Good morning 2010

My fiancé is "a maths person" and his tendencies have rubbed off on me to a certain extent. Therefore it makes me want to pull my hair out when people say that we have just started a new decade. Or when magazines announce the This-n-That of the Decade. Of course, if you normally start counting at 0 in everything, then be my guest and celebrate the new decade now. If not, wait a year.

In other news today: Finland is experiencing its coldest winter in years - indeed, the last few have been nearly snowless in the south. Yesterday the landscape outside my home looked like this:


Sunny with temperatures down to -25°C. It doesn't get much more wintry than this!

In the end, I was able to finish all of my Christmas knitting in time, just. I was still knitting the foot of my mother's second sock on Christmas Day while expecting them to visit, and had just finished kitchener stitching the toes when the doorbell rang. Talk about timing!

This Christmas I made mostly socks and hats. Here's the lowdown (photos may be replaced later on with ones of the recipients wearing their gifts)...

As a notable exception to the above, my fiancé received the gloves that he requested awhile ago. This was the second pair of gloves I had ever knitted, the first being a pathetic specimen created at school when I was 11 or so. Of that pair, the middle finger could have fit two fingers in and the rest were woefully small. All this considered, I think I didn't do tooo poorly this time. The yarn is scrumptious, too.


Pattern: Garter-Cluff Gloves by Deborah Newton (from the book Weekend Knitting)
Yarn: Sublime Yarns Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK (75% extra fine merino / 20% silk / 5% cashmere) in 0051 Button

Originally I planned on making my friend Elina a scarf. However, when I asked her what colours she likes to wear around her face, she got excited at the prospect of me making her a hat, so a hat it was. As soon as I saw this 1920's-inspired pattern, I knew it was the perfect hat for her.


Pattern: Side Slip Cloche by Laura Irwin (from the book Boutique Knits)
Yarn: Rowan RYC Soft Lux (64% extra fine merino wool / 24% nylon / 10% angora / 2% metallic fibre; discontinued) in 001 Pearl

Another case of "she-must-have-that-hat" happened with the next specimen. My friend Anna loves kooky things, cats and the colour pink. I had some pink yarn left over from Veera's Hello Kitty sweater, so I whipped up this hat for Anna.


Pattern: The Official Kittyville Hat by Kitty Schmidt (from the book Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook)
Yarn: Novita Samos (50% cotton / 50% acrylic) in 568 (main colour) and 628 (contrasting colour)

Maija is a friend of mine from secondary school times and will be my maid of honour at our wedding in July. To show her some love, I knitted her a pair of socks with hearts on them. The poor yarn is truly lovely, however it had been frogged twice already as I was trying to figure out the right use for it. Although it has no nylon in it, it proved to be great for bed socks.

Pattern: Seven of Hearts by Omly
Yarn: Bendigo Woollen Mills Mystique 8 Ply (75% wool / 20% mohair / 5% alpaca) in 769 Bolero

I mentioned earlier that I only just finished my Mum's socks in time. To be precise, I responsibly started the socks already in October, finished one, then put the other in the back burner thinking "the first one was so quick, I'll whip up the second one in no time", eventually casting on the second on Christmas Eve. Not a good idea. Mum loved them though - she had been secretly hoping for socks!


Pattern: Flame Wave Socks by Ann Budd (from the book Favorite Socks)
Yarn: Novita Nalle (75% wool / 25% polyamide) in 248

The idea was to knit both my parents a pair of socks. In fact, I bought a skein of dark red Novita 7 veljestä for my dad's socks. However, my mum decided that red socks were not appropriate for men so the idea was scrapped. Dad got a book instead. The 7 veljestä became socks for my sister, which I unfortunately forgot to photograph before giving to her.

As soon as my sister found out that I was knitting gifts, she submitted a request for her husband - a dark grey hat with no cables or other fancy bits and one or two rust-coloured stripes. I love it when I get detailed requests, it takes the guesswork out of it (especially if I don't already have my heart set on something). This hat is very simple in design but it actually fit very well, Tristan wants one now!


Pattern: Rib-a-Roni by Jane Tanner
Yarns: main colour Novita Aino (100% wool; discontinued) in 044, contrasting colour Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12 Ply (100% wool) in 938 Russet

I have already showed you Oona's earflap hat in progress; here's what it looked like when it was all done and done (like father like daughter, or something):

Pattern: Fancy Ribby Hat by Anadiomena
Yarns: main colour Rowan RYC Cashsoft DK (57% extra fine merino / 33% microfibre / 10% cashmere) in 501 Sweet, contrasting colour Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4 Ply (same fibre content) in 432 Bark

December must have been a busy time for storks - two little bundles were delivered to people close to me. My sister and her husband had a baby boy and a friend of mine from university had a daughter. Both babies received a pair of bootees:


Pattern: Saartje's Bootees by Saartje de Bruijn
Yarns: Rowan RYC Cashcotton 4 Ply (35% cotton / 25% polyamide / 18% angora / 13% viscose / 9% cashmere) in 913 Peppermint and Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4 Ply (57% extra fine merino / 33% microfibre / 10% cashmere) in 432 Bark

We had the opportunity to spend Christmas with two friends from Adelaide who were stranded in Europe for the holidays. I made a little something for each of them to go under the tree.

Tristan's cousin Kim had just about finished her exchange in Denmark and was preparing to go back home to Australia, so I didn't want to make her anything too warm or bulky to pack. Because I was so pleased with the washcloth I made for myself, I decided to make one for her as well.


Pattern: Knitted "K" Cloth by Rhonda White
Yarn: Novita Bambu (68% bamboo / 32% cotton) in 381 (yarn held double throughout)

Rogan, Tristan's friend from university, received a hat. I didn't want to make just a basic old hat, so I tried the alternating stripes ("Noro") technique that is very fashionable at the moment. I asked Tristan which colours I should go for, and he just said "not pink". OK.
This was another hat that turned out surprisingly well and made me want to keep it for myself!


Pattern: Turn a Square by Jared Flood
Yarns: main colour Novita Luxus Stone (100% wool) in 009, contrasting colour Novita Puro (100% wool) in 807 Iltanuotio

Phew! I think that's it.

Now that Christmas is done, guess what I started? Another pair of socks. To be given away. Don't worry, I started something else for myself as well! Deets to come later on.

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.

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...

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?