owls

as soon as i had knitted the last stitch on the mega sweater for my brother i cast on for another project. i had been inspired by mandy's owl cardigan she made for maggie last christmas and i had wanted to use the owl motif for something for alba. i think whatever suits maggie suits alba too. i am right in the slipstream of mandy. not a bad place to be.

the owl is such a wonderful motif and in catalania where half of alba's family lives it has a deep cultural meaning of being a symbol of wisdom as it of course does here where it is the symbol of bookstores as the snake is a symbol of apothecarians. i remember my middle eastern students being were scared of owls since it was a harbinger of evil.

i grew up with swedish author, elsa beskow's, children's book from last century where the owl teaches the animals and the tomter in the forest what they know. the pictures from her books were so evocative that they have stayed in my mind for all these years. and they are surely the books that i will get my great niece's and nephew's when they get a little older.

so i knit the owl dress from designclub.dk in the original yarn duo, in the most magnificent olive green. i cannot begin to say how much i love this yarn which in fact wasn't the original yarn, but the duo merino, which is a fingerring lambswool, and just the kind of 'honest' yarn that i love. i didn't care for the silk blend since i think silk has a tendency to get out of shape.

i used needles 3mm, and added golden beads as eyes and a greenish velvet ribbon. the pattern says you need 150 grammes of yarn but i only used 100. that is annoying since the yarn is anything but cheap. i am pleased with the end result and it suits her very well. it is a totally feminine dress. alba likes it too, but i forgot to bring the camera along. silly me.

i am happy to say that there is a baby on it's way in my family again. that means all knitting all kinds of baby stuff. i think i will begin with a baby shawl or maybe the spanish christening shawl from folk shawls by cheryl oberle. not that this child has any spanish roots.

blur

it just wanted to prove that i actually finished this baby. i think it has turned out well but i don't quite understand why it flares at the back. maybe it is due to the bigness of the sweater. my brother likes it and was going to wear it at a conference where he is a key speaker.

it is still impossible to take nice pictures and especially in the evening. and the colour of this sweater is quite unphotographable too.

i hope you can get the idea.

stats:

9 skeins of cushendale in the colourway moss.

knitpicks options no. 3½ and 4 mm

pattern little rivers from alice starmore: stillwater.

the pattern is inspired by rivers in delaware.

as all other starmore patterns this leaves you with absolutely no bad surprises. so well written. her sweaters are on the big side and this is no exception . i didn't have gauge so it is actually much smaller than the original and still roomy.

i cannot recommend the yarn enough. get some and knit a nice heirloom.

procrastination over and done with.

well i finally stopped procrastinating and gave the monster a eucalan bath and a spin and pinned it out on my rose and thistle duvet. my god this is a big sweater but hopefully i will be able to finish it tomorrow and move on. well i am already. the girly girly dress i am knitting is almost finished and i think i will knit a few aran weight sweaters afterwards for christmas presents. as i am not working i think i will have to make christmas shopping cheap this year.
i am looking and looking for the perfect job. i am getting quite impatient and hope for change soon. last night i dreamed i was obama's girlfriend (sorry michelle et al.). i am as keen on change as everyone.

and darkness, darkness

it is not getting much better- the light, that is. but as far as i remember, there can be glorious sunny january days. and right now joni mitchell sings: and darkness, darkness, no colour, no contrast. so lovely pictures in near future is more than i can promise.

i finished my brother's sweater. but i don't have it in me to sew the sideseams since it needs a wet block first, and that is about the most boring thing in this world. i hate all the pinning of all the pieces. usually i do it, but in this case i have to bring out a big duvet to pin on, since the sweater is huge.

so i forgot all about my last post and went out to get some new yarn with my niece. another ponchito for her. and a poncho for alba. the green for my niece, the cotton candy for alba. i came to think that she is a girl and maybe she has other colour preferences than me though i seriously doubt it. she wants a green bicycle for christmas!!! little miss strange.

the green amorphous knitting is a dress for alba. it is a dress with a border of owls. really cute. and soon finished...

oh yes and then my knitpicks. i think these needles are my new love. nothing is better. no addi, nothing is better.

a knitter insane

it is as you might be able to see, not because i don't have wool. i actually have to shelves in my book cabinet stuffed with wool and several bags sitting around in my apartment. there should be plenty to go on board in without adding to the stash. i mostly have a few skeins left from each project i knit since i always order a little more than i expect to use. i am afraid of running out of yarn for a given project.

and it is not because i don't have nice wool. i have lots of nice yarn. for instance i have a whole cone of perfectly good jaggerspun zephyr that would go well with the smoke ring i would like to knit. anyway i found myself stressing around all over copenhagen to buy qiviuk that i cannot really afford and because last friday was a bad day i wanted to cry or stamp my feet because no one seemed to carry it. and it almost went that way since i slipped on the slippery floor of one of the lys's and then i really wanted to cry. especially since they only had worsted weight qiviuk. it is obsessive and in sane and the fate of many knitters. why do we so desperately want to beaver more wool than with could ever knit in to projects??? well maybe i will be happy it this financial crisis gets any worse. but i am an optimist and it is nothing i really think about on a regular basis.

and after the qiviuk story i told myself that it was crazy so why did i go to a yarn store yesterday and buy the olive green yarn for a dress for alba???? there is a plenitude of things i could knit her out of the yarn i have in my cabinet??? useful warm hats and cowls for winter it is not like she is in terrible need of a knitted olive green dress??

i wonder why it becomes so obsessive and actually i think this is very much influenced by the internet. in the old knitting days i didn't buy more yarn than i needed and only bought anything if it was needed for a project. now i obsess though i think some people would consider my obsessing that of a novice. but i cannot bear to live without a qiviuk smokering or whatever until the next day or week when i want something else. maybe i should get a more meaningful hobby like helping out the homeless where i would surely be more able to draw a line.

PS: sorry about the lousy quality of the pics recently. when i looked out the window an hour ago i was thinking about the bob dylan song that starts with the line: darkness at the break of noon. so please forgive me.

change

congratulations to those of you who think it is the right man who was elected yesterday. it is an incredible story. i think it is the right man but now he has to prove himself. have seen a lot of insight docus lately about him and i think his story must leave a lot of hope for a lot of people round the world. and then it doesn't hurt a bit that he and his wife have 'it'. both of them. i am not sure i like here black and red dress but she was certainly dressed to fight in a dress of bullfighter value. and it will of course be a fight. i suppose it was no coincidence either that the girls were dressed to match their mom.

and a vote for him was a vote for change. too bad i couldn't vote. i think i have never needed change any more than now. both on the knitting front and personally. i am seeking for a job again. second time this year and one time too many. i some times feel a bit jinxed. i was working for 14 years the same place without any major problems and then this. i know that there has been a lot of different things helping me through this time, mainly myself. but knitting has certainly been part of it. both the meditativeness but certainly the creativity. i have been knitting from patterns lately but that is not all that bad. you learn a lot of the tricks of the trade.

and i have changed from knitting the body of my brother's sweater to knitting sleeves. i like knitting sleeves. i like increasing for some odd reason.

and i will hopefully finish in a week at the most. and then it is onwards to knitting something from the green yarn or starting another hat production or just something for plain me.

the long and winding road

it is not easy to keep one's strictly knitting blog up to date when one is a very monogamous knitter and when all the pictures one take end up slightly blurred due to the nordic light which is missing so much at the time being. it is november and the hardest month to get through in all the year. i am afraid i never used to worry much about november but it definitely comes with age.

and the knitting is almost as dreary as the month.. not that i don't get anything done. but little rivers aka the long and winding road is a major task. there is cabling on every row and a 180 stitches on every row. i calculated that the back and the front alone is more than 70000 stitches. i wonder how i have time for such calculations when there is knitting to do. thankfully i have now started the sleeves which means the sweater will be finished pretty soon. it is the smallest part of the sweater and i really don't mind knitting sleeves.

it will be nice to knit something else. maybe a sweater for me who has taken a liking in handknit sweaters because of st. brigid that i seem to be wearing all the time. so lovely warm and comfortable.

i think maybe i will have to start knitting some colourwork soon and hence i bought alice starmore's: charts for colourknitting from a fellow raveller. it is a great book. i love the little elk motif which i would like to use for an alba cardi. just a very classic norwegian lice kind of thingy.

i wish all americans a good election day tomorrow. it is nerve wrecking and oh so interesting what will happen since it concerns all of use in the global village. my friend has named his bird obama. i know what he would vote if he could.