Birkenwasser knits

This Sweet Gemma was supposed to be a Christmas present for my Troll Princess. She's not a baby, but they do have nap times at the daycare, and she doesn't have a blanket there, so when I saw this lovely baby blanket design by Triona Murphy I knew that I wanted to knit it for her.




Anything going to the daycare needs to be something you can just throw into the washer when it comes back. I also wanted this blanket to be something she can play with, so I dug into my stash to see if there's enough of any machine washable yarn to work with. Troll Princess loves to build play houses with blankets and pillows, and I have told her that she's not allowed to use my Frida's Flowers blanket or my Paintbox Log Cabin blanket in her play. I feel bad about it, but the former is the biggest crochet project I have ever done, and the latter is hand painted silk yarn, so I don't want either one of them ruined in play. This one is now a blanket for her and she's allowed to play with it as much as she wants!


I found these Novita Wool leftovers in my stash. The yellow I used for the vest for Business woman last Christmas, and the purple was used in a lace pullover for her. I managed to make her believe that I had unraveled her garments to make the blanket, and she got pretty upset so in the end I had to tell her that I had just enough leftovers for the blanket. Or, almost enough. I weighed the yarn beforehand, knitted one square and realised that I have enough of both colors to make 4,6 squares. Now, you need 4 and 5, so it didn't quite add up, but I decided to think about it later and just knitted 7 squares to start with. At that point I noticed that there's more purple than yellow, and I also remembered that the Paintbox Log Cabin blanket pieces were attached with three needle bind off instead of binding off each piece separately and then crocheting them together. So I unraveled the bind off and went with three needle bind off instead. That allowed me to use yellow for the bind off and use the little strands unraveled from the purple squares to almost finish the 5th purple square. Don't tell anyone there's half a round missing from one square! You can only imagine the amount of ends to weave in...


To make the blanket a tad larger, I used the remaining yellow to knit a border around the blanket. With the border the blanket is 80 x 80 cm (31 x 31 inches), so it's not really big enough for a 5-year-old. I didn't manage to have the blanket done by Christmas, but Troll Princess' name day is after Christmas, so I told her that it was her name day gift. "This is the best name day gift I have ever received!" was the verdict, although it might also be the only name day gift she's ever received.

This is the only Indie Design Gift-A-Long project that I managed to finish on time, but I'm glad I got one project done. There are two more coming, but not within the GAL, unfortunately.

When I started writing patterns of my knitwear designs I promised myself that I would only write patterns for something that I've knitted for myself. I'm a selfish knitter after all, and I wouldn't want to waste time knitting something that I won't be able to wear. Well, 21 patterns later I've noticed that it doesn't really go that way... At least for me, that is. I used to knit my designs only for myself and I didn't care so much if they were perfect. Now that I've published my designs, I do want them to be perfect. The way I work, experimenting along the way, means that I typically knit a prototype, then write the pattern and knit the sample from my own instructions. This way I get to keep the prototype and still have the sample to show.


With my Circular Reference pattern I did it the other way around: I first knitted the sample (unraveling and re-knitting until perfect) and then noticed that I want one for myself, but in a bigger size. So I checked my stash and found one more skein of Onion Knit Tussah Silk, a purple skein that I bought to make a hat for myself. There were also just enough Madelinetosh Tosh DK leftovers from my Repeating Horizons pullover that I was able to knit the larger hat for myself.



What happened to the original gray Circular Reference samples then? Well, Young Warrior tried them on and said that he needs a hat and a cowl, so what could I say? I did negotiate with him enough to have the samples for my trunk show at Kässäkerho Pom Pom, but after that he took them and let's just say that they are not exactly in show condition anymore... Anyway, after he took them I had one jealous girl telling me that she also wants a hat and a cowl. I managed to negotiate that into just a cowl, as I reminded her that I knitted the Catwoman Returns hat for her last winter.



The cowl is a bit shorter than it's supposed to be, but I used all the yarn that was left from my hat and this is how far I got with it. Troll Princess is super happy with her cowl, though! Oh, and the shawl that I'm wearing, it's my modified Exploration station in Madelinetosh yarns as well, with some of the same Rose colorway.

It's CreaDienstag!

I know I said never again after finishing Tour-de-sock, but then I got my hands on New directions in sock knitting, a book by Ann Budd. I believe I started four sock projects that week. The first one that I finished was this pair of U-Turn socks by General Hogbuffer.




I had bought this Nordlys yarn from Trondheim last summer with the idea of making rag rug socks - you know, striping two gradient yarns. Well, that's basically what this pattern is also about, so it was time to get those souvenirs on the needles. The pattern is not your basic striped sock, though. You start from the back leg, working in a u-turn shape halfway around the leg, then switch to the front and knit from cuff down to toes. Finally, you pick up stitches for the ribbing (that was supposed to be knitted with twisted stitches, but I kinda missed that part. Could have been partly on purpose.)


The yarn is not your regular sock yarn. It has a mohairy look and feel, but it's a regular superwash wool (75%) - nylon (25%) mix. To me that says sock yarn, so I thought I'd give it a try. It takes a bit more concentration to knit than a regular sock yarn, but the socks actually feel pretty good. I was a bit afraid that the unorthodox construction combined with this yarn might not produce a well-fitting end result, but I'm happy to say I was wrong - the socks fit perfectly!


Heute ist wieder RUMS tag!

Four days in London should mean four yarn shops, right? Well, that was the plan to start with. I knew that I wanted to visit Loop London, so that was our first stop on the first day. And let me tell you, it was all you could wish for in a yarn shop!


The shop is located in Islington on a little street, Camden Passage, full of lovely shops. The area alone is worth the trip, and you can easily talk travel companions to join you for yarn shopping here. The only thing is that the shop is rather small, so on a Saturday afternoon it was full and there was a line up of travel companions waiting outside.


The shop has all those lovely yarns from around the world. I was only interested in souvenir shopping this time, and the staff was super helpful in not only pointing out the British brands, but also telling more about who is behind the brand and where exactly the yarns come from. Even if the shop was full of shoppers, there were enough shop assistants to wind yarn and help everyone.


The shop is organised so that fingering and lace weight yarns are downstairs, and DK and up upstairs. I was assuming that I would be more of a downstairs type of a knitter, but to my surprise I made some great finds upstairs. For example, this gorgeous Alpaca Tweed, made by The Border Mill exclusively for Loop London. I also happened to touch a skein of Old Maiden Aunt alpaca-silk mix, and after seeing the Blossom colorway just had to get some of that. I wanted to get something in fingering weight as well, and chose Shilasdair luxury 4ply, dyed with wild mushrooms.



The next shop on my list was Knit with Attitude in Stoke Newington. It's a shop for eco-friendly and ethical knitting, and who wouldn't want to support that? This shop takes a bit more travelling to get to, so we hopped on a double decker and thought of it as a sightseeing tour. However, the closer you get to the shop, the less sights there are, and the neighbourhood isn't really a tourist attraction. The shop is well worth the trip, though. Lovely yarns and a lovely shop that's half gift shop, half yarn shop as they share it with Of Cabbages and Kings. We actually walked pass the shop the first time, as we only noticed the posters and didn't see the yarns in the back.


There was a big couch in the shop, so in theory you could let your travel companion have a seat while browsing through the selection. In practice, the couch was taken. We were left on our own to browse the shop, but I found some souvenir yarns on my own. They were the shop's own I Knit or Dye brand, both sock yarns and merino singles. Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention at the cashier, and only later noticed that she mistakenly sold the yarns as "books and magazines". In case you are a tourist in London and plan to get VAT refunds, do check your receipts! In the UK, there's no VAT on books, so accidentally selling yarns as books effectively puts your VAT refund in the shop owner's pocket.


By the fourth day in London I had this bag full of yarn, so I decided to skip the fourth yarn shop. It is London, after all, so there's plenty to see and do even if you don't go yarn shopping every day! I recommend the new Design Museum; they have an exhibition called Fear and Love that's interesting for knitters. There are knitwear items by Chinese designer Ma Ke and Fibre Market by Christien Meindertsma, an interesting installation showing the actual fiber contents of old clothes - not always exactly what the tag says. There's also an interesting fashion exhibition, The Vulgar, at Barbican Art Gallery. And Robert Rauschenberg at Tate Modern, although that one doesn't have anything to do with knitting.

Ipana (”kiddo”) Cardigan is knitted seamlessly from the top down with circular yoke shaping. Sleeves are worked in the round. The yoke features a bubblewrap stitch decoration in multiple colors. It has the look of stranded color work, but it’s knitted with only one color at a time. Choose your favorite colors, or find use for all those scrap yarns! The cardigan has a slim fit (with about 3 cm/1 ¼“ positive ease) so it’s easy to wear as a middle layer and looks cool on its own. Please measure your child’s chest and arm circumference when choosing size, and choose a larger size if in doubt – or to make sure there’s growing space. The top-down construction makes it easy to try it on and modify both body and sleeve lengths if needed.





One of the best parts of knitting this cardigan was choosing the colors. And while I was waiting for my test knitters to work on their cardigans, I couldn't help but try a couple of other Tukuwool color combos. As soon as I find a 2-year-old model, I'll share more pics with you!

Join the Indie Design 2016 Gift-A-Long! What is Gift-A-Long? It’s a multi-designer promotion to help you kick your holiday gift-making into high gear! The Indie Design Gift-A-Long is a 6 week long KAL/CAL of holiday gifts made from patterns designed by a rather extensive list of independent designers. From November 22, 2016 at 8:00 pm US EST (that would be 3 AM Nov 24 here in Finland) to December 31, 2016 at midnight US EST there will be fun games, contests, and 8 KAL/CALs that will help you get your holiday knitting done with companionship and fun! Come and join us in the Indie Design 2016 Gift-A-Long group in Ravelry!

To make it even better - all participating designers are giving a 25 % discount on select patterns! There are 335 participating designers from all over the world, so there's plenty to choose from. The discount runs through Nov 22-30. Following that, you will have all of December to work on your KAL/CAL projects. There are lots of prizes and with more than 7000 members in the group you won't have trouble finding other knitters/crocheters to chat with!

So wind your yarn, get set, and see you in the group!

Some of you might have wondered how I managed to take such a sunny picture of the Broken tweed stitch mitts for my previous post. Well, it wasn't in the darkness of Helsinki in November, but in sunny Saaremaa in Estonia. Our autumn holiday took us to Kuressaare, which is the capital of Saaremaa island. The last time I visited Saaremaa was some 20 years ago, so I had totally forgotten what a lovely place it is!


One of the testers for my Mesmeria dress is Estonian and she used Estonian Aade Long gradient yarn for the dress. I love the way it turned out, so I wanted to find some of that yarn for souvenir. Unfortunately, she didn't know of any yarn shops in Kuressaare, but as she put it "if there are yarn shops you will find them".


In a small town of 15 000 inhabitants you might not expect to find yarn shops, but Estonia is a country of knitters and there were "Käsitööpood" signs everywhere! Mostly the shops sell knitted items, but some of them also yarn. The first shop that I visited was Tiiu Tanu handicrafts shop on Lossi 1. I admired all the knitted items on sale, but I didn't find anything interesting in their yarn selection - until I looked under the table and that's where all the Aade Long yarns were!


I believe that I found exactly the yarns that my tester used in her project. Although, I have to say that I'm not totally sure: we didn't have a common language with the ladies in the shop, and either they didn't understand my question of how the colors look like once knitted or they just didn't have a sample. I'll let the yarn surprise me!

In April, I thought that I was done knitting Broken tweed stitch gloves and mitts after making a fingerless pair for myself and gloves for Young Warrior. The young man initially wanted fingerless mitts, but had to settle for gloves as mom didn't want his fingers to freeze. Then Pokemon Go happened, and pretty soon it was obvious how unfair it was when mom was playing with fingerless mitts and son had to take off his gloves every time a Pokemon appeared. As there was yarn left, it wasn't a problem to knit another pair, using the modified gloves as pattern for re-modification back into fingerless mitts.




These three pairs of gloves and mitts finally used up all four balls of yarn, so there won't be any more of these mitts. Unless my Troll Princess wants a pair and I find more of the discontinued yarn somewhere...

It's a creative Tuesday again - taking part in CreaDienstag.

My original Shimmering Sea sample went to Quince & co and it's touring the US with the rest of the Shawls 2016 collection. I realised that I wanted one for myself, and as it's a nice shawl to knit with all that garter stitch it was about time to make another one. I wanted to try another yarn (the original design is for Quince & co Piper), and as a friend was planning to knit this with Malabrigo Lace I thought that I would do the same. I had a skein in Pearl Ten colorway left from my Wigeon project, so I wanted to get two colors to go with it. Now the problem was that my LYS only had one colorway of Malabrigo Lace. The light purple they had might have worked with Pearl Ten, but I would have needed to order the third color online anyway. So why not go with something completely different then!

Mesmeria Dress is seamless and knitted top-down, starting with a garter stitch yoke. The dress features bubblewrap stitch rows in two alternating contrast colors. There are buttons on the back neck matching the bubbles of the dress. The dress is long, but you can easily make it shorter: the top-down construction allows you to try it on and knit until desired length. The yoke is tight fitting, but the hem has more ease and plenty of room to allow play. The dress will turn into a tunic as your child grows!