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Current projects

2008-09-07T16:06:00.000+03:00

I'm working on a few things at the moment. The oldest project is poor Clapotis which has mostly been staying in the darkness of her bag since I last blogged about her. When I bought the yarn for it at the Álafoss outlet, I asked the nice guy who works there if I could use their computer to check the amount of yarn I needed, which he said was no problem. So I went to the pattern page and saw that I needed 4 balls, which is what I then bought. A few days later when I had finished a ball and not gotten very far into the scarf, I reread the yarn requirements and realized that I had bought 4 x 50g balls and the scarf requires 4 x 100g balls - Oops! The Álafoss outlet is just outside of Reykjavík, maybe a 20 minute drive or so, and considering the issue of global warming and the cost of gas at the moment I decided to wait for an excuse to drive there (this just means that I was too lazy to get up off the couch, but let's pretend that I was being environmental.) The excuse presented itself when Cassie arrived in Iceland. The outlet is naturally on the top 10 list of places to take a tourist knitter in Reykjavík. Now I have all the yarn I need and should be able to finish it, assuming that I'll work on it occasionally. It looks like this at the moment:

A friend of mine recently had a baby, and in my usual fashion I began a gift project just a few days before the birth, despite having known for roughly 6 months that the wee one was going to arrive. Happens every time! I'm making little Kjartan a garter stitch sweater from "Strikk til Nøstebarn". This is a really nice and simple pattern that offers a lot of creativity. The original sweater pictured in the book is in a single color with a crocheted edging and an embroidered pattern in a contrast color. I decided to use up some stash yarn and for the main color I took a beige yarn, of which I had the most, and knit until it was all done. Then I began the striping with yarns that I had only partial balls of. I like the green and yellow combination, it reminds me of spring.

This friend of mine lives in Germany, close to Berlin, and since I'll be going to Berlin with my girl-friends in the beginning of October, I have to have it finished by then. Shouldn't be a problem - baby sweaters are pretty small, right? (Although there's going to be a hell of a lot of ends to weave in!)

The last project I'm actively working on is a sock, of course. Last year my brother was in San Francisco and when he got back he gave me three hanks of hand-painted sock yarn. It was a lovely surprise since I didn't expect it at all. The hanks have been lying dormant since then, but a few weeks ago I took one of them out and started a sock, which will naturally be for said brother. The yarn is quite colorful so I'm making plain stockinette socks with a k2p2 ribbing. Very mindless and very satisfying.

This weekend I've also been knitting a few swatches. It's time for another sweater, it's long overdue in fact.

Hyrna Herborgar

2008-08-17T13:23:00.001+03:00

I can't believe that I haven't blogged since the beginning of May! It was a combination of work overload and feeling rather uninspired that led to this awful neglect of the blog. Fortunately Cassie came to the rescue, she arrived in Iceland two weeks ago and not a single day went by without her reminding me that I needed to blog. Apparently it worked!

During the last two weeks, the two of us have been exploring Reykjavík and some of the countryside together. I had a lot of fun. Having guests from abroad is a nice opportunity to do stuff that you would otherwise not do in your day to day life. Unfortunately I hardly took any pictures, but Cassie took enough for the both of us and has posted some good ones on her blog. Check them out!

I have a backlog of finished knits that I haven't blogged about. I think it's fitting to begin with the Hyrna Herborgar shawl because I made it using the lovely handspun that Cassie gave to me when I was in New York last autumn. Cassie is a very good spinner and her yarn was wonderful to work with.

I started the shawl sometime in January and finished it in March. The pattern is from Þríhyrnur og Langsjöl (Three-cornered and long shawls) and it is one of the few shawls in the book that is designed by the author Sigríður Halldórsdóttir. I think it's one of the most beautiful shawl patterns around, and I might very well make it again someday.

Don't you just love the pretty edging on that shawl?

Clapotis

2008-05-04T15:07:00.003+03:00

I must be one of the few knitters left who haven't made the famous Clapotis. It's not that I haven't wanted to, it just took me this long to find suitable yarn for it!

Last weekend I went to the Álafoss factory outlet, mostly to keep my SIL company because I'm trying to not buy yarn for a while (I got a small shock when I unpacked my yarn from Helsinki). I went there with the sole purpose of buying the new Eingirni pattern book, which I did. Then, while innocently examining the shelves of yarn I bumped into this beautiful funky merino and realized that I had finally found the yarn for my Clapotis.

The yarn is Løve Symfoni in colorway 8462 and it's a supersoft, loosely spun merino singles. I have a hunch that it's not going to wear very well, but let's hope for the best.

This week has been a week of meeting knitbloggers by surprise. At the outlet I bumped into Dísa, who was having fun spending a gift certificate she received as a gift from a friend. What an excellent gift for a knitter! On Tuesday I started a class on wool preparation and spinning at the handicrafts association, where I met Carola who's also taking the class! At the class we learned how to separate the fleece of Icelandic sheep, pulling the tog out and then trying to get the hærur out of the þel (which requires a lot of patience, I've discovered). We got to take the wool home and by Tuesday we're supposed to have finished preparing it so that we can start combing (tog) and carding (þel). Great fun! Here's a picture of my progress so far

(þel on the left, hærur in the middle and tog on the right)

I've been doing more sewing than knitting lately. We're supposedly having an economic recession in Iceland, so I figured I could let that inspire me to re-use clothes I've stopped wearing. While unpacking the boxes from Helsinki I realized just how much clothes I have that I hardly ever wear. Right now I've got a pair of trousers re-cut and ready for sewing, but I'm trying to decide if I want to dye them black. The fabric color is sort of beige and I'm not sure if I'd use pants of that color much. On the other hand, it feels like a lot of trouble to do the dyeing. All of this means that I can't start sewing because the thread color will have to match the final color of the fabric! Unless I want black pants with beige stitching, and I'm not sure I do. Choices, choices.

That's the news from here. Happy knitting!

My new home

2008-04-19T15:55:00.002+03:00

I guess I should do a post on the thing that has been keeping me occupied and away from blogging for a month! I moved into my new apartment the weekend before Easter and I've been slowly (oh so slowly) settling in. It's amazing how much small stuff you need to do/buy when you move to a new place. I've realized that it's going to take me a few months before it's fully ready. How about a tour of the place, even if it's still a bit empty (and messy)? Here's the kitchen

The previous owners recently renovated the kitchen and I think they did it in a really nice way. They kept parts of the original 50's cupboards, and for the new part chose a white, high-gloss front which fits nicely with the old cupboards. I was lucky enough to be able to borrow an old, red fridge from my friends and I'm so thrilled with it!

I think it gives such a nice accent to the extreme whiteness all around. Oh, and there's a great view from the window, I can see the ocean:

(the kitchen window is a bit dirty, as you can see from the blurriness!) The living room is pretty big, on the right there's a sofa corner

and on the right there's room for a dining table (to be found)

From the living room you get to the balcony,

from which you see the backyards of the surrounding buildings.

You can also see the mountain tips of the Reykjanes peninsula peaking over the roofs of the opposite houses.

I also have a craft room - at the moment a seriously messy craft room!

Lots of sewing is going to happen there in the future. I'm still trying to get all of my things organized so that I can keep the desks free of junk and ready for sewing action at all times. The desk in the foreground has extendable legs and will be used for pattern cutting. I've actually been sewing a bit since I moved in. I finished quilting the black and burgundy blanket, and practiced attaching a binding on a cute pot holder.

The apartment also has a bedroom and a bathroom (surprise!), but I didn't include pics of those...

I love love love my new place! It felt like home already after the first night there. It has totally brought out the home-y side of me, I've been baking bread (I bought a fancy mixer that has become my new favorite appliance), sewing and doing home improvement stuff, and I love every part of it!

Although I haven't been knitting too much lately, I have a heap of finished projects to show because I have been a lazy blogger. Blame it on the apartment.

Big news

2008-03-06T21:26:00.002+03:00

There has been a lot going on for the past month. The big news is that I bought an apartment! It's a lovely place close to the city center and I'm very much looking forward to moving in, which will hopefully be in a week or so. It'll be awesome to finally unpack all the stuff that has been occupying my parents garage since I moved back to Iceland, especially all my beautiful yarn and all my beautiful knitting books. I can hardly wait!

I've been knitting quite a lot but I haven't been so diligent in taking pictures of what I've finished. The bank-friendly Lopi sweater was ready a while ago and I've worn it with great success to work! I've finished a couple of hats, four pairs of socks, a couple of pre-emie caps (for charity), a shawl (still unblocked) and I started a coat.

I have a picture of the shawl in its half-finished state.

It's the hugely popular Hyrna Herborgar which I've been planning to make for ages. Although my Icelandic shawl book is in the parent's garage, I was fortunate enough to have an old Hugur og Hönd issue in which the pattern first appeared. I used handspun yarn that Cassie gave to me when I was in New York, she spun it herself and it's been such a joy to work with.

The other picture I have is of a sock that's done and its partner as well.

This was based on a pattern in the Finnish sock book, Sukkasillaan, and it's a perfect pattern for leftovers. The colorwork pattern is very simple, and it's fun to dream of lots of color combinations. Before I finished these, I made another pair in this stitch pattern using Lopi leftovers that my mom gave me. It's that much fun!

Hopefully I'll have pictures of the other stuff very soon. The light is already returning (and it feels so darn nice) so picture-taking is now possible outside of the weekends. I have no excuse. But tonight I'm going to the monthly knit café. Fun fun fun!

The bank-friendly lopi sweater

2008-01-28T02:18:00.000+03:00

I think I mentioned once that I couldn't wear handknit lopi sweaters to work and that I was going to try to knit more elegant sweaters for the workplace. I work at a bank, if I haven't said that before. Last summer, the new part of the headquarters, which has been under construction for quite a while, was opened and my department was one of the first to move in there. The construction has continued since then and part of it included ripping down the entrance of the old building, which means that there has been a gaping hole in the building through which the wind could blow. The building has been seriously cold all winter, in fact it was bad enough to make the bank buy designer wool cardigans for the reception ladies. (I envied them a lot.)

So. I've been pretty frustrated not to have any bank-friendly wool sweaters to keep me warm at work. Then, a few weeks ago, I noticed that one of the reception ladies was wearing a classic lopi sweater. AHA! thought I. If the reception lady can wear a lopi sweater to work, then I damn well can. She's out there for all to see, and I'm sitting in front of a computer screen all day long. I never meet clients, I seldomly have important meetings. No one's going to mind.

I drove to the Álafoss factory outlet last saturday (a week ago) and bought some grey plötulopi (unspun singles). I thought I'd keep it simple and in muted colors so as not to draw too much attention to myself. Then I drove home, but instead of casting on I went cross-country skiing with Sigurlaug and Böðvar.

Ok, that doesn't have anything to do with the sweater but I just wanted to show you the beautiful surroundings and gorgeous weather. It was so much fun!

Back to the sweater. Initially the plan was to do the body in charcoal gray and then a single-colored yoke pattern in light-gray. Probably the pattern on the Él sweater from the last Lopi book. But one night last week, as I was falling asleep I had the idea to do the yoke in different shades of gray, starting with the charcoal and going gradually to white at the neck. There are of course very few original ideas left in the world, and this was most certainly subconsciously inspired by a Michael Kors sweater in the fall 2007 issue of Vogue (sorry, can't find a picture online).

Yesterday I finished the body of the sweater and I had already done the sleeves last weekend (I usually get the sleeves over with before I start the body). Last night I knit and knit and knit and finished the yoke. I had done minimal math before starting the sweater, just figured out the approximate stitch counts and then I tried it on as I went along. I probably tried it on three times while knitting the yoke, but apparently I was at first blind and didn't notice that it was a tad on the tight side and later my brain did an excellent job of convincing me that really, I wanted a tight fitting yoke. Really. Despite the nagging suspicions, I knit on and finished the sweater today in the afternoon. I grafted the underarm stitches and wove in the ends and thought: I can try to stretch it a bit when it's wet. Mhm. A recipe for failure.

Fortunately, my brother and nieces came to visit at that point so I had a few hours to let the feelings brew. When they left, I had come to my senses. I dug out the woven-in end at the collar and ripped right back to the beginning of the yoke. And I'm really glad I did. I spent the whole week knitting the body of the sweater and half a day doing the yoke. I'd rather redo half a day than wear a wool sweater that's so tight over the chest that there's a risk of me choking! And I like the sweater a lot. I think it's very bank-friendly and I'm already picturing myself wearing it at work.

So, back to yoke knitting. Fun fun fun.

I'm on a roll

2008-01-06T22:56:00.000+03:00

The coming of the new year has obviously had a positive effect on me. I'm feeling very enthusiastic about my knitting and I've knitted quite a lot. This morning I finished the pink log cabin socks so I cast on for a Foliage hat using my first handspun yarn. Before I knew, the hat was done! I have to remember this pattern when next in need of a last-minute gift. The newest additions to my stash of handknits were quite crumpled in they're pre-wash state

but they're having a bath together at the moment which should make them more presentable. This has been a great weekend! Four FO's, and two blog posts. I'm afraid to jinx it, but I'll say it all the same: I might be back to my good old self. Here's hoping.

Old and new

2008-01-05T21:26:00.000+03:00

During the holidays I put some effort into finishing lingering projects. I wanted to start the new year with a cleaner slate, to have a better opportunity to be inspired by new projects without feeling weighed down by the ones already on the needles. I just can't have too many ongoing projects at the same time since it gives me a bad conscience. I'm like that.

I was pretty close to finishing the Shetland socks that I started back in June, so those were the first to get my attention. The reason why they've been taking such a long time is partly that the knitting experience wasn't very pleasant. The yarn is Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply, and it's a bit stiff and cotton-y. Combine that with 2 mm (US0) needles and you've got a project destined to be laid aside for others which are easier on the hands. I'm glad I perservered because now I have a lovely pair of socks to wear around the house. The yarn really softened up in the washing and I love the resulting fabric. I think I might just make a sweater out of some tweed in the near future.

Specs:

Pattern: Shetland Socks by Nancy Bush, in Folk Socks.
Yarn: Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply, 3 balls of main color and bits of 4 other colors for the cuff.
Needles: 2 mm (US0) DPN's.
Gauge: 38 sts, 53 rnds / 10 cm.
Knit: June - December 2007.

Once the socks were done, I picked up the sweater that I started in October, the one I was dreaming of finishing before Rhinebeck (ha ha). I've picked it up from time to time, but each time I got more worried that I wouldn't have enough yarn to finish. Although I'm in general a sensible human being, I somehow figured it would be better to just forget about it than to continue and possibly find out I didn't have enough yarn. As if it's such a big deal to go back to the yarn store for an extra ball. The mind works in mysterious ways sometimes.

Specs:

Pattern: Kort Drops Jakke med flette, Drops Design.
Yarn: Drops Alpaca, 10 skeins.
Needles: 4.5 mm.
Knit: October - December 2007. Buttons put on in Jan '08.

I managed to finish it with only a few meters left of the yarn, just enough to sew the shoulder seams and the buttons on. I really like it and I'm looking forward to having a warm sweater to wear to my cold cold workplace. Unfortunately I work in a company where Lopi sweaters would be frowned upon, so I'm making an effort to knit up more ... elegant? sweaters! I have hardly any, to tell the truth.

If I were to knit this one again, I'd definitely lengthen the body. It's a little bit too short for my taste at the moment.

With these two out of the way, I began thinking about new projects. I had two hanks of Manos del Urugay which I bought in the Mendocino Yarn Shop back in May 2006 and I wanted to make something out of them. I have this mindblock that scarves are the most boring projects ever, because they're so damn long. This is why I hardly ever knit scarves, except if they're wide enough to be called stoles - then they're ok! Logical, right? But what are you going to do with two hanks of Manos? Last Christmas I knit my dad a My so called scarf, a pattern which is made for exactly two hanks of Manos.

Specs:

Pattern: My so called scarf.
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay, 2 hanks.
Needles: 8 mm.
Knit: 27 Dec '07 - 5 Jan '08.

I started this one sometime between Christmas and New Years and despite being a scarf, it just flew off the needles. I guess it helps when you use 8 mm ones (US 11)!

Yummi texture

I also began a new pair of socks. This winter I've been obsessed with having lots of thick wool socks. I actually only have two pairs, the Turkish ones and a pair of Log Cabin Socks that I finished last year. Since I love the log cabin sock pattern I decided to make another pair, this time in a color other than black. Cables and black are so not a good combination. I had just enough neon pink wool, perfect for driving away the bleakness of Nordic winter!

I'm already on the second sock. Sometimes fatter needles and thicker yarn is very satisfying. Before long I'll have my third pair of winter socks. Yay!

Christmas presents

2008-01-02T19:12:00.000+03:00

Happy new year, everyone! I hope you had a lovely New Years Eve. I had a very nice evening with my family and after midnight I met up with some friends for beers and board games. Isn't it unbelievable that it's 2008? The years just seem to zoom past at an ever increasing speed.

This Christmas I had decided I didn't have the time or energy for a lot of handmade gifts. When I realized that Christmas was coming (which was about a week before - don't ask me how I managed to ignore the constant bombardment of advertisements) I felt bad about not having something handmade for my loved ones but by then it was too late. I will do better next year.

I did make a few things. During last year my mom would occasionally suggest that she would like to have a pair of handknit socks. For your information my mom's method of indicating her wish was to look at me knit socks and ask: "what on earth are you going to do with all those handknit socks?". Subtle, right? I made her a pair of my favorite socks, the Turkish ones from Strik deg varm.

Specs:

Pattern: Mokkasiner i gråt og blåt from Strikk deg varm (originally Vantar, mössor, sockor och sjalar in Swedish) by Annita Gunnars.
Yarn: Ida by Trysil Garn, 80% superwash wool, 20% nylon, 150 m/50 g, 1 skein each of red and white.
Needles: 2.75 mm (US2) DPN's.
Gauge: 32 sts, 38 rnds/10 cm.

I realize now that I completely forgot to blog about the pair I made for myself, so here are a few pictures of those. I wear them all the time.

My brother got a We call them pirates hat. I also love this pattern, it looks cool and is quick to make - it took about three evenings all in all.

Specs:

Pattern: We call them pirates by Hello Yarn.
Yarn: Superwash ullgarn by Trysil Garn, 100% wool, 100 m/50 g.
Needles: 4.5 mm (US7).
Gauge: forgot to measure.

The last handknit gift was a pair of winter socks for Markus. These were made using the Cable rib sock pattern from Favorite Socks

Specs:

Pattern: Cable rib socks by Erica Alexander, from Favorite Socks.
Yarn: Superwash ullgarn by Trysil Garn, 100 m/50 g, 3 skeins.
Needles: 3 mm (US2.5).
Gauge: forgot to measure.

Since I bought myself the fancy sewing machine in December, I also made a few handsewn gifts, a couple of tool rolls based on a pattern in Simple Sewing by Lotta Jansdotter. These went to my friend Arna and my sister in law Bryndís.

I think the recipients were happy about the gifts. This made me happy, because I worry a little bit about spending a lot of time on making something that then ends up in a drawer at someone's place, never to see the light of day again. My mom wears her socks every day, my brother was wearing the hat on New Years Eve while we watched the fireworks, and I'm sure the tool rolls will be used since they are so damn handy!

I have been knitting quite a bit during the holidays. I got the idea that it would be nice to finish some UFO's before the end of the year, so as not to drag a whole lot of unfinished business with me into the new year. I finished the Shetland socks that I started back in June and thought I would never finish, and I finished knitting and blocking the white alpaca sweater I started for Rhinebeck. I'm pretty darned pleased about that. So pleased that it spurred a cast-on fest and I have a few new projects to show you next time.

Christmas snow

2007-12-24T14:28:00.000+03:00

We had a pretty good summer in Reykjavík but to even the scales we've had the most depressing weather since late August. It has rained almost constantly and now we're close to breaking the rainfall record. In December we had four storms in a single week, with rain and crazy wind speeds. Therefore, it was a very pleasant surprise to wake up this morning to find snow! The ground is white, my friends, just in time for white Christmas.

There is a light drizzle of rain at the moment, so let's hope the snow lasts until 6 o'clock.

I wish you all the happiest of holidays and Merry Christmas if you celebrate them.

The quilt goes on

2007-12-09T21:00:00.000+03:00

Thank you all for the very helpful suggestions of hat patterns to use my handspun on. Many of them I hadn't seen before, and it's good to have a collection of patterns when the need arises. After looking at all of them, I think that the one which will fit best for the handspun is Foliage from Knitty. Lovely pattern, perfect yardage, it couldn't be better.

I haven't cast on for the hat because I've been obsessed by the quilt and other sewing projects. And, umm, I bought a new sewing machine! It's absolutely fabulous, I love it to bits. My old one is the cheapest mechanical model that I could find when I bought it 9 years ago, and apart from needing repair it's stuck in a box in my parents garage - as so many of my things are. So after careful thinking, I decided that my Christmas present to myself this year would be a fancy new computerized sewing machine that I can use for sewing clothes and quilting. One should always give oneself a Christmas present!

I finished the quilt top before I got the machine, and after I got it I made two small projects (knitting needle rolls) to test it. They'll probably end up as Christmas presents. This weekend I got back to the quilting business. In order to practice, I made a small patchwork square and quilted it. It went fine.

I'm seeing this as a potholder once I get the binding on it. Christmas present? I can't think of anyone to give it to, my brothers would probably not be excited by receiving a potholder for Christmas. Guys, huh!

This morning I drew the quilting lines on the quilt top and proceeded to pin all three layers together. So now there's nothing to stop me, and I think that I'll go and quilt this thing right now. Exciting stuff!

Hope you've all had a nice and relaxing weekend. Next time I might have a knitting related post. After all, Christmas is just around the corner and who doesn't knit for Christmas?

My first quilt

2007-11-25T20:03:00.000+03:00

For about a year, an interest in trying out quilting has been brewing in me. I bought myself a book about patchwork just after Christmas last year and read it from start to finish, but it took something more to tip me over the edge. This something was staying with Cassie in New York. She is an expert quilter and has a big collection of quilts, both her own as well as antique ones. She made me sleep under a beautiful Welsh wholecloth quilt and apparently it proved too much for me because I came home with a dream of making a quilt of my own.

Shortly after I came back, Cassie sent me a link to the International Quilt Study Center where you can browse their collection of quilts. I got lost on that page for days and of all the beautiful quilts they have, the Amish ones really got to me. They have simple graphic patterns, which is a style I like a lot. It surprised me how modern they look, I couldn't believe at first that they are over a hundred years old. I have to admit that I have always had strong prejudice againts quilting, my image of it has always been strongly connected to the Little House on the Prairie TV series, which I used to watch as a kid. So if you had asked me a year ago what I thought about quilting I would have answered: yuck! So tacky! I realize now how wrong I was - I mean, of course you can just do whatever you like, no one's saying you have to make prairie looking quilts!

After drooling for a while over the Amish quilts, I chose the Irish chain pattern for my quilt. I decided to start with a smaller blanket to throw over myself on the sofa when it gets chilly, so I was limited to one repeat of the chain pattern. To stretch the size to about 120 cm by 120 cm (48'' x 48'') I added a few borders and with a few modifications of the original pattern, this is what I ended up with

The pattern lends itself very well to strip piecing and before I knew, the patchwork blocks (which I showed a picture of last week) were ready. Then I sewed them together and began attaching the borders, first the black one

and then the red. That's where I was at yesterday and today I woke up very excited to attach the last border, the wide black one. But when I had cut the border strips, I ran into trouble. Since the corners are mitered, you need the strips to be quite a bit longer than the actual measurements and as it turns out I didn't have a long enough piece of black fabric. Then I remembered that I had already bought black fabric for the backing yesterday and thought that I could use some of that for the borders. But no, no. The lady at the fabric store had cut out 3 meters of black fabric for me, but it was slightly different from the one I used for the top, hooray!

The thing with me is that when I'm on a roll, I get very impatient and waiting for the fabric store to open tomorrow was simply out of the question. So I sat down and thought, and came up with this solution

I have to say that I'm really happy about it, I think it looks even nicer than the plain black border. It's funny how accidents often turn into something good. I even had just the right amount of red strips already cut out to do the corners. All is well with the world. This is where I'm at right now. I've already pieced the corner blocks, so I'm going to go now and finish the top. This sure is fun. Dangerously fun.

Wanted: Hat pattern!

2007-11-18T18:07:00.000+03:00

I had this great energy when I came back from New York and thought I would start blogging regularly again. I had even decided that I would blog at least twice a week, tuesdays and saturdays. You see how well that turned out! Oh well.

Since coming back I finished spinning the 4 oz (roughly 100 g) of BFL I bought at Rhinebeck, and I even plied it too. I love it dearly and am desperately looking for a hat pattern to use it on but haven't had luck yet. My greatest desire was to make a beret and for a blissful moment Gretel seemed like the perfect choice, until I read the yardage requirements. I have about 100 m (110 yards) of it, so if you know of a great hat pattern for that yardage of worsted weight yarn, please let me know :-). (Now I also have the problem of not having/finding suitable yarn for making Gretel.)

I mentioned before I left for New York that I had started a sweater, hoping against hope that I'd finish it before the Rhinebeck festival. Well, that didn't happen. I have been working on the sleeves since I got back and I hope I'll have a sweater to wear to work soon. My workplace is insanely cold.

As the picture might indicate, the sweater looks ridiculous at the moment. It's knit sideways in k2p2 ribbing so in order for it to be something other than a bolero, it needs serious blocking. The pattern is from Garnstudio, so you can see a finished picture there. I'm using the suggested yarn, Drops Alpaca held double, and it's so lovely to work with I think I might make another sweater from it immediately. I might even have an idea in mind.

Knitting has temporarily been put to the side, though. I've begun making a quilt! More on that soon. Tuesday, perhaps?

NYC and Rhinebeck

2007-10-27T20:23:00.000+03:00

I had an awesome trip to New York! I've been pondering what to write about the trip and in the end I decided to write the full story complete with the few pictures I took. To warn you, this is a loooong and picture heavy post. It took me hours to finish writing it! All day, actually.

I flew to New York late Wednesday afternoon with a suitcase half full of wool and Icelandic licorice (gifts). The flight went smoothly and I got totally engrossed in a book I bought at the airport (Freakonomics - I highly recommend it). Time flew, and before long I was handed the documents that the US customs requires visitors to fill out. In addition to personal information and the address you'll be staying at in the US you need to answer a few questions, which to the ordinary human being like myself seem a tad weird. Here's an example:

"Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage, or in terrorist activities, or genocide, or between 1933 and 1945 were involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?" Umm, no.

When I arrived at JFK there was a huge line for the customs and it was damn hot there. After 45 minutes, I finally got to the border control guy, who fingerprinted my sweaty index fingers and took a picture of tired me, a beautiful picture, for sure. Cassie's husband Jon picked me up at JFK and we drove into the city to meet Cassie, who was teaching a quilting class. While waiting for Cassie, we had a beer in a bar opposite the quilt shop, and finally, I got to meet her! We've been very good friends for over two years now, and it was really about time that we met in person. Eep. The three of us grabbed a bite to eat and drove to their lovely Brooklyn apartment where redwine was consumed and politics discussed. I managed to stay awake until 2 in the morning which would translate into 6 am Icelandic time. I was pretty tired at that point, but happy to be there.

I woke up at around 6 am Thursday morning after only four hours of sleep, most probably due to the time difference. Having had little sleep the whole week (stress at work), 4 hours of sleep did not help and I was pretty dazed the whole day. We drank great amounts of coffee and discussed knitting until noon, and then took the subway to the city and walked around. By pure accident (mhm) we passed a knitting shop (Purl) where I got some beautiful Colinette sock yarn. After more coffee we went back home and in the evening had dinner at Jared's and Luigi's. Dinner was delicious, and getting to see Jared's sweaters in person was awesome! Not to mention how much fun it was to meet them in person, they are really very nice people.

Friday afternoon we drove up to Cassie's mom's summerhouse, close to Rhinebeck. On the way out of the city I saw ground zero

It was pretty strange to see it, having seen the twin towers in countless movies and watching them fall to the ground on TV. It's difficult to imagine it in the real world, that they actually stood there and that people actually were right there and watched them fall. Unreal, somehow.

Close to the summerhouse Jon brought us to a field of pumpkins. A field of pumpkins! I've never seen anything like it

When we got to the summerhouse, which is a lovely lovely place, we had a beer and played pool. Jon taught me a bunch of great tricks for improving my game. Marcy arrived with her cute dog Oli and it was great to finally meet her, and Oli of course! In the evening, Marcy and Cassie taught me to spin on a spindle and I got hooked immediately.

(picture courtesy of Cassie)

Saturday morning we drove to Rhinebeck, me behind the wheel. My first driving experience in the US was pretty pleasant and I discovered the convenience of automatic gear switching or whatever it's called in English. In traffic jams a stick shift is a pain in the butt, really.

(picture courtesy of Cassie)

When we got to the fairgrounds, I was totally overwhelmed by all the people and the variety of wool and wooly tools you could buy. I basically walked around in a haze and was pretty silent for most of the day. We met lots of people, and for part of the day walked around with Beth S. and Rebecca. It was so nice to meet them, although my only regret is that we didn't have time or opportunity to relax and chat and get to know each other in real life.

Marcy, Cassie and I all bought Forrester spindles

and lots of roving. I only bought one measly hank of yarn, the softest angora, or bunny crack, as it is apparently also known. After we had had enough of crowds and tempting offers of beautiful wooly goodies, Cassie and I visited the sheep tent and met a bunch of sheep. I was quick to find a fellow Icelander

Apart from the Icelandics and the Shetlanders, most of the sheep looked hilarious to me. Here a few of the funnier ones:

There were also other fiber animals. I'm pretty sure that the smaller one is an alpaca, but the larger could be a llama.

When the fairgrounds closed, we drove back to the summerhouse. After dinner, Marcy and Cassie taught me to ply, and I plied my first handspun:

(picture courtesy of Cassie)

On sunday, Jon and I watched the great American sport of pumpkin chucking (a.k.a. punkin chunkin). Great fun.

I think the best part was seeing the pumpkins splatter on the ground.

During the festival, I kept seeing this weird spandex-clad guy on two GIGANTIC horses, the biggest horses I have ever seen. They were so big, that they looked almost like monsters, something out of a C.S. Lewis or Tolkien book. To give you an idea as to why I found them so outrageously huge, these Clydesdales are about 2-3 times as heavy as Icelandic horses, and 1-2 feet (30-50 cm) taller. They have big butts, I'll tell you.

At the end of Sunday, we had plenty of wool and long shadows

When we got back to the summerhouse, Jon and I watched American football on TV and he explained the rules and the point of the game. That was handy, since so far I have been under the impression that the main point of the game is to air advertisements every 5 minutes! I understand the sporty part now, and have to admit that it was actually fun to watch. After the game, we said goodbye to Marcy, cleaned the house and drove back to the city, arriving close to midnight in Brooklyn.

All in all, I was really happy about Rhinebeck. I met a ton of people, so many that I have a hard time remembering everyone. I would have liked to have more hang-out time with all the people we met, it was somehow a little weird to meet people whose blogs I read but not have time to really get to know each other. Next time?

On monday, Cassie and I visited yarn shops (School Products, Habu) and a Japanese bookstore. After lunch close to the Rockefeller center, we walked down 5th Avenue and along Central Park to Columbus Circle, where I met my friend Margrét (a.k.a. Maggie in the US) who's lived in New York for 3 years. Maggie and I strolled through Central Park for a while, sat down by a pond and caught up with each others life. Afterwards we stopped in a bookstore in the "vertical shopping experience" and I bought a book. We took the subway during rush hour to ... west 4, or something like that, walked down Bleecker street (nice!), sat down in the square at the end of the street and chatted some more.

I got home to Cassie's pretty much on my own by subway (yay!) and had a lovely evening. Jon taught me to play Cribbage and I beat him in our first game (although he won best out of 3). During the game, we might have talked for a while in mock British accent and for some strange reason, he kept calling me Smedley. Jon is excellent at faking accents.

On Tuesday, Cassie and I took the subway into and back out of Manhattan to get to the Brooklyn entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge

and we walked over the bridge to Manhattan. The weather was great and the view excellent!

We had lunch in a Japanese place next to Seaport yarn shop, where I bought some beautiful blue/green Noro. Then we walked along the waterfront and I snapped a picture of the Statue of Liberty

We walked a lot that day and it was nice to see more of the city. To rest our feet, we stopped at Purl Soho (yarn!) and Purl Patchwork (fabrics!) where I got some books. Those are good rest stops, yep, I recommend them.

In the evening Jon brought us ~~pizza~~ calzone from DeFara's, the best pizza place in New York. Freaking excellent ~~pizza~~, oops, calzone. During the evening, I kept referring to it as pizza and Cassie kept stressing that it was not a pizza, we had calzone.

Wednesday was my last day in New York. My flight wasn't until the evening, so we sat around spinning, chatting and drinking coffee all day. During the week, we had had a lot of remembrances of old South Park episodes, so Jon brought a "best of" compilation dvd and we watched a few shows. The one we had talked most about was the Towelie show, and it was just as funny as we remembered. You could say that "Wanna get hiiiigh" was the theme sentence of the week.

It was sad to leave New York. I had such a great time and it was so nice to finally meet and hang out with Cassie and Jon. I think that I'll have to go back very soon, but until that time, I'm expecting at least one of them to visit me in Iceland and I hope I can show her/them as good a time as they showed me.

Since getting back home, I've been spinning. In fact, I haven't knit a stitch in over a week! I'm almost through the BFL top I bought at Rhinebeck. See:

Excuse me while I go finish it!

Here I come

2007-10-17T16:55:00.000+03:00

I'm off to the airport, and in a few hours I'll be in New York City!! Eeep!

I wanted to tell you about the sweater I started on saturday and am optimistically hoping I'll manage to finish for Rhinebeck, but work got really busy and ... I was too busy knitting! Maybe I can show you the finished sweater before long... hopefully.

I might blog from the City, I might not. In any case, have a great week!

sock update

2007-09-23T22:49:00.000+03:00

When you're facing sweater problems there's nothing better than sock knitting to forget. I have been making some progress on the unusual amount of socks I have on the needles. First, I finished these guys (yet unwashed, though)

They're made with the lovely Dicentra Designs sock yarn that I got from Shelby in the Yarn Aboard! swap. I have lots left, which is a bit of a pity, but baby socks come to mind.

The red sock is still without a partner, poor thing.

but I've started the second Shetland sock and am already at the heel. Yay!

Then there's my favorites, the moccasins. This picture is a week old, I actually finished them this evening. Warm socks for me this october, oh yeah.

The pattern for these comes from Strikk deg varm (originally Swedish) and I really love them. I found Anna Zilboorg's Simply Socks in a yarn shop in Reykjavík last weekend and took it home with me, because I think I might just be obsessed by Turkish socks. Yesterday I spent a good part of the day putting together patterns for another pair. Those will be for my mom, for whom I still haven't knit socks. I realized recently that her comments, such as "what are you going to do with all those socks you're knitting!" really mean that she would like a pair herself. After presenting her with a collection of different socks I've knit, she decided she wanted Turkish ones to wear around the house.

Last weekend I got a desperate longing to learn a new technique, so I browsed online and decided to check out the magic loop. So I started a new pair of socks. But of course.

So far I like it, it's a definitely a cool idea. For me it wasn't a life altering discovery, though. I've never minded DPN's, in fact I quite like them. But I will surely mix it up with a little magic loop once in a while.

The red sweater

2007-09-18T22:08:00.000+03:00

Oh yeah, I've been working on a sweater behind your back, that's me alright. Actually, I mentioned it once, but that was a long time ago. I started it in January, while I was in Iceland, and when I went back to Helsinki in the beginning of March I left it behind. I've been back for three months now, but it still isn't finished. Hrmph.

The pattern is my own. After christmas I bought a very handy and cute windbreaker from 66° North (mine's black), but it's so fitted that all of my wool sweaters are too bulky to wear underneath it. It makes me look like a body builder, and that's not exactly the look I'm going for. The reason why I bought the windbreaker in the first place was to wear it over my handknits, to prevent the wind from blowing through and chilling me to the bone. There's a lot of wind on this island. So. A thin fabric was needed.

The style of the sweater is a very simple raglan with turned hems, and to spice things up a bit, I decided it should have an anorak-style hood. I'm using single-stranded plötulopi and 2.5 mm (US 2) needles, so the gauge is pretty tight, around 28 sts/10 cm, and it takes time and patience to knit. The hood has been taking for-freaking-ever, so it was to my great disappointment when I discovered that it just ain't working out. I don't like it. Yay!

Then I thought, collar!, and to get an idea of what it would look like if I just ripped back and left a decent collar on, I folded the hood to the inside and took a few pictures

I'm not completely convinced, I think maybe it looks a little bit too chokey. Still, the sweater needs something extra, because if I just end it with a round neck opening, it's going to look like the plainest thing on earth, and at a gauge of 28 sts/10 cm that seems like too much trouble for too little gain. Any ideas? I don't have much time to think about it because I'm going to Rhinebeck in a month. As I understand, it's vital to wear a new handknitted sweater to the event. Oh yeah, baby, I'm going to Rhinebeck! Yay! I have a flight to New York on October 17th, and I'll be spending a week there with Cassie. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am about it. It'll be fantastic! Exclamation point.

Finished... finally

2007-09-09T21:29:00.000+03:00

The Selbu mittens are done! I blocked them last week, trying my best to stretch the smaller one into shape. It didn't work out perfectly, but they're still wearable as a pair so I'll let it lie.

I totally love them, but I'm afraid I might not use them that much. That's what sucks about traveling by car, you don't really need mittens while walking from the house to the car, and driving with a pair of slippery woolen mittens is not too good of an idea. Oh well, they're still pretty to look at!

Specs:

Pattern:Vott fra Selbu, from Håndplagg.
Yarn: Rauma Gammelserie, natural white and black.
Needles: 1.5 mm (US000) for body, 2 mm (US0) for thumb.
dt: May to September 2007.

I have been knitting a lot of socks recently, none of which match.

I just keep starting a new "pair" once I finish the first (or not). This is an abnormal behavior for me, and in an effort to find my former self, I began the second Shetland sock today (the green one in the picture). Surprisingly, it was easier than I thought! Maybe I'll have a finished pair to show soon.

The big and the small

2007-08-25T15:52:00.000+03:00

Blogging has been on hold while I have been stuck reading Harry Potter. I read the 6th book during last christmas and I felt that I didn't enjoy as much as I expected because it had been so long since I read the 5th one that there were lots of things I had completely forgotten. When I bought the last book ever, I decided to read the whole saga in one go, for better continuity. So, for the past few weeks I have been using every spare moment to read and I haven't done much else. I finished last night and can now go on with my life! I'm not going to say anything about the last book, in case you haven't read it yet.

My niece turned five in the beginning of August, and for the occasion I bought the pinkest of pink yarns and knit her a cute little beret. Although I am not a big fan of this shade of pink, I decided that I could bear buying it because my nice likes girly, princessy sort of stuff.

Specs:

Pattern: Seed stitch beret from Debbie Bliss' Family Knits.
Yarn: Smart (#4503) and Kitten Mohair (#4513) held together.
Needles: 4.5 mm for ribbing, 5 mm for seed st.
dt: 5 - 12 August 2007.

It was a quick project, the knitting was done in two evenings but the finishing took days because I was lazy. When I did get round to it, though, I went a bit overboard on the pompom, it's really huge and dense and fluffy.

Today is a big day: I just finished knitting the Selbu mittens! Wish me luck on the blocking, because these guys

need some serious stretching or magical shrinking in order to be passed off as a pair. That should teach me never to let UFO's that come in pairs linger in the knitting basket. Or it won't, considering that I already have two unpaired socks having a little vacation. Never mind.

Árbær museum trip

2007-08-12T19:16:00.000+03:00

This weekend the Árbær Open-Air Museum celebrated its 50th birthday. There were a bunch of events going on and admission was free, so today I decided to pop in and have a look. I had read that there would be ladies demonstrating wool preparation and spinning in the old way so that was kind of the reason why I went :-D.

Árbær was a farm that used to be on the outskirts of Reykjavík and travelers to town would stop there for a break. In 1957 it was turned into a museum, and through the years other houses, mainly from the city center, have been moved there and restored. In each of the houses an exhibition displays different aspects of life in Reykjavík through the times.

This weird old spinning wheel was placed in a small exhibition area about the old ways of preparing wool. Notice the fake guy in the background carding wool.

The ladies of the wool were on the loft of the actual Árbær farm, one spinning

and the other winding the spun singles into hanks (notice her pretty shawl!)

I stayed there for as long as I could, but at some point I forced myself to leave as it was becoming weird, you know, me staring at them. I was really fascinated by the act of spinning, it seemed so effortless for the woman and felt really relaxing. Hmm... ;-)

Aah, gauge

2007-08-10T00:58:00.000+03:00

After regaining my knitting mojo (at least partially) I've been working on the second Selbu mitten. I set myself the goal of knitting at least three rows a day, and it worked pretty well until one day last week I measured it up against the first one, which I finished the about a month and a half ago. To my horror, this is what I saw:

The second one is significantly smaller. Innit great? Since then I haven't touched it, but after worrying about it a great deal I think I've come to the conclusion that I'll just say Whatever! and hope that I'll be able to stretch/shrink them to indenticalness in the final wash. So, we're back to three rows a day.

In other news, my friend Arna (to whom I gave the blue mohair stole) invited our group of girlfriends over on Tuesday evening for a knitting club! I was the only one to show up (with bags full of pattern books and magazines - overenthusiastic?), but I'm sure we'll lure the others into the knitting circle given time. It's going to be a weekly event from now on, awriiight!

Enough is enough

2007-07-29T17:56:00.000+03:00

This blog absence cannot go on for longer. I don't know what happened. It seems that the move, the new lifestyle and the new job just sucked all the knitting energy out of me. I have hardly picked up the needles during the last month and the few times I did, it just didn't give me the kick it used to. It was first this weekend that the longing returned and I sat down for a few hours and knit. That felt darn nice because I was getting worried, to tell you the truth.

I have finished a few things, a shawl and a hat. I started the shawl at the end of May, and finished it during a trip to the summer cottage in late June.

Specs

Pattern: Luna Moth Shawl by Shui Kuen Kozinski.
Yarn: Mountain Colors Bearfoot, colorway Rosehip, ~100g.
Needles: 4.5 mm, 60 cm circulars.
Delta t: end of May to end of June.

I was surprised at how fast it went, I have almost only made rectangular shawls so far, and triangular ones are really much smaller! I bumped into the pattern on Elann and immediately thought of the lonely hank of Mountain Colors Bearfoot that I bought in the US last year.

I did as many repeats as I could squeeze out of the 100 grams and then cast off. In retrospect, I think that I choose too big needles - the shawl is a bit too open for my taste. You live, you learn, I guess. Despite the deep love that I have for the yarn and the colorway, this shawl will end up as a gift for someone.

I also finished a hat for my dad who had his birthday in the beginning of July. I used the lovely Syncopated Caps pattern by Kate Gilbert, which appeared in the summer 2007 issue of Interweave Knits.

Specs:

Pattern: Syncopated Caps by Kate Gilbert from Interweave Knits, summer 2007.
Yarn: Sandnes Smart, little over 1 skein of tweedy brown and under 1 skein of tweedy natural.
Needles: 3 mm, 40 cm circulars.
Delta t: a few weeks.

Let's see if dad will use it, only time can tell!

Whipped by gauge

2007-06-26T14:45:00.000+03:00

I have to admit that I've been stuck in a knitting funk for the past few weeks. Something to do with stress maybe, I don't know. I keep starting things and rejecting them because they seem to demand too much attention or they simply don't work out. It's really quite frustrating and I hope it will all be over very very soon. In the meanwhile, I have some old FO's to distract you with!

I made this pannebånd some time in May. It took about an hour, maximum two hours and is therefore a perfect instant gratification project, especially as I think it looks really cool. I first saw it on Rebecca's blog and bookmarked the pattern - I recommend you to do the same, just in case you find yourself missing a gift on christmas eve or being spontaneously invited to a birthday party.

In May (or April... I forget) I also started a pair of beaded wrist warmers. After the first one was done I didn't feel like casting on for the second, so I let it be for a few weeks. Unfortunately it seems that I was feeling much more uptight at the time I made the second one

Considering that I used the exact same yarn and needles, I think it's truly impressive how much difference there is in size. Maybe it doesn't show too well in the picture, but in real life there is enough difference that it's not really possible to wear them as a pair. This should teach me never to succumb to the Second-whatever-Syndrom.

I have a plan to get me out of the funk:

How could these beautiful cakes of Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply not cheer me up? These should turn into the Shetland socks from Folk Socks by Nancy Bush, a pattern I have wanted to knit for ages. This is the first Rowan yarn I've ever bought and I'm excited to see if I'll love it as much as people seem to do. It's expensive enough, so I'd better like it a whole lot!

I'm off to the summer cottage for a few days. Maybe I'll have something interesting to show on Friday, but if not, I have more old FO's to distract you with. It's good to collect those things - for the dry patches.

Back for good

2007-06-25T12:01:00.000+03:00

I'm back in Iceland... for good this time! I left Helsinki a little over a week ago and since then I've been having an internet-free vacation to wind down after all the stress. It felt strange to leave Helsinki knowing that I wasn't returning any time soon. When mom and I landed in Iceland, dad picked us up from the airport and we drove straight home to change clothes and attend my brother's graduation party - he finished his M.Sc. degree that day. When we got there it turned out that they had been scheming behind my back and the graduation party was mine as well! I came into the living room at my brother's place and saw my friends there and it took me an abnormal amount of time to realize what was going on. For a few seconds I was busy thinking why on earth they were there... if they knew someone who knew my brother or what. We had a grand time and in the evening ended up in a bar downtown where, in classic Reykjavík fashion, we bumped into old friends from highschool, primary school and my other brother! It felt nice. Good old Reykjavík, where everyone knows everyone.

Five days later I bought a used car! Isn't it cute?

This is my first car and I just love it. I feel free to drive wherever I want, whenever I feel like it. No more "can I borrow the car, mom and dad?"! Oh no, those days are over.

In more knitting related news, I finished the blue mohair stole. While I was knitting it, I decided that I wanted to give it to my friend Arna who has been having a rough winter. I met her for lunch last week and gave it to her, and the timing was perfect because the following night she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl!

Specs:

Pattern: Cobweb stole (pdf) from Vintage Purls.
Yarn: Unidentified mohair bought on sale at Menita, 202 g.
Needles: 3.5 mm, 60 cm circulars.
Size: 66.5 cm by 156 cm.
Duration: April 5th - May 6th 2007.

What's going on?

2007-06-10T16:09:00.000+03:00

I had this whole post planned about the summer cottage trip but then life has been insanely busy, since I'm moving to Iceland on Saturday. I have uploaded some pics to my flickr site, so if you'd like to see photos of the beautiful Finnish nature, check this out. I love Finland. Despite the mosquitos.

My mom and brother came here last Wednesday and we've been hanging out. They left for the weekend to St. Petersburg and I'm using the opportunity to try to get as much packed as possible. Right now, my apartment looks like a group of FBI agents came and turned it upside down.

I have a whole bunch of finished knitting but it looks like I might have to wait with reporting it until all of this is over. In case I don't appear here until I'm back in Reykjavík, I hope you all have a great week ahead of you!

Off to the wilderness

2007-06-01T06:33:00.000+03:00

Thank you so much for your really nice comments on my last post! I was very touched!

This weekend I plan to relax like I'm getting paid for it. I'm off to a summer cottage on an island in a lake in the middle of Finland. I can not wait to go to the sauna, my shoulders are stiffer than ever!

You all have a great weekend! Happy knitting!

A free woman

2007-05-29T20:07:00.000+03:00

I am officially done with the thesis that has repeatedly been referred to as the f***ing thesis! I handed it in today. I feel free as a bird.

This means that my 8-year career as a university student is over, at least for now. I've enjoyed it but I sure as hell won't miss the guilt trips over weekends taken off. Now I can just knit on, free of worries. Yeehaw!

I'm off to drink beer. Have a great evening!

Strategical planning

2007-05-26T14:31:00.000+03:00

More than one person has pointed out to me that my stash reduction strategy could be better. There were the wristers that I knit with ultra lightweight wool (not good for grammage) and then the fact that I seem to be only knitting very small items, like socks on 2 mm needles. A certain someone said that I should be cranking out sweaters and getting serious with the grams. The problem is that so far I haven't been stashing sweater yarn. I have difficulties in buying huge quantities of yarn without a pattern or idea in mind, so I always end up stashing either sock or shawl yarns. Managable quantities, you know, always useable. The only sweater yarn I've stashed is the heathered green Nalle that I used for the Bubble pullover. I do have enough of that left for another sweater, but it would be weird to knit two sweaters in a row using the same yarn. Wouldn't it?

But I agree. A pair of anklets on 2mm needles,

a pair of knee-highs on 2 mm needles,

wrist warmers on 1.5 mm needles,

a pair of Selbu mittens on 1.5 mm needles,

and a mohair stole (what's up with the yardage of that mohair stuff? It's endless),

are not exactly going to bring the weight loss very high up, considering how much time each of these projects take. But here's the thing. I'll be shipping all the stuff home and in shipping it's all about volume, not weight. So actually my strategy is very sensible, now that I think about it!

My Hedera's

2007-05-24T13:27:00.000+03:00

After some heel trouble, I got my Hedera's back on track and finished. As I mentioned, it was under Terhi's influence that I started these socks and as I have now discovered, her influence didn't stop there. After I had taken pictures and uploaded them to flickr I was browsing the Cookie A group pool and bumped into Terhi's photo of her sock. In her photo, the background is a woven rag rug and now look at my photo:

creepy, or what? Incidentally the background rug was my first project in the weaving class I took this winter.

Specs:

Pattern: Hedera by Cookie A.
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM P613, 86 g.
Needles: 2 mm KnitPicks DPN's.
Gauge: 32 sts and 50 rnds per 10 cm.
Mods: Lengthened the foot portion (18 repeats) and shortened the heel flap (17x2 rows).
Dates: 13.4 - 10.5 2007.

This brings the stash reduction to 1394 g. The only downside of the project was that Koigu and the 2 mm KnitPicks needles didn't go too well together. Koigu is a little bit stiff before washing, and as it's thicker than many sock yarns, knitting it on 2 mm steel needles was a bit hard on the hands. Still, I love the outcome so who cares!

Chipman's check wristers

2007-05-22T08:00:00.000+03:00

The funniest thing happened last week. Did you know that big companies that publish textbooks send copies of their books around to professors and teachers at universities? It's an advertising trick. For the past two years I've been responsible for a first year physics course at HUT and my name was listed in the study guide as the organizer (which made me proud enough to cut out the page, I collect stuff like that). One day last week, when I got to work, there was a big package from Wiley on my desk, and inside? Fundamentals of Physics, a rather popular textbook in basic physics. It was hilarious. I mean, I'm a lousy graduate student, not a fancy professor. Looking at amazon.com I noticed that the book costs a freaking $110 so now I'm thinking, hey, maybe I should try to sell it! It's not as if I need another book about Newton's laws.

But onto other, more important books. I recently got Favorite Mittens by Robin Hansen from the fabulous postman. There's a bunch of nice patterns in there, but the first one to really catch me was the one for Chipman's check wristers. I used some leftover plötulopi singles from my last lopi cardigan. Now, I know that lopi is very lightweight, but this project proved to me just how lightweight it actually is, and I was truly impressed. The pattern notes tell you that you'll need 64.5 g of the main color and 25 g of the contrast color, now guess how much I used! Less than half, or 28 g of the MC and 12 g of the CC. Isn't that quite amazing?

Specs:

Pattern: Chipman's check wristers from Favorite Mittens.
Yarn: Plötulopi, held single. Used 28 g of MC and 12 g of CC.
Needles: 2 mm for ribbing, 2.5 mm for colorwork.
Gauge: 34 sts and 32 rnds per 10 cm.

This brings the stash reduction to 1308 g. The wristers are warm as hell so I don't think they'll be wearable for the next few months. It doesn't matter much since I think they're going to the gift basket and will end up as someone's birthday present. I've sort of already decided who.

Striped socks

2007-05-13T16:25:00.000+03:00

Yesterday evening, the Eurovision song contest finals were held in Helsinki. I didn't have a ticket for the show but went instead down to the Senate Square, along with 50.000 other people, to watch the contest on a big screen. It was fun!

But onto today's small project.

Last year I was in Germany and bought some yarn, of course. Among the yarn I bought were two skeins of self-striping Regia sock yarn which I've never really felt like using. I'm not the biggest fan of self-striping or self-patterning yarns. In my efforts to reduce the stash, and especially use up yarn that I'm less thrilled about, I took one of the self-striping skeins and knitted up a pair of socks.

Specs:

Yarn: Regia 4fädig Africa Color, white cuff is leftover Sisu.
Needles: 2 mm.
Gauge: 36 sts and 45 rnds per 10 cm.
Weight: 78 g.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I found that I actually quite like these socks. That'll teach me not to pass jugdement too early. This brings the stash usage up to 1268 g.

Cassie's socks

2007-05-12T12:25:00.000+03:00

I have a bunch of smaller projects finished that I haven't blogged about so I'm hoping that for the next few days I'll get them photographed and onto the blog, which seems to be starving!

First up is a pair of pretty socks. These are designed by Cassie and she kindly sent me the pattern to test knit.

Specs:

Pattern: As yet unnamed socks by Cassie.
Yarn: Grignasco Bambi Merino Extrafine (225 m/246 yards per 50g).
Needles: 2 mm.
Weight: 30 g.

The yarn I used is very lightweight and extremely soft, making a pair of luxury socks that I'll be careful about wearing as I don't think it'll hold up well to friction. I love the pattern, it's easy to memorize the lace and produces such pretty results.

This brings the stash usage up to 1190 g. I went last weekend to a local yarn shop and bought a whole bunch of yarn, probably just as much as I have used from the stash. You might think that I have broken some sort of yarn diet, but that's not the case at all! This effort of knitting from stash was in fact designed so that I could buy lots of nice yarns that I can get here but not in Iceland. The idea is to knit up the not so special yarns to replace them with oh so special yarns. Good plan, right?

Selbuvotter

2007-05-05T09:53:00.000+03:00

This week I got an invitation to join the Selbuvotter pool on flickr. I've knit mittens which are in a similar style as Selbu mittens, but never done the real thing. So, of course I took the invitation as a dare to knit original Selbu mittens.

I had some Rauma Gammelserie (2-ply wool) in the stash, actually from when I ordered a booklet with Selbu mitten patterns - you had to buy wool to get the booklet. I chose a pattern from Håndplagg and cast on. I remember that when I got the Rauma yarn I wasn't too impressed. It's a little ... rough, and I can get plenty of rough wool without ordering it from abroad. But as the mitten grew, I grew to like the yarn more and more. It's sticky and fuzzy and the knitted fabric has a felted feel, and I think it suits these mittens very well.

I'm really enjoying the process of knitting them. I'm using 1.5 mm (US000) needles and ... well ... there's something about those tiny little stitches, you know.

Overcaffeinated

2007-04-30T19:05:00.000+03:00

I'm handing in a first draft of my licentiate thesis (see Sweden) to my supervisor on wednesday. This means that I am at the office writing like the wind (or should be). There is much caffeine and a whole bunch of sugar in my body. Why is it that without a deadline, one tends to procrastinate, and then once a deadline appears on the horizon you do the same amount of work in two days that would have taken weeks in the state of procrastination? It amazes me every time.

But enough about me. Here's a picture of beaded wrist warmers that I finished ages ago but forgot to blog. Naturally, this is the time I get the urge to tell you about it - when I should be doing something entirely different. How typical.

Specs:

Pattern: based on a pattern in Håndplagg.
Yarn: Baby garn from Gjestal.
Needles: 1.5 mm.
Start-finish: I forget.
Modifications: Bead pattern adapted to single colored beads.
Weight: 26 g.

There was a small surprise when I washed them, the paint on some of the beads disappeared, leaving behind the brightest yellow color you could imagine. I will only be using pure glass beads from now on, I can assure you.

Total stash reduction: 1160 g.

Now, back to thesis.

The Bubble Pullover

2007-04-28T13:20:00.000+03:00

I finished sewing the buttons on the bubble pullover on monday and have been wearing it every day since. We've had chilly weather lately which is sort of perfect because this is officially my new favourite sweater!

It was an enjoyable knit, the body is made up of pentagons, you start with one and after finishing that one you pick up stitches for the next one, and so on and so forth, as they say. This keeps you entertained and is a welcome relief from the bottom up approach. The risk with the sweater construction is that it's very difficult to see how it's turning out, and there really is no way of knowing until you've finished, washed and dried it. I was pretty convinced that mine wouldn't turn out at all like I wanted it too. I was aiming for a baggy style like the one on the photo in the book, but it looked like I was getting a considerably smaller size. I put all my hope on the washing - the yarn I used (Nalle) is quite stiff when knit up, but softens a lot when you wash it.

Well, turns out that it's absolutely perfect! Not baggy, but I really like the tighter fit.

Specs:

Pattern: Bubble Pullover from Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan.

Yarn: Novita Nalle (75% wool, 25% polyamide, 390 m/150 g skein) held double, 4 skeins.

Needles: 3.5 mm for ribbing, 4 mm for pentagons and 4.5 mm for sleeves.

Start-finish: April 7-23.

Modifications: Did the sleeves in the round to the armholes.

Weight: 598 g.

The sweater used up 600 g of my large Nalle stash but I still have 850 g left! I could knit myself a hat, a scarf, a pair of mittens, a pair of knee-high socks and possibly pants, and go around town like a crazy fan of handknit, heathered green outfits. I think I won't, though. I don't want to get sick of the color, which I like a lot. Oh, and knitted pants arent really something I'd wear... I think.

Total stash reduction: 1134 g.

Sock trouble

2007-04-24T10:48:00.000+03:00

A few weeks ago I met Terhi (of mustaa villaa) for coffee. I don't know any knitters in Finland so it was really nice to meet up with her and do some social knitting (and of course discuss the merits of different yarns and admire each others work). It was fun to get to know the person behind the blog - and she's a very nice person.

She was working on a sock from the Hedera pattern and I fell for it. I have some variegated Koigu that I've wondered what to do with. I didn't feel like doing plain socks and Hedera, with it's simple lace columns, was a perfect fit. A few days later I started it, copycat me.

I made the leg portion a little bit longer than in the pattern, remembering that the last time I used Koigu I had a lot of yarn left over. (One shouldn't waste Koigu, right? At least not when one had to fly across the Atlantic to get it!) After the leg was done, I knitted the heel as instructed, not thinking about the fact that the heel on this sock is very high, and the gussets crazy long. I worried that I wouldn't have enough yarn to complete the sock. I have about 12 g left.

Yesterday I was thinking about the dilemma and the two roads I can take. I could weigh the yarn I have left, calculate the number of stitches I have knitted and have yet to knit, and use that information to estimate how much yarn I'll need to finish. The second option would be to try the method I've read about on countless blogs: knit as fast as you can to outknit the end of the ball. I couldn't decide.

I then tried the sock on and found out that the heel is actually too high and the gussets too long, so it seems that a decision has been made for me. I'll take a few days off before I rip back my work, though. A few days will help me feel a tiny bit more indifferent about it. The important word there being tiny.

Oops, another sweater!

2007-04-22T23:23:00.000+03:00

Sometime last year I bought Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan. I was captivated by the designs, and there were several designs that I really wanted to knit from it. The pattern that I got most enthusiastic about was the Ram's Horn Jacket, and I decided that was to be my first (of many) projects from the book.

A while later I was at a local yarn store when I spotted a sales bin filled with Novita Nalle in a heathered green colorway and I love heathered colorways. Although Nalle is essentially a sock yarn (approx fingering weight), I thought that it might work to knit with two strands to get a suitable gauge, so I bought 10 skeins of it. Just in case. Not remembering that each skein is gigantic, weighing 150 g (5.3 oz) and containing 390 meters (426 yards) of yarn. Yes, I had almost 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) of heathered green Nalle.

It took a while before I started seriously thinking about casting on for the Jacket. It was precisely when I realized that I would be shipping stuff back to Iceland soon, and packing 10 skeins of Nalle seemed ... weird. So I swatched, swatched some more, and swatched yet some more. I couldn't get gauge. Either I had the perfect stitch gauge with the row gauge way off, or the opposite. I was frustrated.

I gave up and looked throught the book some more, since there are several sweaters in it that I'd like to knit some day. Turns out that my gauge fitted to a lot of them, and in the end I chose the Bubble Pullover.

I have to admit that the picture you see here is old. I took it last weekend, but my camera ran out of batteries before I could upload the photos to the laptop. Then I kept forgetting to buy new batteries. I actually finished the sweater yesterday, and it's blocking right now. I went to a local market yesterday and got some buttons that I think will fit really nicely. It should be dry by tomorrow.

Acceptance

2007-04-11T08:14:00.000+03:00

Thank you for your helpful comments about the washing of my sweater. I hadn't thought about the thickening of the fabric when you felt, so it was most appreciated that many of you pointed that out to me. I have accepted my poor child as it is.

I did run a swatch through the wool program on my machine, and indeed, as Sonja mentioned in the comments, it didn't felt at all. I'm just sceptical about wool programs. I also used to be sceptical about superwash wool. It took me a while to dare to wash my socks in the machine. I handwashed them all the time, but now I've accepted that superwash wool is really machine-washable. Clever stuff!

Righty-o. The sweater.

Specs:

Pattern: My own, colorwork pattern based on a design from Lopi #12.

Yarn: Plötulopi from Ístex, colorways 1038 (light) and 1422 (dark).

Needles: 3.5 mm's for ribbing, 4 mm's for stockinette.

Weight: 536 g.

I see that it's good to start a stash reduction effort with a sweater, my stash has lost 536 grams, just over half a kilo. That makes me feel real good.

In the pictures, the darker color just looks dark but if you look closer, it's actually a really pretty heathered colorway. I'm thinking it even deserves a whole sweater for itself, someday.

Detour

2007-04-08T14:47:00.000+03:00

I'm having bad sweater karma these days. Perhaps you remember the sweater of giants? That didn't quite happen again, but a milder version of the same phenomenon. After my new Lopi cardigan was dry, I tried it on and found out that it was a fair bit larger than I had planned. It seems that I was feeling more relaxed than anticipated when I knitted it, because my gauge is larger than on the swatch (a.k.a. the sleeves). So instead of a tight, fitted sweater I got one that is a bit baggy and I'm not sure I like it.

Because of the looser gauge, the yoke is too deep, which means that the sleeves sit lower and are therefore too long. This Easter sunday I finally sat down with the disappointment that is this cardigan, sewed on the buttons and shortened the sleeves. I wanted to keep the old ribbing on the bottom of the sleeves because a new one would be knitted in the opposite direction (top down) and there would be a difference between the sleeve and the body ribbing. What I did was to cut the yarn in one place, after securing stitches on either side of the gap, and proceeded to rip out my own hard work. I have to admit that it was sort of fun!

Then I ripped and ended up with a separate cuff

Finally, I grafted the two sleeve pieces together. It worked beautifully...

... except for one thing that I can only blame on my own stupidity. I had marked off the correct length of the sleeve and when ripping, I stopped at that spot. Then I grafted the ribbing to the sleeve, except the ribbing of course adds about 2.5 cm (1 inch) so the sleeves are still a little too long! Grrrreat.

Right now I'm running a swatch through the wool program of my washing machine and hoping that it shrinks a little. If it does, I'll wash the sweater too, and see if I can get a tad smaller size. If anyone has concrete reasons as to why I should really not do that, please speak up! :-)

Sweater for summer

2007-04-01T16:57:00.000+03:00

So. What do you do when you face seaming together the ends of a beaded pulsewarmer and after trying 5 different seams conclude that they all look like shit? Well, you start thinking that maybe button bands aren't that bad after all. So you do them and suddenly find yourself having a cardigan blocking!

Nothing goes better with a nice cup of Espresso Brutale than the smell of wet wool. And there's no better time to finish a thick wool sweater than the beginning of summer when you start sweating just looking at the thing. Luckily I'm moving back to Iceland soon... the country where you need a thick sweater in summer too. Hail to shitty weather!

I've already picked out my next big project and found some stash yarn for it. I'm making another long shawl, there's just something about them.

Since I'll have to ship a bunch of stuff to Iceland when I move, I'm trying to use up as much stash as possible. I know I'll have just as much wool to pack, but the shipping rates go by volume, and knitted stuff packs better than skeins. Although I realized a while ago that skeins will make a perfect padding material for fragile boxes. Anyhoo, I think I'm going to do what I've seen Fríða do, to record the weight of used stash. It will be interesting to see how much I'll manage to knit up in the next few months.

This doesn't mean I'm on a yarn diet. On the contrary, I might buy a whole lot of yarn just before I move. There are some lovely yarns available in Finland that aren't sold in Iceland, and I have to stock up. When I have finished all that I bring with me, I have a backup plan. I've been strategically doing my friend Markus a bunch of favours in the past year, like babysitting his cats and such, just so that I'll be able to make him send me yarn when I'm back in Iceland. I'm a devious girl.

Pretty little beads

2007-03-30T08:16:00.000+03:00

What do you do when faced with the tedious knitting and seaming of button bands? Why, of course you start a new project to take off the edge!

These were inspired by a pair of pulsewarmers in Håndplagg - an absolutely fabulous book I got as a birthday present from my parents. I had to change the bead pattern a little bit because the original was a color pattern and I only had randomly variegated beads. I'm fascinated by the outcome, these tiny beads are so pretty!

My flatmate and her friend saved a life this week. She was walking home with a friend at 04:30 (a.m.) the night before the last and they decided to take an alternate route to the usual. Suddenly they heard splashing and a call for help. Some guy had been walking on the ice on a sea canal close to where we live (Hakaniemi for those who know) but as it is spring already, the ice broke and the guy fell in. Somehow they managed to use a scarf to drag him out of the water, and soon after calling 112 (911) a bunch of ambulances and police cars came to the scene. The guy was already very cold and probably wouldn't have survived for much longer in the water. It really is an amazing coincidence that they happened to be walking there at this time of the night, especially because this is not the normal route you would walk from downtown to home. Hanna's friend called her yesterday to tell her that next week they're getting a life saving award! I think this is the most beautiful thing anyone I know has done.

Happy weekend to everyone!

Pouches

2007-03-23T12:07:00.000+03:00

To get to work I take a metro to a shopping mall. Inside the mall there is a bus terminal from where the regional buses leave. Right opposite my bus stop there's a bookstore and as I am a big fan of books I'm never sad when I've just missed a bus. I go book-browsing.

On one such occasion I bumped into Last Minute Fabric Gifts by Cynthia Treen. I bought it immediately and ran for the bus. Since then, I've been obsessed by pouches and bags and I've managed to sew four and have already cut out fabric for the fifth.

Sewing used to be my main hobby in highschool and just after, but I have hardly touched the sewing machine for years. The last time I did was two years ago when I made an evening dress for a fancy PhD graduation party. Clothes were the main thing I made back in the days, but now I have discovered a whole new world of sewing - of course you can make accessories and stuff!

The pouches turned out to be much more handy than I thought. The big ones for example can actually fit a sock in progress. The small ones are excellent for keeping coins - usually I have coins spread all over in my handbag because I hardly use money at all. I spend money, but usually in the form of plastic.

The pouches were made from trousers that I had stopped using. I actually have a bag full of clothes that I had intended to give to UFF but now I am thinking of ways to reuse the fabrics. Is that bad?

The Arctic Diamonds Stole

2007-03-18T16:23:00.000+03:00

I think I haven't told you that I have a flatmate now. Her name is Hanna Birna and she's here in Helsinki as an exchange student for the spring semester. She studies fine arts (visual arts?) and since her main medium happens to be photography I thought Hah! I'll get her to take photos of the shawls and sweaters I finish, since they look nicer with someone wearing them. Very handy indeed.

Well, yesterday evening I unpinned my new stole and I had an almost religious experience. It's so freaking beautiful I can't believe it! Of course I was so excited to show it to you that I needed pictures preferably a week ago. Except Hanna is in Stockholm on a school trip and I'm here all alone with my tripod. So, no artsy pictures this time, although I'm sure there will be at some point.

Specs:

Pattern: Arctic Diamonds Stole by Donna Druchunas, from Interweave Knits winter 2006.
Yarn: Kambgarn from Ístex (150 m/50 g, 5 skeins).
Needles: 3.5 mm (US 4).
Start-finish: 17 days.
Modifications: Did 4 pattern repeats instead of 5 (widthwise).

I started this stole when I realized that I didn't have an appropriate project for my flight to Helsinki. I had 5 skeins of kambgarn that I wanted to use for a stole, and when frantically flipping through pattern books and magazines to look for a project, I came across the pattern for the Arctic Diamonds Stole, which uses a similar yarn. Lovely!

Since it was initially a travel project, I had this feeling that I needed to finish it as fast as possible. During the past two weeks, I've spent a big part of my free time on it. I was anxious to finish, which happens to me rather often, but that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it. Quite the contrary. In fact, it's one of the very few patterns that I can imagine myself knitting more than once.

Through this project I have discovered that stoles are something I really like wearing, and from now on I shall knit many many more of them. I've never been much into scarves and I have a hard time figuring out how to wear triangular shawls. Stoles on the other hand are My Thing!

During pictures

2007-03-17T14:14:00.000+03:00

The shawl is blocking as we speak! I'm excited.

I ran out of pins. Luckily I found a box of thumb tacks with ball heads, which saved me from some seriously scalloped edges. Phew!

Before pictures

2007-03-17T12:19:00.000+03:00

Yesterday evening I cast off the shawl that has overtaken my life for the past two weeks.

Now excuse me while I go and block it.

I'm back!

2007-03-15T00:57:00.000+03:00

I've been working so hard on finishing a shawl that I've used pretty much every spare moment to knit on it. I started it in the plane on my way to Helsinki (yep, I'm back there now!) mostly because it was the only appropriate travel project I could think of.

I enjoyed my time in Iceland very much, even though I didn't really do all that much. The time was partly spent on gauging how I feel about moving back to Reykjavík, and I found out that I'm quite ready. I have loved living in Helsinki, but after a while it gets tiresome to play the part of a foreigner. There is nothing quite like home, it's funny that the air smells different there, and the light is different from any place I've been. This often brings memories from the past, nice feelings associated with life in Reykjavík. Also, small things like walking past my old school and chit-chatting with the guy in the video rental store make me happy. So I'm ready, just bring it on!

Before leaving Iceland I worked a lot on the red sweater and managed to reach the shoulders! I left it there, so when I return to it in the summer I'll have an almost finished sweater. It'll be like I got it for free!

I also finished a pair of mitts, a gift for my mom's colleague. She came to visit me in Helsinki in the autumn, and for christmas she gave me a recently published knitting book written by her daughter in law. I wanted to give her a little something for being so nice to me.

These are the same mitts as the orange and pink ones I made a while ago. Since she has very petite hands, I used a thinner yarn to get a smaller size. I wear mine all the time, they're just so handy and comfortable. She tells me she likes them too, which is nice.

In the comments to the last post, Erica asked about the stitch pattern for these mittens. It's very easy, for a multiple of 10 stitches do:

Rnd 1: *k1, yo, k3, sl1, k2tog, psso, k3, yo, repeat from *.
Rnd 2: Knit.

I wanted to put the whole pattern here on the blog and actually, I might just do it some day. But first I have to finish the shawl.

Yarn Aboard!

2007-02-25T17:48:00.000+03:00

On thursday evening the postal service brought me a package and a very nice package it was.

In the autumn I signed up for Yarn Aboard! - a very nice swap organized by Amanda of clothesknit. All the packages were first sent out by Amanda, and all of them were supposed to end their journeys on her doorstep. I was the last stop on Vasco de Gama's travels, but unfortunately he got stuck in Canada so instead of him going to Shelby, then me and finally Amanda we decided that Shelby and I would send our gifts to each other.

Shelby really spoiled me. First, she wrapped each item individually and I just love opening wrapped gifts

Opening wrapped gifts is even better when what's inside is something you really like! And wow, was I amazed. Inside there was yummi chocolate (already tried and loved),

very nice lip balm, hand salve and lip shimmer (all tried and loved),

there were two lovely sock patterns

and a cute tool bag from Knit Picks (it's black and very difficult to photograph). I think my favorite was a set of five stitch markers that Shelby made herself. This is the one thing that I have been dying to get. In every yarn shop I visited during my trip to the US last year I looked for these fancy stitch markers, but couldn't find any. They're not available on this side of the Atlantic, so I was a little bit disappointed. Now I have them, thanks to Shelby!

which means that this

is history! Last but not least, Shelby sent two hanks of fabulous sock yarn

Socks that Rock is something I have wanted to try for a long time, as they seem to be the number one hit these days. I have to say that it is really impressive in person, and I love the colorway Shelby chose. The other hank is from Crown Mountain Farms and also there, the colors are wonderful. I haven't heard about that sock yarn before, so I'm excited to try it out.

Thank you so much Shelby for all those wonderful things, and thanks to Amanda for organizing such a nice swap!

Merike's Gloves

2007-02-20T03:07:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I finished knitting Merike's Gloves from Folk Knitting in Estonia by Nancy Bush. It's funny that this pattern didn't speak to me at all until I saw a picture of gloves that Ineke made. I think that the gloves pictured in the book really don't do the pattern justice, they look a bit boring in white and gloves don't look their best without a hand in them.

These were knit using sock yarn I dyed on the first day of the year, and had intended to use for lace socks. It seems that my obsession with socks has been replaced temporarily with an enthusiasm for hand coverings, which is fine by me. I'm sure socks will return to me, at least I have enough sock yarn to burn through in Helsinki.

For the past five or six weeks (I'm starting to loose track of time) I've been working on finishing a self-study course I've had hanging over me for a long long time. After sitting and doing calculations for what seems like an eternity, I felt extremely relieved today when I solved the last problem. Yay for me!

Yarn and more

2007-02-13T14:26:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I drove to Álafosskvos (Álafoss-valley) to visit the Álafoss factory outlet where Ístex sells their yarns at lower prices. It's located in Mosfellsbær, a town right next to Reykjavík. It's a really lovely place, the outlet (yarn!) and the surroundings. It's like a tiny little town inside a bigger one. The Álafoss building used to be a wool factory, but I think that the processing has been moved elsewhere. Behind the factory there's a small river and a waterfall which used to provide electricity to drive the factory. Now it's a residential area and there are a bunch of artist's studios and Sigur Rós (the band) has a recording studio there.

For the past two weeks the place has been in the media spotlight. The town council has decided to build a road right next to it, to connect a new residential area to the town. The inhabitants of Álafosskvos and the artists who work there are really angry about it since it would spoil the beauty of the place and bring a lot of noise pollution. I totally support their cause.

I bought a bunch of yarn, some kambgarn for a shawl, a little bit of plötulopi for a sweater, some sock yarn, and a book. I was innocently strolling around there when I noticed Solveig Hisdal's Poetry in Stitches ("Ljóð í lykkjum" in Icelandic) on a shelf with a price tag saying 1500 kr, which is ridiculously cheap (about 20 dollars and if you don't think it's cheap, remember that Iceland is one of the most expensive countries in the entire world. I recently read that it has become more expensive than Norway. I'm shocked.) Of course I bought a copy, how could I resist?

I have officially begun a yarn collection in Iceland. I'm flying off to Helsinki in just under 3 weeks and there's no chance I'll manage to finish two drawers worth of yarn in that time.

I started a sweater a couple of weeks ago. I bought a bag of plötulopi in a beautiful red heathered colorway before christmas and finally an idea struck me. Plötulopi is a thin, unspun thread of Icelandic wool and around here it's very popular for the lopi sweaters. You use two strands for a thickness similar to létt-lopi (lopi light), and three strands for regular lopi thickness. I've wanted to try knitting with a single strand for some time now, and that's what I'm doing with the sweater.

I've done both sleeves, and am about halfway to the waist on the body. With 2.5 mm needles (in between US 1 and 2) I have a gauge of 26 stitches per 10 cm (4'') so as you can imagine it doesn't grow that fast, although it goes much faster than I had anticipated. Right now I'm at the point where I've realized that there's hardly any chance I'll get it done before I go back to Helsinki, so I'm pondering my options. I don't think I'll take it with me. I'm moving back to Iceland in June and will have a lot of stuff to pack so why add to it? I already have a sweater ongoing in Helsinki (a single sleeve, heh) in addition to a pile of yarn that's intended for a sweater. So, right now I've come to the conclusion that I'll lay the fine-gauge sweater aside until summer arrives and instead I'll cast on for something that I can finish in the time I have left here. What a great excuse to start a new project, don't you think?!

The Bearfoot shawl

2007-02-12T11:52:00.000+03:00

When I was in the States last spring I bought a bunch of yarn. I have been struggling ever since to find use for it. The thing is that it's all so special to me that no pattern seems good enough.

Among the yarn I bought were two hanks of Mountain Colors Bearfoot (in different colorways). Apparently it is meant to be a sock yarn, but seriously, it's such a wonderfully soft and beautiful yarn that I just couldn't face sticking my sweaty feet in it. After much thinking, I decided I'd make a scarf or a shawl out of it. I began the Trellis scarf using one of the hanks, but after the border and one repeat of the lace pattern I did some weighing and some calculating and realized that I'd probably not have enough to make a scarf of a decent length. I was sad.

During the handball world championships I found myself needing a simple project to knit while watching a game that was starting in 20 minutes. I was flipping through an old copy of Hugur og hönd (magazine of the Icelandic Handicrafts Association) and noticed a neat looking triangular shawl done in moss stitch. I remembered the hank of bearfoot I had brought with me to Iceland and thought "perfect!". The moss stitch would go nicely with the variegated yarn and I could start with a few stitches, increase ad infinitum until I ran out of yarn.

I have to say that it was a really enjoyable experience to knit a triangular shawl like this. I feel like I didn't really put any effort in it. I brought it along to the knitcafé that the handicrafts association, the handknitting association and Ístex organized in the beginning of the month (fun, fun fun!), I knit on it while chatting with Sigurlaug when she came to visit, and occasionally while watching tv. All of a sudden, on friday evening, it was done.

When it came off the needle (4 mm circular) it looked rather small, but saturday morning I washed it and pinned it out to dry, trying my best to stretch it as much as I possibly could. And blocking worked its magic once again, turning this tiny little shawl into one of a pretty decent size. I love it!

Trellis Scarf

2007-01-31T23:42:00.000+03:00

I got round to taking some pictures of the finished Trellis scarf today. Mom agreed to model it for me, as long as I'd exclude her head from the pictures. We did a photo session in the garden, but unfortunately it was freaking windy so only a few pictures were taken and then we ran back inside. The picture quality is not too good this time.

To give an idea of dimensions, here is headless mom and the scarf

It ended up quite a bit longer than intended, it's almost 2 meters long and 32 cm wide. It's a good scarf in the sense that you can wrap it around the neck several times, but that of course obscures the pretty lace pattern. Next time I might make a scarf that you just lay on top of the jacket - you know, to show off!

I really like the lace pattern, it's a beauty and quite easy to memorize. At first I cursed myself for choosing a pattern where every 8th row you need to knit three times into 7 stitches repeatedly. For that I had to use a crochet needle, and in the end I actually thought it was a nice break from knitting!

To sum up, the pattern is from Interweave Knits, spring 2006, the yarn is Drops Alpaca from Garnstudio, the needles were 4.5 mm bamboo circulars. Well written pattern, nice project, but took a hell of a long time to finish. Totally worth it, though, very very pretty.

Lapland mittens

2007-01-30T15:47:00.000+03:00

I finished the Lapland mittens a while ago. They were a pretty fast knit, all in all I think they were on the needles for less than a week. It's funny how some projects linger on for what seems like an eternity, while others are on and off the needles in no time.

For the mittens I used Smart from Sandnes in white, yellow and three shades of green - the leftovers from the Red Lights Special hat. Due to the frequent color changes, the top decreases looked absolutely horrendous with too loose stitches and a large gap between the paired decreases. To fix that I simply took a fingering weight yarn and sewed the decreases invisibly together. It worked like a charm.

Since last we spoke, I also finished the Trellis scarf. It looks beautiful, but I haven't had a chance to create photographic evidence. Let's see if I can get my mom to model it for me. After finishing these two projects I cast on for three new ones. Meanwhile the lingering projects keep on gathering dust. All the new ones are of the kind that demand all attention until finished. But more on that later.

Random thoughts

2007-01-23T20:38:00.000+03:00

Since the beginning of the year it's been really quite cold in Iceland. The temperature has been about -5 to -8°C, with little or no wind and it snowed a bunch. This is unusual in Reykjavík, where winter temperatures are normally around 0°C, it rains a lot and the wind blows fiercely. Yesterday it started raining again and now most of the snow is gone. This makes everyone I know happy, everyone except me that appreciates cold, snowy winters. I don't know what's wrong with all these people? I was appalled hearing one after the other claim that they prefer rain to coldness. I've decided that it must be because they hate having to scrape the car windows in the morning, which is of course totally chicken of them. Or, as the Merriam-Webster Online thesaurus informed me, it's so lily-livered... it's even pusillanimous of them (I was looking for synonyms for "cowardly", preferably something with "sissy" in it). Anyhow, here's a little picture I snapped at the University just before it started raining.

Yesterday, against all odds, Iceland won France in the handball world championships, in a kick-ass, crazy game. Probably the best game ever for the national team. This means that we're still in the championships. I screamed my lungs out even though I have limited interest in handball. It's such a stressful game that I'm usually on the verge of having a heart attack while watching. Therefore I watch as little as possible.

In more personal news, I've got a job! It all happened really fast and sort of, but sort of not unexpectedly. I'll be starting on July 1st this year, and as the headquarters of the company are located in Reykjavík, this means I'll be moving back to the old country in the spring/early summer. I'm quite excited about the job and the moving, although occasionally I wonder if it was a good idea after all - Reykjavík is an "interesting" place sometimes. What's the job? I'll be doing risk analysis at Kaupthing Bank.

I was in the newspaper last week. My friend who works there needed someone for a column called "my passion" in which they interview somebody about something they're passionate about. As you may have noticed, I'm passionate about knitting, so that's what it was all about. I think it came out fine, although I was a little uncomfortable with the thought of me being in a widespread newspaper, I don't know, it makes me feel weird that people I went to school with (or ex-boyfriends) that I haven't seen in 10 years can read about what I'm up to. It's a little crazy, but I like being off radar. Still, it's perfectly normal to have a public blog on the internet... yep.

If you like watching videos, the company for which I'll be working has been having a tv campaign starring John Cleese. The ad's are quite funny I think. They've put two of them in wmv (windows media player) format here, if you'd like to see.

On the needles

2007-01-15T20:32:00.000+03:00

For the past few months my blogging frequency has decreased rather drastically and weeks have gone by with no blogging at all. This means that usually I only post pictures of things I've finished in the meantime and you never get to see the stuff I'm working on and the stuff that doesn't work out (which drives me crazy). In short, the process disappears.

In the interest of full disclosure I'm going to show some of the stuff I'm currently working on.

Let's begin with the Estonian socks from Folk Socks since they're the oldest of the bunch, born in June last year. They begin with colorwork on the top of the leg, which took a really, really long time since I had some trouble with handling the thin (~laceweight) yarn on the small (2 mm/US 0) needles. I got it done, though, and it's real pretty.

Then the socks took few month vacation and only resurfaced in the autumn. In a fit of "finish thy unfinished objects" I spent some time on them and got past the heel. That's when I tried them on, and realized that they were far to wide for my skinny calves. As I had put all that work into the color pattern, there was no choice but to rip back and reknit the leg. Devastated as I was, several months went by before I had the strength. I've been knitting them on and off for the past few weeks and they seem to be on a good roll now. It's strange though, I'm using skinnier yarn and smaller needles (and thus have a considerably smaller gauge) but still they'll have to be knee-highs and I'll have to continue decreasing past when the pattern tells you to stop. There must be something seriously weird about my legs.

Next up there's another pair of socks but rather more recently begun. These are an attempt to use up stash yarn, and well, I'm not that excited about them. Being a mindless long-term (knee-highs) knitting project is just about their only virtue.

Let's see, I started a new sweater and managed a single sleeve before falling out of love with it.

I have yarn and a vague idea for another sweater, but too vague as yet. I really need a new one, but sweaters just don't seem to be in the cards for me these days. You might remember that I have another single sleeve back in Helsinki, and then there was the incident with the sweater of giants, the pain is fading slowly.

In the new year I began a new version of great grandma's mittens. There were things I wasn't happy with in the first version. Needless to say, I spent lots of time on it and in the end it didn't work out. It's gigantic in size. I'm waiting for a sunny day to try my luck at version 3.

I've also had a lace project going for a while. This one is working out, but rather slowly for my taste. Surprisingly, a project doesn't grow while you don't work on it. I'm following the Trellis Scarf pattern from IK spring 2006, but using a bulkier yarn (Garnstudio's Alpaca). I only have a few lace repeats to go but the problem is that I have a fairly limited tolerance when it comes to lace, I get tired of it really quickly.

As you might have gathered from the above, I've been in quite a knitting funk lately. None of my projects were speaking to me and it made me a frustrated little knitter, I longed for something that would do it for me. That's when these came and swept me away

I love them, they're my number one favorite. The pattern is "Mittens from Lapland" from Folk Mittens, a great book that I recently bought. So thank you Marcia Lewandowsky for making my week.

Hello. My name is Sigga ...

2007-01-15T18:41:00.000+03:00

... and I'm a sockaholic. I've been hiding my sock obsession from you, but it's time to come out clean. I have three socks to show this time but there's plenty more on the needles. Socks on needles seem to multiply at an alarming rate, don't you think?

Stripe socks, based on a pattern in Sukkasillaan

Pearl anklets, own idea

Simple socks for mindless knitting, own idea

I like having at least one pair of simple stockinette socks on the needles for mindless knitting while using my brain for something else. Still, a little deco on the cuff is nice, hence the socks above.

In addition to the recent explosion of sock knitting I've begun a sock yarn collection in Iceland (sadly, I had to leave most of my yarn in Helsinki) and I've done some dyeing of yarn that I hope will turn into pretty lace socks asap. I haven't done lace socks in a while.

Yes, there really is something about socks.

Red Light Special

2006-12-31T19:43:00.000+03:00

Hats are really great aren't they? Quick, knit in the round and there's never a second one to complete the pair, unlike with socks and mittens. It's a nice change. I should knit more hats.

During the holidays I've been knitting a hat, b r o o k l y n t w e e d's Red Light Special. It's a great pattern.

In the picture you can see the hat resting on a flower pot that I found in my parents' storage room. As you can see, it fits absolutely perfectly for a hat and I have now claimed it in the name of hat blocking. They're never getting it back!

I had a few beers with friends yesterday and it seems to have affected me in such a way that I can't think of anything to say. Have a look at my cute new hat instead!

I wish you all a wonderful New Years Eve with lots of loud fireworks. Thank you for the past year, I've really enjoyed your company in the world of knitblogging and I hope that the new knityear will be as much fun!

Christmas gift parade

2006-12-27T15:17:00.000+03:00

Happy holidays! A little late, I know :-)

Now that christmas is done I guess it's time to show the hand made gifts. Initially I hadn't planned on making any, but in the beginning of December my mind was filled with a bunch of ideas and I couldn't control myself and in the end almost all of my gifts were hand made!

For my dad I knitted a scarf using the My so called scarf pattern. I started it in the beginning of the month, but decided to save it for the flight to Iceland since it's knitted on big plastic needles and I'm always a bit scared of the airport security check. The stitch pattern is also easy to memorize so it makes for nice mindless knitting. Of course it's a scarf which means that it's long and gets rather boring after a while, but in boring places like airports it's ok - you don't have anything else to do anyways. It sure came in handy when I had to wait for 4 hours in Copenhagen. My flight from there to Iceland was delayed due to a mechanical problem as the pilot kindly informed us, adding that they were checking if it could be fixed or not! They fixed it, or as the pilot said so elegantly in Icelandic: Það er búið að redda málunum. It really is untranslatable, sorry.

In Copenhagen I sat in the same place most of the time and listened to other people's conversations. For a while there were three Faroese guys sitting on a nearby table, and I had fun trying to understand what they were talking about. It's funny that Faroese is so similar to Icelandic that one can understand it fairly well when written, but these Faroese people speak it in such a weird way that it's almost impossible to understand anything at all. The only thing I got from the conversation were numbers and months, and at some point I got that they were discussing football (soccer) but that was only because I heard them mention Newcastle and Blackburn (UK teams).

Later there were two Norwegian guys on the next table who were discussing food, the older one was describing in the most minute detail how to make some chicken dish. I once lived with a Norwegian for 6 months and I always feel so comfortable when I hear Norwegian, it's such a "kosligt" (cozy) language. Kosligt is my favorite Norwegian word.

Oh, the christmas gifts.

My brothers and my friend Arna got felted mittens. After making them I got a little worried that maybe they weren't such a good idea, it's a little problematic with Icelanders because they travel in cars all the time so the time spent outside in cold weather is severely limited. In Addi's (my bro, not the needles) case I'm not so worried though, he's a man of the mountains so I bet they'll come in handy some day. He even owns a pair already, when he had opened the gift he ran out to his car and came back with a pair of felted mittens that he bought for 50 dollars in a hiking gear shop.

For my mom I made a woven table runner. I did it in the course I'm taking in Helsinki, and I was told that the technique is Finnish, or the material is something that's not available outside of Finland. It's called poppana and it's basically fabric strips where the fabric is bias cut. When you weave, the fabric threads are exposed so that the texture is similar in feel to a towel, a little hairy you know.

I've already shown the poncho that I made for Aníta, my sister in law's daughter. My nieces, Iðunn and Hildur, got pairs of knitted christmas socks. The pattern for these is in Sukkasillaan (yes, it's my favorite book!) although I decided to put pompoms on instead of the small bells shown in the book. I thought that it would be nicer for the parents, silence is a rare thing for parents and why add to the general noise level? Iðunn put hers on immediately and seemed happy with them. She went around calling them her "ullarsokkar" (wool socks) which sounds really funny because it rather refers to socks made from thick wool, to put on when you go hiking or something. It isn't so common here to knit fine socks.

For my sister in law I knitted a washcloth and bought a hand made soap. Since she also knits I couldn't resist giving her two balls of a buttery soft merino and silk blend. I told her to knit something extra special for herself.

In November I was hanging out in Markus's office and not being able to resist checking out knitted stuff, I took up his store bought hat and examined it a little. As I could immediately feel, it was 100% acrylic and I made a whole speech to Markus about the dangers of synthetic fibers and how they suck at keeping you warm in wet weather. Markus naturally replied that I should knit him a wool hat if I was so against his acrylic hat. His christmas gift this year was therefore a hat made using the fabulous We Call Them Pirates pattern.

I think this gift was the best received gift ever. In the sms I got from Markus he said "Thank you for the coolest hat EVER!". I think nothing can beat the feeling of having knitted a truly appreciated gift, Markus has pretty much guaranteed himself a life time supply of knitted goodies.

I've been lazying around during the christmas days and I haven't exited the house since the 23rd, I kid you not. I think I might go outside now, I need a ball of yarn to continue the project I'm working on.

My knitting history

2006-12-22T15:50:00.000+03:00

Like all Icelandic kids, I learned knitting in school. I don't really remember having learned it, I remember learning all kinds of embroidery stitches, and sewing too, but not knitting.

When I was about 11 years old I started hanging out with this girl, Elva Dögg. Her sister, who was a few years older, did some knitting. She had made this hat which I thought was the coolest thing ever, so I set out to copy it. My mom was a knitter, so I used her leftover yarn and she probably helped me out when needed. Sadly, the hat seems to be lost but I did find a few pictures to show it's true glory. It was long, in quite a few nonfitting colors, and finished with a pretty tassel and a few pompoms stuck on for good measure. Beautiful (ha ha)!

Some years later, when I was about 14, I had another friend (who is still a very good friend) whose grandmother would knit here beautiful lopi mittens. I wanted some too, and so I picked up some lopi and a pattern from one of my mom's pattern books. Obviously the unfinished mitten syndrom haunted me already at an early age, because this one never got a partner.

From there on I lived a knitless life for many years, until I was at university - probably around 22-23 years old. I was walking the main shopping street in Reykjavík, and for some unexplicable reason ended up in this yarn shop where I bought some wool and a pattern for a sleeveless top. I remember having thought that I'd add sleeves to it, which I guess was rather optimistic considering that I had never knitted anything more complicated than a single mitten. I came home and casted on for the front piece, did the first knit row and then - ooops, couldn't really remember how to purl. I tested some different things out and based on vague memory and feeling, concluded that I had figured out how to do it.

I was surprised to see that the fabric didn't look quite like normal stockinette, and to my great amusement now, I thought that I had discovered a new way of knitting (twisted stockinette). Har har, the hopeful youth. I liked it a lot and imagined what a cool looking sweater it was going to end up being. I knitted the front up to the armholes and half of the back, and laid it aside. Then I lost the pattern and forgot how I had done this fabulous new stitch pattern. Yesterday, while reorganizing and cleaning my room at my parents place, I found the pattern and of course I now know how one does twisted stitches, so in theory i could finally finish it. I'm not sure I will, though. Maybe I'll find another use for the four skeins of Løve superwash wool.

In the end of July last year I went for two weeks to Iceland, amongst other things, to attend my brother's wedding. At that time lopi sweaters were the new fashion rage and, being sensitive to peer pressure, I wanted one. But eff if I was going to pay 150 dollars for one, so instead I bought yarn (for 20 dollars), got a free pattern and knitted one. It ended up a little too big for my taste so I gave it to a friend.

The rest is history, I just can't stop!

The mitten saga - part two.

2006-12-19T14:20:00.000+03:00

Remember all the unfinished mittens? Well, there is progress to be reported.

This one is still in limbo.

These two exist no more.

This one has been termed Objet d'Art and I am currently looking for a new flat with a mantelpiece on which to display it.

All is not lost though, I managed to gather the strength to rip the mitts back and figure out a better way of doing them. Then I finished them, and due to the lack of hands around here, had to model them myself even though my hands are not exactly aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

I'm really quite happy with them, even though I'm skeptical about the pink/orange combo (read more about how that came to be here). I don't mind so much, but I just have this feeling that pink and orange are two colors that don't go well together. Still, they bring quite a color kick into the dark winter. I might write up my notes on these and post them on the blog, in case anyone is interested. They're quite easy and use only one skein of Lanett.

Finally, I also figured out how to finish my copy of great grandma's mittens. I have a feeling this one is ending up on the mantelpiece too.

I'm flying off to Iceland tomorrow morning, so see you next time .... in Niceland!

Markus's socks

2006-12-12T17:15:00.000+03:00

I wanted to thank everyone for the kind comments on Markus's socks. Some people (a non-knitter, of course) thought that handwash-only socks were a cruel, cruel gift ;-). To be honest, I did feel a little guilty about it since I remember my pre-knitting days and how I loathed having to handwash clothes. I would stick them in a bag and maybe once a year, or even more seldom, take them out for washing. Now, I don't mind so much.

Anyhow, I decided to experiment. I took the yarn and knitted a mobile cozy - since it's annoying to knit a useless swatch. I was planning to try and machine wash it, and I figured that a mobile cozy was good since if it would felt and shrink I could just give it to somebody who owns an Ipod nano.

Well, a wool program on 30°C (86°F) later I can tell you that kambgarn from Ístex can easily be machine washed. However, it might not be too well suited for socks. At lunch today, Markus claimed that there is already a hole on the toe, which is weird because he's only been wearing them at home. I didn't really believe him so I'm waiting to see it with my own eyes.

For those who asked about the stitch pattern on the cuff, it's a slip stitch rib turned inside out:

Round 1: with color A *sl1, p1 and repeat from *.
Round 2: with color A knit.
Round 3: same as round 1 but with color B.
Round 4: same as round 2 but with color B.

Repeat these four rounds until you get sick of it (it grows real slow), then turn inside out and continue in stockinette.

The sweater of giants

2006-12-11T12:55:00.000+03:00

Lately I've been doing some holiday knitting, top secret you know. I've stolen a moment here and there for more selfish pursuits, some of which involved horrible, horrible accidents. I had, in fact, the first Harlot-like experience of my knitting career.

It all started with an idea I got for a gift for Aníta, my sister in law's daughter. I decided to make her the Fair Isle Hooded Capelet from Teva Durham's Loop-d-loop, I think she might like it since last year my brother gave her this knitted hat from South-America and she absolutely loved it. I did a bit of swatching with a soft Finnish wool called Aino and after tweaking the pattern a little to fit my gauge, I began knitting and finished. In a few hours. The gauge is gigantic, about 8.5 sts and 11 rows per 10 cm (4'') with double stranded Aino on 12mm needles (US whatever, it's too large to be listed on my needle gauge! It's one or two sizes larger that US 15).

Looks pretty neat, right? I really like the style of this capelet, and considered knitting one for myself but remembered that I don't really see myself wearing a poncho all that much. Sweaters, on the other hand, I love. So, thought I, why don't I just start with the capelet and keep on knitting until it turns into a sweater? A cozy, baggy-looking hoodie. On friday after work I stopped by a shop and got some more Aino, came home and cast on. By the end of the night I was down to the waist on the body, thanks to the joys of gigantic needles. On saturday I knit some more, and finished! All in all I think it took about 10 hours to knit - the ultimate quickie sweater.

I considered taking pics to post immediately on the blog, since I was so excited about having knit a sweater in two days, but some annoying little voice in my head was whispering about doing proper finishing. So I washed it and laid it out to dry, wondering a bit why it looked so big. I didn't wonder too much, since it was supposed to be a little on the big side - and who can tell about the size of something laid out to dry? It could be an optical illusion.

Yesterday I tried it on and it's big alright. It looks more like a knee-length dress for people with very long arms than a baggy hoodie. It seems to have grown in length by about 20 cm (8''), I have never experienced anything like this! I measured the gauge again, which before washing was 8.5 stitches and 11 rounds per 10 cm's (4''), now it's more like 7 stitches and 9 rounds!! How on earth is that possible, I ask you?

Fortunately the width is sort of ok so I think, when I have gathered myself, I will just rip back a bit on the sleeves and body to shorten it. Unless anyone knows a magic trick to shrink overgrown sweaters made from superwash wool.

Now, what to do about Aníta's capelet?

Respect the Wool

2006-11-24T09:34:00.000+03:00

On tuesday my friend Markus had his birthday, and once again he’s a year older than me. Hah!

Being my best friend, he of course deserved a nice wooly gift, but even more so because during the past few months he has really been there for me so something extra special seemed appropriate. And what’s better than handknit socks?

Some time ago, Markus was telling me about this trip he and Tuija were thinking of making, they were planning to spend a romantic weekend in Porvoo, a small town east of Helsinki. He was wondering what one could do in Porvoo and I naturally mentioned that there’s a yarn outlet there, and that if I was going to Porvoo I’d be sure to spend a few hours there. His response? Let’s just say he didn’t get it, and said something back that made the wool gods angry because the next day one of the mittens I knit for him got stolen.

In order to make him respect the Wool, these socks are knit from Icelandic worsted yarn (kambgarn from Ístex) which should be handwashed. That should humble him a bit ;-). The pattern is my own, and for the toe decreases I tried a method described in Sukkasillaan for a spiral swirl of purled decreases. Just for fun.

The mitten saga

2006-11-21T22:34:00.000+03:00

It’s starting to look like I am cursed. I seem to be utterly unable to finish handwear these days and George knows I’ve tried. Many, many times. There was the red glove who never got a partner.

There was the glove from Folk Knitting in Estonia that I wasn’t happy with because I chose the wrong yarn for the roositud pattern and I seriously dislike stickout thumbs. I looove roositud though.

There was the glove that I started to replace the Estonian glove but ended up not being happy with either. Turns out it’s not a good idea to put two colors right next to each other, there’s no room between the tiny stitches and so the colors don’t line up correctly.

There was the two-end knitted mitten that I began oh so enthusiastically but ended up feeling bleh about which is really sad because this is the nicest worsted yarn (kambgarn) that my friend Markus bought for me in Juankoski and could this sentence get any longer?

There was the wristwarmer that I knit but I cast off too loosely and the thumb opening was too small.

and finally there is my copy of the mittens of my great grandma

and it looks like I cannot for the life of me get the top decreases right. What’s going on, I ask? I desperately need mittens for the winter. Someone please, please lift this curse!

The leftover pullover

2006-11-19T12:52:00.000+03:00

Has it been so long since I last wrote? Time flies, huh! Actually, I’ve been having a somewhat shitty time in my personal life and have spent most of my free time thinking about life, the universe and everything, while knitting. My mom came for week’s visit to cheer me up, which was really really nice. Aren’t mom’s the greatest? Hopefully things will start to look brighter in the near future.

Last summer was the Big Summer of Sweater Knitting. I knitted 3 sweaters and a vest, all of which I gave away, and afterwards I was all sweatered out. I therefore turned to smaller projects (in addition to the shawl) to cool off. Now that a few months have passed and winter has arrived (and left again, it seems), I felt it was time again. I longed for a wool sweater to keep me warm. When I was in Iceland in August I bought some plötulopi (plate-lopi) for a yoked pullover, so I wound it into balls, knitted swatches and did some calculations. A sleeve got knitted, and then I spent two weeks wondering what kind of pattern I wanted for the yoke. I spent hours and hours drawing up sketches and rejecting them, until I got so fed up that I decided to move on to something else. No warm sweater for me this winter.

A while later I bumped into a bag of leftover lopi balls, things I had bought with some sweater in mind but then used parts of it to knit something else. An idea came to my mind, and shortly thereafter the leftover lopi sweater was born.

It’s already a little bit stretched and worn, since I’ve been wearing it constantly for 2 weeks. I am totally in love with it, and already planning another one in a little bit different style. This one was knitted in the round, like a normal raglan pullover in stockinette, and the colors were chosen randomly by drawing cards. Then, once it was finished, I turned it inside out and voilá!, pretty color changes in reverse stockinette. Due to the frequent color changes I had to weave in a trillion ends, which made the progress rather slow (I was wise enough to weave in the ends while knitting), but that’s a small price to pay for a pretty sweater which used up leftovers. Hooray!

Tomorrow I have a 45 minute presentation at the lab where I work. I’m almost done with the slides, just some finishing touches left, and then I have to practice. I am a little bit nervous, but not nearly as much as I would have expected. Wish me luck!

When it’s dark and dreary

2006-10-27T08:27:00.000+03:00

It has been raining for the past week. The sunlight is fading into winter darkness, and endless rain and covered skies get rather depressing. Waking up in darkness, going to work in darkness, coming home from work in darkness… it’s hard on the spirit.

At times like this it’s great to have fun new socks to cheer you up.

Excuse the crappy pics - there’s no daylight here! These unintentionally ended up having the color palette of the Icelandic flag. This means that from now on I shall wear them every 17th of June, on our independence day. I hope they’ll last at least to next year, although I’m not optimistic. The yarn I used is Novita Wool and it seems like a very, very fragile little thing. The pattern is from the fabulous Sukkasillaan, my favourite sock book which I’m deeply happy to have bought - despite it being in Finnish and all.

Thank god it’s Friday. Have a great weekend everyone! Go out and enjoy the sunlight! I know I will.

A moment of revelation

2006-10-24T18:27:00.000+03:00

It’s been raining a lot lately. It’s been dark and dreary, but today the skies cleared for a while making it possible to take a few pictures of my brand new shawl, the first of hopefully many more (who are not such a pain in the butt to knit). I brought my camera to work, and before going to lunch, Markus and I headed to the forest behind the building in which I work. (Ok, calling it a forest is perhaps stretching it - Finns would laugh their asses off. I work in Otaniemi.) Without further ado I present The Shawl

As you might notice, I am not a shawly type of person. I have seldom worn shawls and I’m still trying to figure out how to best wrap it around me.

The obligatory wingspan view (made very crappy by me not holding it properly - I’m new at this business).

I’m happy with my new shawl. I’m glad that I persevered. I’m glad I’m stubborn. All of the bad times are forgotten. (Still, I will never wash it again. What a drag.)

After the photo shoot, Markus and I figured that it was only fair that he should have his picture taken also. After all, he was wearing the mittens I knitted for him last christmas. They haven’t appeared on the blog, and the blog must be fed. So in addition to the shawl, I present to you my best friend Markus who is my favourite person in the world (apart from mom and dad and such).

So close

2006-10-21T19:32:00.000+03:00

My job will soon be done

I am relieved, to say the least. I am relieved that I will never have to knit this evil thing ever again. I am relieved that I have escaped without serious psychological damage. Now I understand Yarn Harlot’s graphic descriptions about rather wanting to lick hedgehogs.

The pink threads there are for blocking purposes, but I think I’ll be sensible and wait until tomorrow morning. Instead I’m going to pour myself a glass of redwine and propose a toast: Skál fyrir mér!

The Shawl

2006-09-23T12:57:00.000+03:00

I’m going to come out clean. For the past few (many) months I have been knitting a shawl behind your back. I just never felt the need to talk about it and now I’m suddenly close to finishing it, which is no small feat.

For my birthday this year I got the Þríhyrnur og Langsjöl book (Three-cornered and long shawls) from my parents and for a long time I browsed through it trying to decide which of the many beautiful shawls in the book I should start with. I was most fascinated by the more down-to-earth shawls, not the fancy bancy types. I wanted a shawl for the common people, something nice and warm to help me through the winter.

I’ll admit now that I am a total product knitter. I don’t care if something is going to be the most boring thing on earth to knit, I’ll knit it if it looks good. Yep, I’m a sucker for looks. So it came to be that I chose “ferhyrndur herðaklútur” (lit. square shoulder cloth) as my first shawl, I liked the way it looked. Never mind that the stitch pattern consists of two different stitches with every other row knitted plain. Never mind that I have to knit those two stitches for all eternity, with no decreasing going on since the shawl is square. No, no, I’ll do it because it’s going to look freaking great! What I forgot is that being a product knitter I am rather fond of seeing things progress, and preferably with high speed. Do you think that this shawl grows quickly? Nope. When each 204-stitch row adds less than half a cm to the length, it takes for-freaking-ever to knit. And it didn’t help that I was incapable of concentrating on it, when seeing no progress at all, so the only times I actually did some knitting on it were the occasional bus trips when I didn’t have any other portable project, and a few plane rides between Iceland and Finland.

This autumn I fortunately got a strong urge to finish my unfinished projects and move on with my life. For the past two weeks I’ve been knitting almost exclusively on the shawl, and to my great surprise the darn thing grows! Here’s what it looked like on the 30th of April:

This is the state of it on May 11th

and here’s what it looks like now, all 79 (out of ~96) cm (31 out of ~38 inches) of it

The end is in sight, but naturally I’m running out of yarn. I have 20 grams (0.7 oz) left and from my oh so scientific estimates I think I might need around 50-60 grams (2 oz) to finish. The error bars here are quite big, so I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. I figure that if the length in unblocked state is, say, 5 cm (2 inches) smaller than the width, I can just block it out since the shawl stretches pretty awesomely. Yep, it shall all work out - never mind that this is my first shawl and I have no idea whatsoever as to how much you can torture shawls in the blocking process. It’ll all work out.

Then the only thing left is the border which is knitted separately. The pattern instructs you to sew it on in an invisible fashion so that both sides of the shawl can be used. Is there an experienced shawl knitter out there who can suggest a way to accomplish that?

Oh no, a new hobby

2006-09-21T22:13:00.000+03:00

Some people are amazing, crazy amazing. On tuesday I found a note from the post office in my mailbox notifying me that I had a package. Package? What package? I’m not expecting any package, thought I. Of course I ran over there immediately to get it, but as I was on my way to the weaving course I brought it along and fought the urge to open it while in the metro. When I arrived at the course location there was no one there and I remembered that we had decided to have it on wednesday this week because of a premiere that the teacher had to attend. So I went back home with my package, opened it and became speechless. Wouldn’t you?

This time the wonderful Cassie managed to surprise me in a most pleasant way. We’ve been sending stuff back and forth for some time now, I buy Icelandic wool and books for her, and she buys American wool and books for me. It’s a very handy thing. One time, I sort of surprised her with a package of Icelandic wool but this time she outdid me by far. I surely didn’t expect this and well, I have few words to describe how happy she made me.

Spinning has been in the back of my mind for some time, but I thought I’d wait a while since I have quite enough hobbies and I haven’t seen the tools around. Now there’s nothing to stop me. I tried it out a bit after having read the “quick start” guide and oh dear, what a sad piece of string I made. You can see it there on the spindle, all lumpy and overspun. That’s where the book comes in, I hope I’ll do a little better after reading it. I’ve got to, I have all these ideas now for yarn to spin.

In other news I knitted socks, teeny tiny little infant socks. My supervisor is having a baby any week now.

The pattern for these is in Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush and I can totally recommend it. They’re simple, quick and painless, easy to drag around. All you could ever wish for when nothing else is doing it for you. I think these are gonna be my standard gift for newborns. Oh yeah. Go make babies!

Weaving class

2006-09-12T20:21:00.000+03:00

First of all I’d like to thank you all for your beautiful comments on the wedding gloves. It was so nice to hear from you :-). I heard that many of you think that the hairless cats are …hmmm… “interesting”. I have to say that my mom topped everyones cat-comments in the email I got from her today. When she first looked at the picture, she honestly thought that they were baby pigs! I’m still laughing about it from time to time. When my friends bought the first cat, Pörrö (”furry”) I thought they were crazy. Why on earth would you pay money for a freak of nature like that? After a short while they kind of grew on me and now I just think they’re real cute. In a way they’re also comfortable to pet since it’s almost just like stroking a human. Almost. Their skin is much fattier.

Onto other things. There’s this “worker’s institute” here in Helsinki which organizes classes on almost anything you can dream of, and since it’s subsidized by the city (I think), the classes are very cheap. To be more accurate, there are actually two of those institutes, one Finnish-speaking and another Swedish-speaking. For those who don’t know, Swedish is also an official language in Finland due to the ~8% Swedish-speaking minority. I have many times been deeply grateful for that!

This autumn I signed up for a weaving class at the Swedish institute and today was the first class. Now, in theory I don’t really speak Swedish, but I do speak Danish and there isn’t a huge difference. Fortunately for me, Finnish-Swedish is much easier to understand than “real” Swedish, because it’s spoken with a clear Finnish accent which is rather similar to the way us Icelanders would prefer to speak. My two problems with Swedish is that I do an awful immitation by speaking Danish which a heavy Icelandic accent, which makes me feel like I’m speaking the most horrible Danish and I’m never quite sure which words are not common to Danish and Swedish, and it makes me nervous. When I’m nervous and afraid I might make mistakes I prefer to stay silent. This is a big problem - it’s the reason why I never speak Finnish here, even though I know a bit by now and could get by with that. My intellect of course knows that I would learn much faster if I just started speaking, but this is a deep-rooted psychological fear which no amount of rational thinking can cure.

I know how I work by now. When I lived in Copenhagen for example, I spoke English for the first three months and didn’t utter a word of Danish although I easily could have. We spend about 8 painful years learning it in school in Iceland. Then after three months I had absorbed enough to (unconsciously) figure out how the language was supposed to be spoken and voilá! One fine day I just spoke, and never used English again. This process I go through didn’t become clear to me until years later.

Anyhoo, I’m losing the thread here. Yeah, the weaving class. Well, it was funny. I sat for the most part silent. I did understand the important stuff and I’m excited about it. We’ll begin by weaving a rug - you know, those types you can make out of ripped up sheets (or buy really cheap in Ikea). Just to practice. I’ve already got an idea for colors, I wonder if you can buy variegated rug-thread-thingies? (Gawd it’s going to be funny to learn all those weaving words in Swedish.)

That reminds me. When I lived in Copenhagen I took a class at a similar institute. I don’t actually know the English word, but it was about learning to draw those models that you then use to cut out fabric to sew clothes (sniðteikning). Well, all of my vocabulary on that is in Danish and when I draw these, I write everything up in Danish! Oh gawd, then I’ll be weaving in Swedish. And I usually knit in English. My brain’s gonna get fried one of these days.

Sorry for this most incoherent post. My brain’s a bit fried.

Updated a little bit later: I forgot the most embarrasing thing. At the class we were given a picture of a loom (vefstóll) with numbered parts and the teacher would say the names of each part and we were supposed to write them down on our paper. Well, as I said, I don’t speak Swedish and I have very little idea of how to write it. So what did I do? I tried in the most inconspicous manner to roll my eyes to get a look at my neighbors paper, who I think noticed. They must all think I’m a complete idiot!

Pretty gloves

2006-09-06T17:51:00.000+03:00

I am trying out this new program for my iBook that my good friend Markus told me about. It’s called Journler and from my first impression it is simply excellent. Apparently I can write my blog stuff in it and publish, all without ever visiting my actual blog, now that’s cool! Let’s see if it works, maybe it’ll make me write more frequently.

My life is finally back to normal, since returning to Helsinki. The day after I came from Iceland, I moved with an un-unpacked suitcase over to Frank’s place and stayed there for 10 days. His parents and sister were visiting and since his apartment is basically an open space, and my apartment has rooms and is bigger, we swapped. It was a fine swap, but it was good to get back home, as there’s nothing like home.

Then on the day I returned to my apartment it was invaded by houseguests of the feline kind, Pörrö and Hellä:

They are Markus’s and Tuija’s cats who needed a home until yesterday as the parents where out of town. We had a lot of fun together, but I wondered if I could ever have kids. All this responsibility you know, having to feed them at proper times and making them take their vitamins, something I don’t even do for myself. Also, it’s quite tiresome to be strict and say “EI!” (no) all the time, along with any one of “get off the table”, “don’t eat the plants”, “don’t jump on me unexpectedly with claws wide open”. That sort of stuff. Of course with kids it might be easier, at least they at some point understand spoken language. I make it sound bad, but really it wasn’t - they’re very sweet and loving most of the time and I enjoyed having them around.

Last week I finished the wedding gloves so now you can all go ahead and invite me to your weddings. They’re so fine and pretty, please winter, come soon.

All those teeny tiny stitches give me immense (or perverse) pleasure. I am getting obsessed with smaller and smaller needles and I fear it’s going to end badly. After knitting these on 1.5 mm needles (US 000) I knitted a bit on 2 mm ones (US 0) and thought the stitches looked so big and grotesque. That feeling does wear off after a while, fortunately.

Through the process of knitting such tiny stitches I discovered that I have favorite knitting needles. I found them in Weaving Works in Seattle and they’re made by Inox, but not the boring gray needles we get over here, no, they’re steel (I think), and they shine and sparkle. Which is nice, but the nicest part is that they don’t bend. Saying that I have a firm grip is probably an understatement

here you can see the 1.5 mm (US 000) Susan Bates needles (top, blue) with which the first wedding glove was knitted and below it are the steel ones on which the second glove was made. Lowest on the picture are the grey 2 mm Inox needles, slightly bent.

Red sox

2006-08-27T16:30:00.000+03:00

In the post about my trip to the north I showed a picture of “leppar”, or insoles as I now know they’re called in English. Some of you were wondering about their usage, and luckily I did take a picture in a museum in Reykjavík which illustrates it rather well. Back in the days, people in Iceland (and maybe elsewhere, I don’t know) used to wear shoes that were made out of sheepskin. Inside those they would put the insoles to better insulate against the cold and rocky ground.

In Sheila McGregor’s Traditional Scandinavian Knitting there is a pattern for garter stitch insoles with a pretty motif knitted in. Since I’ve now mentioned this book there is one thing I just have to say. In the small section on knitting in Iceland there is a rather unfortunate mistake that every time I read the text makes me feel uncomfortable. Part of the traditional costume in Iceland is a cap that lookes like this

(This is my great grandmother’s, and it’s knitted as it usually was in the old days, now it’s often made of fabric.) This cap is called “skotthúfa”, but in Sheila’s book the name has been misspelled as “skothúffa” and she discusses whether the “skot” part could indicate a connection between Scotland and knitting in Iceland. It is true that Scotland is called “Skotland” and Scotsmen (is that the right word?) are “Skotar” in Icelandic. However, the name of the cap is, as I wrote above, “skotthúfa” and here the double-t is of crucial importance since “skott” means tail. The actual meaning of the cap’s name is thus “tail-cap” because it’s a cap with a tail as the picture clearly shows! :-)

Aaaaanyways. Since I’ve been back in Helsinki I have had a monogamous relationship with a sock. I have seen nothing but the sock for the entire past week and this resulted in me actually finishing a pair of socks in 6 days . I think that’s pretty good, but I have no idea what’s the average out there. As a note I do work full-time, so don’t judge me ;-)

The sock pattern was a standard one using 64 stitches, but the overall look came out of my head. The small colorwork pattern I saw on a mitten from my great grandma. The leg part is a bit on the short side, and since the colorwork part is highly inelastic it’s a tiny bit difficult to get them over the ankle. Nothing serious, but next time I might make them higher and wider and shape them a bit.

I tried out two different toe shapings. The ting is that I’m not a big fan of the standard wedge toe. There’s just something about that thick bar of stitches on either side that doesn’t sit right with me. On the right toe I therefore switched the k2tog and ssk decreases which makes only 2 central stitches as opposed to the 4 sts on the wedge toe. On the left toe I skipped the central stitches entirely by doing ssk at the end of a needle and k2tog at the beginning. I really like that, just having a “seam line”, but since it’s difficult to keep tension at the end and beginning of a needle, there is a small gap in the seam. Next time I’ll try again with one central stitch.

Are you still awake? :-)

The wedding

2006-08-26T09:38:00.000+03:00

After I returned to Reykjavík from the north I began preparing for the wedding of Inga and Christian. I wanted to have gloves to go with the smoke ring, and I really wanted to have them done before the wedding. So I knitted, and knitted and knitted. I guess it was not a very bright idea to use 1.5 mm (US 000) needles to make them, because in the end I only finished one. I was optimistic all the time though, even as I was leaving Reykjavík (the wedding was held in the south coast) and I still had one finger left on the first glove, I was sure I’d finish in time for the wedding. I mean, I had all of friday evening and saturday morning - never mind that it took several days to make the first one.

The wedding took place in Fljótshlíð, which is in the south of Iceland about 110 km (68 miles) from Reykjavík. It is a truly beautiful place, right next to a glacier called Eyjafjallajökull. I got a ride with Bryndís and Jürgen, my friends who got married earlier this summer (and I knitted the sweaters for). This is what the sky looked like in Selfoss

When we approached our destination, the view was so pretty and I did my best to capture it out of the car window. The glacier was visible for a long distance, and one could also see Vestmannaeyjar (islands off the south coast) very clearly (I don’t have a picture though).

Never mind the jeep, the sky is beautiful! When we arrived we got the keys to the small summerhouse we had rented for the weekend, and got ready to party with the rest of our friends. We stayed up quite long, because we had to practice our entertainment thingy for the wedding party which included a lot of singing. Friends + cottage + beer + singing = a lot of fun! The moon was huge and orange colored and I tried my best to capture it on chip, with not too disappointing results

The next day the glacier was still there, and it was still beautiful. We hung around in the morning drinking excessive amounts of coffee and going between the cottages where friends were staying. Then it was time for the big ceremony which took place in a cute little country church

The ceremony was very touching and even I who never cry at weddings had glazed eyes most of the time. It was not allowed to take pictures inside the church (which was actually really nice, no flash going off every second), so I only have pictures of the cute couple after they became husband and wife

After the church there was a reception at the cottage where Inga’s parents were staying, and as you can see it was rather windy

In the evening there was a big party (inside) with dinner and entertainment and bonfire and singing and dancing like crazy until the wee hours. Everyone had such an excellent time and most importantly I think Inga and Christian really enjoyed themselves. Despite the rather depressing statistics regarding marriages, I now encourage all of my friends to get married - if only for the great occasion to party.

I’m sorry I don’t have very many landscape pictures. If you’d like to see more from Iceland, I have some from a trip Frank and I made last year right here.

In Hjaltadalur

2006-08-15T14:12:00.000+03:00

The weekend before the last I took a bus up north to spend a long weekend at the farm with my brother and his family. All in all it was a great trip, very relaxing and there was a lot of knitting related activities which is always good. My sister in law, Bryndís, is also a great handcrafts enthusiast and inbetween other things we sat and knitted (Bryndís mostly crocheted) and discussed about its greatness. We also went on some outings, bought yarn in Sauðárkrókur and visited the Textile Museum in Blönduós - a great museum that I recommend to anyone interested in handcrafts.

Instead of words, I’ll finish with a few pictures from the trip. I didn’t take a lot of landscape pictures, but here are the two I did take which show the scenery around the farm.

While us women knit, my brother did the manly thing and painted the windows of the house,

and the little ones played with plastic strings.

At the textile museum there were a lot of mittens and “leppar” (things to put inside shoes).

At the farm I found a big trunk full of clothes that my great grandmother knitted for my father and his siblings. Among them were these beautiful two-colored mittens that I’ve charted and plan on knitting when I return to Helsinki.

What do I have to show for the trip? I knitted around and around ad nauseum on a smoke ring and managed to get it finished the day after I returned to Reykjavík - just in time for the wedding I was at this weekend (where the picture is taken).

The pattern is sort of my own although not really. It is rather obviously inspired by the Flared Lace Smoke Ring by Jackie E-S, and the lace pattern is taken from The Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns. I’m quite happy with it although there are things I’d do differently next time around (which probably won’t come around). You can for example see rather clearly on the picture that I cast off far too loosely. I’m thinking about doing a small crocheted border to make it look a bit neater.

Home… again

2006-08-02T23:04:00.000+03:00

This afternoon I flew to Iceland, and after having mom’s great lasagne I feel this aaaaah feeling that I’m back home. Despite a slight hungover (we had an Icelandic lamb feast at my place yesterday) the trip was fine. My neighbor on the plane was a little bit too talkative (and ruined my chances of getting any knitting done, what’s up with these people?), but I just went to sleep to solve that problem.

I haven’t been feeling like talking lately, which is the reason for the blog silence, but next week I’ll surely have too much to say. I’m on vacation with nothing to do except knitting and, well, the thousand things I’ve written down I should do/buy/see while in Iceland.

Tomorrow morning I’m taking a bus to the north. We have this farm in a valley in north-Iceland (we’re not farmers though, it’s an inheritance from my grandparents) and my brother is there with his wife and cute kids. I’m staying there until monday, outside of the civilized internetisized world so I wish you all the greatest weekend! Yay! I’m going to The Nature! More exlamation points!!

ROFL

2006-07-21T23:45:00.000+03:00

Just to warn you, there is no knitting content to follow. I just found this funny thing and I have got to write it down so that I’ll remember it forever and ever.

I’ve been reading through Cassie’s blog archives and I came upon a post where she was wondering why superwash wool squeaks. Well, of course I had go find out, so google and I had some intimate moments together. I think I’ve found the answer, it has to be related to a phenomenon called sqeaky hair. During my search for an answer (42, but what is the question?) I found a forum discussion about sqeaky shoes. So this guy had bought shoes and the soles got worn out and they started to squeak, something which really annoyed him. After some comments about whether he should return the shoes or have them fixed somehow, someone posts this:

I don’t think you need a cobbler. This is some sort of friction problem and requires a physicist. Can’t imagine, though, where you’re going to find one.

Hello? (I’m a physicist, and this amused me to no end, especially considering that the forum is located at www.physicsforums.com, more specifically here.) Where are all the freaking physicists when you really need them? Also to believe that, even though physicists do know about friction and why it causes sound waves, they can actually do something useful to get your shoes to stop squeaking… well, I won’t say anything more.

Later someone else obviously agreed with the guy and added:

I don’t know, they’re really hard to come by, especially around here. :rofl:

I think we physicists need a better PR person.

And yes, I’ve had a few glasses of wine, shoot me.

New hobby

2006-07-15T09:13:00.000+03:00

I have been planning to go to my nearest yarn shop for a while but because I’ve been working quite late in the past two weeks, it’s always been closed by the time I get home. Yesterday I was at work as usual, when I realized that it was quarter to five and the shop closes at five thirty. It takes me at least half an hour to get there from work, so I didn’t think I’d make it and went to the shop web page to make sure that they’re open on Saturdays. (As a side note, the other yarn shop I go to is closed during the whole of July due to summer vacations - that is strangely a rather common thing here in Finland.) On the web page of the shop I find out that it’s closed on Saturdays during July, and as if that’s not enough, yesterday was the last day it’s open until the end of July. People gotta have their summer vacations. Usually this would not have been too big of a problem but I’ll be leaving to Iceland on the day that the shop reopens, and I need yarn for a wedding present for a wedding I’m attending while in Iceland. So off I ran to catch a bus, a metro and another bus, and I arrived at the shop, out of breath, five minutes before closing time. I was pretty pleased with myself, although my lungs were hurting like hell!

When I had found the yarn, I went to pay for it. I told the girl who’s working there (and knows me by now, hah!) about my running there and even acted being all out of breath. Then she replies that well, you know, it’s only going to be closed for two weeks and that goes by quite fast. Somehow I felt really silly, and I couldn’t even gather up energy to explain all the business about my going to Iceland etc. So now she just thinks I’m crazy.

I have acquired a new hobby. On Tuesday I bought myself a book on card (tablet) weaving (spjaldvefnaður) and after making some cards out of cardboard, I began doing the first assignment in the book. I’ve got to say that this is a seriously cool technique and I am extremely impressed that someone back in the days figured it out. See what I’ve made

Now I am a pretty impulsive and impatient person. I usually don’t learn things linearly, going from one level to the next. More often I just read a little bit to get a rough idea about how things work, and then I jump ahead and do whatever I’d like. This can cause disappointment, but I just can’t help it and frankly I don’t care too much. Mistakes make you learn. Regarding card weaving, I can’t patiently read the whole book page by page and go through all the exercises, because I have this idea of a strip I’d like to make and I can’t wait. Really I can’t. Anyways, if I’m that excited about something, even if I’d read the two chapters that come before the one that describes the technique I’ll need to make the design I want, I wouldn’t really pay attention so why bother? Now the only thing standing in my way is that I’ll need to make 24 more cards, and that’s a pain in the butt for someone who’d like everything to have happened yesterday.

Today I’ll be going to Hämeenlinna which is an hour train ride from Helsinki. My friend Halla (from Iceland) is participating in a modern dance performance that’s being shown there tonight. That should be fun.

Before y’all abandon me

2006-07-12T07:15:00.000+03:00

I swear I have been knitting, although judging from the blog you wouldn’t think so. It’s just that this is the Big Summer of Gift Knitting, and gifts can’t be blogged about until they’ve been opened up.

This weekend I finished sewing in the zipper on my dad’s birthday present and it’s in the mail as we speak. I don’t know if it’s normal, but it took me over 4 hours to do (it’s 60 cm/24” long). Am I the slowest seamstress in the whole wide world?

What made it a little bit more difficult was that now the temperatures here have reached the intolerable upper 20’s (about 80 Fahrenheit) and my fingers were sweaty and slippery. Since we want to keep the heat inside for the main part of the year, apartments become like sauna’s during the summertime, just without a nice cool lake to jump into when it gets too hot. So I’ve been sitting and perspiring and it surely didn’t help that my dad’s present is made of bulky 100% wool (Álafoss lopi) :-)

Now that I’ve finished this project I can continue knitting my mom’s cardigan. I’m using a pattern from a Danish book I found in a bookstore in Reykjavík, Vintagestrik & fashion by Sus Gebhard. The pattern name is Cykeltrøje, or Bicycle sweater. Here’s a photo

There seems to be a curse on my mom’s sweater. As you might remember I’ve already knit her one which didn’t fit, and this one is wanting to get ripped over and over. First I knit half of the front but I didn’t slip the edge stitches so the edge looked really ugly. I decided to rip it and start over doing the whole body in one piece, because I don’t particularly like seams on knitted fabric, especially when it’s bulky like this one. This time I remembered to slip the edge stitches, although on one side they’re twisted on the first few rows. I still think the edge is ugly, the slipped stitches are too loose and open.

slipped edge stitches, slipped and twisted edge stitches

Normally I have no fear of ripping if there’s something I’m not perfectly happy about and for a short while I considered starting over again and twist the edge stitches but really, I’ve done almost a third of the body and it would be so sad to have to start all over again. Now I’m thinking that before I take a decision to rip, I’ll get a fat crochet needle and see if I can make a neat border to save me.

There are also some nice glove patterns in this book and one I’ll definitely knit soon but with some modifications. Inexplicably, all the gloves in the book are knitted flat, isn’t that the strangest thing? If there ever was a good reason to knit in the round, it’s with gloves.

I’m a bit obsessed by gloves at the moment. It all started when Kris posted a picture of the beautiful lace gloves she made, and I felt like my life could not be complete without a pair of pretty gloves. I found a nice pattern in Handknit Holidays and immediately cast on. I took it with me to Iceland, and that’s when all the trouble started. When I began knitting the fingers, it quickly became clear that although the glove fitted my hand nicely, the fingers were much too small. I did some tweaking and stitch adding to get them to fit but when I had finished the four and began with the thumb I naturally realized that doh, if the other fingers were to small, the thumb is going to be too small as well, and it’s not really possible to fix that easily. So I had to rip back to the cuff and rethink. In the end I decided to make a thumb gusset and so after a lot of knitting on a small thing, I finally had a well fitting glove.

Now it is eagerly awaiting its sibling the poor thing. But first, more gifts.

Muffcakes

2006-07-08T17:56:00.000+03:00

I’m a nerd, you know. Sometimes I get this urge to learn about things which are pretty useless knowledge. Once for example, I spent a considerable amount of time on wikipedia learning about the difference between a moose and an elk, because I wondered why a moose is called that in English when in most N-European languages it’s called an elk. This week I have been wondering a lot about the difference between a muffin and a cupcake. I checked the dictionary where it said that a muffin is sweet bread whereas a cupcake is, well, a small cake. So, thought I, there must be yeast or something in muffins if they’re supposed to be bread. After a quick recipe search I concluded that no, there’s no real difference between the two. Wikipedia only tells that cupcakes evolved from muffins, but otherwise they’re just described as cup-shaped cakes which are handy in the sense that you don’t need to dirty your plates to eat them (oh so true). This leaves me highly unsatisfied. I need clearer answers people.

The second thing I obsessed about today was the difference between baking soda (matarsódi) and baking powder (lyftiduft) (wow, I notice a pattern - I seem to wonder a lot about the difference between similar things). Now that is surely a highly interesting matter and I spent quite some time reading about it online. Why did I not know that a dough (batter?) that contains baking soda has to be baked immediately or the soda won’t work? That seems like an important thing to know. Now I also know that the reason for mixing the dry ingredients first is to not activate the soda until just before baking. Really, this is fascinating stuff. I am dreaming of a cook book that explaines the processes involved in cooking and baking in a scientific way.

Now that I’ve bored you all to death I’ll finish by telling you that all this thinking about muffins of course led me to make some using a recipe I found online, modifying it slightly to my liking. They turned out pretty delicious with a little icing on top and I’ve already had three. I quite enjoy baking, but since I live alone and don’t eat much of sweet things I often end up throwing a lot away. Hmmm… maybe I can buy myself some popularity at work on monday.

Muffins or cupcakes?

I promise there’ll be knitting next.

I give up

2006-07-05T02:22:00.000+03:00

It’s my dad’s birthday on Friday and naturally I’m knitting him a gift. I had this grand plan to finish it on Sunday to be able to mail it on Monday. Then life happened and I went to a party on Saturday only to spend the whole of Sunday recovering. There was a bright glimpse of hope yesterday when I realized that my friend Markus is flying to Iceland tomorrow and will be invited for dinner at my parents over the weekend. Then the freaking world cup in football happened, and I ended up in a bar watching a sad sad game (I was supporting Germany). Afterwards I came home with great hopes of finishing the thing, but I have been beaten. It’s three in the morning and I’m not close to finishing (plus there’s a zipper to sew in, *shudder*). I admit defeat, I’m going to bed. Man, what a loohooser.

Tonight I met Frank’s new girlfriend. Frank and I are really good friends, and him finding a girlfriend is no problem for me. I for some reason am not a particularly jealous type (at least not yet), I just hope that he finds the nicest girl possible. So meeting her was fine, except I was all the time hoping that it wasn’t uncomfortable for her because I’ve heard all these horror stories from my friends about when they met their boyfriends exes and how they wanted them to trip and fall down a deep canyon never to appear again. She seemed fine though, and she’s kinda cute. Good for her.

Hey, thanks alot for all your nice comments about my new haircut, I really appreciated them. I have now gotten used to it, and damn, I like it. In fact I think I’ll never have long hair ever again!

By popular demand

2006-06-30T20:56:00.000+03:00

…well. Two people asked for pictures. That’s popular, right? :-)

before and after

I have now completed my task. I used to have short hair all the time, except for a short period when I was about 7. Then one day, when I was 21, I decided that I could not live my life without having had long hair. You know, you’ve gotta try everything. So I let it grow, and the plan was to let it grow to hip length and then shave it off. It never quite reached that length, at its longest it was at waist-level. Somehow I grew used to it and then I had a boyfriend who was strongly opposed to me cutting my hair shorter than shoulder length. It seems that guys have quite a fetish for long hair - but he also had shoulder length hair himself, and so thought it would be ridiculous if my hair was shorter than his. He has many strong opinions.

Well, now I’m single and it was time. It feels damn good.

Knitter’s guilt

2006-06-30T00:11:00.000+03:00

This evening I went to visit my friend Arna who has just had a baby. I was feeling a bit bad that I didn’t have a knitted gift for them but I’ve been busy with others things, such as wedding gifts. When I walked into their apartment, a half knitted baby sock was sitting on the table and I’ll tell you that for a moment there I forgot that there was a brand new baby in town. I immediately moved, as if by unwordly forces, towards the sock to admire it. It was then that I found out that Arna’s mom is a knitter. We immediately hit it off, and she showed me the FOUR lopi sweaters that she has knitted in the three weeks she’s been here in Finland. I will repeat it again: four sweaters in three weeks!

The baby is by the way really really cute and adorable.

Arna’s mom is also a nurse who delivers babies - is there a specific term in English for that? In Icelandic they are called “Ljósmóðir” which literally translates as “lightmother”. Isn’t that beautiful?

In any case, I don’t feel bad not having knit them a present. They are in very good hands!

Oh, and I’m probably about a kilogram lighter than I was this morning,

Anyone interested in spinning human hair?

Finally some Finished Stuff

2006-06-27T19:19:00.000+03:00

I’m back home after a great trip Home to Iceland. I had a wonderful time and the only problem was that it was a too short visit. During christmas I stayed there for two weeks and thought it was far too long, which is why this time I only stayed for a week. But there’s a difference between summer and winter I realized, there’s nothing to do during winter visits because who wants to stroll around town when it’s dark, cloudy and raining? In the summertime you can go all over the place and do all sorts of things, and that I did. I went to the National Museum to have a look at knitting but there was hardly any, I went to the library and borrowed some books on knitting, I bought yarn and knitting books, I met friends (ah, good old friends), I went to the summer cottage and knitted (and went to the brand new hot pot twice), and last but not least I went to my friends Bryndís and Jürgens wedding. That was a lot of fun and see how cute they looked (external link).

For the past month and a half, in total secrecy, I have been knitting on their wedding gifts. Bryndís reads this blog so I couldn’t say anything since I wanted it to be a complete surprise. Many months ago I decided that I would knit them lopi sweaters and many months later I finally began knitting. For Jürgen I made one in natural grays and whites using a pattern from Lopi 25.

The original pattern is a zipped cardigan, but I am a sensible girl. I considered which would be more likely to happen: a) me finishing the sweater in good time and spending many an evening sewing in a zipper by hand or b) me knitting fiercely at the last minute and cursing the day I got the idea to knit them sweaters. I was sensible.

For Bryndís I used an idea I’ve been walking around with for a while. I’ve wanted to try knitting a typical Icelandic yoked sweater but with a stitch pattern instead of the traditional color pattern. Leafing through the Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns I found one which looked like it might work, and it pretty much did (daisy stitch). The color sequence is an inspiration from Þríhyrnur og Langsjöl (Three-cornered and Long Shawls), specifically from “Dýrfinnustaðahyrna”. If I ever make this again, I’d try to do the decreases differently, but honestly, I probably won’t make it again. It’s quite the pain in the butt to knit. I still love how it turned out.

Just as a fun extra info, this sweater was knitted in four different countries, it was cast on in Finland, it flew with me through Sweden and Iceland to the States and back again. It was what made the 21 hour journey bearable.

The married couple were fortunately really surprised, and happy with the gift, and as if that’s not enough, both sweaters fit perfectly (wow! that’s a first!). That makes me one happy knitter.

I mentioned buying yarn. On the way to the summer cottage I visited a shop just outside Selfoss (about 60 km or 37 miles from Reykjavík) called Þingborg. I had seen their website and read that they have their own lopi, and I wanted to check it out - well, I wanted to touch it and see if it’s softer than the lopi from Istex. The shop is really wonderful and mom and I had a chat with the nice lady working there. They don’t have a huge amount of yarn, but what they have is pretty good. I got some plant-dyed wool and some 1-ply lopi in natural colors to make two-colored mittens. I touched their lopi (Þingborgarlopi) and indeed it is softer than Álafoss-lopi. I don’t really have any plans for a lopi sweater at the moment, so I didn’t buy any, but next time I definitely will. The sad thing is that they only have the most basic natural colors.

In Reykjavík I went to the Álafoss factory outlet. I’ve never been there before but I’ll be sure to go again. They had a really good selection of all weights of lopi (being the manufacturers) and the prices were quite low. But you know me and my problem with buying yarn when I don’t have a project in mind. I ended up with only three skeins of one-ply (eingirni) to use for…. two-colored mittens again! Pathetic.

I also bought a cup. It is not the coolest of cups, but the feeling I got when I saw that I could buy a cup with my name on it, complete with freaky letters n’ all, made me all warm and sentimental inside. There it was, a cup with my name on it, not “Sirkka” or “Suvi” or something crazy like that! That’s what living abroad does to you.

My US yarn trip

2006-06-24T17:36:00.000+03:00

When I knew I'd be going to the US I got really excited about the possibility of getting some of the fancy yarn I've read about on blogs. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't have a chance to go to any yarn shops since I was traveling with three others (although my mom is a knitter and understands). But I needn't have worried, I managed to visit quite a bit of shops and it was surely strange how often our hotel happened to be within walking distance of a yarn shop. A coincidence or divine intervention?

While I was in Berkeley I met up with Sonja (and her cutie Ása Sóley) for a yarn crawl which started in Oakland and ended in Alameda without a single skein of yarn bought! The reason? It was monday, and apparently yarn shops keep closed on mondays. After coffee at Peet's we ended up in Beverly's (acrylic heaven) where I got some US size needles (on the agenda): no. 1 (2.25 mm) in bamboo, and no. 2 (2.75 mm) and 3 (3.25 mm) in faintly colored metal - very pretty!

The following day I hit the road with my fellow travelers (a.k.a. family). After a night in Napa Valley, we stayed in a beautiful place called the city of Mt. Shasta. The town is at the roots of Mount Shasta and until I found out that the mountain is in fact an active volcano, I seriously considered moving there. Mt. Shasta has a yarn shop and of course I checked it out. Before the trip I laid out a plan. I was only allowed to buy yarn which I absolutely cannot get over here, and in addition I would stick to sock yarn. Fancy, hand-dyed/hand-painted sock yarn. And needles. And stitch markers (which are surprisingly difficult to find here). Oh, and Kool-Aid, although my fabulous sockapal took care of that for me. And zip-loc bags.

In the Mt. Shasta yarn shop, Weston Quilting & Crafts, most of the sock yarn was German (which turned out to be the case for many of the shops I visited). Since I can get that here, I was feeling a bit disappointed, until I spotted a single hank of hand-painted Opal which luckily happened to be in colors I like. Even though looking at the price tag made me gulp, I thought what the heck, it's a souvenir and maybe I won't find another yarn shop ever again in the US! (Boy was I wrong.) I also got some rubber stitch markers.

After Mt. Shasta we drove like the wind through Oregon and Washington, and reached Seattle. I went to three yarn stores there. The first one was Stitches which had very little of interest to me as it was more of a fabric store. I then went to So Much Yarn and spent ages touching every single skein in the shop. They didn't have too much sock yarn (and a lot of it was German), but in the end I grabbed a hank of Mountain Colors in very pretty greens.

While downtown, I also went to Barnes and Noble and got Handknit Holidays by Melanie Falick. The best yarn store was, funny enough, 300 m (330 yards - a skeins distance) from our hotel in the University district, Weaving Works. I ditched a sightseeing tour of Seattle's underground just to have enough time to spend in the shop. It sure paid off both for me and the shop owner(s). I got some Koigu, another hank of Mountain Colors in very pretty reds, a bunch of knitting needles, many of which I already own but these were shiny metal ones. Here all the Inox/Prym needles are boring grey. In addition I bought Knitting on the Road by Nancy Bush aaaaand: a ball winder! It is the coolest thing ever I tell you.

After Seattle we again drove like the wind through Washington and Oregon staying for a night in Grants Pass. We then hit the winding (scary) road down to the California coast. We had lunch in Garberville where I found some really cool sock needles in shiny colored metal, oh so pretty! The shop was probably called In Stitches and the sales lady was really friendly.

The last night of the trip we stayed in Mendocino and again there was a yarn shop about 200 m (220 yards) from the hotel (not quite as lucky a coincidence as in Seattle since in Mendocino it would be very difficult not to be within walking distance from a yarn shop assuming there was a yarn shop in town). In the Mendocino Yarn Shop there was some Koigu, but unfortunately only one skein of each color and since that's not enough for a pair of socks I had to pass. After spending a good amount of time looking at and touching the yarn, I came out with two hanks of Manos del Uruguay in a nice orange color.

When we were back in Berkeley I walked for about 15-20 minutes to get to Lacis (again, reasonable walking distance from the hotel!). It turned out that they don't sell much yarn, but the very nice sales lady told me they had a fine collection of needles in small sizes, as well as non-mainstream knitting books. I was so captivated by the extremely tiny needles they had, that I simply had to buy these 1 mm (US 00000) ones although I might never use them.

They had even smaller ones, both 0.75 mm (US 000000) and 0.5 mm (US 0000000) but at $5 per pack I thought that perhaps 1 mm is enough of a funny thing. It was true what the sales lady had said about the book collection. They had quite a bit of books that I've never seen. I couldn't control myself and ended up buying four books: Folk Knitting in Estonia by Nancy Bush, Designing Knitwear by Deborah Newton (a bit in the painfully 80's style, but I guess the info is still useable), Knitting: 19th Century Sources published by Lacis (for a list of their books click here) and The Art of Knitting 1892 which is a facsimile reproduction of an 1892 knitting book. Boy did they use small needles back in the days! And why, oh why, didn't I buy all the itty bitty needles at Lacis? Here are all the books I bought in the trip

And shall we have one more look at all the pretty yarn?

My favorite is the red Mountain Colors. And just to finally eat up all of your bandwidth, here are the needle sizes I got:

All in all I'm really happy with my purchases. Maybe a bit too happy, because now I feel like the yarns are so precious that I'll never want to use them.

Back Home

2006-06-17T13:46:00.000+03:00

There's home, and then there's Home. Right now I'm Home, in Iceland. I flew back here yesterday and will be staying for a week. I always get quite sentimental when I travel back Home, especially when the flight attendant announces (in Icelandic) "Welcome home". I just love it that they say that!

It's strange how strongly Icelanders are tied to Home. As much as we love to hate this place (and complain about the weather), we always end up moving back - because, you know, this is Home and there's no place like it. The roots here grow strong and deep, and are impossible to rip out.

Yesterday evening the whole family met here at my parent's place for the classic friday hamburgers. We've been having home-made hamburgers on fridays for as long as I can remember. The two people I was most excited to meet again were my nieces, Iðunn and Hildur. They're every bit as cute and adorable as they were during christmas, just half a year older (and now with long hair). It's amazing how quickly these small people grow, when you only see them every 6 months there's a lot of change. Hildur for example had just started speaking during christmas, and now she speaks completely. Kids become much more of a personality when they can speak.

I took some snapshots yesterday and thought I'd share them with you because my nieces are the cutest kids in the whole wide world. Really. When I have kids I want them to be Iðunn and Hildur.

Hildur (left) and Iðunn (right)

My good friends Bryndís and Jurgen are getting married today and I need to finish their wedding gift (ha ha, how typical), so I'll have to go now. Have a great weekend everyone!

Oh, I almost forgot: Gleðilegan Þjóðhátíðardag! (Happy national day - it's Iceland's national day today.)

The trip

2006-06-13T07:23:00.000+03:00

Phew, I have an internet connection again. On wednesday last week it mysteriously disappeared, and just returned this morning. The absence was due to some stupidity on my part, and some stupidity on the part of my internet service provider (more on their side of course, I am never wrong). Oh, it sure feels good to be back.

Originally I planned to write a long long post about my trip to the US and overload it with pictures. Then I realized that this is a knitting blog, so what do people care! Besides, it's a lot of work to write a proper travelog, and I'm lazy. So here is a severely cut down version of my trip: I flew to San Francisco, drove with my mom, dad and bro up to Seattle and back. Then I flew home. Nooooo, here's a little bit more and now with a limited selection of pictures. Those of you who just don't care, there's a finished object at the end - you can scroll down now.

It all started in San Francisco. Well, Berkeley to be exact, as that's where I was staying. In the Bay Area (which is oh so big) I went on a sightseeing tour of San Francisco and met Sonja and Ása Sóley for a rather unsuccessful yarn crawl which was a lot of fun all the same.

Mom, dad, bro and I then drove up to Seattle, stopping in various places along the way. Who could resist visiting a town called Whiskeytown? Not us, but unfortunately the town is now under water and all that's left is the general store. The state of Washington greeted us with rain and despite our best efforts to see her, Mount St. Helens was hiding behind clouds.

Animals there were aplenty. We met a giant sheep called Sheepie whose job is to inform visitors about natural science (what a clever sheep), and then there was the giant snail who didn't have much to say. Unfortunately I didn't include a coin for scale in the picture, but I'm telling you, it was at least 10 cm (4'') long. Things are big in the New World.

We reached Seattle, where it was (surprise, surprise) raining. People said that the weather had been real nice and sunny the week before. Last time my brother was there it was also raining, and people said the exact same thing, so we're not so sure if we should believe them. But despite the rain, I really liked Seattle (more than San Francisco to be honest).

On the way back to Berkeley we drove down the California coastline, which is a beautiful place. We saw so many redwood trees that it should last us a lifetime. Like the snail, they were huge. Now I was cleverer and included my parents in the picture for scale, see how small they look! Unfortunately it is impossible to include a whole redwood tree without some serious wide-angle lens, but believe me, they're like twice as high as what you see in the picture.

On the way we visited many cute little towns, like Ferndale and Mendocino. I'd say that I preferred those from the big cities, which were a bit too big and crowded and loud and overwhelming. Who would have known, I'm a small town girl!

Lastly, if anyone knows the person in Ferndale who owns these trees, could you please ask them to have them carved into the faces of the presidents? You know, the ones on the mountain - wouldn't it be perfect?!

All in all, I had a great time. People are friendly (strangers talk to you - it's mindblowing), and the nature is beautiful. Of course there are things which appeared strange to me there, like the truly amazing number of pickup trucks on the freeways (how can they be practical?) and the giant portions you get in restaurants (you must think we're cheapos over here), but that's always so when you encounter a different culture. And that's what makes it fun.

But hey, you ask, what about the knitting? Well, I got quite a lot done, with the long travel there and the driving of 3500 km (2200 miles, of which I drove none). On the flights there I knit a body of a sweater and during the first days in Berkeley I knit both sleeves. I started the yoke on the flight back, but as it was in the middle of the night I made many mistakes, ripped back, and in the end realized that I should probably sleep. I'm not done with it yet, so I'll save a picture until it's ready. On the roadtrip I knit a pair of knee-high socks. The pattern is from a Finnish book (Sukkasillaan) that I fondled at the bookstore for months. Everytime I convinced myself that oh, it's a bit pricey and it's all in Finnish so I probably shouldn't buy it, until one day when I got sick of it and had Sigurlaug with me to say "just buy the damn book"! I'm really glad I did, because there are a lot of nice sock patterns in it, and since I have a basic knowledge of Finnish it's actually not so difficult to understand the instructions. But here they are, Helpot lettisukat:

The yarn I used is Nalle from Novita. It was a skein I bought long ago without having anything in mind for it. I'm obviously very anal, because having yarn without a purpose makes me uncomfortable - in most cases at least. Thus I was extremely happy when I realized that the variegated Nalle would fit for this pattern, and my soul is relieved at having one purposeless skein less in the stash. Note the "one" in the last sentence. For all you Finns out there (and those with access to Finnish yarn), I have gone through significant amounts of stress just to be able to tell you that one skein of Novita Nalle is in fact enough for a pair of knee-high socks! You're welcome ;-)

Next up: My trip in yarn.

Stopover

2006-06-05T07:33:00.000+03:00

Thank you all for your really nice comments on the sweater. I'm sorry I haven't replied to your comments, but I have a pretty good excuse. As I told, I went to the US on a roadtrip for two weeks. I'm almost back now. We landed yesterday afternoon in Iceland, and I stopped over for a night here to make the trip somewhat less awful. If I hadn't, I would have had to wait around in Keflavík airport after the 8 hour Frisco flight, fly to Stockholm for 3 hours, wait around Arlanda airport and fly to Helsinki for 40 minutes, arriving at 2 in the night (I'm crap with a.m./p.m., but I guess it's 2 a.m.) and having to take a taxi home as the bus connections aren't that great in the nighttime. Horrible (with french accent). Instead I slept at my parents place in Reykjavík and am leaving for the airport in about half an hour for a direct flight to Helsinki - woohoo. It's a funny thing being here for one night, since I'll be returning in 10 days to attend a wedding of my friends! But I got my grandmothers swift and inspected some things my greatgrandmother knit for my father. That was cool.

I'm jetlagged people! I'm thinking that either we should shrink the earth and eliminate time zones, or then stop this silly business of travelling. I feel profoundly sorry for the people of New Zealand.

Oh, since many asked, the pattern for last posts sweater is the Slinky tree bark rib tunic (I hope I remembered that tongue-twister correctly!) from the Loop-d-loop book (sorry, I'm too tired to insert links). The yarn I used is called Janne and is from a Finnish manufacturer whose name escapes me. It's a cheepie, graduate student budget yarn, 75% wool, 25% polyester (or is it 85/15?) at 2.60 euros per 50g skein. The whole sweater worth was just over 20 euros, just about the same price I paid for a single skein of snobby sock yarn in the US!! Yes, I went completely crazy over there, but more on that later - I've gotta fly

Gifts gifts gifts!

2006-05-18T12:23:00.000+03:00

Wow. That was an embarrassing silence, huh?! Lately I've been really busy at work rewriting a paper, preparing and giving a presentation about my research, preparing an exam and now studying for an exam. In the meanwhile I've received some fabulous things by mail. In order of arrival, the first package was from amazon and it made me a proud owner of four books: Knitting Nature, Knitter's Almanac, Knitting without Tears, and last but certainly not the least: Knitting Rules! which I have already read from cover to cover. I had planned to save it until my long flight to the US, but how is it possible to resist such an excellent book? You tell me!

The books arrived on the same day as my Emergency Sock Kit made by Cassie.

Emergency Sock Kit by Cassie

Isn't it beautiful? Isn't she clever? I love it so much that I carry it with me everywhere I go, even though I'm not knitting any socks at the moment! But you know, it's handy for the crochet needle and scissors.

I sent out the sockapaloooza socks to my sockapal on May 2nd. Since this was my first KAL (apart from the Olympics) I wasn't sure what people generally include in the packet. I decided in the end to send a few bars of Finnish chocolate to my pal, 'cause y'know, chocolate makes you happy. I still haven't heard anything from my pal and it worries me a bit, but she's been blogging very little lately, so perhaps she's not spending much time online. I sure hope it's not because she hates the socks!

Mmmm, chocolate and socks!

Last week my sockapaloooza packet came and WOW, my pal is the greatest! Not only are the socks beautiful and fit me perfectly, she stuffed the envelope full of Kool-Aid so that now I can dye like crazy! Just look:

My fabulous sockapaloooza pal's gifts

My pal was Faith, whose blog I've been reading since she commented on my Olympic project. In her last post about the socks, she pretty much gave it away and I was rather sure that I was her lucky pal. But I didn't dare hope, just the Kool-Aid made me dizzy. Thank you so much Faith :-)

The last gift this time is my mom's birthday sweater. Except it isn't really a gift anymore. Turns out it fits me pretty perfectly, which means it probably won't fit my mom at all! It seems that when I knit something for myself, it turns out too big, but if I knit something for others, it turns out too small. What to do to break this evil circle? (Don't say gauge swatching, it won't be appreciated.)

Inspecting my first sleeve seam

Don't mind the messy hair and sheepish look (I'm ashamed), I'm in the middle of exam reading and a pleasant appearance is of little importance to me now. Which reminds me, I should really get back to the book because, to put it mildly, I'm in deep shit.

I might not blog for the next two weeks, I'll be leaving to the US on saturday and who knows, they might not have the internet over there ;-). Anyways, I'm stuck in a million gift projects at the moment which can't be blogged about. I can't wait to have only me me me to knit for.

Miscellanea

2006-04-30T09:50:00.000+03:00

Now that all my current projects are sitting in the freezer things could have turned out badly for me. Isn't it so that idle hands are the devil's tools in the English speaking world? Fortunately for me, Ann and Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting came to the rescue and I am immensely grateful to them. I would never have gotten the idea to knit something from cotton if it hadn't been for them, who needs cotton in this northern corner of the world? (I admit that about 90% of my clothes are made of cotton, as I discovered in my bug killing escapades.)

Last Saturday I strolled over to my extremely local yarn shop. Just next door to my apartment building there is a market hall (Hakaniemen halli) and on the upper floor are these small booths where they sell all kinds of things, buttons, ribbons, handmade soaps and jewellery, and most importantly there is a lovely lady there selling yarn. I sometimes shop there because I like supporting small businesses. Well, that and the fact that it is 200 meters from my doorstep. On that particular Saturday I had the urge to buy some cotton for a Mason-Dixon washcloth. Since the lady only sells high quality Egyptian cotton, it became a pretty fancy washcloth, all shiny and soft. It was really quick and fun to knit so I foresee more washcloths in my near future. On monday I went to the less local yarn shop and bought a whole bag of cotton which is more in the style of Ann and Kay. Down to earth cotton for the common people, like myself. Since then I've made a baby burp cloth and a bib. I'm really getting into this small project wibe, it goes so fast and you feel like you're really getting a lot done.

After making a few more of these I'm planning to make the dishcloth pattern from their book. Then maybe some more washcloths and perhaps a towel while I'm at it.

People here seem to think I'm overreacting to the bug issue. My friend Markus said, and I quote: "After all, it's only bugs". How could he say such a mean thing when wool might get hurt? I did a most unscientific thing and used scare tactics to make him understand. I told him to imagine wearing the most beautiful wool sweater… with freaking larvae crawling around in it! Not that it's likely to happen, but hey, it made him rethink his opinion. Then my supervisor Ari told me that people just live with the bugs. How is that even possible? Do they burn all wooley goodness and get electrocuted by polyester on a regular basis, or what? Me no understand.

On a more positive note, I am doing a seriously kick-ass spring cleaning. My life's most ambitious cleaning undertaking. I should get a medal, really! I spent 12 hours cleaning yesterday, culminating in ferocious spraying of insecticide. It felt damn good I tell you.

On Wednesday I innocently went browsing on amazon.de but lost all self-control. Now Deutsche Post is bringing me four books. I have discovered a serious problem with this compulsive collecting of knitting books. So you buy a book and you're all happy about it and browse it many times (especially when going to bed). Then you reach the point where you've pretty much charted the whole book, read all the non-pattern text and decided which designs you like and all that's left is to read the pattern instructions. But that's not much fun unless you're actually knitting the thing. So a new book has to be bought and the process begins again. This means that the list of things to knit gets longer and longer, but you're knitting speed can by no means keep up with the rate at which the project list grows. This stresses me out, because I start feeling there is so much work undone, and I'll never have time to do it all. Does anyone have the same experience?

News and pics of the Mason-Dixon and Yarn Harlot book toors are all over blogland now. May I admit that I am seriously envying people living across the ocean? I want my books signed too. I wanna meet famous knitters. They're funny, I wanna see them being funny in person. Can anyone organize a trip for them to Finland, please? They can stay at my place, if someone else pays the flight tickets. Is it a deal, yes? (Tallinn is a 40 minute boat ride away, doesn't everyone love Estonian folk knitting? And Helsinki is a pretty nice city in the summertime.)

Actually I'd appreciate getting any knitters over here, I'm feeling a bit lonely since I don't know any knitters in Finland. Boohoo, I don't have anyone to knit with! My friend Sigurlaug is coming for a two day visit in May, but come on, two measly days.

Oh, the mosquitos are back in town. I happen to have a serious allergy to mosquito bites and I completely forgot to go to the doctor and get my antihistamine prescription in time. There was one mosquito hovering outside my office window for quite a while last week. I know it could smell the sweet scent of virgin Icelandic blood. Virgin in the sense that we don't have real mosquitos in Iceland and are thus not exposed to their poisonous bite. They really like that. Have you realized yet what a magical and bugfree place Iceland really is? Never mind the crappy weather, it keeps the bugs away.

I admit, I couldn't be without wool this long. Yesterday I visited my local yarnstore and bought some. Mind you I have some zip-lock bags now and that's where it all went. Except for one skein which I'm knitting a swatch from, but I am really careful. Everytime I went to the balcony for some nicotine I took it with me. A bug doesn't dare to eat it in front of my very eyes, right? At the end of the night I locked it up, and since the zip-lock bags are rather small (1 liter) I had to be inventive

Oh my poor little skein. I'm sorry to have to do this to you, but you'll see, I'm only trying to protect you.

Coffee-making editors

2006-04-28T09:02:00.000+03:00

This morning I was working on an article at home when I suddenly noticed that in the LaTeX editor I'm using (iTeXMac) an icon appeared, a picture of a tiny cup of coffee. (Funny that I had just made myself a double espresso when it materialized… an uncanny coincidence or a damn clever editor?) I couldn't resist clicking it, and after a short while my computer started talking and it told me "Please notice that iTeXMac doesn't know yet how to make coffee". No, I hadn't noticed thank you very much, but I sure do now! Did you have to bring that disappointing fact to my attention? Now I'm thinking that of course all editors should be able to make me coffee.

Then the icon disappeared. Freaky shit.

Finished and freezing

2006-04-26T19:54:00.000+03:00

I was a good girl this weekend and concentrated on the second sockapaloooza sock. I wanted to get them done so that they’d have enough time to freeze their ass off (see previous blog post for the reason why). On saturday I knit some and by the time I went to bed I had turned the heel. On sunday morning I woke up early and knit some more and thought about things. I didn’t want to send the socks off looking all crumpled ugly ducklings, so I took a little break and made some sockblockers using pizza boxes and a Marimekko plastic bag. “Sockblockers” is reaching the status of being my favorite word at the moment, which is surprising considering that that status is usually held by a Finnish word or expression. Everytime I think it, I’m immediately reminded of Ghostbusters. I saw that movie again a short while ago, and it was not that disappointing. Usually childhood memories are best left as memories, but very occasionally one is positively surprised. I’ve wondered if I should dare see the Gremlins movies again, those were just great weren’t they?! But boy have I lost track of where I was going, aah, the sockblockers:

Cute, ay? As is evident from the photo, the sun was shining - very fitting for a sun-day. The weather was beautiful and not a cloud in the sky

I got a phone call from Frank at noon. He has recently moved from close by to even closer by, more like freakishly close, as he can almost (but not quite) see in through my bedroom window. His new apartment has a balcony which makes Frank one happy man. He would regularly talk about how good (previously) our balcony (now mine, all mine) is and how lucky I was that I got to keep it. In any case, Frank invited me to make a test run of his new balcony and drink some coffee and eat pulla (Finnish pastry, very yummi). Over there I went, and the balcony was pretty good. I knit some more on the sock. A careful inspection revealed the sock to be rather happy about the balcony as well

and it got finished there, so all in all it was a good day for the sock. We then proceeded to start the terrace season, and ended up behind Lasipalatsi where we had a few beers with Mika and Frank played around with the camera

Do you see it? I’m wearing the green monster. It is proving to be a perfect spring jacket. Despite the sun, the temperature is still quite low.Once home I washed the socks and dressed the sockblockers. Unfortunately I was so eager to stick the socks in the freezer that I forgot to take a final photo, but I can tell you they were crumpled ugly ducklings no more.

Operation Die F***ers, Die

2006-04-23T19:10:00.000+03:00

I’m sorry if the title of this entry has shocked you, but I’m sure you’ll understand if you read on. I’ll tell you a little story which is not for the faint at heart. You probably don’t want to hear it, but I’ll tell you anyways. It’s good for you, it’ll make you feel all the happier about your own situation.

Back in the good old days, I used to throw my clothes on the floor (I know, it seems strange to me now too, but that’s what I was like). Then one not so fine day last autumn I was picking up clothes from the floor to wash, and underneath there were these horrible looking bugs which I had never seen before in my life. It was one of the most disgusting moments in my entire life, I tell you. I will never be the same again, and I will sure as hell never throw any fabric on the floor ever again.

I discussed the issue with my supervisor, who informed me that these were probably carpet beetle larvae, apparently a common infestation in old houses here in Helsinki. Although knowledge and understanding usually provides some comfort, this time I was infinitely more disgusted when I started reading about these bugs and found out that they eat natural fibers. In general, bugs are rather revolting, but when they feed off your body or belongings they bring disgusting to a whole new level.

In Iceland we don’t have many bugs, in fact we have so few that Finland and its insect life is exotic to me. I have learnt many things while living here, for example it is apparently so that all beetles can fly, who knew?! In my memory there are two types of beetles in Iceland, blacksmiths and something similar but grayish brown in color and I’ve never seen them fly. I have also learned that bees (or “bee-flies” in Icelandic) and mosquitos are not flies at all, and I received laughter and ridicule from my best friend Markus, who is Finnish, when I insisted that they were. They fly, don’t they? Ergo they are flies! But that’s beside the point.

After gathering information on carpet beetles I went into action. My vacuum cleaner became my best friend and most cherished possession (usually that’s my espresso machine). All clothes were shaken, stirred and washed, closets were vacuumed and wiped, wool was put in bags and into the freezer. Last but not least, insecticide was sprayed like there was no tomorrow. I even contacted the janitor and tried to convince him to have a house meeting where it should be agreed to call in exterminators, whatever the price. I haven’t heard from him since.

Things were quiet during the winter months, and I didn’t see any bugs on my crawling tours along the floor lists (that’s were they hung out). They hadn’t gotten to my clothes yet, and I happily thought that was the end of the story. Until two weeks ago. I noticed a black blob on my bedroom floor which turned out to be a dead beetle. Being optimistic by nature I tried to convince myself that it had to have flown in through the window, maybe it was just a beetle, not The Beetle, but deep in my heart I knew the bitter truth. Yesterday I found another beetle hanging around by the floor lists, and that one was freaking alive. Excusez moi when I say the F-word very loudly: F***!

There is wool all over my apartment. I am not careful to keep it in plastic bins or zip-lock bags. I think it’s a nice and colorful interior decoration item, so it’s lying in baskets all around, naked and exposed. I love my wool, and to me it’s just plain wrong to hide it. Part of this probably comes from growing up in a country where we don’t really have horrible wool-eating monsters, and when I was reading online about safety measures against these pests it seemed rather odd to me that you should pack wool items in airtight containers when “out of season”. There is no such thing as “out of season” in Iceland, where the average temperature in July is about 12°C (53°F). Why would you pack away your wool?

To make this long story just a bit longer, I can tell you that wool is on its way to the freezer, the vacuum cleaner is my new best friend and insecticide is being sprayed. If you don’t hear from me in a few days, I have passed out from inhaling the fumes. But who cares, as long as these f***ers die.

Knitter on the bus

2006-04-21T07:48:00.000+03:00

The day before yesterday I was on my way to work as usually. After finding out that my monthly bus card had expired and buying a freaking expensive ticket on the bus (but first traveling illegally on the metro in my blissful ignorance) I made my way to the back of the bus to sit in my favourite seat. Then I saw it, there was a woman sitting in my seat (it's mine, miiiiine!) and she was knitting! This is the first time I've seen anyone knit on the bus. I sat down next to her, well, with one seat in between as is custom of us reserved nordic people, and took up my knitting. Then I tried my best to roll my eyes to get a look of what she was knitting, it looked like a k2p2 something, perhaps a sweater or a scarf. I noticed she was also stealing glances at my knitting, but in true nordic fashion we kept to ourselves. It was beautiful.

Before I go on, let me give a warning to my mom: Mamma, ekki lesa áfram nema þú viljir vita hver afmælisgjöfin þín er!

I've finished the body of my mom's birthday sweater. The sweater is worked in the round to the armholes, and after that the front and back are worked separately. When both are done, the pattern tells you to cast off and graft the shoulder seams. I sat for a while staring at the shoulders wondering how the heck one would go about grafting k2p2 rib, I thought I'd figured it out and began happily grafting. After a while I realized that it was all wrong, when you graft two pieces which have been knit in the opposite direction (looking when you've laid the two ends together) the stitches on one piece are shifted half a stitch with respect to the other. That is not good news for k2p2 rib, since the "ridges" and "troughs" won't match up! After this enlightenment I opened the pattern book to have a closer look at the photos of the sweater and luckily there was one where you could see the shoulder seams quite clearly. In the hope that my mom is not still reading (and if so: skamm skamm!) I'll ask you this: those of you who own the Loop-d-Loop book, please open it on page 17 and tell me that's a grafted shoulder seam 'cause I'm not going to believe you! I ended up using my favourite slip stitch crochet to seam the back and front together and it looks fine. Now all that's left is the sleeves, which I'm hoping to get finished in the weekend. The only problem is that I also need to finish the sockapaloooza socks in the weekend, and prepare teaching, and study for exams. Oh, and clean my freaking apartment. Aah, the joys of living.

Everyone likes pictures, right? I don't have any knitting related pictures at the moment, but let me show you what I discovered on my walk in the weekend.

Isn't it a nice picnic location for the summer? What a beautiful backdrop! And it's only a five minute walk from my place.

Radioactive Blue

2006-04-20T20:21:00.000+03:00

Radioactive Blue
Originally uploaded by siggasif.

I went to a thrift store the other day looking for pots to dye in (not die in, a mistake I almost make very often). Surprisingly I found a really nice laceweight yarn there and I bought it just like that for 2.50 Euros. It's a 100 grams, so maybe, just maybe I get to wind 1200 meters again. It feels a bit like cotton but it has this beautiful shine so I'm wondering if I dare hope there's a little bit of silk in it? The color is this deep blue and I loooove blue at the moment. Now what should I make of it?

Mmmm… chocolate fountain!

2006-04-20T17:46:00.000+03:00

Easter holidays

2006-04-15T16:51:00.000+03:00

Happy easter everyone!

We've had beautiful weather here in Helsinki these past days, and today I was out and about enjoying it. I walked downtown and passed the white cathedral

I visited four markets, two of which were handcraft markets and filled with very nice stuff. In the first one I bought a handmade soap with eucalyptus and in the second I got two skeins of sock yarn… I couldn't resist! On the harbour there was the usual food/handcraft market which I strolled through, and then I went into the old market hall by the harbour which was about time because I've never seen it on the inside

There is still ice on the sea but that doesn't stop the ferries from transporting people around. Viking Line was sailing out to Tallinn or Stockholm, and the Suomenlinna ferry was coming to put off and pick up people.

I just love Helsinki in good weather. I think it's one of the most beautiful cities I know, and the "maritime" atmosphere is something I really like. All these ferries and small islands dotting the sea, and the polished granite rocks on the coast shining in the sun. Aaaaah.

After my stroll I passed by Tuija's and had some lemonade and played with the cats. We then walked together up Fredrikinkatu and stopped by this shop where I had on thursday seen a most amazing coat in the window. It turned out to fit me perfectly and although it was a bit expensive I thought what the heck, it's not a coat you come by every day. Besides, I had some birthday money from my parents and if there ever was a better way of spending them I wouldn't know it. So I bought it and I still don't regret it! It's made of dark brown wool and is embroidered all over… Hmmm. Maybe I should just show you a picture or two

Since I started knitting I appreciate original things so much more, and even better if they're hand-made. The embroidery on the coat is of course machine made (thank god no one had to do this by hand!) but all the same, it's very special. It comes from India and they only had three coats in the shop. I love love love it and can't wait for an opportunity to wear it.

Socks and secret projects

2006-04-12T21:30:00.000+03:00

Despite a bit of quietness I have been knitting, it’s just that I’m knitting a secret project so I can’t talk all that much about it. My moms birthday is coming up, and I’m making her a sweater (don’t worry, she knows that much!). Originally we had decided together that I’d make Riva from Rowan Vintage Style and I had already bought some yarn for it, although not the expensive Rowan stuff. On Saturday, just as I was about to start knitting a swatch, I figured out what had been bothering me for a while. It somehow just didn’t feel right. I really like the look of it, but it just felt too simple for giving to my mom, I want her to have something special. Something simple and elegant, but with a twist. So in the spur of the moment I flipped through my books and magazines and found exactly what felt right. I hurriedly knit a swatch from some yarn I already had and then ran to the yarn shop just before closing. Since then I’ve been working on it and it’s coming along nicely. But no pictures yet, mom has no idea now what the heck I’m making, mwahahaha!

I’ve been good at spending money on books lately. My newest aquisitions are these three

and they’re all fabulous. What happy bedtime reading time I’m having now.

I managed to finish my sockapal’s sock number 1. I did the short row heel following the helpful advice I got to a previous post, and it all worked out like magic. I ended with a three needle bind-off because grafting in this alpaca stuff just looked pretty horrible, in fact I have to say that knitting with alpaca is a bit tricky and I’m not sure I’ll be enthusiastic to do it again. Which is sad, because it’s oh so wonderfully soft. I’m also a bit concerned if these socks will wear well, and just in case I might recommend home-use and special occasions. It’s always nice to have something special, right? Anyhoo, here’s a picture of my foot in it. Sockapal and I have almost the same foot size, although our calfs differ a bit in width, so the lacey goodness is not showing off too much

I’m dying to finish these so that I can start a pair from Folk Socks. I’ve already bought yarn for it and it is sitting in my living room whispering for me to transform it. Which brings me to another issue. I got the idea that having a ball winder and swift might be a good thing and now I’m really seriously considering to open up my wallet (despite the “WOW, do these cost that much” reaction I first had). It all started when Cassie sent me that beautiful laceweight merino. After having just learned how to wind a center-pull skein by hand I started enthusiastically to wind the laceweight… all 1200 meters of it. Well, it took two and a half hours, but I have a darn beautiful skein. Now this sock yarn I bought comes in hanks so it needs to be wound but the problem is, the sock I’m making is in four colors and each hank is about 470 meters so in total I need to wind 1880 meters, which according to my rough estimate will take almost FOUR hours! Think about all the knitting I could get done in that time. Jeez. Maybe I’ll buy the stuff when I’m in the US. Isn’t that an excellent plan?

Green monster defeated

2006-04-04T21:13:00.000+03:00

I have been feeling very bleh lately. In my knitting life I somehow feel restless because I don't have any big project ongoing and so I don't feel I am really making anything. This is all about to change, as I just bought some yarn for a cardigan that my mom has ordered as a birthday gift.

I did however pull off a most amazing feat. I handsewed the zipper onto the green lopi monster, and that took a freaking long time. Remind me to think twice before I ever decide to knit a zipped cardigan again. Oh, oops, I've already bought yarn for a new one! Jeez. No really, I love that the zipper is handsewed and imagine my great grandkids looking in awe at it thinking that this sewed in zipper has lasted for a hundred years, done with the loving hands (while cursing and massaging knotted shoulder muscles) of their great grandmother me. Well, here it is: me and the sweater feeling very proud of mememe

and let's not forget about that zipper

Despite having many projects planned, I gave in to a sudden yearning for a felted bag and spent many a happy moment coming up with a pattern for it. I thought the bag would make me feel good, cause it would be so fast to knit. In fact I thought I'd be walking around with the bag already this week (having started it on saturday)

The bag did not agree. It's trying its best to make the floats really get in my way. Stupid floats! Who ever invented those? (The yarn is by the way the leftovers of the green monster.)

Oh, I wore my green lopi socks all of sunday. My toes were feeling a bit cold, but the socks sure took care of that. And I was even barefoot in'em, and they didn't feel all that scratchy. They're my new favourite thing. Warm feet are the best.

Help!

2006-03-30T23:33:00.000+03:00

I'm working on my sockapaloooza sock and I'm having some trouble. The heel flap business is not really working out. The slipped stitches at the beginning of a right side row are so loose that there'll be gaping holes there, and no matter how hard I try I can't get them tighter. This alpaca stuff sure is unforgiving I have to say.

Well, now I'm trying out a short row heel but there's another problem. My pal wants a 5cm long heel (or she says her heel length is 5cm, I assume that's the heel flap length), but with these short rows there's no way I'm ever gonna get that much. Maximum 3.5 cm. Why are short row heels so darn short and is there anything I can do to make it longer? Can I for example knit one row inbetween doing the wrapping thing? I'd really appreciate it if someone could offer advice :-)

Birthday blanket

2006-03-29T18:58:00.000+03:00

Thank you so much for your comments and suggestions on the blanket business, and in general thanks for all comments, I really appreciate them! I've noticed that when I've been commenting on other peoples knitblogs they often answer by email. I hope I haven't disappointed someone expecting an email, I'm just not used to that practice. I'm more into answering the comments on the blog to keep the "whole story" there. Let's see, maybe I'll take up the email thing.

The blanket plans have taken an entirely new direction. My birthday was on sunday, and in addition to the fabulous þríhyrnur og langsjöl (three-cornered and long shawls) book and some knitting magazines, my parents gave me money to spend. Mom said I should use it for the home, and what better for the home than a big 'n cosy blanket to cuddle during hmmm… the winter which is almost over?! So now I have money to spend - Allright!

I had the idea to use Wonderwool from Scoeller & Stahl (I hope I remember that correctly) because I already have a few skeins and for me it's quite important to know how the yarn feels before I go ahead and buy 25 skeins of it. It's only 50% wool, but it's so wonderfully soft and decently priced. I found this German online yarn store which sells the stuff at 2.75 euros/skein, they ship anywhere and the shipping costs within Europe are not too high. My local yarn store does sell wonderwool, but they don't have the colors I need and although they could order it for me, the price is just not as good. I think I don't have to feel bad about it, since I do support the store quite substantially.

On saturday I finished the second Lopi sock, which makes them my first ever finished pair of socks! Here's a result of twisting myself in awkward positions to get a decent picture

The next picture, however, is my favorite. Tres artistique, no?

In addition to the great gift from my parents, I got some other wonderful gifts for my birthday. Cassie sent me some beautiful koigu, chibi's, tea and only, what, 1200 meters of laceweight merino!! Which was just perfect as I could immediately start knitting from the shawl book. Frank, Markus and Tuija had sneaked a huge box filled with yummi stuff into my apartment while I was out. How nice does this look?

How about this then?

Everything in the box was sweet: cakes, chocolate, cookies, you name it, except for this one can there in the middle. It's canned ravioli and don't ask me why!My dear friend Arna sent me a cd and Icelandic candy (YAY!) along with a wonderful birthday card, and my dear friend Bryndís wrote a most beautiful blog entry about our friendship (we've known each other since we were 3 years old - the entry is in Icelandic). Thank you all so much, it really warmed my heart.