experimental

It's not often when I do any kind of craft that doesn't include yarn, but the seldom times when it happens, I really like it. This time the final product was successful too!

It's a long time ago when I accidentally felted Nick's sweater, I made a sweater bag out of it - here's the link to the type of sweater bag tutorial I used, I couldn't find the exact one I used.

Anyway, I had this felted tote finished, but it didn't seem sturdy enough to use, so I decide to line it. But: I have no sewing machine nor access to one. As I didn't have any plans for the bag, I took the bag with me to Finland with the plan to line it there. Now, this was LAST SEPTEMBER. I didn't line the bag then, but I left it there to wait for a better time. This time around I had good time and interest to finish the bag, and with my Mum's help it even worked! Just look at the bag!

Ok, I've cast on 26 things in June, all because I'm participating in the Finnish KAL I mentioned a few weeks ago, where you - starting from the 1st oh June - cast on something new every day until Midsummer, and you finish everything my the end of July. It's a challenge, but so much fun! Here's what I have ready (or almost done) by now (& since the last posting)

From up left clockwards: a shawl from the top of my head (it's the better version of my Tierheim bamboo shawl) with self-dyed yarn; the Twilight Gloaming (Rav link) shawl made with a Zauberball (I'll post more on these shawls later); seven mice that just need to be felted, filled and sewn close to finish these cat toys from Kitty Knits.

You might remember I volunteer for my local animal shelter by knitting things for sale and helping during open doors days, working at the sales booth. The shelter just had their big summer open doors day a few days ago, and to try out something new I decided to knit two little triangular shawlettes for sale.

That worked amazingly well! They were up for about an hour before a lady came and bought them both. Not for very much money, but still way more we usually get from socks or other knits that use the same amount of yarn! I was very happy about that and and plan to knit more simple shawls for the shelter in the future.

The sad sweater you read about a while back is sad no more - it's done and gorgeous!

Now this is a truly modular sweater. Part top-down, part bottom-up, part both: one sleeve is top-down, one bottom-up and still I had to rip and reknit both cuffs as they were too short (like the hem, too). I'm so proud of myself not giving up on this project; I didn't even want to at any point!

Poor sweater, what have I done to you?

This is a sad story about a top-down raglan sweater, which had an "accident" and has now become a bottom-up raglan sweater. Let me start from the beginning...

A while back I finally started on my husband's sweater. I decided on bulky yarn and a top-down raglan recepie for calculating my own gauge. So I measured my tall and skinny husband, I measured my gauge swatch and started knittting. I made him try the sweater on again and again, and everything seemed just fine. Until the sweater body and one sleeve were finished. That's when I noticed I had made way too many raglan increases - the armpit of the sweater was at least two inches too low, giving the sweater a batwing-kind of sleeve look and loads of extra fabric at the armpit.

I've had these ready for a good while now, and finally I get to blogging about them!

The first knit is the Puro-tube. The original pattern is from Novita, but I modified it like SatuH did, meaning I didn't double the yarn and cast on 110 stitches. It was knit during a week of illness in bed, with 5mm circular needles. I used a bit less that three balls of Novita Puro (what a lovely yarn!), that is ca. 130 grams.

The second knit is the smaller Ishbel shawl. I made the bigger one for myself for my wedding and had almost one ball of Malabrigo lace left after it. So I knit the smaller Ishbel for my mother's 66th birthday. She loved it!

Greetings from the Mouse Factory!

Well, not quite, but I have been making lots of mice lately, as I was trying to get as many as possible done for Ompelukerho (a Finnish women's action group I am a member of) stand at the Christmas market. The market is today, and I hope they sell well! They did last year, anyway, and because these mice are smaller than the ones last year, they might even sell better (as last year's mice were more like rats...)

Ok, it's the middle of November, so not really growth season. But tell that to our chili plant, which just grew and grew in size during the summer, and started growing chilis in the autumn! I've harvested one chili already, and five more are still growing! I guess it'll be a spicy hot winter for us (at least the one I already harvested was h-o-t!)

I've knit some small things last month and I thought I'd show them to you, as they came out nicely, I think!

First we have the Grown-up bootees. The pattern is by Ysolda Teague, and it's a part of the Whimsical Little Knits 1 collection. I've knit them with vintage superwash wool held double on 5mm needles. This pair fits me, so the size is ca. European 39. They took approximately 100 grams of yarn. I'll be making more as Christmas presents!

Next I have two more pairs of preemie socks for the Sukkasato-KAL. Again 28 stitches around, made on 2,5mm dpns. The yarn is of unknown quality, but I did dye it myself (except for the toe of one sock, as I ran out of the self-dyed yarn). The KAL is finished now, my total: five pairs of preemie socks, and the grown-up bootees. Not bad!

I'm still working on the Finland pictures, but currently I've just been so busy! The bureaucracy and the thank you cards after the wedding, my acting hobby at the local theatre (premiere next month!) as well as work just seem to take up all my time at the moment. So I'll just need to show you something that's been finished for some weeks already... sorry! But I'm sure you'll like this one too.

Here are the actual specs:

Pattern: until lace egding my own calculation of a basic pinwheel pattern, the lace pattern from Cinnamon Bay (Ravelry link, a pattern from book "Knitting in the Sun")
Needles: 4mm dpns and circular
Yarn: Plaetzsch Nadja cotton 4-ply got got as a present, at least five 50 gram balls.