Birkenwasser knits

First, there was Sparrow. Quince & co organic linen, shiny and lovely and turning into a design in my mind. After the Lehtokerttu design was on paper, it was time to get the yarns from Kerä, the LYS where I spotted the yarn. And then just cast on!



I had read about KALs, but never participated. Then I noticed that Quince & co was hosting a linen KAL - as I was knitting my Sparrow top! The KAL had started in April already, and the deadline was approaching on June 8th, but hey, deadlines are great, they give purpose to life, right?


So there I am, knitting along, when I notice another KAL: Tops, tanks and tees KAL by Very Shannon. Now can you participate in two KALs with the same knit? Maybe they'll disqualify me from both, but I thought that I'll go ahead and give it a try. And the best thing with this second KAL for my Lehtokerttu top: the deadline moved to June 3rd, so those needles better be moving!

Of course, this is the point when you get the front done, and notice that it's too small in every direction. So to make making the deadline a bit more challenging, I frogged the whole thing and started from the beginning. There's still almost a week to go, so no panic...



Then I read that Kerä is hosting a Lemon-KAL. This KAL has a specific pattern, Helga Isager's Lemon, which happens to be pretty awesome in that a) it's pretty and b) has some new things I haven't tried before (sideways stitches and front panel construction). The good thing is that the deadline is in July, so there's plenty of time for knitting here. So I'm going to take this as a learning experience and follow someone else's pattern for a change. Unless I need to modify it at some point...

Peltosirkku cowl is wider at the bottom and decreases to the top in order to show all four color blocks. Dropped stitches create vertical lace lines. Four balls of Isager plant fiber yarn are used and there are no left overs as you simply knit until you run out of yarn.



The pattern is available on Ravelry in English and in Finnish.

Sometimes you need a little break, and what would be a better destination for a romantic getaway than Moscow?! Well, on our honeymoon we travelled across Siberia on the Transsiberian railway, so any travels in Russia mean romance to us. To start the weekend properly, it was champagne and knitting during the flight. It was maybe the fifth time for me in Moscow, but the first time flying. Shame shame, when there's a perfectly good train connection. This time we had to compromise, though, as spending two nights on the train would have meant two more nights of babysitting for my parents.


I had asked a Moscow knitter @liss_ssa on Instagram for some advice on knitting destinations in Moscow, and it turns out that one of the local yarn shops that she recommended is located in Flacon design factory that I had been wanting to visit for quite some time. So, after arriving to Belorusskaya station with the airport express from Sheremetyevo, we took the metro to Dmitrovskaya and headed to Flacon. At lunch we noticed that what used to be Caffe Americano is now Crimean Coffee. Remember freedom fries, anyone?


After lunch it was time to visit the lovely Ili-ili yarn shop. There was a knitting class taking place as we came to the shop, so there wasn't much room for any serious shopping. Shopping was also slightly difficult, as there weren't any price tags. With the major fluctuations in currency, the prices are calculated with the daily exchange rate when you buy something. But hey, who wants to look at the price tag when buying yarn, right?! I found a lovely chocolate colorway of Malabrigo sock. When asking about the price the answer was "about 700 rubles". Well, the price I paid was 1060... I also bought a pair of KnitPro needles, as the long needles that I had with me were a bit too long for my handbag. After opening the package I was absolutely delighted to notice the shop's URL printed on the needles - it's really a souvenir!



Flacon is a really cool place to visit even if you don't visit yarn shops during travels. There's a Super heroes shop that sells Russian make and design t-shirts with super hero prints. So souvenirs for the kids were sorted out also and Superman and Monster high t-shirts were well appreciated by the little ones. There are many other design shops as well, and I found a perfect tunic at Sasha Fi. Matches the yarn I bought, so I'm thinking about the shawl on my try this list. There's also a shop that sells knits, so if you don't feel like knitting yourself, you can buy something or just find inspiration there.

During afternoon coffee I noticed that Anna Chapman (remember, the spy) was sitting at the next table. At first I thought that it can't be her, as everyone else was acting like it's perfectly normal to sit next to her at the Market bar. Well, as we got out I noticed that she has a shop across the yard, so it IS normal for everyone else to see her having lunch there.

As we were going out I stopped to look at the window of Ili-ili for a bit. "Go on, go inside, see if you can find something more that you'd like to buy!" - this is what it feels like to be loved!

On Saturday we wanted to visit Stalin's bunker at Taganskaya, but we were thrown out of the museum and told to call and make a reservation. As the Vysotsky museum is just around the corner, we decided to go there instead. And as one of the yarn shop recommendations I got was also in that neighborhood, we visited the Viving shop as well. The shop was nice and had some lovely silk yarns, but I wouldn't recommend the Planeta shopping mall unless you would like to experience the less fancy old type of Russian malls.

In the evening we visited the Winzavod centre for contemporary art to see the Best of Russia photography exhibition. The exhibition was great and also the Winzavod area was again more like Flacon; an old wine factory turned into galleries and bars.

On Sunday there was one more yarn shop on my list, Triskeli, which is located in the same area as the VDNH. As we had visited VDNH on our previous trip to Moscow, I decided that I can do one day without yarn shopping and we went to Krasny Oktyabr instead. One more old factory area turned into hipster heaven with design shops, bars etc. More souvenir shopping at T-shka and it was time to have lunch and head back to the airport.


A weekend of relaxing, eating great ethnic food that you can't get in Helsinki (we tried Armenian, Uyghur and Georgian), and hanging out at old factories. Oh, and yarn shopping and knitting! Knitting at cafes and restaurants did draw attention, but the only comment I got was from a waitress: "you are doing that so fast!". I also learned that on exit row of an aircraft you can't knit during take off and landing. "Because the needles are sharp and everything." Right.

A couple of weeks ago I listed five new things that I'd like to try. Well, not that I didn't have seven unfinished projects waiting, here I'm adding three new ones. Number one on my list was top-down knitting. Now, I understand that the wise thing to do would be to pick a pattern by someone else and learn the technique. But then I happened to visit the lovely LYS Kerä in Tampere and ended up with this lovely Katia rustic silk yarn and wanted to make a swatch and my mind started wandering and... Well, the design is in my head so I'm just going to see if I can skip the learning part and go straight to making the pattern while knitting. You can laugh at me later when I end up frogging the whole thing!


Oh, and stitch marks. I said that I would not want to try using stitch markers, but as that seemed to be the thing in common with all top-down patterns I thought I might as well give them a try while I'm at it. After the first 25 rows I can say that there's no reason to use them to see where you are supposed to increase as it's pretty visible at least with this yarn, BUT while you are reading something it does help to notice the increases without lifting your eyes from the newspaper.


Number five on my list was linen. I visited Kerä for the first time about a month ago with our knitting club (you can read about our trip in Liina and Senni's blog Kutimointia, in Finnish). I saw a table filled with Quince & co Sparrow linen, but couldn't think of what to knit of it. The reasonable me left the Sparrows on the table and came home with some Malabrigo lace and Isager Plant fiber, but I couldn't stop thinking about Sparrow. Slowly the design appeared in my thoughts, and then I had to go back to buy the yarn. My following visit to Tampere was for work, but I was pretty sure that I would find time to get the yarns as well. Unfortunately, the schedule was too tight and I had to return to Helsinki without Sparrows for the second time! Now I know that Kerä has an online shop as well, but it's not the same thing for me. There might even be a LYS in Helsinki selling Sparrow, but I'll have to write another post explaining why I travel 180 km to by yarn. Finally, after waiting for about a month, I had the opportunity to visit Tampere, and this time I made sure to make it to the yarn shop!


Then there's more baby news: a friend of mine gave birth to twin girls! I'm going to visit them in July so there's plenty of time to knit, but I happened to run into this Novita Puuvilla-bambu yarn. I've seen some baby knits made of this yarn, so I thought that I would knit something other than the woolen bonnet and socks that I always knit for my friends babies. Especially since I have knitted them for the first born of this friend already! Waiting for inspiration with these yarns now. (And hoping that my friend is busy with her babies and doesn't have time to read my blog...)

I added my blog on Bloglovin' and Blogipolku, so you can follow my blog with these services. I was happy to notice that 1/3 of the views to my blog are from outside of Finland, so it seems to make sense to write in English. I'm also happy for those 2/3 from Finland, as it shows that writing in English is not scaring off my Finnish friends. Thanks for reading!

Good things come from this blogging thing - like going through my WIP inventory and actually finishing something! I started the Allihaahka tunic a couple of years ago, and then found it when doing an inventory of my UFOs. All that was needed was blocking and sewing the tunic together, so I finally managed to do that. In case you would like to knit something similar, the pattern is available on Ravelry in English and in Finnish. The tunic has an A line shape, set in sleeves and color work both in the front and back. You could also knit it with the stripes only in the front and back all gray.

About a week ago I realized that it was the day my friend was due to have a baby. And I hadn't even started to knit anything for the baby! Luckily I had some lovely forest green Novita wool that I knew was going to be left over from another project (Kuukkeli vest for Young warrior), so time to cast on. There's a baby hat that I've knit many times and both of my kids have used these hats, so it's a good baby gift to knit. I was a bit worried about finding a baby hat in my house, as my youngest is turning four, but luckily I noticed that the instructions are printed on the Wool band.


The hat is a quick knit as it's only garter stich and a small piece. I found one sock to use as a pattern for the socks. Still no baby news the following night, so blocking and casting on the first sock.


It doesn't take long to knit a pair of mini socks, and as there was the constant pressure to finish, I even managed to sew the seams and weave in the ends. Last night I washed the pieces and this morning I got a message: a little baby boy was born this morning! Just-in-time knitting.