Born to knit

Neverending Knitting

The lacy dress from last summer´s Vogue Knitting is taking FOREVER to finish.

Am I bored, or am I bored?

This last week I´ve had small body parts littering the flat. 

I´ve been sewing and sewing. And sewing. I´m still sewing.

See.

I need a break. And a haircut. Obviously.

Luckily we´re leaving for Ireland tomorrow.

And this darn dress is not going in the suitcase.

I´m going to be naughty and start something new!

 

Something old, something new...

First of all, I want to thank everyone for congratulating us and wishing us well!

Tomorrow we´ve been married for a month and it still feels great.

After finishing the wedding shawls I started on a knitted lace dress from last summer´s Vogue.

This is part of a sleeve.

The yarn is Eco cotton from Huskroken on Gotland.

I bought it last year at Nysta. It´s my favourite cotton yarn and I have quite a lot of it in my stash.

Enough to last me at least another summer. And maybe a summer after that.

To tell you the truth – when I left the shop there wasn´t much Eco cotton left on the shelves.

And this is my fifth knit project in pink lately. I´ve counted. The only exception is the Dragon sweater that I´m making for Ludvig. Though to be honest, if I could be sure the other boys wouldn´t pick on him at school I would probably have made the dragon pink, too.

Way back in the old days I didn´t always knit in pink. In 2005, for instance I started  Elizabeth I in white cotton-viscose. The choice of yarn was a bad one. Not because it wasn´t pink, but because it split easily while knitting with it. And now it makes the sweater sag.

It´s taken me ages to finish poor Elizabeth. I had to rip and re-knit the whole upper part, including the sleeves, because it was miles to big. But now it´s finally finished.

The fit still isn´t great, but acceptable.

It might not look so bad in this picture. But the minute I relax my posture...

I don´t always walk around pretending that I´ve swallowed an iron rod – it´s far too strenuous.

When I´ve recovered from this rather traumatic knitting experience I might give Elizabeth I another chance. I´m convinced it would be a beautiful sweater made in a more suitable wool yarn.

Yes, I´ve learnt my lesson – never mess with Starmore!

Believe it or not, but I also used to knit in blue.

And after Alice Starmore, my favourite designer is Solveig Hisdal. 

I´ve made quite a lot from her book Poetry in Stitches.

Like this Camisole with Gussets:

Those of you with good eyesight might be able to see the row of beads on the bottom edge.

I´m known to never miss an opportunity to add beads. 

But why, you might ask, am I showing you all this boring old stuff when it´s not even pink?

The answer is simple: the camera is still on holiday – while I´m back in town working for a couple of weeks.

Do feel free to pity me in the comments!

Tie the Knit

Despite being on holiday for a couple of weeks, I´ve been working hard. "Kay´s Diamonds and Purls Shawl" is finished. I testknitted this for my friend Wendy and I´m happy to report that there was nothing wrong with the pattern. I´m also pleased with my choice of yarn: pink Koigu with a white border in Cherry Tree Hill merino.

I did think it would be a rather small shawl, especially as I ran out of yarn before the last full repeat was completed. But after blocking it I could see that it was just the perfect size, though I can´t take any credit for that – it was pure luck!

Another thing left to chance was whether I would finish in time.

I had an important deadline: it was to be a bridesmaid shawl for my daughter Elise. 

The last few days before the wedding I was working on it around the clock. But I´m proud to say that when I darned in the ends I even had a few hours to spare...

And here it is on the day:

The wedding took place in a old wooden church on an island called Ljusterö,

in the archepelago of Stockholm.

And this is the bridesmaid standind outside the church next to the blushing bride.

The bride is wearing her lovely beaded Icarus shawl in powder pink Kidsilk Haze.

Want to see the view from the back?

After sixteen years and two children together it was about time I was made an honest woman, don´t you think?

And for those of you hoping to tie the knot one day – CATCH!

The bridal bouquet of wild flowers picked in the morning of the big day.

Ready to Fly!

Icarus is done and has been blocked.

It´s huge!

And the little beads are so tiny you can´t really see them.

But they glitter if there´s sunlight.

Unfortunately the forecast says that the weather is somewhat unsteady at the moment.

But it will be good to have something warm and light to wear if it´s chilly on Midsummer´s Eve.

Even though it´s not too hot to knit with wool anymore the new Kauni yarn will have to wait until later.

The knitted dress from last summer´s Vogue is aready waiting in the wings.

Though I´m really tempted to wind the big skeins again just to see what they look like inside.

It´s like holding Pandora´s box – so I guess I´d better not open it...

But it sure looks promising.

Born to shop

It was Friday the 13th, but it didn´t stop me from boarding the plane flying to Copenhagen. 

Not when there was good yarn to be had.

It´s lovely, it´s Danish and it´s called Nikolaj.

Except for that piece of knitting made from Kauni rainbow yarn lying on top of the shelf.

Incidentally a new Kauni colourway had just arrived. 

It was mainly green, pink and purple, with a little bit of yellow. 

I tried playing hard to get.

But I have to admit that we ended up going home together. Kauni, Nikolaj and I.

Now that we´re back in Sweden we´re living like one big happy family!

And if you´re planning on visiting Copenhagen, don´t miss this yarn shop.

It´s called Bette Design.

Wordsworth I aint

But I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o' er vales and notches,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of pink cotton swatches

I swear that I had NOTHING to do with these.

I´m a hundred percent innocent!

Not minding the heat that´s hit Sweden –

I´ve been knitting on and on on my Icarus in Kidsilk Haze.

Luckily the colour I picked is called Ice cream.

A little bit of pink cotton yarn could never tempt me 

to start a new project. 

No, not when I only have a couple of rows left on Icarus.

No, not even if it was the lacy dress that was on the cover

of Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2007.

Just saying.

Still Life with Moose

This is what I´ve been knitting on lately – The Koigu Crap Shawl. Aka "Kay´s Diamonds and Purls Shawl. 

I´m testknitting this for Wendy and there have been no hiccups so far. 

I would go as far as to say that this is the only knit project that I´ve had no problems with at all. Yet. 

There have been plenty of problems with all the other knit projects that I´m working on simultaneously. Though the problems have all been my own fault and nothing to do with either yarn or pattern. 

The Dragon Sweater, for instance, had to be put on hold because I forgot to pack the right dpns for making the sleeves when I took it along to Edö to be the weekend knitting. 

Since Edö is a fairly remote island I couldn´t just nip back home and get them either. 

And the following weekend I discovered that I´d left the beads for my beaded Icarus shawl at home. Duh!

Some people just don´t learn from their mistakes, do they?

You might have been able to argue that it didn´t matter so much because the beads match the yarn so well you can hardly see them. 

But I would know there was a missing row of beads or two and that would get on my nerves. 

Yes, I should probably see a therapist about it, but it´s soo much cheaper to just put Icarus on hold until I got home again on Sunday evening.

And only a person that is really demented would go to a remote island and only bring one knitting.

I always bring two. Sometimes three. And then there´s the stash out there. You know, just in case.

Did I say it was remote?

That´s why I´ve made quite good progress on the pink shawl pictured above.

But Icarus (with beads) is coming along nicely. I´ve just finished the easy but slighty boring first part

and can now embark on the more complicated and interesting lace edge.

But I guess you can´t really see the beads. At all. 

Sigh.

The Best Place to Knit

Trains, cars and planes are alright, but a boat it the best place to knit. Actually.
Or maybe it shouldn´t be called a place, but a form of transportation.

Anyway, I´m very lucky because almost every Friday we take the boat
to an island in the Stockholm archepelago where we have a little cottage.
The boat trip takes two hours. Two hours of sheer knitting bliss!

We come back on Sunday night. That´s another two hour boat trip.
And I have lots of knitting time in between.

Two weeks ago I worked on this:

A new Dragon Sweater for Ludvig.

I cut the neck steek.

I knit the neckband. And forgot to take a picture...

Then the weather got too hot for knitting with this fairly thick, but lovely wool.
So I switched to knitting on my pink Koigu shawl.
Also known as The Diamonds Crap and Purls Shawl to some.

I´m waiting for the boat to take us back to Stockholm.

Then the weather got even hotter.
For some reason that made me want to knit something even lighter.
How about a lace shawl in Kidsilk Haze, I said to myself.

Four balls of Kidsilk Haze later I was all set to start.
The pattern is Icarus from Interweave Knits.

We both got a bit of a tan last weekend.
But I made sure Icarus didn´t fly too close to the sun!

Trains, Cars and Planes

Don´t you just love knitting on a train?

I had to go to Västerås last week and that meant I got to spend a couple of hours on the train.
Because I´m not a monogamous knitter I´ve started a second big project: a new Dragon Sweater for Ludvig.

He outgrew his old one last year, but the weather has been so mild this winter that there has been no need for a new one.

But when my friend Wendy made Lismore in Kauni effect yarn I was so inspired that
I simply could not stop myself.

There is a similar Swedish yarn from Östergötlands ullspinneri and I had
already got some – specially hand dyed by Ann at Anntorps Väv to make it the
perfect colour for a dragon.

Since I knit the last Dragon sweater I´ve also made some improvements to the pattern
and now I´m impatient to see what it will look like!

Luckily I´m going to Uppsala tomorrow and that will give me a couple of hours of knitting time
in a car – and don´t worry, I won´t be driving. For some unknown reason it´s always the
photographer who drives, while the reporter can relax and enjoy the view. Or in my case knit.

And while we´re on the subject of travelling, this is my "Plane Project":

The original name for this pattern is Blue Heaven, but of course I´ve renamed my shawl
Pink Heaven. The pattern is from a book called "Crocheted Scarves on the go".

I only ever work on this when I have to fly somewhere and this is the result after
last year´s travels. I´m a very slow – and reluctant – crocheter.
My friend Maria started her shawl at the same time and she finished hers ages ago.

But I´ve not given up completely on the Diamonds and Purls Shawl that I´m testknitting
for Wendy in pink Koigu.

There has been some progress, about a repeat or so.
It´s not a very difficult pattern, but I get lost so easily when I´m interrupted by the kids.
Therefor I only work on this when they are safely tucked up in bed.

And if you´ve ever wondered how to lay a table to impress your knitting friends,
here´s a little tip for you: get some very special napkins.
I can assure you that I was very impressed.

Smaklig måltid!

Oh, Happy Days!

A blast from the past.

Back in 1984 this is what my sisters Filippa, Emelie and I looked like.
Complete with cats – Dotty on the left and Vitnos on the right.
And I guess I was 18, Filippa 15 and Emelie only three.

The reason I have this old photo on my knit blog is to embarress my two sisters
to show you that my relationship with pink knitting goes way back. Way back.
The pink mohair monster that I´m wearing was one of the first sweaters I made for myself.
It was my own design, too, so there is no one else I can blame for how it looks...

No wonder I never had a boyfriend, eh?

Still I managed to snare someone in the end.
And therefor I now have two kids – and one of them has a new hat.

(Aren´t you impressed with that very clever transition to this next bit of text?)

This is the finished Ragdoll Diva hat:

Off to school.

When Elise returned home from school she could report that a couple of
"teenage punk girls" had pointed at her hat and said ohhh and ahhh and wispered.
So I guess that not all pink knitting make you look like a geek.

Still, I´m having serious doubts if I should really make a matching hat for myself.