August Days

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Hello! It’s good to see you! August is almost at an end and I hope it’s been a good month for you. I wanted it to be a slow, quiet month, but how to slow down in your everyday environment when life just sort of goes on? What I basically did differently from the rest of the year was that I didn’t go anywhere in the evenings (easy when everyone is away), stayed at or close to home most of the time, lowered the bar (quite a bit) and spent as little time as possible online (not so easy). This gave me the breathing space I craved.

There is very little to show you of my uneventful days. One of the simple things I enjoyed was picking a bunch of sweet peas every other day.

There were several days that stood out between all the quiet ones, like the days we looked after our grandson, and the day a friend’s 12-year-old daughter came to learn how to bake sourdough bread and pizza.

And then there was the day we visited our niece who is a student in Nijmegen, a big city on the river Waal.

Well, Nijmegen fits about five times into Amsterdam, but it’s a big city to me. Large parts of the inner city were bombed in 1944, so most of the buildings are relatively new.

But there are some lovely old parts left, too.

We had lunch at a Swedish lunchroom, visited a fabulous bookshop, did some more shopping…

… and almost bumped into this fascinating dress (or is it a separate crocheted top and knit skirt?):

Oh, a yarn shop! I didn’t know there was one here. I took a quick look round and can tell you that it’s worth a visit if you’re ever in Nijmegen. The right kind of tools and notions, plus the most exquisite wool, cotton, hand-dyed, silk, paper, yak and alpaca yarns.

I have been knitting, but not nearly as much as I thought I would. On the whole, August weather is not really knitting weather. I did finish my Land Yndlingskofte, though. That is, I finished the knitting. Now I need to pluck up the courage to cut the steek.

I also knit a pair of men’s socks size huge. The brief was: as simple as possible in a dark colour. Boring? Not at all – to me it’s been meditative and very enjoyable.

For a sweater for our grandson I knit some swatches. When I chose the yarn, I thought I’d simply improvise something, but it’s not all that simple. There are so many decisions to make. Top-down or bottom-up? Knit flat or in the round? What stitch pattern(s)? How to distribute the two colours? Neckline? Set-in sleeves, raglan, yoke? Etc. etc. etc.

Summer is my least favourite season and I’m longing for cooler days with softer light. It’s still warm while I’m writing this, but the first signs of autumn are here.

After this slow month of August, I feel energized and am full of plans for things to do, make, read and write about. This is what I hope to share with you next week:

How has August been for you? Did you go anywhere? Or did you stay at home? Has it been very hot where you live? Or perhaps you live in the southern hemisphere and it’s been wet and chilly? Have you been knitting, sewing or otherwise making things? I’d love to hear from you and hope to see you again next week!

Slow August – Sewing Lavender Sachets

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Hello! I hope you’re well and enjoying this month of August. Last week, some days were too hot and muggy here for knitting and I sewed some lavender sachets instead. They are more like little cushions in three different sizes tied together with ribbon. If you’d like to make something similar, here is what you’ll need and how to make them.

For a set of three sachets you’ll need:

  • Small pieces of cotton (quilting) fabric
  • 85 cm (33½”) ribbon, 6 mm – 1 cm (¼ – ½”) wide
  • Approx. 35 g dried lavender
  • Sewing machine (or you could hand sew them)
  • Scissors
  • Teaspoon
  • Sewing thread in colours of fabrics
  • Sewing needle
  • Pins

Step-by-step instructions:

1) Cut 6 fabric squares, 2 each measuring 13 x 13 cm, 11 x 11 cm and 9 x 9 cm (5 x 5”, 4¼ x 4¼” and 3½ x 3½”).

2) Sew with right sides together, leaving a 4 – 5 cm (1½ – 2”) turning-and-filling gap.

3) Trim corners.

4) Turn outside out and carefully push out corners.

5) Fill with lavender. (Or for someone who doesn’t like lavender, use rose petals. You’ll only need 25 g, as rose petals are more voluminous. Lavender is moth-repellent, rose petals are not.)

6) Close gap using invisible stitches, or (as I did) a visible whip stitch, so that the sachets can easily be opened and refilled later.

7) Place on top of each other and tie together with ribbon. And voilà!

Repeat steps 1 – 7 until you have enough sachets to keep the moths away from your woolly sweaters and shawls, and to scent your underwear and bed linen. And then make some more to give away to your daughter, grandchild, (grand)mother, sister, friend, colleague, neighbour, cousin, knitting-group host, another friend…

Slow August – Heather Cycling Tour

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Hello! The heather is in bloom. It is cloudy, but with no rain forecast and just a light breeze it’s an ideal day for a cycling tour. Would you like to come along?

Ah, I see you’ve brought your own lunch, thermos and snacks. Perfect! I have a bicycle exactly the right size for you so hop on! I hope you don’t mind that I’m not very talkative today.

Lunchtime!

Rested? Let’s get back on our bikes for the second half.

Back home!

Wel, it isn’t my home or yours, but it’s somebody’s home. Wouldn’t you love to be able to time-travel back to 1813 and spend a day here when the house was new?

We covered 35 kilometres today. I hope you enjoyed the ride and hope to see you again soon!

Slow August – Yarn

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Hello! Today it’s all about yarn – a subject that I’m fairly sure will speak to all of you knitters out there.

“Yarn is essential to us as paint is to the artist, flour to the baker, soil to the gardener. We can improvise on most of the tools, tying string into a stitch marker, sanding down a bamboo chopstick in a pinch. But without yarn, our hands are idle.”
– Clara Parkes in A Stash of One’s Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting Go of Yarn (New York: Abrams, 2017, p.7)

I am slowly sifting through my yarns, petting and organizing them. Here are some of them. Organic everyday yarn on my needles…

Traditional Norwegian yarn with a plan…

Yarn dyed by a dyer living nearby, purchased recently without a plan (something I rarely do anymore)…

Merino singles yarn in four shades of blue for which a plan is beginning to form – a gift from one of my best friends dyed by herself…

Ordinary sock yarn for two pairs of everyday socks for my beloved everyday companion…

Luxurious cashmere yarn, very affordable if you buy mill ends (leftovers), that has lived under our roof for over a decade and I hope to knit up into a luscious lace shawl someday…

Golden brown sock yarn made with a very humble fibre…

Yarn worth its weight in gold if you count the hours it’s taken me to make it – mohair from a local goat breeder that I washed, combed and carded, blended on my drum carder together with some merino and silk someone didn’t want anymore, and then spun and plied. To dye or not to dye, that is the question…

I do have (considerably) more yarn than this, but maybe not quite as much as Kay Gardiner, who calls herself a minimalist and writes about her yarn: “Yarn to the rafters. Yarn in my closet. Yarn in everyone else’s closet. Yarn in the enamel-over-steel covered roasting pan that only gets used at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Shopping bags of yarn that I have to step over every night to draw the blinds in my bedroom.”
– Kay Gardiner, “The Minimalist Speaks”, p. 57 in the same book as above.

The essays in A Stash of one’s Own are fun and often thought-provoking. Here is one last quote: “… I’ve learned that not all collections are created equal. There are acceptable things to collect and those that are less so. […] It’s been my experience that a bountiful yarn stash is perceived as a distinct indication you are slightly nutty and lack restraint.” Anna Maltz, “Morning Yarn / Portable Stories”, p. 81.

Nutty or not, I treasure my yarn collection. To me, it is beautiful, comforting and inspiring in and of itself.

Slow August – Welly Path

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Hello! Come and walk the Welly Path with me today. For most of the year wellies are essential, but in high summer other sturdy shoes are fine, too. As I promised last week, I’ll keep quiet so that you can hear the wind whispering in the reeds, the reed warblers warbling and the insects humming. Be prepared to ferry yourself across several waterways and enjoy the walk!

The Welly Path starts and ends at this visitor centre:

Slowing down for August

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Hello! Almost August. All schools are closed. Many people are away on holiday or will be going soon. And even more people have come to spend their summer holidays here, cycling and canoeing, sailing and sightseeing. We’re not going anywhere (having already had a holiday in May), but I do feel the need to slow down a bit. Usually I’m buzzing about like a bee, but in August, I’d like to be more like a snail, taking things slow and withdrawing into my shell from time to time.

That doesn’t mean I won’t be here, on my blog, but it does mean that my posts will take on a different shape. Maybe I’ll send you a few ‘postcards’. Maybe I’ll take you along on an outing. Maybe I’ll have some knitting or other crafts inspiration to share. I don’t know yet, but I’m fairly sure my August posts will involve fewer words. Today’s post will still be an ordinary chatty one,  though, with some knitting, two books and a few other small things.

My Lang Yndlingskofte is growing nicely.

Only the yoke has colourwork in it – the rest is just plain stocking stitch. So there’s room for some more Norwegian colourwork alongside. I already have the idea and yarn for that and can start swatching.

Speaking of swatching, I’ve knit a couple of swatches using Ístex Léttlopi. I’ve never used it before because it feels rather, ehm, rustic on the skein. I very much want to like it, though, because it comes in so many beautiful colours, is an ideal weight for warm winter sweaters and because it comes from Iceland. But won’t it be terribly scratchy? Will I be able to wear it at all?

After knitting and washing the swatches, it feels considerably softer. Not supersoft, but maybe just about soft enough to wear. Should I give it a try and use it for a sweater? Have you ever used it? What do you think?

The pink sweet peas next to the swatches were a thank-you gift from my knitting student’s garden. Aren’t they gorgeous? In our last lesson before the summer break, she finished the wedding ring cushion she’s been knitting for her sister’s upcoming wedding. For the scalloped edges she also had to learn to crochet – a steep learning curve, but she did it! Before the ceremony, the wedding rings will be fastened to the cushion with the ribbon tied in a bow.

The cushion measures approximately 14 x 14 cm/5½ x 5½ in. We substituted a mercerized cotton for the silk yarn used in the pattern, and an improvised scalloped edging for the pattern’s simple one.

The pattern is from Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders: 101 Small Indulgences (Storey Publishing 2008, Ed. Judith Durant). The book can be found here on Ravelry. There is a whole series of these One-Skein Wonders books (Designer, Lace, Sock-yarn One-Skein Wonders etc.) and each one is filled with great ideas for small gifts.

While knitting on the Norwegian Lang Yndlingskofte I’ve also been reading a Norwegian novel – The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas (NO: Is-slottet; NL: Het ijspaleis). It is about two young girls: outgoing and popular Siss and quiet and withdrawn Unn. Shortly after they become fast friends, Unn disappears and Siss more or less freezes. It is a story of loss, grief and healing in which a frozen waterfall (the ice palace of the title) plays an important part.

It’s a beautifully written and poetic story that couldn’t be anything else but Norwegian. Here is a quote (Penguin Modern Classics edition, p. 91):

“The pine needles stretch their tongues and sing an unfamiliar nocturnal song. Each tongue is so small that it cannot be heard; together the sound is so deep and powerful that it could level the hills if it wished.”

What I found particularly moving was how the girls’ classmates gather round and support Siss. In that sense The Ice Palace is the antithesis of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies with its children turning into little savages. The Ice Palace is a true gem – thank you for the tip E.!

I hope to read another Norwegian book in August, and also hope to have lots of quiet spinning time.

Before closing off, here is one last thing – the second of my embroidered cross stitch bees. (This one was a great exercise in French knots.) On the whole I don’t like tiles, artwork or crafts projects with “Be Happy” on them. To me, it feels like a brusque command to do something I’m afraid I’ll fail miserably at. Happiness is such a fleeting thing.

But this time I’m taking it to mean:

May you be happy, may you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease for many moments every day.

A far less catchy and embroiderable phrase, I know, but I prefer this kind of nuance and gentleness. Whether you’re staying at home or going away on holiday, this is my wish for all of you.

What Insect are You?

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We have been photographing lots of insects lately. Well, let’s be honest, ‘we’ mainly means my husband – he is much better at it. But sometimes I’m lucky and get a good shot, too.

Let’s zoom in – bzzzz – and wow, look at that huge eye!

Because of the size and shape of its eyes alone, it must see the world totally differently from us. Looking at insects through the lens of my camera made me stop and think. We share our world with so many creatures we don’t even know exist. Of course I know that there are bees and bugs, midges and mosquitoes, but when you begin looking at them properly a whole new universe opens up. These creatures also have (love) lives…

They are busy gathering food, caring for their offspring, developing and going through different stages in their lives.

Different life stages of a six-spot burnet (above)

I wonder, if I were and insect, what insect would I be? To find the answer, I took a test. Turns out I’m a bee. Hmmm, yes, I’m always busy as a bee. But living in a big colony? Everything in the service of the Queen Bee? That’s not really me.

But wait, not all bees are honey bees. There are also bumblebees. Me, bumbling around? Not really. No, come to think of it, I’m more like a wild solitary bee. And then my husband came up with the answer: I’m a wool carder bee! (Thank you for the wool carder bee photos and info, sweetheart.)

In our garden they visit the hairy lamb’s ear plants…

… to scrape ‘wool’ from the leaves, roll it up and use it for making their nests. Here is a close-up of a wool carder bee with a ball of ‘wool’:

A wool carder bee, that’s me to a tee. How about you? What insect are you? Are you a grasshopper?

Or a butterfly? (Are butterflies even insects? There is so much I don’t know yet.)

A bee like me, or a different insect altogether? The British Natural History Museum has developed a fun quiz to help you find out.

Well, I’m buzzing off to add some woolly things to our nest. I’d love to hear what insect you are!

Between the Showers

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Hello! While some of you have been melting in a heatwave, we have had extremely variable weather with strong winds, sunshine, rain, thunderstorms. One moment the sky was bright blue…

… and the next dark clouds gathered and the rain pelted down.

In other parts of the country, the storms uprooted trees and caused other havoc. Here, the wind only tore off some pears in our back garden.

On the whole, it’s been great knitting weather. Between the showers I’ve taken my knitting outside for some pictures. I’ve started on a Norwegian cardigan.

The pattern is in Kofteboken 2, by Lene Holme Samsøe and Liv Sandvik Jakobsen. This beautiful and inspiring, partly linen-bound book contains patterns for 27 sweaters, mostly cardigans with a few pullovers thrown in. There are patterns for adults and children as well as some background stories about designers, motifs, yarns and history. One of the great things about the book is that many of the sweaters are shown in several sizes, colours and different yarns.

It is in Norwegian, but as a knitter you’ll probably understand most terms and the photography is so clear that the sweaters can almost be knit by looking at the pictures alone. The authors’ website can be visited here, and the book can be found here on Ravelry.

The cardigan I’m making is called Lang Yndlingskofte, it is knit from the top down and has a yoke with bands of motifs in two colours. This is what it looks like in the book:

Question marks:

  • Knit a 5-stitch or a 7-stitch steek? – Answer: 5-stitch steek as per pattern
  • Shorten cardigan (considerably)?
  • Add pockets?
  • Buttons on entire front as in pattern or just on yoke?
  • Knit on facing to cover steek stitches or cover them with ribbon?

The yarn I’m using is CaMaRose ‘Økologisk Hverdagsuld’ (100% organic wool, 150m/164yds/50g).

The pattern gauge for the Yndlingskofte is 22 sts to 10cm/4”. My swatches gave: 22 sts on 3mm/US 2,5 needles and 20 sts on 3,5mm/US 4 needles. The 22-stitch swatch was spot-on, but it felt stiff and I decided to go with the looser 20-stitch gauge. This means that I’ll knit a smaller size that will hopefully turn out the right size for me at this gauge.

I’ve also washed and blocked the socks I wrote about in last week’s post. The yarn used for them is Lana Grossa ‘Landlust Die Sockenwolle’ (420m/460yds/100g) in shade 119, neutrals with bands in the rosy red of our ‘Lipstick’ roses.

The yarn doesn’t have a special starter thread to ensure that both socks turn out the same. Getting them exactly the same is a fun game.

The soundtrack to today’s post is Between the Showers – Irish harp music played by Gráinne Hambley. You can listen to some fragments here. I once attended a workshop led by her, and she told us her name is pronounced something like Gron-yuh (stress on first syllable).

Well, that’s all for today. I hope the weather (and life in general) is kind to you, and hope to see you again next week.

How to Use a Sock Ruler?

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Hello! To indicate that I’m not a sock-ruler-expert, I’ve added a question mark to the title of today’s post – How to Use a Sock Ruler? They may have been around longer, but I only came across them recently and my curiosity was aroused. So I purchased one, worked out how to use it and am now reporting my findings to you. Please correct me if I’m wrong or am missing something.

Mine is from German yarn manufacturer Lana Grossa. It is in German, and uses only centimetres and European shoe sizes. You may want to look for a different brand if you live in a different part of the world. Here it is:

It can be used for shoe sizes 30-47. (There is a separate sock ruler for smaller children.) And these are the areas of interest the numbers refer to:

  1. Yarn weight
  2. Needle sizes
  3. Number of stitches to cast on
  4. Foot length from heel to toe
  5. Total foot length

I’ll try to describe everything in a logical order, starting with:

Yarn weight and needle sizes
4-F (1. in the photos above and below) stands for 4-fach in German, meaning 4-ply. This refers to the yarn weight this side of the sock ruler is to be used for – thinner sock yarns with around 400m/437yds to 100g.

The row of holes (2. in the photos above) is a needle gauge for the range of knitting needle sizes used for 4-ply yarns. The reverse side of my sock ruler is for thicker 6-F (6-fach/6-ply) yarns (shown below):

Casting on
Before starting on a sock we need to look at the area called Maschenanschlag (4-f).

This is a handy table showing how many stitches (Maschen) to cast on for socks for different shoe sizes using 4-ply yarn. I’m knitting size 38 socks and need to look at: Gr 36-39: 60M. (Gr = Größe/size; 36-39 is the range my size 38 falls in; 60M = 60 Maschen/stitches). So I need to cast on 60 stitches, and that’s exactly what I always do for these kind of socks.

Cuff and leg
The sock ruler can be used to measure the length of the cuff and leg instead of a tape measure. How long you want them to be is up to you.

Heel
Alas, the sock ruler doesn’t help with the heel – you’ll have to figure that out for yourself. I’m knitting a pair of socks with a traditional Dutch heel flap.

Foot
To determine when you need to start on the toe, you need to look at Fusslänge: Fersenmitte bis Spitzenbeginn (Foot length: from middle of heel to start of toe). Insert the sock ruler in the sock, with one end (the end without the hole) pushed against the centre of the heel flap. The sock ruler now indicates when it’s time to start on the toe.

I’m nearly there:

The sock ruler indicates that Gr/size 38/39 needs to be 20 centimetres long from the middle of the heel to the start of the toe. That’s exactly how I always knit it.

Toe
The area called Gesamte Fusslänge (total foot length) is meant to help us with the toe. Oh, I’m starting to worry now. I’ll need to knit a very long toe (5 centimetres), to get from start of toe (indicated on left of sock ruler) to total foot length (indicated on right of sock ruler).

I ignore this and knit my usual toe, because I know that always fits and I’ll see what happens with the sock ruler.

Finished, my sock is shorter than it should be according to the sock ruler. I stretch it a bit, and then a bit more, and… then it’s the correct size by the sock ruler.

Verdict
So, what’s the verdict? Do you need a sock ruler?

Pros:

  • This particular sock ruler is made from beautiful smooth beech wood and is simply a lovely thing to hold in your hands.
  • A yarn gauge for double pointed needles always comes in handy.
  • Measuring the foot length from heel to toe is a little easier with the sock ruler than with a tape measure.
  • The table with shoe sizes and number of stitches to cast on for them is a very useful kind of cheat sheet.
  • The sock ruler tells you accurately when to start on the toe.

Cons:

  • You can just as easily use a tape measure for measuring length of cuff and leg.
  • The sock ruler doesn’t help with the heel.
  • This sock ruler is only suitable for cuff-down socks and not for toe-up ones, as far as I can see.
  • Measuring the total sock length is very inaccurate with the sock ruler.

So…
In my humble opinion you can live very well without a sock ruler, but it’s nice to have one. I will use it again, especially for sock sizes that I don’t knit very often.

Knitting in rain, sunshine and rain again
When I started on these socks, it was raining a lot and I had to take photographs on the dining table indoors. Then it became hot and sunny, and I could use the outdoor table. And then it started pouring again, with rain pattering on the outdoor table and in the bird bath.

Fortunately for the blackbird the bird table has a roof. The perfect place to shelter during a downpour.

Well, I hope this has been helpful/interesting/enjoyable to read. Are you a sock knitter, too? Have you ever used a sock ruler? What did you think of it?

Halfway

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Hello! I hope this finds you all well. Here, after a very wet spring, we’re suddenly having a week of hot and dry weather. Personally, I prefer cool and rainy days, but it is summer after all. We’re halfway through the year, and I’m halfway through my current take-along project – my third Polka Dot Scarf.

I’ve given the other two away. This time I’ve chosen a colour nobody I know likes, so that I can keep it for myself.

I’m also halfway through a simple pair of socks and halfway through a bee-themed embroidery kit.

All enjoyable and relaxing projects, but I’m beginning to feel restless. I really need something more interesting and challenging alongside, but what? My problem is never a lack of ideas. I often have so many ideas that I feel overwhelmed and paralysed. Where do I go from here? Do you know that feeling?

So I do what I always do when I don’t know what to do – write about it. My thinking process is also helped by tea.

After making a long list of the things I’d like to make and considering the pros and cons of each, I have a lightbulb moment. Didn’t I have some kind of plan for 2024? Of course! Halfway through January I made a short list that was meant as a kind of map for the year.

One of the things on it that I haven’t done much about yet is Norwegian knitting. How could I forget about that? Some of you even gave me great ideas for Norwegian books to read, too! Never mind the hot weather, that’s just what I need. It feels good to know where I’m going again.

Last week I wrote that I’m trying to make my posts shorter, and I really won’t ramble on any longer, but I just have to show you where the pictures of the Polka Dot Scarf were taken. It was in a lovely out-of-the-way place, with a hidden, disused lock from the time peat was extracted here and transported to other parts of the country by boat.

Just follow the grassy path below and enjoy a moment of calm in this special place. Xxx