a little knitting

i am not completely away from knitting. i have knit a zimmermann very fast cap for the opinionated plus adrians we call them pirates cap. the latter is for my venezuelan friend who claims to be of pirate descent and who ended up down the road from here when he was a young sailor. he likes this motif i have noticed and always wears some kind of headgear on top of the dreadlocks. he may like this. hopefully there won't be a cap curse (like the sweater curse).
and i have bought priscilla gibson's knitting in the old way. lovely book. i enjoy reading in it.
and work is hard. omg i never knew children could make so much noise. it is against their nature to sit down on their behind. i wonder if i was like that. well i still find it a bit difficult to sit for a long time..

and the winner is....

changing job is much more of an ordeal than i had expected. but it is good. and my new colleagues are lovely to say the least. but it means that i have not been a very active blogger. and i did not find a winner of the contest on friday as promised. i am sorry.
i wrote down a list with numbers and names of you all and called my nephew and asked him to say a number between 1 and 34. he picked number one which means that peggy is the lucky winner of the book. i hope she will enjoy and know that she will use the book in an innovative way. peggy is an impressive knitter and a newbie to knitting. a very impressive newbie.
i have really enjoyed to read all your answers to the questions. very inspiring. so thank you.

the last norwegian sweater.

here is the last norwegian sweater based on ez's raglan with my modifications inspired by the norwegian 'fanatrøje' but in a not very norwegian colour combo. the sleevetops are 40 % of K and neck opening would have been way too small if i'd 'eaten up' all the sleeve stitches. i made a 1-1 rib neck a i have sewn it down (live stitches right off the needles). i have used meg's technique to minimize the jogs. you knit one row with the new stripe colour on the next row you lift up the stitch (in the other colour) and knit the two stitches together. i have never heard of this technique before enterering blogging world and i thing it is a great thing to know since it really makes the stripe work look so much better. and maybe that is the motor in knitting. you always find something new to experiment with in order to make the finished product look nicer than the last thing you knit.
i tried hard to get a group portrait of the three little recipients. but either one of them slept or the three year old didn't want to try his sweater on. that is typical 3 year olds. i remember a discussion about the topic at zimmermania.
but the mother of the little boys was very pleased with the sweater and some of her family members (in laws) want me to knit for them now.

i am afraid that there may not be much time for knitting. i started on the new job today and i feel completely knackered after meeting all my new colleagues. the room where they teach crafts looked very attractive. hopefully the kids get inspired to make crafts even when they are grown up. not that i was ever inspired by any teacher of mine.....

a knitter's abc

this is buster a prizewinning sheep that i know nothing more about than it is the breed gotlandsfår and lives in sweden and won the prize because of the ewe.

this is hønsestrik. knitting tradition invented by the danish feminist movement in the 70es and still a curse word when speaking about knitting here. well kirsten hofstätter actually had her books published by penguin. not so bad.

on monday i am in the game of teaching children again. i am going to teach english, art, history and religious studies. it is a weird and scary feeling after years of teaching adults danish as a second language. i hope all shall be well..... argh. but in a way it can be nice since children are curious learners where adults only want to learn what is useful for them.. i guess this is the reason for i have taught mig self jogless stripes and provisional cast on and so on. i really needed it.

and this this is my fiftieth post i will post a knitter's alphabet.

A: a is for ALBA and ALBERT who turned my head to knitting again.

B: B is for BEAVERSLIDE from whom i just received lovely yarn and colourcards (and B is definitely for Brooklyntweed as well. a lovely source for inspiration and for bloggers)

C: is for cast on and hopefully for cast off.

D: is for durable yarn.

E: is for Elizabeth

F: friendship among knitters worldwide. i love it.

G: is for garter that is much more interesting than i thought.

H: is for knit up HEM. beautiful feature.

I: is for interweave knit.

J: is for jogless stripes. truely amazing.

K: is for kitchener. such a beautiful finishing technique.

L: is for lice patterns.

M: is for Meg and for me and for MORE knitting.

N: needles of which i only accept ADDI,

O:order yarn online and order in your stash.

P: is for purl. not as bad as it's reputation.

Q: questions (answer the question in the former post, please)

R: rowan. lovely yarn. esp. rowanspun. how could they discontinue it???

S: sheep. merino, bluefaced leicester, rambouillet. just imagine a year ago i didn't know one breed of sheep. now i am going for jeopardy.

T: tweed. i love tweed yarns.

U: uld. danish word for wool.

V: verse. like the kitchener verse. purl, knit. knit. purl......

X: is for x-large stash.

Y: is for yarn. what else?

and Z is for??????? oh yeah zimmermann of course.

celebration and contest

i actually have so much to celebrate this year. my three very best friends who appeared in my life 25 years ago have stayed. and i am soon on blog post # 50 and sweet albert and sweet alba, the knitting muse, came into the lives of my family one year ago. and i have been the happy blogger for 50 posts very soon. and my glass is definetely half full more than half empty.
so i will have a competition here. and the prize is a very old book that i love: annechen sibbern bohn: norwegian knitting patterns. even the divine ms. z quotes from it in knitting w /0 tears odds are mighty good right now. it is a staple in anyone's collection of knitting books. and i would love responses to the question when does somebody else's design become your own?????? on this post when you enroll for the contest????
i will find the winner on the 24th of august.
good luck.
cheers
merete aka knititch

motley and grey

i have a little motley collection of pictures today (i have fallen in love with the word). well the birthday cake from yesterday certainly is motley don't you think??? it even made a couple of 3-4 years old crash alba's party. not only did they want candy for themselves but also for a few friends who i suppose must have been imaginary since i never saw the shadow of them. and the cake was yummy and the birthday girl enjoyed the party and the green tomten and a thousand other gifts enormously.
the next picture is of my purple readers. i am afraid they are my destiny. or i'll need to get very very long arms. i was knitting on the green/brown sweater today. and i made mistakes. without noticing before long after they were made. and i was even focused on not doing so. i am happy i don't feel as old inside and that my best friends also wear cheap brightly coloured readers and nests of grey frizzy hair on top of their heads, that helps the readers not to slip of one's head, as well.
and even my mentor, elizabeth, has a chapter on the subject in the opinionated knitter. charming.
and i will really need them for the next few days. the sweater i am knitting is nearing the end. and that is lovely. i am bored with the yarn now. i love it but need to move on.
the fair isle needs mending. a strand was cut in some mysterious way. and now i need to mend it. my heart sank when i heard. but as i say: kitchener on with hope and confidence through all crises.
and the last is of course the swatch for the saddle-shouldered aran in which jared looks so wonderful. i am knitting it for myself and now i am getting a little bit concerned whether it will just make me look retro in a not so becoming way. i will knit it and if it is disaster i will pass it on to somebody who doesn't have the curse of a nest of grey hair (roving?) on top of her head. my niece, the fair isle molester, for instance.

alba's birthday or one year of knitting, again!!!!

today is alba the little polar bear's first birthday. and for me it has been one year of seriously getting back to my old hobby, knitting. it all started when the happy mother to be asked me why
i never was creative any longer. i couldn't live with that ;-) and hence i started knitting again. and ever since it has been more than three projects as an average per month. and this hobby of mine has certainly lead me many places. i am very happy about all my new virtual knitting buddies here and at zimmermania and newly at ravelry

i am impressed with all the creativity that is out there and skills. it is great that some many good women and men continue to knit as it is something special, in my opinion. and due to the many requests i get for knitting a little something, say, a fair isle sweater, many people agree.

it has been the year i discovered elizabeth zimmermann and that has certainly broadened my view upon knitting. i love her ideas and her wit.

to celebrate my year of knitting i got myself a few 'little somethings'. one is this book , that i hope i will cherish very much. the other is 3 skeins of yarn plus colourcards from leanne. i cannot begin to say how nice it was doing business with leanne. i almost felt i was in montana because of a few evocative emails she sent me. i contemplate buying some of her yarn for a sweater eventually. hopefully i will start my saddle shoulder aran this week. and the plan is to knit one for my nephew as well.

as well as i am not buying local and i am really sorry but there is hardly any new things to buy in my opinion. in other knitters opinion there is though. stephanie is knitting a kauni cardi by danish designer ruth sørensen and that has caused a lot of discussion at various blogs of where to get the yarn for this. i'd suggest to link here. this is maybe my favourite danish virtual lys. it is not very pricey and they have a good variety of yarn. the websites translates to english and we all know english here, anyway. so don't hesitate to shop. (no i don't get any profit).

i hope this is the start of a new year of happy knitting. i wonder where it will take me.

ravelry

today i was reading jean's blog and she had a link so you can find out where you are on your waiting list to ravelry. well it turns out that i had already been admitted but had not received the invitation. that is lovely.... and time-consuming i am afraid.

a leprechaurn tomten

this baby has certainly been a work in progress for very long but now it is finished. it is knit of rowanspun aran on needles #5 mm. there are a lot of new techniques included: garterstitch grafting, applied idiot cord, slipped stitch down the sleeve and i have knit up the stitches from the underarm rather than binding them of a sewing. and on monday i will have to teach myself how to sew in a zipper as i think there is a lot going on already without buttons.

it has been great doing all these new techniques but it is a strange fo. i have a love/hate relationship with the colour, i must admit. but tomten is one of my favourite patterns and i have yarn for an adult one too. that will be great fun and i love the colour for that one.

oh and the gig i went to was fab. if you like folk/country/bluegrass at all, you must go and see gillian welch who is genius as is her hubby dave rawlings. the concert stayed with me, making me happy, for days.