Fire Festival KAL - an FO!

I wrote about the Fire Festival Knitalong here. 

I love the colours they chose for this KAL. 

I have made a cardigan for my niece - using Wenche Roald's pattern Lille Vinterstjerne. 

The cardigan is worked bottom up, with a steek - of course.

Modifications: 

Ribbing k2, p2, instead of k1, p1. 

6 colours instead of 2 for the stranded patterns. 

Added some more diamonds on the sleeves. 

Worked the rest in a single colour instead of strips. 

Added my own star pattern for the yoke.  

So the finished cardigan looks quite different than the original, but it's always nice to have numbers and measurements to follow. And Wenche's patterns are always well written. 

Yellow favourite!

I have a new favourite yellow cardigan! 

Yarn from Easyknits bought at Edinburgh Yarn Festival. The colour is amazing, and the yarn is lovely, a mixture of 55% Exmoor Blueface, 25% White Wensleydale, 10% Grey Wensleydale and 10% Zwarbles 

The pattern is Sherbet, by Katya Frankel. Well written and easy to follow pattern. The lace pattern is decorative and super simple, learnt after the first repeat. I love the vintage feel of it, and absolutely recommend the pattern. 

Btw, in case someone wonders - my lovely grey shawl, also in yarn bought at EYF 2016, that was lost, has reappeared: Somebody did not pay attention when the moved my bike down under the terrace when the snow came. 

Mohair love

This spring, I was invited to a knitting event in the south of Norway, at Sjølingstad museum, which is an old wool factory, where the still spin yarn. I've blogged about that in Norwegian. I met lots of nice knitters, and enjoyed myself a lot. And I met a new yarn, which I fell in love with: Symre from Telespinn, a mini mill in the heart of Norway. 

I purchased some skeins, planning to make a cardigan with a round yoke, but had no idea about the pattern, or rather, I had lots of ideas spinning around in my head, but couldn't make up my mind. Then I remember Mary Jane Mucklestone's book 150 Scandinavian Motifs where I had seen a goat chart I really liked. Mohair - goats - of course! 

Here they are, happily running on green grass, under the blue sky on a lovely sunny day. 

The yarn is lovely, shiny, soft, warm and strong. It's a bit different to knit with than sheep wool, feels less elastic, but with a beautiful drape. So a hip length cardigan was a perfect match, I think. 

On my project page on Ravelry, I call the cardigan "Å, jeg vet en seter" from a Norwegian children's song, The pattern will be called "Singe-linge-lang" from the same song. 

And yes, there will be a pattern, sized from XS to XXL, bust size from 82 to 121 cm. Mine is size medium. I plan to publish the pattern some time in September. Stay tuned!

Fretex find

Fretex is the name of the Salvation's army's thrift stores in Norway. In Lillehammer we have really nice one. That's where I buy almost all my clothes. I recently found this cardigan hanging there screaming to me. It's a traditional, boxy type cardigan, but it was just my size and my colours, and it had to come with me home. Can you see how it matches my house? I have not seen the pattern elsewhere. Does anybody recognize the pattern?

✿16 ✿ Home sweet home ✿

"Hjem" - home in Norwegian,

is a new, Norwegian TV-series. Read about it on Wikipedia here.

It's about three girls, who discovers they are half sisters.  

One of the sisters, Oda, often wears this really pretty cardigan. 

I love the pattern and the colours!

(Oda is played by Heidi Ruud Ellingsen)

It looks like a pattern from the fiftie's maybe, 

something my mother would have knitted when she was young. 

Somebody knows something more?

Tonight they show the last episode of this autumn, 

but I believe there will be one more season.

(Photos taken from web-TV, using prtsc and then cropping)

ETA: You can download the pattern for free; Nordkappkoften

Red sweater redesign - a small tutorial

A sweater made more than twenty years ago - now with several stains.







I machine stitched and cut.











Zig-zag around the edges.








Picked up stitches for ribbing, around 2 sts every 3 rounds. K2, p2. Short rows for shaping around the neck. Four buttons holes.







Embroidery over the stains - and a bit more.









Fun with colours and stitches!








Stains gone!







Fake leather buttons.








Belt.








Et voilà! A new cardigan!








A fun project!











If you need embroidery and knitting inspiration, check out this blog.

Old sweater - new cardigan

I finally have an FO to show you! My new cardigan:

I made a red cabled sweater more than twenty years ago. After some years it got some stains on the sleeves, and on the upper front, so it has stayed in my closet for many years now. So I figured it was time to do something about it, and I cut away some of the stains, and covered others with embroidery.


And I'm very happy with the result. I just read a book, The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver. The colours of this cardigan makes me think of Frida Kahlo (read the book if you haven't and you'll see what I mean!)

(More details about the making of the cardigan in a later post.)

Sparkling! cardigan

This was such a fun knit!

I liked the pattern when I first saw it, but had no intention of making a fitted dress. But when I saw Jettshin’s Not Sparkle Dress, I could not get it out of my head. I had quite a lot of white ang green yarn in my stash, so I decided to cast on for a cardigan. (Had to get some more green yarn after a while, but more than half of it was from my stash).

The dress is a free pattern from Vogue Knitting. In the original pattern, the shaping is achieved by different needle sizes. I did not do that, but I used the heavier weight green yarn first, and then went down in yarn weight for shaping. It worked ok for a cardigan, I think.

In the original pattern, the dress is worked flat, in two pieces, and then sewed. I really don't see why anybody would do that! Are there any good reasons not to work this in the round? Exept fear of steeking, which I luckily don't suffer from.






You can see details on Ravelry. Yarn weight ranges from light fingering to DK, 100 % wool.

The sleeves are worked top down, the way I learn from the Audrey in Unst cardigan, with short row cap shaping. I did not plan to make puffed sleeves, but I obviously picked up to many stitches, so that't how they turned out - and I decided I like them that way.

For the front ribbing I then picked up too few stitches, had too unravel, and then picked up a stitch on 3 of 4 rows and from every stitch in the back. I used short rows for shaping. I could have made the a wider shawl collar, maybe I will.

Sorry some of the photos are a bit dark - day light is still scarce. And sometimes you think it's quite light, and when you see the photos, you understand it's not so light anyway. But it's getting lighter each day!

Mystery cardigan

I just saw Annepålandet's blog this morning. She's showing a photo of an old cardigan that was bought as a present for her grandmother more than 60 years ago. She has no inherited it from her mother. And she wonders if anybody recognises the pattern.

The cardigan is very pretty, and I just thought I'd seen it before.
And I have. A cardigan with the same pattern is beeing used in children's TV in NRK (Norwegian Television).
I fell for the pattern and the colours, and I tried to photograph it on the telly, but got lousy photos, of course.
So I sent an e-mail to NRK, and had almost forgotten about it,
when the nice woman who is wearing this cardigan sent me these two photos.

She tells me the yellow cuff has been added later. And that the cardigan is part of NRK's costumes. But it looks like it must be exactly the same pattern as Anne's grandmother's cardigan. But I don't have an answer to Anne's question about the pattern. Maybe somebody can help? I especially like the stars.

If things go as smoothly as in the last mystery, we have the answer within ten minutes...

Have a nice Sunday, everyone!

This looks weird....

Ready to cut the steeks.....

Button solution!

Remember my button problem? I followed Mary Lou's advice, and got new buttons.

The beautiful, vintage, etsy buttons found a new home on my old black coat, in stead of boring black plastic mittens.

Then I needed a hat to go with the buttons - so I made this:

Well, actually I was going to make a small cowl, working in the round. But as I was trying it on, I saw it wanted to be a hat in stead. The pattern was gifted to me through Ravelry from a blog friend, Josefina Knits from Chile. She makes pretty cabled cowls and other accessories - and is looking forward to autumn..

The pompom was quickly made with a little bit of yarn, fork and scissors, learned from EskimimiKnits.

Edited to add information about the cowl/hat pattern: It's Flowers and leaves cowl, by Gabriela Ordenes. She also has an Etsy shop.

Red beauty

I'm so happy to have finished my Vine yoke cardigan in time for Christmas! The yarn is just wonderful, and I love the colour.

I had this pattern queued for a long time. In Gothenburg summer 2010 I found the perfect yarn at Strikk: Malabrigo baby merino.. Wonderfully soft, beautifully red, (and a little more expensive than the yarn I use to buy...)

Vintage buttons found on Etsy - a perfect match, I think (they're a little heavy, though, that's the only problem). I always think nice buttons are hard to find. And if I find them, they're way too expensive. I found some in my yarn shop that cost 42 N kr (almost 7 $) each! But on Etsy I found several nice vintage buttons, and a lot cheaper. And since I love parcels in my mail box, that's a perfect solution - I even had them in less than a week, from the US.


The pattern is well written. Easy to follow. It took me a few minutes to figure out how the button holes were supposed to be made, but when I just followed the instructions, they came out beautifully. Very clever (not me, Ysolda...) And I've never done provisional cast on for a real garment before, just for hats and wristwarmers, but it worked just fine (for the sleeves). I always have to take a look at this tutorial first, though.

What else to say? Yes, I lengthened the sleeves by ten stitches. And did size 36. My gauge was, for a change, perfect. It's a big size 36, really, but I'm between 36 and 38, so thats's perfect too. I'm amazed about how the pattern kept telling my on what row of the yoke pattern I was supposed to be, after several steps of short rows etc - and I was! I made the neck opening quite a lot bigger than the pattern called for, I think it would have been way too tight if I hadn't - that's my only question about this beautiful pattern. And I used less yarn than the yardage in the pattern said - I have 1 1/2 skein left. A hat, maybe?

Sunflower Audrey - summer accomplishment

I'm so happy with how this turned out!
The yarn is verye nice to work with,
and the pattern
by Gudrun Johnston from Twist Collective
is a joy to follow.

Pattern: Audrey In Unst by Gudrun Johnston
Yarn: Pickles Extra Fine Merino
Colour: "Solsikke" - Sunflower
New skills:
Bias bind off, three needle bind off,
and sleeve cap shaping
with wraps and turns, top down
- the construction is just brilliant!

(The photos are pre-washing)