KAL

I'm so excited! My Ravelympics shawl is done! In case you're not familiar with the term, it's basically a knitalong where you do a challenging project during the Olympic games. Mine was the Tulppaani shawl (this pattern is originally in Finnish, but can be found in English at Villapallo's blog)

I'll post more about it once it's been blocked and my darling husband is back from his conference Drupaletics and available to take some photos of me modeling the gorgeous shawl! Sorry for the quality of these - I tried my best standing on the bed, but it just didn't seem to work better than this!

This is the second year when I'm knitting from my stash (not exclusively though!) with the Ravelry Stash knit down group, in particular the Personal Small Items "club". The idea is simply to (before the year) starts pack one small project per month -yarn from stash plus pattern- and work these projects month by month.

The idea is that by packing the yarn and patterns beforehand you quite quickly forget what you packed and are happily surprised with what lovely yarn and a nice pattern you get to reveal from its bag monthly! Well, that's what happens me most of the time. These here are the two fun projects I've made this year.

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!

Just two more pairs of little preemie socks for charity. I'm also counting them in the Sukkasato sock KAL.

The yarn is a nameless sock yarn I received from a friend a while back. The socks are made on 2,5mm dpns, and have 28 stitches around. The cuff is 1x1 rib and the foot is plain. As simple as it gets!

Sukkasato has started again, the Finnish 2-month sock KAL in which I also participated last year.

Like last year, I'll be making small socks for charity. Here's the first pair of preemie socks. Made on 4mm needles using 24 stitches around, the yarn is Hjerte Sock held double.

I have more pairs on the needles and will post them throughout the KAL. They are so sweet and quick!

I'm taking part in a crazy Finnish KAL called "Kesäyön hullutus", which translates to "summernight's folly"! The idea is to start a new project every day from the 1st June to the 20th of June, and finish all these projects by the end of July! I joined on the 6th, so I have a few less to do, but still... so therefore small projects are the best in this challenge!

I think preemie hats are the perfect small projects one can make. They're easy, quick and very useful (I'll be sending them to charity).

The Pencil cases for Sudan -KAL me and the Ravelry Darfur group have been moderating has now come to an end. We had a voting going for the most beautiful pencil case at Flickr , and I counted the votes some days ago. You can see the winners at Ravelry or at Flicr - so beautiful pencil cases!

HelpSudan seems happy with our efforts too. I've asked them if it's ok to keep sending cases, but haven't got an answer yet.

I'll be taking the pencil case pattern links off the side bar for now, and add them into a post under the category "Patterns". The side bar tends to get so long otherwise.

I hope you had a good time making pencil cases, and hopefully we'll get some more action going later on as well!

The Darfur group at Ravelry has been moderating the Pencil cases for Sudan -KAL/CAL since the beginning of the year. The results are great - by the end of January we had about 50 cases done and sent to HELPSudan, I don't even know how many we have now!

But the KAL is not over yet. It will end on the 31st of March, so now's the time for the last push (or better said knit).

To give you all a little extra incentive to finish your pencil cases, or cast on just a few more, there'll be a voting on the most beautiful pencil case in the KAL's Flickr group with some lovely prizes!

And I knit 1 kilo 611 grams in it - in one month, February! I can hardly believe it. That's a lot for me. This was a really fun knitalong and I will certainly take part next year too.

Here are my last two FOs in February.

First the gorgeous, gorgeous Chevalier socks by Tikru. I made the exactly following the pattern, with some mistakes. The yarn is from Villa Laurila, from the nearly-extinct breed Ahvenanmaanlammas. I used 3mm needles, and the socks weigh 124 grams.

I love these socks. I hardly take them off, they're so warm, but not sweaty, snug, but not too tight. Really lovely FO, the trouble was worth it!

I did use a pattern for this, I just can't remember which one! Anyway, meet my glorious ruffle boa! I knit it on 6mm long, long circular. I started out with 90 stitches, then increased every stitch every other row. The yarn is appropriately Bernat Boa (which was terrible to knit with I must say!)

I had 150 grams of yarn, and ran a bit short. I had to do some tricks at the end of the scarf (I basically just pulled the remaining yarn through the stitches rather than really casting them off) and one can see the end is much less ruffled than the starting end. But I thought, I don't mind, so no-one else should either!

I like it a lot, it's really long and in dramatic colours. I don't know how much wear it will get, but I did wear in on my birthday to Rocky Horror Show musical. I loved wearing it, plus the musical was just fantastic!