Birkenwasser knits

Easter provided a good excuse to pick up my crochet hook again. After the success with my amigurumi fruits and vegetables I wanted to make some Easter decorations with left over yarns. I also wanted to make something for my sister, as we were going to visit her during Easter. I found a lovely pattern for a decorated Easter egg, and then I found this self-striping yarn in my stash and tried that with a simple egg pattern. I like them both, and so does Troll Princess, who actually threw a fit when she discovered that these amigurumi were not made for her and she explicitly told me that I wasn't allowed to give the little eggs to my sister. I might have to make a couple more of these.

This month I have finished so many projects, that it made me feel uncomfortable already: what if I suddenly don't have the right project to knit when I need it? It's always good to be on the safe side and work on 10+ projects at any given time. So I've started some new things:


I had an idea about a shawl design long time ago already, but didn't like the way it turned out with the yarn that I used for the first version. Now that I found these lovely Malabrigo sock colors from Stockholm, I thought I'd give the idea another try. I can already say that it looks a lot better than my first try! The book is "Lasteni farina" (Story of my children) by Essi Kummu. It's a book about the early years of her prematurely born twins and how she was traumatized by everything that happened. Actually, the book is more about her trauma than about her children.


Easter is coming, so it's time to make some Easter decorations. I like the occasional crochet project, and making vegetables was so much fun that I wanted to continue with amigurumi and decided to make some Easter eggs this time. Getting rid of some old scrap yarn while at it! The book is "Viimeinen sana" (Last word) by Pärttyli Rinne, story of a school shooting. Pretty heavy stuff here to go with the pastel colored eggs, huh?


After knitting the Brassy bling bling hat I thought that I would frog the whole pullover I had made of the bling bling yarn earlier. It would be easier to use the yarn for other projects if it was unraveled and ready for use, right? Well, it's such a pain to unravel that yarn, that I gave up after half an hour or so. I was listening to a book while doing it, "Snabba cash" (Easy money) by Jens Lapidus. It's a crime story of Stockholm underground: drug dealers, trafficking in women, Yugoslav mafia. Definitely not my type of reading, but I do like to read these best sellers every now and then to know what people are talking about. Of course, the fact that it was a gift from an e-book service provider played a role in the choice of the book. I can see why it's been so popular, and I have to say that I have learned a lot of organized crime and money laundering by listening to it. Lapidus is a criminal defense lawyer, so I guess there's some truth to what his writing.


I'm still working on this dress for Troll princess. It hasn't been number one on my knitting queue, and I'm afraid the winter is going to be over before I finish it. I have to make it big enough so it will fit her next winter! In the kids' classics series we have started with "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. The kids are loving it: yesterday Troll princess asked for a second chapter of Oz even if there was a choice of Frozen princess stories on the table! (They both get to choose one book/chapter/story every night.)

What about last month's projects? Well, I finished the tunic I was working on, and didn't even have to unravel anymore. I read the short stories by Katja Kettu, and started listening to the other book. We loved Ruby's adventures in coding and I'm hoping that my friend liked the cardi that I knit for his baby boy. I read the book about Ukraine, but I'm not sure if I really understand more about the situation there, except that it's a mess. The yarn for a second tunic is still waiting for its turn, even if the tunic turned out great. I have to knit something else for a change.

Joining Ginny's Yarn along.

Bubble gum colors for my Troll princess. The perfect choice for a sunny summer day: bright and striped! The stripes are made by changing both color and texture, alternating in stockinette and purl in four colors.




The pattern is available on Ravelry in English and in Finnish in size 104. You'll need one ball of each color.



The original version of the design had colored stripes on gray background, but I learned the hard way that storing children's wear projects for a year is not a good idea. I had knitted the front a year earlier, but got distracted with other projects. Then I returned to this one, picked a t-shirt from what Troll princess is wearing now to get the correct size for sleeves, but noticed that there were some other minor adjustments needed as well:


As I didn't have enough gray to make a bigger version like this, I modified the stripes so that there's gray background on the top and more colors at the bottom. As this project has taken some time, you might not find the same colors anymore. However, I think any bright happy colors would make a similar result, just choose a neutral background color to replace the gray, and then the brightest colors you can find for the other stripes!