FOs

In 2011 I knit a lot of scarves for charity. In spring, I learned a new stitch, the "half patent" as it is called in Germany and I guess it's called brioche stitch in English. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Anyhow, I got bitten by the scarf bug and I made scarf after scarf with this new stitch, plowing through my stash of woolen, warm yarns in different weights. Last year I had donated some scarves and hats to the homeless in a nearby city, and exactly these homeless people I had in mind right from the beginning.

I finished 8 scarves in brioche stitch in 2011! Here they all are. There's also a hat I made and a scarf I made in 2012, and that's what I sent to the charity to donate for the homeless a few weeks ago. Good timing it was, as it's just now starting to get really cold here.

Umm... socks for homeless animals? Well, it's not what you think. In fact, the animals won't be wearing the socks, instead they will be sold and the profits will go to the homeless animals.

These yarns were donated to me by the animal shelter to work them into socks. So that's what I did. The purple pair is about size 36-37, and was knit with 60 stitches across with using the Rinsessa stitch.

The blue pair is size 39-41, with 64 stitches across with a simple 2x2 ribbed cuff and a plain foot.

In fact, I made these a while ago already, and indeed the blue pair has already been sold! It's not big money, but if a homeless cat can eat for a few days or weeks from that money I'm more than delighted.

These would then be the 62nd and 63rd FO on my Charity knits 2011 list!

Remember my 17 mice from last year? Well, I made 8 more this year! They are selling so well that I may have to make a few more soon.

I used one ball of handdyed-with-KoolAid Marks&Kattens Eco Ull for these mice. They were all knit on 6mm needles. I made them all smaller than the original instructions call for, as my gauge is much bigger.

I love knitting these little mice, but I had so much trouble felting them! They're so small, they pile up between the washing machine hatch and the drum, refusing to felt (I have a frontloader as almose everyone in Europe).

Not before my husband had the brilliant idea of putting the mice in a net bag (you know the ones oranges come in?), sew the bag closed and felt the mice in the bag did they really felt. What a great idea! I'll do that every time now.

Yesterday was the day - we finally had the big yearly "knit day"! Last year was the first time I organized it... but as I was ill, I was not able to participate! This year I actually made it to the event :)

From 1 pm (well, I was there half past 11!) to 10 pm we knitted, knitted and knitted! Chatted and knitted, swapped yarn and knitted, were interviewed for television and knitted, ate and knitted... and some crocheted, too!

It was a real blast, and I got some new lovely yarns in the various swaps:

First, Polar from Wolle Rödel, Schoeller & Stahl sock yarn, sock yarn from S&S, and still more sock yarn, Hot Socks Rainbow by Gruendl. I few I may knit into socks for the animal shelter, some yarns I think I will gove forward as they are, and some will be all for me!

You know what? I finished these mitts in 2010. The only reason I haven't posted about them was because I thought I'd write the pattern down and post the pics then.

Well, I might still do that, but I think it's such a shame these lovely mitts and the great photos my husband took of them might never be blogged, just because I'm not into pattern writing right now! I mean, just looking at these pictures makes me happy, so why the heck just not post now.

So here they are - my Twisted Rib Mittens in a lovely, fiery-coloured wool/acrylic blend yarn. The trick in these mittens is really just the twisted rib in the cuff and in the finger part.

These have been since given to charity. How do you like them?

In August, I took on the challenge to make 25 squares for Knit a Square by the end of 2011.

Today I proudly present my (most likely the) last squares for 2011 which bring my tally up to 42 squares! I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself. I've sent the first patch of squares to South Africa already and my second package is ready for sending, too.

These last 10 squares are all garter stitch with thick needles, either with thick yarn or yarn held double.

I'm tempted to make 8 more squares to reach 50, but I doubt that will happen this year.

This ruffle yarn seems to be very "in" currently. I picked up some this summer from Finland. In fact, the brand I bought is a German yarn, which is pretty funny: travelling to Finland, buying German yarn and bringing it back to Germany :) But at that time, I had not seen that yarn here. Now it's everywhere!

So I made a scarf, too. I cast on 8 stitches, and knit until I had two balls used up. The result: a very ruffly, ca 180 cm long scarf.

Not sure I'll keep it though, I'm not sure where to wear it... I think I'll let it "marinate" over the winter (the scarf is very light and not very warm) in my closet and see what I feel about it in the spring.

Have you tried this fashion yarn already?

Two more charity knits to my tally (closing in on 50!). These are very simple preemie blankets, knit with 100% cotton I bought from a friend earlier this year.

What I did was to cast on 90 stitches, knit every row for 10 rows, then knit all right side rows and k10, p70, k10 the wrong side rows until I had nearly a square, then knit 10 rows again. The blankets are about 50 x 50 cm in size, just perfect for preemies and exactly as the charity I am knitting for, Frühchenstricken, needs them.

Both blankets took three balls of yarn, that's 150 grams. I knit them on 4 mm needles even though the yarn called for smaller needles to make the blankets softer. I've noticed that items made with mercerized cotton tend to be rather hard, and a looser gauge helps with that.

Finally I get to blog these hot pants aka hotpants! I started knitting them last summer, and they have actually been ready for quite some time now, but as always it takes time to get some photos and and and..!

But here they are, and here are the stats:
Pattern: Assets of Evo by Marnie McLean
Yarn: Junghans Wolle Opal, a few balls of purple and a bit of grey.
Needles: 3,5 mm
Modifications: made the legs a few rows longer and possibly misunderstood the ruffles, so they are v-e-r-y ruffly now! And no application, the hotpants are plain.

Let's say your sister gives your mum some extra-wide sheets to somehow reuse. And you happen to be around before your mum starts anything with the sheets. I don't know about you, but that sounds like bath mat making time for me! Especially as I had hoped to make one on my holiday, anyhow, and therefore had my 15 mm circular with me.

I took the sheets, a baby's bath tub to contain them and a pair of scissors and sat on a garden chair in my mum's garden, and started cutting ca. 2 cm (bit less than an inch) wide strip from the fabric. I cut, and rolled the strip into a ball, cut some more, rolled some more. The cotton sheet was easy as I could rip it, but the frottee one was more difficult as it was knit and not woven, so I had to cut it from beginning to the end.