Birkenwasser knits

Time for the monthly update: knitting and reading. This month I've had so many deadlines with my knitting projects and I've been working on this and that and felt like I haven't accomplished anything. Well, I have, and I'll be sharing those projects with you soon. But what's in the working at the moment, here are a couple of interesting projects:


Knitting this tunic is taking a bit longer than I thought. I had already started the third skein of yarn and posted a pic about it on Instagram, and only seeing the photo made me notice how totally different colors the skeins were. And I did check that they were all from the same dye lot! So I had to rip almost the whole thing and alternate between two skeins to avoid unwanted color blocks. But it's a lovely yarn to knit with, so I don't really mind going back and redoing it. The yarn is BC Garn Colori. I haven't read any of Katja Kettu's books yet, but I've been wanting to for quite some time already. "Yöperhonen" had hundreds of people on the library waiting list, but only about 50 for the CD, so I'm going to try listening a book for a change. Which of course means that I can knit something more complicated than while reading! "Piippuhylly" is a book I saw Business woman reading, and as she said that the short stories are located in St. Petersburg I didn't need more recommendations. I love reading about all these familiar places!


This month I haven't been knitting for my own kids. I've knitted a couple of Pikkutylli cardigans for my friends' babies. We've taken a break from children's classics as well, and jumped right into coding for kids: "Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding" by Linda Liukas. My kids think it's ok, and I'm loving it! A fairy tale that teaches kids how to instruct computers, it's simply awesome! Read it. Even if you don't have kids.


I still haven't gotten around to read the Putin books on my night stand, but as I saw Business woman reading a book about Ukraine by Anna-Lena Lauren ("Ukraina - Gränslandet") I had to move it to the top of my reading queue. I loved her book about the Caucasus states ("I bergen finns inga herrar") and the crazy Russians ("De är inte kloka de där ryssarna") so I'm expecting a great deal from this book. And the yarn, well, I love knitting the green tunic, so I went ahead and got yarn for another one.

From my January projects I finished McEwan's "Children Act", but the tweed cardigan is on hold. I'm almost done with Fidel Castro, but not with Starling pullover. Philosophers and summer top are waiting for the right moment. Silk top is almost finished, but I haven't even started Sarah Waters yet. We finished Pippi Långstrump with the kids, but I didn't finish the dress yet. Oh well, multitasking sometimes means that nothing is finished even if there is progress on several fronts.

Joining Ginny on yarn along.

I had the opportunity to spend one day in Stockholm and I wanted to visit Litet nystan yarn shop after hearing so much good about it, for example, reading Senni's report last spring. It's located near Slussen in Södermalm, a nice walk from Viking Line terminal. Unfortunately, I didn't have that much time to spend in the shop, so all I did was stroll around to see what they have. There were many brands that I wasn't familiar with, so I might return some other time to pay more attention to those.


This time I knew that I wanted to try the shop's own name brand handpainted yarns. They didn't have the lovely cashmere blend that I had seen another friend knitting with, and I wasn't too amazed by the colors in the otherwise lovely merino lace yarn, so I ended up with the same sock yarn as Senni did, only in a different color. Shocking pink that is!



After admiring the lovely selection of brands and yarns I wasn't familiar with I reached the last ones: Malabrigo sock and Madelinetosh tosh merino light. It doesn't make that much sense to buy these from Stockholm when I could just walk to my LYS here in Helsinki for that. But seeing these colors made me return to the shelf and pick up the skeins, and as I looked at my watch I noticed that I must be heading back to the ship. So, there was no time to think which skeins to buy and I just rushed to the counter an bought all of them. I'll have to start knitting more shawls now!




Oh, there was one new yarn on my pile, or new for me, that is. Madelinetosh Pashmina, a merino-silk-cashmere blend. Don't you just love that colorway! And it's called Flashdance, how cool is that!

One of the reason for designing Pikkutylli baby cardigan was to have something new to knit for my friends who were having babies. Well, they were not the last babies around us, so I'm glad to have a nice pattern to pick up as more friends are having babies. My original pattern was knitted using three colors. The idea was for twin girls to get matching cardigans: the other one white with marine blue stripes and pink edges, the other pink with blue stripes and white edges. Then I saw some nice Pikkutylli versions on Ravelry knitted with two colors, so as I was buying yarn for two more cardigans I decided to go with only two colors each this time.