Heartfelt hat

I didn´t believe I would manage to take decent pictures of my new hat this winter. It´s so gloomy outside all the time... But today was magical. There was SUN outside for like an HOUR! I almost killed myself when I rushed to get my camera and then again when I found out that the battery is dead. Fortunately the precious Sun had mercy upon me and kept shining till the end of the "photo shoot".

Finally I have the picture for my new pattern! Now I just have to think up the name...

Holiday knitting

This year´s Christmas was kind of a breakthrough. I got YARN as a Christmas gift. It might sound ordinary but it was the first time in history that my family went to a yarn store and bought me yarn. Because they obviously know that yarn is exactly what you desire when knitting is your hobby. Yes, a hobby, not a deviation. I am moved. I feel comprehended. I have yarn in sweater quantity!

My brother himself picked some yarn for a scarf and he didn´t object to garter stitch. Good boy. The future never seemed so bright.

By the way the Interlocking Leaves Socks are finished. Hooray! Considering how long it took me to knit them I think I should send them to the museum of natural history straight away.

PhD socks and others

I am shocked. I checked my notes and realized that I had started knitting the Interlocking Leaves Socks (the purple ones) on 2nd July!

What is taking me so long? They were meant to be a Christmas gift for my mom. Shame on me, I didn´t make it on time. I finished the first sock in October but then my friend microbiologist called that she was defending her PhD thesis. I totally had to make some DNA socks for her! Pink ones. I dyed some Araucanía Ranco with pink food color and it turned out gorgeous! I used the June Oshiro´s DNA cable pattern .

This pair of socks sucked life from me. I am not sure why but I guess it has something to do with the cables. Hateful cables... After finishing these I just couldn´t force myself to get back to the second purple sock. I couldn´t force myself to knit anything. I thought that some instant-gratification project would motivate me so I quickly crocheted two pairs of fingerless mittens.

(Drops Muskat. A way to get rid of worsted weight cotton!)

(Debbie Mumm Traditions. A way to get rid of ANY worsted weight leftovers.)

Well, it didn´t motivate me but at least the mittens kept my hands warm when riding my bike to work. I didn´t knit anything for over a month which is rare. Three days ago I grabbed the needles again and it feels a bit better. I hope to finish the second Interlocking Leaves purple sock tomorrow.

And I hope to finish the Capucine pattern revision by the end of the year.

And I hope to write down the pattern for the buttony hat this week.

And I hope my I-hate-knitting period is over.

Cotton shawls

Cotton is not my favorite fiber to knit, to say the least. Yet I keep forgetting it over and over. It often happens that I walk by the cotton stuffed shelf in my LYS and I am struck by the most beautiful bright color or splendid sheen or whatever. And I buy it. I always think I find a use for it but i never do.

I find it hard to figure out small or medium-sized non-sweater/tunic project suitable for worsted weight cotton yarn. I always thought it would be heavy for something like a shawl but you never know until you try, right? I had this simple and brilliant Dichotomy pattern in my project queue for quite a long time. I am certain it would be niftier to knit it out of fingering-weight natural brown Blue Face Leicester wool (and this project is still in my project queue) but it also seemed as a great opportunity to disprove this dogma, deeply rooted in my head ("thou shalt not knit a shawl out of a worsted weight cotton yarn").

And here it is. Petrol blue mercerized cotton - DROPS Muskat - which I bought because it was SO very petrol blue and SO prettily shiny, and golden-beige noname cotton with some shiny stuff in it (shiny is muy importante).

I cannot even tell how much I love this color combination. Though the previously mentioned dogma has not been completely disproved. Worsted weight cotton surely is heavy for a large shawl.

The second shawl I made didn´t help very much. Dead simple crocheted thing. I thought it would be nice to have something like it but I can´t figure out how to wear it. The drape is... just weird. Not to mention that the dye bleeds - no, not bleeds but BLEEDS. Horribly. Interesting thing is that the shawl is navy blue and the color that bleeds is pure red.

Anyway I have to find some other cotton project because I have bought worsted weight cotton yarn again. In smaller quantity than sweater quantity.

Isn´t it nice?

(picture source)

Sock contemplation

First of all I didn´t die. I just had some weird non-blogging/blog reading/ravelling period. My dear friends, I do not recommend such periods to anybody. It takes ages to put all the "new" projects and yarns on Ravelry.

Despite my "I hate socks" attitude many of the projects are socks and most of the yarns are sock yarns (which are actually meant to be turned into socks). Three years ago I used to wonder why there are people out there who spend their time and money on such a folly ("Hey, look at that! $25 yarns and people use them to knit SOCKS! Hahahaha!") and - BAM! - suddenly I am one of these freaks. At least I can still laugh at people who knit doilies.

These socks I made in January. They are made of DROPS Delight and DROPS Fabel. I have A LOT of Drops Fabel and Drops Delight in various colours. They are easy to get here lately and they are frequently on sale. They´re a bit scratchy so you´re not that tempted to use them for any other project than socks.

In March I thought that a pair of warm socks/slippers would be a good travel projects so I made these on a ski trip. These are my first toe-ups with a short-row heel.

Then I decided that a pair of socks would be a nice birthday present for my mom. She already has shawls and scarves and April is not a good month for giving hats and mittens.

The yarn is Drops Fabel again and the pattern is here.

Lovely, isn´t it? I mean... for a sock. I even bought a sock transfer device in order to make socks a more comfortable travel project. I bought it from this guy.

Another pair of socks is also striped and once again made of Drops Fabel.

You would think that these are already too many striped socks made of Drops Fabel but no. Hereby I humbly present another pair of such. This time I tried to make tighter gauge. My fingers were in pain at first but then the blisters turned to calluses and now I can knit socks day and night.

I have enough Drops Fabel and Delight to knit another fifteen pairs of striped socks. Just you wait!

Lacy February

Past few weeks I have been mostly consumed by work. Not that it bothered me. At work I am already known as "the one who knows the right and the wrong side". We did some experiments that included a bucket of blood and some medical-to-be textiles (a knitted fabric which is further processed to be degradable by our body) and it was important to distinguish between the right and the wrong side of the fabric. I was the only one in our research group who could see the difference. Yay for knitters!

Anyway I never let myself to be cunsumed by work completely. Days are for work, evenings are for lace. And other things. But most importantly lace. February was in the name of Percy Shawl. I started knitting it 1st February and 29th February it was blocked. It is meant to be a birthday gift for my friend. She likes wearing black so I spent hours searching on Ravelry to find a pattern that would go with this colour. In the end I was deciding between Percy and Rock Island. Percy won but I´m queuing Rock Island and want to knit it in the future. Not in black! I hope that no one else will ever want me to knit a black shawl. Or black anything. Black (or very dark) is tricky to knit. I just don´t see the stitches.






What is the first word that comes to your mind when you see a black lace shawl? Is it "elegant"? Or is it "funeral"? For me it is the funeral.

A Brand New Year

Meditating over my New year´s knitting resolutions 2011 I wonder if it makes any sense to make any this year. I don´t take them seriously at all. But it is nice to see that I did accomplish something: I did knit a big lace shawl (hee hee, not just one I dare say), I did knit a pair of socks (three of them!) and I did knit 5 kilometers of yarn (twice as much actually). I didn´t buy and read the book and I didn´t knit anything for charity. 2011 was a year of selfish knitting.

It is also amusing to see that some of the resolutions were way too bold. Knit a fair isle sweater? Seriously? I finally tried to knit fair isle on Christmas day and I was utterly intimidated. I guess I shouldn´t have started with 2 mm needles and fingering weight yarn. It seems that stripes are the only colorwork suitable for me.

As for stripes I wasn´t idle these past four weeks. I choosed to process my skeins of Drops Delight and Fabel. Fair isle didn´t work, I couldn´t decide on any shawl pattern that would be optimal for this yarn combination (I spent whole day swatching and frogging and swatching and frogging all over again) and I finally settled on turning the yarn into fingerless mittens and socks.


(I took this picture two weeks ago. I already finished two pairs of mittens and one sock. I hope to finish the second sock before January is over.)

Okay so let´s shift "learn fair isle kniting" to year 2012 and we have a resolution No.1.

Resolution No.2) Finish at least one project a month.
I usually finish 2-3 projects each month but this year I will probably have much less time for hobbies. New job, more work, more duties.

No.3) Release at least two patterns.
I´d like to write down a pattern for the buttony hat and for a lace shawl. The shawl will be a simple leafy and flowery triangular thing. I haven´t finished it yet. And I didn´t make proper notes while making it so I believe I will have to knit it at least one more time and debug the concept.


No.3) Mustn´t let my stash take over our small appartment.
Seriously. I used to keep all my yarn in one (huge) bag. Slowly but surely the balls and skeins and scraps and needles have infiltrated nearly every shelf and drawer. My stash is growing bigger and bigger which, I believe, is a good reason for putting myself on a yarn diet for some time. Let´s say... I allow myself to buy one skein of yarn for every two skeins I use up (the skeins must be of the same weight of course).

No.4) Force myself to knit more socks.
People love them so they make perfect gifts.

No.5) Improve myself in dyeing
And use up all the dyes I got/bought for Christmas.

No.6) Figure out some project that would get me rid of the fingering weight yarn scraps.
In my wildest dreams I´m using these scraps to make the Beekeeper´s quilt. But no... that is way too insane.