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.

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.