knitting in public

well yesterday was the official day, but i don't know anyone to participate with as all the people i know love things i knit for them but don't love to knit themselves. and i do find the whole concept so funny (pecualiar). like a day for knitters to get out of the closet. like there would be something offending with knitting in public. i often knit on the bus, or in the park in the summertime. it is nice to walk to the park for the purpose of getting some knitting done. but when i read international blogs i envy those who knit in central park with a lot of much more eloquent knitters than i could ever find here, i tell myself in my wisdom ( and i am sure it is very untrue).

well i did even knit in public yesterday. and what happened? there was a big speedway competition going on at the stadium close to where i live so i was approached by several tipsy swedish speedway fans who just wanted to know if i could knit something for them since i knit at such amazing speed according to them. and they should know. well one even asked for a mössa which i found quite cute due to my penchant for everything elizabeth zimmermann.

and there has been knitting going on here. the second fair isle is finished and i am much more satisfied with the way the colours mix and match than i had expected. it is a boring knit except for the hems and the yoke and the calculation but it is also fast even when you work on smallish needles. total knitting time is about 2 weeks.

and i have started a new tomten for my little tomte. the colour is not very babyish but we don't like babyish colours much... for tomtens as least.

and there has been shopping. i have bought a few new books. alice starmore's book about men's sweaters from the scottish isles. some of the sweaters are completely from a time long gone (i.e. the fit) but there are some very good ideas to get for patterns. i definitely must cave in and buy barbara walker. it is ridiculous that i spend so much money on much less interesting books instead of paying that damn tax that may and may not be put on top of the price.

watch me.

oh yes and then 20 skeins of yorkshire tweed chunky. my niece has been begging me for an adult tomten. i was persuaded to do it because she said it was her 30th birthday which she also said when she asked for the fair isle. but it actually was last year. but who cares about numbers. as long as she doesn't turn 29 for a freaking amount of years.....

tomtenspirations

i am not the kind of blogger i like myself. i like bloggers who blog at least twice a week. but it ain't me. but today i received new wool in the mail. actually it is old wool since it is rowanspun aran and dk which has been discontinued for a long time. personally i find it a great mistake of rowan. both wools are so lovely to work with.

the green aran is in the colourway hardy and it is funky and spunky. the grey is dk and the colourway mist.

today i have swatched for a tomten with bobbles and i-cord. i tried out 3 sizes of bobbles which i suppose will all be included in the final garment. i tried two kinds of button-holes i.e. the loop i-cord button-hole and the hidden button-hole. i think the latter will be my choice. the sweater is for alba who has two already which she will have grown out of by winter. this will make her look maybe more like an irish leprechaurn than a tomte or a nisse as we say in danish. and that is not a bad thing in my book.

so eager as i am to start this modified tomten i better get back to tackling her grandmother's fair isle that i am sooooo much looking forward to finish.....

tomten rocks

when the cute alba was in the park yesterday with mummy she was a adressed by a group of american tourists who were dying to know where in copenhagen to buy the lovely little tweedy baby jacket she was wearing (rowanspun dk). my niece told them that it was her aunt who had knitted it for the baby and they replied that this aunt should knit a lot of them and become rich :-)) my poor niece got so confused that she couldn't get herself together and tell that it was actually an american pattern. i am happy that people think i can get rich and i wish tomten was my intention. i have ordered wool for another one which she can wear next winter. green rowanspun aran at cucumberpatch.co.uk. i think i will make it with toggles and a few bobbles.

the aubergine fair isle is proceeding fast without any problems apart from being a rather boring knit until the colourwork starts. and after that i shall seek new challenges. that i am damn sure about now. i can hardly wait and have five days off from work so i suppose the fun will start pretty soon. hooray.

an aubergine fair isle

as any knitter can tell i am knitting another fair isle yoke. my sister got envious of her daughter's and i thought why not knit another flawless one. she has a funny taste of colours and i had to deny her orange. i guess this can be a pretty and quite folklorish sweater. and i have been walking round town to do photo shoots on the progress. despite the rather thin wool and needles everything goes pretty fast. i have done the knitted up hem which i think i just such a wonderful detail to a sweater. and once i got the grip on the provisional crochet cast on it is no big deal. unfortunately i have no knitting buddies here who knows the other provisional cast on which actually looks easier if i only understood how. i am also going to work a bit on getting better on short rows. any advise is welcome.

fair isle yoke sweater

my niece's fair isle jumper is now a fo. i am not happy with my photography skills (where are brooklyn tweed or elli when you need them???) . the body doesn't have a moiré pattern in real life, but i am happy with the result. the shape, the drape and the yoke. and so is the owner. it has been a great learning process knitting this sweater and i am in awe of the pattern and very thankful to vogue magazine that made their own not seamless pattern for ez's original design, which initiated her to start her own business. since october i have knitted so many of her patterns and i have learned so many things about the skill despite having been a knitter since i was a young teenager and in love with sweaters knit on circular needles with unspun icelandic..

the sweater is made of alpaca from my favourite non virtual lys in copenhagen. the gauge is 25 to 4 knit on 3½mm addi turbos. i have 3 increase rounds using meg swansen's suggestions in the opinionated knitter. the upper sleeve is 40% of K. and there is no puckering. the main colour is a warm café latte, the yoke colours are baby pink, coffee brown, and greenish brown and a moss green. the inner hems are baby pink using the same method as jared did for his seamless hybrid. the only problem i experienced was trying to knit the sleeves on dpns. it seems i ended up with two different tensions in the beginning and the end of each needle. if you haven't knitted it yet, give it a try. it is great fun.

fair isle trials and tribulations.

i have made progress on the fair isle and i think the work is finally turning out to be a success. and it is certainly great fun to work on it. it is turning out exactly as retro/vintage as me and ulrika the recepient would like it to. the colours are even nicer than i thought at first and i will finish it tomorrow. but it has cost a certain amount of thinking and frogging. and i am not sure about the choice of yarn. the swatch is a swatch for my next project the lovely meg swansen saddle-shoulder aran cardi that i have been very much inspired to knit by jared and elli after seeing their fo's on theirr blogs and on http://zimmermaniacs.blogspot.com . i will post the finished sweater very soon.

fair isle trials

i have not been bloogging for a while simply because there has been nothing to blog about. or maybe there has. i have been experiencing problems with the ez fair isle yoke before even getting to the bit of colourwork. the issue has been a gauge issue. the gauge of the sleeves knit on dpns to be specific. the knitting was not very pretty because the gauge was not the same at the first and the last half of each needle. so i gave up and ordered a tiny circular addi turbo. that sort of solved the problem tonight. i could of course have knitted the sleeves on two needles but i somehow found that being a bit unfaithful to elizabeth....
i have also started a baby surplice sweater in porto cervo cotton from filatura di crosa in some of my favourite colours- lime and coffee.
but i have had most fun with the skye tweed i ordered from webs. i have been doing some serious swatching for the next project- the saddle shoulder aran cardi- from spun out/wool gathering. this is going to be a wonderful project. a little hot to knit in the summer but i will do it anyway because i am not happy with knitting with cotton. to be honest it is a waste of time mostly. the sheepfold pattern is especially satisfying. i love the look of it. i am sure it will not take that long and it contains a lot of possibility for learning. lifelong knitting learning. how lovely.
i have also ordered books. the harmony guide to aran patterns and ann feitelson's book on fair isle. i am establishing quite a nice little knitting library these days. hopefully i will soon pull myself together and order the barbara walker treasure and close my eyes to the fact that it may well be very expensive before it gets here. i think it is in the category must-have. i am afraid though that it will not be as fun to read as elizabeth's books which i read a little in every day. oh dear that woman is so clever and hilarious and very blunt.