knitting

Unwinding

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Hello there! Here, in the Netherlands, many people take some time off work in the last week of April and the first week of May. With most schools closed, King’s Day on April 27th and Liberation Day on May 5th, it is a time for going to festivals or travelling. While everybody seemed to be having a great time, I was feeling grumpy. Like, everybody is having fun but me. Was I envious?

Well, yes and no. When I saw the crowds in the cities and at the airport on tv, I was happy I wasn’t among them. I didn’t mind missing out on the big events and didn’t particularly want to travel either. What I did want was some time to unwind, though. Only on a much smaller scale. So that’s what I’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks, and I’d like to share some of it with you.

One thing I’ve been doing is literally unwinding and re-winding yarn using my nøstepinne.

It’s a totally unnecessary thing to do, but for me very relaxing. Seeing a mini-skein or an unattractive looking leftover bit of sock yarn transform into a perfect little ball with a hole in the middle is just so satisfying.

Going for a walk or cycling are other great ways for me to unwind. (Thank you for joining me on last week’s wood anemone walk – I really appreciate your comments. Knowing that you are there and enjoy some of the same things inspires me to keep blogging.) We are very fortunate in where we live. Hopping onto my bicycle, I’m here in three minutes:

And even closer to home, I’ve been pottering around the garden, doing some weeding and taking a few photographs. In our herb patch, I found a blackbird’s egg – unfortunately not hatched.

(We’ve also found shells of eggs that did hatch, so not to worry.) Looking at flowers through the lens of my camera, I forget everything else.

Most of the things I did to unwind were close to home (or even at home) and took just a few minutes to an hour at most. But we also took an entire day off to visit a fair at Middachten Castle.

My husband lived close to the castle as a child and our daughter lived almost next-door for several years, so it feels a bit like home to us. Although it is a beautiful place, I’m glad it isn’t really our home, to be honest. I’d feel totally lost in a big place like this, and think of all the work involved! The house and gardens are closed until June, but just looking at them from the outside was still enjoyable.

The fair we’d come for was rather disappointing. I’d hoped to be able to buy a few gifts at the stalls, but didn’t see anything special. Apart from some spectacular bulbs of different varieties of garlic, that is.

But a bunch of garlic as a gift for a 20-year-old niece? Not, not quite what I was looking for. Fortunately we had enough time left to visit a few shops in nearby Zutphen. Ah, it’s such a lovely city – I’ll take you there for a longer visit again some other time. (An earlier post about it can be read here.)

I also spent quite a bit of time unwinding with my Seventh Heaven Scarf. It’s growing much faster than I thought. After the greens, I’m now deep into the blues (literally – after all the unwinding any figurative blues have lifted), knitting up some of my small nøstepinne-wound balls of yarn.

Well, that’s it for today. I hope you can find some time to unwind in your days, too, and hope to see you again next week!

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!

A Fair and a Pair of Bootees

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Hello! I hope you don’t mind going on another little outing today. This time I’m taking you to the first outdoor fair of the year in this part of the world. It’s a lovely small-scale event organized around three themes: Lifestyle (bags, soaps, home accessories etc.), regional food and wool.

We’re mainly here for the woolly theme, of course, but let’s pay my knitting-group friend Simone (aka Mevrouw Polska) a visit first. Long ago, she dreamed of owning one of those beautiful blue-and-white Polish teapots one day, when she could afford it. Well, she has one now and didn’t stop at that. She grew a small business importing and selling earthenware from the Boleslawiec region in Poland. There’s always something new to see.

It was only afterwards, looking at the photo at home, that I noticed the lovely knitwear. Simone is wearing her cosy Herringbone Hill sweater and one of the many Clapotis scarves she’s knit. With 23.600 projects on Ravelry, Clapotis is a hugely popular pattern. Several people in our knitting group, including me, knit at least one. Have you knit one, too? And behind her, one of the other stall holders is wearing a beautiful yellow cable sweater.

What I love about this fair is that many of the businesses are tiny. Here is Frog Mouse Studio, for instance, with her cheerful hand-dyed yarns. Besides the usual 100 gram skeins, she also has a basket filled with mini-skeins. Very tempting.

The young stallholder tells me that this is her first ever fair, and also that she has designed the sweet yarn labels herself.

Websiteless Wolvrouwtje, owner of a herd of 8 Shetland sheep is taking part for the first time, too. She has some of their yarn spun at a mill, hand spins and dyes some of it and also sells raw fleeces. Everything on a really, really small scale.

Wat Wollie has been in business a little longer – I’ve already knit a pair of socks with some of her hand-dyed sock yarn. New on her stall is local wool from Noordhollander sheep, first dyed and carded by her, then spun at a small spinning mill. The colours on those skeins are so pretty, and its interesting to see how they play out on a hat.

Although I would have liked to support these small-scale businesses by purchasing some of their lovely products, my current yarn-buying policy* didn’t allow me to do so. I’m supporting them in a small way by writing about them instead.

Over the past week, my knitting has also been small-scale. Our grandson urgently needed a new pair of bootees, as you can see.

His mum had already given the wool-felt bootees new soles, but they are now beyond mending. So, I got out some yarn left over from a sweater I’d knit for this thrifty mum, got onto Ravelry and found these Baby Hausschuhe (free pattern from a German blogger available in German, English and Portuguese). It starts with the sole and stitches are picked up from that for the top of the bootees.

The pattern only describes one baby size far too small for our now 1-year-old grandson, but after a few false starts, I’ve been able to adapt it for larger feet (my Ravelry notes on how to do this can be found here).

This was a quick, satisfying and useful little project, even nicer because I already had the perfect yarn for it.

* My current yarn-buying policy is to only buy yarn with a specific project in mind, but before buying anything first look in my stash if there is something I can use. Besides knitting the bootees, I’ve started something else with leftover bits of (sock) yarn from my stash. I hope to tell you about that over the coming weeks. Bye for now!

Tiny Chicks and Tiny Cables

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Hello! Please meet the latest additions to our household: three tiny chicks. With just two ancient hens left, it was time for some new life in our chicken coop. Not all of the eggs we put in the incubator hatched, and sadly one of the four chicks that did hatch died soon afterwards, but we’re very happy to have three healthy, lively, fluffy, adorable speckled chicks.

Ideally they’ll turn out to be one cock and two hens, but they may just as well be three hens (fine too) or three cocks (not really what we’re hoping for). We’ll wait and see.

With the new chicks, fresh green leaves unfurling on the currant bushes, fat blossom buds on the pear tree and many bulbs in flower, spring has truly sprung in the garden.

On the knitting front, it’s as if it’s a little earlier in the year. Do you know that feeling? You can feel that all kinds of things are happening below the surface, but above ground there is very little to be seen as yet.

I have made some progress on my Linea socks, though, and the foot of the first sock is finished.

I started out doing the cables without a cable needle, as a fast and easy method. (All the cables are basically just pairs of two stitches crossed in front or behind each other.) But after an inch or so, I noticed that they didn’t look great. Especially looking at the tiny cable to the left of the diamond, I think you can see what I mean.

Along the bottom half of the diamond (without cable needle), the tiny cables look irregular and sort of angular. Along the top half of the diamond (with cable needle), they are more regular and rounded, as well as more open in the centre. So from here on I’m using a cable needle, even if that means slower progress.

The rest of my knitting is still in the incubation stage. I keep lists of the projects I want to focus on now and would like to knit someday in this notebook.

For me, old-fashioned hand-written notes on paper still work best. With ideas and notes in computer files it is often a matter of ‘out of sight is out of mind’. And the actual act of writing things down by hand seems to connect to a different, more creative part of my brain than typing does.

The notebook was a souvenir from France, and the cover is a design by Gaëlle Boissonnard. I adore her work. Her blog can be read here – it gives a lovely insight into her creative process. Google doesn’t do a great job translating her poetic texts, but just looking at her images is inspiring, too.

Feeling frustrated by the slowness of my creative process, I was thinking of the garden. Why can’t my projects flower now, like the hyacinths and all the other spring bulbs? And then I discovered that I just need to be a little more patient, because I’m a sunflower! 

You can find out what flower you are by taking this quiz. Have fun!

Child’s Play?

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Hello!

Last week my search for something simple to knit took me to Joure. This week it’s taking me to the past. Looking for inspiration on my book shelves, I came upon my very first knitting books.

For several years Ik leer breien (I’m learning to knit) parts 1, 2 and 3 were the only knitting books in our home. On the whole, knitting wasn’t something learnt from books, but rather from (grand)mothers, aunts, cousins or neighbours. And at school, of course. We did have a few magazines, too, I think, but most of those came later.

These three booklets were written by Mrs. A. H. Beyst, Needle Crafts Education Consultant for the City of Rotterdam (can you imagine having a job like that?). They were published by the International Wool Secretariat and the Dutch knitting yarn industry, and that shows. Besides knitting, they teach us a LOT about wool and yarn production – from sheep to skein.

 ‘Texel also has many sheep, but the best wool comes from Australia’, the International Wool Secretariat tells us. I skipped these parts of the booklets as a child (boring!), but find them interesting and amusing now.

There is no publication date in any of the booklets, but they came into my life around 1970, when I looked like this.

I remember the school photographer asking me to take off my hood and me refusing. It was cold and the hood was so nice and comfy.

Part one is aimed at children aged 6-10. It starts out with really simple, nice projects suitable for children that age, like this garter stitch sleeping bag for twin dollies.

It has a steep learning curve, though, with part one already explaining short rows. Personally, I wasn’t enthusiastic about the tea cosy, but I did enjoy knitting several striped clothes hanger covers.

In part 2 (for children aged 8 and up) we were taught to knit als grote mensen (like grown-ups), i.e. socks and mittens on 4 needles.

Although at that age I already was an avid knitter, I wasn’t really interested in knitting socks yet. And part 3 of the series (for the same age group) lost my interest completely. It is the weirdest little book, filled with endless variations on stitch patterns – knit-purl combinations, ribbing, lace, and most of all page upon page of slip-stitch patterns.

What was Mrs. A. H. Beyst thinking? Was she trying to put children off knitting for life?

Now, over 50 years later, I’m looking at Ik leer breien 3 with different eyes, seeing possibilities. Over the past week, I’ve been knitting swatches using and varying on slip-stitch and other stitch patterns from the booklet. I think there is something there that I could use for a simple project.

Slip stitches have become popular over the past few years, with Stephen West’s Slipstravaganza shawl as the most awe-inspiring example. For copyright reasons I can’t post a picture here, but it can be found here on Stephen’s website and here on Ravelry.

A picture of what I’d like to make and what yarn I could use is beginning to form in my mind. I don’t know exactly what it’s going to be yet, but I think it’ll include slip stitches and I’m certain that it’ll be far, far simpler and less flamboyant than Stephen’s creation.

Do you have old knitting books or magazines that you treasure, too? Or did you learn knitting entirely without them? I’d love to read about your memories!

Looking for Something Simple

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Hello!

Drawing up my knitting wish list for 2023, I forgot one thing. There is lots of interest in it: Norwegian knitting, design projects, challenging socks etc. What I didn’t think of at the time was that I also need something simple alongside.

At the moment a pair of simple socks in a plain, solid navy blue is fulfilling this role. The only interesting thing about them is that they’re from a yarn I’ve never used before – Lamana ‘Merida’.

When these are finished I’d like to start on a simple wrap/scarf/stole again. Something endlessly rhythmic and soothing. Something like this huge stole in a wide knit-and-purl rib I knit several years ago (blog post here):

Something like this only slightly smaller Striped Linen Stitch Wrap I’ve enjoyed knitting so much (blogged about here):

In short, I am looking for something utterly simple – no shaping, no seaming, no complicated stitch patterns – that will take a long time to knit. But what? I thought a visit to my nearest serious yarn shop might help me find the answer. It is in the Frisian town of Joure, a 20-minute drive from our home.

Joure isn’t the first place that would come to mind if people from elsewhere were to ask me what to visit in this region. It is just a nice, ordinary town, but it does have a few lovely spots and buildings as well as an interesting-looking museum (that I have yet to visit).

Joure also has a lively shopping street, although it struck me this time that here, too, as in so many other towns there are quite a few empty shops. Brick-and-mortar shops seem to be struggling everywhere. Strolling through the town centre is still very enjoyable, though.

And here we are at the yarn shop – Ajoure. There is a spinning wheel and some unspun and undyed wool in the window.

And inside there are walls, tables, cupboards, boxes and baskets filled with yarn, yarn, yarn and more yarn.

Many beautiful and expensive yarns, and also many more ordinary and affordable ones. And yet I don’t find what I am looking for. Not the shop’s fault – it’s just me being vague and indecisive. I don’t consider my visit fruitless, though. I’ve seen several yarns I’ll keep in mind for future projects, just spending some time in Joure was lovely, and I also picked up a leaflet telling me that the fabulous wool and sheep festival Joure onder de wol will be held again this year, on Saturday May 13th. If you don’t live too far away, that’s really something to look forward to.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep looking for something simple to knit. Bye for now and hope to see you again soon!

PS. And what about the people at the top of this post? Why are they standing there in the middle of Joure’s shopping street, gazing up at the sky? Are they looking for inspiration, too? Well, actually they are not gazing up at the sky, but at this:

The recently restored church steeple from 1628.

If You Keep Taking the Same Walk…

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Hello!

Our local beautician has a blackboard outside, along the street. On some days it says, ‘Hello beauty, you’re looking good today!’ On other days there is something on it like, ‘Why not treat yourself to one of our relaxing facials?’ (Am I not looking good today?) And sometimes she gives us food for thought.

This time it says, ‘If you keep taking the same walk, you’ll stop seeing new things.’

Hmm, well, yes, no, I don’t know. Is taking the same walk over and over again a bad thing? On the whole, I’m fine with the same old, same old. Not having to think about which route to take on a walk (or in life) frees up loads of mental space. And if you really look, there is always something new to see, even on the same old walk, even if it is just a bit of fresh graffiti on someone’s shed.

But then again, taking a different route can be enjoyable and bring some spice to life as well. For me, it’s all about finding the right balance. Take my knitting, for instance (it’s strange, how everything always comes back to knitting 😉).

A couple of years ago, a dear knitting friend came home from a trip to Germany with 2 beautiful skeins of sock yarn for me. I deliberated about what to make with them for a long time. Socks or shawl? Shawl or socks? The socks won. With one skein, I’ve gone the same old route I’ve been taking for ages – simple stocking stitch knit from the cuff down.

There was something new in them, though – a small percentage of yak down, making them very soft and warm. The yarn is Lana Grossa ‘About Berlin – Yak Relax’ (60% Wool, 25% Polyamide, 10% Yak; 100 g/420 m). It isn’t one of those yarns that automatically make a perfect pair, though. You need to look closely at the stripe sequence if you want the socks to be the same.

With the second skein, I’m taking a new route. My map for this route is in the book 52 Weeks of Socks that I got as a Sinterklaas present in December.

This is the beautiful linen bound hardback edition. A less expensive paperback version is also available now, and the book has also been translated into Dutch and German. And 52 Weeks of Socks II will be out soon.

Maybe you remember the Garia socks I knit before I owned the book (blogged about here). In case you just want to knit one pair, the patterns are also available through Ravelry separately. The next pair I’m making are the Linea socks, designed by Minna Sorvala.

These are knit from the toe up, a route I’ve taken before but not very often. What’s entirely new is that I’ve never knit a pair of socks with an all-over cable pattern.

There is a special Ravelry group called 52 Weeks Months of Socks. Joining this group doesn’t mean that you need to knit all 52 pairs of socks in the book, or I would never have joined. The idea is just to knit socks from the book together and help, encourage and inspire each other. A KAL (knit-along) for 2 pairs of socks is started every other month, with prizes and points to win. (I have yet to discover what the point of the points is.)

To win a prize or points for the Linea KAL, I should have posted a picture of my completed socks before February 28th. Too late. Well, never mind, the socks will be my prize. Here is the start of my Linea socks – not too difficult, but interesting and enjoyable so far.

That’s all for today. Hope to be here again next week with something new to talk about. See you then!

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!

Lessons Learnt from a Pair of Lined Mittens

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Hello, and thank you so much for all your kind well wishes! For those of you with a similar bug: I hope you’ll get well soon. I’m not exactly brimming with energy yet, but grateful to be feeling much better, and glad to be able to pick up the thread of my blog, too.

So, here is the post I’d planned to write before I fell ill, about a pair of mittens I’ve knit for our daughter and the lessons I’ve learnt from them. The first reason I chose these mittens is their beautiful design details. Nice braids and a zigzag pattern on the cuffs and 8-point stars on the top.

A diamond pattern on the palm and a lovely motif on the thumbs.

The funny thing is that these mittens have a decidedly Norwegian look, but were designed by someone from Sydney, Australia, of all places. Do Australians need mittens at all? I’ve only ever heard my Australian relatives talk about the heat. Google teaches me the first lesson.

Lesson 1: Australians rarely need mittens, but sometimes they may (some parts of Australia even get snow!)

Around the entire mittens there is a decorative 3-stitch edge. I was afraid holes would form along the sides and at first pulled the threads tight. This made the stitches pucker and the brown Vs disappear in the white background – not nice at all.

Lesson 2: Gently does it – do not pull the threads tight when changing from one needle to the next on the sides of colourwork mittens, but gently guide one colour behind the other.

After finishing the hand of the outer mittens, stitches need to be picked up on one side of the thumb hole. For the first thumb, I just used my knitting needle. The result was okay, but not great. For the second thumb I tried something different.

Lesson 3: Picking up stitches for the thumb works best with a crochet hook – look how neat:

My second reason for choosing these mittens was that they are lined and therefore extra warm. For the outer mittens, the pattern had been perfectly clear. But when it came to picking up stitches for the linings I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. I spent a lot of time looking at other knitters’ Ravelry notes for clues, but couldn’t find anything helpful. And that brings me to the next lesson.

Lesson 4: When stumped, use your own common sense

The pattern said to pick up stitches ‘with right side of mitten facing’, but I couldn’t see how or where and picked up stitches on the inside. That worked out fine.

The instructions for the linings are not great. You need to turn the mittens inside out from time to time to check the length.

Following the instructions for the width and top, the linings became far too bulky and didn’t feel nice at all. So, I ripped them out and went down a needle size…
Ripped them out again and made them shorter…
Ripped them out again and tried a pointy top like the outer mittens. Nothing felt right…
Ripped them out again and tried making the entire finger section of the linings narrower…
Yes, finally they fit! They looked ugly and irregular, though…

Should I rip them out yet again and try different decreases? No! Nobody will ever see the linings. The most important thing is that they fit and feel nice.

Lesson 5: Not everything has to be perfect – sometimes good enough is good enough!

All in all, a great pair of mittens, and knitting them was an interesting process.

  • Pattern: Northman Mittens by David Schulz
  • Yarn outer mittens: Garnstudio Drops ‘Lima’ (65% wool, 35% alpaca)
  • Yarn linings: Blue Sky Fibers ‘Baby Alpaca Melange’ (100% alpaca)
  • My Ravelry project notes here