Knitting Keeps Me Sane

...I got super-fresh hunny, and it tastes so good!

That is exactly what I got, as we always buy our honey from a local honey-producer, and he came with the 40 pounds we ordered this year today. He even included four pounds of super-fresh honey that was made last week as a courtesy.

I just had two pieces of dark bread with this incredibly rich and sweet honey, a mix of everything good that blooms around here. This is a "Farmers Honey", nothing fancy and tastes best fresh on black bread without butter. Just perfect.

Oh, there is also some sleevage to be seen:


Honey... yumm... and the beginning of a sleeve. The pattern drives me batty with only 2 stitches in one "arm" of the cable!

I continue to enjoy this sweater and the yarn. The shawl project which is in the coming will be made of Evilla or Kauni yarn, but which one of the 4 colourways I have, will be the victim?


I think the rainbow will bite the dust with large needles and simple garter st., to make room for some fabulous new colours.

The blue-purple? The new green/blue/lilac/pink? The Deep Sea (in front)? Maybe even the leftovers from the Rainbow Pi? (I have two almost-repeats of that left over *grins*).

Have a really nice day with whatever nice products of the nature you chose to enjoy it with :)

Lene

Grey-Green Sweaters

(Does anybody have a good idea for a name? I am at a loss).
Knitting commences on this little thing, it seems as though i am on a knitting kick, 35cm/13.7" done already and it seems as though I can power through the body today.
Then I will cast on sleeves, with picot-edgings and customably designed sleeve-cables. When both sleeves are long enough for a seam-less yoke, I will decide on the upper-body solution of choice.


Such nice, subdued colours


Custom self-designed front chart along with the sleeve chart that will grow as the sleeve progresses - note that the "legs" of the cables are 3 stitches wide in the front cable, and only 2 stitches wide on the sleeve.

This sweater is no doll sweater, but it is indeed a 41" sweater. Some too small for me right now, but it is an incentive, just as the hideous pictures of me and Rosebud are, so I will power on with the weight-loss.

Rosebud

I really want to show pictures of Rosebud, but after finally finding out how to add pictures from this computer, I realise that not one of the pictures I have taken are "Good Enough". Not good enough for a "FO" Picture, at least.


Shawl-corner as photographed while blocking on a twin bed


Have a nice day

Lene

PS: This is not The End Of Shawls! Another one is in the coming.

I am not leaving until Monday, but Samus is finished already. I hand-sewed the zippper in because I was so afraid that stitching it with the machine would look ugly and show on the right side.
It still doesent look like in the pattern picture, but it is my first zipper and it works. Even my grandmother, who worked with knitting machines in her work life, approved of it, even though it seems I made a mistake with the top of the zipper.. some folding issue.

I'm not ripping it out ;-)



I asked my mother to model it for me, and she did! :-)

Here is a back weiv:



All I need to do is to pack it into some pretty paper, tie a bow around it and get it to Taiwan!

This pattern is really a nice one, and I recommend it highly to all who would like to knit a cute cardigan :)

Have a nice day

Lene

My SIL conjured a zipper for me!
It is just like I wanted it, now I just want to know why it has "60" printed all over the plastic cover when it *should* be a 50cm one....

Have a nice night

Lene

I had the perfect zipper for Samus all ready while I was knitting it. An off-white one with large plastic teeth, just like i had envisioned it. I thought the lenght was right because I had held it up against the font a few times.

Sadly, when Samus was washed the zipper was 1" too long! I was not going to try and stretch the fronts, because my mother and grandmother both told me that the jacket would pucker like mad if I did that (Imagine... this is my first time setting in a zipper!).

I went looking in mothers zipper-stash and found a red one in just the right lenght and quality. I think I proved my "weird sense of colour" here, because fire-truck-red and lavender-purple seemed like a good combination to me. (But to me, petrol/brown/pink is a real winner, too, as is burgundy/silver/ice blue...).

I had the red zipper all ready to sew in when my mother horrifiedly told me to take that one out a bit quickly. This means that I have to go looking for a zipper all over again. I hope to find one in Flensburg today, but havent set my hopes too high because the one place where I for sure know I could get one is a bit out of the way. Otherwise I will have to wait for thursday when we are in Haderslev (Oldest brother, SIL and my sister are riding, I watch them and my mother takes care of Nephew).

I hope I will get this done in time - and why not, it shouldnt take all that long to sew in a zipper, right? :-)

Have a nice day

Lene

Samus is Fi-Ni-Sh-Ed!

In my Big Book of Knitting there was talk of "Mattress Stitch", which I sat down and tried to figure out for the sleeves - cuff and setting in, as I knit the stockinette part in the round. It worked moderately well on the (cable-patterned) cuff, and fabulously when setting in the sleeves.



I tried to take away the mattress it is blocking on, moderately successfull. The little puckers in the middle are pins to ensure the fronts do not roll into little sausages.

As soon as I have put the zipper in, I will ask my mother to model it. The zipper is a Fire-truck-red one I unearthed in her zipper stash - I tihnk it will look just a bit cheeky :-)
My mothers arms are a tad too long for the sleeves, but it will do.
I know that if my friend does not like the sweater, my mother will block the sleeves longer and claim it for herself. Another thing I know: all the agnozing over "too small" and knitting the body longer were moot, because it will be plenty big. Mother-size... oops...

Here is a cave-at:

Do not go looking for a knitting tote! You will find so many incredible ones that they will try to make your head explode.

I fell in love with this bag at a baby store: Oilily Bag, but cringed at the price tag - 85$!

Then I followed a link to a Jean Greenhove toy knits book, and in the sellers other items found this bag crying out to me.

Now I was helplessly hooked. I found this red bag which entranced me (except for the butt-ugly large measure tape on the outside, ewww!). Too bad the seller only ships to the UK- I am sure I could have ripped off the ugly tape measure.

Furthermore, then a pesky e-bay seller puts this vintage bag up for sale.

Such pretty bags. All do not seem to be for me. Be creative... think... think...

Yes! Sewing Machine!

Now, it would not be the first time I've tried wrestling a one such, so I sought out a few nice fabrics, thinking I could use a dowel for handle like Ive seen a few times. Ebay yielded this and this fabrics... Oh yes, I am a sucker for shiny patterned fabrics!

But on the bottom line, I think I will have to make do with a fabric from my aunts quilt store and some dovels - at least my bag will be totally unique then... :-)


Have a really nice day.

Lene

Did anyone notice the white sweater that was bottom-most in the other post? Huh? Nobody?
I thought so... ;-)

Because it deserves its own post, I give it now.


Wumse's Semi-Aran



Pattern: From the Ingelise Magazine, October 2004 Issue.

Yarn: Jill Natural Tweed, which is a 100% wool, superwash yarn, in natural white with flecks of what I believe is shredded brown, peach and black yarn. The sweater linked to below the yarn is one my mother knit for my little brother... in the same yarn. We have amassed quite a bunch of it now... :-) (The yarn is cheaper in 10-packs, she bought 2, I bought 2, she used 16 balls and I used 14 - both well below estimated amount ;)

Time used: I gave it to him as a christmas present in '04, and remember finishing it december 19. Two months would be a safe assumption - I had others projects going too.

Needles: Standard grey coated metal needles, in 4mm/6US

Notes on the pattern: I made the body longer, wider, and the sleves wider too. I might not have needed too, but it was not a bad decision since Wumse has, uhm, gained some weight since its completion, and even though it grew quite a lot with washing it is still nice and he uses it a lot.


My experience: It was nice to knit this sweater, but it was written for knitting it in parts - eg knit the back and front seperately, and knit the sleeves flat. I didnt want to knit it in pieces, after all it was a RAGLAN! It was not hard to convert it to round knitting, and I was so proud of me when I did the neck shaping with short rows :-) ¨

Fun trivia: I had had the intention of knitting an Aran for him for quite some time and incidentally bought a ball of the same yarn in my quest for an "Aran Yarn" (it is a DK weight) with an affordable price tag, knit a heavily cabled doll sweater vest with it, loves it and bought the 20 balls of yarn. I took a "Celtic Pattern Book" down from the shelf and decided on knitting the back in "Rice Stitch". I cast on 150 stitches, knit 4 inches rib and 3 inches Rice Stitch, examined it closer and decided: 1) I love this, 2) It is growing to be ridiculously large and 3) It eats yarn for breakfast, I might not have enough by far. I showed it to my mother who exclaimed that she 1) Loved it, 2) thought it was ridiculously large, and 3) would eat up my yarn long before I finished.
What is a woman to do in that situation? Rip, sulk, and smile when her friend calls her a few days later telling her he found a sweater he wants! I was even more delighted when I saw it used the same yarn I already had a buttload of!

Have a nice day, I think I must go down and knit :-)

Lene