frog

i was rather tired of the little rivers . they are not so little when they have to fit a two meters tall man who is well build. so the library texted me and told me that norah gaughan's knitting nature had arrived. i had wanted to knit the sunflower tam for a while. off i went to collect the book and buy some lopi which is the yarn the pattern calls for. and off to knitting on 2 sizes smaller needles than the pattern calls for since i thought the needle size compared with the number of stitches sounded wrong. but even at another gauge this hat turned out enormous even for my big head. even for the elephant man.

i had also ordered some organic yarn from garthenor in wales for a ponchito for me, since it is said to be enormously nice to wear on one's cold shoulders. i whipped it of yesterday and it has turned out beautifully. i will post pictures at some point. and the yarn is fab and smells of wool and is three ply which i love. i will get some at another point to knit a cardigan with a zipper for myself. the one i knitted for my nephew proves to be really useful and it is nice to be able to open it when the temperature changes during the day...

alba asked: tell me, what are you knitting??? how cute is that?? she has taken a fancy in her dad's green koolhaas and wants one her size now. she is fun. a 2-year old with a craving for koolhaas. when will she be able to learn to knit????

little rivers

i am a sucker for alice starmore. in fact i am a sucker for anyone who can write a lovely pattern that is easy to understand. i am also a sucker for doing all the calculations myself sometimes, but right now i am so interested in alice starmore's cablework and i wish it was possible to get to see all her books. at the biggest library in copenhagen they have none. too bad since they are out of print.

i have started knitting little rivers from stillwater. somebody, whose identity has to remain secret :-)), borrowed me the pattern. it is for my brother who is your typical middle aged man but also a middle aged man who is about two meters tall. so there is a lot of knitting to do. originally i wanted to knit irish moss but knitting purl stitches through the back loop just doesn't agree with me and my hands. so this one is easier on the hands. it is a pretty easy pattern to memorize but involves cabling on both rs and ws. so at the same time it isn't mindless knitting.
the yarn is cushendale for the yarnroom and it is actually the exact same yarn as blackwater abbey. a two ply yarn with some scratchiness to it. and it comes in some very lovely colours. if scratchy is your thing, i highly recommend it. and the price is good too.

i love the look of the pattern and it is not hard to imagine how she came up with the name little rivers. and another thing is her ribbings. you would never get a 'normal' ribbing on a starmore pattern. that inspires me a lot. i also used a decorative ribbing on alba's st. alba, that of course was so inspired by her.

right now i am reading cynthia gravelle le count's andean knitting. it is a lovely book. i have been fascinated by chullos since childhood when the big hit was el condor pasa. on the cover of the record there was this man wearing a chullo. and reading about it makes it even more fascinating. it is the most intricate beautiful knitting and one of these days i will knit one on tiny tiny needles.. being a dreamer and an optimist i always hope to go to bolivia or peru at one time to learn..

poromaniac, or we are family....

i have been knitting lovely poroms in 6 colours in all. 4 of them in the yarn jared suggests. and i agree with him. this yarn is fab and could be my desert island yarn. take me to a desert island with all those hues and i would never bother anyone again. or let me spend a little time in the shetland islands among the sheep and the lovely sheepish products. and you will not hear from me while i am there.

i made a yellow one is the colourway yellow ochre

a green one in the colourway seaweed

a purple one in the colourway dusk

and a brownish one in the colourway

i knit one each night and the knitting is great fun and the pattern is so well orchestrated by jared who isn't only a great connaiseur of colours and yarn and knits lovely things but also is a great tech knitter. every thing is so well explained. well except one thing. what is a porom?? i learn a lot about different cultures from knitting but this one i have no idea about.

i am looking forward to wearing my poroms. i think it becomes most people with a hat. and this makes one look like rastaman goes tweedy or a character in a dickens novel. i am not sure if i am going to keep all of them but in a way i think it would be great to let them stay together as a family that can spice up my wardrobe any day.

a really bad photographer

i have been knitting accessories like a mad woman lately. and unfortunately my knitting is very often better than the pics of my knitting.

last week it was my sister's 54th and i gave her a present together with a lot of other family members. so i thought i'd make her a little knitted surprise. i had two lovely skeins of tweedy lambswool from my lys, that i originally bought for a porom. so i doubled it and whipped of a feather and fan scarf. it is a lovely green. the kind of colour that makes us scandinavians with reddish skin look just so much better. i am obsessed with green because i think it balances your natural colours and because it is good with any eye colour.

i am always in doubt whether to buy yarn from my lys that carries some nice yarns and is expensive or ordering it online which is cheaper. the owner of this lys is such a delightful and generous person who is really interested in her trade. when i was there the last time she had beautiful wooden crochet hooks on sale and when i wanted to buy a few she didn't want to charge me. how nice is that. i insisted on paying though. i would like her shop to stay where it is. but i love the secret bond among us crafters. we have this love of sharing it with other people with the same love of fiber and tools. and it is good to have a good irl chat about fiber and knitting techniques every once in a while.

now i have to get my brothers sweater going. or the wallabies for my great nephews. a knitter is always busy......

a quick knit

i love knitting intricate patterns and things that are not finished too soon but sometimes the opposite is quite nice too. and my niece requested a ponchito in thick wool. so this is how i spent friday night. the style is sold in all the hippest shops here right now at the outrageous price of usd 200 or 900 danish kroner. so it really pays. my niece likes berry colours so her's is in raspberry. if i were to make it for myself i think i would choose some kind of earthy hue.

i simply cast on 35 stitches and knitted moss stitch through 4 balls of drops eskimo ( 200 meters), cast off and sewed the short side to the long side. easy peasy.

and then a picture of alba in the tomten i knitted for her more than a year ago in true zimmermann style with looong sleeves and such. i just wanted to show that it still fits her and is her all time choice for a jacket. she calls it her salad leaf jacket. how cute is that.

hat binge!!!

i am always knitting on a big project which i have promised somebody and some times i becomes too much of a big project and then i love to knit some hats. i am like everyone else a big admirer of brooklyntweed and hence i decided to have a go on his new hat patterns habitat and porom (what does porom mean???).

i have lots of worsted in my stash so the habitats were going to be stashbusters where as i wanted to knit porom in the yarn jared suggests. so i ordered and i have now been waiting for nearly two weeks for two parcels from scotland. one from glasgow and one from the shetland islands and have an almost finished hat that i would really like to finish and wear. it is super annoying.

so i decided to whip off a few poroms in yarn from my stash. one in rowanspun dk. i have a lot of this and already knitted a few things in it. a great skinny dk wool with lots of nubs. the other is in silky wool type yarn from my local lys. i think i will wear them a lot. especially the first.

the curry coloured habitat is in classic elite skye tweed. i had just enough left from meg swansen's aran cardi and the other is in beaverslide worsted. also left from the first aran cardi and the st. alba sweater. i think i will give them away. the beanie type of hat is not the best for my big head.

i love knitting hats and i love hats as an accesory. there are many lovely hats to knit out there so maybe i should get knitting...