Birkenwasser knits

This episode takes you to Punkaharju to a lovely knit retreat organised by Kässäkerho Pom Pom. You will see some of the most beautiful Finnish winter scenes, and get to see what happens when 25 knitters get together for a weekend.







Siri by Linnea Öhman: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/siri-4

Arctic Blizzard: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/arctic-blizzard

Knitlandia by Clara Parkes: https://amzn.to/2CnSuJt (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)

Vertices Unite by Stephen West: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/vertices-unite

Tänään neulon podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWyIl4TupD0xXueXtAbIJAg

Indie Design Gift-A-Long is a super fun knit/crochet along with 349 indie designers from all over the world. The event kicks off with a super sale of all 349 designers offering select patterns with a 25% discount during the first week of the GAL, but that's not all. The GAL continues until end of the year with fun and games. I talk about my knitting plans for the event and ask for recommendations. In this episode, you can also hear about a new test knitting opportunity and see some of my knitting projects that I'm working on.



Indie Design Gift-A-Long: https://www.ravelry.com/groups/indie-design-gift-a-long
My sale bundle: https://www.ravelry.com/bundles/indie-design-gift-a-long-2018-2
Trooper by Christelle Nihoul: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/trooper
Fouilloy Cowl by Kathleen Sperling: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fouilloy-cowl
Reune Fingerless Mitts by Jean Clement: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/reune-fingerless-mitts
Never not gnoming by Sarah Schira: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/never-not-gnoming
Here we gnome again by Sarah Schira: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/here-we-gnome-again
Fade it! Brioche test knitting: https://www.ravelry.com/discuss/birkenwasser-knits/3855120/1-25
Alignment sweater: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/alignment

My May was filled with Madelinetosh projects: I participated in MadMay 2018 SALs (Stitch alongs - both crochet and knit accepted) in Madelinetosh Lovers Group on Ravelry. One of the SALs was General Sweater (work any sweater in Madelinetosh) and I decided to knit the super popular Tegna by Caitlin Hunter. I had a sweater quantity of Madelinetosh Dandelion in my stash, so I was all set to cast on on May 1st.




Tegna is worked bottom-up, so you start with the lace at the bottom, then continue in the round until armholes and then separate front and back which are worked flat, then joined at the shoulders with three-needle bind off. The lace is not too simple, so it took me three weeks to work the lace part. That didn't leave much time for the remainder of the sweater, but luckily it's only stockinette stitch with large needles. I even finished one day before the deadline!


Nonnu Neuloja podcast is hosting a Tegna knit along in her Ravelry group, so if you are looking for good company to knit your Tegna (and speak Finnish), I recommend that you check it out!


Linking up to CreaDienstag.

For me, the most exciting part of Indie Design Gift-A-Long is to see who are all the participating designers! In my previous post, I listed the other Finnish designers, and if you follow me on Instagram you have seen some of my IG friends who are participating as a designer for the first time. Today's GAL Instagram challenge theme is Makin' a list, so I'm going to share what I'm planning to knit.


Some of these I've had in my knitting queue for some time already, and I was only hoping to see the designers on the list so the patterns would be eligible for the GAL. Some of the patterns I only found after the GAL started.


Starting from top right and going clockwise, the first one is Karalee Harding's Crooked Lines cowl. This is something I'm going to knit for myself, in a lovely hand-dyed merino silk by Lanitium ex Machina. This is a special skein that has been waiting for the right pattern! Casting on already taught me something new: Moebius cast on.


Natalia Sha's Mountain Ash will give me the opportunity to add beads to something else than socks. I'm going to see if the pattern would work in three colors, starting with the burgundy, followed by the variegated one and ending with blue and blue beads.


Diagon Alley socks by Dana Gervais look like they would be fun to knit, and that is always a bonus if you have to knit socks. In this case, I noticed that Young Warrior needs socks, and as he needs them before Christmas I can't take the easy way and ask my sister to knit them for him as a present. So if it must be socks, it might as well be wild socks! Although, my color scheme is going to be moderate compared to Dana's pattern pictures.


You Wear It Well by Mary Annarella is something for me again, using my recent stash addition from Oslo Strikkefestival. I hope alpaca works as a material for this design. For such a major project, I have even wet blocked my swatch.

Then there's a little UnCrabby Crab by cheezombie on my list. I have been looking for a cute crab pattern so I could knit a crab for my brother-in-law who collects crab toys. Let's hope that he doesn't read my knitting blog so it will be a surprise!


Business Woman asked if I could knit a hat for her; something like the Circular Reference that she liked a lot, but which ended up on Young Warrior's head. "I'd like to have a hat that's made of your luxury yarns" she said. I hope Eden Cottage Yarns Oakworth DK is luxurious enough for her - my stash is not very comprehensive in the DK section. I would have loved to knit another Circular Reference hat, but as it was GAL time, I decided to knit someone else's design for a change. After a lot of searching we decided on the Evanlyn Hat by Kaitlyn Yeager. It had to fit tight, no slouchiness, and it had to look interesting to knit, and be a new designer for me. I think we finally found a good pattern to match all requirements.

The ultimate GAL challenge is "Taming the Opadoo", which means that you knit something from each of the 8 categories in the GAL. With these 6 projects I would get pretty far, and would only need to add a baby item and something for hands. I do feel tempted to give the Opadoo a try one day, but I think that my choice of patterns will be different then! I don't think that I'll have enough time to finish all these projects by the end of the year, but I'm not going to let it stop me.

Photo credits in the collage go to respective designers.

It's Indie Design Gift-A-Long time again! This year we have 311 participating designers from 31 countries. All participating designers have selected 10-20 of their patterns, which are offered at a 25% discount for the first week of the GAL (Nov 21-28) - a total of 5327 discounted patterns! You can check out my offers here. Use coupon code "giftalong2017".


The fun doesn't end at the sale, though! The GAL starts with the sale period, but the event itself lasts until Dec 31. There is a very lively forum on Ravelry with discussion about the knitting, of course, but there is much more going on: random prizes, designer trivia, etc. I received several inquiries after my recent Instagram giveaway as people wanted to purchase my "Do you speak my language?" tote bag, and I can hint that participating in the GAL would give you a chance to win one! And there is more: yarn, books, patterns, stitch markers, project bags, etc. All non-free patterns by all participating designers are eligible to win prizes; you have more than 18 000 patterns to choose from.


This year, there is something new in the GAL: an Instagram challenge! Check out these prompts and use them on your IG posts, or simply use #giftalong2017 and #GAL2017 for all GAL-related posts. You can connect with other GAL participants and designers, and see what everyone else's gift knitting looks like.


For me, the GAL is not so much about selling my own patterns, as it is about joining the fun and finding new designers whose patterns I'd like to knit. The only difficult thing is to limit my plans so that I can finish all my projects by the end of the GAL! I'll write another post about my own knitting plans, and you can expect that when the IG prompt says "Making a list". I'd love to hear what you are planning to make! If you like to shop local, you can look at the map of participating designers and see who lives near you - or maybe you'd like to see what kind of a collection someone from the other part of the world has? For my Finnish readers I can tell that there are 5 other participating designers from Finland: Annina Päivärinta (Artesanitarium), Pauliina Karru (Lina Knits), Anna Johanna (Neulisti), Susanna Winter (Talvi Knits), and Meiju K-P (Meiju Knits).

Please note that the GAL runs in US EST time zone, so all dates depend on your time zone. For example, in practice, the sale period in Finland is Nov 22-28.

Julia Mueller has the most spectacular glove designs I have ever seen. I started with Knotty gloves last spring, and as the third round in Lankakauppa Kerä's Head-to-toe-challenge was for wrist warmers (mitts, gloves etc) I knew that I wanted to pick another one from Julia's collection. With some leftover beads from Tour-de-Sock last summer, I decided to see how subtle the effect of red beads on red yarn would be. Arkema pattern seemed to have enough going on to make the project interesting. Pattern printed, yarn wound, tools ready, and onto an intercontinental flight!


I planned on knitting these gloves on my holiday in Indonesia, even if I was still working on Head-to-toe-challenge round 2 scarf when leaving home. I did get started with the gloves in Bali, but I didn't even finish the scarf during the holiday (which was nice, as it means that the holiday really was a holiday, also from knitting). After the holiday I put the gloves on my knitting table by the TV. This pattern does require attention, so you can't knit while reading, and you can't really carry it around with all the beads and stuff. So I would work on the gloves during the evening news - for the following 2 months!! If I ever pick up a project like this again, I really need to start watching more TV...




The gloves are lovely, and they would be worth every minute spent on them, had I paid more attention to my gauge. Normally I always swatch to find out my gauge and adjust needles if necessary, but this time I figured that since I only have 2,5 mm DPNs there's no point in swatching. And then I went for the largest size, because, well, I have big hands. Unfortunately, my hands are not big enough to accommodate the loose gauge, so the gloves don't really fit like a glove.


Another thing that you should always do is to read through the whole pattern. This one starts with the cabled cuff knitted sideways, then you pick up stitches on the side for the hand, and then on the other side to continue with the cuff in the opposite direction. At some point I was looking at the picture and thinking that it looks like an i-cord on the edges of the cabled cuff, but there were no instructions to do an i-cord edging in the first part. Well, after you thought that the gloves were finally finished, there's still the part where you pick up stitches for the add-on i-cords...


Today is RUMS day.

Combining two-colour brioche with two-colour garter stitch, finishing with one-colour brioche and garter stitch. Throw in some short rows and i-cords, and it's a poncho. Or a cape. Or a cardigan. Or whatever, but it looks good and feels nice. This P-Rex by Susanne Sommer was one of my Indie Design Gift-A-Long projects from last November-December, but I didn't manage to finish it then. After the deadline had passed, there was no hurry to finish - not until the Head-to-Toe-Challenge by Lankakauppa Kerä. Round 4 in the challenge was for sweaters, and as finishing a WIP was allowed, this gave me the push needed to wrap up this project.



The pattern calls for sport weight yarn, but as the options at my LYS were much better in fingering weight I decided to go with Hedgehog Fibres Sock. The fit of this garment is not really an issue, so I simply followed the instructions for the largest size and got a nice medium-large result. Although, I have to admit that before blocking I was slightly worried that it would be too small, but I'm happy with the size after blocking.


It's RUMS day again.

Nancy Marchant is the queen of brioche, and I've been wanting to knit something designed by her for quite some time already. So when Lankakauppa Kerä announced the beginning of their year long From Head to Toe challenge and the second item to knit was a scarf, I knew that it was time to pick one of Nancy's designs. I chose Bart & Francis for the interesting brioche pattern. The instructions are great, and there are both written and charted instructions. The pattern has enough going on to keep you interested while knitting, and after a couple of repeats you don't need the instructions anymore as you can always look at the previous repeats. My only problem with the instructions was that there seemed to be a mix up of right and left slanting decreases, but looking at the pictures soon fixed the problem.




This was a nice pattern for learning a couple of new techniques: two-colour Italian cast-on and Italian bind-off. The cast-on technique is easy and creates a nice beginning for two-colour brioche patterns. The bind-off wasn't so easy and I managed to get it wrong in the beginning. It's also known as the kitchener bind-off, and it's done with a tapestry needle. Unlike grafting a seam, such as the toe of a sock, there's only one end to finish, and for me that made it more difficult to see which way the needle should go into the stitches. You can see how the beginning looks crooked and then the stitches start to look good. Of course, I should have started over when I noticed that it was going wrong, but I was lazy and decided that no-one is ever going to take such a close look at my scarf anyway.


I added one pattern repeat to make the scarf a little bit wider, and then simply went on for as long as there was yarn left. This actually produced about the same length as the instructions said. I took the scarf project with me for our winter holiday in Indonesia, but I didn't get much knitting done and I missed the deadline. Having eventually finished, I believe I'm still in for the 9 items KAL. Although, I did also miss the wrist warmers stage... Putting effort on the sweater stage now, while also trying to finish my gloves for stage three.

It's RUMS day.

Winter in Finland can get cold, and at some point you need woolly leggings under your winter pants. When I saw the Kalaloch pattern I knew that I want to knit them - these leggings are pretty enough to be worn on their own. I added some length to the legs, but with DK weight yarn it's a good idea not to make them full length: you don't want to stuff them in your boots - or skates!



This was one of my Indie Design Gift-A-Long projects, but I didn't manage to finish by the deadline. This project is not a knitting-and-reading project: once you start with the legs you have to start paying attention to the pattern. Another issue was the hand-dyed yarn that was bleeding so much that you couldn't just knit a couple of rows and then do something else - there's hand washing after every time you pick up the knitting.

The pattern is nice and straight forward. My only problem was with measuring "low waist". I seem to have a different idea of where is low waist and the elastic band is too loose. (Of course, I should have taken a look at the pattern pictures that show how high up the low waist comes.) The construction starts from the waistband and you knit the elastic band inside the waistband before continuing. It's nice because there are no seams to sew afterwards, but it also means you can't adjust the elastic afterwards. I would suggest leaving an opening for the elastic, as it sometimes needs to be changed also because of wear and tear.


Today is RUMS day!

Join the Indie Design 2016 Gift-A-Long! What is Gift-A-Long? It’s a multi-designer promotion to help you kick your holiday gift-making into high gear! The Indie Design Gift-A-Long is a 6 week long KAL/CAL of holiday gifts made from patterns designed by a rather extensive list of independent designers. From November 22, 2016 at 8:00 pm US EST (that would be 3 AM Nov 24 here in Finland) to December 31, 2016 at midnight US EST there will be fun games, contests, and 8 KAL/CALs that will help you get your holiday knitting done with companionship and fun! Come and join us in the Indie Design 2016 Gift-A-Long group in Ravelry!

To make it even better - all participating designers are giving a 25 % discount on select patterns! There are 335 participating designers from all over the world, so there's plenty to choose from. The discount runs through Nov 22-30. Following that, you will have all of December to work on your KAL/CAL projects. There are lots of prizes and with more than 7000 members in the group you won't have trouble finding other knitters/crocheters to chat with!

So wind your yarn, get set, and see you in the group!

Heute ist wieder RUMS Tag.

Lehtokerttu top is a linen summer top with dropped stitches creating lace like horizontal lines. The top is knitted sideways in one piece. It has a loose, boxy shape.


Quince & co Sparrow organic linen yarn has a lovely glow. The top turned out just the way I wanted: the summer top that makes me wish that summer was already here!


Just in time for the #tttKAL and with a couple of days left for the #linenKAL2015 - I managed to finish my first KALs on time! The pattern is available for purchase on Ravelry and it is available in English and in Finnish.

First, there was Sparrow. Quince & co organic linen, shiny and lovely and turning into a design in my mind. After the Lehtokerttu design was on paper, it was time to get the yarns from Kerä, the LYS where I spotted the yarn. And then just cast on!



I had read about KALs, but never participated. Then I noticed that Quince & co was hosting a linen KAL - as I was knitting my Sparrow top! The KAL had started in April already, and the deadline was approaching on June 8th, but hey, deadlines are great, they give purpose to life, right?


So there I am, knitting along, when I notice another KAL: Tops, tanks and tees KAL by Very Shannon. Now can you participate in two KALs with the same knit? Maybe they'll disqualify me from both, but I thought that I'll go ahead and give it a try. And the best thing with this second KAL for my Lehtokerttu top: the deadline moved to June 3rd, so those needles better be moving!

Of course, this is the point when you get the front done, and notice that it's too small in every direction. So to make making the deadline a bit more challenging, I frogged the whole thing and started from the beginning. There's still almost a week to go, so no panic...



Then I read that Kerä is hosting a Lemon-KAL. This KAL has a specific pattern, Helga Isager's Lemon, which happens to be pretty awesome in that a) it's pretty and b) has some new things I haven't tried before (sideways stitches and front panel construction). The good thing is that the deadline is in July, so there's plenty of time for knitting here. So I'm going to take this as a learning experience and follow someone else's pattern for a change. Unless I need to modify it at some point...