Just for the yarn

When shopping for my 2.75 mm circs for the peace replica, I noticed some Noro Kureyon Sock yarn. Lovely colors, just could not resist.
At home I had to find a pattern for it, just one skein and it should show of the colors nicely.
I found the Wavelength pattern by Dawn Ellerd. It is crocheted, a nice difference for a change.
After a few evenings I had a lovely scarf.



I have 1/3 of the yarn left, my little girl wants a scarf too.

Peace proces

How is my 'peace proces' going. I have the charts. I ordered some yarn for test knitting. It is GGH Merino. A nice soft and round merino yarn. The first swatch I made with off white background and light brown contrasting color on 3mm needles.

Here I got 29 stitches per 10 cm, a little to loose. I like the color combination.
There are a few rows in the chart with only a small part of the round stranded. In this swatch I tried using a long tail of yarn for these parts and knit back the colored part in the uneven rows. I'm not really happy with this approach. It pulled at the row changes.
The second swatch is with a dark background and off white contrasting color with 2.75mm needles.

The gauge is better with 31 stitches in 10 cm. This time I just carried around both strands every row. The stranded bit is better now, but it is noticeable in the single color parts. Not sure yet what to choose.
Now finishing my charts and 'designing' the seamless set-in sleeves.

Spring in a sock

For the spring 2009 of the Midsummer Magic Club the task was to catch spring in your socks. For that we recieved a sock blank, some spring inspired dye and instructions for painting and knitting.
For the painting of the blank I had a lovely little assistant.


We taped the fingers of her gloves and she painted flowers on the blank like she had done it for ages.


Leaving the background for her mother to fill.

The included pattern was a nice lace pattern with butterflies and little tulips.
I knitted them both at the same time using magic loop. This was a little complicated, as the first lace pattern had stitches traveling from one needle to the other. But a savety pin did help a lot.

socks

I finished a few pairs of socks in the last weeks. The first ones were the second pair of Big Basin socks. The first pair I knitted for the magazine Handwerken zonder grenzen, as part of a green sock yarn item.

The magazine should be out any day now.
I liked the pattern and fit of the socks, so I took my Jitterbug yarn and casted on a second pair.

The Jitterbug yarn is a little thicker that the Araucania Ranco Multy, resulting in a little bigger socks. I've not decided yet if they are a little too big. Being winter socks, I did not use them yet. They are a little short, but there was no more yarn. Maybe better to knit them again in a smaller size this fall.

The other finished pair was for the Midsummer's Magic Club. I dyed the yarn during the Christmas break, but finishing the socks took some time.

The pattern is from Cookie A, the Monkey socks. The yarn has a little silk in it. This gives it a nice shine.

Peace

Dale of Norway not only makes beautiful knitting patterns, like Kashmir, but also great machine knitted garments. I like this one a lot:

But being a knitter, I want to knit it myself. So I started charting a pattern from pictures of the internet.


The charting is done. Now to look for yarn which will give me around 32 stitches on 10 cm. And to choose colors. Will I go with the off white and brown version? The red one is great too. Or choose realy different colors?


Hmm, maybe just get samples of several colors.

I am a .....

You Are a Cardigan

You are traditional, old-fashioned, and even a little conservative. More than anything else, you are a creature of habit. You haven't changed much over the years. You shy away from flashy ideas, people, fashion, and foods. You have simple tastes. You go for established quality and longevity every time.

What Kind of Sweater Are You?

Somehow I don't recognize me in the picture ;-)

Finally done: Kashmir

A year ago I started my Kashmir sweater. After a long summer stop I picked up knitting on it during autum. And beginning December I finally had enough length to lay the bottom flat and to measure. A day later I had this:

It was to smal. I could have knitted on, hoping one day I would fit the sweater, but was afraid I would lose faith in the project. So I ripped it, steamed my yarn, bought bigger needles and casted on a few extra stitches and started all over again.
Beginning of February I was back at the point where I had ripped it all and this time it was ok.

Half March the body was done:


Beginning of April the sleeves were knitted and the steeks sewn and cut.

The pattern has a rolled hem at the neck line, which I do not like. So I used this way of making it look like the bottom and sleeve hems.

And now it's done. Finally.