Swatch of the Week

For a long time I have felt the urge to swatch more, to try a lot of interesting things and techniqualities. The book "Knitting Brioche" induced me to grab a ball of leftover yarn and a pair of needles and after a few hours I had this swatch: ...and had learnt five new things! The basic patent-stich (or brioche-stitch) I was already familiar with, but p. 25 in the book deals with how to knit the edges, if one is not using a selvedge stitch. It´s not very visible in these photos, but the edges came out very neat and nice.

On p. 46 I found instructions for spreading out increases over several rows and I increased first to the left and then to the right. The right-sided increases were a bit tricky and I´m not sure I got them absolutely right. At the same time I tried the two-stitch decreases spread over several rows, as described on p. 50 - 53.

The yarn I used was RYC Silk Wool Dk, 50% merino, 50% silk - a very nice yarn!

It´s the time of year for tulips, one of my absolute favorite flowers! Alverbäcks, the lokal tulip grower, has started to climate-compensate their tulips, and then it must be almost my duty to buy them!

Long Coat I

A few days ago I bought a lot if white "Eskimo" and cast on for the Long Coat from "Fitted Knits". I use needles 10 and 8 mm and knit the purl-rows with the 8 mm needle to ge a more even knitting. My swatch was perfectly even, but a project like this really shows the difference between a small swatch and a much bigger piece. The coat is knitted from the top down and I like the thought of minimal finishing-work when the knitting is done. Just weave in the loose ends and block!

I made a provisional cast-on, hence the blue yarn, so that I can use the live stiches for the lace-edge later.

Thick yarn and big needles makes this a very quick knit! It didn´t take long to get this far. The only drawback so far is that the yarn is fluffing a lot; when I put the knitting down I´m covered with white fluff. Wearing this coat will take some planning: I must make a mental note not to wear it over dark things!

Time to put it back on the needles and carry on!

Longing for Spring

Three skeins of green "Kalinka" from Karin Öberg suddenly made me long for spring and I got a vision of a nice scarf, a lacy scarf, to wear when the light and warmth has returned. Leafing through my lacier knitting-books, I found the "Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf" in Nancy Bush´s "Knitted Lace of Estonia".

I cast on and knitted a few rows. I ripped them out, because something was not quite right. I re-knitted. And re-ripped. And admired my effort. And discovered that things were not very wrong, but not exactly right either. So I ripped. And reknit. Then I had a long thought about if someone else than me would really notice that the knitted edge still was not totally right. Then I decided that it wouldn´t matter if someone else noticed anything at all: I would know the edge was faulty and it would irritate me every time I used it. So I re-ripped. And re-knit.

The Patent Stitch

The first stitch I learned - after the knit and the purl, of course - was the brioche-stitch, or as I prefer to call it: the patent-stitch (patentstickning). I have mainly used it for scarves, but once I knitted a whole sweater in patent-stitch. Some days ago, I found this book:

"Knitting Brioche" by Nancy Marchant. At first I thought it an overkill to write a whole book about one singe stitch, but then I got curioius and ordered the book. It arrived yesterday (trust Adlibris to deliver fast!) and I had a really pleasant time looking through it. The patent-stitch actually IS worthy of a whole own book: there is soo much one can do with it! It´s an excellent stitch for double-sided things and for playing with colours.

The book is very informative with a lot of pages containing technique shown in clear colour-photos. There is also patterns for a lot of projects: hats, mittens, scarves, sweaters... I´m really keen to grab a pair of needels and some yarn and cast on for a swatch. Suddenly there are so many things I just have to try. This book is a really good addition to the knitting-library!


This is something I knitted over ten years ago, a very over-sized scarf or a small blanket. I used the patent-stitch and different lovely yarns from Rowan. I keep it at work and use it those days when the heating is not working very well.

Growing Bohus

My Bohus has been resting during the autumn and spent it`s time adorning Miss Lizzy, my trusting partner in wooly experiments. But during the holidays I put it back on the needles again and spent some time knitting a lot of knit stitches in black.

Actually, it has been growing faster than I had dared to hope and I soon got down to arm-pit level and had to put the work on a thread again to be able to try it on. Putting all of those stiches on a thread - and then back on the needles again - is boring work, but very necessary! The only way to see if the sweater is going to fit, is to try it on.

I´m not following the pattern any more, true to my habit I knit it in the round and not back an forth as the pattern suggests. Knitting in the round have three great advantages: I can try it on during the process, knitting only knit stitches gives a very even fabric and -best of all!- I don´t have to sew anything!

The Bohus is now back on Miss Lizzy and I´m knitting other things while I try to make up my mind whether the 18 stitches I have cast on under each arm are too many... I want this sweater to be quite close-fitting. Another point to consider is wheather sleeves should be full length or three-quarter. However that last decision can wait for a while, but the fate of the 36 stitches needs to be delt with soon, if I´m going to get anywhere with this sweater.

Socks Norwegian Style

A good basic sock-pattern and a good basic yarn (Drops Karisma) is the starting point for creative knitting.

Starting New Things

A collegue at work has been wearing a very nice knitted poncho several times this autumn and I have spent several minutes studying it to find out how it was knitted. Actually it is quite a simple construction, a long rectangle sewn together to form a poncho.

Using some purple Istex Lodband I cast on for a poncho of my own. It has lace-edge on one side, I found it in "Victorian Lace Today", in the pattern "Scarf with Striped Border on p. 80.

Colourful

These are some of the wrist-warmers I have been knitting during the autumn. Playing with colour and yarn, using the pattern "Mrs Beeton"(Knitty-link), one of my favourites! The yarn is also a favourite: Rowan´s Pure Wool Dk.

New Year New Project

New Years Day is one of the best days of the year, a totally lazy day when there is nothing that needs to be done. Tomorrow is working-day - but that´s far away in the future. Today is a cold and gray day, just made for knitting and drinking tea.

Ever since I bought the book "Fitted Knits" I have been looking at the long coat with a chevron lace border. Today the temptation become to great and I started pondering about what yarn to use, found some white "Eskimo" in the stash and started on a swatch.

Soon it was finished. I knit it with needles size 9 and 10 mm; since I knit the purl-rows looser than the knit-rows, I knit the purl-rows with a size smaller needles to get a more even result. This time I got the right tension at the first try.

Now I have to decide the colour for my coat. And I thought: how about thinking different this time and not go for the same colours I always choose, like black, gray, white or pink? How about bright red? Or green?