accessories

Colourwork Hats in the Snow

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Hello!

This week we’re having a wintry spell with sunshine, blue skies and even a sprinkling of snow. Such a relief after all the rain we’ve had. On the whole I’m fine with rainy days, but three months of them is a bit much even for me.

On a glorious frosty morning, before we set off for a walk, I popped the four colourwork hats I’d just finished into my backpack for a photo shoot. Before going into the actual hats, this is the yarn I used:

Four skeins of Rowan’s Felted Tweed in the shades Rage, Clay, Cinnamon and Black (from left to right). I like it when manufacturers give their shades names instead of just numbers. The pattern I used is the Colorwork Cap (here on Ravelry). Four skeins make four of these hats when a different shade is used as the main colour for each of them – very economical.

Three of the hats were knit as per pattern. For someone with a smaller head who likes her hats to be closer fitting I made the fourth one (with red as the main colour) shorter. Here they all are in a row in the snow.

The difference will become clearer when you see me wearing them. The original hat is fairly tall. It has a wide colourwork section and a crown with decreases in four places.

The smaller hat has the same ribbing and colourwork band, but decreases in six places and consequently fewer decrease rows.

Here are the two versions side by side – the black hat with decreases in four places and the red one with decreases in six (click on images to enlarge and take a closer look at the decreases). The red hat would have fitted more smoothly over the head if I’d left off part of the colourwork and spaced the decreases out over more rows, but I didn’t want to do that and am happy with the way it turned out.

The photographs were taken in an area with shifting sands that is officially called Aekingerzand, but we call de Kale Duinen (the Bare Dunes). As children this is where we went on our annual school outing, to play ball games and sunbathe on our beach towels. It was like a day on the coast minus the sea. Here is an impression of what it looks like on a winter’s day.

I hope you are keeping well and warm (or cool, for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere) and have had a good start to the new year. The four hats will soon be on their way to their new owners. One more project to finish and then it’s time for something new. I’m bursting with ideas and am looking forward to sharing them with you again this year.

Mitten 17

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Hello and thank you so much for all your kind responses to last week’s scarf! It’s good to be among people who like and value the same sort of things. I’m only popping in briefly today, with a short post about a small hat inspired by a wee mitten.

Around this time last year, I was knitting 24 Norwegian Advent calendar mittens. This year, I filled them with tiny gifts, pinned them onto a wreath and gave them away. I was a bit sad to part with them, but know they’ve gone to a good home.

Besides, I’ve still got the pattern and am just as happy with that, because it provides a lot of inspiration. Both the fronts and the backs of the mittens have 2-colour patterns that can be used in all kinds of other projects. Take mitten 17:

Multiplying the pattern horizontally and working one repeat vertically, I used it to knit a new hat for our grandson.

I’d asked his mother about the colour, and she said, ‘fox brown would be nice’. So fox brown it is. Or oak leaf brown.

Oak leaves look so beautiful on misty, frosty days, outlined in white.

A few weeks ago, someone contacted me on Ravelry about the Advent calender mittens. She couldn’t get the pattern downloaded. I tried it out too and, nope, the link wasn’t working. Trying it out again today, I didn’t have any problems downloading it at all! The internet works in mysterious ways.

The Norwegian Julevotter Adventscalendar can be found here on Ravelry. And here is a direct link to the pattern pdf. If you’d like to download it and it isn’t working, trying again another day may be worthwhile. Good luck!

In Seventh Heaven

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Hello! In between shopping for gifts, knitting gifts, wrapping gifts, and doing everything else that needs doing at this busy time of year, I’ve also wrapped up my Seventh Heaven scarf project. I have been working on it on and off for many months and have now uploaded the pattern to Ravelry. It’s been a fun and colourful journey. Let me tell you about it.

It all began with my search for a simple knitting project, and the idea to do something with my sock yarn remnants and other small bits of fingering-weight yarn.

Inspired by the first knitting booklets I had as a child, I started knitting swatches in simple garter stitch and slip stitches.

I chose a very deep navy blue yarn as a background for my colourful scraps – Isager Sock Yarn, a blend of 40% alpaca, 40% merino wool and 20% recycled nylon. Both the alpaca and the merino wool are ‘easy wash’. Easy wash is an environmentally friendly way to make yarns machine washable without felting or shrinking. I haven’t used this yarn before, but can now say that it is pleasantly smooth to knit with and softens up very nicely after washing.

It was a joy to knit a few rows every day, and the scarf grew and grew.

It wasn’t until I’d knit quite a bit that I realized the colours I was using reflected those of my surroundings in spring and summer, in particular the flowers and insects in the wetlands of De Wieden.

I was using the bright greens of fresh young reed stalks and grass…

… the blues of bright skies and damselflies…

… the pinks and purples of thistle, ragged robin and orchid…

… and the orange of the large copper, a dazzlingly beautiful butterfly. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to photograph it, because it disappeared from De Wieden about a decade ago. Very sad, but all hope is not lost (more about that further on).

Our photoshoot in De Wieden took place during last week’s foggy walk. My husband carried the scarf rolled up around a long cardboard tube (sticking out from his rucksack) so that it wouldn’t get all crumpled. It’s hard to believe, but the muddy field he is standing in, is a beautiful flower meadow earlier in the year.

This is Seventh Heaven in its full length – a little over 2 metres (80”) long. As you can see from the purple/pink/orange section folded over at the top, the ‘wrong’ side also looks good, with the colours more blended.

It is a generous scarf, but still very wearable.

Because of the fingering-weight yarn used, it is not bulky at all. The colours show up really nicely when the scarf is tied in what I now know is called a Pretzel Knot.

What more can I tell you about the Seventh Heaven scarf? The name was a gift from reader Lynn (thank you again, Lynn – it’s perfect!) and refers to how I feel when I’m in De Wieden, and also when I’m playing with yarns and colours. It has stripes in garter stitch and slip stitches, alternating the background colour and the yarn remnants. Oh, and let’s not forget the lovely I-cord edges!

I thought of giving the Seventh Heaven pattern away as an early Christmas gift to you, my dear readers and Ravelry friends, but have changed my mind. Instead I am turning it into a gift to the large copper .

Large Copper, Photo by Hans via Pixabay

In other words, from now through 2024 I’ll donate the proceeds from all sales of the pattern to Dutch nature conservation organisation Natuurmonumenten, as a contribution to creating the circumstances that will hopefully lure the large copper butterfly back to De Wieden. And it’s not just about saving one almost extinct subspecies of butterfly – the measures taken will also benefit other insects, plants and animals.

The Seventh Heaven scarf pattern can be found here on Ravelry

It is available in English and Dutch. Besides instructions for knitting the scarf, the pattern also contains tips on choosing yarns and colours for your creating own Seventh Heaven. Should you decide to knit one, I hope it’ll give you just as much joy as it has given me!

Needle-and-Hook Provisional Cast-On

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Hello! Draped over the washing line along our beech hedge in its autumn finery is a scarf I’ve just finished. It has an interesting cast-on I’ll tell you about further on, but first a few photos and a bit about the scarf (and about something I found!).

The Polka Dot Scarf, as the design is called, has holes for ‘dots’. A knitting friend sighed, ‘Oh, so much work in such a thin yarn!’ But it wasn’t like that for me at all. For me, it represents many hours of peaceful meditation.

The Polka Dot Scarf pattern can be found here on Ravelry. It is described in two widths and I’ve made the wider version. Knit on 3.75 mm (US 5) needles, mine measures 56 cm by 1.90 m (20 by 74¾ inches) and weighs 150 g. Lightweight, yet warm and cosy.

The yarn I’ve used is Lamana ‘Milano’ (90% wool/10% cashmere; 25 g/180 m), a heavy lace-weight in a dark denim shade. The yarn manufacturer has high standards with regard to animal welfare and sustainability, which is a big plus for me.

This is a scarf that really benefits from some severe blocking. (Sorry, forgot to take pictures of the blocking process.) When it was finished I decided that it would be perfect for my grandson’s other grandmother. What do you call someone like that? A fellow nan? A co-granny? Anyway, she wears stylish, unfussy clothes in navy and grey, and I hope she’ll like it.

I photographed the Polka Dot Scarf on a blouse with raindrops and umbrellas…

… not just because they looked nice together, but also because the blouse symbolizes the very wet autumn we’re having this year. During a sunny spell on a rainy day, I found a dragonfly in front of our house. A sadly bedraggled but still beautiful creature, with blue markings on its body and head.

It is a migrant hawker, called paardenbijter (horse biter) in Dutch. Does it really bite horses?, I wondered. Will it bite me? And more important: is it alive or dead? The best policy seemed to place it in a sunny spot to dry its raindrop spangled wings and fly away if it was alive or be picked up by a bird if not.

It’s gone now, and I’ll never know whether it’s flown away of its own accord or in a bird’s stomach.

To close off, here is a step-by-step guide to the

Needle-and-Hook provisional cast-on

1 – With a length of smooth waste yarn, make a slip-knot and place it on a crochet hook.

2 – With the hook in your right hand and the knitting needle in your left, form an X. The hook should be on top. Holding the thread behind the knitting needle, wrap the yarn around the hook…

… and pull it through the loop. Now the first stitch is on your needle.

3 – Passing the yarn between the knitting needle and the hook, bring it back behind the needle and repeat step 2 until you have the required number of stitches on your needle.

4 – Crochet a few chain stitches at the end. Hang a stitch marker from the last stitch to remember where to start unravelling later on. Now, start knitting with the yarn chosen for your project.

5 – Ready to remove the cast-on? Starting at the tail with the stitch marker, carefully unravel the crochet chain and pick up the live stitches one by one. Don’t forget the half stitch at the end!

This is a really useful technique for e.g. scarves knit from the middle out to the sides. In the case of the Polka Dot Scarf, it’s used for knitting on a nice I-cord edge.

I hope I’ve explained it clearly. If all goes according to plan, I’ll take you out for walk again next week. See you then! xxx

Seventh Heaven Scarf

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Hello!

First of all, thank you to those of you who suggested better names for my Simple Sock Scrap Stripe and Slip Stitch Scarf – great suggestions, all of them!

When deciding on a name for a knitting pattern, besides choosing something I like, it’s also about how findable it is on Ravelry. Taking everything into consideration, I’ve decided to go with Lynn’s idea and call it Seventh Heaven Scarf. Thank you, Lynn! It’s not just great because of its reference to the seven Ss in the original name, but also because for me, playing with yarn and colours is one of the fastest routes to seventh heaven!

In case you’d like to knit something like my Seventh Heaven Scarf, too, I’ll give you the preliminary pattern here. It’s going to be a fairly large rectangular scarf in garter stitch and slip stitch stripes (but it can be made in any size). This is what mine looks like so far:

Measurements
I’m aiming for a width of approximately 45 cm/18” and a length of 1.80 m/71” or a little longer.

Yarn
Main colour (MC): 220 g of fingering-weight/sock yarn in a very dark or very light (semi) solid colour. I’m using 5 skeins of Isager Sock Yarn (50 g/193 m; 40% alpaca, 40% merino, 20% nylon) in colour 100 Navy blue.
Contrast colour (CC): 220 g of fingering-weigh/sock yarn remnants (+ some extra just in case). Anything will work: solids, semi-solids, variegated and/or self-striping yarns.
(These are estimated quantities. The actual scarf may take a little more or less yarn.)

For my scarf I’ve chosen 22 different yarn remnants of at least 10 grams each. They include: Lana Grossa Meilenweit, Regia 4-ply, Schoppel Crazy Zauberball, various hand-dyed yarns from indie dyers, Drops Fabel, Zitron Trekking XXL and other yarns that have lost their labels.

To remind myself of the order I’m planning to use my CC yarns in, I’ve split them up into 3 smaller groups, photographed them and put each group in a separate plastic bag.

Needles and Gauge
Knitting needles: 3.5 mm/US 4 (For socks I’d use 2.5 mm/US 1.5 needles for these yarns, but for a drapier scarf I’ve gone up several needle sizes.)
Gauge: 23 sts x 50 rows = 10 x 10 cm/4 x 4” in stripe pattern.

Pattern notes:

  • The scarf has 3-stitch I-cord edges (photo below). The first 3 sts of every right-side row are knit in the colour of the previous row.
  • When changing colours after the 3 edge stitches on right-side rows, always pass the ‘new’ yarn in front of the ‘old’ yarn.
  • The scarf can be made in any size or yarn weight you like. Decide on the measurements you’d like, knit a generous swatch, and then weigh and measure it. Based on this swatch, calculate how much yarn you’re going to need and how many stitches you need to cast on. The instructions below are for my size.
  • Always cast on an odd number of stitches.
  • Work the same number of rows with every remnant or vary the number of rows.
  • For a smoother transition from one CC yarn to the next, switch to a new CC yarn on a wrong-side A, C or D row (see below).
  • All slip stitches are slipped as if to purl (i.e. inserting the needle from right to left), sometimes with the yarn held in front (wyif), sometimes with the yarn held in back (wyib). Sl1 = Slip 1 stitch; Sl3 = Slip 3 stitches, Sl4 = Slip 4 stitches.

ABCD stripes
Basically, the scarf is composed of 4 different pairs of rows – A, B, C and D:

A (CC garter ridge):
Row 1 (RS): With MC knit 3 sts, switch to CC and knit to end.
Row 2 (WS) (CC): Sl3 wyif, k to last 3 sts, sl3 wyif.

B (MC garter ridge):
Row 1 (RS): With CC knit 3 sts, switch to MC and knit to end.
Row 2 (WS) (MC): Sl3 wyif, k to last 3 sts, sl3 wyif.

C (CC slip stitch pattern starting with a k st):
Row 1 (RS): With MC knit 3 sts, switch to CC and (k1, sl1 wyib) to last 4 sts, k4.
Row 2 (WS) (CC):  Sl3 wyif, (k1, sl1 wyif) to last 4 sts, k1, sl3 wyif.

D (CC slip stitch pattern starting with a sl st):
Row 1 (RS): With MC knit 3 sts, switch to CC and (sl1 wyib, k1) to last 4 sts, sl1 wyib, k3.
Row 2 (WS) (CC):  Sl4 wyif, (k1, sl1 wyif) to last 5 sts, k1, sl4 wyif.

INSTRUCTIONS

Cast-on and set-up rows:
With MC cast on 111 sts.
Row 1 (RS): knit.
Row 2 (WS): sl3 wyif, k to last 3 sts, sl3 wyif.
Work rows 1 and 2 two more times.

Start working in stripe sequence:
(The swatch above shows one complete stripe sequence.)
Rows 1-20: Starting with A, work A and B five times in total (= 10 garter ridges alternating CC and MC).
Rows 21-22: C.
Rows 23-28: B, A, B.
Rows 29-30: D.
Rows 31-36: B, A, B.
Rows 37-38: C.
Rows 39-40: B.
Rows 41-60: Repeat rows 1-20.
Rows 61-72: C, B, D, B, C, B.
Repeat these 72 rows until you’ve almost reached the desired length.
Work 4 rows in MC in the same way as set-up rows 1-2. Bind-off loosely. Weave in ends, soak and block.

Knitting with all these bits of yarn in different colours is such fun. My first little ball was the yellow-green of the Euphorbias in our front garden. The second one is a variegated blue and green yarn:

It’s like fresh young hawthorn leaves against a blue sky.

I’m enjoying knitting up the greens and can’t wait to get to the heavenly blues and then the flowery purples, pinks and oranges.

Note: This is only a preliminary pattern – I’ll publish a complete downloadable pattern on Ravelry later, when my scarf is finished. I hope everything is clear so far. If you’re going to knit your own Seventh Heaven Scarf, have fun! For any questions, please leave a comment and I’ll try to answer asap.

Simple Sock Scrap Slip Stitch Scarf

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Hello!

Remember that I was looking for something simple to knit alongside more challenging projects? Simple stocking stitch socks are my usual mindless knitting projects, but variety being the spice of life, I want something different from time to time. Looking for inspiration and materials for a simple scarf, shawl or wrap in a yarn shop, I couldn’t find anything that spoke to me. And then it occurred to me that I already had most of the ingredients at home!

Through the years I’ve knit many, many pairs of simple socks for family members, friends and myself. From every pair of socks there is always a small quantity of yarn left over. I’ve used some of these to make Soothing Sachets, Gift Leaves and an earrings-and-pendant set. These small projects didn’t even make a dent in my sock yarn remnant stash, though, and I’ve still got more than enough for several larger projects.

I’d already been knitting some slip-stitch swatches and knit some more using sock yarns, using the simplest of slip stitch patterns combined with garter and stocking stitch. I experimented with many different edge stitches, too.

Something colourful would be fun, but it should also be wearable, so I decided to use a dark neutral as a backdrop for the remnants. Here is my final swatch, using a solid navy yarn combined with some yarn left over from the socks beside it – garter stitch stripes alternated with slip stitch rows:

My guess is that many of you also have a considerable quantity of leftover sock or other fingering weight yarn. Or perhaps you’ve taken out a mini-skein subscription or treated yourself to a mini-skein Advent Calendar and still have some of those lovely little skeins left? In case you’d like to use them for a scarf like mine I’ll describe how I’m going about it.

I’m going to knit a rectangular scarf measuring approximately 45 cm/18” wide by 1.80 m/71” long. Based on my swatches, this should take about 440 grams of sock yarn in total: 220 grams of the solid background colour and 220 grams of sock yarn remnants. I’m using five 50-gram skeins of Isager Sock Yarn in navy blue for my background colour.

Other dark neutrals that would make good background colours are black, charcoal, deep purple or dark brown. A light neutral, like cream, pale grey or light beige, would work well, too.

For the contrast colours, I chose 22 different sock yarn remnants of at least 10 g each (+ a few extra). I left the dark colours out (not enough contrast), and the very light ones as well (too much contrast). So they’re all in a medium shade range.

The remnants could be grabbed at random, eyes closed, but being an orderly sort of person I decided to arrange them into a sort of colour wash, from greens through blues, purples, pinks and finally oranges (read from right to left).

You could use a colour wheel, but I just followed my intuition, personal sense of colour, taste or whatever it’s called.

The colour I’m starting with, next to the navy blue, is a shocking acid green. It came with a mini-skein subscription years ago, and was dyed by Amanda Perkins of The Natural Dye Studio who stopped dyeing years ago. It isn’t a colour that I’d think I’d ever use. Confession: I did knit a scarf in neon green acrylic when I was ten. Since then my taste in colours has changed quite a bit, but I think/hope it will look fun in this scarf.

It’s the same colour as the Euphorbias flowering in our front garden now, that look so great with the blue of the grape hyacinths.

Some of the Euphorbias are entirely in this strange yellowish green colour,

while others have very dark aubergine, almost black centres.

I will give you the recipe for how to knit this scarf in my next blogpost. For the time being I’m calling it my Simple Sock Scrap Stripe and Slip Stitch Scarf, but it really needs a simpler name. Any suggestions are welcome!

Raspberry Ripple

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Hello!

The long, very hot and very dry summer finally seems to be coming to an end here. I’m ever so grateful for the rain we’ve had the past couple of days, and am hoping for lots more as everything is parched. The only thing that has done well in our garden this year are our grapes.

My summer knitting projects are also nearing completion – more about those soon, I hope. But today, it’s Raspberry Ripple day!

First of all, here is a shawl I finished knitting quite some time ago and have finally blocked. The shawl pattern is called Morbihan, but I’m calling this version Raspberry Ripple.

The yarn I’ve used for it is John Arbon’s Knit by Numbers 4-ply. It’s a 100% organically farmed Falklands merino, and each colour is available in a gradient of 6 shades. The colour shown here is called Raspberry (what else?), and in total I’ve used eight 25-gram mini skeins – 3 of the darkest shade and 1 each of the other 5 shades.

This is what my Raspberry Ripple Shawl looks like spread out:

I like wearing triangular shawls scrunched up and wrapped around my neck like this:

Morbihan was first published in English only, but now I’ve also translated into Dutch. The pattern can be found here on Ravelry in both languages.

Morbihan was eerst alleen in het Engels beschikbaar, maar ik heb het patroon nu ook in het Nederlands vertaald. Het is hier op Ravelry te vinden.

Raspberries, how I love them. Not just their colour, but their taste, too. If I want some for a dessert, I need to make a trip to the supermarket. We do have wild raspberries around here, but they are rare.

It’ll soon be woolly-shawl-weather again, but at the moment it’s still warm enough to be ice-cream-weather. So here is my simple (no ice cream maker needed) recipe for Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream.

Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream

(makes approx. 1 litre)

Ingredients:

  • 250 g raspberries
  • 130 g caster sugar
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 250 ml milk
  • 250 ml double cream

1) Place the raspberries in a small saucepan with 30 g of the sugar. Cook on medium heat, stirring from time to time and squashing the raspberries with a wooden spoon. Simmer for about 5 mins without the lid on. Push through a sieve with your wooden spoon. Discard the seeds and the last bit of pulp left in the sieve. Leave to cool.

2) Whisk the egg yolks and the remaining sugar together. Pour the milk in a pan and bring to boiling point. Pour the hot milk on the egg-and-sugar mixture, whisking all the time. Return the eggy milk to the pan and heat slowly, stirring until it has thickened slightly (make sure it doesn’t boil!). Leave this to cool as well.

3) When the raspberry sauce and the custard have cooled completely, whip the double cream until it forms soft peaks. Gently fold the cream into the custard. Pour the creamy custard into a container (holding at least 1 litre).

4) Pour in the raspberry sauce and make swirls and ripples using the handle of a wooden spoon. Cover, place in the freezer, and freeze overnight.

Enjoy!

PS: More details of my Raspberry Ripple Shawl can be found here in my Ravelry project notes.

Knit Leaf Earrings and Pendant

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Hello!

The past few days have been lovely, weatherwise. Quoting Goldilocks, neither too hot, nor too cold, but just right. Over the past two weeks we’ve had several hot days, though, with one when our outdoor thermometer reached 39 ˚C (102 ˚F) in the shade. Pffffff, waaaay too hot to have a pile of knitting on my lap (we don’t have an air conditioner). What is a person who can’t NOT knit to do on days like that?

Faced with that conundrum, I thought of knitting something really small. Some more of those Gift Leaves, but even smaller than the ones I knit before, for an earrings-and-pendant set. At first, I thought I’d use embroidery floss – all those lovely colours to choose from!

But that didn’t work as it is completely non-stretchy and terribly splitty (duh, that’s the essence of embroidery floss), which made knitting and especially a sl1-k2tog-psso-manoeuvre sheer torture. Rummaging around for something else, I came across some small remnants from my Tellina cowls. Remember them? (Click on images to enlarge.)

This what I had left after knitting two cowls:

Since then, I’ve used part of the leftover yarn for a Blogiversary Bag and a Soothing Sachet, but there was plenty left for this set (and more small future projects).

If you’d like to make a set, too, here’s what you’ll need and how to go about it.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

  • Two 1.25 mm/US 0000 knitting needles
  • Small quantity of fine fingering-weight yarn
  • Tapestry needle
  • Pair of ear wires
  • Metal or leather necklace

Optional:

  • Three 4 mm Ø and three 2 mm Ø beads
  • Sewing thread
  • Needle small enough to pass through smallest bead

The yarn I used was Manos del Uruguay ‘Fino’ (70% Merino; 30% Silk; 448 m/490 yds/100 g) in the colour Velvet Pincushion. The pendant took only 0.50 g and the earring leaves even less.

I used ear wires in this shape (the kidney-shaped ones and hoops will work as well, but not the ones with a small closed eye):

HOW TO KNIT THE LEAF EARRINGS AND PENDANT SET:

  1. Download the free Gift Leaves pattern from Ravelry.
  2. Knit 2 leaves size S for the earrings and 1 leaf size M for the pendant, knitting 2.5 cm/1” long stalks.
  3. Weave in the ends at the leaf tips. Use the yarn tail on the stalks to sew them into loops. For the earrings make the loops flat by sewing the beginning of the stalk next to where the stalk ends and the leaf begins. For the pendant fold the stalk in half towards the back of the leaf and fasten it behind the place where the leaf starts.
  4. If you like, sew on beads to resemble little raindrops drip-drip-dripping from the leaves. (I used clear glass beads with a silver lining and white sewing thread.) Fasten the sewing thread to the back of the leaf with a few small stitches and let it come out at the leaf tip. Pass the thread through the larger bead, then through the smaller bead, back through the larger bead and into the leaf tip. Fasten off at the back.

Knitting on these small needles is fiddly and for me required good, bright daylight. But it is really rewarding. For comparison, below you see a Gift Leaf in size M knit with ordinary sock/fingering-weight yarn on 2.5 mm/US 1 needles next to the pendant in size M knit with fine fingering-weight yarn on 1.25 mm/US 0000 needles.

Early one morning, while I was quietly knitting a leaf with the French windows wide open to let in as much cool air as possible, a young great tit came to visit. After fluttering around frantically for a bit, it alighted on the highest perch in our living room: the wooden eagle on top of a book case.

I was afraid it would hurt itself trying to get out, but between the two of us my husband and I were fortunately able to guide it back outside safe and sound.

These leaf earrings and pendant are quick little items to make for yourself or for gifts. One earring leaf took me about 30 minutes to knit, the pendant a little longer, plus a little time to sew on the beads. Here are a few pictures of me wearing them to give you a sense of scale.

Goodness, how I’ve aged since the Tellina pictures were taken just three years ago. Or is it that this picture lacks the rosy glow of the make-up I was wearing in the earlier pictures?

Here you can see how the stalk is fastened into a loop to make the leaf hang flat facing to the front:

And this photo shows how that is different for the pendant:

I chose green for my leaves, but who says that leaves need to be green? Why not choose a lovely autumnal colour, like warm red, fiery orange, bright yellow, or earthy brown? If you like making fiddly little things and are going to knit yourself or someone else a set of these, I wish you happy knitting!

Hydrangea Story

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Hello!

Why do we knit? Or rather, why do I knit? (I can only ever speak for myself.) Sometimes it is because I want something to wear that I can’t find in the shops. Other times it is because I want to give someone else a knitted embrace, toasty feet or warm hands. Often it is because I need something to occupy my hands and soothe my mind. Or I see a pattern and think: That is so beautiful – I’d love to make something like that!

This time it was the yarn that did it. The yarn in the photo above. It is a new Rowan yarn called ‘Felted Tweed Colour’ – a sibling to their all-time favourite ‘Felted Tweed’, but now in a slow gradient of colours. The palette was developed by the famous designer Kaffe Fassett. As soon as I saw it, I thought: Wow, those colours!

I chose the colourway called ‘Frost’. It doesn’t remind me of frost, snow or ice at all, however. It reminds me of hydrangeas. Maybe you remember my blog post about cycling to Giethoorn this summer, when I took this picture:

A few days ago, I popped over to Giethoorn again. This is the same spot at this time of the year:

Here the hydrangeas have lost all their colour. In other places there are only lacy skeletons left:

But some hydrangeas have retained their colour and just become more muted than in summer:

It’s these that the ‘Frost’ yarn reminded me of.

And what did I do with the hydrangea yarn? I combined it with some Kidsilk Haze to knit another Story Lines shawl. At first I thought of using some pale pink from my stash:

But then I decided that the contrast was too strong and chose a purple shade called Dewberry instead.

I took the finished shawl along to Giethoorn and asked Albert Mol if he was okay with being my model. Listening carefully I thought I could hear him say: ‘Of course darling. Fabulous idea!’ (Albert was a very gay person in every sense of the word.)

In hindsight I think a little more contrast would have been a good thing. In some places the Felted Tweed is exactly the same shade as the Kidsilk Haze. The stripes are visible, but don’t stand out very much.

The back view below shows how the Felted Tweed Colour yarn moves gradually from one colour to the next, forming wide stripes.

I’ve given this shawl a wider garter stitch band at the end. Neither the Romantic Ruffle nor the Dainty Droplets I used for the other two Story Lines shawls (shown in this blog post) seemed right for this yarn. I used the Basic Bind-off also described in the pattern instead.

Some of you may remember Albert Mol. For those of you who have never heard of him, he was a Dutch dancer, writer, actor and comedian. Giethoorn has honoured him with a statue because of his role in the 1958 comedy film Fanfare that was shot in the village. As there are many people in Giethoorn going by the name of Mol, I suppose he must have family roots here as well.

Part of the action takes place in Café Fanfare, which hasn’t changed much since then:

Fanfare is about two rivalling local brass bands that both want to win a competition and are prepared to do anything to prevent the other band from winning. It is in black and white and obviously rather old-fashioned, but still great fun.

Just like Café Fanfare, the rest of Giethoorn (called Lagerwiede in the film) is still very much like it was back in 1958, too.

If you feel like watching some fun slow tv on a dreary December day, Fanfare can be viewed here on YouTube, with English subtitles. (Albert Mol plays the role of one of the conductors, much younger than his bronze statue and without beard.)

And in case you’d like to make a similar Story Lines shawl, it takes 2 skeins of Felted Tweed Colour and 2 skeins of Kidsilk Haze. The Story Lines pattern can be found here on Ravelry, and my notes about the hydrangea version here.

I wish you an enjoyable weekend, with something fun to do, watch and/or knit!

Story Lines

by

Hello!

It won’t come as a surprise that I love knitting. To me (and I know to some of you, too), seeing a knitting project grow stitch by stitch and row by row is immensely satisfying. Although I haven’t written much about books until last week, I love reading a good story just as much.

Now I’ve combined the two and knit a story in the shape of a shawl! Or rather two shawls, knit along the same lines but telling different stories.

The watery blue version of Story Lines, as I’ve named the design, tells the saga of a drowned village.

It is a slightly asymmetrical triangle that starts off on a light and airy note – transparent stocking stitch stripes with widely spaced out garter stitch lines. Later on, the plot thickens and the lines are knit closer together.

A village really did drown in the lake where these pictures were taken.

It was the village of Beulake. Extensive peat extraction had already made the area vulnerable. And when the dykes broke during a storm in 1776, Beulake disappeared beneath the waves. Only the church, where the villagers had fled to, was spared.

Fortunately no lives were lost, but the people who lost their homes must have shed a few tears. A row of Dainty Droplets seemed a fitting ending for this shawl.

Although the basic pattern is the same, the other shawl I knit has a different tale to tell. In fiery reds, it tells a love story from a time long gone by.

This story is set against the backdrop of a castle ruin, not far from the lake of the drowned village.

It is Toutenburg, the remains of a medieval castle in the town of Vollenhove. An utterly romantic spot. There is a moat around it, with a lovely fountain.

This version of Story Lines needed a different ending – a Romantic Ruffle. I’m not really a ruffle-y type, so I’ve kept it modest.

Story Lines is a very easy knit. The only reason I wouldn’t recommend it to an absolute beginner is that the thinner of the yarns used takes a little experience to handle.

The design combines two types of yarn: a lace-weight mohair/silk blend and a fingering-weight single-ply merino yarn – 1 skein (50 g) of the former and 1 skein (100 g) of the latter.

The yarns I used for both shawls come from an indie dyer in my little corner of the world. She creates many gorgeous colours. Below you can see the mohair/silk blend I used on the left, the 1-ply merino on the right:

‘My’ indie dyer is happy to ship world-wide,  but those of you not living in the Netherlands could also look for yarn closer to home. Here is a list of very similar yarns from indie dyers all over the world:

  • Canada: Lichen and Lace (Marsh Mohair/1-Ply Superwash Merino Fingering-Weight)
  • France: La Bien Aimée (Mohair Silk/Merino Singles)
  • Germany: Walk Collection (Kid Mohair Lace/Cottage Merino)
  • Ireland: Hedgehog Fibres (Kidsilk Lace/Skinny Singles)
  • Norway: Norne (Kid Silk/Singles)
  • Sweden: Fru Valborg (Fuzzy Mohair/Merino Singles)
  • UK: Qing (Kid Mohair Silk/Merino Singles)
  • US, New York: The Wandering Flock (Laceweight Mohair Silk/Fingering Weight Singles)
  • US, Oregon: Ritual Dyes (Fae/Crone)

Some people find a triangle a difficult shape to wear and I understand. Worn in a traditional way it can look old-fashioned. But it can be worn in so many ways, as already shown in some of the pictures above. Here are some more ideas.

Worn nonchalantly with the two long ends on one side:

Rolled up with the point at the back of the neck inside, worn much like a rectangular scarf:

With the ends knotted loosely:

Or scrunched up cosily:

The shawl has a versatile shape and can tell many different stories, depending on the colours chosen. Choose icy shades for an arctic adventure, greys for a ghost story, greens for a jungle book, or………………… The possibilities are endless.

If you’d like to knit your own Story Lines,

you can find the pattern HERE ON RAVELRY. 

In addition to the Dainty Droplets and Romantic Ruffle shown here, the pattern also includes instructions for a Basic Bind-off that ties everything up neatly. And there is a Dutch as well as an English-language version.

Well, that brings us to the end of today’s story. Thank you so much, dear photographer, for your patience and for capturing everything so well. And thank you, dear friends near and far, for reading and for your always kind support!