Christmas came early

I'm one of those people for whom the words "Secret Santa" only bring up memories of awkward, random gift swaps at school in which no-one ever got what they really wanted or even liked.

This year I thought I'd throw caution to the wind and take part in the Secret Santa among Finnish Ravelry users. After all, the worst that could come out of it is acrylic, right?

I received my Christmas parcel today and (me being me) I opened it right away. I was thrilled!


I got a yummy skein of Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend (70% extrafine merino / 30% silk) in a gorgeous blended earthtone colourway (9254). I also got stitch markers for bigger needles, as per my letter to Santa, and not one but two pairs of earrings, which were also on my wish list! In addition to these, I received hazelnut chocolate (yumm-o!) and a lovely pattern for a ruffled scarf.

As a surprise, Kerri and Miina received a present too; the parcel had one special gift tagged with an image of a cat, with instructions that the one tagged gift was to be opened by the pictured recipient. Inside was a fascinating woollen mouse toy that rattles (!), instantly grabbing their attention.

(Miina was slightly intimidated by the size of the mouse - nearly as big as her head - but she appeared to feel courageous enough to swat at it from the safety of under the chair.)

What an awesome headstart to Christmas!

Writing this, I realised that I don't think I have introduced little Miina to you at all! We got her a few weeks back, a bit of a roundabout way: the queen of a friend of my sister's friend (are you following this?) was producing a litter with the tom of said sister's friend. One of the kittens needed a home and we had kitten fever, so we went to see her and came home having decided to adopt her!

She's a gray-ish brown tabby girl who looks a lot like a Norwegian Forest Cat although as far as we know she has no such blood in her. She's a sweetheart and will start purring if you just look at her. She also loves to shred paper (all kinds, from tissues to newspaper); fortunately she has shown no interest in wool as of now.

We named her Minerva because she looks like an owl with her big fuzzy face! For short, we call her Miina or Mini.

Initially, Kerri was deeply hurt that we should bring such a creature into her universe (of which she was the centre, of course), and for the first two days of hissing and fighting we weren't sure if they were ever going to make friends. Since then, things have luckily improved greatly and the girls are now like Batman and Robin. They still wrestle sometimes, but it's for fun now. And I think Kerri is starting to appreciate the amusement that the kitten provides on days that we're not home.

Finished: S is for Salla

I've got ants in my pants because I can't show you any of the Christmas projects I've been working on recently! How annoying.

Yesterday I felt as though I needed a break from my usual UFO rota. You know when you hit a nerve in your elbow and it gives you a shock, then maintains a dull annoyance that shreds your nerves apart without being painful as such? Well, at the moment I feel like that about one particular project that is a lot of work (possibly because the yarn is laceweight...). I'll go back to it eventually, but last night I just couldn't deal. I still wanted to knit, however, so I produced a fun little thing for a change.

I have a love-hate relationship with face washers; I love them when I get around to using them (especially if I'm using a washing product that is in bar form), but I never remember to launder them enough and, let's face it, using the same face washer for days on end isn't exactly hygienic. Also, Finns don't use them and they're difficult to find in shops.

Enter half a skein of spare Novita Tennessee (100% cotton) and the above pattern by Rhonda White (told you I love to have my name or initials on everything). It took about three hours to knit, the S pattern kept me interested and, most importantly, the purled stitches are great for really scrubbing your face clean. Win! It's a bit smaller than your average face washer, but it covers my palm and fingers and that's big enough for me.

If I weren't already covered when it comes to Christmas presents, I would make a bunch of these (with the recipients' initials of course) and wrap them together with a Lush soap. If nothing else, it would be fun to see what the recipients end up doing with these little squares of cotton, the purpose of which they probably can't conceive.

Japanese Inspired Knits by Marianne Isager

The postman and I have a quiet understanding - he knows that I am nearly always home at post delivery time (and that I don't mind if he rings the doorbell), and therefore I get the smaller parcels delivered to the door when normally I would have to pick them up at the post office (which is only a five-minute walk away, but the journey seems long when one is wearing woollen socks and it's rainy outside, like today).

Today said postie brought me Japanese Inspired Knits by Marianne Isager, a book that I ordered on a whim last week. Japan and all things Japanese seem to be en vogue these days, but I haven't paid much attention to fashionable things (I take style over fashion any day). However, I love this book! Immediately after flicking through it for the first time, I queued three items (The Carp, The Fan and The Sun, specifically). It is likely that there will be more if the patterns turn out to be well written.

I had the opportunity to spend half a day in Tokyo last December on our way to Australia for Christmas. Considering the jet lag and the hectic schedule, the 12 hours we spent there were most wonderful. It was amazing to just people-watch (and building-watch and advertisement-watch): everything was so Western and yet so very un-Western. I'm not much into manga or the other hallmarks of modern Japanese culture, but I am intrigued by classic Japanese handicrafts, the original technologies etc., how they developed in a completely different direction from the Western world (Tristan, who does woodwork, is amazed by their saws).

Having said that, I am fully aware that Marianne Isager's book is not Japanese as such. As the title puts it, it is Japanese Inspired and written by a Danish knitter. There are no classic techniques represented, no patterns handed down through generations. Of course, it would be fascinating to look at such a book as well. Perhaps next time I will visit Kyoto, which has been recommended to me as a starting point for exploring older Japanese culture.

Often it is said that Finns and the Japanese have a lot in common: a vowel-rich language that is difficult for foreigners to learn, for starters. We both seem to also like simple, colourful clothes and textiles, as is apparent when you look at brands such as Marimekko, Nanso and Uniqlo. And we both seem to be a bit kooky. ;)

The daylight saving ended yesterday and it's so doom-and-gloom here. *sigh* Fingers crossed for snow soon!

Santa Claus is coming, Santa Claus is coming, he's not very far away...

Not for knitters who are working on presents, anyway! Last week I suddenly had the revelation that October is nearly done. I also had a secondary revelation that December 8 is the last overseas posting day for Christmas. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as it's great to have readers), several of the adult gift recipients may or may not be reading this blog, so I will have to keep most of the projects under wraps until the holidays.

The only project I can really show you at this point is the present I'm working on for Oona, my younger niece. She's turning three next and hopefully hasn't learnt to read since I last checked (or to read English, which would be even more impressive)! Oona has the cutest little face with chubby cheeks, and I just couldn't resist making her an earflap hat. The yarn I picked was Rowan RYC Cashsoft DK (57% extra fine merino / 33% microfibre / 10% cashmere) for the main colour and Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4 Ply (same fibre content as above) for the contrasting colour. Extremely soft and not itchy in the least.

When Oona was born, I made her a small lap quilt out of cottons in different shades of brown, pink and cream. Because of the colour scheme, I ended up calling it "Cherry Blossoms for Oona". The colour scheme continues with the hat.

The hat is still missing a contrasting colour edging, earflap ties and pom-poms, but the main knitting is done. The hat is very stretchy and looks a bit... oblong unstretched, but hopefully I'll be able to post a better photo once it's done and done.

The pattern is Fancy Ribby Hat by Elena Nodel, although after starting the project I noticed that it is actually just a glorified copycat of Ribby Hat by Sublime Yarns, which is NOT a free pattern. The "designer" knitted the commercial design before "designing" this version, which basically just added pom-poms and an edging. Not cool. Tsk tsk.

You may have noticed that I knit a lot for other people, and I love it! However, whenever I get swamped with a knit-gift queue, a pattern that I have an eye on for myself starts looking so very appealing all of a sudden! Why is it always the way?
Ah well, maybe I'll cast on that owl sweater on Boxing Day...

And Now for Something Completely Different

(i.e. humouring the Finns reading my blog - apologies to my anglophone readers!)

Kun tämän palkinnon saa, niin täytyy tehdä seuraavat 7 kohtaa:

Kiitä sitä, jolta sait tunnustuksen
Kopioi kuva ja liitä blogiisi
Laita linkki sen blogiin, keneltä sait tunnustuksen
Kerro seitsemän asiaa itsestäsi, mitä joita muut eivät vielä tiedä
Anna tunnustus seitsemälle
Linkitä nämä blogissasi
Kerro näille seitsemälle tunnustuksesta

Sain k.o. palkinnon Stazzyltä Välimeren rannalta, kiitosta vaan. :) (Anteeksi, oli pakko punakynäillä ohjeita. En vaan voi sietää huonoa suomea.) Stazzy pyysi paljastuksiin neulonta- ja kissa-aiheita, joten täältä pesee...

1. Neulominen on parempaa lääkitystä kliiniseen depressioon kuin essitalopraami, fluoksetiini ja terapia yhteensä. Neuloessa voi ajatella kaikkea tai ei mitään, miten haluatkin. Neuloessa ei ole suorituspaineita; voit neuloa koko päivän tai vain yhden rivin (tai silmukan). Jos teet virheen, pura ja aloita uudelleen. Kukaan ei saa koskaan tietää. Neuloessa virheistäkin voi tulla jotakin kaunista.

2. Kissan omistaminen ei ole rentouttavaa tai stressiä vähentävää yleisestä uskomuksesta huolimatta. Kissa ottaa sinulta heti kättelyssä luulot pois eikä anna niitä koskaan takaisin.

3. Olen ollut koko elämäni huono neuloja. Käsityönopettajani ala-asteella kutsui neulostöitäni kummituksiksi, ja äitini yritti estää minua ostamasta lankoja. "Kun ei siitä kuitenkaan mitään tuu."

4. Kun sanon Kerrin olevan vauvani, en tarkoita sillä vain sitä, että pidän sitä sylissä ja lepertelen sille (vaikka sitäkin toki tapahtuu). Harjoittelen Kerrillä myös pitkäpinnaisuutta ja yksinkertaisemman luontokappaleen käsittelyä. Kun herään aamuneljältä siihen, että Kerri roikkuu kynsillään upouusissa verhoissa ja määkii riemusta, lasken mielessäni kymmeneen ja takaisin, jotten tekisi siitä pilkullisia rukkasia. En ole mikään luontainen hanhiemohahmo, enkä tiedä, tuleeko minusta koskaan sellaista. Koejärjestelyn tulokset julkaistaan myöhemmin.

5. Nyt, kun neulon paljon, saatan hyvinkin ihailla neulelehtien malleja, jotka ohittaisin välittömästi postimyyntikatalogin valmisvaatteina. Yritän pitää riman yhtä korkealla, mutta se on vaikeaa. Toisaalta puolet neuleiden ilosta tulee niiden tekemisestä. (Ja jos lopullinen tuote on sittenkin susiruma, sen voi aina antaa jollekulle toiselle.)

6. Väite, jonka mukaan kaikki kissat vihaavat muovia ja alumiinifoliota, on myytti. Kissaopas neuvoo, että huonekasveja voi suojella asettamalla ruukut tarpeeksi kauas ulottuvalle muovi- tai folioalustalle. Voit haastatella lattialta tänään löytyneitä St. Paulian lehdenpuolikkaita menetelmän toimivuudesta.

7. En keksi parempaa olotilaa kuin sen, jossa istun sohvalla jalkani mieheni sylissä ja Kerri lämpimänä keränä jalkojeni päällä. Jälkimmäisen silmät seuraavat neuletyöni langankulkua yhtä tarkkaavaisesti kuin omanikin. Sohvapöydällä kupillinen teetä ja puolikas paketti tummaa suklaata. Hidasta, hurisevaa keskustelua, meidän kaikkien välillä. Huomenna vapaata, ei deadlineja. En vaihtaisi.


Lähes kaikki blogituttuni ovat jo tämän tunnustuksen saaneet, joten en tällä kertaa jatka ketjua edelleen. Halukkaat voivat toki tehdä tunnustuksia ihan omin päin. :)

FOs Galore

While waiting for my LYS to get more Garnstudio DROPS Eskimo (100% new wool) stock for my bulky sweater project (deets to follow), I have completed several smaller projects. Like George Mallory said when asked about the reason for climbing Mt. Everest: "Because it was there!"

You may remember the divine red scarf that I finished earlier. As I mentioned, I originally bought 9 skeins of Garnstudio DROPS Silke Alpaca (80% baby alpaca / 20 % silk) for it, of which I only used about six and a half skeins. What could be nicer than a set of a matching scarf and a hat? So I set off to make the Star Crossed Slouchy Beret by Natalie Larson (Ravelry link - sorry non-Ravelrers!). The hat was supposed to take 150-200 yards of yarn which was perfect as I had 200 yards left over.

Turns out that it only takes a smidge over 100 yards if you're working with Aran weight yarn (as I was) and making some slight mods (as I was). So I had another 100 yards to do away with. The hat, by the way, is awesome!

Again, I turned to free Ravelry patterns.
I stumbled upon a pattern for gauntlets, written for this specific yarn (the pattern in question is Dödergöks muddar med spets i silkealpaca by the aforementioned Dödergök). Now, I'm not usually one of those gauntlet-type girls. In fact, I think most of them make one look... well, homeless. But wanting a quick project (and again, the yarn requirements matched my stash exactly), I thought I'd give it a go. After all, is it possible to look homeless in silk gauntlets?

For some reason, even though everyone else on Ravelry who has knitted these used a full skein, I only used a half. So as we speak, I still have half a skein of this heaven-on-earth yarn, and no idea what to use it for. I feel like that tailor mouse in the fairytale, making the cat a jacket, then a vest, then a bowtie, then a handkercief... Currently my two options for the remainder of the yarn are
1) a takeaway coffee cup cozy to stop your fingers from burning (Too bad I don't drink coffee and no longer really even get hot chocolate on the go) and
2) a cat toy (Out of silk and baby alpaca? Will she get ideas?)

For the last few months, my fiancé has been watching me knit with varying interest. Last week, he gave me a request: he needed a warm winter hat. And not just any hat, he had specifications. We browsed through the hat patterns on Ravelry together (do we see a pattern forming here? pun intended) and earmarked the ones that he liked the looks of. Background info: my fiancé is a computer games programmer and started programming at the tender age of 5. What could be more fitting, then, than an 80's arcade game themed hat? Heck, even I used to play Space Invaders! (A pot will find its lid, as the Finnish saying goes.)

The main shape of the hat is based on the We Call Them Pirates hat by Adrian Bizilia. The Space Invaders characters are based on their pixelated images, and the distribution of them is just something I thought up based on the gameplay. You can't see from the photo, but the hat has a Fingering weight (i.e. really really thin) wool lining halfway up, so it's toasty on the ears. The hat ended up a tad smaller than I expected, making the characters stretch out a bit, but I have received feedback that it's very warm and comfy, so all good!

The main colour of the hat is Novita Wool (100% wool), the contrasting colour is Garnstudio DROPS Karisma (100% new wool) and the lining-that-you-can't-see is Novita Bambino (100% wool). You'd have to be silly to wrap your head in plastic in winter!

Finished: Judy's Grandmother's Baby Sweater by Judy Spector

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope, it's a baby sweater!


My sister is pregnant with her third child (her first son) and I thought it would be fitting to knit something for the li'l one. Because I think colour-coding babies is stupid and even harmful, I refuse to knit blue for boys and pink for girls until they are actually old enough to request such colours. Since the sweater incorporates a honeycomb stitch pattern, yellow yarn seemed to be most appropriate.

The yarn is Novita Tennessee (100% mercerized cotton) in a warm yellow colourway that has now been discontinued. It's been awhile since I knitted such fine yarn, and it seemed to take forever, even for such a small garment! Stitch for stitch, I think the cardigan I finished last had more of them!

The pattern is Judy's Grandmother's Baby Sweater by Judy Spector, published in Greetings From Knit Café by Suzan Mischer. It's a cute pattern with minimal seaming (yay!), but like I said, it seemed to take an eternity, which is unusual for baby items. Perhaps it was the honeycomb pattern; I kept making false starts and frogging the first 10 stitches or so of many rows as I had difficulty keeping track of which row of the pattern I was at. All in all, it's nice that it's a bit different from the ruffly, cutesy baby sweaters that pattern books are full of. In fact, it has almost a Japanese kimono feel to it, don't you think?

As an instant gratification project after such a fine-gauge one, my next item will be knitted out of super bulky wool. Doubled. Woo!

(P.S. Does it make me a bad person that I saw some yarn that I had never paid attention to at the LYS*, noticed that it was heavily discounted and only then frantically tried to figure out what it would be good for? I ended up buying 10 skeins.)

*) Local Yarn Store, for the uninitiated.

A charade

What could this be the first half of? Hit me with your best guess!


(Ravelrers need not apply, it's cheating! :-))

The correct answer to be revealed in my next post!

Finished: Short-Sleeved Cardigan with Ribbing by Stefanie Japel

One of the best things about Ravelry is the fact that it lets you compile a list of patterns that you intend to knit (a so-called "queue"). This yellow cardigan had been sittin' pretty at the top of my queue for awhile - in fact, ever since I got Stefanie Japel's book, Fitted Knits. I remember clicking "Not Interested" time and time again when Amazon suggested this book to me, but in the end I gave up and bought it. And just as well, as while several of my knitting pattern books have maybe two or three patterns of interest to me, I currently have four more projects from this book in my queue. Waiting patiently, as those in queues do (my queue is currently 40 items long, so it could be a long wait).

Thus, last week when I got home from Tampere (where I attend university two days a week) and having finished Rowan Minn on the train, I jumped at the opportunity to finally start this cardigan. The weather in Finland has turned decidedly autumny of late and I wanted something warm and snuggly. I got the yarn in June and it's been sitting in my yarn box, singing sweet yarn siren songs (the mythical creature kind, not the fire alarm kind). To be fair, the pattern yarn, Cascade 128 (100% Peruvian Highland wool), is not amazing. It's chunky and coarse, but my, it is indeed warm. Mental note: wear a t-shirt underneath.

The main mod I did was lengthening the sleeves, obviously. The thought of knitting a heavy cardigan out of bulky wool and leaving the sleeves short - and I do mean t-shirt short - just didn't make any sense to me. Originally I was going to make them full length, but as I went along, the 3/4 length seemed more appropriate. Dare I say the sleeves have a slight 1940s vibe to them?

SLEEVE MODS FOR 3/4 LENGTH:

Rnds 1-13 as per pattern
Rnds 14-40 knit
Change to smaller needles.
Rnds 41-48 purling and knitting rows as per pattern
Rnd 49 k11, k2tog, k11, k2tog, knit to end = 36 sts
Rnds 50-65 k2, p2 ribbing (one rnd more than in pattern)
Rnd 66 knit
Rnds 67-74 purling and knitting rows as per pattern
BO.

A row counter is extremely useful in making sure the sleeves match (also to get the right number of ribbing rows).
The finished sleeve length is 32cm from underarm to sleeve edge (20cm in original pattern) and falls to match the bottom edge of the body. Doing the sleeves like this will add approximately half a skein to the yarn requirements.

Once again, I am not 100% satisfied with my product. To be sure, it is better than the Favorite Cardigan, so I'm getting there! However, the cardigan is a wee bit baggy just above the waist ribbing, which does bother me. I might try and see if I can come up with a way to tighten it across the back.

When I started this project, I kept thinking "Oh, I should make an entry in the blog about this" and track the progress. However, this being another top-down project and of bulky yarn too, it was such a quick'un that I really didn't have a chance.
My next project will be different again: the yellow theme continues, but the size and weight will be much smaller. Wait and see!

Finished: Rowan Classic Minn by Martin Storey

I have a bad habit - I tend to buy the cheapest thing I can find if it means I can get more of other things. Sometimes this works out (both my wedding gown and wedding ring cost a fraction of what was budgeted for them, and I wouldn't change them for anything!)... and sometimes not (I bought two cheap hair straighteners before giving up and buying the good, expensive ones). My fiancé likes to remind me: the best I can afford, not the cheapest I can tolerate.

When I decided to finally knit myself a scarf (a first), I decided to apply his theory and make it a scarf to end all scarves. I wanted it to be something that I would wear for years and years to come. Soft, luxurious, warm, no matter the cost. The pattern I chose was Minn from the Rowan Classic AM to PM booklet (also Suuri käsityölehti 10/2007), designed by Martin Storey.

When a friend of mine from Australia, David, visited Finland last summer, we took a walk around Helsinki and had lunch under the awning of a café, watching people hurry in the rain. When the weather cleared out, I asked him if he'd accompany me to a yarn shop to buy yarn for my scarf. He did, and the product of such a shopping trip was 9 skeins of vividly red Garnstudio DROPS Silke Alpaca (80% baby alpaca / 20% silk). The yarn set me back nearly 50 euros, but it being the softest yarn in the shop, I had to have it.

I didn't get started on the scarf until February this year after finishing a few scarves for other people for the past winter. Mine could wait; I had the rest of my life to wear it. It was slow going, mostly due to periodical project hibernation, the frogging of half of the scarf at one point (one of the cables was going the wrong way, and This Would Not Do) and misplacing the needles on our trip to London.

Yesterday, however, the scarf was complete. It is the softest, warmest thing you could ever wrap around your neck. I can't wait for November!

Finished: Veera's Hello Kitty Sweater

I finished Veera's sweater a good while ago, but I haven't gotten around to taking photos of it until now. After finishing the sleeves as per the pattern, I measured them, unpicked the bound off stitches and added another four or five centimetres. I also made the body quite a lot longer; It doesn't hurt to err on the side of big with a growing girl! In general, I was surprised how small the pattern was, considering it was supposed to fit a 6-8-year-old and Veera is only turning 5.

I am rather pleased with the result; the Hello Kitty face (which I lifted from a scarf pattern) is recognizable and fun with the fluffy yarn. It was a pain to stitch on, but a good exercise in working with different kinds of yarns. The Novita Jasmin mentioned in the previous post really didn't work with this, so I ended up using black Novita Nalle (75% wool / 25% polyamide) instead. When I bought the main pink yarn for the sweater, I had no idea how many skeins I should get. I ended up getting 5, which was a lucky guess - I had half a skein left at the end.

Now I'll wrap the sweater up in wrapping paper and put it away until December. Let's hope the birthday girl likes it!

Veera's Hello Kitty Sweater

My niece, Veera, turns five next Christmas Eve. She loves Hello Kitty - last year her top wish from Santa was a packet of Hello Kitty band-aids! And like all nearly-five-year-old girls, she loves the colour pink. When she saw me knitting a few months ago (I was working on a chocolate brown Lucky Clover Wrap from Stitch'n Bitch Nation, a project I am now considering frogging despite having worked on it for a year), she was intrigued. (Yes, I do plan on initiating her into the art of knitting at some point.) Last time I saw her a few weeks back, she asked if I had finished the project yet and if I would knit her a pink sweater.

Now, you have to cross me pretty bad for me to say no to a knitting request, especially such a small one, so I started pondering and planning what her pink sweater could look like. I had a few prerequisites:

1. It should be a top-down project. I'm not spending half the time sewing fronts and backs and sides and sleeves together.
2. It should be machine washable. This one is a no-brainer considering she's going on five and five-year-olds do messy things.
3. It should be soft and comfortable, not itchy.
   
4. It should not be 100% acrylic or any other synthetic fibre that is likely to melt on her should it catch on fire.

I rummaged through the excellent pattern search engine on Ravelry and found a suitable top-down pattern for a little girl's top (minus the stripes and the bell sleeves). Turns out that Novita Samos (50% cotton / 50% acrylic) knits exactly to the gauge and ticks all the boxes that I set for the yarn. For a fluffy Hello Kitty face, I decided to use Novita Jive (100% polyamide), with the red bow-tie made from the Novita Luxus Cloud from my cardigan and the black outline done with Novita Jasmin (60% cotton / 40% acrylic; not on the website as I believe it's a seasonal yarn).

I cast my stitches on and the project was going ahead swimmingly... until I came to the part where I wanted to start the intarsia. Now, usually intarsia is worked on flat pieces, in which you work from right to left, then left to right, then right to left, etc. etc. This makes carrying yarn relatively simple. However, when you're working in the round (right to left over and over again), intarsia becomes problematic, as you leave the yarn on one side and then arrive on the opposite shore with no way of reaching said yarn. I found an excellent tutorial on intarsia in the round and, although I've never worked intarsia even on a flat piece before, decided to bite the bullet and try it out. After all, how hard can it be?

Pretty hard I tell ya, especially if you're working with four colours at once (with two of those colours split into two smaller balls each), your main intarsia yarn is a very very elastic one and the rest not at all. I completed approximately seven rows of the Hello Kitty pattern, decided that there was no way those stretched-all-over-the-place stitches were going to do, and frogged the lot. I have no pictorial evidence of this offending piece, but trust you me, it was pretty offensive.

So I frogged it, re-knit those seven rows, lost two stitches in there somewhere (no idea where as there are no dropped stitches - maybe missed two raglan increases?) and prepared for the tedious prospect that is the knitting of a sweater body in plain stocking stitch. At least it's a small body, and the yarn is pretty chunky, so it's quick going.


Here's where I am at the moment. It should take me another 2-3 evenings to finish the sweater, and then I get to the interesting part: duplicate stitching the Hello Kitty face on! The pink yarn underneath should give it the sturdiness to stop it from stretching all over the place like it did before. I'm also considering stitching Veera's name onto the sleeve, but maybe that's a bit too much? I just remember how I loved everything with my name on it when I was her age.

I might just knit everyone's Christmas presents this year. I'll be sitting on the train a lot this autumn thanks to my other university being in a different town, so I'll have a lot of time to kill. What, studying? What's that?

Finished: Favorite Cardigan by Wendy Bernard

As I mentioned in my last post, I have mostly knitted socks and small things in the past. In fact, I have yet to finish anything that is worn on the actual body. Until today.

Two weeks ago, I was grocery shopping at a supermarket when I noticed they had yarn on special (cue mad dash). Despite having a strict yarn shopping list, I picked up seven skeins of Novita Luxus Cloud (65% wool / 35% bamboo) in a delicious scarlet shade, without a clue about what I was going to knit out of it. When I found out at the checkout that they were only 2€ a skein (normally 5€), I went back the next day and got seven skeins more, all that they had in stock.

When I got home, I went through my knitting books and found the perfect use for the Cloud (or so I thought at the time) - the Favorite Cardigan by Wendy Bernard, from her book Custom Knits. See the model photo at left. The gauge matched, it offered a gentle introduction to top-down knitting, which I was keen to try, and last but not least: I really wanted a scarlet cardigan. So off I went.

I am not usually what they call a project knitter, but I really liked working on this one. I cannot explain why - it must have been the top-down construction - but it was an incredibly quick knit. Consider that I have another cardigan in the works that I started a year ago... Whatever the reason, I took a strong liking to top-down projects, trying it on as I worked was great!

I made several mods to the pattern, as encouraged by the book: My gauge was off by two stitches per 10cm so I changed the needles from 4.5mm to 5.5mm. Since I fell between sizes, I CO'd size S and added an extra row of raglan increases for a larger bust, then decreased back to size S for the waist (two extra decreasing rounds). I moved the front cables two stitches further out for a nice knitted edge, I also moved the sleeve cables by a stitch to match them with the collar ribbing. Sleeves were size M minus two stitches, so I skipped the first round of decreases and then worked as per size M, making them longer until I felt they were right. Lengthened the body from 12½" to 14½" before the bottom ribbing. Tossed the buttonhole instructions out of the window as they produced the most god-awful "buttonholes" I've ever seen. Did regular "BO 2 sts, next round CO 2 sts" buttonholes, used seven buttons instead of eight. Phew, I think that's all!

The final result can be seen at right (click for a bigger photo). I wish I could say that I positively adore the first torso-wearable thing that has come off my needles, but I don't quite. It's certainly OK or even fine, but the fit is slightly odd - too short to start with, despite the extra two inches. The big annoyance is the yarn; although it's incredibly soft and a dream to work with, it has already started pilling... bad. The cardigan certainly doesn't look as though it was finished today. On the other hand, it does look like a favourite cardigan, slightly worn out. It could be worse, I guess!

If nothing else, I am proud of actually finishing this thing, and in two weeks to boot! It has given me confidence about starting "big" projects that I have so far always discarded halfway through, bored and/or disillusioned. I've got several more cardigans/sweaters/jumpers on my to-do list now. Gotta dream big! For my next project however, I'll think small - my niece requested a pink sweater, so a pink sweater she will get. She loves Hello Kitty, so I'm scheming intarsia (another first for me) in fluffy white yarn. We'll see how it turns out. Luckily her birthday is not until December!

Charmed, I'm sure

My mother always told me it is polite to introduce oneself when meeting new people, and mothers are always right, so here goes.

I'm Salla, a 26-year-old Taurus (rising Leo, moon in Pisces). I live in Espoo, Finland, where I was born and bred. In fact, I live about 20 minutes away from the very hospital where I was born. Incidentally, I have since lived most of my life elsewhere, including three countries other than Finland. But life works in cycles, and here I am again.

I am engaged to be married to an Australian fella next summer. Our little family also includes our furry baby Kerri, an 18-month-old ocicat. Sometimes I wonder if she is not a dog in a cat suit since she occasionally barks, and likes to fetch the ball. Kerri always watches my knitting very intently. Mostly she's a good girl (we've had "The Talk" about yarn and her rights to paw at it - or the lack thereof), but sometimes she will try and put a paw down on a skein very very slowly. I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot of Kerri, she loves getting photographed. And lying on my projects.

I was originally taught to knit by my mother I believe, this was when I was perhaps 4 or 5. No projects from this period remain, and it is probably just as well! (My mother is not a very good knitter - or a very good knitting teacher - sorry mum!) I was taught properly at school at the age of 11-ish, when I completed a pair of socks and a pair of mittens. I also attempted to knit a sweater and failed miserably. I still have the Easter chick yellow acrylic yarn stashed away somewhere...

For years, I didn't knit a thing. I lie, I knitted a pair of mittens for a boyfriend in senior secondary school. But mostly, not a thing. I saw the light again while attending a university exchange program in Canada in 2005. The local yarn shop was too divine to resist! When I was living in London, England from 2006 up until 2008, I had to endure a one-and-a-quarter-of-an-hour-each-way commute every day. So I started knitting socks, much to the amazement of my fellow commuters. I branched out into scarves, hats and other little things. I had to import all my yarn from Finland, however, as there was not one (not ONE) decent yarn shop in London.

My knitting has really kicked up a notch since moving back to Finland last year - I blame this on the best yarn shop in Finland which just happens to be a five-minute walk from the home we bought a few months ago. (Yes, this was a factor in us buying it, although I didn't disclose this to my fiancé.) I am venturing into bigger, better things now, which is not to say there's anything wrong with socks. Perhaps I'll finish a sweater one day. No, not the yellow acrylic one...

When I'm not knitting, I am usually translating. I have a one-woman band of a translation business that keeps me occupied most days (and especially nights, them being my creative time). Working from a home office is brilliant, particularly as the work tends to come in randomly; sometimes I'm working 20-hour days, sometimes I just sit there and knit with one eye on my inbox. I also study part time at the university (or should I say universities since I attend two) towards two Master's degrees, the first of which I am hoping to finish next year.

I can be found on Ravelry under the name Iseult, please do add me if you're a regular reader or think you may become one!