Birkenwasser knits

Kivitasku Vest has a cable pattern that makes it a smart vest for a young gentleman. It's knitted seamlessly from the top down. The V-neck looks great with a collared shirt, and you can pair it with a colourful shirt for a casual look or use a white shirt for a more formal outfit. The pattern is now available for purchase on Ravelry.




I knit the first prototype 7 years ago, so you can see the same model posing for size 18 m and for size 10 on the pattern page. I think the small vest is so cute, that I used the left overs of the Knit Picks Hawthorne Aquatic Speckle to knit a tiny vest. There wasn't enough yarn for the hem and neckline, so I used Hawthorne Poseidon for those, and I think it looks pretty good combined with the speckles here. Now I just need to find a toddler who could wear this!

Cold weather front from Siberia has created chaos all around Europe. I understand that when you are not used to see snow, it can make life difficult. However, here in Finland, we have enjoyed perfect winter weather: sun has been shining for two weeks, there's snow on the ground and the temperatures have been between -5 and -15 degrees centigrade. People are skiing, skating, and walking on frozen sea! Of course, cold weather means that you need to dress appropriately.


My little Troll Princess lost the cowl that I made her last year, so I had to make a new one. I also wanted to knit the "deer with little antlers hat" by tiny owl knits, so I started with that. I was thinking that the left overs of the Evanlyn hat would be enough for a small hat, and they were. But not enough to make ears, so I had to change plans and knit a plain hat instead.


I had the same Eden Cottage Yarns Oakworth DK in pink, so we decided to add a pink pom pom and a pink cowl to go with the hat. I had looked at the previous KlompeLompe book, but didn't find anything I wanted to knit. From the second one, "Strikk till hele familien", I found this "Peikkonen" cowl with a lovely texture. Only modification I made was to change the ribbing to match that of the hat.






My model is super happy with her new hat and cowl. And we're off to the skating rink across the street!

I have a thing for challenges and knit-a-longs, so when Leeni Hoi announced that she's hosting a KAL for her cool X Sox design I knew that I wanted to participate. I had bought a skein of her Lystig Merino Sock in My Little Pony Overdose at the Knitmare Fest in October, and this would be the perfect occasion to knit socks for me using that yarn. Or so I thought. We had arranged for the kids to spend a week of their Christmas holiday with grandparents in Kuopio. That's north enough to have snow and a real winter; something that we have had in Helsinki for only the last couple of weeks (and that'll be gone by Thursday when we'll get rain showers that will melt the precious snow away). I was planning to continue with my last GAL projects until end of the year, and then cast on my X Sox on first of January. Then, on the train, I realised that we didn't pack woolly socks for Troll Princess.




"You can't possibly knit a pair of socks that fast!" said Business Woman, and if that's not a challenge, I don't know what is. I had three days before returning to Helsinki, but, obviously, there are other obligations when visiting the in-laws so it's not all knitting time. However, I had 4 hours on the train so I could get a good start.


The pattern has instructions for heavier and lighter weight sock yarn, and a note saying that you can get a larger size by using heavier yarn with light weight stitch count. I figured that it would work the other way around as well, and started with the stitch count for heavy yarn using this light weight yarn. It happened to fit perfectly, so there was no need for further modifications. The legs could have been longer, but I bound off the socks 10 minutes before we headed back to the train station. This was the size that was doable in three days. In the end, Troll Princess had a lovely week of playing in the snow with warm feet!


The problem with these photos is that you can't see the X in the Sox! I only realised when I looked at the pictures that she should have worn them the other way around for the X to show - now they look more like diamond socks... Sorry, Leeni!


It's CreaDienstag!

For the second stage of Tour-de-Sock, I was prepared to be competitive: it was my last vacation day so I could just sit at home and knit. But then it turns out that the start is at 8 PM and that kind of ruined my plans, because I can't stay up all night and knit. I surprised myself by staying up until 2 AM, though, and the last bit I owe to Hippusia Johanna who was doing a live Instagram of her knitting and that kind of kept me in the knitting mood for so late. By the way, reminded me of when I was young and there were TV chats with hosts - the host reads SMS text messages that are also shown on the TV screen and then comments on them. Seemed to work in the knitting competition context! (Sorry for not participating in the discussion, but I was knitting so I couldn't type messages at the same time :)



The second pattern included colorwork, and it gave me an opportunity to try out my new yarn thimble. I forgot to show it on my recent post of Jyväskylä Summer Knit Festival, but it was actually my first purchase. I'm glad that the first booth that I visited at the festival was Goldsmith Sanni Lehtinen's, because she only had like 5 yarn thimbles left at that point and I was lucky to still get one. I have to say that it made knitting so much easier as I didn't have to worry about keeping the yarns in order.


The pattern also included Latvian braids, and that was a new technique for me. This is what I love about Tour-de-Sock: it forces you to try new techniques! I had seen Latvian braids before, but I'm not a big fan of the look, so I probably would have never tried them if I didn't have to.

I had some trouble with my choice of yarns. My first choice didn't match the pattern, so I had to think of something else after seeing what I would be knitting. I loved the Priha socks, also by Tiina Kuu, that I knitted on the warm-up round and the dark blue looked so good that I wanted to use it for these socks as well. I had 40 grams left, exactly the same amount as in the sample small-size socks listed on the pattern. Only thing is, that in the sample the main colour was not used in colorwork, which was mentioned, but I didn't notice it at that time. So, I ran out of yarn at toes, and had to use the contrast color, which doesn't look very nice.


Having already started knitting, I started thinking that my contrast colors might not have enough contrast after all, so I made one more change before starting the colorwork. This is where I lost my sponsor yarn point, as I switched from a Lanitium ex Machina yarn to the pink that I used here. To be eligible for extra point for using sponsor yarn, you'd have to use sponsor yarn in either the main color or both contrast colors. If I were to knit the socks again, I would use the dark color for the birds, and a lighter color as the main color.

Being in the competitive mode, I went with the smallest size. I thought it was a women's S, but the model in the pictures is my 6-year-old! She loves the socks, so we have a happy owner for this pair. Only thing she's not happy with is the tightness of the legs, she really had to pull hard to get them on. I was afraid of ripping the socks when I forced them on my extra legs to get the first pictures for the competition.


And the competition? Well, I finished 24th, so I did a lot better than the first round! For the next round, I'll be traveling again, so no competition there. I'm still hoping that there's going be one round that I can knit in one go. If I can knit socks that fast. I'd like to try.

I originally designed Ipana Cardigan for Tukuwool, and I love choosing different color combos from those lovely Tukuwool colors. I have knitted three different color combos so far! I never planned for the cardigan to go with the Mesmeria Dress, but I had both of them tested one after the other and my test knitters noticed right away that these two designs would work well together. I figured that I'd better do what they did, and knit a cardigan to match the dress, so here it is! Now the only problem is that I can't find the dress anywhere... I'm sure that I'll find it somewhere eventually, but I'm also sure that Troll Princess has outgrown it by then. In the meanwhile, at least she has a lovely cardigan to wear!

We had some company for our photoshoot!

I met the lovely Anna of AnnaSaskia designs last October at Kässäkerho Pom Pom Superviikonloppu. She told me about her plans and it's been great to see her start with her web page and Etsy shop since then. After the festival I checked out her designer page on Ravelry, and noticed that she's the designer of the popular Tamarugo hat. And then I remembered the camouflage-colored yarn that I had bought with Young Warrior in mind, so all that was left was to modify the pattern into kid size.



Last autumn, I made fingerless mitts for Young Warrior so he could play Pokemon. Later on, he explained that there should be half of the fingers in the gloves for better fit. Of course, that's obvious, and so is the reason why I didn't make them in the first place: too much effort and too many ends to weave in. But if the kid makes the effort to explain what kind of knitwear he needs, I feel that I need to make the effort to knit that and as there was plenty of yarn left, that was the next project.



I wanted to make matching gloves to go with the new hat, so I took the stitch pattern from Tamarugo hat. To avoid swatching and counting, I searched for a kids' glove pattern for the yarn. I skipped the stitch pattern from the instructions and used two repeats of the same stitch as in the hat. As the stitch is formed by one row of mostly slipped stitches, I was worried that the gloves would turn out uneven as the palm side would have one extra row in every four rows. Therefore, I slipped every other stitch on the palm side when knitting the slip stitch row, and then slipped every other stitch on the following row. Looks pretty even now. Only thing that I would modify is to make the fingers different length to match the length of the kid's fingers - working until the first knuckle, for example. There will be an opportunity to try that, as the next order is in. Troll Princess just realised how unfair it is that she doesn't have fingerless gloves...

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!

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.

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!

I made the first version of Skerry cardigan for Troll princess using Noro Haniwa. The yarn is a gorgeous mixture of silk (50%), wool (30%) and nylon (20%). It's variegated and textured, and I think that this kind of yarn calls for a simple design that shows off the beauty of the yarn. I wanted to balance the cardigan with solid color edging, so I chose a matching color in Novita 7 veljestä for a seed stitch edge.


Young warrior liked his sister's cardigan so much that he wanted one just like it. After the feedback from my test knitters I wanted to make some changes in the pattern, so knitting it again wasn't a problem. For his version I used Isager Aran Tweed. With a different yarn you get a totally different look for the cardigan.





The other day I noticed that Noro Haniwa was on sale, and as I really love the yarn I went ahead and bought all 6 skeins they had left in this colorway. It might not be enough for a cardigan for myself, but let's see what it will turn into.