Summer Rain

We have had a real thunderstorm the last two days: the rain has been bucketing down and thunder has been rolling across the sky. But no weather is bad knitting-weater and after all the sun and heat this summer has ooffered, it´s quite nice to snuggle up in the sofa with a cup of tea and the knitting. And a good book! At the moment I´m reading "The Little Stranger" (Adlibris-link) by Sarah Waters - it´s really good and I have difficulties putting it down.





The socks got finished pretty fast and I immediately cast on for a new par, now in green. I´m usually not very fond of knitting with cotton, but this yarn, Ateljé Huskrokens "Eko", is lovely to knit with. It has a nice shine and it`s a luxury to be able to just throw the socks in the washing-machine and wash them together with the rest of the laundry. Hand-washing is rather boring!

My Idea of Holiday

One of my goals with this holiday was to visit Bohusläns Museum and their exhibition of Bohus Stickning. The family thought it was utterly boring, but I was totaly amazed when I walked around and admired the sweaters and cardigans on display. The colours! The patterns!! Unfortunately I couldn´t take any photos, but I bought a book, "Bohus Stickning" by Ulla Häglund.





And I also bought a kit: "Stora Spetskragen" (Ravelry link). It happens to be the sweater on the cover of the book. I have wanted to knit this for a long time and it´s going to be so fun! This pattern was made by Karin Ivarsson in 1960.

Knitting by GPS or by Map?

The most important decision when going on a holiday, is -of course - what knitting to bring along. It must be something simple -yet interesting, something small - but it has to last the whole trip, and the yarn must be "travel-friendly" and not to sensitive. I settled on a pair of socks, Nancy Bush´s "Meida´s Socks" (Ravelry link). I have knitted this pattern before and it was a delightful pattern. The yarn is Ateljé Huskroken "Eko", ecological cotton. I bought it two years ago on a trip to Gotland.

My husband bought himself a new toy for this trip: a GPS. A bit surprizing, as we are both fond of reading maps and usually have no problems to find our way. This toy speaks with a female voice so we namned her UllaBella, and we soon got used to being ordered around. But we kept glancing at the map as well, to find funny-sounding names and interesting thing that may be worth a stop. The GPS actually was very good and always got us where we wanted to end up. And the polite voice never betrayed even a hint of irritation when we again and again left the planned route to explore something interesting.



On the E 6, going south towards Göteborg.

Go West!

The family and I are spending a week of our holiday in Bohuslän, on the west coast of Sweden. We have rented a cottage and have great plans including salt water, shrimps, visiting friends och crab-fishing - and I have a secret side-plan that includes knitting.On the way south-west we visited Läckö Castle, that dates from 1298. Every time I visit a castle like this I can´t help thinking about how hard life must have been for the people who lived there in "the good old days" and how cold it must have been during the winters. And in 1298 there where not any knitted things to help you keep warm.

I was very impressed by the garden!








When we arrived at Röe Gård and our cottage, we found out that our next door neighbours where a flock of sheep.

Mistakes Are Ok as Long as They Are New Mistakes

It´s probably a sign of mental instability to sit on the beach in +32 degrees Celsius and knit wollen mittens. Stranded woolen mittens. People were looking at me from the corner of their eyes, but politely they tried to pretend that wool on the sunniest day af the year is perfectly normal.

Blogging really gives one a great chans to show the world a perfect face: I could now pretend that when my mittens were finished, they were - well, mabye not perfect, but anyway a pair of perfectly good mittens. I looked at them and realized that something was very wrong. It took me several seconds to grasp what I saw: I had knit two left-hand mittens! How stupid can one get? It must be the heat!!

I absolutely didn´t want to rip one of the mittens and reknit it. The solution was to knit two right-hand mittens and so have two pairs. But I had no more yarn. So I ordered yarn - I´m crappy at all things with computers, but I´m very god at internet-shopping! The new yarn turned up in my postbox and the variation in colour was so big I had to abandon my idea.




Instead, I decided to just move the thumb! I snipped the approprate threds and set the thumb free. I made a new hole for the thumb and started to graft it back in, using one blue and one white thred of yarn, so as not to disturb the pattern. IF this had been a one-colour project everything would have turned out fine. BUT now I had to colours to deal with and I just couldn´t make it look good enough. It looked ok, but one could clearly see that something had happened with that mitten, somewhere around the thumb. So in the end I gave in, ripped and reknit, and ended up with a perfectly normal pair of mittens.

It was the first time I made this mistake, mistakes I have made and I guess I will go on making them, but as long as I make new ones, at least I won´t get bored.



This is the new Water Front Building in the middle of Stockholm, the City Hall is to the left. The picure was taken by my husband from my brother´s boat, the day before yesterday.

A walk in the garden

The peonies are in full bloom and in only a few short days their season will be over. Every year I´m so fascinated that those tight buds can turn into such magnificent flowers.

The Start

This is my own design, knitted in Rowan Pure Wool DK. The "Pippi Långstrump-sweater" or "Fisherman´s Sweater from Gotland" is a very old sweater. The sweater-type is mentioned by Carl von Linné 1741 when he visited Gotland and the island of Fårö. It´s still a very popular sweater, specially for children. A lot of knitting-patterns exists and you can see them knitted in wool or in cotton. This is my version, created a few years ago when my brother wanted me to knit him one. I knit them in a lot of different colours and the main colour is always white. The version with blue and white stripes is considered to be the "original".