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...

argh or øv as we say in danish.

i have a new love. and when love isn't over or hasn't started it is normal to be eagerly anticipating for one's love to come along. my new love is porom in jamieson's dk by the one and only jared ( i do not have to link). alas there wasn't enough yarn as i had read it as to skeins were needed but they are twice as big in the us as in europe. so now i hope mr. gary jamieson of shetland islands will be quick to send me the missing skein plus a few other.

jared says that a light dk is needed for this project and i agree. this is the right yarn that both shows off the lace and gives the right drape. and it is very different from any other old yarn. and i know yarn.

it always takes a long time to ship from the hebrides or the shetland islands. i wonder how it is done. by boat, by a weekly ship, by helicopter.

one day i will go there and find out for myself. wearing the porom and saint brigid.

comments

i knit a lot in public and right now i enjoy early autumn by sitting in 'my' park knitting in the afternoons. it is fun how people react. men will always say: how diligent you are. do men like diligence in women???

and today a spanish lady came and exclaimed: san mirar. relaxacion.

but the best comment this week was when somebody stopped me in the street and asked where i bought st. brigid. not because i particularly wants my knitting not to be home made but it is nice to get a compliment from a stranger in the street.

i have finished secret garden. another starmore knit. i cannot begin to say how clear and lovely her patterns are. and i learn a lot i can use for my own designs when i am back at creating my own things. it is a little thing but with a lot of techniques to be learned. and i am a sucker for technique right now.

the yarn is a kit from virtual yarns in red rattle. yes i also learn about scottish flora and fauna by shopping with alice. the button was given to me from my mother 30 years ago. and the lovely little tag is made by peggy of noodleknit fame. there was no way to make alba model it today. and never mind that. she is cute anyway.

i have embarked on knitting a few arans for my grandnephews. and then i have a sweater for my brother on the needles. there is a lot of twisted purl stitches so i shouldn't knit too diligently on that one.

st brigid no. 2

here is my latest st. brigid. it wasn't less fun to knit the second. i love the pattern and learn a lot about cables when i knit it. my st. brigid's has a lot less ease than the original pattern due to my gauge that is obviously different than alice's. and i am happy about the more snug fit that in my opinion makes it much more wearable. especially for skirt girls like me and my sister. she is alba's grandmother.

i used to think it was not so hip to knit other people's patterns but i have changed opinion. there is a lot to learn when using a skilled knitter's patterns. as for example alice's or jared's . and from that learning experience it is possible to refine my own designs eventually.

the whole knitting process was very fast with this one. it made me think of when the mice helped cinderella hem the dress for the big ball. i almost felt like some one was doing the work for me. from start to finish the whole thing was done in a fortnight.

the yarn is hebridean 3 ply. i absolutely lurve this yarn. it has all the qualities a good yarn should have. and there are some amazing colours all inspired by different aspects of nature and especially the nature of lewis in the hebrides. i love reading alice's colourstories on her website. the colourway is fulmar which is inspired by the colours of this bird's wing. it is a kind of latte colour with whispers of rust, green and dusky pink. a very unusual colour that changes a lot depending on the light. i guess all colours do but this does it very much. and yes we like to wear hats indoors.

i have a lot of projects that i want to knit. i want to knit jared's new hats and ordered some jamieson's for one of them. and the red hebridean 3 ply is for a matinée coat for alba in a design by alice starmore from her book 'the children's collection that is available at her website at a reasonable price ( 12 gbp) and at an unreasonable price at ebay. maybe it will be a collector's item in time to come.

i have also started knitting irish moss from aran knitting for my brother in cushendale from ireland . it consists of a lot of purl stitches knitted from the back so i think it is important to have more than one project going on since it does make your hands and arms ache a bit.

oh dear what a lot of boring details.... i always wonder if my blog posts would be a bit more fun in danish.

my knitting refuge

so i am going on and on about knitting in the park. be warned my park is nothing like central park but it has lovely benches, lovely flowers, plants and trees and i have spent all spring and summer and now autumn sitting there knitting for a few hours almost every day. it is a 40 minutes walk from where i live and a nice place to spend a few hours. i love the benches, i love the castle (rosenborg) and the whole ambience of the place. when i am there with friends i tend to sit in the grass sharing some wine. all summer the gardener took take of the flower beds that were colours ranging from a warm rusty orange to baby pink (poppies mostly). little alba used to say: isn't it beautiful... right now there are yellows, lavender, purple and browns. i wonder what mr. noro would get out of that..

and when i look at the medallion on the bench i think it would be easily adapted into a cable or a pattern for some colourful fair isle knitting.

design ideas are all over the place if you want them to. and not only in pretty places like this.

and i am knitting away on my 2nd st. brigid for my sister. the colourway is fulmar and it is a strange pinkish russet beige colour. i like it . it has, like many of her heathers a strange kind of pale opal look. strange to compare opal and wool, maybe, but that is what i think.

i think i can actually finish this within 2 weeks. that is my goal. and then i am going to knit irish moss by alice for my brother. this time i am going to use cushendale dk from stephanie, a fellow raveller. her shop is in ireland, in a town called moneytown, and she is very good to do business with. good prices and excellent customer service. if you are after some nice irish yarn. try her out.

what are your autumn knits.