Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Fair-isle socks!

Welp, I totally forgot to blog the, but the fair-isle socks with Kool-Aid yarn are now finished!
Really not pleased with them, they gave me way too much grief. But they're warm, and they're for me, so I can't be bothered to complain too much or frog them.

I've already planned my next pair of socks actually! Some time ago, I bought this super pretty pattern, and I dug out yarn for them last night!

Can't wait! But it'll just have to... Gotta finish up these Christmas Stockings before I'll do more ego knitting... Speaking of Christmas Stockings, I've finally reached the heel, so it'll be finished soon enough! So far, the charts have worked perfectly with the pattern for the other stocking.

Not really Christmassy, but I love how it turns out anyway!

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Always a procastinator...

I really am the worst at everything... Minecraft have managed to suck me in again, so now I'm stuck in the hole called procastinating. To top that, I'm lazy and in a "bored but doesn't want to do anything creative" mood, so I've done little to nothing called knitting lately...

I did finish the knitting part of Melissa's Christmas Stocking a few days ago though. I've been lazy with it, but it's more or less done...for now.

The green and purple yarn in the back are for the second stocking she's commissioned. I've yet to start it cause I'm in a foul mood and it demands a lot of reworking. The patterns ask for completely different needles and yarn thickness, so I am planning on redrawing it to fit the same bill as this one here... But we'll see... Worst case scenario, I could work it double stranded to get the right measurements, but I don't trust my yarn to last...

Both of the stockings will be lined with fabric and have bells all over for extra Christmas spirit an joy! I really can't wait to see them finished, but right now, I can't be bothered... Good thing there's still 2 months until Christmas! Or atleast one month (or something like that) until I've got to ship them. Shouldn't be a problem.

On the 14th of october, I frogged and restarted the Setesdal's mitten I started on back in august. 14th of october is the first day of winter according to the runic calendar, and it's marked with a mitten, so just about all of yarnster Norway was knitting mittens on that day. I'm still not 100% pleased with this first mitten...expecially not the thumb (I will most likely be redoing that thing at some point cause it is just horrible).

Last night I decided to just put everything on hold and so something familiar and mindless, so I started another pair of my favorite fair-isle socks. Snow Lily from Drops Design. I'm so happy that this pattern finally have gotten a name! I haven't made a pair since last Christmas! About friggin' time I make another pair! It's very much needed as well since all of my old pairs (except for the blue pair) have holes in them, and I'm too lazy to patch them up...

This is how my morning looked today:

I decided to finally use the first Kool Aid dyed yarn I've done! It looks fantastic with the petrol yarn. The white is just some scraps I had lying around.

I am taking it slow however... My right arm ain't too pleased with my crazed Minecraft gaming that has been happening lately... So knitting on top doesn't make it any better to put it that way.

One last thing before I end this blogpost. Needles are friggin' expencive and hard to find! I've been searching all over the place for 12mm needles! If you remember the gignatic ball of yarn that my mom got for me and the pattern that I wanted to use it for, I'm in dire need for a 12mm 80cm circular needle. I've been searching high and low for a pair, and the closest I've come to find a pair was on Strikkenett.no, but the shipping wasn't worth it and I really shouldn't be buying more yarn for a while... I did end up getting a 10mm 80cm one at Nille today though. Even though it's 2mm thinner than suggested in the pattern (and also friggin plastic... YUCK!!!), I figured that I could try it out. A little swatching never hurt anyone. Worst case scenario would be going up one size or adding a few more stitches... Though, I don't see how much difference it would be with such huge needles...

That's all for me for now! I'm gonna chill out with some coffe before I crash and burn... It's only 5pm over here right now, but I'm already super tired...

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

WIP Setesdal's mittens!

Since the 14th of october marks the first day of winter on the runic calendar, I decided (along with the rest of yarnster Norway) to work on mittens this day!
Now, I've had this pair of Setesdals mittens in burgundy and ochre/gold lying around that I started in mid august but never really finished. I do love this colour combination (no, it does not stand for Gryffindor, that's red) and I love the Setesdal pattern, so of course I needed to finish them up! But looking at my stitches, I decided to frog it and start over. I do prefer to work fair-isle on circular needles, and I started these on DPN's since I didn't think my 30cm circulars would be small enough. But they just about worked, and my stitches are way cleaner already!

I can't wait to have these finished! I really should have been making more mittens before christmas...so I think perhaps I need to wait with my sock and sweater fever and get some hand wear out of the way first. It's kinda annoying with mittens, they have more ends to weave in than socks... Danged fingers...

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Giant ball of yarn and socks!

My parents came over for a visit yesterday. It's recently been my boyfriend's birthday and my sister-in-law's birthday is coming up, so they went over to Nord-Trøndelag for a double birthday visit. Not only did they bring Bård a birthday gift, but my mom also brought me some stuff! She gave me a giant ball of yarn!

This is Verdi from Drops, a yarn I've been looking at several times in webstores, but never really seen in real life. The price was very off-putting...but I didn't know how big it actually was and how much yarn its worth! There is actually a whole sweater in there! Believe it or not!

The details say it weights 350g (12,35oz) which equals to 1225 meters (1339 yards)! That's crazy! I've already picked out a pattern that I want to spend it on, but I need HUGE ASS needles for it!

Pretty pretty! I know it seems impossible that there's enough yarn in there for that jacket, but after looking up the yarn amount needed for it, comparing the yarn they suggest using (which is Vienna, but the pattern says that Verdi is a good replacement), it looks like it might be enough for TWO jackets in this skein! Crazy time! Might not actually happend though... We'll see. Need to get the needles first!

She also brought a book filled with patterns of iconic "barne-TV" characters, both old and new...mostly new... Barne-TV is a TV-show made for kids only in the evening just before bed time. It lasts for about 30 minutes (atleast so it did back in the day) and had colourful doll characters that spoke to the kids inbetween cartoons or other small shows and sketches. While I couldn't care less for the first 3/4 of this book, seeing that they are mostly current characters, the last quarter makes me very nostalgic and I've GOTTA make some of these, even though they're mostly crochet...and all norwegian patterns... I'm most familiar with 'Murican crochet therms.

For dere norske. Boka heter Lag favorittfigurene fra Barne-TV og er skrevet av Lise Nymark. Utgitt av Cappelen Damm med ISBN nummer: 978-82-02-43118-1.

Over to something different. I finished up the ugly scrap socks last night. Weaving in the ends was a nightmare though! That's always the worst thing. And as I said yesterday, there was 20 ends on each sock! That's 40 in total! If I use 1 minute on each end, that's 40 minutes! For gods sake!

Stupid flash washed out the colours... I tried to use the short row heel instead of the one I usually use. Figured it would feel better for this type of sock. I also tried to make the leg longer than I usually do on these...which ended up in using more scraps...and then more ends to weave in... *sigh* But they're done now! Gonna probably make more of these! My 'Murican friends love them!

And while we're still on socks... I've started making Christmas stockings! Another one of my 'Murican friends have commissioned two Christmas stockings from me! I'm so excited cause Christmas Stockings aren't usually a thing over here. And the ones she asked me to make are so pretty!
 I'm gonna enjoy making these so much!

Marius sweater with raglan done!

It is finally finished, washed, blocked and ready to be worn! Actually Bård is wearing his sweater right now!

So this sweater is long overdue. I did promise Bård that I'd be making him a Marius sweater last year, but I kept putting it to the side for other projects. It is now finally done though, and I'm so happy about it! I didn't end up doing the traditional sweater since my sewing machine is old and doesn't want to cooperate with me, so raglan it was! I do not mind working in raglan, I feel like it gives a better fit than both sewn in sleeves and rond yoke, and it doesn't clump up and feel bulky either. But the traditional one looks better in general...and it is traditional... You know? I've only seen a Marius with raglan once before, so it's very untraditional indeed.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Endless nightmare!

The worst thing with the ugly scrap socks is the amount of ends that needs to be weaved in... With this pair, there's 20 ends on each sock... Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff...

Weaving in ends is probably the thing I dread the most with a project... It takes too long and you need to secure the ends good... But I rather sew them in good than to just tie a knot like I see several amatures do.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

gly scrap socks!

Woop! Finally finished the Marius sweater earlier today! Worked all night on it cause I had to redo the neckline because Bård wasn't happy with it, so now I'm done with it and there will be pictures soon enough for you guys to see.

So as a little inbetween project, I decided to get a little relief for my sock urge with some ugly scrap socks! My bag of wool scraps are getting rater full, so I need to clear some out. The easiest way is ugly scrap socks.

We'll see how many pairs I'll make before either starting the next commission (that's in no hurry min dyou) or working up a new pair of fair-isle socks for myself. Both of those options make more scraps, so it's a good idea to clear out the old scraps first!

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

WIP: Marius raglan!

I should do more of these WIP posts... They are way far and few between...

Thought I'd share a few pictures of the Marius sweater I'm currently working on! I'm not that pleased with the raglan, but I guess it's my only choice since I don't have a working sewing machine... The tradisional Marius sweater has sewn in sleeves as I've stated before.

As you can see in this picture, I get these white stripes in the raglan... It's really annoying, but can't be helped since there's rounds in all white in the pattern. I'm not using any pattern for the raglan decreasing though, so I'm more or less winging it all. I do 8 decreases in total every second round. We'll see how it looks on him when I'm done. I might just have to redo it, work it as the traditional version and ask my mom for help with the sewing...

As the contrasting colour, I'm gonna use a lighter blue. The original has a red contrasting colour, but I figured I'd use blue instead since it's Bård's favorite colour (original, right?).

Friday, October 3, 2014

WIP raglan Marius sweater!

Time for another WIP update! I've now almost finished the first sleeve.

This is really boring in the long run... Nothing really interesting happends and there's not much to update until I finish a bigger piece...if you understand... Posting WIP's for every 5cm isn't really worth it... But while we're at it, here's a snapshot of the finished body as well!

 After my last blogentry, I decided to give my sewing machine a try... It didn't go too well... The underthread kept messing up and tangeling... So I don't trust my own abilities, nor my sewing machine to be able to work a knitted sweater. Bye bye pretty traditional Marius sweater, hello raglan Marius sweater!