Knitting Keeps Me Sane

I must admit; I am a human, and as such I often give promises that I forget to keep. It is a veery long time ago that I promised the ladys in the Spind og Strik gruppe to show my Kiri that was modified into a Kirland shawl when I got bored with the stockinette leaves and decided to put in a shetland lace motif. One row of large holes (dewdrops) and a Madeira motif, and also putting in a little flower (those are cropping up everywhere I can use my imagination) to help me fade out the leaves and not just stop them abruptly.
Excuse the messy photo. It is a wonderfull dark blue in real life, but it isnt a large shawl, it is a small shawl. A shoulder-shawl, if you so want.



Here is another shawl I never ever got around to show even though I had promised it oh-o-much:



The Mystery Stole. It has a nice little story behind its creation, showing, that even though you do not always know to goal when you start your jorney, it might be more than you ever imagined.

My parents took two three-weeks vacations together last year, alone, a thing they havent done for many many years, and which we had all encouraged them to do. My mother left her fiber stash at home... Lonely and unguarded! Sneekily I dug into it and found a really large bag of uncarded, unwashed brown alpaca, stuck my sneeky hand into it and took out a very tiny little small handfull of alpaca. I spun it up very thinly on my lace weight flyer, and when finished I had three skeins of laceweight alpaca.. but what to do with them? They were lovely variegated with the natural colour of the Alpaca that donated the fleece, and plied together without trying to preserve colour changes or anything.
I saw a link to a "Mystery Stole Knit Along" (The original inspiration for the Mystery Shawls Knitalongs etc), and really wanted to join. What yarn, what yarn to use? Oohh, the alpaca! So I sat down to knit it, keeping it with me everywhere I went and sometimes sitting in front of the computer for hours, waiting for new clues to come.

I finished as the first! Woohoo! This most lovely alpaca stole is my most cherished handspun and handknit object. This picture does not at all justify the suble colour hanges, nor does it show the fineness of the 2-ply yarn, or the sheer wonderfull chest-nut colour of the yarn, but it documents that I did indeed knit it... for what it is worth *sigh*

Oohh, and em?



Happy guessing :-)

Prepare for a lenghty post full of happy babbling and pictures!

Around 4 this evening I went over to my grandparents and unpinned my shawl which had suffered under a quite imperfect blocking:



I couldnt wait to try it out, and danced around with it all evening before it finally occurred to me that it might be a good idea to take a picture before it got all dark, considering I'd promised Em a modeled picture today.



This was the first picture (that I could remotely accept), but sadly it came out blurry (unnoticeable in the extreme shrinkification that happened here)



The next picture I could approve: Still blurry, but it shows the "Cosy Factor", oh how I love this shawl... and watch out for the next picture of HUGE SHAWLNESS:



I am serious. I weight 200 pounds and stand 6"1' tall. This is larger than I am.
If I laid down with it over me I could probably cover myself from chin to toe with it. I think the correct word for describing its size would be "Look at all that acreage!". In the picture it even goes down to my knees even though it is bunched up a bit around my neck.

Last picture for today:


This is my mothers nose and my charming nephew, Erik! I finally got a picture of him in his new sweaters, luckily enough because after this picture was taken he vomited on it. Hmmmm.

Take care of yourselves,
Lene


PS: I went CANDY SHOPPING today for ye Em, I hope ye like.. uhm.. what was it again I was going to send? *oogles shopping bag* Hmm.. I could always send ye the toilet paper and keep the candy!

There is no picture to show today of Pi.
Why?

Because she has left the time of being "Wip" and morphed into a beautifull "FO"! She is still cocooning on my grandparents floor, all wet and bedrazzled, but I am sure that tomorrow it will be able to unfold its perfectly colour-aligned wings, shake the border that took exactly one colour repeat to make (exactly!! This excites me so) and fly upon my shoulders to warm and comfort me forever more.

She is, measured while blocking, 190 cm or 74 inches large. This is not exceptionally large, but I knit her on 6's using 165 rows and 17 st. border which are not exceptionally many rows, but a quick calculation tells me that I have knit:
71848 stitches. That's a lot... :-)

December 25, 2005, Erik was born! He is my first nephew and the first child in our family since my little sister.

First, I made him a blankie:

He loves it, and that makes me insanely happy.

I also made a sweater for him:


I will try to snap a picture of him in it later today. I hope very much that he will like it!

As the last one for today, there is a Pirate Hat that I made after having seen the "We call them Pirates" hat. I thought that the skulls looked a bit too 'angry' for my taste, and besides, I wanted a really silly and really warm hat. I havent yet decided if I want to add earflaps, but for what it's worth, I made up this cheerfull skull hat!


I do plan on stuffing the top so that it will stand up like a point! :-)

Lene

Despite the obstacles I did run into yesterday, I did pick out a new edging pattern - a very simple and small one, because at this gauge even a 15-st-border is 'large'. I am not a fan of too large shawl border.

This morning I cast on and started to knit:



Six houts later, this is what I have:


32 repeats out of 121½, roundabout.

Now excuse me, while I run around the house and try to photograph everything I can find that I have ever made...

PS: The next picture shows the beautifull flower in the middle (for which I cleaned my room just to find the book!)

I did knit up to the 165 rows on the Kauni Pi Shawl today, but we were at a little workshop offering felting, and I hadnt brought the pattern I had chosen for edging (I really thought I had packed it, but I hadnt.)

I chose the "English Lace" Here.

EDIT: I started knitting it on, and was very pleased with myself until I had completed two reports: The edging what charted backwards! I was knitting the pointed edging onto the shawl while the plain side was pointed outwards. I might have been able to see that it was backwards had I not been half asleep, but really... who would chart an edging with pattern rows on the wrong side? I think I need to E-mail Sarah Bradberry from Knitting-and.com to ask her what mare rid her, and if she is going to correct the chart... But I'll be nice ;-) After I have slept on it!

I was a bit crafty today and cut, polished and laquered a piece of coconut to make a "hair thing" out of it. It is quite large, and will fit nicely with my chestnut coloured hair when it is done.

Tomorrow I will take a picture of my shawl with a bit of edging :-)

Take care of yourselves,

Lene

This:


Is now at round 153 of 165! After that, I will add a border in the round and it will be Fi-Ni-Shed.

I found a nice blog yesterday (The Yarn Miracle), and oohh, she was hosting a Lornas Lace Contest! I tried to bribe her into letting me win, but we've settled on swapping some yarn, I will send her Kauni, and in return I recieve 4 skeins of this:


Lornas Laces in "Shadow", Sport Weight, 4 skeins :-)

I am very pleased!

Do you know Jeanettes Rare Yarns?

This a fabulous E-bay store that sells Rowan, Jaeger, Debbie Bliss etc.
Mostly British, but also a few european brands - but all luxury yarns for an affordable price. A few days ago I was surfing around trying NOT to be tempted, when I happened upon her store, remembering the three balls of KSH I bought there with FREE shipping (They are a "Kiri with modifications" now).

Long story short, I could not resist the 1-kg-bag of Jaeger Shetland for 45$! She has plenty of ones for 55$ too, in many beautifull colours, but I am 1) a cheapskate and 2) very fond of the colour the cheapest pack came in.

This picture is very close to the real colour:



Yummm Jaeger for Samus

PS: My hand isnt small and lumpy. It's the angle that does it.

It is not all knitting, all the time over here.

I actually own a *gasp* sewing machine, that gets a little work-out every once in a while. In January my favorite Fabric Store Chain had a nice sale, and because I had seeen a pattern that looked like it might be modified into a beautifull sweater, I bought 2 colours of fleece and two very different kinds of bands. The salesperson highly doubted that those colours and bands EVER would get along, not to mention that the width of one was way wider than stated in the pattern. It would _never_ work, besides the fact that the pattern didnt come in my size.

Maybe it wouldnt work for making a hoodie strictly from the pattern, but this:



Was everything I could ever have asked for.

Note that I _am_ losing weight, and the picture really isnt flattering - that is why the sun rose right as we took the picture. What a coincidence, isnt it?

Call me proud :-)

That must be the shortest EZ quote to ever have been quoted, and honestly, it is really longer, but I didnt dare to write half a chapter up there.

But indeed, it is Pi that has made it possible for me to knit this fabulous object (and a half-sister in two shades of blue that went to live with a Secret Pal that dropped off the face of earth.. sob). Elizabeth Zimmermann was the one who thought of using Pi in knitting too to create a circle, and here I am using it for a shawl. The formula goes: Cast on 9 stitches, knit a round, double the stitches, knit three rounds, double the stitches, knit 6 rounds, double the stitches, and on you go, doubling the row count and stitch count. This means that in every new section you will knit as many stitches as you have knit in all previous sections together.
I am at the final section that has 96 rows - should I chose to knit them all - and knitting at row 30. There will be a final knitted-on border, but I have yet to decide on
1) a pattern, and
2) yarn. Will I use the self-striping, or chose a solid from Kauni?

The patterns in the shawl are from the inside out: A generic six-petalled flower I kinda use in all my make-up lace patterns; a "Shetland Fern" that I stole from the "Shetland Tea Shawl" in "A Gathering of Lace", the large flower is from "Knitter's Almanac" and is EZ's own original design, and the outermost pattern is simply a zig-zag pattern I am devising myself.

The blue shawl I knit two years ago followed EZ's pattern to a T until I reached the last section where I also used a zig-zagging pattern, and finished with a 15-st-garter-st-border. I had calculated it very closely and ended with 5 yards of yarn left :-)

The yarn is something called "Kauni", which comes from Estland. It is part of the ever-growing group of yarns with colourchanges like Noro, but without the price tag.

You can get Kauni at Wollsucht.de, where they also carry Karen Noe Ombré, Rellana, Opal yarns and Villa/Rewool.
Aint I (un)lucky that she lives next town and will pull out her yarn for visitors too? Man, finally it has its yarny advantages to live in Germany!




It is a bit more muted in RL, and I dont know what mare rid me when I decided to use rainbow yarn! It does feel scratchy when in the skein, but when it is knit up and eventually washed it is soft - not cotton/merino-soft, but wool-soft.

Have a nice day.

Because the Cam Cable is Lost somewhere in this house, I thought I could come with a Meme until I can show off a fabulous sewn item and a fabulous WIP!

Google your name and "needs" in quotation marks, and see what Google can come up with.

Apparently, Lene needs:


...a new buddy!

...to settle down so hunny man can get some sleep

...a back up incase her babies or computer get a virus!

...a diet

...to take a nap

...your help

... much stronger acidic density than in aldol con-. densation.

... A New toy

...gerber memorial

...aupair from: 06/2004

... contact lense exam and topics

Apparently I also need a Jump-o-Lene!

Next post: Links to fabulous yarn, and a WIP of said yarn.