two finished objects and one to make

here are the latest fruits of my labour. a february sweater and a pillbox hat with gull pattern.

and the next fruit a fair isle yoke sweater.

the first is made of lilac debbie bliss: cathay. a pricey cotton/viscose/silk blend.

the latter is to be made of alpaca in three brown shades, a pink and a green. it is for my niece and of her own choice.

i have started yesterday but i have to frog because it is too small. i have a big swatch now. so all shall be well.

the rasta tam was given to the person it was made for. it suited him very well and he was a very happy. nothing like homemade gifts.

zimmermaniac?????

i have been a true zimmermaniac this weekend. i have listened to bob dylan aka robert zimmermann and i have been knitting more of elizabeth's projects. the hat is the pillbox hat (and yes i considered a to knit a leopard skin pillbox hat to make a fusion between knitting and music- a zimmermann hommage) and a february sweater. both are made form filatura di crosa: zara which in fact is a high quality merino wool. it has a lot of stretch which is a surprise when you wet block. the garments look enormous. i am not completely taken with the green colour hence i chose the wooden buttons to cool it down a bit.

i wonder how long elizabeth will continue to lure me into knitting. i love her patterns and i love the way she inspires me to create myself. with her patterns, although you sometimes don't understand a word at first, you can knit on with confidence.

how i learned to knit....

tina at teeweewonders.blogspot.com has told her knitting story on her blog. i will follow her example. i am born in to a family where lots of family members knit or embroidered or were doll makers or did other crafts. my mother's family were very meticulous in their way of doing the things where as my father's family were master's of their own knitting. i started taking needlework classes at school in second grade. the teacher was a hyena. not at all nice and no one wanted to learn anything from her because she spat. and she soon gave up on teaching me how to knit or sew or anything. so i had to turn to my mother who taught me the craft in a jiffy. at 13 i started getting seriously interested in knitting. there was a fad here with knitting things out of icelandic unspun wool and i loved the sweaters. at 13 and 16 i got nieces and i wanted to knit for them. at that time something called hønsestrik was very modern. men and women with relations to the feminist movement inspired us to knit sweaters with a political statement. and i followed their lead. i did a wee cotton spencer for one of my nieces which she now has passed down to her daughter alba. later i became a knitting teacher. i must say i really don't like when knitting becomes too established. at the knitting teacher college i went to most of the teachers were more familiar with sewing and hence wanted us to make paper patterns before we started to knit. for me it takes away the charm. i stopped knitting for many years after that. a few years ago i started and stopped again, but this summer my niece gave birth to her daughter and that sent me back in the arms of my old hobby again. and this time it has been so wonderful. i think the internet has put new perspectives into knitting and it is hard to stop again because you get inspired constantly by other bloggers. thank you for that inspiration.

tomten rules.

this is my little muse when it comes to knitting. ez does it again. this time we have a tomten that serves as a christening jacket. i adore the little girl but i adore the timeless tomten as well. the wool is filatura di crosa zara and anny blatt super angora. and then seven little mother of pearl buttons. i think this little one will go through childhood in one tomten or the other. she is an adorable polar bear and she has good genes. just take a look at the 88 year old great grandmother in pink. she is quite adorable too.

rastaman goes norwegian, tomten blocking and a nice large swatch.

thanks a lot to everyone who has paid compliments on my seamless hybrid. it warmed me and the sweater is much cherished by the recipient. and what have i been up to lately??? i have knitted a rasta tam for an african friend of mine. i hope he will like it. it is knit from the leftovers from the sweater.. great fun to knit colour patterns again. i do admit, though, that this is a pretty simple variation.

the tomten i have been blogging about in an earlier post is blocking. i am not over the moon with the way the yarn behaved (filatura di crosa, zara) after it was wetblocked. very elastic indeedy.

and the last thing i have been up to is a swatch. want to do the meg swansen saddle shoulder aran cardigan. i am in love with lime green for some reason. maybe because it suits you both when you have a suntan or when your skin is a bit reddish in the winter time.