Yarn and books

Last friday my package from Knits in the City arrived. It was here very quickly. So I had a lovely day reading in my new pattern books and fondling my new yarn. I bought Little Cake from Louisa Harding, and two skeins of Thistle to make the Featherbed beret in this book.

This is my first book from Louisa Harding and I like it very much. It is very nicely photographed, and I read that those photo’s are made by her husband. Must be nice to work together on such a project. I had seen Little Cake last autumn when I was in London, but didn’t like it much at first. I liked the photo’s but didn’t know if I would knit anything from the book. But after reading Mooncalf’s review of Little Cake on her blog Make Do and Mend, I got interested again. Louisa’s designs have really grown on me. They are colourful, I think that’s what took some getting used to for me. But now I really like the playfulness of her designs. She often gives different versions of a design. It really gives me the idea I may change the patterns, play with them and make them how I want them to be.

She also writes little stories by her designs, tells something about why she made it like that or where she got her inspiration for that design. Very nice reading. And the photographs of the woods are the best in the book. I don’t know how they are made, my own photographs are often not sharp, because it is so dark in the woods. Yet those photo’s don’t look as if they are made with artificial lighting.

Little Cake was for this winter, but because the photo’s are made in spring, I think it is also good as a spring book. And there are enough designs in it that would be good for spring. Like this vest:

I love it. I would maybe lower the neckline a little bit, but I’m not sure. The pattern is charted so it would be easy to do. This one is knitted in Thistle, and I like this yarn very much. Here is a photo:

This is colour number 12, called Winter. From a distance it is a dark aubergine colour. From up close you can see it is heathered, there is pink in it and also a little bit of green, that looks greyish because of the dark purple behind it. It is very subtle, I like it very much. The yarn feels very soft but not fragile. I would love to make a sweater out of it some day.

The Rowan Purelife Recycled Collection was in this package too. I am still not sure which colour of the Revive I like best, those colours are very unusual. It is probably so that I would like them all! I think I am going to knit the lacy jacket Shallot first. Maybe in Rock, maybe in Granite, maybe in Basalt.

When I was reading the bell rang again. Another package for me, this time from the Dutch webshop De Hobbydoos. Full of Garnstudio yarn. I ordered Muskat, in dark brown, white and aubergine. I already have dark green in my stash. Those are for Torquay from Rowan 47. Probably my next knit after finishing Lauren.

And last but not least, 7 balls of Garnstudio Bomull-Linn, a mix of cotton and linen. I was very curious about this yarn, and it looks great. It feels like a very strong yarn, I am looking forward to knitting with my first linen yarn. I think I am ready for summer!

Rowan summer booklets

The Rowan booklets for summer are all awesome! The Purelife Recycled Collection is a must have for me, I have already ordered it. I am very curious about the Revive yarn. I had planned to order the yarn for the first design I want to make together with the book, but I couldn’t decide which colour to choose. The colours are heathered, or maybe it’s better to call it tweedy, there are different colours mixed through the main colour. It’s hard to see how a colour really looks on the computer screen. I want to see the book first and then I will decide which colour I want to try.
I think I will love all the colours. It looks like a really special yarn. I am wondering if it will look like summer tweed or not. I am going to try it out, I will order it next month.

I think I like this design the most. It’s a long t-shirt, I find them very practical. I am going to knit al lot of stripes this summer! But this one is nice too:

I tried something in this shape in a shop last week, and it looked very nice. I never wear such cardigans, but I am beginning to like them. It would really be something different for me.
There is also a very nice blue tunic/dress in this book. Would I be able to knit a dress? It’s possible it would cost me months to knit. Probably more. But it is tempting.

There is also the Summer Crochet book, also from Marie Wallin. There is one design in it I would love to have:

I’ve never seen something so beautiful in crochet, most designs are looking a bit rough and stiff, and very obviously self made. I wish I could crochet! I think I will learn some day, it will be nice for a change. There are more very good designs in the book. I would very much like to have this book, although I can’t crochet a stitch!
The Casual Classics book by Martin Storey is very good too. I am not a classic girl, but I can see this designs are very good and that you could wear them with pleasure every day and look very elegant at the same time. This waistcoat is really stunning:

The photographs are very beautiful in all those books. Of course Rowan’s photographs are always very good, but these photographs really make me long for summer and working in the garden.

I did it!

I started working on Lauren again, because someone on Ravelry started a little KAL for this pattern. Mine had almost gone into hibernation, and I was feeling a little bit guilty about that. I got the kit as a birthday present, and it is such lovely yarn to work with. And I still like the design very much. So I was really happy with this KAL.
My left front piece was done in one evening, and then I started on that awful ribbing again (1×1 ribbing on 2,25 mm needles) for the right front. I worked on it last weekend, and this weekend again for hours and hours and now IT IS DONE. No one who hasn’t knit Lauren can understand what an achievement this is! I am now working with the 3 mm needles again, and that is just easy relaxed knitting.
This means I am now sure Lauren will get finished some day. I have done all the big parts of ribbing now. Of course there is ribbing on the sleeves, and Kim definitely likes long cuffs, but I think they are doable.
I think it will be a very nice cardigan to wear in spring. I will try to have it finished by then.

More yarn and Rowan 47 in mail

I really spoiled myself with the extra money I got at the end of the year. Early this week a package full of yarn arrived from English Yarns. In it: Rowan Lima, Rowan Fine Milk Cotton and 5 different colours of Scottish Tweed 4ply. The colours look all so nice together. I love autumnal colours.

This is the Lima in close up:

It’s  an extremely soft yarn. Just as soft as the Cashmerino from Debbie Bliss, which is the softest yarn I’ve ever worked with. I love it. The colour is very beautiful too, a heathered colour, ochre and beige/brown. I am very curious how it will knit up because it is a knitted tube yarn. I am probably going to use it for a hat.

This is Fine Milk Cotton to knit Rue from Marie Wallin, from Rowan 45. It is a very nice understated top. It has little frills in crochet, in Shimmer. But I don’t really care for silvery yarns. It looks awesome in the magazine, because the light blue colour she used and the silver lay very close together. But on the aubergine it would stand out more, I wouldn’t like that. I am going to make a plain Rue, or I am going to learn to crochet and make them in Malabrigo lace, in the lilac colour I have in stash. It depends on how it looks when I’ve done the knitted parts.

I would love to learn to crochet some day, maybe this top will be a start. We’ll see.

This is Rowan Scottish Tweed 4ply, in Thatch, Thistle, Apple, Gold and Rust. The thistle is a bit more blueish than it was on my computer screen, but never mind. I am going to use those for the Fair Isle Yoke from A Stitch in Time. I have 10 balls of Scottish Tweed in Heath (light brown) in my stash, I originally bought them to make Joy from Rowan Vintage Style, but I read on Ravelry that the yarn amount in the book wasn’t right. So I’ve finally found another project for it.

That sweater is originally knitted in Jamieson and Smith’s 2ply jumper yarn, and I would love to try that yarn some day too. But I want to try so many yarns. My yarn stash is growing (how can this be ), it doesn’t fit in my drawers anymore.

I’ve already written a post about Rowan 47, but it is even better in real life. I bought it from Hulucrafts and it was here was really quickly. I want to knit so many things from it. I think I am going to start with Torquay from Sarah Dallas. It looks like a nice uncomplicated knit, and I think it will be lovely to wear. And after that Bournemouth from Brandon Mably. I already thought this design would be from him or from Kaffe Fasset, it is such an unusual colour combination.

I made a real analysis of this colour combination, because I wanted to sub the colours (pink isn’t for me). I thought at first that those were four contrasting colours. But after trying the design out in a lot of different colours (I made drawings), I found that the only real contrast is between the light green and the pink. The others colours are white, which is a neutral colour and two different shades of pink. Those pinks look like contrasting colours but are from the same colour family. So I made another drawing with only one contrasting colour and that was really the best one. I am going to use Ochre, Umber (from the same colour family), Whey (almost white) and Baked Red as the contrast colour. I had lots of fun with it.
I am wondering if the designer gave this combination much thought or just threw the colours together. But also in this last case it has to be a person who has much experience in working with colours.

FO: Branching Out

Pattern: Branching Out from Knitty
Yarn: Handmaiden Swiss Mountain Cashmere and Silk, 1 skein

This was blocked last week, but I am still waiting for a nice sunny day to make an outside picture. I’ve given up that hope now, and just made  a picture in front of the window. It is really gloomy weather here at the moment, the snow is melting and it’s raining now.

I long for spring.

But about Branching Out: at first I found this shawl very hard to do. I didn’t find it suitable for someone new at lace knitting, like me. It lay it in my knitting basket for a long time. In the meantime I worked on Willow from Kim Hargreaves and that turned out to be a much better first lace project for me. It has a very easy lace repeat, mostly yo’s and purl2together.

After that I picked up my Branching Out scarf again. It still wasn’t easy but it went a lot better than before knitting Willow. I just knitted one repeat every time I felt like it. And every repeat was getting easier.

I knitted from the written instructions, because I found the chart very confusing because the purl rows and the side stitches aren’t charted. It was getting easier and easier. Although I never managed to learn to “read my knitting” on this pattern (I could on Willow, but not on this one).

The pattern was getting more and more fun and one day it was finished.

What I don’t like about this pattern, that it looks like a real easy scarf. Because it’s so thin, it has “beginner” written all over it. But it is not as easy as it looks. I prefer it the other way around, especially for a first lace, I think it should be motivating you to make more lace.

But I did learn a lot from this project. It uses a lot of different stitches, and because you are repeating them over and over again, I don’t think I will ever forget them. So it’s certainly very useful for learning lace.

I would recommend it as a second or third lace project.

The yarn: this is a wonderful yarn. It’s expensive but it’s worth it’s price. It is very soft, has a subtle sheen. The colour is amazing, I used Moss, a semisolid green. I’ve been able to do 40 repeats of the lace pattern with one skein. One day I will buy two skeins and make a nice big lace shawl from it.

Yarn!

Early this week a beautiful package arrived from HolyWoly. In there: Malabrigo worsted in Applegreen and Malabrigo sock in Eggplant. What a beautiful colours, it makes me really happy looking at them. The colours are one of the best features of Malabrigo.

The applegreen is a bit brighter than on this picture, it’s almost limegreen. I love it.

When knitting Citron I’ve rediscovered what a beautiful yarns this company makes. I found the Malabrigo lace very nice to work with, I am looking forward to feeling it in my hands again. I have more in my stash, just looking for the perfect (and not too difficult) pattern.

This is the Malabrigo sock in Eggplant:

I am really happy with this colour. It is a grey with a purple glow, really special. I was planning to start Ripley as soon as my package arrived, but when it did I immediately started Damson. Citron has really made me want to knit more shawls (it seems the last two frustrating repeats have already been forgotten).

Damson is not going so quickly as Citron. I had to rip out a few times because my row of yo’s didn’t line up. I am now working without the stitchmarkers, that goes a lot better, they are too big for my needles and were only getting in the way.

I also find the Malabrigo sock less easy to work with as their lace yarn. This yarn has nylon in it, to make it stronger, and that makes the yarn slippery. It is also a tiny bit splitty, and it doesn’t feel as nice as the lace yarn. It is a totally different yarn of course, it is plied and meant to be used for socks. I find the lace weight better for shawls, if I am ever going to design a shawl, I’ll choose the lace weight.
But let’s not complain too much, I love the colour and Damson is looking real nice already. I love the look of the garter stitch in this dark yarn.

binding off Citron

I am binding off my Citron shawl! I am already binding off for an hour and the amount of stitches seems not to be decreasing at all!

I must really give up my dreams about knitting big laceweight shawls (like Laminaria and Swallowtail…mmm…so beautiful). I don’t think I have the patience and perseverance some knitter’s seem to have.

What’s their secret? How can they blog about FO’s every week? How can they think after knitting such a big lace project  ” I am going to knit another one in another colour”? Or even worse: another one “as a gift”?

Are they just not blogging about those frustrating moments, when you have to bind off 540 stitches?

I really want to finish this today. I want to move on. I want to be able to say in my FO post: “This was a really fast and easy knit. I finished it in 9 days”.

Happy new year!

I wish you all a very happy new year with lots of knitting!!

I am still working on Citron. As the amount of stitches is growing the knitting goes slower and slower. But I am halfway through the fifth repeat (this is the last repeat before the ruffle). And it is easy knitting because the laceweight yarn is so featherlight.

The book my knitting is lying on is The Knitter’s book of Wool from Clara Parkes. A very nice book. I am a big fan of A Knitter’s book of Yarn, and this book is just as good. I love reading about all the different types of sheep and the different types of wool they are producing. Especially interesting now I am knitting with the Purelife British Sheep Breeds yarn.

There is a lot of info about how a fleece is turned into a yarn. It takes many different steps. The book also has a lot of patterns for different types of wool. I am probably not going to knit them, I like Rowan patterns better, but I use them as illustrations how the different types of wool look when knitted up and for what type of projects they can best be used.

A very good and thorough book if you want to know more about wool. It is also very nice looking, with nice wool photos and very sweet and accurate drawings of sheep.

I am also planning yarn subs for Ysolda’s Whimsical Little Knits 2. I ordered Malabrigo sock in Eggplant for Damson, and Malabrigo worsted in Applegreen for Ripley. I ordered at a Dutch webshop called HolyWoly. I am glad they had the eggplant colour, because I only want to knit Damson in the original colour, it’s perfect. I hope it will soon be here!

Citron

I started something new, something small to knit in the car, because we always travel a lot around Christmas (both our parents live in another part of the Netherlands, luckily quite close to each other). It’s  Citron from Knitty, with a yarn that has been far too long in my stash: Malabrigo lace in Quarzo (lavender-purple). I am so glad I started this, it is such a nice knit. I have never knitted a shawl in a circular shape, so I had great fun with the beginning of the shawl. You have to knit a small strip, and then pick up stitches from two sides of that strip.

The shawl goes really quickly, I am already at the fourth repeat now, and the shawl has five plus a ruffle. Those last two repeats will go slowly, I now have 348 stitches on my needles, but it doesn’t bother me because I know I am already halfway there.

This shawlette is a great hit on Ravelry, and I can see why. It is easy, but very beautiful in an understated way. And it is lovely to knit. It reminds me a bit of Trinket from Kim Hargreaves, I am thinking about knitting that one too, in the brown Malabrigo I also have in my stash. The original is knitted in Rowan Kidsilk, but why not knit from stash for a change.

The Malabrigo is also helping in making this such a fun knit. It is very soft and smooth in your hands. It is a semisolid, which gives really beautiful but subtle colour changes. It is not too thin, so it is easy to knit. I had originally bought it to knit a Clapotis, but I don’t really care for that design anymore.

Knitting a shawl in this shape is so much more fun than knitting a rectangular shawl. I am really looking forward to knitting more shawls like this.

I bought the digital version of Ysolda Teague’s Whimsical Little Knits 2, and I would love to knit Damson from it. It is knitted in Malabrigo sock in Eggplant, and I would very much like to knit it in the exact same colour, such a beautiful dark colour. Perfect for me. I have seen it somewhere in a shop, but they don’t have it in stock at the moment. I am probably not the only one wanting this colour!

Ysolda’s booklet is very very lovely. Full of luxurious little accessories. They are girly, flattering, but there is also a bit of humour in some designs. A very interesting designer, I am looking forward to starting my first Ysolda. I am already thinking about what yarns to use. She is a Scottish designer but uses a lot of american yarns, which are for me a bit expensive to buy because of the shipping costs. But I like thinking about subs, and because so many people on Ravelry have already knitted this patterns, I can see what yarns they have chosen and how it turned out.

A warm knit for the cold days

The back of Ambleside is finished! It is very cold here at the moment, last fridaynight -15 °C. There is also a lot of snow, I can’t remember the last time there was so much snow. And they say it is going to snow even more tonight. I have to go to work tomorrow, I hope I can still take the bus.

I think this chunky knit will be very handy in this kind of weather. But there’s still a front to knit.
The back and sleeves are knitted in one piece, which gives a very eighties look to the tunic. I love it. After the front I only have to knit two bands for the sleeves and a neck band. It is a nice easy knit. The pattern is easily remembered, and there is not  a lot of shaping. A really nice relaxing knit for a change.

This is our back yard, a few more centimeters and we can’t open the door anymore.

This one was taken during our walk in the Millingerwaard yesterday. You can see one of the wild cows in the background, still eating in the heavy snow.

Here are some more cows, who have taken shelter under the trees.

You almost can’t see them, but they are there, under the trees. Very unusual weather, we could even have a white Christmas this year.