Earlier projects

Since I don´t have any finished projects to show off, knitting on the Pomatous scarf, a mohair shawl out of Maskerader, and the Sarcelle shawl, I thought I could show off some earlier work :)
As in ages ago!
Unfortunately, I think I threw out my violently mohair-ey sweater in pink and purples from the late eighties (knitted at the tender age of 16, mind). But I did find some other stuff, not all but some.
All knitted after probably 1987 and definitely before 1996. The glove actually belongs to a thick sweater for hubby knitted in 1996...

But the orange-and-grey jacket was the absolute end of my knitting career. At that time - obviously I restarted it around xmas last year!
The orange-and-grey jacket in Dale Tiur yarn. First of all - Dale Tiur is a mohair-wool blend, a bit stiff and hopeless to rip. I started my jacket in 1994, knitted half way up the main part and put it aside. I cleverly (not, as it turned out) took the circular needle out as I needed it for another project, and replaced it for a thinner one, and promptly forgot. Picked up the project about a year later, and finished the main part. Finished the arms, and went to put it together. Only to realise that half way up the main body, the width became about 6 cm narrower!!
I gave up knitting for all time.

Some years later, I handed the thing to my grandmoter - we knit to just about the same gauge. She rescued the thing by ripping and redoing, all the while hating the yarn tremendously. And then my mother kindly cut down the front and for the arms and did all the sewing togeter.

I have the jacket now and could wear it, but I really, really do hate it!
I´m also weaned off fair-isle for a while. It´s "only" been about ten years so far, and I really don´t want to go there again any time soon.

stripy socks and hateful scarf

Yeay! My pink-loving niece will be so happy :) I´m finished with her simple little socks in REGIA 4-ply woollen yarn. The pattern is a simple sock pattern from SOCKS-SOCKS-SOCKS, it has a barely recognisable twisted thing going on. I like the colours :) Something with me and pink lately...

Also pink but not quite as loved - my Palette-scarf. This is a pattern from knitty.com which was a fairly easy knit, but there are two alternating patterns, in addition to the right- and wrong-side differences. And they´re just close enough to each other that it was difficult to remember which one I was doing, and easy to slip over into an almost similar line. Seeing how I was knitting in Evilla Plate Yarn - stupidly as it turned out - with double thread and with no spun woollen yarn with it, frogging was impossible without the yarn just falling apart. In fact, knitting turned out to be impossible too at times. This yarn had quite a life on it´s own and trying to force into a lace-type pattern was not something it wanted to do... Also - I obviously should have chosen thicker needles as my scarf turned out a bit more compact than I would have liked it to.
Oh well, I have learned. Next time: choose a pattern that´s easier to memorise or "read" of the already knitted work. AND use a solid spun wool next to one thread of this stuff, not two thread of fragile-fragile plate yarn.
In fact I don´t think I like the way the colours turned out either... Oh well, once I stuff it around my neck inside my big winter jacket, no-one will know :)

Finishing up some projects

The joy of finishing projects!
I´ve knitted another Flora scarf from knitty.com for a Secret Pal, same yarn as last time but this time bluey-green whereas last time it was pink. I use two threads of Idena Mohair Lux, which is a variegated yarn, and one thread single-colour kitten Mohair, on 5.5mm needles. The result is fantastic and I love the way the colours changes just a little bit along the scarf.

I also blocked the dress for my little niece in the states, so it´s ready to go in the mail tomorrow. I hope they´ll find some use for it, it´s a lovely little thing.

Gauge-fright

Gaah! How irritating is this?!
I´m knitting a summer dress in cotton for one of my nieces abroad, and it needs to be finished on Monday. And yes, I did start a bit late.
Even though I have a total fear of measuring gauge, I knitted a test-swap before I started. It was perfect! Now after 10cm of the dress, it is 4 cm to wide! Rip, smaller needles.
Cotton sucks.

Yeees! Finishied!

My love/hate project as of late is done! The Kiri shawl that I've been knitting since the end of November, gave a rest for a while, and recently picked up again is finally done!

It's knitted in Italian Mondial Prestigio Super Kid Mohair yarn on 2.5mm needles. At 245m/25g this yarn is slightly thinner than the pattern calls for.
Since I "cleverly" choose much thinner needles than the 4mm suggested in the pattern (yarn is thinner, I knit loosely, etc what on earth was I thinking!) I had to do way more repetions than the pattern called for to get to a reasonably sized shawl.
But it's lovely! Also, when blocking the shawl, I made the "tips" as described in the pattern, but they simply vanished when I took the yarn of the blocking needles. Strange...

Anyhow - the pattern is feather light and airy! So I'm very happy with it! Except for one major mistake I realised way after the fact, which is very obvious to me but hopefully not to all. But there is no doubt - I will use this a lot!
I think I will start another one soon, in the same yarn but with thicker needles. It should be a wonderful, and hopefully somewhat faster, result!

Coming along!

Ignoring my arguesome Kiri-shawl for a while, I´m happily knitting along on the Hanne Falkenberg Ludo-jacket for my son. It´s actually starting to look like something! Somewhat... Anyhow, the yarn has a much lovelier color in real life than on the picture on the website, it´s kind of meleed and beatuiful.
But thin and easy to snap, as I found out when DH accidentally stood (!) on it while I was merrily knitting along. Ok, maybe any yarn would snap then, but this certainly did.


I also found myself gasping a bit after doing the first pattern round, knitting some more and looking back at what I´d done. It didn´t look at all like it should according to the tiny picture that came along with the package of yarn.
Some intense reading of the yarn, counting, and wondering whether I could have somehow misunderstood the Danish instructions (seeing how I don´t actually speak Danish but Norwegian, which is somewhat close but not necessarily the same), and a slight panic later...

I found out that I was looking on the backside of the pattern, silly cow, and that the front side looked amazingly, surprisingly just like it should. And very nice at that.
A quick count of the stitches after all the SSL and K2tog on even rounds, and my shoulders were back where they belonged since it seems everything is perfect.

And I can´t say how pleased I am about that, I do not want to frog this again!

Why 96+2 is not 100

This really, really irritates me!
I just started the Hanne Falkenberg Ludo jacket for my son, and idiot that I am, I can`t add and got off with a wrong stitch-count!
AGH!

The pattern says to knit two together, then 96 straight on, then two together. Makes 98 right? WRONG!

Stupid, stupid mistake and I had to frog the whole thing and start again. Oh well. The cast-on turned out prettier this time, so I`m happy :) Somewhat :)