do one more round I end up doing several. The sock is growing at a VERY satisfying rate. And there will be no finishing, and only four ends to darn in. I might be a convert! But will they be comfortable? Will I be able to wear wool socks over bare feet? Time will tell.

From a fashion standpoint, one thing I have not figured out yet, is when I will wear them. All my shoes are either dressy for wearing with hose, or they are for wearing with bare feet in the summer. I don't wear any shoes at all that require "trouser socks". I certainly can't wear them with sneakers.

Will this be a fashion faux pas? Will I be able to coordinate? Stay tuned.

A scarecrow and a sun worshipper

2006-08-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

The Elspeth bolero is coming along. It's missing one sleeve still, but that seems ok for a scarecrow. Challenge #6 was to find an unusual model. The scarecrow is guarding the high-bush blueberries, but it seems that the birds have taken most of the fruit already. The cultivated blueberry bushes are five-six feet tall, which is quite surprising to a Norwegian. In Norway, blueberries grow wild on the floor of the forests, little plants maybe ten inches tall, covering the forest. At our house here in Mass, we have six big bushes, and they are a little bit leggy at the moment, but they should fill out by next year after the pruning we did. And next year maybe we will put the net around them, to protect from the voracious birds. I love birds, but I love blueberries, too!

We moved into this house a year ago now, and we thought we would take it easy with landscaping the first summer. Wait and see how all the things planted by the previous owners turned out. Turns out that was a good idea, because flowering things have been popping up in the most unexpected places. And the blueberry bushes actually had lots of berries, they just didn't have a chance to ripen. I should have put that scarecrow up sooner!

I can't believe it's been a month since I posted anything. Not much knitting has been happening, and it's been busy with friends and family visiting, including Blossom and Ohana, and going to the beach. It's been fun. While Blossom was here, we did some sewing. Check out the beautiful Cherry Bomb dress she made. It's so perfect, the style and the cheerful fabric!

The weather has been very good, and here is somebody who has been loving it:

Every time I walk Pippi when it's warm and sunny, she plops down and stretches out on the grass. Greyhounds LOVE the heat. And she doesn't care that the grass has mostly been burnt off by the hot sun. (I know, it's pretty sad) But maybe next year we should also try to use those fancy garden implements called sprinklers.

Amazing Lace #6

2006-08-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

A scarecrow wearing a one sleeved Elspeth bolero is watching over the blueberry bushes.

Ah, the Amazing Lace

2006-07-16T19:42:00.000-07:00

If you bound off your lace RIGHT NOW - what could it be used for? This is the question for the Amazing Lace challenge 4.

Fortunately, no major shaping has happened yet, so I think Elspeth would make a nice little curtain for the window in our front door. Something with holes is definitely needed here, so that we can look out and still see the trees.

Here is a closeup to prove there are actually holes in this curtain. It's maybe not as lacy as I would have liked, but there are holes!

I started this project about ten times before having any success. In spite of swatching, when knitting the pattern, I just could not get the gauge right.
I wrote a little haiku for challenge 3, about the swatch mocking me, but deleted it.

And then I couldn't get the pattern right. Elspeth is a Rowan pattern, and I have read many blogs lately discussing issues with Rowan instructions. I am going to agree with them. The directions have issues. Maybe this is a recent phenomenon, I have not run into this with earlier Rowan patterns.

One problem with the directions is that the shaping cuts right across the pattern stitches, instead of being shaped around the patterns.

(The holes are not really apparent in the following photo. This is not a blurry photo by the way, but this yarn has little white flecks in it that make it difficult to photograph. I really like the way it looks in real life!)

You can see the effects of how the pattern hits the selvedge and kind of makes it curl unevenly. This is most obvious on the left side in this picture. It will look fine when seamed, and it does have the (mostly) correct shape, but it is awkward to work with this pattern along the edges.
This is common I am sure, with garments that have both shaping and pattern.

Another, more surprising problem, is that the pattern stiches themselves are not written correctly. The pattern consists of slanted decreases first to the right, and then to the left. The first pattern element has standard decreasing, K2tog and P2tog. This slants to the right. But then, for the left slanting pattern, the instructions say K2tog tbl (RS) and P2tog tbl (WS). Knitting 2 together through the back loop causes a twisted stitch, and so the left slanting elements have a more raised look than the right slanting elements. This is not pretty in my opinion. However, out of laziness, I didn't really give this any thought until I was almost at the armhole, when I started thinking this is too easy, no slipping and psso...

I am not going back, but now I am doing it the right way (my way). It's moving along rather quickly now. Whew!

Toronto

2006-07-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

I am touched by all the sweet comments I received about Gracie. Thank you for all your thoughtful emails and kind words, it was so appreciated. I think about her all the time, and I am still pretty down, but I feel more able to deal now. But I still move around the house and catch myself thinking she is there, just in another room or upstairs...

Unlike Dipsy, who posts a beautiful essay with beautiful pictures the first day she is back from vacation, I am a little behind and posting now about last weekend. For the extra long holiday weekend of July 4th, a good friend invited me along with her to Toronto to visit her family. It was really fun, and there was a lot to see since I had never been to Toronto before. It was so thoughtful of her to bring me, and it was a nice break from the routine. We drove up and on the way we stopped here:

Niagara Falls! I had always wanted to see it, so it was very cool. We were there on Canada Day, so it was full of people picnicing in the parks and waiting for the fireworks in the evening. I was surprised to see how close to the falls people could get, it was a lot different than I expected. I would have liked to get into one of these:

Note everybody wearing bright blue rain ponchos.

Then if you look back the other way, behind this force of nature is this very civilized city! There are nice parks all along the road, and it seems very manicured and urban. For some reason I was expecting a strip of souvenir shops and fast food joints.

In Toronto, it was hot and sunny, surprisingly much warmer than on the coast of Massachusetts. We went up into this tower, the CN Tower:

(This picture was taken from the harbor cruise we took later. The skyline was beautiful.)
This is the worlds tallest tower. From the glassed-in, exterior elevator of the tower we could see this:

A ballgame next door. We asked the elevator guy who was playing, and he didn't know! How lame! That ought to be part of his job! Turns out it was the Phillies visiting. Here is a view of the city waterfront from the tower.

I also took tons of pictures of the beautiful gardens at the Casa Loma, Canada's medieval castle. I was looking for ideas for my own garden. I really need a pond like this with a waterfall.

Turns out a lot of movies have been filmed there, like Chicago and X-Men, to mention the two movies where I actually remember seeing the medieval interiors of this castle.

There was some knitting going on in the last week, but I don't have any good pictures of it. I started on my Elspeth bolero, and I started on it about ten times. I had problems both with my gauge, and with the pattern. So not a lot of progress. I am not giving up on it, though, because it is the one thing that I really need in my wardrobe, a little cardigan to wear over summer dresses when it gets cool in the evening. More updates on that will be coming soon.

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far. Take good care.

My Gracie

2006-06-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

Miss Graceful
Gracie
The Tiny
Tin-E Loc (with the Notorious D.O.G)
The Worm
The T
Super-T
T-Biscuit
Little Whoozit
Turtledove

A dear child has many names. She even had her own songs.

She left us too quickly. To everybody who left nice comments about her and sent her kisses, you have my undying devotion. Nobody deserved it more. She was much too shy to ask. It was so touching to see her becoming brave enough in the last couple of years, to actually sniff the outstretched hands of friends and strangers stopping us on the street.

At 15 years of age, she was happy and running around, up until her very last day, and for that I am very grateful. In the 12 years we had her, she was my constant companion and my joy. Always there for me. Playful and elegant, her racing name, Miss Graceful, described her so perfectly. Although she started out as very shy and scared, she grew confident and she relaxed. It was heartwarming to see her come out of her shell. Heartwarming is my favorite word when I think of her and her gentle ways. Although she liked attention, she was not demonstrative, and therefore, a lick on the hand from her was extra sweet. She was very intelligent, and so amazingly human in her expressions and her emotions. And after so many years, our bond was still growing and growing.

We were so proud of her. And we were so honored to have been picked to be her parents.

This is the reason for my absence. I miss her so desperately, and so does her little sister. I have not felt like blogging or even knitting in the last two weeks since it happened. Just trying to get back into things now.

So close

2006-06-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

(I have been told that some of my pictures are not showing up in Safari and Firefox. I am sorry, I don't really know how to fix that at the moment...)

C'est la vie! I was going to have this finished this week for sure! Absolutely one hundred percent finished. Absolutely for sure. But now I have decided it is a little too long and I will shorten it by an inch or so. The neck shaping has to be redone, so that means all of the green part will be ripped.

It's my own fault for straying from the pattern. Originally the neck shaping was to start a little sooner, I just thought it would look better this way.

None of this will happen before the weekend, though. It's so hard to put it down, because I am very eager to finish. I am not letting myself work on anything else before then.

Gracie is wondering if she can help.

"It's bad luck to talk about works in progress"

2006-05-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

Yolanda, in The Dancer Upstairs (2002). I don't know if this is true only for dancers, but I am taking it to heart. So I won't talk about the fact that I am having to redo the right front of the Nellie cardigan. Or the fact that I fell one week behind on the Red Yellow Green sweater because I was unhappy with my ribbing and the size, and ripped it all out.

Instead, here are some summer projects which are not yet in progress. I have such a problem taking pictures of yarn! Finding the combination of the right light, and a good background is very hard for me. I therefore took my yarn out for a nature trip, and I tried not to flatten too many buttercups.

Blossom (she is the sweetest!) sent me this package of beautiful Berrocco Denim Silk yarn. I love the dark denim color, with small flecks of white and lighter blue. Indigo blue is so soothing. She even included a skein of Berroco Glace in light blue for trim. The yarn is very soft and I think it will be drapey. I want to make something to wear with a summer dress, maybe something like this:

Elspeth, Rowan Magazine 37

I might rethink the lace, but this the shape I am thinking of, a short sleeved, v-necked, cropped bolero style jacket. I ran this past Trinny and Susannah and they approve. The object is to draw focus away from the hips, and the arms, and my short neck... I will wear it with a simple dress; tan with a few scattered denim blue flowers...

Another project for the summer (don't worry, it's not even close to being hot here yet) is this cotton twisted yarn called Flash. It has three different colors twisted together, turquoise, lime, and lilac. This is going to be a tank top, but the style is not yet decided. I can't decide whether I want something cabled, to showcase the sheen of the mercerized cotton, or something very plain, to showcase the colors.

Then there is this fun cotton, Katia Jamaica in earth tones.

For someone who has never been into variegated yarn, this is quite radical. It looks really cool knitted up, and it might become a stockinette sleeveless top. I really like the styles in the Katia spring 2006 magazine, so maybe I will select something from that. I hope I will get to this one before summer is over, but the beautiful denim silk is definitely the highest priority.

Knitting made easier..... kind of

2006-05-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time I purchased an excellent knitting belt.

I had read of the legendary Shetland knitters who could knit 200 stitches per minute in the days before circular needles were invented, using long double pointed needles and a belt. I was hoping that I, like them, would be able to finish a fair isle sweater every week, and that I would be able to indulge my passion for yarn and try all the patterns I desired, make all the Alice Starmore sweaters I coveted, and experiment with the colors of the rainbow, all to my hearts content.

Doesn’t it sound like a dream?

I experimented for a while, and although I loved some things about the belt, I was not able to get proficient at the technique, and threw the belt and needles into a dark corner in disgust. They have remained in my box of knitting paraphernelia until I recently thought I would attempt this again.

My reason for wanting to make another attempt was that I felt my knitting was slower and my stitches less regular than they used to be. Also, I have some problems with my hands and wrists. And elbows and shoulder… And I still have the dream of being able to knit faster so that I can finish more of the garments I want. I can’t help it if I love Norwegian sweaters, Fair Isle sweaters, Aran sweaters, ganseys, elegant sweaters, modern sweaters, Andean bags, lace scarves and shawls and gloves… A coworker once said to me that she used to knit but stopped because she got such a glut of sweaters. Well, to me, that just sounded like crazy-talk.

Above is a picture of the belt and the long needles. As you can see, the belt has a pouch, which is stuffed with horsehair, and has many holes which are used for holding the needle. Since there are so many holes, you can customize your belt to hold different size needles. In Norway they had a "knitting stick" which served the same purpose.

The technique seems simple, you attach the belt around your waist, and you stick your working needle into the belt to keep it supported. This way, your hands do not have to support the garment, and your right hand is free to guide the work without also holding up the weight of the knitted fabric. With stranded knitting, this fabric can be very heavy.

The needles I was able to get were 40 cm (16 in) long, and came in sets of four. The three needles created a very rigid triangle, with the fourth as the working needle. For a large circular sweater, I found it impossible to maneuver my working needle with this configuration. How could you hold it in your lap so you could see your stitches when the triangle wanted to lie in one direction only?

After my difficulties using a four needle set, I added a fifth needle from a different size set. This made a huge difference for me, as the configuration was now more flexible and made it easier to manipulate the work. I will have to order another set of four, because the seller was not willing to break up their sets.

An awkward pose to show the belt without hiding it with my elbows.
Since the needles are so long, I ended up with the pouch of the belt hanging very low on my hips so I could keep my hands closer to my body.

Pros:
1. Because the weight is no longer supported by the hands and wrists, you will feel much less fatigue. It felt WONDERFUL to have the right needle supported this way.
2. Your left hand guides the fabric onto the needle, your right hand is completely free. With a circular needle, you guide the right needle into the fabric and move it up, behind, around…
3. Gravity is helping you somewhat, because the left hand moves the stitch onto the needle, and then you just drop the left needle slightly to make the stitch.

All this adds up to knitting faster and with less fatigue.

Cons:
1. The work is not as portable as a circular needle. Lots of long, lethal needles poking in every direction.
2. A lot of practice is required to become proficient. As a matter of fact, when I called the seller (they had a technical support line) they said that they could offer me no guidance on the use of the belt, and that this belt was only for knitters who had grown up using this method.
3. You have to sit very upright to use this. No lounging and collapsing into a soft couch, because you don’t want the work to tilt upwards, it needs to tilt down away from your body. In all the pictures I have seen, the person was either standing, or sitting very straight. I was only successful if I perched on a pillow or on a dining chair.

All this adds up to less convenience.

Some knitters who use straight needles brace their right hand needle under their arm, and this works on the same concept. You can use the knitting belt with straight needles, you would just enlarge one of the holes in the leather to accommodate the cap of the needle you want to use.

According to Sheila McGregor, in her book “The Complete Book of Traditional Fair Isle Knitting” (B.T. Batsford Ltd, London, 1988), the Fair Isle knitters achieved their speed using the continental style, not the English style of knitting. This is good news, because I suck at the English style. Also, they used sets of four needles, 35 cm long (14 in). This is trickier, because I don’t even know that 14 in needles are available anymore. In my experiments, I determined that for me, more, and slightly shorter, needles would be easier.

I absolutely loved the way it felt to have the right needle supported by a belt. It was a complete delight. My hands and wrists felt infinitely better. Curiously, my knitted fabric was more flat, as if it had been pressed, even though the gauge was the same. I credit this to the fabric being under tension on the straight needle, instead of collapsed on a circular wire. I am still not any faster.

I know I need a lot of practice with this, so I am going to have to practice the knitting belt technique on some smaller project. I will definitely use it with any non-circular project. I am not willing to experiment on my current sweaters. They are too important to me and I want to get them finished without trauma. But this is definitely something that I want to pursue further, and if you have a lot of patience, or any kind of hand and wrist problems, I would really recommend learning the knitting belt technique.

Edited March 1st, 2010: I bought my knitting belt at Schoolhouse Press. You can also get them from Jamieson & Smith.

One border down

2006-05-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

The yellow, red, and green sweater is coming along now. The honey and brown border at the bottom is done, and I am very excited about working with the yellow and red yarn for the body. It is such a jolt of color! It has about five large pattern repeats, so it will take a while. I hope to finish one pattern repeat every couple of days. Also, my hands are starting to feel strained, so I am trying to intersperse working on this sweater with finishing the Nellie cardigan.

At one time, I bought a knitting belt and long needles from Schoolhouse Press to try knitting the old fashioned way. Shetland knitters were able to do one sweater a week using those things. I didn't quite master the technique, but I think it's worth experimenting with again to relieve my wrists and hands. I will let you know if it works out. Anything to make it possible to knit more!

Finally, spring is here. I have been so looking forward to the flowers coming out, that I had to share a couple of pictures. This little shrub is a surprise. It has been sitting there quietly all winter, and I was wondering what it would become when spring arrived. Well, spring has arrived, and I have no idea! I haven't found it in my gardening book, but I see it everywhere along the roads around here.

The periwinkles in the background behind the daffodils can be found everywhere in our yard. I love them! They cover the woods under the all trees, and I know they are invasive, but I don't mind, they are so beautiful.

Two more projects

2006-05-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

Peer Gynt ski sweater

I have too many unfinished projects lying around my house. It's bad Feng Shui to have this kind of thing hanging over your head. My goal is to finish the projects, and also to make a dent in my stash. My stash, in plastic totes, is as tall as me. Actually, maybe twice as tall as me.

The green and white Norwegian sweater above has been put aside for a number of years. Let's not open ourselves up to ridicule and say how many... And those of you who know, please don't tell.

The yarn is Peer Gynt, from Norway, which is excellent. I am actually very happy with the knitted fabric, so why has it not been finished??? Blame it on living in the South for years. That one day of year when it was necessary to wear a sweater just didn't motivate me to finish...

The second item is a cardigan called Nellie from Rowan. A few years ago I bought as many of the Rowan back issues as I could, and in Rowan Magazine 16 I found a simple cropped cardigan.

Kaffe Fassett Kid Silk in antique gold.

The yarn is Kaffe Fassett Kid Silk which I was able to get as a closeout somehow. The color is antique gold. Look how it shines in the unused balls. It actually looks even nicer in the skeins, than in the knitted fabric. It's wonderful.

It's kind of exciting, cleaning out the ufos.

My favorite part of the project

2006-05-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

This is the best part of starting on a new sweater. The pattern has been worked out, and everything is coming together. The counting of stitches, over and over, is done. And I am still in the beginning stage where I am extremely enthusiastic about the project. The sleeves are already done in this case, so only the body is left to do.

This is what I am aiming for:

I love the bright colors. The brown and honey border is hardly visible in the photo, next to the red and yellow. This is Sweater 1 from the Norwegian book Sweaters! After working with the bamboo yarn, the wool feels so nice, much easier on my fingers.

Having kept this yarn around for years, and knowing/thinking that I had at the time purchased enough of all the colors, I ran out of the chocolate brown, and had to make an emergency phone call to Arnhild's Knitting Studio, the american distributor of Rauma yarns for more 3-tr Strikkegarn. Problem solved immediately. Thank you, Arnhild!

And thank goodness for a yarn company that keeps the same range of many, many colors for years and years, about 76 colors for strikkegarn, 100 colors for the Finullgarn. If it had been any other yarn, I may not have been so lucky. I have always loved the tremendous color range that Rauma has, it always makes me feel like I have a painters pallette of yarn to play with.

Pictures, pictures

2006-04-21T06:21:00.000-07:00

Finally, a picture of the little scarf. I think I am photo challenged, because this has been finished for about a week. This will be my spring and summer scarf. I like how the snowdrop pattern came out, and how the scarf is light and drapy after blocking. I highly recommend this yarn, it's silky and soft, and looks great after I washed it. I am thinking hard about making a summer top in the same yarn. Unfortunately, it is impossible (for me) to get a good picture of the color, and I think that is because the yarn is shiny. The reflections are confusing the camera lens. Take my word for it, it's periwinkle blue, not the royal blue which the pictures want to show.

Let me try another picture, this time with flash:

Now it looks more like the denim it's named for, but it's all a trick of the light.

Yarn: Plymouth Royal Bamboo, color Denim (47), 2.5 balls
Needles: 3.25 mm
Tension: 27 sts per 10 cm (over pattern)
Dimension: 10 cm wide, 1.80 m long (72 in)

I have been thinking about ripping out my Birch shawl. Since I made it with a much looser tension, it came out very large. What was I thinking? A shawl could not be too big? I love Birch, I really do, but it is kind of unwieldy. If I remake it I will remake it with the looser tension, but with 25 percent (at least) fewer stitches. Unfortunately, frogging Kid Silk Haze is pretty difficult. I will be mulling this over for a while, it won't happen until I finish some other projects.

Zen and knitting

2006-04-08T10:37:00.001-07:00

So this is what spring looks like around here. I am adding a photo of scenery to make up for the fact that there has not been a lot of knitting going on lately.

I started on a scarf, meant to be zen and mindless, but then didn't want to waste the pretty yarn on plain garter stitch or rib. The yarn is "Royal Bamboo" from Plymouth Yarn, and the color is a periwinkle blue. I picked the the Snowdrop pattern from Rhoda Ochser Goldberg's "The New Knitting Dictionary". The pattern consists of bellshaped "snowdrops" with columns of diamonds and knots in between. The pattern has a lot of double decreases, so instead doing mindless knitting, I ended up experimenting and swatching a lot, because I was not happy with the 3D effect they created.

Illustration of 3D effect, two lowest repeats have dec A

The original pattern was written with decrease A.

Double Decrease A: k2 tog tbl, put this st back on lh needle, pass next st over the k2 tog, put back on rh needle.
For the snowdrops, this decrease created a very 3D pointed bellshape (see photo above for the relief effect).

Double Decrease B: sl 2 tog, k1, psso.
This created a straight center stitch, and was a lot smoother.

Double Decrease C: sl 1, k2 tog, psso.
This decrease looked ok on the diamonds, but the knots above and below the diamonds did not look good.

In the end, I used decrease B for the snowdrop shapes, and decrease A for the knots and diamonds. I could have used decrease C for the diamonds, but having three different kinds of double decreases was more than my brain could cope with. I tried it for a few rows, and decided it was just ridiculous.

I will show you the finished scarf soon.

For a couple of weeks I was not really doing any knitting, but I did a whole lot of reading about knitting. I spent days looking through my old Vogue Knitting magazines. At the same time I had "Zen and the Art of Knitting" for my bedtime reading. Very enjoyable. I don't often get the "zen" feeling from knitting, though. That was actually my inspiration for doing a mindless scarf, I was hoping some mindless knitting would encourage zen. But of course ambitions got in the way. Maybe that should be telling me something, only rectangular garter stitch scarves for me from now on?

My next step was checking out a bunch of knitting books from the library. I even found a couple of fiction books with the word knitting in the title. Of course I had to read those. So even though I was not knitting very much, I was actually getting more knitting obsessed than ever.

Birch lace shawl done!

2006-03-18T09:39:00.000-08:00

(This post has been edited... a picture has been added)

I finished Birch this week. I love it, it's like a soft cloud around my shoulders and so warm.

The finished shawl has a very nice drape

My Alice Starmore pose

It will be for special occasions only, because I already got it caught in the zipper of my wallet when I wore it to the grocery store... Ooops!
The yarn is lovely, so light and soft. I can see why it's so popular. One of my dogs playfully attacked it, so I have to be careful with how I carry it. Apparently it reminded somebody of a fuzzy squeaky toy being waved in front of them, but there was no damage done. If the pictures I took myself are not that great, it's because it was so cold out this week, and I couldn't stand to be out taking pictures with bare hands for very long. Hmmm, this is getting me thinking about future fingerless gloves to knit...

With this picture I am trying to show both the stripe effect which was the result of knitting every other row with different dye lots, and also how the garter stitch version looks as opposed to the more usual stockinette version.
One problem with the stripes was that I had to carry two colors along the side instead of one. I don't usually like doing that, because it causes the threads to lock into a firmer knot along the selvedge. Also, it's a double thickness of yarn on one edge, so that edge has a little more firmness to it than the other. While I was working I was worried that it would not look good, but it's not noticeable at all. It's really hard to get a picture of the color effect, but it does give more depth to the fabric, and I am very happy with it.
I think the garter stitch gives a little more softness to the texture. It also makes the fabric reversible.

Project specs:
Birch from Rowan Magazine 34
Yarn - Kid Silk Haze in color Pearl 3.5 balls
Tension - 15 stitches to 10 cm with 5 mm needles
Pattern modifications - the tension in the pattern is 20 stitches to 10 cm, but I wanted it more open so I used 15 st/10 cm.

I decided I needed I small portable project, so I have started a scarf using bamboo yarn. The pattern is called Snowdrops. I got it from one of my knitting stitch encyclopedias, but I am already experimenting with changing it. I am not so happy with how the double decreases are working out, they are making a lot of big bumps. Could be because this is not such an elastic yarn, it's a lot like cotton. The yarn is very smooth and has a good sheen, and I wanted to use a lace pattern which included areas of stockinette to capitalize on that smoothness. I have also been working on my yellow and green Norwegian sweater, and even though I love knitting lace, it is a relief for my fingers to feel some nice springy wool again.

Because I need another expensive hobby

2006-03-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

Look at this gorgeous fabric Blossom sent me! I just love it so much. I so admired it when she bought it a few weeks ago. It's an Amy Butler fabric. Now Blossom has gotten me to start sewing again. She is very inspiring! Thanks Blossom!
I had been more into quilting than sewing clothes in the past few years, because I didn't really get too excited about the dress fabrics I was able to find. I think the last thing I sewed for myself was a dress in 1991... But maybe it's the inspiration of favorite designers like Oilily... I am crazy about colors and patterns at the moment. I placed some different yarn colors around it, to see what I could be inspired to knit to go with this fabric. Very exciting!
So I haven't decided what to make with this blue and pink paisley yet. Either a skirt, or a dress. I picked up a vintage Vogue pattern from the fifties, with a little bolero. It's adorable. But the fabric might need more of a sixties shape. I remember having a tunic dress in a paisley fabric like this, ca 1970, with a little gold chain belt around my waist. I was about seven at the time, and feeling very fashionable!

In the package from Blossom was also a whole bunch of skirt patterns. Pretty much every style is covered. I am going to be so well dressed! I do think it would be so cool to make a skirt to go along every time I knit a new top.

My babies

2006-03-04T13:07:00.000-08:00

A picture of my pretty girl, Miss Graceful, whom we call Gracie. We have had her since she was three, and now she is fourteen and a half! When we first got her, she had been mistreated, and her former owner had returned her to the kennel, and exchanged her for a "better" dog. Can you imagine! Apparently she had spent nine months cowering in a corner and being terrorized by that person's other smaller dogs. When we first met her it took us an hour to get close enough to catch her, she was so shy and scared. It took about six months before she could believe that being petted was a good thing, she would just suffer through it, and try to get away. Gracie was our second greyhound, and she benefited greatly from having had an older and more outgoing sister. She has become much, much more relaxed and confident, and now she is a completely different (and completely spoiled) dog, although she seems to like it best when having our other dog close by.

Our number two dog is called Pippi, as in Longstocking, because sometimes her ears stick out in a Pippi kind of way. She is a very playful and mischevous little thing, and very affectionate. In the picture she is on a daybed in my workroom, which she now considers hers. Finding the most comfortable and soft spot to lounge is her special talent. Usually in a sunbeam. And she of course prefers our down comforter. Pippi has a lot of toys, which she likes to spread out all over the floor of our house. She is only three, so has an incredible amount of energy. She loves the snow, which she had never seen before we moved to Massachusetts, and goes completely crazy whenever we have a good snowfall. She makes me laugh a lot.

Otherwise, I am not quite done with Birch yet, as I am having to fix a mistake which happened about four rows down. My handy, dandy crochet hook has been a constant companion throughout this project, as it seems to be very easy for me to make mistakes when knitting lace!

Colors

2006-03-02T08:12:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a really productive day for the Birch shawl. I was spending hours installing some new software on my home computer, and instead of spending the down-time studying the book, a hefty tome on programming, I knitted. And knitted and knitted. It's looking like it might be finished in a couple of days!

A bonus for Birch: It's now multicolored. Well, sort of. I recklesslessly started it with only two balls of Kid Silk Haze, when I knew it needed three. On a trip to the yarn shop (a trip to the big city!) I found another from a different dye lot. The shade was so different that it was even obvious without seeing them next to each other. It looks like my first two balls are Oatmeal, and the third is Pearl. It's got a little bit of pearly pink to it. I was too impatient to shop for another, I mean, what are the odds that another dye lot would match any better... Doing one row at a time with each color is giving it a little more depth. I really like the effect!

I have a new sweater in the works. A sleeve is already done. No more subtle colors for me! This pattern is from the book Sweaters! by Tone Takle and Lise Kolstad. I LOVE this book. And I have always drooled over this sweater (pattern 1) which has green sleeves, yellow body, and red patterns all over. It's done in Rauma 3-tr Strikkegarn from Norway. The riot of colors is toned down a little by the brown edgings. I think it's great for brightening up a long, long winter, and I certainly feel very cheerful knitting with all these colors in my hands. This book is full of Norwegian sweaters in non-traditional colors, and it's been one of my favorites for a long time.

Finishing a UFO!

2006-02-25T08:10:00.000-08:00

Thank you so much for all your kind comments! I really feel very welcomed by the high tech knitters out there. I feel so inspired to see all the beautiful work you are all doing. And thank you to my good friend Blossom for getting me involved!

This is a vest called Bettie from Rowan magazine 19. I loved it so much in the picture, but when it was almost finished (I won't say how many years ago), I was disappointed in the fit. The only thing I had left to do was sew the shoulder seams, but I let it languish. So, my figure is not like the model in the picture, which should have thrown up a red flag, but it also highlighted every flaw. The thought was to rip it back half way, and shorten the v-neck. It was too deep on me, which was surprising, but maybe this model is really, really tall. The thought of ripping out, though, was too much for me.

It has taken a shift in my thinking to realize I can wear it after all, so this story has a happy ending. This week, I went ahead and finished the shoulder seams and attached the back neckband. I will wear it over a t-shirt, and unbuttoned. The effect will not be quite the same, but I just do not have the heart to rip it out. The backgound fabric in the photo will be an A-line skirt to wear with it. It's Amy Butler (thank you for the tip, Blossom), and now I can't wait for summer. I think A-line, but maybe wrap would be better for stripes?

It really was quite fun to knit this vest. The yarn is Rowan Cotton Glace, which is a beautful quality. It's firm and silky, with a slight sheen. It stood up to a lot of handling, since I did most of this knitting while commuting on a train.

I admit to not liking finishing very much, all those ends to darn and making your fabric thicker. The knotty seams. It reminds me of the Norwegian word "knotete", which means something like awkward and inelegant ;) I resented the finishing, which was taking me away from the fun knitting. So to overcome this, I am from now on going to allow myself to start on the next knitting project while the previous is still in the finishing phase. I just want to knit!

Lace shawl in progress

2006-02-14T21:45:00.000-08:00

Some pictures of Birch underway. I love working with this project. It is working up into a frothy cloud of soft, warm lace, and I am really enjoying holding it in my hands. The beauty of making a triangular shawl, is that it gets smaller and smaller as you are working, and therefore each row is faster to knit than the previous!

The version I am making is the garter stitch version. It is not so easy to see this in the pictures, but I thought the stockinette version looked too smooth. The garter stitch looks warmer, and a little fuzzier, more cozy.

It took a while to get going, because when you first cast on, you can't see the pattern, and you are forced to keep counting to make sure you are on the right track. Kind of difficult when you have 299 stitches on your needle. I was doing the first pattern row on a three hour plane ride, and the flight attendant was very interested, and would check in with me every time she passed by, but she was never able to see any progress, as I kept counting and going back again and again. The perils of starting on a project in public, you won't impress anybody :)

The pattern calls for yfwd, but I am just translating that as a regular yarn-over. Also, it calls for K2tog tbl, but it is much easier to just use s1 k1 psso. The look is the same.

Knitting in Cyber-Space

2006-02-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

I have been inspired by my dear friend Blossom to create a blog. I love knitting and since knitting is a very social art, I hope to meet more knitting friends. I have been knitting for a very long time, I have an extensive knitting library, a large stash of yarns, and too many UFOs.

I also have two retired greyhounds, who are currently curled up and snoozing on their cushy beds on the floor of my workroom. They are very sweet girls, they are very affectionate, and endlessly entertaining.

At the moment, I am working on Birch from Rowan magazine 34. It is a lace shawl, and I am about 25 percent done. Photo will be forthcoming. Rowan is definitely one of my favorite yarn companies, their patterns are beautiful.