Birkenwasser knits

Fifth round of Tour-de-Sock had some interesting colorwork: mosaic knitting. Unlike regular stranded knitting where you work with all colors at the same time, switching between them according to the chart, in mosaic knitting you only use one color at a time. This means that you knit part of the stitches and lift part of the stitches according to the chart. This way you avoid the big mess that can occur when switching back and forth with the yarns. The pattern had options for the front and back charts, so there are several alternatives of what the finished socks look like.

A photo posted by Katrine Birkenwasser (@birkenwasser) on Jul 14, 2016 at 4:00am PDT

I had bought the green Väinämöinen sock yarn to go with the leftovers of the yellow Hedgehog fibres sock yarn from my Knotty gloves project. After knitting one repeat of the pattern I noticed that the contrast wasn't enough, and I would only waste my time knitting the complicated mosaic pattern. So I headed to my stash and found a red skein of Väinämöinen, which looks, perhaps, even better combined with the green. Of course, changing colors and starting over meant losing time, as did knitting a bigger size. I'm happy with the socks, though, as I finally managed to get a pair that fits my feet. Never mind finishing 26th.

The first (and hopefully not the last!) Jyväskylä Summer Knit Festival was everything that I was hoping for: interesting classes, gorgeous yarn and an opportunity to meet other knitters. I started my festival with Ysolda's "Beyond the Raglan" class and ended with Jonna Hietala's "Knit Pictures with Stories" workshop. Between classes I managed to buy a bag full of lovely yarn, and also meet many other knitters.


Kässäkerho PomPom is a new yarn shop in Kuopio, and they had a lovely stand with yarn and supplies. Their own hand dyed BFL and donegal might have been the most photographed yarn at the festival (well, La Bien Aimee would be competing for that!), and I should have bought some. My issue with sock knitting is the only reason why I don't have any in my souvenir bag. The market place had several other options for buying yarn, both Finnish favourites, as well as La Bien Aimee from France and Snail Yarn from Italy.

Knit graffiti at Toivolan vanha piha (the festival venue)

There was a "Fitting room" for trying on knitwear. Many of them were samples from Titityy, but also from knitters wanting to share what they have knitted. I took a bag full of my own designs, and was very pleased to hear the response. Puuhis wasn't the only one taking a picture of my Briochangle shawl, so I'm hoping to see many more of them in the future!

My goodie bag: 4 skeins of La Bien Aimee, 2 skeins of Handu and 11 from Knitlob's Lair. Can't wait to get these babies on my needles! And yes, there is sock yarn. I was so amazed by the experience with Handu on Tour-de-Sock that I had to get more of that. It seems that I'll be knitting socks even after Tour-de-Sock.

Thank you Tiina, all the volunteers, market place sellers and designers and class organisers for a great festival!

Jyväskylä Summer Knit Festival provided an opportunity for bloggers to learn more about taking pictures of knitwear. A three-hour workshop, "Knit Pictures with Stories" by Jonna Hietala included tips and tricks, as well as a recap of Photography 1.0. We also got to do some practice with our cameras.


We were instructed to bring some yarn and knitwear to practice with. I thought that I'd surely end up buying yarn so I didn't bring any with me. That proved right, and I had the prettiest props to play with: my haul from La Bien Aimee!


Jonna gave us tips of good photographers whose work to check out, including interesting Instagram accounts. She also gave some advise on what kind of gear to get and I might invest in a new lens that she recommended. We'll see. We saw some of her knitwear pics and she explained how they were taken and processed afterwards.


Then it was time for practice! Luckily, it wasn't raining anymore, although sunshine is not optimal for photography either. At least it was nice to spend some time in the garden and enjoy the weather. This was also an opportunity to talk about photography with other knitters. After the practice session outside, Jonna commented on our pictures and showed us an example of editing a picture with Photoshop.


I had plenty of yarn that I had bought earlier, but I had left all my knitwear for show at the festival. I didn't let that stop me, as there were so many other knitters with their lovely knitwear and I simply asked them to pose for me. Actually, that was a better choice than wearing something myself - I can't take pictures of myself without extra gear after all!

Tut from Tuin kutomo with her gorgeous Exploration station. Thanks for posing!

Jyväskylä Summer Knit Festival started on Friday, July 15 with classes taught by knitting super stars. I wanted to continue with my plan to learn from the best, so I signed up for "Beyond the raglan" by Ysolda Teague. The class was about top-down construction and the many different ways to do it.

Example of different increases

Ysolda started by explaining the different construction options: compound raglan, round yoke, saddle shoulder, set-in sleeves and modifications to them. We also looked at the different ways of increasing, be it raglan or any other shaping. Then she explained how to take measures and calculate increases to achieve the desired construction. We also got to do some hands-on exercise in knitting a set-in sleeve mini sweater sample. After the knitting break it was time to do some math, and we did example calculations for the different construction types. Ysolda had brought some samples with her, so we could also take a closer look at some of her designs.


The hands-on part of the class was especially nice in that it provided an opportunity to chat with other knitters in the class. The finished sample turned into a souvenir for Troll princess - after we found a doll whose head is small enough to fit, as neckline adjustments were omitted.

The fourth stage of Tour-de-Sock meant that it was time to learn something new again: knitting with beads. The pattern, A Song of Beads and Lace by Sarah Bordelon, is a lovely combination of, well, beads and lace in a nice straight-forward way. Beads are not difficult to work with, but I wouldn't recommend this pattern for the knitting conditions I had this round...

A photo posted by Katrine Birkenwasser (@birkenwasser) on Jul 4, 2016 at 1:05pm PDT

There wasn't that much knitting time during the travelling, and once I got to Trondheim I didn't exactly sit at the hotel and knit. The town is nice and compact, so I walked around a lot, visited several yarn shops and took the occasional knitting break admiring the view when possible. That didn't get these socks done, so I had knitting to do on my homebound journey, and only finished the socks once I got back home. That meant that I finished 183rd... At least I was using sponsor yarn this time, so it was two points for my team. Team, that is appropriately called 'Traveling stitchers'!


The pattern was nice and easy to knit, as long as you pay attention to the charts. Which I didn't, of course, and ended up redoing one of the cables: by the time I got to the heel I noticed that I had started to twist the cable the wrong way soon after the cuff. No-one would probably ever notice, but it would bother me, so a bit of extra work there. I like the cables on these socks, and if it weren't a competition I would have modified the pattern leaving out the purl diamonds and doing cables all around.

Joji Locatelli gave a class called "Approach to Sweater Design" at Titityy LYS in Jyväskylä. This was an inspirational evening filled with tips and tools for knitting and sweater design. If you ever get the opportunity to take a class with her, I'd definitely recommend it!


 The class covered sweater design from finding inspiration to grading and pattern layout. Joji showed us pictures of knitwear that have been inspirational to her and explained how some more complicated constructions had been achieved. Then she introduced the traditional construction techniques and gave some examples of how they can be modified. She explained how to take measures and transform those to stitch counts. Last, she explained how to use tables of measurements for grading the pattern.


The class was full of knitters from all around Finland and even from St. Petersburg in Russia. There were differing backgrounds in knitting and knitwear design. It turned out that some of the participants would have preferred the previous class "Sweaters that fit (You!)", but couldn't make it and took this class instead. I'm sure they found the part of taking measures useful. And for those of us with some design experience already, I'm sure the others also agree that it doesn't hurt to learn more from the best! I found the little details most interesting: what knitters want to knit, what kinds of questions will they have, what kinds of details should you add in the instructions to make it easier for the knitters.


Joji's Worsted boxy was used as an example in the class. To make the most of the learnings in class, I think I'll continue with homework and knit this one next. Although, now looking at her patterns more carefully, I do feel tempted to get the whole Interpretations 3 collection! Especially My Everything has an interesting construction, and would be more fitting to my plan of knitting a black cardigan. If I knit Worsted boxy with my black silk-cashmere-merino cardigan yarns, will I then have to buy more for the cardigan..?