Off the needles

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  Handspun legwarmers, finally finished, just a year later. They are very functional, I use them almost every day.

On the needles

This section could probably contain up to 20 different projects, but I’ll focus on the most active ones for now.

• Soft as a cloud cowl, a Yarn optimiser cowl out of my handspun Malabrigo Nube in the Whales Road colourway. I spun a pretty fine 2-ply so it’s taking a while to knit this one, but it really is soft as a cloud. This cowl has also helped me remember how much I really like well-polished wooden (NOT bamboo!) needles. I’m using my KnitPro Symphonie’s and it’s lovely. I’m onto the last half now, having finished the first triangle and the long side, working on the second side.
• Neverending cowl, it’s seen quite a lot of progress over the last 2 months! I’m in love with colourwork and this yarn (Rauma finull) is growing on me. I still have a looooong way to go though :)
• Toph hat, a pattern by Wooly Wormhead in her newest Elemental collection. It’s a really interesting construction and really fun to knit :) I’m using Fru Valborg’s DK yarn that I bought at Syfestivalen
• Mustardseed, I’m onto the beaded lace section and it’s slow going but enjoyable. I need to be in the right mood for ”långsam och krånglig stickning” (slow and complicated knitting) to knit this one.

Stalkings and needle adjacent projects

I love the expression ”needle adjacent” to describe things that will soon be cast on. I think I stole it from the Stockinette Zombies podcast

• I’m stalking cowls and colourwork sweaters in general. I feel inspired to knit them and wear them, but not to pick yarns and start them right now.
• Most needle adjacent is Engineered Seams. I have special ordered yarn for it and I think it’ll arrive in two weeks or so. Can’t wait!
• I’m also stalking Stripes gone crazy still, but that yarn might get expensive so it will probably wait until after New Years. I also need to pick colours, so that might delay it until Summer or so. I’m the best at making decisions! Not :)

Straw into gold

My spinning section, name shamelessly stolen from the Knitmore Girls. Since I got my new wheel, my spinning mojo has been crazy high. I don’t have piles of yarn to show for it, but I feel things moving along pretty quickly :)

• Captain Poldarles, my four braids bought for a sweater spin, is definitely moving along fine. I just finished spinning another bobbin yesterday and now I’m plying for my third skein. I have one braid left to single-ify.
• Possumhaw, my Corriedale club braid I decided to spin fine, is finished! The second skein isn’t washed but it’s all plied and wound. I think I’ll try my first handknit socks with this yarn!
• Something new needs to get on the wheel now that Possumhaw is finished, but I need to fluff the stash and think for a bit before deciding which braid it will be.

That’s it for now, I think that’s more than enough reading haha.

Eh. It turns out half the non-striped sections were cable sections. Silly me… I still can’t understand how I didn’t see that.

But now it’s finished and I really like to wear it! I chose to make the striped sections one repeat shorter to make sure I wouldn’t run out of yarn and make the whole cowl shorter. I’m glad I did, it’s plenty long already.

Here it is together with my 3 color cashmere cowl

It turned out well in the end, but I’ve learned to pay more attention now! And I think there definitely will be another one of these in my future, but probably the 3ccc pattern..

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a real drop in my knitting mojo. I have quite a few projects ongoing but none of them really inspired me to knit, so I’ve mostly spun and knit a little here and there. I’ve had knitting mojo in stalking patterns though, lots of sweater stalking has been happening and I want to knit all the things, more or less. My two new sweaters I hope to knit are Stripes Gone Crazy and Engineered Seams, but I needed to find a suitable yarn for both of those projects. Yarn ordering was in order!

I have found two Swedish indie dyers I really like, Moods of Colors and Fru Valborg. Their choices for yarn bases and their dyeing techniques and colours really work for me, so I ordered a skein each from them to try out. In… gray! I know, so exciting. I have tried yarn from them before, but not bases that would work for the two sweaters I want to make.

I ordered a skein of Merino Classic from Fru Valborg, in Ash light

and a skein of Pure Essence of Falklands from Moods of Colors, in Cardi Grey

Instead of just swatching I’m doing a one skein project with both of them. In a spur-of-the-moment decision I cast on for a Boo Knits shawl with the Merino Classic yarn, and BOOM. There was my knitting mojo! I needed something lacy and fine! This one is called Mustardseed and has a pretty plain body and a lovely lace edging. And beads! Can’t wait to add beads. I have knit with beads but never finished a real project with them so I’m knitting furiously to get to the beaded section and lace edging.

It’s a pretty thin and smooth yarn so I think it will work well for the Stripes Gone Crazy cardigan. I just need to pick colours and save up :D And finish this shawl, of course. (Shawl rav page)

The Pure Essence yarn will become a child’s sweater and hopefully it will have enough bounce and stretch to become an Engineered Seams later :) Colour picking always takes time so that might be a project for the new year :) I have SO MUCH MOJO now!

I cast on for a brioche hat out of Fru Valborg‘s Silky BFL yarn at the end of August. I have been planning to knit a brioche hat since I finished Exploration Station, because the brioche there was so squishy and nice. I thought it might suit a hat :) And I have also been planning to try out Fru Valborg’s yarn for a while, she’s a somewhat new indie dyer here in Sweden. Love both the yarn and pattern so far!

The pattern is Beezee by Katrin Schubert and the yarn is a DK weight BFL/silk blend.

I also wanted to knit another pair of mittens, and realised I had a big skein of Wollmeise DK in Neptun lying around, waiting for its project. It’s not my favourite yarn because I don’t like the very many plies and the look it gives. But a pair of mitts to sell or give away might work! I found this really neat pattern called Floe by Tanis Lavallee and more or less cast on for them the same week.

What I didn’t realise was that the honeycomb pattern is done by cabling, 1×1 cables. And I’m not a huge fan of cabling… So the progress is slow even though I love the finished look of the honeycombs. I also chose to knit the adult large size of mittens and they are HUGE. They are definitely big man hand size, so they will go to someone knitworthy or even charity. If I finish them… I don’t hate them, they are just slower than I anticipated.

Did I mention I don’t really like cabling? Of course I cast on for a cowl in June, not realising at least a third of it was cabling. So silly… Pay attention, brain!

Beezee rav page and Floe rav page found here.

I swatched for it in the beginning of August and compared my swatch to a cowl I’d already made before to get a width I’d like. I adjusted my numbers to match with the Quatrefoil lace pattern and added 3 stockinette stitches to each side to allow for some rolling. Instead of doing a provisional cast on, I decided to do a Judy’s magic cast on to get some live stitches to three needle bind off at the end. Then it was just knit knit knit until the yarn was almost out!

I really enjoyed the lace pattern, simple and pretty and easy to memorize. The yarn striped or colour blocked as anticipated, I almost always chain ply which often makes for colour blocks. It took about a month to finish the cowl, with some pauses for other projects. I’m quite happy!

I did modify my ssk’s for this project. I usually slip one as if to knit and one as if to purl when I ssk, but for this one I did the “original” or “old” way of slipping both as if to knit as it lay nicer at the top of the flower.

You can find links to patterns and more details on my Ravelry page.

My biggest FO is the Little Bird sweater that I knit out of a gray Fyberspates yarn, the laceweight Scrumptious. I ended up modding it a little by doing a wider/deeper collar, I don’t like sweaters that go too far down my shoulders. (More details on my Ravelry page.) Apart from that I knit it mostly to pattern and it’s a gorgeous piece! I love wearing it and it’s surprisingly warm for being so light. It was definitely worth all that knitting :)

I don’t think I will do a lace project again very soon though, there is just something with that very light yarn that makes it hard and boring to knit.

I’ve also finished the child’s sweater I started in June, Making Tracks, a small knitted bunny and a pair of mittens. The sweater turned out super airy and fluffy and nice, although the pattern is almost lost in the fluffiness so I might make it again just to show the pretty texture. If you want to know more about the pattern or yarn, check out the Rav project :)

The bunny is a pattern called Bonbon by Susan Claudino, a very clever designer with lots of cute toy patterns. Her speciality is that they don’t need any assembly afterwards, all pieces are knitted on or picked up or attached in some other clever way. I definitely recommend her patterns! It’s fiddly and can cause a little hand pain with that tight gauge, but just take breaks often and you’ll be rewarded with a super cute toy :D Here’s mine (more details on the Rav page), out of leftover Malabrigo Rios in Azules from my Boxy sweater.

The mittens I made were inspired by a knitting friend, Lena, who made a really neat pair in green. I got the pattern from her and used some Rosy Green Wool Ckeeky Merino Joy (omg that name) in the Blackberry sorbet colorway to knit mine. I think my yarn was a little bit thinner than called for so mine ended up quite snug. I’m tempted to make them again but either with a thicker yarn or modding the pattern a little to add some space. It’s a really simple but effective cable pattern though, I love them :)

The yarn was a little bit splitty for me at first, but got better when I got used to it. As before, details are on the Rav page.

I’ve also done some spinning and weaving during the summer plus a load of new WIPs, so watch out for posts on that :)

After the Woolgatherings skein, I wrote a little bit about my Iris Patch yarn. I wanted some more in the same style to weave with, so I ordered a Rambouillet braid from Three Waters Farm in the colourway Iris Patch. I spun it up like a thick yarn and planned to add it to the same weaving project as the Woolgatherings, but ended up not to. It is its own project now :) The Rambo was less enjoyable than last time I tried it, very sticky and short. Maybe I need to try another colourway or dyer to see if it is a fiber for me.

In my post about finding new favourites I shared a Hilltop Cloud braid with BFL/Ramie fiber, that skein is now finished. I spun it worsted style to get more drape and it’s very shiny and drapey now. The colours are lovely too! I’m planning on knitting a cowl with a simple lace pattern with it, but I need to swatch and do some math first :) I want to use a Quatrefoil lace pattern and knit it the short way around, so I cast on the width of the cowl and knit until the yarn runs out to get the length. Then I plan to join the end with a three needle bind off. Considering the amount of current plans and projects, we’ll see when this happens :D

I also just yesterday finished plying the last half of my Copper Plums braid from Three Waters Farm. The first half was spun in 2015, so this partial braid has been languishing for quite a while. It’s a Targhee fiber and I hadn’t really learned how Targhee behaves then, so I wasn’t super happy with the first skein. This second skein, I spun a lot airier and with less twist, so I’m really happy with the second one. It’s drying from it’s bath now, so I’ll share more pics and details once it’s dry.

Lace is lace, so it mostly looks like a blob when it’s not blocked, but this is a recent progress photo

I know I want to make the neckline less wide when I add the neck ribbing, so that will require some knitting, ripping, and thinking. I don’t know if it will look great if I just make the band deeper, so I might try to throw in some decreases aswell. In some way.. And definitely use the smaller needles! We’ll see :) I’m still quite excited about it!

Little Bird Rav page

The pattern is called Making Tracks and is designed by Dani Sunshine and I’m knitting the 1 yo size. The pattern is written for DK yarn and mine is fingering so mine is quite lightweight and airy. I swatched the yarn first to get a fabric I liked, measured the gauge and pattern searched from my gauge this time. Less math, but a different fabric :)

I hope to finish it in June, we’ll see!

(Rav page)