Far from an original project, but nice nonetheless (ignore the pizza cutter, there are limited flat, well-lit surfaces here). There’s really not much to say; “pattern” by Jared Flood, 39 stitches wide, a little bit longer than I am (probably around 170cm, can’t be bothered to find the measure tape now). Yarn is Noro Kureyon, maybe not ideal for a scarf, but soaked in Milo, it’s pretty soft. Silk Garden would maybe be better, but I got the yarn more First Noro-experience, and I’m not sure what to think. Lovely colors, at least, but yeah.

In general, I like the color combination, but there are a couple of sections I’m not too pleased with; the part where the two blue/turquoise sections crashed, and the turquoise/pink section.

• Pattern: Noro Scarf
  by Jared Flood
• Yarn: Noro Kureyon
• Colorway: 156 and 180
• Needle: 4.5mm
• Yarn amount: 140 grams.
• Modifications: None in particular.
• Ravelry link

Finally finished mitten #2 of the Love Bytes mittens! I somehow managed to make them a liiittle bit too small this time, but I can get them on and once they’re on, they fit pretty nicely, so it’ll have to do. And one of them is a tiny bit shorter than the other one, but not enough that I actually care. Or, well, I care, but not enough to make a fourth mitten for this pair. The pattern is really well written, and even provides alternative charts for dark-on-light color schemes, and I love the look of the mittens, but finishing the third one definitely became a chore, simply because of gauge issues and having to knit way tighter than I’m used to. If I were to knit these again, which I might, I’d go for a different yarn.

I would definitely not call this yarn ideal for the pattern, even if it is the yarn called for. It might have something to do with me knitting quite loosely, but I had to go down to a 2.25mm needle (pattern calls for 3.25) to get gauge, and knitting with needles that small and trying to knit tightly to get gauge was sort of hellish with this yarn. Not that the yarn isn’t lovely, because it is, but I wouldn’t use it again for something requiring this gauge, I think. It also pills quite a bit, so I think the pattern might disappear a bit after a little bit of use, but I won’t know that until next year, as we’re luckily getting spring weather here now.

(Let’s just pretend that camera strap isn’t there.)

But I’m glad to have gotten to know Malabrigo Worsted, at least, and the colors are awesome and I would love to knit some other stuff out of it, and I look forward to finding something to do with the leftovers from this. Probably a hat or something, with the green as the main color. Does anyone have suggestions to nice worsted weight hats, with details in one or two other colors? I’ve been considering a Thorpe with some stripes added, but I guess we’ll see.

• Pattern: Love Bytes
• Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted
• Colorway: Marron Oscuro (181), Bobby Blue (027) and Olive (056)
• Needle: 2.25mm
• Yarn amount: Finished mittens weigh 96 grams, add a couple for scraps.
• Modifications: Had to use smaller needles. Messed up the whole mirroring of the braids, so they’re identical, but it was too much work for me to unravel because of something so small.
• Ravelry link

It’s not really visible, but I managed to hold the stitches in front of instead of behind the piece in four of the places where the cables cross, so the over-under-over-under effect is more like under-over-over-over and over-under-under-over :p So that sucks. But like I said, not enough for me to re-do them. I think. I wish I knew what to do with these, I don’t like having stuff lying around that I’ll never use. But at least that’s better than having something half-finished lying around, so I’m glad I finished them.

• Pattern: Fingerless gloves / Stulpen
• Yarn: DROPS Silke-Tweed
• Colorway: Red (23)
• Needle: 2.5mm
• Yarn amount: 44 grams
• Modifications: Knit the inside of the hand in stockinette stitch, cause I figured having ribbing inside the hand would be annoying as hell. Started out with 30 stitches in stockinette, decreased to 22 after 20 rounds. Started pattern after 30. Did my own finish, decreased to 20 stitches on the inside for the last three rounds where I did 2×2 rib all around.
• Ravelry link

Oh, and I accidentally started a new sweater. Hm. I don’t have enough yarn, and I wasn’t going to start this until next winter because I’m hoping to lose some weight, but I suppose I could always knit a new one. And this will most likely be a slightly experimental Marius sweater, so it could be nice to find out what works and doesn’t, I guess.

I’m thinking I might turn the green leftovers into a hat, if I can find one I like.

(Yes, I’m super pale.)

Never thought I knitted particularly loosely or tightly, but most people on Ravelry have knitted these in Malabrigo with 3.25mm needles or somewhere around there, but 2.5 ended up being too loose for me :/ I know I have small hands, but they’re not that small, I think? Went down to 2.25mm now, still not sure if it’ll work. If this try isn’t a success, I’ll just give up on these in this yarn, and instead use it for something else, I guess. It’s lovely yarn, at least, and a great pattern.

I’m not sure yet whether or not I should follow the pattern exactly in a tighter gauge again, or if I should remove the row of hearts, or if I should keep the hearts, but finish the mitten earlier… I guess I’ll see how my gauge ends up once I’m done with the first row of robots – I still have the first mitten to compare with. I might do something about the thumb too, because as it is now, the set-up for the thumb is pretty much the length of my thumb :p

Haven’t been knitting a lot lately, as I’m a bit busy with school, but I’m working on a pair of fingerless gloves. I made a few modifications on the fingerless gloves, but forgot to write them down, so I’m not sure I’ll ever knit the second one :D I guess we’ll see if I’ll bother counting stitches and rounds. I’ve never understood the point of fingerless gloves, but I figured I’d try one more pair before I gave up.

• Pattern: Blueberry Waffle Socks
• Yarn: Sandnes Garn Perfect
• Colorway: Apple green (8514)
• Needle: 3mm
• Yarn amount: The finished socks weighed about 87 grams. Used almost two skeins.
• Modifications: Cast on 44 stitches. Ssk instead of k2t tbl. Magic loop, if that counts as a modification.
• Ravelry link

Oh, and this weekend I’ve taken a little bit of a break from school-stuff and have been watching a lot of Sports Night (only have one episode left, which is sad), and I’ve started a Noro striped scarf. So simple, but a lot of fun to knit. And for some reason, 1×1 ribbing is so much better than 2×2. It makes no sense, but there it is. I’m a bit annoyed that the two blues in the two skeins crashed, so there’s a bit of a blue blob there, but I don’t think I’ll ever finish if I frog now. I’ll learn to live with it, I hope I’ve just been staring at it for too long. Oh, and Sports Night is definitely recommended.

• Pattern: Evalue
• Yarn: Misti from Du Store Alpaka
• Colorway: Dark purple (409, I think)
• Needle: 6mm
• Yarn amount: Finished new hat weighs 77g.
• Modifications: Cast on 60 stitches, increased 6. Different decreases.
• Ravelry link

The socks joined me on a trip to Ikea before the photos were taken, so they might look a bit worn, but hey, that’s what socks are for. After about a day of use, they grew to be a bit too wide (still fit decently, just not without socks underneath), so when I cast on for the next pair, I cast on 44 stitches instead of 48. I guess I’ll see which ones fits better with use, the second pair isn’t done yet. Oh, and on these socks I learned that “slip one” by default apparently means “slip one purlwise” unless otherwise stated. Makes sense, and it makes the reinforced heel much nicer to look at, but I hadn’t realized that before. Oh, and I also realized that knit 2 together through back loop is horribly ugly compared to knit 2 together, so I went with ssk instead, on sock one’s toe and all of sock two.

• Pattern: Blueberry Waffle Socks
• Yarn: Sandnes Garn Perfect
• Colorway: Dark red (4065)
• Needle: 3mm
• Yarn amount: The finished socks weighed about 95 grams, I think. Used pretty much the entirety of two skeins.
• Modifications: Cast on 48 stitches. Ssk instead of k2t tbl. Magic loop, if that counts as a modification.
• Ravelry link

There’s not much knitting going on these days, for some reason, even though I’m spending lots of time watching the Olympics. I’ve got the previously mentioned second pair of waffle socks on the needles, as well as a crochet experiment, but other that, nada. Except for a huge swatch for a sweater I’ve got planned for perhaps the fall. Oh, and I frogged an old hat and re-knit it, I’ll probably post about it soon.

This is my second pair of these socks, this time knitted on slightly smaller needles than the last time. They now fit pretty perfectly around the leg and ankle, but the foot is still too long for them to fit inside shoes and stuff. Ah well, I’ll just use them indoors, I guess. Gave the previous pair to one of my brothers, as they ended up being too big both length and width wise. Like the previous time, I changed the heel and bottom of the foot, as I don’t like how there’s a random change in pattern on the heel in the original pattern. Started these in November, but spent ages on finishing the toes, then heels and then weaving in the ends.

• Pattern: Russesokker i Selbu-mønster from Rauma LVS-3, Oppskrifter på Luer, Votter og Strømper
• Yarn: Sandnes Garn Perfect
• Colorway: Navy (6675) and white (1001)
• Needle: 3mm (2.5mm on the ribbing)
• Yarn amount: Uhm, I have no idea. I need to get a scale, but somewhere between 1 and 2 skeins of each color, I’m pretty sure.
• Modifications: Changed the sole and heel pattern.
• Ravelry link

I wonder if these will fit better length-wise if I knit them in the original yarn? Or maybe if I tried the 11-14 y.o. pattern in a 3.5mm needle? Hm, or maybe I should just stick to other patterns. I started my first pair of blueberry waffle socks the other day, and I kind of love that pattern already. The sock I’ve finished fit really well when I tried it on, at least.

Cast on 120 stitches with a long-tail cast-on with two colors, then knit about 10 rounds in 1×1 rib with the smaller needle before changing to the larger one. Not sure the change in needles is actually noticable, but then again, I don’t know how it would’ve turned out without it. Started this on Wednesday, finished tonight. Should’ve been doing school work, but procrastination took over.

• Pattern: Simple, slouchy hat
• Yarn: DROPS Merino Extra Fine
• Colorway: Black (02) and dark grey (03m)
• Needle: 3mm and 3.5mm
• Yarn amount: 1 grey, a little over 1 black
• Modifications: Basically only used the bind-off from the pattern, the rest I improvised.
• Ravelry link

So, my first sweater ever. I’m not sure if I’m actually satisfied with the result, but at least I finished it without spending a year on it, and it kind of fits. The pattern is Jared Flood’s Stilwell, which is a really great pattern. The pictures mostly show off the lame colors in my tiny dorm-ish room (who the hell choses blue and orange doors and a blue closet and desk in a 12m² (including bathroom) room?) more than the sweater, though :p

Like I said, I’m not entirely sure I’m satisfied, as it’s a bit too large around the chest and upper arms, but even finishing a sweater is sort of an accomplishment, I suppose. Not sure I’m a fan of the yarn either, but finding a tweedy brown that wouldn’t cost me a fortune proved difficult, so I went with Smart and needles about 0.5mm-1mm larger than ideal, I think. So, far from ideal, but it’s fully wearable and not too loose (for now, at least), so yeah.

When I finished it, I wasn’t too sure about the collar, and considered ripping it out and starting all over, but after wearing it for a day, I decided it was okay. I’d already made it a bit shorter than the pattern said. Took me about a week to finally bother sewing the buttons in, as I absolutely hate sewing, but I ended up cheating a bit. Anyways, the cheat worked, and if they fall off, I can always just sew them back on.

• Yarn: Sandnes Smart
• Colorway: Brown tweed (3071) and natural-ish (2523)
• Needle: 4mm and 4.5mm for color work
• Yarn amount: 9 in brown and 1 in natural
• Modifications: Added some length in both the body and sleeves, as well as making the collar a little bit smaller. Details at Ravelry.
• Ravelry link

Getting decent photos now that I’m back in my tiny dorm-ish room w/horrible lighting isn’t easy, especially when I’m too lazy to charge my regular camera and just use my cellphone instead, but ah well. The hat itself turned out okay, very warm and not itchy at all. The yarn really doesn’t feel like wool, if that makes sense. Anyways, this pattern and yarn feels like a really great match, and I wish the yarn came in more colors.

• Yarn: Drops Merino Extra Fine
• Colorway: Light beige (more grey, really), 08m
• Needle: 3.5mm
• Yarn amount: Almost 2 skeins, maybe like…1,8 or 1,9? Don’t have a scale yet.
• Modifications: Knit 9 rounds instead of 10 between cable rows to make it a bit shorter, as I’d read complaints about the length. I like my hats long, but not too long.
• Ravelry link

Anyways, the first project to be blogged is the Multnomah shawl by Kate Flagg. It was the first (and only, so far) shawl I’ve ever knit, and I was a bit skeptical of the whole thing. First, I’m not really a “shawl”-person. I can wear scarves, but often find them too bulky, but I rarely dress feminine enough for what I always imagined shawls looked like. Second, there’s the whole more-and-more-stitches-when-will-this-row-ever-end-thing. But I finished it, and kind of liked the process, except the purl rows towards the end, which were killing me.

I started it on December 1st and finished on December 28th, which isn’t all that bad, considering I have a tendency to spend ages on projects. I love this yarn, as it’s super soft, doesn’t itch at all and on the larger needles, it gives a nice, airy feel. The shawl works wonderfully as a scarf, which is definitely what I’ll be using it as, and it’s warm without being too warm or too bulky, which is awesome. I struggled getting the colors right, but ah well. The blue parts aren’t as pronounced as they come off in the photos.

• Yarn: Cascade Heritage Paints
• Colorway: Cherry Berry
• Needle: 3.5mm
• Modifications: None, followed pattern exactly.
• Ravelry link

(Yes, I could probably have chosen a better color t-shirt for that photo.)

Oh, and how much yarn spent? Well, below is what I had left of one skein – the shorter piece after bind-off, the longest one leftover from the long-tail cast-on.