Wedding Day

Yesterday was a great day! The weather gods had all united and spread sunshine over my big litte brother J:s wedding to his beautiful (and intelligent, nice, sporty and fun) A. Of course I strongly remembered my own wedding, almost nine years ago, in the same church: Ekerö kyrka.
Weddings are such nice festivities: to meet up with family and friends to celebrate two persons decision to live their lives together. And although we all know that life will have it´s ups and downs, it´s good times and less jolly days, we for one day can dream that these two will live happily ever after.

The wedding bouquet.

I spent a fortune have my hair done for this special occasion, and it was so worth it! If I should happed to become extremely rich - just like that! - I would have my own hairdresser to come and fix my hair every morning. Well, it´s a good thing dreams are free!

The only draw-back with at day like this, is that there was absolutely no time for knitting. A whole day without a singe stitch!

I´m The Mad Hatter

A new hat is finished and this time it´s my own "design". A simple "double-cable" pattern.

This was a quick project, to get rid of some old yarn. But of course there wasn´t enough yarn, I had to buy a new ball to get the few meters I needed to finish the hat. But what use is a to small hat?

While the hat is blocking in the afternoon sun, I sit here and wonder about what to do with the leftover Eskimo Print. Mabye a hat... I´m the Mad Hatter!

Hat-ting Along!

The second Unoriginal hat took about three hours to knit - this must be the knitting-equivalence of a 100 meter race! It turned out so much better than I had dared to hope for, and I got the highest praise a knitting mother can get when my daughter asked if she could have it.



And it seems that "hat-season" isn´t far away. Meteorologically it´s still summer, but actually the autumn is here! The leafs has lost the greenest of their green, some has started to turn to more autumnly colours and the air has suddenly a different scent. The scent of autumn. Most of my freinds are desperately clinging to the remains of summer, but I´m an autumn- and winter person. Now I long for the cold and darkness! It´s wool-weather!

So I swatched for a new hat, this time an idea of my own. Just a simple cable-pattern. I used some leftover Eskimo - leftover small balls of yarn are excellent to swatch with, don´t throw them away! With not so bulky yarn and thinner needles, this hat won´t be really that quick, it will probably take two evenings to finish.

This actually looks like a broken foot with a plaster on. But it is a half finished cotton-sock out of the yarn Tilda. Not really a great yarn, but it will do for a simple sock. After having knitted with the bulky yarn Spray and 7 mm needles, it felt very strange to turn to thin cotton-yarn and 2 mm needles. But I need excitement and variation in my life - and knitting is exciting and varying!

Fast Food - No! Fast Hat - Yes!

For someone who hates to be photographed and watch herself on photo as much as I do, it was a bit bizarre to spend the morning with the camera in hand, photographing myself. And some of the photos turned out quite bizarre indeed! But a newly knitted hat is, of course, best displayed on a head, and the only head available at the moment was my own. And so, here it is: my version of the Unoriginal Hat!




I´m fond of the yarn "Spray" from Rowan, and I think it´s a pity it´s discontinued. I would have liked to use it again, it´s a nice "hat-yarn".

The hat was a very quick knit, it didn´t take more than a few hours! I knit it at the desk in front of the computer, because I don´t have a printer at home. The pattern was good - I didn´t feel the need to make any changes to it. Exept that not beeing on good terms with dubble-pointed needles, I used circulars.

Now it needs some blocking, and then it´s ready for winter.

I found some more "Spray" hidden in the dept of my yarn store, it´s half a ball of this pink and half a ball of blue. Neither of them is enough for a hat, but mabye a two-coloured hat could be something? I feel a deep urge to use up these last remains of this yarn. If someone complains about the colour-combination, I can always state that it´s supposed to be artistic!

They Have Decided...

Suddenly two balls of yarn, left-over from long finished projects, decided that they also wanted to turn into something. They have been lying in the stash for ages, looking sulky and not wanting to cooperate in any way. But waiting can be a very fruitful thing, ideas ripen with time, and when the time is right great things can be made! Well, if you thing hats are great things, that is. Because that´s what these balls of yarn wants to be: hats! And why not?

This is some Drops Eskimo, that I once knit a poncho from. I have to improvize a pattern for it, and I´m thinking something with cables...

This ball of Rowan Spray was bought on a sale and and was left over when it´s siblings turned into a cardigan. But now this ball wants to be an Unoriginal Hat, pattern by The YarnHarlot. Well, the yarn has made up it´s mind, so all I can do is to reach for the needles and cast on!

Blue and White

The week so far has been spent on mittens, more "Snowflake" in Létt-Lopi. And this time I very carefully knit one right-hand mitt and one left-hand!


Since the two pairs of Snowflake´s I have knitted turned out rather small, I´m planning to make a bigger version. Yesterday evening I sat with pen and paper and played with different shapes.
And today at work, it wasn´t easy to keep my mind on the things on my desk. My thoughts turned quite "wooly" time after time.

I found some more yarn in blue and white, some cotton/acrylic that I bought eons ago for some project long forgotten. These balls of yarn clearly needs to be turned into a pair of socks with a little nice lace cuff. This will also be an excellent travel-project to work on the way to and from work.

Last Monday school was closed so the children and I went to Skansen . We spent the day looking at all the animals and the wonderful houses, gathered from alaround Sweden. This old city-street I find absolutely charming!

Swatching

This weekend was not only spent weaving in loose ends, I took some breakes from the darning-needle and did some swatching. For a long time I thought swatching was a extremely boring thing to do, but in later years I have changed my mind. Swatching is a great way to quickly try out a new idea or to learn new technicalities, without starting up a whole new project. Sometimes I just have to deal with a new idea immediately and then a few rows with some scrap-yarn will do the trick.


I´m thinking about a pair of cabled socks and wanted to start them with a k2 p2-tubular cast-on. So I turned to the wonderful reasource: The Net, and found a tutorial by Ysolda. The tutorial was very good and I had no problems to follow it. However, I was not very pleased with the result, I just couldn´t get the edge to look tidy enough. I tried in two different sorts of yarn, and here is one of the results:



It actually looks better here than it does in reality.

Then I tried this and was much more pleased. The yarn is some leftover Rowan "Calmer". I´m thinking about some lovely aran-weight wool for these socks.

Sissinghurst

Slowly it has growed in my mind, that I´m actually a "vest-person". Often knitted cardigans and pullovers are to hot to wear in a modern central-heated world, both at home and at the office. But at the same time I need something to protect me from the evil draugths that suddenly sneek upon me and result in ace in shoulders and neck. So why not wear a west?

And when I found "Sissinghurst" (Ravelry link) in Rowan 46, I was "sold" and decided that this vest was going to be part of my autumn wardrobe.


I went with the suggested coulors in the pattern, quite unusual for me, but I really liked this combination. But why knit this in two pieces, when knitting in the round would save me so many lose ends to weave in? (There are enough loose ends as it is!). I started with a tubular cast on, to get an edge that looks so much more "worked". The vest looks like it´s been knitted stranded, but in fact every round is knit in just one colour and the effect comes from lifted stitches.


When the back was finished, I had to try the whole thing in Miss Lizzy, my trusted knitting companion. Well, she doesn´t knit herself, of course, but she has a great understanding of knitting. The only thing I have against her is that although whe have the same body measurements, she still have a better figure than I!

At this moment I have actually reached still a little further, I have now only the upper right front left. And circa 3 million ends to weave in... I spent two hours yesterday evening watching tv and dealing with loose ends. There are far to many left! My only solace is that had I not knitted in the round, there would have been even more ends to deal with.

I now could pretend once more that I´m a prefect knitter that never makes any mistakes. However, far to many vitnesses exists that can tell you otherwize, my husband is one of them. "Are you ripping AGAIN, whats wrong this time?" I have a secret fear that the things I knit will turn out to small, which often has resulted in thing being to big. While knitting on this vest, I heard a small voice in my head telling me: "It´s to big, it´s WAY to big!!". When I had knitted 30 cm AND dealt with the loose ends on that part, I tried the thing on, and it was waaay to big! I sulked over this for a few days. But a knitter´s got to do what a knitter´s got to do, so I ripped and reknit. Now the result looks good on Miss Lizzy, at least.

Now, where is that darning needle...

Knitterly Mail

A few days ago there was an interesting parcel in the mail-box. Adressed to me! It contained blue and white wool, champagne-scented black tea and a pair of very cute socks. Thank you very much, Lolla!


And today there was another parcel in the mail, to me! It was new knitting-needles that I had ordered from Torgstenen. I´m really impressed by the fast delivery! I have been knitting for over thirty years, without think much about the needles I knitted with. A lot of my needles are inhereted from my mother and my grandmothers. But a few years ago my arms started to trouble me and I realized that some needles where better to knit with than others. And KnitPick´s Harmony Wood are a real treat for the hands!

I admit I tried KnitPick´s Harmony Wood just because they where beautiful. But the turned out to be my absolute favourites, and now I have decided to exchange all my needles to Harmony Wood. I started with the circular ones and now I have turned to the straights. It´s really wonderful to knit with really good needles, and after all those years with rather crappy needles I feel I deserve new ones.

Yarn and Tea - Swap

When I saw that StickaMera was organizing a yarn and tea-swap, I had to sign up for it. On Saturday I posted my parcel containing the above. I hope that the person who recieves it will like it. Now I eagerly awaits my own parcel! It´s nice to get something else than bills in the mail-box.

I´m going to spend the rest of the evening planning Christmas socks...

Green Socks and Roses

Sometimes I need to knit the same pattern more than once, just to get it out of my system. After the blue pair of Meida´s socks, I immediately cast on for a new pair, now in green. It´s the same lovely yarn, Huskrokens Eko. This is actually the third time I knit this pattern and I like it very much.

A nice thing when summer draws to an end and autumn awaits around the corner, is the sales in garden centers. The rose to the left was a bargain, only SEK 30. It´s a Floribunda; "Frau Astrid Späth". Welcome in my garden, Frau Späth! Someone (me) will plant you any day now.

Then I had three small balls of Eko Cotton left, 96 gram in three different colours. I felt a deep need to use up as much as possible of it, so I cast on for a pair of "left-over socks". A small lace cuff instead of a leg and then I just continued in a basic sock-foot. I´m very pleased with them, and they are also a personal record for me: they took only two days to knit.

With the beginning of autumn in the air, I now turn to wool.

A Nice Payment

I looked after my neighbours tomatoes for a week, while the neighbours went to Gotland on holiday. When they returned, I was paid for my diligence in a lovely skein of grey wool from Gotlands Spinneri. The skein is now lying in my yarn-store, trying to find out what it wants to be knit into. I have more of this yarn, in i darker grey, and maybe they want to be stranded together in some interesting pattern.