Birkenwasser knits

Third stage on Tour-de-sock introduced a pattern that made several knitters drop their needles before even starting. I was happy to face the challenge, and learned some new stitches while at it. Nevertheless, it took forever to finish this pair and the result wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. And still, I'm planning on knitting another pair!


These socks have a diamond pattern that is basically achieved with short rows - a lot of knitting back and forth, that is. The instructions say that it would be a good time to learn to knit backward. It would save time if you didn't have to turn the work all the time. I thought that learning some new stitches would be enough for this round, and kept turning my sock. I hadn't used shadow wraps before, but the instructions were clear with good pictures, and it didn't take long to get the hang of it. Also the opposite of kfb (knit front and back), i.e., kbf (knit back and front) was new to me, and I might use that more in the future. KLL and PLL (knit/purl left leg) increases were also something I hadn't tried before, and I'm still not quite sure what is the 'leg' of a stitch.



I was hoping to finish the socks before Midsummer celebrations, but I guess I should have learned to knit backwards as this pattern was really the slowest pattern ever to knit. I ended up traveling to a small island with no electricity with these socks. I had to turn my phone off to save power until Midsummer day when I finally finished the socks and had enough power left to send pictures of the socks to the judges.


I was hoping to make a pair for myself for a change, so I went with size L, tried it on after finishing the second tier of diamonds and everything seemed to be ok. Now, the problem was that I didn't pay attention to the gauge. (Here's a question: why is the gauge given for 1 inch in some patterns, for 4 inches in some, and in this special case for 2 inches?!) This meant that my gauge was way off: I had 32 sts per 4 inches, when the pattern called for 18 sts per 2 inches and so my socks turned out too big for me. Which would be ok and I can always give the socks to someone else (not that I know of any women whose feet are bigger than mine...), but it meant an extra diamond through the leg: quite a bit of unnecessary extra work in a speed-knitting contest.


By the time I got to the toes I had to re-read the pattern a couple of times, and then did the decreases as instructed. It seems that some knitters went the 'normal' way and had to redo their toes, so I'm happy that I didn't do what felt right, but what was instructed. I finished 63rd, and I'm afraid that with a non-competitive round 2 and this one combined a certain knitter whose main goal in the contest is to beat me is going to reach her goal. Which reminds me that I haven't even written about stage 2!

This was again an opportunity to learn, so I'm happy that I did it, even if the end result is not exactly what I was hoping for. And now that a couple of days have passed, I'm even thinking of trying another, more colourful yarn that might look good with this pattern (the same one I used with my turquoise broken seed stitch socks). It's sport weight, though, so it wouldn't take as long to knit! Although, I have to admit that I burned the instructions at the summer cottage fireplace after finishing with this pair...

Participating in RUMS.

Piper is a lovely yarn to work with: 50 % superfine Texas merino, 50 % super kid Texas mohair. It's incredibly soft and easy to knit. This was my first project using Piper, and I have already stashed more for my next project!


You can purchase Shimmering sea shawl pattern as an individual pattern through Ravelry or Quince & co, or you can get the whole shawl week collection of five patterns with a downloadable lookbook. The collection includes shawls by Melanie Berg, Leila Raabe,  Paulina Popiolek, Leah B. Thibault, and Katrine Birkenwasser.


Photos: Pam Allen/Quince & co

Briochangle shawl is a triangle-shaped shawl. Two color brioche stripes give you plenty of time to get used to brioche knitting before the more complicated decorative edging. Use high contrast in colors for a more visible pattern or less contrast for a subtle effect. I used The Uncommon Thread Uncommon Everyday for the pink-gray version and Rowan Fine Art for the mint-purple one.


Full-size shawl takes more than two 100 g hanks of yarn, but you can leave out one repetition of the pattern in order to make it with two hanks. Instructions for this are given. Of course, if you knit tight like I do, two skeins are enough for the full size shawl. Finished measurements (full size): Length 150 cm (59’’), width 59 cm (31’’).

Unprocessed wool yarn and clothing at Nøstebarn

Tour-de-Sock is not the only sock knitting that's been going on over here. Young warrior's last day of pre-school meant thinking of a small gift for his teacher, and what would be better than hand-knitted socks, right? I had seen some lovely Broken seed stitch socks before, so I wanted to use that pattern. The only problem was that it's for fingering weight yarn and I had plenty of DK sock yarn in my stash. Actually, that wasn't such a big problem, as the Broken seed stitch sock pattern is not actually a pattern, more of a sock recipe, so I looked up a sock pattern for Novita Nalle, the yarn that I was using, and took the number of stitches and measures from that. The reason why I wanted to use a pattern for the measures was that as the socks were a gift it meant that trying them on my own foot would not help in getting the size even close to a normal foot.




After knitting one pair I wanted to try how the socks would look like with another colorway, so I knitted another pair. While finishing the socks I heard about a call for socks for youth in foster care, so there was a good recipient for this other pair of socks. I don't know if hand-knitted socks are really what you need at that point, but if an organisation that's working with foster care youth asks for socks for the teens that's enough for me. I hope one kid is happy with the socks, knowing that someone put time and effort in knitting socks for her.

I don't know what got into me, but a couple of days ago I found myself signing up for Tour-de-Sock 2016. That means knitting 6 pairs of socks in a speed-knitting contest. For someone who doesn't like to knit socks that sounds like a pretty crazy idea, but there I was, anxiously waiting for the publishing of the first pattern on Wednesday. Once I got the pattern, I was knitting like the wind for an hour or so, until I remembered that it was Young Warrior's pre-school graduation night and had to put down my knitting. When I told Business woman about the contest, she was worried that I would mess up my sleep pattern for the whole summer if I stayed up all night knitting socks. I tried to explain to her that there's also a possibility to participate in a relaxed mode - and she looked at me like I was out of my mind and asked: "What's the point of participating if you're not going to be competitive?". Well, I did attend the pre-school graduation, and I didn't even stay up all night after that. At about 1 AM I realised that I wouldn't finish the socks that night anyway, so I gave up and continued the next day. I thought that I was now in the relaxed mode, but to my surprise there were only 22 knitters who had finished before me. Does that make me competitive after all? Looking forward to seeing how many of the 1179 participants finish the first round. I might take the next 5 slightly easier.




This was the first time that I was participating in TDS. The socks were also the first ones that I've knitted two at a time, the first ones knitted magic looping, the first ones in (light) fingering weight yarn, and the first lace socks that I've knitted. Needless to say, the heel and toes were also new to me. I haven't used kitchener stitch in years, and never for finishing socks. That caused an extra half an hour in the finishing, as I was too tired to google for instructions and decided to go with the trial and error method instead. All in all, quite a few first ones in one project. You might be able to tell that I'm not usually a sock knitter...