The wool for this sweater was on special offer, I bought it almost 4 years ago, and have been working on it on and off for about a year. I couldn’t find a design that fits the bulky, hairy yarn and my petite figure, so I swatched and designed until I thought I knew what to do. Today I finally finished it. I love the colours and the sweater. It took so long because I didn’t want to work on it on the commute, because the yarn is hand-washing only and the pattern complicated.
This is the pattern close up. It is an old pattern, called grape vine, trees (where I live) or print o’ the waves.
The only problem: the sweater doesn’t fit me. At all. That’s what the title of the posting is about. It looks actually worse on me than the photograph suggests. I’m small and skinny, so overly big and bulky sweaters do not exactly look flattering on me.
The stuff is really hairy and has a lot of wool and mohair, frogging it would ruin the yarn. So I’ll probably sell or gift it, although it’s breaking my heart.
And now that I’m on vacation, I actually find time to photograph and post a few of my knitted things. I’ll show more over the next few days.
This is a little bag I made. It was inspired by seeing the leaf pattern on a cowl I didn’t want to make. I know the thing is lacking a drawstring – I’ll buy some satin band as soon as i get round to it.
I quite like the improvised pattern and may actually write it up for download, but I want some braid between the seed stitches and the rest of the bag. I will have to test knit that before publishing.
the empty bag:
The same, filled with a pack of tarot cards (which is what I knit it for):
Once more, from a weird angle:
And a closeup of the pattern:
Would that be something you might knit?
I just keep doing what I do…
This time, I’m knitting no socks but a fingerless mitts/scharf set. The are “Merletto” pattern from ravelry.com. The scharf is an improvised bias knit triangle with the merletto pattern. Maybe more on that when it’s finished. I want something that keeps me warm but is not looking like i’m wrapping myself for deepest winter.
Last weekend would have been sketch crawl. I had family visiting and was exhausted from a hard week at work, so I didn’t make it there. I did a little sketch anyway. It is a charcoal sketch illuminated with watercolours. I realized again how much I love natural chacoal. I will have to do more of that.
Yes, I’m still busy knitting socks. The first one of my paraphernalia is done. This is a free pattern from ravelry.com with minor modifications. I added the colours because I had wool leftovers to get rid of. I also ignored their toe instructions and did them as I always do them.
I also have started a new project. This one is my own pattern. I’m thinking about preparing this one for public release, but you know how notorically bad I am about seeing such projects through to the end. These days I’m proud of myself if I finish any craft project at all.
I also have been painting a bit this weekend, but that will be for another post.
I love knittting socks, and I’ve done a lot of them over the last year. So I show you socks today.
The first picture shows the heap of baby/young child socks I have done during winter. Most went to aquaintances or coworkers who got new babies.
These two pairs of socks were knit for the newborn of a coworker. I hope they keep the little one warm. Pink is the mother’s favourite colour, and she told us upfront it was going to be a girl.
This is the heap of baby/child socks I knit the last two or three months. Again for relatives and aquaitances with little ones.
This is the first sock on one of the pairs for me I currently work on. The safety pin holds a lost stitch which I will secure when the sock is done. I only saw the lost stitch a few row above it so I fudged a new one instead of working this one up through the cables. I’m not going into all the other adult socks I knit because you want only so many pics in one posting.
I’m sorry for the long blogging break. I’m especially sorry if I scared anybody. I’m reasonably well, but life kept getting in the way. Also, my bad shoulder has somewhat healed and now that I can do it again I’m absolutely, totally addicted to knitting. If you are on ravelry.com, search for tenar72 there.
Still, I’m missing the blogging world and want to be back. Maybe never as regular as before, but I’ll try. And I won’t preasure myself to do things I don’t feel like just for the sake of blogging about them, so it may well be some time until there’s stitching again. But there will be.
For now, just some random pics about what’s on my needles.
These random parts will be a frog one day. Note to self: knitted amigurumi are not the right project for learning short rows and kitchener stitch. There’s just too much of it, and it’s my first time doing both.
The next is an arm of the sweater I’m currently knitting. Yes, my camera is out of order again, so no better pics.
Two pairs on baby socks. there are more socks in the works, so I guess you’ll see a sock special here soon.
So I have decided to start my new knitting project. I am using the diamond pattern from last wednesday’s post in 3 repeats and a few rows knit/purl pattern at the sides.
This is how far I’ve got. I’m using 4,5 mm knitpro needles and regia silk socks wool, which is fingering weight.
What do you think, will this be wearable?
A closeup of the pattern:
There is so much going on, I don’t quite know where to start. Of late I have been knitting lots again. I went through Victorian Lace Today and tried out more patterns.
The first one is real lace, with patterned purl rows. It doesn’t look too impressive, I think it calls for bigger needles, and of course getting blocked.
The second one is basically the same, just with differently aligned directional decreases and unpatterned purl rows thrown in. Therefore no true lace, and much easier to knit. In the second repeat I added a purl stitch in the center of the leaves to give them more structure. I do like this pattern.
The next one is again no true lace. It is done without cables, just with cleverly placed dirctional decreases. I like this very much, but not on a narrow scarf.
After that I started thinking. What I really want to do next is a scarf which will stand everyday’s wear and tear, is washable and not too slow to knit up. None of the lace scarfs from the book seems to fit the bill, so I’ll need to design something myself.
I took the true lace pattern from two weeks ago (also from Victorian Lace Today) and added in plainly purled back rows and directional decreases. This makes for a rather standard modern diamond pattern. I think this is going to be my scarf. I still can do something more lacy on another occasion then.
Well, it is not wednesday, but I have time for a blog posting and don’t want to wait.
The first one is the crochet doily. It is done, and lies flat properly. It was not yet blocked. Would anybody want the pattern? I’ll chart it and post it here if yes.
Another lace knitting pattern. this one is true lace, that means yrn-overs and purl-togethers on the wrong side. I did not add a second repeat because I did something wrong with the first one.
This is the smpler I’m using to try out my TAST 2 stitches. It started life as a sampler during the laid work month of last year’s challenge.
I need to have some more structure to my blogging if I want to do it more regularly. So I’m going to try and show you what I actually do every wednesday, no matter how boring it is.
Since last wednesday, I have been working on that doily pattern again. This time, I used Nr 20 crochet yarn, not 10, which I like much, much better. It does lay flat this time round.
the knitted stuff is supposed to be Victorian Lace. I felt I needed a new challenge in knitting, so my christmas present to myself was the book Victorian Lace Today as recommended by my friend at textiledreamer. Thanks to her, I also bought knit pro knitting needles which seem to be very good for this. Since then I’m busy trying out all the patterns so I’ll learn how to do it and can decide which complete project I want to do.
I also tried to come to grips with a certain knot stitch, ponto grilhao, not very successful so far.
The last thing I have to show is progress of a very different sort. Some time ago, I oderered a male roborowski hamster from a breeder to mach the female I already had. I got a female cambpell hamster, and the poor thing went into labor as soon as she arrived at my place. It is a wonder that she raised 2 pubs after that stress. The first pic shows one at about 20 days, the next at three weeks. Didn’t they come a long way since their birth, naked and blind? They are almost adult size by now. I will keep poor mom and give her a good home although she bites, but I will try to find new homes for the young.
