Finished Last This Year

The last day of the year is here and we are preparing for the celebration of the new. I take a short break from the cooking to show the last finished item for 2011: a pin-cushion, made in a traditional style, on wool with wool.

I bought this as a kit more than a year ago, because I was quite keen to try this technique and actually needed a pin-cushion for my sewing-neeedles. I eagerly started, made half of it, was a bit displeased with my stitches, put it away and forgot about it.

I found it again yesterday and it only took a few hours to finish it, sew it together, fill it and: voilá - a new pin-cushion!

Earlier this year I bought the very inspiring book Yllebroderier (Adlibrislänk), a real must for anyone interested in traditional Swedish embroidery. It´s really fascination to see all the colours and fascination designs - and to send a thought to all those women who made all these stitches.

Now I have 30 minutes to cast on for a new project, before it´s time to make the dinner-table.

Socks

Two balls of Karisma, in a quite boring brown colour, suddenly found some pink leftover Svarta Fåret Raggsocksgarn and they decided that they should become something together. Some charts in a knitting book inspired a simple pattern and in only a few days time the union was completed: a pair of socks!

While knitting these I was constantly reminded of chocolate and strawberry ice-cream!

There was just enough brown yarn, I ended up with only two meters left and I´m very pleased that I managed to use up all of it. I think Karisma (from Drops) is a very nice sock-yarn: it´s pleasant to knit with and comes in a lot of nice colours. I have more of it in the stash and maby it´s time to cast on a new pair of socks...

Me = Great Fashion Designer!

During my blogging I have been wavering between writing in English or in Swedish - writing in English IS much harder, but it´s a good excercise. Yesterday, I decided first of all to go on blogging and then to write in Swedish. Almost as soon as I had posted, I got a request to write in English... So I will.

During the autumn I have been my own fashion designer. My mother came to me with a picture from a magazine and said she wanted a sweater like the one in the picture. It was designed by Stella McCartney (I doubt she knitted it herself). After having studied the picture, mum and I decided it was a piece of cake to knit something similar and I started looking for the right yarn.

And I found Rowan "Big Wool", that turned out to be expensive, yes, but absolutely wonderful to knit with. After some swatching and measuring, I cast on.


And this is how it turned out.

It´s knitted in the round up to the armpits. Mum wanted a short ribbing round the hems -I would have omitted that if I had knit the sweater for myself. I divided the work after the armpits and knitted the front and back separately back and forth. After a little shaping for the neck I knitted the sholders shut and picked up stitches for the sleeves. I knitted the sleeves in the round, shaped them a little and ended them with a short ribbing. Then I knitted the neck-ribbing and the whole sweater was wet-blocked. Yes, it took ages to dry!

Mum was very pleased with her sweater and maybe I have a great future ahead of me as a great fashion designer. But most likely not!

Länge sedan!

Det var ju länge sedan det skrevs något här: hösten har varit alldeles för full av arbete och sjukdom! Och när tiden och krafterna tryter gäller det ju att använda bådadera till det mest viktiga och alltså har jag hellre stickat än bloggat om stickning! Så det finns gott om nystickade saker att visa upp.

I år ville julstämningen inte riktigt infinna sig, jag som annars är en riktig julnörd. Inte ens julblommorna lockade och till julafton struntade jag i julstjärnor och amaryllisar och köpte mig en bukett snittblommor istället.

Dottern modifierade sitt halsduksönskemål till att vilja ha " en sådan där rund", en som fungerar som halsduk och som kan dras upp över huvudet när det blåser kallt. Jag har för mig att modellen kallades väpnarluva i min gröna ungdom.

Tre härvor Colinette gick det åt och mottagaren blev nöjd med resultatet. Själv tycker jag nog att färgerna inte var någon höjdare, men nu var det ju inte jag som skulle ståta i skapelsen.

Jag prövade en ny uppläggning av maskor denna gång, en slags stickad uppläggning som gav ett fast och bra resultat till kanten. Det första försöket med vanligt skoluppläggning blev för sladdrigt. Jag stickade två räta och två aviga som en tub och formade det hela litet för huvudet med litet kortvarv. En bit ner ökade jag så att den skulle passa om axlarna. Så maskade jag av och gjorde små uddar med jämna mellanrum med hjälp av en slags picot-avmaskning.