Birkenwasser knits

On my recent trip to Oslo Strikkefestival I noticed many people knitting simple garter stitch scarves. I commented about this to another visitor at the festival, and her first question was: "Were they orange?". She then explained to me about this huge charity knitting project in Norway. The project was organised by Kirkens Bymisjon, a charity organisation that helps people who are struggling with their daily life in various ways. The idea was that people will knit orange scarves, "oransje skjerf", and they will keep someone warm in the winter. There was also a special yarn for the project, also named #oransjeskjerf, that was sold in yarn shops and NOK 5 of each ball would go to Kirkens Bymisjon.


Once I saw the yarns at Heimen Husfliden, I decided to participate, and bought the four balls that the basic garter stitch scarf would take. Instructions were on the ball band, and they can also be found on Kirkens Bymisjon's website. I quickly read through the instructions, and learned that you can knit any pattern you want (and with any yarn, as long as it's orange). As a plain garter stitch scarf sounded a bit boring, I decided to use my own Helmipöllö Scarf pattern that I've used for charity projects before.


Helmipöllö Scarf has more stitches than the basic Oransjeskjerf pattern, so I could've used one more ball of yarn for some added length. I do believe this will be a warm scarf for someone, though, as there's enough to wrap around your neck. The yarn is a mix of wool (65%) and alpaca (35%), so it should be extra warm.

The Norwegian project had ended before I got started with my scarf, so I won't be sending this one to Norway. However, we have similar organisations here in Finland that I can donate my scarf to. I'm thinking of Sininauhasäätiö that gives socks and other warm hand knits to homeless people.

Disclaimer: I don't speak Norwegian, so I might have misunderstood some of the information on Kirkens Bymisjon website. Please correct me if you notice anything wrong!

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.

Sateenkaaria ja serpentiiniä blog (in Finnish) is calling for small knitted items to a charity sale for Canelipuu ry. This non-profit organization is building a school in India, and they are raising funds for running the school. Sounds like a good cause, and as I recently released a new pattern, Helmipöllö, I wanted to use that. I found some yarn from my stash that's thinner than the original pattern calls for, so I decided to see if thinner yarn and smaller needles would make a children's version of the beanie and scarf.


The beanie turned out too small on my first try when strictly following the adult's size pattern, but adding one repeat of the cables was enough to make it fit. For the scarf I simply used all the yarn that I had left, and it's just enough to wrap twice around a little neck (134 cm).

I think the set looks good, and the feedback from the model was encouraging: "I like this big pom pom. Can I wear these after the photo shoot until daycare?". Actually, I'm so happy with the result that I'm offering the pattern for free for anyone who wants to use it for a charity project. If you'd like to get a copy of the pattern, click on the Facebook link at the bottom of the page, hit the Like button and leave a note with your Ravelry id (or e-mail address) and a link to the charity project that you want to use the pattern for. I'll send you the pattern through my Ravelry store.

The weather is getting colder and it's about time to start knitting for the winter. Helmipöllö (”Boreal owl”) beanie and scarf feature two different cables and a pompom. Knitting with bulky weight yarn makes this a quick set to knit. With forgiving bulky yarn, big needles and only two different large, fairly simple cables to knit, this hat looks harder than it is. Most rows are just simple knits with a few purls thrown in for interest, and only four rows of cable crosses in the whole hat. A great pattern to try your hand at cables. The pattern is both charted and abbreviated.