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: 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!