Not Much Left of 2010

There is not much left of 2010 and in the media it´s - as always! - very popular to run long summarizes of the (almost) past year and to advance a lot of guessing about the year to come. Well, 2010 has been a good knitting year and I have great hope that 2011 also will turn out very good - yarnwise!!

If I try to summarize my knitting year, I find that I have learnt some new things, like tubular cast-on and bind offs, and knitting braids.

This is the 2010 aquisition for the Christmas-tree: a hanging stack of parcels. Isn´t it charming?


My "Every Way Wrap" is finished, it was a very quick knit, and a real success in this very cold and snow-rich winter. I found some buttons in my button-box and I use a Knit-Pro cable-needle as a shawl-pin.

I made almost no alterations to the pattern, except casting on and binding off in a tubular way. Mabye the yarn wasn´t ideal for this project, it could have been a bit softer and with better drape. When worn as a vest, it restricts the arm-movements quite a lot. But it warms the shoulders and the lower part of the back wonderfully. It´s three months left of the winter and I will get a lot of use out of this item before spring is here.

Now I´m going to finish the last project for this year. Of course I already have plans for what to cast on next.

Christmas Day Calm

Christmas-time is both joy and stress at the same time. The joy - well that is pretty obvious: some free-time together with the family and a lot of nice food, chocolate and lit candles. The stress - well, as usual the clever planning fell apart, due to sick children, unexpected catastrophies at work and other events that appeared like flashes from a clear sky (a Swedish saying for when unexpected things happens without any warning).


But after taking some deep breaths things usually can be worked out and Christmas could follow the traditional tracks. The ham took its seven hours in the oven and came out like a masterpiece. The Christmas-tree was decorated and immediately started to spread that magical Christmas-feeling. The family flooded in and everything turned out very well. It was even possible to squeeze in som knitting...

I only got one knitting-related Christmas-present: The very tempting "Knitted Cakes" by Susan Penny. This book offers great ideas to use up all those small balls of left-overs that builds up over the year.

Christmas Day is a "between day" in this house, when we go for long walks, look into the new books and tries the new games. The family is playing golf on the Wii-game and I´m going to start a new knitting project - the last of this year?

It´s Not Hard to Remember Roses in December

The world outside is incredible white! The snow lies thick and every branch and twig is covered with thick layers of frost. By the way: "rimfrost" is one of the most beautiful words in the Swedish language! At this moment its -22 outside.

In this white world one need contrasts and indoors I enjoy lit candels and flowers. Amaryllis kindly lets themselves be manipulatet to bloom in december and roses, of course, can be bought all year round. They are such a luxury.

My college at work wanted a pair of leg-warmers, a very much needed item this winter! She wanted them black and I used Rowan Pure Wool Dk in a a shade of black that I would describe as "off-black".

They are knitted in the round, started with a tubular cast on and a lacy sort of "cable" runs up the outside of each leg. The "cable is surrounded by reversed stockinette stitch and a single knit stich forms a "seam" at the back of the leg. I made increases and later decreased to make room for the calf and ended with k2 p2 rib and a sewn bind-off. And Alex was pleased with the result.

At the moment its hard to believe that roses will bloom in the garden in just seven months time (fn the rose-bushes survives the winter, that is!).

Knitting is Not the Only Needle

When my daughter was very small I thought it was a lovely idea to make her a Christmas-sock; something lovely homemade that she could keep and cherish her whole life. I ordered a kit and started, very enthusiastic, to embroider her very own Christmas-sock.

This was five years ago...

Well, now I´m about half way, each year I add a quite substantial amount of stitches and by the time she´s about...45, her sock will be finished!

• The trouble is that embroidery competes with knitting about the very limited amount of Time To Do Whatever I Want. And knitting is more fun!
• I also need daylight for these 40 billion different shades on Santa´s coat and at this time of the year daylight is quite scarse! Yes, I know there are daylight-lamps on the market and one day mabye I`ll buy one. But I can knit in almost darkness (well, not all sorts of knitting, but if it´s simple enought, light is not very important).
• Knitting is a mobile hobby: I knit on the bus, in the car and at all sorts of strange places. But for the embroidery I need to sit at home neatly in my sofa, so as not to tangle up or lose some of all those strands of yarn or one of the pattern-sheets.
  
  

I have two kids, so I need to make two socks... The other one for my son is still in its package, and I fear it will remain there for quite some time.

The Irish Adventure

In 1977 (33 years ago!) I went to Ireland on holiday with my family. This was before I learned to knit and I wasn´t very excited when my mother bought a lot of delicious Irish wool and brought it home. Somehow she never used the wool and after some years half of the wool had disappeared. And what was left was lying in a cupboard for 30 years!

The pictures don´t make the yarn any justice. This time of the year it´s hard to catch the colours even during the light hours of the day. The yarn is a three-ply, with one strand in red wool, occasionally flecked with yellow, and two strands in brown wool, flecked with green and turquoise.

Some years ago my mother found the rest of the yarn, stowed away somewhere, and since she doesn´t knit anymore she gave me this treasure. Since then I have been pondering about how to use this yarn. And one day the yarn found its pattern and decided to cast on for Okmin Park´s "Every Way Wrap" from Interweave Knits Fall 2009 (Ravelry Link).

I found this combination of shawl and vest very smart and something that would be something really useful to wear. It would also give med a chance to knit cable double-sided for the first time - I´m always very keen try something new!

It´s actually a quite quick knit, with big needles - 4,5 - that is big for me! I´m halfway now and I really long to have this finished: in this cold weather I really need it.

The Candy I Can´t Resist

Nowadays candy, sweets and even chocolate seems to have lost their grip on me: I´m often not very tempted by them anymore! And when I am tempted, usually I can resist them. I don´t know where this comes from, I certainly haven´t tried hard to avoid these totally unnecessary sugar-loaded fiends. Mabye I have finally realized that they usually don´t taste as good as I think they do.

But there are other tempting things hard to resist: looking like candy and totally impossible to ignore:

100% cotton, totally sugar-free!

This was the view from my kitchen window yesterday morning. Winter is here!

There is a Time for Everything

When the wind is howling around the house it´s time to light up the fire. We live in a modern house and it has to bee minus-degrees outside before we can use the fire-place, otherwise it gets to hot indoors. But now it´s fire-time, and we lit it up in the mornings before we go to work and again in the evenings when we get home. And someone have to walk out in the cold and darkness to bring in more fire-wood...

A new pair of mittens is in progress, in Istex Létt-Lopi.

December is soon here, and so is Advent. It´s time to get out the Christmas-time recepies and get on with the baking for the season: here is the beginning of this years English Fruit Cake. The dried fruit is soaking i cognac before the actual cake-baking begins.

While the fruit is enjoying its bath, I continue with the very traditional baking of "lussebullar": wheat-dough spiced with saffron, that is formed into the shape of "lussekatter" and decorated with raisins.

The finished result: the 2010 batch of lussebullar! The time for this bun is between the first of Advent (on Sunday) and Christmas Eve, with a peak at Lucia ( December 13th). It´s totally improper to eat them at any other time of the year, it just isn´t done!

Odd Bits and Ends

It feels very economical to turn odd left-over balls of yarn into something useful! Some Rowan Cashsoft DK was left after a vest with sailingboats on, that I once knit for my son. This yarn was more than enough for two baby-hats, both lined with white fleece. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the one in pink and blue before it left the house.

Riding on the Wave of Inspiration

After the finishing of R:s hat, I still had a whole ball of brown Rialto left, and some white. So I cast on for a new baby-hat; this time in brown with pattern in white. It was a very qick knit and also this one was lined with white fleece.

Looking through my supply of yarn I found odd bits and left-overs of RYC Cashsoft DK that would possibly be enough for two more baby-hats. And there is a lot of fleece left. So I will surf on the wave of hatterly inspiration and cast on for a new one in beige and blue.

Someone Will Have Warm Ears

My neighbour asked me to knit at winter-hat for her 8 months old daughter. I looked among my yarns and found some Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran, bought a long time ago for a project that never came into beeing. In a leaflet with Selbu-patterns I found the jolly men and women and I quickly produced a swatch. After som calculations I cast on and soon the hat was finished!



The photos with a pinkish back-ground are taken with a flash, the one with a gray background is taken without flash.

It has ear-flaps and i-corded "bands" to knot under the chin. I wanted it to be a really useful hat, something that actually could be worn during the cold winter, so I decided to line it with thin white fleece. I cut the fleece in a very simple form and sewed it together on the sewing-machine. Then I handstitched the lining to the hat, using blanket-stitch (langettstygn). I´m very pleased with the result, but was a bit nervous when I walked across the road to present the hat to the intendend recipient. It turned out a success, however: little R was laughing loudly in her new hat!

I used one of my son´s outgrowned hats as a model when making out my hat. I have found this a useful way when knitting for children: to use a store-bought item as a guide. One very quickly forgets the size of children at different ages. I have an assortment of baby-bodies from H&M in different sizes that have turned out very useful.

The Socktoberfest is over!

Early Saturday morning the Christmas-sock calender was finished - the last number was embroidered on and the final hank sewn in place. Thus my own Socktoberfest was at an end. I´m quite pleased with myself for seeing this project through -it got boring after the third sock or so... A lot of tempting ideas kept plopping up in my head and had to be pushed aside. Finishing one project before casting on for the next seems very grown-up and mature! Boring even! So the rest of the weekend was spent casting on several new projects.

The socks are all my own "design" - a very simple standard-sock in some different variations. The white yarn is mostly Drops "Karisma" and the red, green and gray are unknown leftover wool that long ago lost their ball-bands. I used ca 500 gram of wool. The hanks are of a wowen band I bought at Panduro , that very charmingly says "God Jul" (Merry Christmas). The socks are mounted on a wire decorated with small fake leaves, like lingonris - the small evergreen leafs from the sprigs of lingon. I think this plant is also called mountain cranberry, red whortleberry or cowberry in English.

Yes, in the photo above the number 6 is turned the wrong way. This was, of course, noticed, and I tried to argue that it was artistic to turn some numbers around, so as not have to unpick it and redo it. But my critics turned down my argument and simply said that it looked like a stupid mistake. So I turned it the right way.

Mother-and-Daughter-Activity

Is there a better way to spend a free Friday that visiting Syfestivalen at Älvsjömässan? A great hall full of everything you need to fulfill your creative dreams! Mother and I went together, and this is a great Mother-and-Daughter-Activity for a sewing mum and a knitting daughter.

I was totally amazed by what modern sewing-machines can do - my own machine (inherited from Mother) is a dinosaur in comparison!

I spent money on the lovely yarn from Huskroken, it was almost like buying candy! But I was a bit disappointed at the supply of yarn, I have expected to find much more tempting yarn of good quality.

I´m not very fond of sewing, but when I saw all the wonderful fabrics and the fantastic things people had made, I WAS tempted... However, I don´t have to sew myself - Mother does that for me! And we bought a skirt-pattern for a fabric I bought a long time ago and had great plans for, but has been laying sulking on a shelf for far to long. But now Mother will take the project in hand and I eagerly await my new skirt.

I´m not very fond of embroidery either, but when we looked at the wonderful things from Fingerfärda in Karlshamn, I couldn´t help myself and I bought the material to make a pincushion. Mother bought the material for the pillow on top and it will be interesting to see who finishes her project first... I bet it will be Mother!

On the way out we saw these fascinating felted creations. Unfortunately I forgot to note down the name of the artist.