Knitting Keeps Me Sane

10:

My paternal grandmother was born on the same date as Fidel Castro! Three years later, though. (August 13).


9:

I seem unable to interpret a very simple pattern. I have 11 repeats of the "Spiral Shawl" now?


8:

Lisa Souza's yarns are really wonderfull and very luscious. We visited a friend yesterday who has knit heaps of shawls with her yarns, and I was really in love! I will order some of her lace yarns soon.


7:

I saw kittens being born yesterday. Two little kittens, but we left the mother alone with her "human mother" to give birth to the rest of the kittens.


6:

Did I ever say how wonderfull Kauni Lace is? I continue to enjoy knitting the Spiral Shawl, even though it is tedious because the repeat consists of only one pattern row.


5:

My X had all my circulars. Now I know why i could only find stray circs for the last ½ year! I am so happy to have all my dear circulars back!


4:

The KnitPicks cirs are so sharp and pointy, and the cable is so soft with no memory! I absolutely need a 2mm, 2.5mm and a 3mm needle in a long lenght. How to get about those though? Knitpicks does not ship to Europe *cry*.


3:

I might need to make an order for a large quantity of thin wool from Heirloom Knitting for the Snowdrift Stole. I love this pattern, and I may have a chance to borrow it. I might also need to learn how to dye an ice blue colour :-)


2:

We will have my favourite food for dinner. Yum.


1:

I got fabric for curtains in my bedroom! Mostly for my large cupboard, which has no doors, but maybe also for the windows. I have 12 metres, 1½ metres wide. Should be enough, huh? Best of all, I only paid 35$ :-)

Actually, yes, my projects seem to grow with astonishing speed!

The Kauni Lace project is already past the specified pattern - meaning, Meg Swansen specified 8 ladders for one shawl and 10 for another - wanting a large shawl, I knit until two holes of the 10th ladder, only to discover that "10 ladders" mean "9 ladders and two holes of the 10th ladder while doing a fancy border pattern that is continued for another few rows". My shawl will be of the "11 ladders" variety... *grins*

No problem whatsoever though, I have plenty of yarn and there is still some knitting stamina left - plus the fact that I am knitting on 5mm instead of 6mm needles, making me feel the need for compensating for the small(er) needles.

I am also spinning on a present Karin from Esbjerg gave me - 300g blue, green and yellow dye ends. I am spinning them for a 3½mm needle, and want to knit an "Ariadnes Jacket" from Spring Spin-off out of it.

It is 6am and we are going to pick up my stuff from my X soon - yay!

Have a really nice day

Lene

Update: I got my stuff! If you knew my X you would know what a feat that is. I not only got my stuff, I also got an opportunity to get my X back - but eh no, rather be single :-).
Kauni has grown to the point of adding the edging. After enlarging the shawl again and again, I have now started the flower border before the edging.

Subject: I had such high hopes for the two of us.
To: Flax@Flaxoman.fo
From: Thisknitter@ISpinThis.dk

Dear Flax.

I recieved you for the lousy sum of 1$ to test how we would go along - usually I am not one to pay for such pleasures, but you were so alluring that I had to give in and succumb. Your stubborn brown-ness and interesting texture had me from the first moment we sat down together and started to spin a common thread.
We started out fine with a strong and durable relationship, much cherished and oohed over by other people who were near us, marveling at the pace at which we progressed.

Now, however, I think you have cooled down, as I cannot find the magnificent togetherness again that we shared yesterday. Not even adding soft, white wool to your coarse coolness helped - you are lying there in your brown-grey skein, laughing at me while I look at you, frustratedly tapping my fingers on the keyboard.

Why is it that you find pleasure in mocking me, Flax? I have done most everything I knew for you - I washed you, I carded you, spun you, plied you - while almost cutting off circulation in my fingers - and skeined you - I made you everything you are! Please reward me for all this work, please show me that you appreciate my doings - and spring like a butterfly out of your cocoon, show me what you want me to do.
I give up.


Please behave, or I think that you must learn to enjoy the hamsters companion - he needs new bedding!

Sincerely,

Lene.


PS: It is the lifelessnes of you that does it dear Flax - if you were just a tad more willing to bend and stretch yourself, I am sure we would have a very fulfilling relationship, with happy pictures of us two and all - you know you want it to happen, too!

We had a wonderfull time in the garden


Five wonderful ladies showed up to a six hour long spin-in, complete with a wonderful brunch where everyone had brought something good - one had baked bread, one brought fruit, one brought cheese and so on.

One did not come for the brunch, but she brought something really good too:




Unspun flax, a bag for one dollar!

She wanted to show us how to spin this - and it was really a blast. I learned to use water on your fingers, but it worked much better for me to work with dry fingers. It feels really weird thought when you spin it, because it has no spring and does not show the twist in it. I spun a 30 yard two ply skein, and marveled at it for the rest of the day :-)
The rest might get carded together with some regular sheeps wool (20/80) and spun into a sock weight yarn - maybe for a top or something else.



Single on a bobbin, flax



Last, but not least, Karin from Esbjerg was there too and she brought several things. She brought two presents - one for me and one for my mother - each containing around 300g wool dyed with blues, greens, yellows and turqoises. She dyed on two different colours of wool: White merino and natural grey merino. So rich, so pretty, and I am thinking it might become an "Ariadnes Jacket" from Spin-off (Summer 06? Maybe).
She also brought this mountain of wool:



Silks, wools, and alpaca.


She is a very skilled dyer, and her colours have a brilliance that I adore. Sadly, her prices are not exactly affordadble, so I only bought two 200g skeins of overdyed grey merino wool, not the same dye lot but quite close to each other. 400g is enough to make something substantial, but what? I dont know. I only know that petting it is quickly eating up my knitting time :-)


A good time was had by all, and the last ones left just a few minutes shy of six after having arrived before 11 in the morning. It was just too much fun to say goodbye at five already. To top it all off, IK arrived!! We all gushed and oohed and aahed over the magazine, the first one I have ever held in my hand.


I fell Head-Over-Heals in love with the "Wanderlust Hoodie", and almost cried when I discovered that it used 22 balls of a bulky yarn, to be knit with a 7.5mm needle! I had so hoped that it would feature a worsted yarn, enabling me to spin a yarn for it. Plus, that I am not ever going to knit myself a sweater out of yarn that bulky (again). I still love the idea of a cabled hoodie, and I love that cable pattern, but I do not feel up to changing the pattern. I am not at the size I want to be (yet, another 35 pounds to go), and my gauge is a story on its own, which is why I only knit shawls at the time being :-)

Shawls are so good as confidence builders. You need not worry about gauge, fudging is allowed, they look very complicated and people think you are a knitting whiz for completing such feats. I never tell them that they are less complicated than a pair of socks - Really, some shawls are just rectangles with a 4-row-repeat! Unless I want to encourage them to knit shawls themselves, of course :-)

Have a really nice day

Lene

The makers of Kauni also make other yarns - like a solid, 90% wool, 10% acrylic yarn, both in 300m/100g, and 300m/50g.


The softness and whiteness that it Kauni One-ply Lace


The yarn is very soft, almost merino-soft.
It is not plied very tightly, but seems to hold up well and I would not suspect it to begin to pill. Not that pilling is that common a problem with lace shawls, anyways :-)
It has a nice stitch definition, and "fills" in a pattern nicely, as I knit it on US8/5mm needles, but still it feels and looks good.
The colour does not get dirty easily, and the resulting fabric is a dream of softness. This is so nice to touch and look at, I am really in love :-)

Progress

I am at around 60 rounds of the shawl. That would be around half of the circumference needed before adding the (very wide) border. This is not enough to warrant a new picture, though.

It is so lovely, and I enjoy it so much to sit down outside and knit until late in the night here in the warm august nights :-)

have a really nice day

Lene

Back to the grind!

The "secret" project is finished and awaits a photographer and a really cute model now, since I think that it turned out so nicely, that maybe Knitty would want it?


I think I must have turned into a lace bug, since I dont seem to knit anything else - save for the occasional sock or felted bag.

Kauni Lace 7-spoke-shawl



This is from "A Gathering of Lace", and I am just knitting it because I want to knit the border - I love the border.

I wanted to buy real icelandic laceweight yarn, but 1) it was more expensive, and 2) I would have had to drive further for it, so I settled for a yarn from Kauni: 300m / 50 grams and with 10% acrylics mixed into it.

Pure white - yes - it is really an indulgence when you have not knit with something as pure and clean for a long time - even the rosebud was natural white, not white white.


Have a really nice day - I am still trying to recover from the nasty spammer, researching a "Fly Swatter" to implement in my skins etc., so I do not feel up to any long and complicated posts right now.

When I move into my new appartment in Løgumkloster, sept. 1, I hope to feel better and be able to provide both good content and some good techniques.

Have a really nice day.

Lene

Yes, Elizabeth Zimmerman. That I will do :-)


I took off to start a bike journey of around 250 km's, but got stopped a bit over midways (after 1½ days) because it started to rain, and the forecast only told about more and more rain in the coming days. *Crying smiley*


Well, but now I have time to knit on my little idea.. It is not that it is such a large thing - in fact, it is sized for a medium adult - but there is more knitting than one would expect anyhow.
I am way past the hardest stuff now (well... 12 rows or so), and it shapes up nicely.


Sneek peek


Oh! Sneaky Holes! What do they represent?

I also knitted a little felted bag that is at home, drying, and half a sock. Summer hiatus continues :)

Lene

In the past few days I have sat in the sun a lot, but also knitted a little. When I reached a fixed number of rows on my secret thingy,, I had to sit down and calculate the pattern very accurately - because, fudging is easy, but the less fudging you have to do the better the finished object


Thingy



I started lace! Oh!


I combined and changed some patterns I found in a source-book for the lace.
It was not easy, I can tell you! Maybe I should apply for a course on designing, because there must be an easier way than this hard and tedious drawing, redrawing and ripping out swatches.

Nevertheless, here is my chart!


Have a really nice day

Lene

Three years (so long already??) ago I visited the Faroe Islands with my scout group, for a two-week-long trip, with lots of fun and new discoveries.

Among other things, I discovered "Sirri", the only company on the Faroe Islands who sells genuine faroese yarn that looks and feels like the traditional yarn that was handspun for hundreds of years on the Faroe Islands, made with Faroese Wool, too.

On the first day in Torshavn, I discovered a Faroese Shawl for sale in one of the tourist places. I wanted it. I NEEDED it! I could afford it. But, when I wandered further into the city, I found "Sirri" and decided to photograph the shawl and buy enough yarn to knit one. How much is enough? I kept on buying the (extremely affordable) yarn, and ended up with 600 grams of a nice brown. (I needed 150. I sold/swopped the other skeins for nice yarn :-)
By chance, we met an aquintance from Denmark who is native to the Faroe islands, and who showed us the fabulous book, "Färöyar Bindingarmünstar". We bough it on the spot! Bought needles, and off we were, my mother and I.


This is not the topic I wanted to adress, but it is an introduction.


Spinning for a Faroese Shawl

As in all handicraft, the first you need, it to know what the finished product should be like.
A Faroese shawl is usually a sturdy and very practical garment, often lined (with another shawl, knit without lace pattern). It could also be very lightweight and delicate. This shawl, however, lies somewhere in the middle, needing a fine two-ply yarn, or a sturdy and thick-ish single.

What wool?
The Faroese wool is not merino-soft, nor is it scartchy, but it has a nice hand and semi-long staples. Shetland wool, Icelandic wool, even "sheep" (You know, the kind that has no race or heritage, and whose wool you get for free) would do well. If you can get your hand on Faroese wool, by all means, use it, but you would be hard pressed to find any wool that has been grown on the Faroese Islands, as they... *shudder*.. Throw it AWAY!!

Spinning Style:
Worsted. For a strong, non-pilly yarn you will need a worsted-style yarn spin quite finely and plied with medium twist. When saying you need a "fine, 2-ply yarn", my mind is thinking along the lines of "baby" yarn, or sock-weight.

Amount:
Try aiming for 1000 yards as you spin your yarn, but spinning-as-you-go is not bad, especially as I do not know exactly how much will be needed, yet.


Have a really nice day, everybody!

Lene

Nephew Socks


Remember the lone green sock a few entries back? Of course, I finished the second, and here they are:



One sock, two socks, now Nephew will not freeze at the current temperatures! (Not that he would otherwise, it is 30c+ in the shadow.

Lene :)

So here she is: Marianne I.

Why Marianne I?
Because I love the concept, I love the lacy cables, I love the picots and the hems, but I dont love the execution of Marianne (I). The sleeves are way long (And will be shortened... sigh), the armholes are too deep and not wide enough - meaning I should have decreased more of the body before decreasing away the sleeve, plus I carried the lace cables up too far. Even the body is way too long, because of the too-deep armholes.

I gathered a great deal of experience doing Marianne I, so I see a Marianne II somewhere in my future - with shorter sleeves, shorter body, better lace cables and more accurate decreasing.

'Nuff talk, I will show you the fruit of my labour!



See the sleeves... Never a cold hand anymore!.


Stats

Yarn: Evilla Grey/Green 6/2 yarn, from Wollsucht.de
Pattern: My own.
Time: June 24 - July 23, as I was not able to knit on it two weeks inbetween, so a bit less than two weeks with other projects inbetween.
Needles: Holz & Stein 4mm ebony needles, and Susanne's bamboo 4mm DPNs.
Thoughts: I might make another (Marianne II), and she will have many modifications. Mainly sleeves and shoulders. Yeah.


Have a really nice day :)

lene