80’s Sweater

A while ago my mother gave me a booklet full of “retro” sweater knitting patterns from the 50’s to the 80’s. There were several fun looking patterns, but one pattern especially caught my eye, a pattern from 1982. It just looked so big and soft, and most of all, it looked fun to knit. I had never tried that kind of stitch pattern before.

I immediately bought the yarn with some of my savings.

It is knit in a beehive pattern, with rows of garter stitch.

Here is an instruction video for the beehive stitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyTYUUaTn2Y

If you hate purling, this is a stitch for you. there is no purling!

The pattern was fun all the way thru. And since it was knit using two strands of yarn, and on 7 mm needles, it just grew so quickly. I am sad to have finished it already.

 

Mending my mothers favorite sweater

My mothers favorite sweater is one I bought in a thrift store 13/14 years ago. It is thick and cozy, and she wears it all of the time. And as you can see, it shows. The cuffs were completely worn down. So she asked me to knit some new ones, and I was happy to.

I like mending things. It gives me great satisfaction to prolong the life of worn out clothing and socks. And this was easy. I did the first cuff before I went to bed, and the second one I did while having breakfast with my mother.

I started off by putting a lifeline thru the row of stitches just below the ribbing. Then I cut thru the above row of stitches. After the cuff was removed it was easy to put the live stitches on a set of dpns and knit a new one.

I was lucky that I had some matching yarn leftover from a blanket I had made. I dont think I could have found better matching yarn.

I used Jenys surprisingly stretchy bind off, to avoid that the cuffs became too tight.

Now I just need to mend the pile of socks my mother has been saving for me. To make it more fun, I found a bunch of colourfull sock mending yarn at the local thrift store.

At least my parents socks are possible to mend, with a few holes each. My father in law came to me with his old socks, for me to mend, once, and they were beyond repair. So worn out that the entire sole was see thru, barely holding together. And I have noticed that the ones he wears now are in the same condition. He uses the socks I make him a lot.

Arne & Carlos rabbit slippers

These slippers were supposed to be a Christmas gift for a friend, but I never managed to  get started until January.

The slippers are from the book: 30 Tøfler (30 slippers), by Arne & Carlos.

X-Books

I used Lima yarn from Hjertegarn, on needles sized 6 mm. They are knit in the round with two strands of yarn using stranded/Fair Isle knitting technique, the yarn is not held double.

Before knitting these slippers,  I have never been able to hold both strands of yarn while knitting stranded/fair isle, even though I have tried many times. But some how it suddenly made sense in the beginning of these slippers, and it made everything much easier.

We were babysitting my Sister-in-Laws dog while I was knitting.

The ears are knit as one long piece, that is then folded and crochet together. Knitting four of these was the worst part. You never get into a proper flow, when you have to constantly turn your work. But my husband had fun.

I forgot to take a picture of the slippers before felting, but they were ridiculously large. The first time I knit a pair of slippers from the book I thought I had done something wrong, because they were so big, and there are no finished measurements in the book to consult, just the gauge. But even though they were almost 1/2 meter long before felting they turned out fine, maybe even a bit small. I did have to pull a lot to get room for the big toe.

I just wish I were better at doing duplicate stitch, because the rabbits face is not as white as I could have wanted. But I have read up on it, and it is supposed to be easier if you use two strands of a thinner yarn.

They have been wrapped in some fun grass printed wrapping paper, because I love wrapping up gifts nicely.

Yarn from my pen pal.

As if lifting a spell, immediately after posting that I did not feel like knitting, I was suddenly filled with the urge to create.

First I made a tiny necklace/cozy for my MP3 player. It is brand new, but so annoying for having to be in a pocket. My summer dresses do not have pockets. There is a hole at the top of it, as if to put a string thru, but the hole is at a strange angle, making it totally impossible.

I made it from some yarn my pen pal once sent me, it was a gift from her mother to me. I can not remember that brand, but it is a silk blend, and I absolutely love the color of black with a bit of red in it.

It is just a quick and easy pattern of single crochet. I did swatch first to calculate how many stitches were needed. I did it in the round, and did the cord before the strap. Also I left a long tail at the beginning, to close the bottom. This way I only needed to sew in two ends.

After this I decided to use some other yarn my sweet pen pal had sent me, some hand dyed merino wool from Canada. Again, I just love the colors. They fit my style perfectly.

A quick search on ravelry.com led me to the Violet Waffles pattern. I wanted something simple because of the variegated yarn, but still with a bit of structure.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/violet-waffles

My gauge was a bit of with 20 instead of 22 st pr. 4 inches, but I took a gamble. Ribbing is usually very forgiving.

It was fun and quick, only took a few hours. I hope my sweet sweet pen pal sends me more lovely yarn in the future. I’d better send her something back.

I also just cast on my first toe up socks. Let’s see how that goes.

Too hot.

I haven’t been knitting as much as I want to, despite no lack of free time. At first it was just too hot to knit. My hands got sweaty and the wool wouldn’t slide on the needles. Now the weather is better, a bit cloudy, but I just don’t feel like knitting. I have taken up a shawl I started last summer, but it bores me. I am in a knitting limbo, I want to knit, but I don’t want to knit. Maybe I just need a break.

What I have done is fix my husbands skate boarding shorts. He is a longboarder and because of the tricks he does he is constantly ripping up his pants.

As you can see it is not pretty. Whenever I have to repair them, which is often, I simply cut out a piece of leftover denim big enough to cover all holes, pin it to the back and zig zag everywhere. The finished behind is not much prettier then before, but at least the holes are gone so he doesn’t ruin his boxers as well.

The first few times I did this, I tried to make it look nice. But I soon learned that it was a waste of time. One butt slide and they are ripped again. However, my husband pays for these services with one beer per fixing, so I don’t really mind 🙂

Beatnik sweater

Finally summer has arrived, time to knit outside!

My husband was going out riding his longboard and I accompanied him with my current WIP, the Beatnik sweater from Knitty: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEdf10/PATTbeatnik.php , and a beer because it was friday.

I an using some yarn I got for my birthday: Peer Gynt from Sandnes Garn. I am knitting on 3 1/2 mm needles because of my loose gauge. I had to do the twisted rib on 2 1/2 mm needles, it was hell. I HATE doing twisted rib. It looks nice though.

So far it is really fun with all of the cables. I have knit the entire back and am almost finished with the front.

The only thing about summer knitting, is that you can only knit for so long before your hands get all sweaty. But the sun is so nice, for now. I am sure that in two weeks I am whining about how hot it is.

Foxy socks

Last month was the cozy toes exchange on redditgifts.com, and with my love of knitting socks I had to join.

For my first giftee I knitted the “Es duftet nach Lavendel” socks, from my book “Socken aus aller welt”. I took amazing pictures of the socks before I sent them of to their recipient, but I had failed to put the memory card back into the camera, so you will just have to make do with this picture taken upon their arrival in the UK.

The grey ones are the Lavender ones, the red ones are from the same book, but I knitted them back in December. I decided to send them along because my giftee had stated her favorite colours to be grey and red.

Because knitting and gifting is so much fun I just had to sign up to be a rematch. Basically it means that I gift someone who has been shafted by their original Santa, and I do not get anything in return.

My rematch is from Scotland, and stated that he loves foxes and funky socks. I found the perfect pattern for some foxy socks by Drops: http://www.garnstudio.com/pattern.php?id=7302&cid=3 . Unfortunately the pattern only went up until a size 37, so I made some changes for them to fit a size 44.

I used Arwetta classic from Filcolana. Two skeins orange, one skein white and some leftover black. To make a size 44 I cast on 68 st on 2,5 mm needles, and knit 17 cm ribbing (k2p2). I knit the heel flap across 34 st in stockinette, for a total of 24 rows. To make heel, k22,ssk, turn. K11,k2tg,turn. K11,ssk,turn. Repeat the last two rows until all st have been knit. Pick up 18 st on each side of the heel flap. The rest of the sock is knitted in stockinette. Decrease on each side of the heel flap every other row until a total of 66 st are left. Knit foot until 19,5 cm. Knit chart A from pattern. Start decreases immediately after chart is finished, decreasin 4 st/round. Decrease once, then ever 3. row three times, then every other row three times, then every row until you have 10 st left.

I hope he likes them!

Honestly I have a love/hate relationship with knitting for these exchanges. I hate the pressure of a deadline, but I love making things for people. I am often asking myself, as I am stressing over a project, ” why do you keep on doing this to myself?”, but as soon as I finish the sense of completion just makes all the stress worth wile.

This month is the Yarn exchange, and I can’t wait to go yarn shopping!

For anyone interested there is also a Lego exchange, and a Harry Potter exchange and a few more. It is so much fun!

 

 

 

Red

I participated in the redditgifts.com colour exchange last month. It was really fun. My colour was red, and inspired by that, I give you a series of red things:

First my gift from the exchange. I got some wonderful yarn from “Lorna’s laces”, and can’t wait to start knitting with it. Also, I got Duck Tape. I have seen all sorts of things crafted with this, but can’t really decide what to make.

My dream journal. I am training lucid dreaming. I heard  radio broadcast on the subject, and thought it sounded really fun. Besides writing down your dreams, you need to practice doing reality checks all of the time.

My cookie can filled with scrap sock yarn. It has cats on it!

Close up of some socks I knitted in December. “Urlaub in den Bergen” from the book: “Socken aus aller welt” by Stephanie ven der Linden. It is in German. The socks in it are beautiful and challenging.

Plastic fish I used to bathe with when I was little.

I collect buttons. I have a dozen of the deer ones, but I can’t bring myself to use them.

My husband was very proud of his pizza, and really wanted me to post it. I think it fits in here with its tomatoes.

“Pairfect” sock yarn from Regia that I got for my birthday. It makes two identically striped socks! You cut away the yellow yarn and that way you are easily able to find the same starting point for both socks.

And last, a Hario coffee cozy I knitted. I was tired of getting stressed out by how quickly the coffee got cold. I made a pattern: Hario coffee cozy

Oak ribbed sock

I found a bag of sock yarn at one of our local thrift stores, so I have been knitting socks again this week. More precisely I have been knitting the Oak Ribbed Sock from one of my favorite books, “Knitting vintage socks” by Nancy Bush.

Now, as much as I love this book, I do have at least one problem with it: Why does my heel not look like the one pictured? Why is my heel flap so long compared to the pictures? I feel like they must have cheated some how, knitted one sock and written the pattern for another. After being annoyed for a while, I decided to fix it. In the picture below you can see the sock pictured, the grey sock followed the books pattern and the blue sock I my revised pattern.

The pattern calls for a heel flap worked over a total of 32 rows, slipping the first st on each row. For the gusset you then pick up one st for each slipped st = 16 st.This creates a heel that is too long compared with the gusset. My revised heel flap is worked over a total of 24 rows, the first st on each row is not slipped, but either knit or purled depending on which side of the work you are on. For the gusset I still pick up 16 st, that is every two out of three edge st. I continue according to pattern. This heel looks a lot more like the one pictured, and the gusset width matches the heel flap length. I wish I had done this a long time ago, like 10 pairs of socks ago.

 

Green sweater with ribbed yoke.

So, being on sick leave has its perks, like being able to finish a sweater in only four days, three actually since I spent one day darning socks. I am really happy with how it turned out. It is not too big and not too small. It’s perfect.

I used the dimensions from the childs cardigan(see earlier post) to calculated the dimensions of my sweater. I did this because I have a bad habit of underestimating the width of the sleeves, and thus always get tight sleeves. I think it stems from a fear of getting too floppy sleeves. It is not really cheating, is it?

It was actually a really easy sweater to make, hence the speedy finish.

I  was worried for a while that the neck would be too wide since it is almost 100 st, but the ribbing keeps it in place.

I wrote out a pattern for anyone interested, but it is only for a size small. I can’t even begin to comprehend how I would calculate other sizes. It shouldn’t be too difficult to scale the pattern up or down to your size though. You just need to make sure that the amount of stitches for the yoke needs to be divisible by four, because the ribbing starts out as p3 k1.

Sweater with ribbed yoke

My husband got me a beer with a cat on it, it was very dark but still refreshing. I am not sure how a smoky and dark beer like that can leave you refreshed, but never the less it did. It was quite carbonated, so maybe that has something to do with it. But of course the fact that it had a cat on it, was far more important then taste.