Birkenwasser knits

I had seen a couple of finished Lemon projects earlier and thought that the pattern looked interesting. Then the lovely yarn shop Kerä announced that they were hosting a KAL for this pattern, so I thought I'd give it a try. And I'm glad that I did, as the result is absolutely beautiful!






The front panel meant learning to do vikkel braid. Luckily Jonna from Kerä provided a good instruction video, as my first try from reading the instructions failed. It's not difficult to do, but it's time consuming. Switching between vikkel braid and stockinette stitch meant that I would read the newspaper for 20 minutes while doing stockinette, and then take a 10 minute break and make the vikkel braid. A bit annoying. This knit is not for reading! At least not the panel part.


After finishing the front and back panels you make little folds on the sides and knit the sleeves and sides sideways. I made a slight mistake with the folds and only noticed it when I was almost done with the whole top, so I decided to leave it as it is. Unfortunately, this means that the folds that really took a lot of time and energy are not as visible as they should be. Sigh. There's a lot of picking up stitches, which is ok when you do it for the first time, but when you pick the same stitches for the second time, that's when it gets difficult.


My favorite part is the neckline finishing with triple vikkel braid. I think I'm going to be borrowing that for one of my own designs!



Unfortunately, I noticed that my first worry of this design not working for my body type was correct. I didn't buy any extra yarn, so I couldn't modify the pattern, but ended up knitting something that I can't wear. And after trying to unravel my vikkel braid swatch, I noticed that you can't unravel this either. This might be due to the yarn, which has a pretty rough texture. I think I like the yarn, but I'm not sure if I would knit another summer tee with it.

This was a nice learning experience, though: doing vikkel braids, panel construction, three needle bind off, trying a new yarn, so I'm glad that I participated. I also enjoyed very much seeing everyone else's progress on Instagram. I should have just payed more attention to their pics and see when they differed from what I was doing...

Erwin Wurm exhibition at Sara Hilden art museum turned out to be all about knitting. Well, almost, and from a knitter's perspective at least. The museum says that the major themes of the exhibition are "a yearning for freedom and individuality, the vanity of striving, the breaking of rules and the subtle difference between the sublime and the base or between normativity and deviance". I say the artist portrays knitwear in amazing contexts.


Totally awesome Psycho series shows people wearing knitwear, but doing it all wrong, trying to escape from where they've end up. Knitwear sculptures!



Best part, however, is the wall size Mental pink, a knitted pullover for a wall. Specially made for this wall with a gigantic knitting machine. It's really knitted! The museum is hoping to find the funds to keep this piece of art, as it wouldn't make sense on any other wall. Because it was knitted for this wall.



There are a bunch of other interesting pieces in the museum: you can make your own One minute sculpture (idea that was borrowed by Red Hot Chili Peppers on their Can't stop video), funny sausage sculptures, a fat car, giant pink suit, etc.

I think my Washing line street art piece won't be the last knit art production in my repertoire. Feeling inspired. Go see it. Before Sep 20.

I seem to be knitting for my Young warrior twice a year: a beanie for the winter and a vest for dressing up. The previous vest was with cables and you can find the Kivitasku vest pattern on Ravelry. This time I wanted to knit a background for this "T" badge I had bought a couple of years ago already.



As I was sewing the badge on the finished vest, I remembered an earlier project with badges. This was for a bit younger version of the Young warrior. This vest has the same story behind it: I found these cute little badges and wanted to knit something that I could sew them on.




As this smaller size vest is no longer in use, I've put it on sale on a Finnish auction site. There's another little vest as well, this one of Rowan Bamboo soft yarn. These are both about size 68/74.

I was planning on writing a pattern for the vest, but as it's a really simple thing I guess you can easily make your own pattern and just add the badges that you'd like. You could also take the Kivitasku pattern and just leave out the cables from the front and knit in stockinette stitch instead.