Birkenwasser knits

Midsummer Haze was Joji Locatelli's contribution to Jyväskylä Summer Knit Festival: the pattern was a gift in the festival magazine. At first sight, I thought it was a nice pattern, but not my cup of tea. I admired the lovely Midsummer Hazes popping up on my Instagram feed and that was it. Later in July, our family vacation trip took us to the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. I have bought several yarn souvenirs from Estonia, so now I wanted to see what Latvia and Lithuania have to offer. A bit of googling, and I knew that I wanted to buy some Lithuanian linen. Unfortunately, we came to Vilnius, the capital, on Saturday afternoon due to my knitting obligations. That meant that the nice yarn shops that I wanted to visit had already closed - and on Monday we had to leave early to visit Trakau castle before heading to the other side of the country to see the Curonian spit. We stayed in Klaipeda, and happened to walk by Siulas linen shop (Lino Namai at Tiltų g. 11), and among all the lovely linen products they also sold linen yarn! So I did managed to get my linen souvenir after all.


The original plan was to knit a summer top with the linen, but it didn't take long before I started thinking about the Midsummer Haze pattern. That would look nice in linen, and a linen cowl would be a summer accessory, wouldn't it? Well, it is!



I was a bit afraid that the rustic linen wouldn't work in a lace cowl, but I was wrong. I think it's lovely, and it has that linen shine. I'm really happy that I changed my mind about this pattern - or just found the perfect yarn for it. I'm also really happy that I found this linen. I have 400 g left, so a summer top might still be doable, and hey, Lithuania is not that far to go and buy more!


Linking up to RUMS.

My Steller Tunic pattern is published on Ravelry!  This tunic is knitted seamlessly top-down. There is garter stitch edging on neckline, hem and cuffs. The tunic has a flattering a-line shape with set-in sleeves, designed to fit tight around the shoulders and loosening along the way towards the hem. A color block in the hem gives room for a bit of color play. Choose a size closest to your bust circumference. This light tunic worked in a wool-linen-silk yarn is perfect for warm days and nice to wear when the weather starts getting colder.



If you think that autumn is not optimal to knit a short-sleeve top, you can do as I did for the prototype version of this pattern: knit half length sleeves. Or continue until 3/4 or full length! If you knit the hem first, you can see how much yarn you have left and knit your sleeves accordingly.



Linking up to RUMS.

The last round of Tour-de-Sock was a tough one. We knew beforehand that it would be four colors and quite a large amount of yarn. It turned out to be stranded knitting using four colors, which is still ok. The new thing here was jacquard floats, and these two combined made knitting slow. Very slow. Actually, most of the participants didn't even get started with these socks, and those who did dropped out pretty soon after noticing how much time it would take to finish this pair.




Jacquard floats was a new technique for me. It means that you add float stitches every two or three stitches apart and purl these stitches with yarns in front. This way the inside of the sock is also almost knitted, and there are no long floats to worry about. It does make the socks rather thick, though. You need to pay attention to the order of your yarns. I only noticed this as I was knitting my second sock: you can see how the float stitches are showing at the top of the large squares. At that point I was wondering how I managed to knit the first sock without learning the technique, but also at that point I didn't care anymore; all I wanted was to get these socks off the needles. In retrospect, I could have easily fixed those visible float stitches with a crochet hook at that point, but now I just have to accept them.


Another problem with these socks was the heel. Turning the heel meant working the square pattern in the middle and decreasing the gusset stitches on the sides. As the contrast color is not involved in the decreases, it meant that I got large holes next to the decreases no matter how hard I tried pulling the main color working yarn. For the second sock I tried wrapping the contrast color around the next float stitch on the sides, and that helped a bit, but I still took a needle and yarn to close the gap afterwards.


Here's my set of TdS socks. I got one pair that's too small for adults, and one with too many mistakes to give for anyone, but I also got 4 pairs that I can give as gifts when needed and learned many new techniques. All in all a good experience, that is! But I'll never knit socks again...