Birkenwasser knits

Ephemeris was my third project from Pom Pom Quarterly Vivid Winter issue. It is an asymmetric triangle with mosaic details in two colors. Perfect opportunity to use two precious Lanitium ex Machina Merino Tussah skeins. These skeins have been in my stash since the first Kässäkerho Pom Pom Super Weekend in 2016, waiting for the perfect project. I think this turned out to be a perfect project for those lovely yarns!




I have only tried mosaic knitting in socks before (Tour-de-Sock 2017 and 2016), so this was nice practice before taking the mosaic shawl design class with Melanie Berg this summer at Jyväskylä Summer Knit Festival. Maybe you will see my own mosaic design in the future...


It's RUMS day!

Tabular is on the cover of Pom Pom Quarterly Vivid Winter issue, and the minute I saw it I knew that I wanted to knit it. Jyväskylä Knit Fest Winter was approaching, so I decided to wait and buy yarn at Titityy during the festival. I was planning to use Coop Knits Socks Yeah!, but I changed my mind in the shop and decided to go with recommended Isager Highland Wool instead. And I even chose almost the original colors: MC and one CC are the same as the original colors, although the CC is not in same position.




At Titityy, I noticed that KnitPro has interchangeable needles also in size 3 mm, so I sat down, borrowed needles from a fellow knitter, and swatched to make sure that I can get gauge with that size. Swatch seemed perfect, so I bought the needles and yarn, and started the project the same night.


I was planning to make size 3, so that was what I bought yarn for. For some reason, I changed my mind and started a size 4 instead. That proved to be a good choice, as I noticed that the swatch with metal needles wasn't the same as what I got with the new wooden KnitPros - I was knitting tighter. Of course, by the time I noticed this was when I was knitting the bottom of the front, so there was too much effort invested to start all over with larger needles.


I decided to work the sweater a bit longer than instructed. Now, the instructions say where you can add length for the front, but not how much that equals for the back. You can see in the pictures that the front is knitted with increases in the middle and decreases on the sides, so adding length is a bit more complicated than simply doing x rows more for front and back. I ended up doing some trigonometry to figure out how much I would need to increase for the back, but as I only added 1 cm to the front the difference with the back was lost in rounding.


Only problem that I had left was that I bought yarn for size 3 and I was hoping that with my tight knitting it would be enough for size 4. I considered knitting the sleeves top-down so I could simply make them as long as there was yarn left. For some reason, I didn't, and of course I ran out of yarn when knitting the bottom hem. I didn't want to leave it at that, and luckily Kässäkerho Pom Pom stored the same yarn even in the same dye lot, so I was able to get one more ball at the Super Weekend in Kuopio. So I finished the pullover and it's lovely - and it's too small for me. And Business Woman, who was nice enough to model in the pictures, doesn't like it. I think it looks good on her. I'll have to talk her into liking it.

Vivid Winter issue of Pom Pom Quarterly has so many lovely patterns that I had a hard time choosing which one to start with. I decided to go with the ones that I had yarn for first, and socks that I could use all those leftover sock yarns sounded like a good pattern to start with. Finding a fade of seven colors wasn't as easy as I thought, though. I tried several combos and ended up with this one. It's still not perfect, as the red is too dark. I took a black and white picture of the yarns, so I knew there was a problem with the red. Nevertheless, it was the best choice of the ones I had, so I decided to go with this combo anyway.




I wanted to knit two-at-a-time, and doing that with a single cake, knitting from both ends, and fading to the next color made quite a mess. It was doable, though, so I continued and managed to finish both socks at the same time. Unfortunately, the socks turned out too big. The instructions tell you to knit the foot until 3 cm less than the desired foot length, but my heel took 5,5 cm after that. My gauge was slightly off (32 sts and 48 rows instead of 34 sts and 45 rows), but that should actually work in the opposite direction. I guess the 3 cm instruction was for the smallest size, and with the largest size you need to work more rows. I tried the sock on after the heel, but for some reason I didn't believe it was that big, and continued anyway. Of course, this only means that I have to knit another pair and this time get a better combo for the fade and start the heel earlier. In the meanwhile, I think that I can wear these socks anyway!