FOs

Sundborn and a Hand-Sewn Steek

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Sundborn

‘Var välkommen kära du, till Carl Larsson och hans fru!’ it says above the front door of Lilla Hyttnäs in the Swedish village of Sundborn. ‘Welcome to the house of Carl Larsson and his spouse!’ A warm welcome to the house that Carl and Karin Larsson made into such a special place, Carl with his paintings and Karin with her textiles.

Carl and Karin in a detail of Carl's painting When the Children have Gone to Bed.

Carl is best known for his watercolours of family life at Lilla Hyttnäs. In the house itself, beside all kinds of other decorations, he also painted his family on walls and doors.

Karin was a painter as well, but after getting married and having children she poured all of her creativity into embroidery and weaving.

Walking through and around the house, I was amazed by everything they achieved while raising eight children. Below, a photograph of their living room from the outside, with a bird decoration by Carl between the windows.

After my first visit, in the early 1980s, I had a postcard of one of Carls paintings on the wall of my 6 m2 student room for a long time. It was the well-known painting of the interior of the Larssons’ living room with one of the girls watering the plants.

In her cardigan book Koftor, knitwear designer Maja Karlsson tells us that she spent some time at Lilla Hyttnäs studying the colours and patterns of Karins textiles, and that this inspired her Sundborn cardigan design. She photographed the cardigan in the same living room, with the model watering the plants just like the girl in Carl’s painting. The stars in the cardigan’s yoke echo the stars along the edges of Karin’s blue-and-white table cloth.

I thought it would be fun to photograph my Sundborn cardigan in the same way. Only in our own living room instead of at Lilla Hyttnäs. The little red wooden Dala horse on the window sill is a souvenir of my second, more recent visit to Sundborn. And now I also have the cardigan to remind me of that wonderful place.

At this point, I’ll say goodbye to the non-knitters among you. I quite understand that you’d rather do something else than read about cutting a pullover open to turn it into a cardigan. See you again next time!

A Hand-Sewn Steek

For those of you who are interested, let’s dive into steeking. In this case, I knit the button bands on first, before cutting the steek.

Instead of machine-sewn steek reinforcements, I wanted to use hand-sewn seams this time, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. Fortunately some of you came to the rescue. Helga checked the Swedish version of the pattern book and confirmed that the designer uses machine sewing thread. Angelique said that the seam might become too tight using machine sewing thread. I have never liked the idea of synthetic seams in my woollen sweaters anyway, so that was out. She also suggested trying things out on a swatch first, and that was what I did:

As an experiment, I sewed a back-stitch seam using the same yarn used for the cardigan (Léttlopi) on one side of the centre stitch and on the other using a thinner yarn (Jamieson & Smith 2-ply jumper weight). The Léttlopi was on the bulky side; the thinner yarn worked better, as L. had already predicted, so I used that on the cardigan.

L. also advised ‘piercing every row’s stitches’ and to be on the safe side I did that as well. Then, using my small embroidery scissors and holding my hand between front and back, I cut the steek.

The steek stitches looked fairly stable after cutting. (Below, the blue line through the centre of the pink stitches is one of the hand-sewn seams.)

But I’m glad that I pierced through the yarn of the knit stitches while back-stitching the seams, because at the top end the knit stitches did fray. With the extra strong reinforcements they wouldn’t unravel any further.

Finally, the steek stitches were folded over and stitched into place using whip stitches on the inside. Very neat!

All in all, I’m very happy with this hand-sewn steek reinforcement. It is easy and relaxing to do, and doesn’t stretch the knitted fabric as machine stitching can do. No more machine-reinforced steeks for me from now on. Thank you for your advice Helga, Angelique and L.! And to all of you – thank you for reading on to the end!

Links:

  • Maja Karlssons cardigan book Koftor can be found here on Ravelry, and the Sundborn cardigan here. (It has been translated into English, German and Dutch.)
  • Lilla Hyttnäs is now a museum called Carl Larsson Gården. Although only Carl’s name is mentioned in the museum’s name, the museum’s website now pays equal attention to Carl and Karin.

Buttons and Baking

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Hello! Can you smell the scent of spices wafting to you from my kitchen through the internet? I’ll give you the recipe further on, but first I’d like to talk a bit about buttons. My Norwegian cardi still needed buttons, so I went to a nearby haberdashery shop. On a drizzly morning, when everything else in the street was still closed, it was a haven of colour and cosiness.

It is a tiny shop, crammed with sewing and knitting notions, tools and yarns. And they have a fabulous button wall.

The cardigan I knit is a kind of greyish, fairly dark blue. So, I first looked at blue buttons.

I found some in the right size that matched my yarn exactly, but… they looked a bit dull. Looking at the wooden button section for something more exciting, I fell in love with these – aren’t they fun?

The cardigan I sewed them on to is the Lang Yndlingskofte from Kofteboken 2 (this beautiful Norwegian book can be found here on Ravelry). It’s the cardigan I steeked in this blogpost. The yarn I used is CaMaRose ‘Økologisk Hverdagsuld’ (100% organic wool, 150m/164yds/50g). It is warm and light, and became very nice and soft after washing. A really, really lovely yarn. I’ve shortened the cardi by 10 cm/4 inches, but it is still fairly long and would also be great worn with a dress.

So, what is that on the baking tray I’m holding in my hands? Kruidnootjes! Kruidnootjes (literally: spice nuts) are a traditional Dutch Sinterklaas treat. In the Netherlands, Sinterklaas is celebrated with gifts on December 5th, the eve of Saint Nicholas’ Day. Three weeks before the day, the venerable Sinterklaas arrives in the country by steamboat. We welcome him with special songs, and in the weeks leading up to the celebration we eat tons of kruidnootjes. They’re great to bake with children. Here is my recipe:

Kruidnootjes

(makes about 100)

Ingredients:

  • 100 g self-raising flour
  • 50 g dark brown muscovado sugar
  • 40 g unsalted butter (softened)
  • 1 tablespoon mixed spice*
  • A pinch of salt
  • 2 tablespoons milk

*The Dutch spice mix used in this and other traditional recipes is called speculaaskruiden. It does not always have exactly the same ingredients, but is usually a blend of: ground cinnamon, coriander, aniseed, ginger, nutmeg, cardamon and cloves. Sometimes it also contains pepper or allspice. If you can’t get speculaaskruiden where you live, why not make your own? A beautifully illustrated recipe can be found here.

Method:

  • Knead all the ingredients together by hand until they form a ball. Wrap the ball in clingfilm and place it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  • Preheat the oven to 175˚C/345˚F (hot air: 160˚C/320˚F)
  • Roll the dough into about 100 small balls (approx. 1.5 cm/½ inch in diameter). Place them on a lightly greased baking tray.
  • Place them in the oven…
  • … and bake for 20 minutes.
  • Leave to cool until they are nice and crunchy.
  • Eat straightaway or store in an airtight container

Enjoy!

A Would-Like-To-Do List

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Are you a list maker? I certainly am. Lists help me navigate through life, but I need to be careful that they don’t take over. It’s all about finding the right balance between getting things done and being realistic and gentle. For 2023, I wrote this wish list in my knitting notebook:

  1. Norwegian knitting
  2. Making things for our grandson
  3. Knitting challenging socks
  4. Designing

Some categories received more time and attention than others, and that’s fine. It wasn’t a have-to-do list after all, but a wish list. The list helped me bring some focus to my knitting.

For 2024 I’m recycling this list – keeping, adding, removing and modifying a few things. For the year ahead, my would-like-to-do list is:

  1. Norwegian knitting
  2. Make everyday things for my family and myself
  3. Be a little more creative
  4. Be generous with my knitting

The ‘be a little more creative’ item is still a big question mark. For the rest, my knitting baskets are filling up, with some Norwegian knitting…

…everyday knitting…

…and knitting for a community project:

More about the contents of these baskets over the coming weeks.

The poncho I’ve just finished definitely belongs in the ‘everyday knits’ category. It’ll be a nice and warm extra layer indoors in winter and an easy-to-throw-on outdoor item for the rest of the year.

It’s a simple rectangle that makes an asymmetrical poncho and starts with a crochet provisional cast-on. I was going to take pictures and talk about the how and why of that but forgot. I did take a quick picture of the blocking stage, but that doesn’t tell us much except that I blocked it:

I’ll try to do better with recording the process this year.

After seaming part of one side, stitches are picked up for a wonderfully cosy knit-in-the-round ribbed cowl. All in all, a lovely soft, simple, soothing project.

Well, I’m off to do a few things that will never belong on any would-like-to-do list but just need to get done – that’s life. I’ll reward myself with a few rows of knitting afterwards.

Have a lovely weekend!

PS The Easy Folded Poncho can be found here on Ravelry, and the ribbed cowl adaptation here on the designer’s website. The yarn I used is Rowan’s Fine Tweed Haze in shade ‘Deep’, a dark tealy blue with tweed nepps in pink, orange and white (the first photo captures the colour best). If you’re going to use this yarn, do swatch! I’m a fairly average knitter but needed to go down several needle sizes to get the gauge specified by both manufacturer and pattern designer.

A Monkey in the Forest

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Hello! Last week, besides needing some quiet time to myself, I was too busy finishing a monkey to write a blog post. Before he was to move in with our grandson, I took him to the forest at the end of our street for a photo shoot. First we walked through the part with the big old beeches, where we got a good shot of the way his tail peeks out from his dungarees.

But on the whole it was too dark under the trees, so we walked on to a sunnier spot. It’s one of my favourite places in the whole wide world – a tiny, perfectly round pool.

It’s probably an ancient cattle watering-hole and it is surrounded by a small patch of heathland.

The heather is in bloom at the moment. It’s mainly ling, but there is also some bell heather.

So, here he is, the monkey I knit for our grandson:

He was knit entirely in one piece, starting from the top of his head. It isn’t an easy knit, but the pattern is very clear and has photo tutorials for literally every detail. The only part that gave me some problems was the ‘frown’ – the vertical line between his eyes that needed exactly the right increases to get a neat result. It’s a very clever construction and I particularly like the shaping of the monkey’s back and bum that allow him to sit up straight on every surface.

I knit the monkey a pair of dungarees with buttons on the back, that you’ve already seen from behind. This is the front:

And a jacket that also leaves the tail free.

Even though it’s the middle of the Summer Holiday Season and there are many, many tourists in the region, nobody comes up to me here, asking what on earth I am doing. It’s quiet. Dragon flies are flitting across the pond, too fast for me to capture. A viviparous lizard is also faster than my camera. Fortunately the carnivorous sundew stays in place, allowing me all the time I need to photograph its treacherous sticky droplets.

We enjoyed a lovely couple of hours in the forest, the monkey and I. He has now moved in with our grandson and they are getting along very well. The monkey has already been dressed and undressed countless times, and also been thrown about quite a bit, but he keeps smiling and doesn’t seem to mind.

For the knitters among you, here are a few details:

  • Yarn: Sandness ‘Tynn Merinoull’ (monkey, 20 MC, 8 g CC); Dalegarn ‘Baby Ull’ (jacket and dungarees 17 g each, mouth small remnant); I used a fingering-weight yarn, but the monkey can be knit in any yarn weight
  • Height of monkey: 18 cm/7” from top of head to bum; 27 cm/10½” including legs
  • Knitting needles: 2,25 mm/US 1 for monkey; 3,0 mm/US 2½ for clothes
  • The designer’s website (in Dutch) with patterns and supplies for this monkey and other softies can be found here

The Dutch paper pattern booklet includes the jacket. There is a separate booklet for the dungarees and some more clothes. Designer Anita mostly uses colourful yarns like Schoppel Zauberball for her creations.

The digital pattern for the monkey in Dutch, English, German and French can be found here on Ravelry; the dungarees in Dutch and English here; and a dress here.

Because I wanted the monkey to be washable, I’ve filled it with synthetic filling. For weighting the hands, feet and bum I used plastic pellets encased in cotton tubular bandage.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this visit to ‘our’ forest with the monkey and me. Thank you for joining us! xxx

Two Questions You Should Ask Yourself

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‘There are two questions you should ask yourself if you’re thinking of taking up knitting as a hobby,’ writer and comedian Paulien Cornelisse said. ‘One: Do I love maths? And two: Do I love frustration? If your answer is yes to both, go for it.’

Paulien said this as a guest in a tv-show where she talks about knitting, Ravelry and the hand-knit sweater with the ‘bla bla bla’ yoke she is wearing – her young son’s design idea.

She also tells us how in the mirror ‘bla bla bla’ is reflected back at her as ‘old old old’. She really cracks me up! (Video here on YouTube.)

Paulien and her two questions repeatedly popped up in my mind when I was knitting a cardigan for our grandson. The pattern is from the Rico Design Baby Merino 01 booklet, and the yarn I used is the same Baby Merino used for all of the patterns in it.

I love the sweet 1950s style sweaters, jackets and socks in the booklet. But knitted shorts and bare legs with all those warm woollies? Hmm, not entirely sure…

So, what’s with the maths and frustration? Let’s start with the frustration. The yarn comes in 25 gram skeins and is a really nice and soft fingering weight wool. Only, several of the skeins had multiple sections like this, split and frayed:

Very frustrating to have to cut the yarn in inconvenient places and have all those extra ends to weave in. The other skeins were fine, though, and I hope this was just an unlucky Monday morning batch.

Next, the maths. On the whole the pattern is okay, although it could have been a little more precise. It’s mainly the sleeves I had problems with. Here the pattern says: Cast on 49 sts, after the ribbing decrease 3 sts evenly, continue straight with the resulting 80 sts and bind off.

Huh? 49 – 3 = 80?!?

Nothing about increases, and nothing about sleeve length either. Fortunately I love maths (not). And fortunately on one of my granny days, I also happened to have drawn a diagram of the machine-knit sweater our grandson was wearing.

So, I started counting rows and calculating increases. If you’d been there, I swear you would have heard my old brain cogs creaking and clicking. But they proved to still be up to some maths and I’m very happy and proud about the way the sleeves turned out. Ridiculous, perhaps, to be euphoric about underarm seams, but don’t they look nice?

I’m not entirely happy with the way the bottom of the button band pulls up – I should have picked up a few more stitches for that.

In spite of the maths and frustration, I enjoyed knitting the lightweight cable fabric and I’m pleased with how the cardigan turned out. It is filled with love and I hope our grandson will feel cosy and cared-for wearing it.

The colour I used is called ‘ivy’, but that it certainly isn’t. It’s a little closer to sage, but with more blue added in. It’s hard to capture in a photograph, but this’ll give you some idea.

Finally, I asked myself two questions. One: Would I use this yarn again? And two: Would I knit more items from this pattern booklet? My answer is yes to both, because I love maths and frustration the softness and dusty colours of the yarn and the style of the designs.

Wishing you a lovely and frustration-free weekend! Bye xxx

Linea Socks

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Hello!

While I’ve been out and about quite a bit over the past few weeks and had to squeeze in some work, too, there was also plenty of time for knitting. One project that has recently slid off my needles is a pair of Linea Socks. It’s the second pair I’ve made from that beautiful book 52 Weeks of Socks.

This design, by Finnish designer Minna Sorvala, has diamonds on the top of feet and legs, flanked by columns of twisted stitches and small honeycomb cables.

I felt rather daunted at the start, but knitting four rows here, six rows there and just following the clear instructions and the chart the socks grew more quickly than I expected. While knitting, I took some photos of interesting details, hoping my pictures and notes will be of use to anyone else who’d like to make the same socks.

The Linea Socks are knit from the toe up and have a fairly blunt toe. Using a circular needle, I cast on with Judy’s magic cast-on. (There are many videos explaining this technique clearly, like this one.)

These are socks with a gusset, which imho makes for a much better fit than gusset-less socks. In the pattern, the increases for the gusset are made between the top and bottom needles. At first, I followed the pattern, but got holes.

This was not what I was looking for, so I ripped back a few rows and made the increases one stitch from the sides. Much better.

The heels of the socks are reinforced using a pattern of slip stitches. I hope you can see it in the photo below.

To bind off, I used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off. (For a long time I called it Jenny’s bind-off, but it really is Jeny with one n – a good video here). How wonderful to be immortalized like Judy or Jeny for inventing a clever knitting technique! Unstretched, this stretchy bind-off is zigzaggy along the ribbing at the top.

Stretched when worn, it looks neat and feels comfortable.

And here they are all finished – my Linea Socks.

There is one tiny error in chart B, for the back of the leg. The second stitch from the left should be knit through the back of the loop, instead of worked like an ordinary knit stitch. For the rest, the pattern is very clear and the Linea Socks were a joy to knit.

These socks remind me of a series of funny old cartoons – La Linea. It’s amazing how much can be done with one simple line. It’s just like knitting, really – one thread, endless possibilities.

A Bit of a Puzzle

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Hello!

While I’m writing this, I’m sipping lemon-and-ginger tea with honey. I’ve just made a jug using the recipe in this post. It’s said to help with all kinds of ailments, and it also tastes good, too.

Today, I’d like to tell you about a cardigan for our grandson I’ve just finished, from a Danish pattern translated into German. The design is called Lykketræf, Danish for ‘A Stroke of Luck’. ‘A Bit of a Puzzle’ would be a more fitting name, if you ask me. My German is reasonably good, but looking at the pattern I felt panic rising.

Very dense print with lots and lots of abbreviations – without a list explaining the abbreviations! To make things more manageable, I highlighted the instructions for the size I was making and used a sticky note to keep track of where I was.

The cardigan is knit from the top down with a decorative pattern along the raglans. Working slowly, step by step, I was able to work things out in the end.

It took a while and quite a bit of ripping back to get there, though. To be honest, at first I had no idea what I was doing. What on earth did zun mean??? Ah, it must be zunehmen (increase). So, 1 M li zun must be ‘make 1 left leaning increase’, and 1 M re zun must be ‘make 1 right leaning increase’, right? But it didn’t look right.

So I got out some undyed DK-weight yarn and tried out the raglan decorations separately.

This showed me what the problem was. German links can mean both ‘left’ and ‘purl’. And rechts can mean both ‘right’ and ‘knit’. What I needed were purl and knit increases, instead of left and right leaning increases.

Okay, time to start anew. Was it plain sailing from there on? Uhm, not exactly. I won’t bore you with all my struggles, but there was quite a bit of ripping out and re-knitting (on 2.5 mm/US 1.5 needles) until I was happy with the buttonholes, the I-cord along the front edges and the bind-off. Fortunately the yarn stood up to it.

Fronts and back are knit in one piece from the armholes down. The sleeves are knit flat. I used mattress stitch for seaming them, joining a few rows at a time loosely before tightening the thread.

There is a great video explaining mattress stitch in garter here. Once you get into the rhythm, joining ‘smiles’ to ‘frowns’ (as the tutorial calls the different garter bumps) is a nice and contemplative thing to do, really.

And here is my finished Lykketræf cardi – the tiny olive wooden buttons are just what it needed.

I’m taking it with me on Monday, my regular day for looking after our grandson. Hope it fits. The wool-and-cotton blend feels like just the right kind of yarn for this in-between season. Although the weather forecast for next week promises us colder weather with wintry showers, there are many signs that spring is around the corner.

  • Pattern: Lykketræf by Bente Geil
  • Yarn: Geilsk ‘Bomuld og Uld’ (55% wool, 45% cotton, 50 g/254 yds/232 m)
  • My Ravelry notes here

Now it’s time to start something new – yay! Enjoy your weekend and see you again next week!

Making a List and Choosing Buttons

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Hello!

The New Year is well underway, and I’ve been thinking about where I’m going with my knitting. I didn’t make any resolutions or a list of goals. I feel a huge inner resistance to setting goals when it comes to knitting – as if the very word ‘goals’ will suck all the joy out of it. But drifting along and being pulled in all kinds of directions by whatever yarns or patterns cross my path, as I’ve often done, doesn’t feel quite right either anymore.

So, I am taking the middle road by making a wish list – a short list of the kind of things I’d like to do more of in the coming year:

  • Norwegian knitting
  • Making things for our grandson
  • Knitting challenging socks (at least more challenging than my ordinary stocking stitch ones)
  • Designing

It is rather vague, I know. Not very S.M.A.R.T. according to some. Will I get anything done without Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound goals? We’ll see. For now, I’m still finishing a few last things from 2022.

In 2021, at the time of year when the hydrangeas were in bloom, I bought two skeins of yarn from two dyers new to the craft (they can be found here and here):

The pale blue tweedy skein doesn’t know what it’s going to be yet. The other one has grown into a pair of simple stocking stitch socks.

I’ve also finished a simple stocking stitch Quintessential Cardigan from a soft navy blue wool-and-alpaca blend.

I wanted a medium-warm cardigan for everyday wear that would go with just about everything. It turned out exactly the way I wanted it, only maybe a little too… serious? Perhaps that could be remedied with buttons. I hadn’t bought any yet and got out my big button box. There might be some in there that I could use. Sifting through the buttons, I put all those in the right size on a tray.

The cardigan needed seven buttons, and I made several combinations. Six matching navy blue ones and a pop of red?

Nah, still too serious. Colourful retro?

Fun, but not really me. Seven silvery and shiny ones then?

Oooh, I really like those! But not with this navy blue cardigan. Okay, one last try:

Yes!

Not terribly adventurous perhaps, but hey, that’s me. I do hope to become a little more adventurous in my knitting in 2023, though. Oh, and I would also like to do more with the buttons in my button box – I’ll add that to my wish list. Now, where can I put the list so that I won’t forget about it?

How about you? Do you have specific knitting/crochet/other plans, goals or resolutions for 2023? I’d love to hear about them!

Library Vest

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Hello!

Last week, instead of writing a blog post, I gave myself some extra knitting time. I knit a number of mini-mittens, a sock, and half a sleeve for a cardigan. I also finished my Library Vest, a project I chose partly because of its name.

To me, libraries are wonderful places. I still remember the first time my mum took me to the local library (I must have been about four) – so many books! And you can even take some home! Working in a library seemed a great job, being among books all day and stamping return-by dates in them. At home, I played being a librarian as a child, but apart from working as a library assistant in the evenings for a while to earn some much-needed income as a student, I never became a librarian.

I still love spending time in libraries. This is ‘our’ library in the nearest town, in a building that used to be a bank:

Not terribly attractive on the outside, but very welcoming inside.

Dotted around the place there are always themed displays of books. Last week, there was a large table with books about Sinterklaas in the children’s section.

Officially Sinterklaas is on the 5th of December, but for practical reasons we are celebrating it tomorrow. Shopping for Sinterklaas gifts, I spent an afternoon in Bolsward, a town with a great independent bookshop and other non-chain stores. Its library is housed in a far more impressive building than ours:

The library shares these beautiful premises with a museum and a café. Part of the café staff have Down’s syndrome, which gives the place a relaxed and light-hearted atmosphere. The young woman serving me proudly announced that the carrot cake they had baked that morning was one of the best ever, so how could I not have a slice?

Well, let’s not forget the Library Vest this whole story started with. It’s a sleeveless garment knit in simple stocking stitch, with a slight A-line, a few short rows above the hem to make it hang more evenly and shoulder seams placed a little forward.

It also has knit-in pockets. It is always hard to sew pocket bands in place neatly, but the pattern has a clever technique for that. Selvedge stitches are added on either side using bits of waste yarn (photo tutorial in the pattern). Perfect!

Beside the name, another reason for knitting the Library Vest was that I had exactly the right yarn for it left over from another project – a soft, navy blue tweed yarn called Lamana ‘Como Tweed’. It looks and feels like a fingering-weight yarn, but knits up at 22 sts on 10 cm/4”. With 120 meters/131 yards to a 25 gram(!) skein it goes a long way.

Instead of the rolled reverse stocking stitch edges that the original design has along fronts, armholes and pockets, I used the same ribbing as along the bottom (k3, p1). The faux leather buttons nicely bring out the tweed neps and somehow I think they are just what a librarian would choose.

If I’d become a librarian, I would probably have lost my job years ago, when almost all of the paid staff were replaced by computers and volunteers. Sometimes I think it might be nice to work in the library as a volunteer, but, hmmm, should I? It isn’t that the volunteers aren’t doing a good job, but it doesn’t feel quite right that this valuable work isn’t valued monetarily. Is this just a Dutch thing, paid staff being replaced by volunteers in certain sectors, or does it happen in other countries too?

I’ll consider volunteering seriously when I retire. Until then I’ll just play being a librarian at home, wearing my Library Vest (pattern here on Ravelry) and my geeky computer glasses.

Wishing you a relaxing yarn and book-filled weekend! Xxx

Gables

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Hello!

Today, I thought I’d treat you to some knitted gables as well as some real ones. From three skeins of fingering-weight merino non-superwash yarn I’ve knit another Thús 2. Casting on 119 stitches, I made it wider than in the pattern. Then I knit, knit, knit, and knit, row after row of houses, making it longer than the original too, ending up with a 51cm/20” by 2.14m/84¼” wrap. Here you can see how big it is:

I like wearing it like this, with the ends criss-crossed:

Or wrapped around my neck once and knotted:

The gables in my wrap are very simple, rather like the gable of our own home only with an extra pair of windows.

Far simpler than the many beautiful and interesting gables we saw during a visit to the Frisian city of Bolsward in August. There were stepped gables, like this one with its decorative anchor plates and a man’s and a woman’s head above the first-floor windows:

The stepped gable from 1741 below, with a pair of scissors in the centre, must have belonged to a tailor once.

There were simple bell gables:

And ornate ones, with swags and frills everywhere:

As well as interesting and fancy gables that seem more modern to me (but I am not knowledgeable enough to tell you from what period or style this one is) :

It was fun walking along the canals wearing how-many-different-gables-can-I-find glasses.

Well, back to my own simple, hand knit gables. If you’d like to copy them, my Ravelry notes can be found here.

There are other knits on my needles now – a simple navy blue cardigan for everyday wear, a jacket for our grandson, swatches for a new design of my own and a pair of mittens for a gift. More about those when I’m a little further along. I hope you have enough to occupy your hands, too. Because, what can be nicer than spending the darkening evenings knitting?