crafts

Knitted things I finished in February

March 6, 2009 by Susanne 4 Comments

Don’t get that wrong, these aren’t things that I knitted in February, I only finished them last month. I’ll start with the one that had been laying around the longest. It’s also the one I’m extremely proud of, look:

I started them on a whim more than a year ago. The pattern is Tiffany by Sabine Riefler. I used leftover yarn from a crochet scarf, and in their first incarnation they looked completely different. I had to frog them since they were a) way too big for me, which wasn’t much of a problem since my husband said he’d like them, but then I b) ran out of yarn. I ripped, I started a doll’s sweater with the yarn, I ripped the sweater, I read a bit about doing two-handed stranded knitting, I tried again on tiny, tiny needles, and there they are. In two-handed stranded knitting you’re holding one color of yarn in each hand, and you knit continental with one hand, and English with the other. It was very weird at first, especially since I had to modify the way I knit continental, too, since usually when I’m knitting I’m using both hands. In this case I had to free my right index finger. At first I felt like wearing handcuffs, and my right hand hurt but in the end it got easier and more comfortable. And I really love the way the knitting looks and feels, and most of all that there are no strands on the inside. Someday I will make a whole sweater using this technique, I’m sure.

By the way these are all crappy photos because it’s still grey in grey here.

Then there’s the cardigan that I started last year in June. It still needs washing, blocking, and a button. It looks really crumpled because the yarn used to be an almost finished bobbled and cabled sweater that lay in the attic for something like 14 years. It survived the big de-cluttering of 2004 only because I like the color, and I thought that it might become a new sweater eventually. Last year when I saw the pattern Something Red by Wendy Bernard I wanted to make it immediately, and I thought about the yarn in the attic. So I unraveled the bobbled monstrosity, wound up the yarn and re-knit it. No, I didn’t wash the yarn first. Silly. I’ll have to wash and block the finished thing anyway. I made it a bit too small because I think the cotton will become bigger with wearing. This will either be something that I wear all the time, or something that I don’t love at all. The knitting went really fast, until I got bored with the plain stockinette, and with the cotton (because I really don’t like knitting with cotton). I have this feeling that maybe my knitting basket dooms project because the cotton sweater sat in there, only lacking one sleeve for months, and months, and now I have started a new sweater which lives in the basket, and again I am both enthusiastic, and reserved. We’ll see how that one turns out.

I also finished my Clapotis. I had bought some Wollmeise Lace Yarn, which I wanted to use for Mystic Earth. Well, it was much too colorful for that. So I made it into this:

Much better. Also needs blocking, of course. If I go on finishing things at this rate, and not blocking them I will need a special closet for “things to be washed and blocked”. Right now they are blocking both of our dressers. Ahem.

Another one from Wollmeise, this time Wollmeise sock yarn:

The pattern is Ornette by Cookie A. I love the intricacy of her patterns and also the fact that she named so many of them after Jazz musicians. I will have to knit a Thelonious Sock eventually because Thelonious Monk is one of my favorite musicians of all times.

Then there was the re-knit of Gretel because the first one turned out too big for me:

You can find a picture of the bigger one here, and there you can actually see the pattern of the hat. I really love Ysolda’s designs, they make me very happy.

The last thing I want to show you for today is yet another shawl out of Wollmeise Lace, Irtfa’a by Anne Hanson. When you click on the link you’ll see that it is supposed to look like a raven’s wing, well, mine rather looks like a bird of paradise, maybe a psychedelic bird of paradise:

Again with the crumpled look because again, not blocked. Which is why you can’t really see how beautiful it’s going to be. In my defense I have to say that the drum set is sitting on the rug that I use for blocking. But who knows, maybe someday I’ll block everything, and then the sun will shine, and I’ll show you even more pictures of knitting in reds.

For those few of you who’d want to read even more about my projects, you can find me on ravelry. And of course I already started three new projects, or rather four, a pair of plain socks to take with me when riding trains and such, a little doll designed by Ysolda for my son, an olive green turtleneck for me, and a lace stole. Not that much, don’t you think?

First picture of dolphin costume

February 20, 2009 by Susanne 4 Comments

Just to let you know what kept me busy the past days. Today I’m busy teaching. I’m still trying to figure out how to show my son wearing his costume without showing his face…

My Yarn Stash

January 26, 2009 by Susanne 6 Comments

Just the other day I was telling somebody on ravelry that I don’t have much stash, also I’m running out of sock yarn. When I have finished the two pairs of socks currently on my needles there is no more new sock yarn.

On the other hand I can barely close my yarn drawer, and there are projects, patterns, yarn and needles everywhere in the house. How can those two things be true at the same time?

So I decided to a) think about it, and b) pull out the wool and have a look at it. I haven’t gotten as far as actually looking at it right now but thinking about it helped a little. I think I might start to understand what’s going on here.

I usually put my leftover yarn in the attic. Sadly the “leftover yarn boxes” are full. More knitting means more leftovers. This is one of the reasons why there is a lot of yarn in my yarn drawer.
When I ordered the yarn for my last two sweaters online I, of course, ordered a bit more than I thought I’d need. Since the shop isn’t nearby I can’t just go and get more. Actually, with the last sweater I ordered the exact amount of yarn needed and I have about 2 1/2 skeins left over. I know, it’s a mystery. That accounts for 400 g of yarn between the two sweaters. The leftover yarn would make great mittens or hats (I don’t knit scarfs, hate making them). Only the colors don’t match anyone’s coats.
Even though I thought I don’t have any more sock yarn there is in my yarn drawer: a) an almost finished pair of summer socks, b) leftovers of two pairs of socks, enough yarn two knit another pair out of the same yarn, c) between 40 and 60 grams of each skein of Wollmeise sock yarn that I’ve ever owned (which might become either striped or fair isle socks at one point).
There is leftover Wollmeise lace yarn, enough for a lace scarf, or if combined with the two other colorways of Wollmeise lace that I have (that accounts for two of my currently active projects), there might be enough for yet another stole,
There is yarn I bought in order to make yet another lace stole, this one will be for a friend.
There is leftover yarn from making a scarf and hat that will eventually become a pair of fair isle mittens for me. (
And it would be nice if I finished those before August. So that I can actually wear them.
There are three balls of cotton sock yarn that I wanted to design socks for. They have been sitting in the drawer, untouched since July. I had an epiphany last week, and have declared that I will just make socks following a pattern. Designing should be fun, not a chore. The pattern is sitting on my piano at the moment, the yarn is in the yarn drawer. And I won’t start them soon, since it’s not summer yet.
There is enough cotton from 1994 to make yet another preemie blanket. Only I hate working with cotton.

I think that’s all, apart from the hat that needs seaming that sits on top of the fridge, the lace shawl and pirate scarf that need blocking that sit on top of the dresser, the two pairs of socks, and two lace shawls in progress that sit on the kitchen bench, the unfinished cotton sweater that sits in the knitting basket in the living room (it only needs another sleeve and a button band to be finished), and a ziploc bag with the cast-on for the aforementioned baby blanket that probably will never happen.

So, you can easily see why I have the feeling that I’m in desperate need of wool, can’t you? O already ordered yarn for another sweater (one that I really need), a knitted doll, and a pair of socks. I’m desperately waiting for them to arrive. Before I run out of yarn and things to knit.

I feel quite virtuous, though, because only half of the drawer is full of wool. The other one is occupied by my fabric stash. That somehow overflows into the rest of the bedroom too…

P.S.: I just remembered the spinning stash, and the handspun. And the yarn that was a hat that was too big for me until half an hour ago when I wound it on the niddy-noddy to re-knit the hat. Ouch.

Hail the gauge swatch!

November 27, 2008 by Susanne 2 Comments

Some of you might ask, “What’s a gauge swatch?”, well, I wrote about this particular gauge swatch way back in March. (A gauge swatch, by the way, and for those of you who really don’t know, is when you knit a small piece of about 10 x 10 cm or 4 x 4 inches to determine what size needles to use, and how many stitches you will need for the thing you intend to make.) The swatching for this particular sweater was the most extensive I have ever done. I knit a long piece of fabric with three different sizes of needles, measured all the parts to determine how many stitches and rows gave me 10 cm, then I washed and blocked it, let it dry and measured again. And I had something of a revelation because after washing everything was much bigger than before.

With the needles that I used I had 16 stitches and 23 rows on 4 inches pre-washing, and 15 stitches and 20 rows after washing. You’d think that isn’t much, won’t you? What’s a measly stitch? Let’s see: for this particular sweater I cast on 141 stitches. 141 divided by 16 is 8.8 that is 88 cm. And trust me, that is not enough to fit me. But after washing it’s 141 divided by 15, and that is 9.4 which is 94 cm, much better. So just by washing the sweater and blocking it it would become 6 cm (or 2.3″) wider. That’s how much difference the measly stitch makes.

So, back to the actual sweater. I did everything right, I swatched, and measured, and washed, and measured, and chose a size that would hopefully fit me, and then I knit the whole thing in one piece instead of making a lot of weirdly shaped pieces that have to be sewn together. The sweater is quite fitted, and the designer obviously isn’t afraid of sewing everything on, including the buttonbands. (It’s the L’il Red Riding Hoodie by Jennifer Stafford, by the way.) And while I do love the design, and while I’m certainly not afraid of seaming, I don’t like it much, it always looks wonky, and I stubbornly refuse to sew together a raglan. Raglan yokes are meant to be knit in one piece.

The knitting experience was quite interesting. I was knitting something that looked about two sizes too small. I had to put together the instructions for the fronts, buttonbands, back, and sleeves in one place at one point, and these weren’t of the “now decrease two stitches every fourth row” kind. Even though the whole thing is in plain, boring stockinette, it was more challenging than knitting lace. Also I don’t really like the yarn. I wanted something plain, not too expensive and hard-wearing, and that’s what I got. In a color that goes with everything I own, so the color isn’t particularly exciting too. It’s no wonder that I actually started two more sweaters before finishing this one. (Actually, upon further thinking I recall that I started three more sweaters before finishing this one.)

But at last, and through sheer stubbornness, I finished it. There wasn’t much seaming, of course, and I even managed to graft everything that needed seaming nicely together (a first for me). But then there was the zipper. I had to put a zipper into a knitted garment. Argh. Here are pictures of the unwashed hoodie, pre-blocking and pre-zipper:

Of course it took more than a month before I even bought a zipper. I managed to wash and block the sweater, and, alas, finally it matched the intended dimensions. For months I had been sure it was all a mistake, and I’d end up with a hoodie fit only for my son. I even worried about what to do about the waist shaping and bust darts, something he really has no need for.

I carefully measured the hoodie, went to the store with my huge gauge swatch for color-reference and bought a zipper. When I came home I immediately was sure that the zipper was too long. Also too heavy. And I didn’t know how to put a zipper into a sweater. I’d certainly not use a sewing machine but what to do? Thanks to ravelry and the internet I found two excellent tutorials, one by Grumperina and one by Claudia. I mostly followed the latter because of the, as Grumperina put it, “absolute quality in every shortcut”. I’m very keen on shortcuts when sewing (come to think of it, I like them in knitting as well, only you can’t use any in music). And I actually basted my zipper in! I never baste anything in, but finally I have been convinced to make exceptions for zippers. Some shortcuts aren’t shortcuts but time-wasters. It’s a good thing to know the difference.

So, after about nine months I finally have a nice everyday hoodie that I made all by myself. It’s thick wool which will help me to stay warm through winter, and I love the fit. It will surely get a bit longer since I have knitted it all in one piece and there are no seams to prevent it from sagging but that suits me fine, it’s a bit short now anyway. Here are the pictures of the hoodie after washing and blocking:

Also I seem to be in sweater knitting mode. I think it has something to do with several things: a) it’s becoming quite cold, b) I am a bit sick of my two winter sweaters, the red one and the terracotta one that I have been wearing all winter long for the past four years (and both of them have sleeves that are too short), c) I realized that knitting a lace stole or shawl doesn’t take more time and work than knitting a sweater but while I clearly don’t need more than four, or let’s say five, lace stoles and shawls I can easily need more than four winter sweaters.

And now that I have experienced the wonders of knitting gauge swatches, and measuring them, and even of such extreme steps as looking up the measurements of the finished sweater in the pattern, and – instead of just assuming that I need something in size M – actually measuring me, and some sweater that fits, and choosing the size accordingly, well, they might even look good on me.

Which is why I set out to knit a sweater in November. It’s red. I love it so far but since it’s not been washed yet it’s still too small for me. I started on November 8th, and completed it two days ago. Happy NaKniSweMo!

Happy Hat

November 17, 2008 by Susanne 6 Comments

I have been wanting to show this to you for weeks now. Before starting to knit on October 24th I took a picture: I wrote about it on ravelry:

All of a sudden I had this urge to knit something from my handspun. What good is all this new yarn if it’s only sitting around looking all artsy? So I looked for patterns. Since there is only so much you can knit with 90 grams of very bulky and uneven yarn (this is the second yarn I spun on my wheel), I was glad to find this pattern [Urchin] by Ysolda. I knew I probably had just enough yarn to make it. Of course I wanted to cast on immediately but then I had to first wind the yarn into a ball, and then wait until work was done. Friday in the evening I sat down and started making it in the smaller size but with bigger needles to compensate. Because it’s all garter stitch I got confused about which stitches were wrapped and which weren’t a lot. At the end of the evening I had about a third of the hat, and was afraid that it would be too small. So I started again on Saturday. I went up a size and knit a bit more loosely. It all went beautifully and was much fun to knit. Then I started the final wedge and found myself eyeing the ball of yarn every other second. Would there be enough? With about 1.5 m of yarn left and eight more rows to go I remembered the leftover singles I still had on the bobbin, and went to ply them very sloppily. I went back and knit the remaining eight rows, and found that the yarn was just barely enough without the “emergency yarn”. I had two little snippets left in the end, about 5 cm altogether. The hat looks much better than I thought it would. I’m very, very happy with it. Now I only have to take pictures…

Since then I have been waiting for the stars to align so that I can take pictures of me wearing the finished hat. I wanted three things to come together: a) the sun should be shining, b) I should be wearing make-up, c) I should have time to take pictures. Today I realized that the next time that would happen would probably be in spring, and so I decided to take pictures anyway:

The weekend to-do-list

October 20, 2008 by Susanne 5 Comments

Do you do that too? Make a list of what you want to do on your weekend? And I don’t mean something like a grocery list, or a list of chores, my list is all mixed. Chores, pleasurable things, mundane things.

I think my tendency to make endless lists is stemming from a deep desire to live my life as best as possible. It also stems from the experience that if I don’t make lists, if I don’t write down things nothing will get done, and by the end of the weekend I will feel bad about that.

I wasn’t always like this. Back in my twenties I spend weekends mostly alone, in bed. I kept the lists and the things to do for weekdays only, unless I had a big paper to write or something. I remember when I decided to make Saturday a workday, and felt almost shocked about this. Still, Sundays were spent in bed, reading, doing nothing, with a solitary walk in the afternoon.

Now, my life is much fuller than it used to be, and I have begun putting things on my lists like: “talk with husband”, “play with son”, “read comic”, and “take a shower”.

So, on Friday I made a list, and I did almost all the things I put on it, and now I feel quite good about my weekend and myself, only I have this feeling that I shouldn’t be making these lists all the time.

This was my list:

seam, wash and block green cardigan
spin
block scarf that I made for my husband (has been lying around since April)
clean house
buy groceries
go to hardware store
play the guitar
continue knitting Mystic Waters shawl
read Flash and Firefly-Comics

I did everything on my list apart from cleaning, but then my husband vacuumed the whole house so he did my chore for me. What I didn’t put on my list but what I should have put on there was:

practice recorder with son
give son a bath
exercise

It wasn’t on the list so I didn’t do it. Oops. On the other hand I did spend about an hour on Saturday teaching my son how to crochet. It was all very sweet. He had been studying a children’s catalogue full of clothes and toys, and suddenly he said, “I want to knit a bag like that.” Of course I was interested, and after telling him that it was indeed crochet, and that yes, I would teach him how to do it but only after breakfast, I fetched some yarn and a crochet hook. He’s becoming quite good at the actual crocheting part that you do with your right hand but he is completely unable to hold the yarn, and the piece he’s working on in his left, so for now he needs me to be his left hand. Which led to some frustration on his part when he wanted to work on his bag a little more after lunch, and when I couldn’t help him immediately he tried on his own only to discover that he can’t do it without me. Not the best for building self-esteem.

I don’t remember it being so hard. When thinking about how I learned to crochet and knit, I’m left with a feeling that my mother showed me briefly and then I got it. I remember that learning how to purl was a bit more complicated because I taught myself out of a book, and got it wrong but that was that.

On the other hand I was eight when I learned how to crochet and my son is only five years old. He will learn eventually. At least I hope that he will.

But, back to the list-making, I do find it a bit sad that I have to put things like “read comic” on a list to get them done. It’s only because I’m wading through heaps of unread books, comics, magazines, and blog posts.

So, while the weekend to-do-list does work for me, I still have the feeling that I shouldn’t be having one. And, of course, if my life were in order, I’d do the grocery shopping and other errands during the week.

So, what do you think about weekend to-do-lists? Do you have them? Do they work?