living among fishbone, staghorns and sheepfolds.

i have finally started the saddle shoulder aran for my nephew stig. it is beaverslide worsted again. according to clara parkes three ply yarn makes better cables but that is just too bad. it worked quite well with peter's sweater where the cables are much more pronounced than you can see in my pictures. and the next project is going to be cables in two ply as well. i want to make an aran of the skye tweed i purchased back in may for me. so i am clicking away on this project and want to finish it as fast as possible.
today i touched qiviut. i even touched unspun qiviut. i want a skein of qiviut for christmas to make a koolhaas out of. it would be sooo nice. i think i will have to buy qiviut myself though. and this is probably what upsets me about christmas. you get busy and lose track of what people really want. and then you just buy something that is a fad or obviously useful like stockings or a perfume. the personal touch of gift giving disappears.
today i was in a bookstore where some girls wanted to buy a craft book for an aunt. one said to the other: i don't remember if it is crochet, needlepoint or knitting that she likes. hm hm. find out before buying would be my advice. it is not that i don't like christmas i just find it a bit over done.
the christmas ornament with the knitting girl is from rome. peter bought it to me when he was in rome last week. i suppose it reminded him of somebody.....

here is peter in his new sweater of which he says: i forgot i had a new sweater. to me it is like an old much loved sweater. and this is the quality one's clothes should always have. he loved it and i am so pleased. and it looks great with the grey hair and blue eyes in a 'danielle steele psychotherapist recently having moved from new york to a mansion in yorkshire' kind of way.

the wool is great and i love how it bloomed when blocked.

total knitting time was 18 days and i used about 6 ½ skeins of beaverslide worsted (90% wool 10 % mohair) in the glacier heather colourway on needles 3mm, 4mm and 4½ mm. the reason for the smaller of the needles is the tubular cast on/off that requires much smaller needles than a normal cast on/off. the cable is from barbara walker and is called aran braid. it is knit over twelve stitches but is very tight. the pattern is elizabeth zimmermann's raglan from the opinionated knitter.

it is special knitting for peter. he is my bestest, oldest and most lovely friend and i cannot fathom why i haven't done it much earlier.

weekend and a finished object.

the little jultomte at the top of the post is knit by my grandmother. now she decorates the houses of her great great grandchildren. i think that is nice to think about. i am also using the knitting books she gave me back in the eighties. that is nice too. she actually created things like that all her life. both her daughters are also quite gifted. one makes pottery and wall hangings here in copenhagen, the other in denver, colorado and all of the three has managed to sell things. i sold a little baby sweater too. but that was many years ago.

the birthday cake is made by a talented friend of mine and was a present for my father on his 83rd birthday today. doesn't it look yummy. you bet it was. my father has a penchant for these green frogs made out of cake. in some aspects we never grow up.

and carl, the pirate, looks very scary in his shiver me timbers sweater and all the other pirate gear. but the truth is, that i gave him some temporary tattoos a while ago. his mother told me that he only dared to have a dolphin and a seagull tattooed because he found the rest too dangerous. that is so cute. it is good to have a mother to protect you against scary tattoos.

and peter's sweater is finished and blocked. it is hard too see what it really looks like but i am very satisfied with the result and with all the techniques i have learned in the process. i have finally realized what the difference between a k2tog through back loop and the ssk is. and i love the result. i wonder why it took so long. i have learned the tubular cast on and cast off too. and that gives a professional look to one's handknit sweaters. the cast off is a little time consuming and i think it will be better the next time i do it, but it does something for your knitting and is worth trying. hopefully i can take some dazzling photos of it's dazzling recipient when i hand it over to him.

sheep thrills

the blue peter sweater is coming to an end pretty soon. and i am happy. tomorrow is his birthday but this was never intended as a birthday present but as a token of my thankfulness for having this wonderful and humourous person in my life. that is so invaluable.
and the next to come is meg swansen's saddle shoulder cardi. i hope i can figure out how to make the saddles but as machado says: camino se hace al andar.... and that was supposed to be my new motto, as i have mentioned earlier.
the grey yarn is eco gotland sheep wool. there are many christmas markets around these days and it seems that yarn has become very popular all of a sudden. this wool is very beautiful with a lovely sheen and i suppose i will make a moebius or something one fine day. after the saddle shoulder and my own aran from the skye tweed i bought back in may is finished. i am clicking away as fast as i can.
and talking about yarn. has anyone read the knittingcurmudgeon's article on kristin nicholas in the latest issue of IK? it is a great portray of kristin who has a new book out. she is having a yarn give away on her blog and i would love to win the yarn. wouldn't you??? i even think it may happen with my usual luck in yarn giveaways. i think kristin's designs are exceptionally happy and pretty. i also find it so sweet that kristin has named the yarn after her daughter julia. how many girls have a yarn named after them??? i also think the knittingcurmudgeon is a hell of a writer. her blog always makes me reflect.

knitting on television

look knitters this is what a tough police superintendant looks like on national danish television these days. for a whole year this woman in this sweater has filled our sunday nights. well she has one more quite similar. it is designed by top-notch icelandic designers gudrun and gudrun and has caused a lot of discussion in danish newspapers and knitting blogs. the owner of a small lys published a pattern for the sweater and the designers wanted to sue her for violating their copyright to the sweater pattern. the discussion of course was: how can a raglan with nordic star patterns be copyrighted by anyone alive today.
one can buy the 'original' sweater (which i believe is out of unspun icelandic) for the nice price of usd 550. and i do think it is paying respect to knitting that is goes for that price. it might take a little week to knit so the hourly pay is second to none. the discussion about copyright is difficult since i think it is important how you space the stars and the choice of colours.
the sweater i am knitting right now is a design by me, by elizabeth zimmermann, by barbara walker, by beaverslide dry goods or maybe by none of us.
but isn't it lovely that today's heroine wears handknits.

on friday i went out with a few other ladies. one was wearing a faroese sweater knit by her mother. i admired it very much and she gave it to me and said smell!!! no one else but knitters could get a kick out of smelling sheep. oh well maybe those who cut the sheep in the australian outback. the rest of the ladies looked a little puzzled....

i am now at the point where i have to join the body and the sleeves and then, elizabeth promises, it will go really fast due to the decreasing. so now i have to figure out which kind of paired decreases would be prettier. and then there will be the part that i am looking more forward to than everything else. the tubular cast off. does any one know if it can be done on circs or to be more precise when knitting in the round?????