søndag 22. februar 2015

#5 / 2015: Otto mittens

It's Sunday, which seems to be the Great FO Day, and I finally finished the Otto mittens for my boyfriend yesterday. Today they were dry. I guess being ill helped - I finally left the house today for a short walk and now I'm exhausted!

I feel lucky that he agreed to model the mittens, too.


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Knitting for my boyfriend is definitely something I enjoy, and I have slowly introduced more knitted items to him. Of course, they have to be functional. I think I started with the scarf he is wearing in this photo, a bit over a year ago. Then a hat, and another hat... a pair of socks.. and now these mittens.


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I like the simple design of these mittens, and I also think it's very effective. I love geometrical designs, moreso than the traditional Norwegian ones, these days. They have the aforementioned Latvian braid and a nice pop of colour by the cuffs.

On our way home the mittens also got to pet a cat.


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It is not often that one gets to take such candid pictures of mittens!

After I finished them yesterday I promptly cast on for another pair, fingerless mitts this time, from the same book, in worsted weight and cables. Yep. I have finished the first one already... more on that later.

All in all, the Otto mittens were a win-win; I was able to use stash yarn and the result was a great success. I have many other stash mittens and mitts planned, too, so maybe this stash will actually shrink a bit... let's hope!

fredag 20. februar 2015

WIP Wednesday #3 delayed: Test knitting, university knitting and Latvian braid love

Unfortunately I did not have time to post my WIPs this Wednesday. Today I'm at home being sick and feeling sorry for myself, so I have used the opportunity and daylight to take some pictures and give a little WIP update.

I finished one sweater, so I swiftly started a new one. This is not a stranded sweater, it is a single-colour henley pullover. I am doing a test knit on ravelry, the pullover winter song by MonaLykaina. I need more simple and casual sweaters in my wardrobe, and I often feel like I choose patterns with too many design elements, or at least I have in the past. And while I love straned Norwegian sweaters, a lot, I can't have a sweater wardrobe only consisting of them. 

The yarn is from Hillesvåg, a sport weight with good meterage.  The colour is an example of Don't Trust Your Monitor, as I ordered this online. I wouldn't have chosen this green if I had seen it "live", but I like it enough to go with it. I'm just not crazy about it... Objectively, though, this is a colour that probably will go well with my colouring, but I would have liked it a little lighter. I'm sure it will be fine, though; and I already sent back five skeins  (that is 500 grams)  of yarn in a colour I was unhappy with. Hopefully I will be happy with the colour I chose now. 

No denying it, though, the colour Moss Green is a pretty green and it looks differently in different lights. 


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Here is one representation of the colour...


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And here is another!

I like this version better...

As you can see, there is a lot of stockinette in the body of this sweater, so I guess it will be quite uninteresting for a while, until I get to the yoke.

That brings me to the next project... the mittens which I'm still working on.


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Yes, I have had a littke knitting photo shoot in my window sill.

These mittens are slow going because I am only knitting on them while I am at university. I haven't been at many lectures lately, but I have been working a lot on developing a good system for analysing a compound, and it is taking a LOT of time, and it produces quite a bit of down time. Combine that with low energy levels due to a beginning cold and I had a good excuse to do some knitting. So hooray - I'm over halfway with mitten number two!


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And let me just say, I am in love with the look of the Latvian braid. I actually didn't know of it until a few months ago, but it's just great for the bottom of mittens with this kind of cuff (that is, no ribbing). It is absolutely lovely, and a total pain to knit. The result is worth it, though.

I think I am going to make an effort to finish these mittens soon. I want to start a new project...

søndag 15. februar 2015

#4 / 2015: The Medalje Sweater

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Well - I'm done, finally. Since I have already written a lot about this sweater, I will keep it short.

I love the finished result. In the end, I opted for wooden buttons instead of tin buttons, and I think it works well with this slightly modernised version of the sweater. The fit is a bit slimmer than it should have been, as I knit the 100 cm size, but I had some problems getting the gauge of 27 sts/10 cm even with thicker needles. A truer gauge is probably around 28 sts/10 cm.

The finishing and button bands were not my favourite with this sweater. It is quite long, and I felt like I worked on the button bands forever! It was actually so annoying that I thought that my next project will definitely be a pullover (and it is time for a pullover, to be honest)!


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I am very happy with the yarn, it makes for a soft, bouncy not too thick sweater. I think the colours are beautiful and it can be worn with different types of clothes. I like that the fit ended up a bit slimmer, too.

The construction of the sweater with the raglan sleeves is also excellent, and I have a feeling I might adapt sweaters with steeked sleeves to raglan sweaters in the future. Anything to keep the cutting in knitting to a minimum..!


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All in all, I am very happy with my new sweater and I'm happily wearing it right now.

And guess what - my next pullover will not be in stranded knitting! So stay tuned.

onsdag 11. februar 2015

WIP Wednesday #2: Finishing touches, knitting backwards and It's Starting To Look Like a Sweater!

Saturday I finally got to the point I had been waiting for on my Medalje sweater, namely joining the body and sleeves. Because I never learn, when this happens I always think "oh, this means it's soon finished!", but I quickly get back to reality; raglan decreases take a long time. When I had joined the sleeves to the body, I had roughly 400 stitches. Four hundred stitches. In stranded knitting. Oh boy...

With eight stitches decreased every other row it took me a while to get to an acceptable level of stitches. My sweater in size M/L has around 250 stitches in the body. I think that when it starts getting close to 300 stitches, it is too much. Did I mention stranded knitting all the way? I probably did. (By now, I know the pattern by heart, which is nice.)

With the help of Downton Abbey and Drop Dead Diva (I have somehow gotten quite invested in the latter!)  I managed to get to this point Monday evening:


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I put it on two circular needles, tried it on and posed in front of the bathroom mirror:


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(Yes, there is a Norwegian flag in the bathroom, why shouldn't there be?)

Some things struck me: It fits really well! The yarn, a superwash wool/nylon blend, is really bouncy and soft. The other thing was that it would probably look really good as a pullover, too. (Also, pullovers don't have button bands - but more on that later...) As a result I have decided to make a pullover from another pattern-heavy sweater in the book. More on that .... sometime.

 Tuesday evening I had gotten to the neckline. The neckline is deeper in the front, so stitches are put aside and the shoulders are worked back and forth. If you are anything like me, you know that stranded purling is the worst. Not only is there a lot of purling, which of course is a hassle - but you have to keep the floats in front of the knitting and how does one assert Yarn Dominance when purling anyway? Who knows? Normally, I just cast on for a new steek and continue my merry way, but I would like to minimise steekage on this sweater, so I decided to try something completely new to me: knitting backwards, or from left to right.

A few weeks ago I discussed this technique with a fellow member in my sewing group. Essentially, it is just like normal knitting, only left-handed. Unfortunately I am extremely right-handed and it proved difficult. I tried both continental (my preferred) and English (because then I would have the yarn in my left hand), but it was so difficult. Granted, I did not try so hard. I am very impatient. Instead, I put the stitch from the right needle to the left needle, and knit it normally, with the right needle. Then I transferred it back to the left needle. It actually went quite well.

There are many tutorials on how to knit backwards on youtube, whether you knit continental or English (or combined, but that's a style I do not know!); I'm definitely not good at explaining.

This leaves the last part of the finishing, which is most tedious one, by far: making the button bands.

Most of the sweater patterns I have knit in the past usually have you pick up the stitches along front of the body, making the button bands perpendicular to the knitting overall, but on this one you knit the button bands like this:


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And sewing it onto the sweater as it gets finished. It does look very nice and clean, but it takes a long time. Right now I am a bit over halfway on the first button band, but hopefully I will get done soon-ish.

Maybe I will be done by next Wednesday ;)

onsdag 4. februar 2015

WIP Wednesday #1 and yarn diet

So, what's on the needles?

Well, right now I have one project that has been ongoing since December 27th. December 27th because that is the day the shops opened after Christmas and I could buy yarn for my new sweater. 

The pattern is, as my lately finished Veme sweater, from the book Kofteboken. It's taking some time - not only because it's knitted at a gauge of 27sts/10 cm, or because it's patterned all over, but because I have been distracted in the meantime. I had to knit the baby onesies, and then I just "had" to knit the Veme sweater. 


Medaljekofte in progress

This is not the most up-to-date picture, as I am closing in on 30 cm knitted on the body! The sleeves were finished before the body, which is just great (I may need to do that more often). My ravelry page is here, by the way, but the pattern itself is not yet on ravelry. Overall, it's quite a slow going project, but I have learned the pattern now; good thing about these types of patterns is that they are often quite intuitive.

For the interested, this updated version of the cardigan will have raglan sleeves (the earlier version had steeked set-in sleeves). Although I'm thankful I don't have to cut and sew, I can't say I am looking forward to having a trillion pattern stitches. Whew. But that won't be yet...

The yarn I am using is Sisu by Sandnes yarn, a superwash/nylon blend, and it's creating a nice and elastic fabric. I think I bought 13 skeins in total for this, and I still have 8 left, so I'm concerned there might be a lot left...

Which brings me to the next project - the Otto Mittens (link to ravelry pattern page). On Saturday I came across the book "Votter og pulsvanter til alle årstider" or "Mittens and mitts for all seasons". It's a very pretty book that caught my eye, and it had a lot of nice patterns.

The thing is this - I am on a self imposed yarn diet. Compared to many others my stash is probably very cute and little, but to me, there is a lot, and I don't live in the largest place, either. My goal is to knit up as much as possible before the summer, and I have lots and lots of yarn in mitten friendly quantities. So my plan is to always have a little project on the side of a larger project - and this time the choice fell on these mittens.


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There are a lot of other mittens I want to knit from that book, not to mention I can knit hats and other things. If I can knit many small things during the year, maybe I won't be in so much trouble come Christmas? ;) Anyway, these mittens are for my boyfriend, to whom I have not knitted many things. Somehow it feels a bit scary, still, but he really likes these mittens, and I get to reduce my stash by a smidgeon. Win-win.

That's all for today - happy Wednesday to everyone and I hope I have something else to show for next WIP Wednesday!

søndag 1. februar 2015

#3 / 2015: The Veme Sweater

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A happy lady with her new Veme sweater.

In Norway, the traditional sweater, the "kofte" is having its renaissance, being more popular than ever. In the autumn of 2014, a fellow member in the sewing group Nydeligfin told me about the facebook group Koftegruppa. The group shared all kinds of Norwegian sweaters, and it was incredibly inspiring. In November, Kofteboken was published, featuring new and wearable versions of the traditional sweaters we love (but maybe not know). Like the good knitter I am, I wished for it for Christmas, and lucky me it lay underneath the tree!

Let me just gush over this book for a bit. It's just so nice. The photographs are lovely. It does not feature the most well known sweaters, but I think that is even better. Most of the sweaters are knit in fingering weight, which makes for more wearable garments, and many have got a round yoke or raglan. Very nice.

The first sweater I cast on for is not actually the pictured one, but the one in my header. That was the one that caught my eye at first. Actually, I did not really like the Veme sweater so much at first sight. It took some time. It was when I decided I must slim down my  stash a bit, and wondered what I would do about this brown, yellow and orange yarn. The pattern grew on me, and I decided to supply with some undyed yarn.


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The yarn I knit with was Rauma finullgarn, a kind of grabby pure wool yarn from Norwegian sheep, no superwash. It is perfect for stranded knitting, and knitting with steeks. I love it! At first, I was a bit unsure about the colours - they were kind of... seventies-ish, and actually reminded me a bit about my grandparents' house. I seem to remember some wallpaper with the same colour scheme...


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Thankfully, the colours grew on me after I was finished with the yoke.

I bound off yesterday (31st of January). I had started the 14th, so it was a quick knit. I immediately threw it in the wash bucket, and today I sewed on buttons (tin buttons, yay!), caked on some make-up and asked my boyfriend to be my photographer whilst doing a nice Sunday walk, so the scenery was not too bad.


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I am very satisfied with this cardigan and I definitely recommend it. Just look at how genuinely I am smiling ;)


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