Summer

Heat is still on. There was a bit of a break beginning of the week, but now we're back in the mid-thirdy degrees.

Well, I guess that's why they call it summer.

I finished the socks for my mom.

I managed a pretty well matched pair and I like how they came out. The yarn is Regia World Color 'Paris' and the pattern is my own.

My mom wants some anti slipping protection, so I'm going to put some rubber stuff on the soles. Should be done soon, but with the weather as is, I doubt see needs them very soon.

I started already the next pair. Pattern here is called Calendula-Zopfsocken (yep, it's a German pattern) and the yarn is from online called Trend-collection Linie 1 Supersocke. I adore the color, which is a bit paler than in real life in the picture below.

I did also finish the Annis shawl, which was a nice and simple knit. Only, I do have the feeling I did something wrong. a) I used only about half the amount of yarn stated in the pattern and b) it does look much smaller than the other finished object in Ravelry.

I have no idea what I did wrong. I checked the pattern. Repeateably.

I'm also not happy about the color of the yarn (I do love the yarn itself - it is dreamingly soft). Currently, I'm thinking about dying the scarf either all in brown or in black.

There's no hurry though - I doubt I'm going to need a scarf/shawl in the near future.

I did mention it's hot, right?

Twinkle, twinkle

After seven years of service, I've decided to retire my old home computer and get a new one. The last week of my vacation and this weekend I worked hard on breaking it in (without breaking it). I even managed to get my old printer working (with a different driver, but who cares? It does print). There is still some software missing - not every thing that worked with my XP software is working with the new Windows 7 version.

But I'm getting there.

One thing that's driving me crazy is that I can't cut and paste pictures here in my blog as I was used to. I make do, but it used to be easier. No idea what the problem is, but the good old Ctrl+X followed by Ctrl+V doesn't work. I think the problem is the Ctrl+V as the pictures disappear all right after the first step. But they never show up again ...

Anyway, what was I saying?

Ah, right. I made some jewlery.

This bracelet is knitted after stringing about a million beads (okay, maybe not a million - the instruction says 1,650) onto a stretchy cord. The knitting part is rather quick, the beading part not so much ...

The yellow/red/gold one is more of a test balloon and it turned out a bit on the wide-ish side for my wrist.

The blue one contains some larger facetted beads as well as some large hearts.

Over pentacost I finished one pair of socks - pattern is Sam from the book 'Sock Innovation' by Cookie A. The cables were slowing down my knitting speed to a crawl, but, luckily, the foot part is all stocking stitch and went much faster.

The second pair I finished just today are Lacy Scallops Socks. I'm not particularly fond of the picot edge, but don't hate it so much I'll be ripping it up. The rest of the socks I love. I even managed an almost perfect matching pair.

Splish-Splash

Over the last year or so, I've felted several bags in my washing machine. In most cases it worked out quite well, even though my washing machine is a front-loader, while most people recommend to use a top-loader for felting (a top-loader gives one the chance to stop the whole process anytime you want to check on the felting progress, so you can stop whenever you deem the whole thing is just right. With a front-loader this is not exactly possible, but given that my washing machine is in the basement of my house and checking on it would mean I would need to run down 64 steps every single time, it's not very likely I would do it anyway)

Last time I used my washing machine for felting was a bit of a disaster due to lint blocking my drainage and me finding new and creative ways to get the water out of the machine that involved NOT flooding the room, so I decided I would like to try another way to felt my stuff. Originally I heard about hand-felting on the Yarn Harlot's blog, but she in turn reverences a Knitty article from 2007, so I'm going the same.

For my objects to felt, I choose a) three little entralac bags I've knitted a while ago with left over Noro Kureyon yarn and b) a pot holder I've knitted with a sock yarn I've heard rumor of that it might felt, even though it is supposed to be super wash (Sockenwolle 'Treviso' bought at a sale at Lidl). Either way - if it felts, or if it not felts - would be fine with me. I just need to know. So I knitted a smallish object that would work both ways, and threw it in with the bags.

When you hand-felt, you need a bucket, a plunger (a new one preferably), something place your bucket on so you don't damage your bath tub and some muscles.

I threw in the stuff I wanted to felt, some detergent and hot water, as hot as it comes from the tap.
Then I started to agitate it.


I timed myself with my kitchen timer, taking a break every 10 minutes or so. After some time, I moved the whole caboodle out to the balcony (we have perfect weather today and it would be a shame to waste it)

I'm not quite sure, but I would guess it took a good 30 min before the bags actually started to felt, but I kept going another 20 to 30 min after that before I decided I had enough.

I've learned two things from this:
Yes, the sock yarn I've bought does felt.
Here's a before and after picture:


(I freaking love that holder and will certainly knit a partner to it)

And hand-felting can be fun, though it is nothing for the impatient.

Decision Time

As I had six of the sixteen balls of yarn left after finishing the Mondo Sweater (well, let's say I thought I was done with it, but more about that later) I returned those back to where I bought them.
I came back home with thirteen balls of 'Borkum', a cotton / linen mix by Wolle Rödel (a chain of yarn stores that has a couple of house brands)

The question is, what to do with this yarn.

I've been thinking about a short sleeved cardigan for the summer and had a list of about eight patterns I liked. I've now narrowed it down to three options.
1) Tappan Zee, a free pattern from the last edition of Knitty
2) Ditto from the Berroco webside
3) Drops 118-17 from - obviously - Drops Garnstudio

At the moment Ditto is the most likely candidate. I do also like the Tappan Zee a lot, but I'm not so sure the yarn would work so well with it (the example in the pattern is knitted with a wool/silk mix) .
I did knit up a gauge swatch and it came out with 20.5 stitches to 10 cm which is fairly close to the gauge asked for in the pattern.

The Mondo Caple pullover was finished last week and I did actually wear it on Friday, but then decided that I don't like the basic shape (a slight A-line) so I ripped everything up to the height of the chest and restarted with a bit more waist shaping. I hope this works out.

To keep my mood up I did knit a small shawl as a gift for a friend of mine. The pattern is called 'Traveling Woman' by Liz Abinante. It is a hugely popular (and free) pattern on Raverly and I knitted it in Heritage Paints yarn by Cascade Yarn in a green colorway.

Love the yarn, love the pattern and love the finished object (it's still blocking right now)

Finally, the obligatory update on Nefertiti
It's moving along rather well, I think.

Careful What You Wish For

Well, the snow is gone. Most of it at least. There are still splotches of it here and there where there used to be piles of it. Though, next week, the forecast is for the temps to be below freezing again. I will guess winter is not beaten yet.

New socks:


Pattern is called 'Pyroclastic' and can be found on Knitty (where else?). I seriously love them. The foot part is a bit unusual in such they are knitted with a bias, but it makes for a great fit.
I liked that idea so much, I started with a second pair like this, though this time just with a simple 3-3 rib.

One sock's done and I'm working on the second one right now.

Other than socks I've started on 'Daybreak' a semicircle shaped shawl using some Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball (in red / brown / orange) together with some of the lace weight Icelandic wool I've bought last year. I think it's a pretty good match.

Upper and Lower

It's snowing. Again.
So far it's been a very cold winter, though, to be honest, I don't mind. A) I like the snow, it's pretty, and B) I've got plenty of knitting to keep me warm.

Like my newest hat.

The pattern for this Beret is called Meret as it used to be a Mystery Beret. Now, luckily, the pattern is available for free. It was a very fast knit (two movies).
The yarn is some really old stash yarn I got in Holland ages ago. There's a golden threat running through the yarn, which adds a little bit of umph.

Also, the second 2010 pair of socks is finished.
Remember my experiment in dying in October (--> link) ?
I finally knitted some socks with this yarn and I love the color. Only ... it's not colorfast - my hands were always green after knitting. I tried a trick to fix that I've found on Ravelry, but I might have lost some of the definition in the colors now.
Ah well, it's still a pair of nice green socks.

From the leftovers I had after knitting the big squared bag (--> and another link) I've knitting up a smaller bag, but still need to felt it and decide which handles I'm going to us.


And I've already got the next sock on the needles, Angee from Cookie A's book Sock Innovations.

Not very far along right now, but I've sadly managed to break two of my beloved 2mm Knit Pro dpns (stupid me that one). Luckily I've got a bamboo set as well, so I was able to continue.

Hail the Irish

Sock pair no. 1 for 2010. The pattern is called 'Die Grüne Insel' (the green isle) and can be found in the book 'Socken aus aller Welt' by Stephanie van der Linden
I've used Regia hand-dye yarn for the green and I like the effect of if a lot. The black was a close call - in fact I did run out of it on the toe of the second sock, but luckily I found a small left over in a different project, so I didn't even need to buy more.

I've made progress on the Central Park Hoodie, but am currently thinking about ripping it up and knitting it a again on a smaller needle. The problem is that I like the feel of it before washing, but after washing the yarn loosens up a bit and I'm not overly fond of the drape of it. I think a smaller needle size could change the problem.

A New Start

One of the pattern I've been wanting to knit for quite a while now is the Central Park Hoodie. It is an immensely popular pattern, especially if one considers it's not free. Currently over 3000 people on Ravelry have knitted this cardigan up and almost 5000 more have it queued with the intention to knit it up one day.
I did queue it a year ago, but it took me forever to decide on the yarn I'm going to use. As I'm not living in the US, most of the substitutes are not really doable for me, and I wasn't really happy with the options I have here. Now, finally, I've decided on a yarn called 'Lord' by Lana Grossa and using the last of my vouchers from my birthday, I didn't even crinch too much about the money.

The pattern knits up fast, and I finished the back already. After washing and blocking it did grew a bit, though I have yet to see how it will behave after drying.

My current interest in jigsaw puzzles had me dig up an older puzzle I've bought years ago with the intention to give it to Bill one day. As this is not going to happen now, I've decided to put it together myself. It was quite tricky and I did curse a few times, but eventually I managed to put all 1.000 pieces where they belonged.

At the moment I'm working on figuring out how to get is up on my wall. I think I've got just the perfect spot for it....

Statistics

I hope everybody had a good start into 2010.

It has been a rather productive year, knitting wise at least. I just counted my finish projects and am quite impressed by myself.

socks - 10 pairs
potholders - 6 pairs
bags - 6 (5 of them felted)
shawl / scarfs - 5
pullovers / vests / cardigans - 5
mittens / gloves - 3
hats - 2
toys - 3

Obviously, I don't need to worry about cold feet and burning my fingers on hot pots shouldn't be a problem, except I didn't keep any of the potholders for myself (most of the socks stayed with me, though)

2010 already saw two finished projects.

The mittered stripes back was finished knitting in 2009, but the sewing together and the felting was done in 2010. I did block it using old video cassettes which worked great and I'm very happy to see it does stand up on it's own. I does shed a bit, still, though.
The felting made it shrink by 10 ~ 15%. I would have liked a bit more, but ah well.

The gloves are 100% a 2010 product. I *did* start on the 31st, but had to rib everything up again.


The turned out to be rather small, but they are perfect for me. As it snowed today, maybe they will so some action today already.

Other than that, my mom got me back onto jigsaw puzzles.


This 500 pieces puzzle was fairly easy, but now I'm on another one that's somewhat harder.

In Memory

Sorry, this is going to be a rather somber post with very little knitting in it. I'll stick the finished knitted item at the end (it's only one), so, if you're not interested in me lament, just scroll down until you see the picture.

Okay (I'm taking a deep breath here)

This year in October a good friend of me passed away. I learned about it only a few weeks later, as his wife had trouble tracking me down (all the contact information was on his computer and she couldn't get into it). His death was very suddenly, caused by blood clots in his lungs and there was no real warning (his wife should know - she's a doctor). I had no warning, though I thought it was a bit strange that he hadn't answered my last two e-mails. Usually he was very prompt about it, but I figured he was away traveling without any internet access (it happened before, but usually he sent me a warning he would be out of touch for a bit).
I came back from my trip from Florida in November when there was a message on my answering machine from Ann with the bad news. It took me another three days to get hold of her in return. So, now the plan is for my to go to Alaska next May for a memorial service and to scatter his ashes over Denali National Park as to his wishes. Bill loved Alaska and I think it is the right thing to do.
I've met Bill August 1993. I was a student at this time and took part in a work and travel program which allowed me to work for two months in the US. It was my very first time in America and, thinking back, I believe I was a bit naive. I knew about Bill before the trip - he was at that time maybe the biggest distributor of fanzines in the US and I had bought stuff from him before. I remember I contacted him and asked him if he would mind for me to come by his house and meet him. Obviously he didn't mind and he picked me up a the train station In East Lansing, Michigan. He told me he would be easy to spot as he was almost seven feet tall. He also brought two of his border collies and Skylass and I were love at first side. Afterwards, Bill always said, Sky was my dog, even if she was in the US and I was in Europe.
Originally, I had planned to stay only a few days (I didn't want to be a bother), but Bill and Ann insisted that I stayed two weeks. He introduced my to some new series I hadn't known before and Ann's cooking was to die for.
After that we never really lost contact, though sometimes there was a month or two we didn't write. We went on vacations together as Ann, as a doctor, didn't have the time for it. London, Scotland, Germany, several trips to the US, and, of course, New Zealand. Very good memories there and tons of pictures.


After Michigan, Bill and Ann moved to Ohio, but Bill's dream always had been to live in Alaska. Finally, Ann found a job there and they moved maybe four or five years ago to Kechikan. Eventually, they ended up in Kenai, south of Anchorage, and where in the process of buying a house there, when it happened.
Bill was a very generous soul and very sharing. He had a wicked sense of humor. He loved music and movies. He was a very willing recipient half a dozen of my stitching projects and I have a few more I had planned for him. In Alaska Bill had taken up fotographie and had taken some fantastic pictures.


Since I've learned of his passing, there was never a day I didn't think of him for some reason, was it because I saw something that reminded me of him and because of something I thought he would be interested in.
I miss him!


So, okay, some much for the morbid part. I needed to get that off my chest.
Christmas has come and gone. There were not many presents - we have the deal among the adults not to make any and I very fine with that as it cuts down on the pre-Christmas craziness.

I did a bit of knitting and made an hat for my youngest nephew (who's going to be nine in February) from the left over yarn from the pullover I've made for him.
I designed it myself and have no clue if he'll ever going to wear it. I just think it's a funny little hat.


Happy New Year to everyone.

Snow Day

When I woke up this morning, we had snow. Yeah, winter has arrived. My guess is, it's gone by christmas....

All three projects I've had in the works two weeks ago have been completed.

The Schokobaktus made with Schoppelwolle Zauberball in the color 'Schokocreme'
I was a bit too careful on the halfway point, and now have a good 20g of the yarn left, even after using some of it to make two tassels.


The flower trim bag also went pretty well.
The pattern didn't make any mention of lining the bag, but I decided to do so anyway and found the absolutely friggin' perfect fabric for it.


The sewing took at least as long as the knitting (at least it felt like it), but it was very much worth it.


Third project was the hat heel socks. I finished them, and they fit perfectly, but I don't know if I really would ever make a second pair. They are nice enough, but the method is a bit too fiddly for my taste.

Off course I've already have something new on the needle. This here is the start for the mitred stripes tote. The first scare ended up at a solid 40 by 40 cm, though it will shrink a bit once I throw it into the washing machine for the felting.


I don't know, though, if I get a lot of knitting time in next week - the new Zelda game came out last week, so there's a bit of the distraction.

Listening to Knitting

Last year in July I bought an ipod. I used to have a different mp3 player before and was okay with it, but eventually I decided to upgrade and enter the world domination of Apple. Not that I don't like my ipod, I do and I love that I actually can play little movies, but what had put me off for the longest time was that for using an ipod, you also have to use itunes, which I was rather opposed before.
But what makes it all worth (at least to me) is that opportunity to download podcasts, and though I started rather late actually doing so, I'm now hooked.
(and, yes, I know, you don't really need itunes and an ipod to listening to podcasts ...)
It all started when I knew I had to spend 8 to 10 hours sitting in a plane on my flight to the US. There was a discussion on Ravelry at this time about the best knitting podcasts, and two which had been recommended were 'Electric Sheep' by Hoxton Handmade and 'Cast On'. 'Electric Sheep' is currently on episode 30 and 'Cast On' has a whooping 88 parts already. This is a lot. Though I listened to and enjoyed only two episodes of 'Cast On' so far, I'm now on episode 21 of 'Electric Sheep' and my plan is to keep on listing until I get them all.
Interesting enough, 'Electric Sheep' isn't so much about knitting. Hoxton Handmade usually starts out with an essay on whatever topic that comes to mind (something having something to do with knitting, but sometimes not) and then goes on things that caught her attention, may it be knit wise or not. She does have a lovely English accent, which is something I really enjoy listening to. She talks alot about what's currently going in and around London, and though I have no chance to go to all the places she recomments, I still enjoy hearing about it. There are clearly worse ways to spend have an hour knitting each week.

Speaking of knitting. I'm currently working on several things.
A) is a very popular scarf on Ravelry called 'Baktus'. The idea is to knit in plain garter stitch (every row is knitted), increasing on one side every fourth row. By the time you have knitted half your yarn (determined by weight) you start to decrease every fourth row, making sure that you pretty much use up all your yarn and have none, or rather little, of it left once you done. I think this is a brilliant idea as my stash of left over yarn is occupying a rather large box in my work room with no idea what to make with it.


I'm using a Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball for this pattern, which I split in two smaller ball in order to make stripes. It doesn't quite work out as strippy as I'd hoped, as the dark colors and the light colors seem to like to group together, but after ripping the whole thing to that point once already, I decided not to care. I've just hit the half way point at 80 stitches and am now on the decreasing.

Project B is the 'Flower Trim Bag' from a little book I've bought in the US, 'Stitch Style Bags'.

(that picture is ...ehr, borrowed from here)
I'm doing it in the recommened yarns and it's breezing along fabulously. Only downside, as this bag is not felted, I will need to line it somehow, and I'll need to find out how.
There are two more pattern in that book I really like.

Last, but not least, is a pair of socks I'm working on. I've knitted socks cuff down (my normal modus operanti), toe up, even sideways, but this is the first time I'm knitting one heel out. The pattern is called 'Hat Heel' and can be found here.


I actually finished the first sock, but then discovered that I misplaced my printout of the pattern, so I had to print it out once again.
It really is a very nice fit, and the bright, strippy yarn makes it look interesting.

200

Yeah, this is my 200th post here.

*throwing confetti into the air*

I've started blogging about 3 years ago. My idea was to show of my stitching (which was at that time my primary hobby) and give my family and friends an opportunity to take part on what I'm doing when I don't see them. Due to my job I do travel a lot, so I do see them not quite as often as I would like.
I finished quite a few stitching projects in the mean time; travelled to Japan, Scotland, Iceland and the USA; switched my focus from stitching to knitting; bought a new, really nice, Nikon camera and really enjoyed to sit down once per week and let everybody in to my life.
One positive side effect from this whole blogging business is that when I try to remember when I work on one thing or another, I only need to go to my blog and check out when I wrote about it.

This week I've finished a new pullover, and just in time. I did snow in Dresden on Thursday, something I didn't figure on when I packed on Sunday, so the fact that I had something extra to wear was very, very good

The pattern is Margot, from the last Knitty, the yarn is called Soft-Merino from Wolle Rödel. I love the color of that yarn and am quite happy on how the pullover turned out. I haven't washed it yet, and hope it's not expanding - this would not be good. I've got one ball of yarn left, and right now I'm thinking about making the pullover a little bit longer, but I'll wait for the after washing to decide.

My mom asked for a winter hat, so I quickly made one
This pattern is called Coronet and is also from Knitty. My mom's request was for the yarn to be machine washable, which it is. I quite like the result.

I'm Done!!!

After a good 18 months, I've finally finished my Great American (Aran) Afghan.


I used two booklets from 'Knitter's Magazine', one, The Great American Aran Afghan and, two, The Great American Afghan. The first books has the pattern for 24 squares and the other has 25 squares. In the end I've picked 24 squares total, a wild mix and match from both books.

For the border I've sort of made up my own thing, though the braid is based in part on one of the existing squares. It was six meters of that border and in the end I really had to force myself to push on to finish it. But the result was so worth it!


The afghan is a wooping 2.05 meters by 1.45 meters large.

I bought in the beginning 37 balls of the yarn I've used and I used every single one of them. I've got maybe half of one ball left, so I couldn't be any happier.

Even though it was a rather long project (though, of course, I didn't work on it continuesly) I really enjoyed it. There was a lot of different styles and ideas to try out and I learned a lot of different techniques. Some squares have been knit from inside out or outside in, diagonally across or in stripes and then joined again on the go. Some have been plain cables, others are more visual (I'm quite fond of the crab or the fish). There was entrelac, ablique, acorns and trees, bobbles and leaves. Some turned out bigger than planed, some had to be blocked within a inch of their lives to fit (more or less)
Each square contains some fond memories for one reason or another and (except for the border) it really never got boring.

I know it's not a perfect afghan and I wouldn't win any prizes with it, but I loved doing it and I love having it.

(and I found out that taking pictures of something mostly just off white is a pain ... sorry for the bad quality)

The Fun Of Throwing Things Into The Washing Machine

Step 1: knit a swatch (18 stitches, 25 rows)

Step 2: throw swatch into washing machine
The top part is the original swatches. Left side is some unspun Icelandic wool (held double) I've bought in a super market in Reykjavik, on the right is Cascade 220

Step 3: admire how much the swatches have shrunk

Step 4: knit a bag

The pattern is the French Market Bag from Knitty Winter 2003

Step 5: throw bag into washing machine

Step 6: drink something strong, or pray - whatever works for you

Step 7: admire how lovely the newly felted bag looks


Step 8: put yarn for your next project into bag

New Socks

I'm not a big fan of stranded (fair-isle) knitting. Whenever two colors come into play I have a problem. But once in a while a pattern comes my way that I like so much I have no choice but to knit it, and my fear of stranded knitting be damned.

One such pattern is this one:

It's called Route 66 and is in the book 'Socken aus aller Welt' (socks from around the world) by Stephanie van der Linden. Stephanie has a lot of really nice sock designs, and her book really got me in to the mood for sock knitting again.

Another sock (singular as in ONE sock) also started out as one of her patterns names 'Metropole der Mode'. This is a sideway constructed sock and as I saw she used some new approaches (well, some I haven't seen so far) I though to give it a shot.
I didn't like it a bit. For once, the sock was way too big (like five sizes too big). The leg part was super long, and due to the nature of the beast, the cuff is so tight it would hang around my ankle most times. Still, I like some of her ideas, and decided to combine her pattern with another pattern from another book, namely the 'Two-yarn resoleable socks' from the 'Favorite Socks' book.


So, I started out knitting sideways, and when I reached the part where the heel starts I left the foot stitches resting and knitted only the leg part. This leads to a slightly deformed 'L' shape in the end. I then closed the leg to form a tube and picked up the stitched for the heel. I did a standard turned heel and then started to knit the sole, joining it with the upper foot as I reached the end of each row. In the end I knitted the normal toe and also knitted the cuff.


I do like the sock - sort of.
The foot fits perfectly and I really like how the colors go with this.
What I hate is the fitting of the leg - the cuff is so tight, it's hard to believe I got it as high in the photo shoot as I got. If I do this again (and I might ...) I do it even shorter, at least another 10 stitches. But for now I leave it at rest and won't knit a second one in this color ... the yarn has already gone on to another project ;)

Yesterday the newest knitty came online and I fell in love with a pullover there: Margot. Simple, classic ... I bought already wool for it.