Marraskuun SNY-paketti saapui!

Oho, tulipa tänään sitten kaksi päivitystä, koska illalla löysin vielä postilaatikosta marraskuun SSNY 2010-pakettini! (Osasin toki odottaa sitä, koska tänään on marraskuun viimeinen päivä!) Salainen ystäväni on yleensä ollut nopea, mutta nyt marraskuussa sain odottaa :-), ja syyksi epäilen paketin sisältämät pienet niin nätit sukat tyttärelleni.
Lisäksi paketista löytyi hauska tiskirätti, sekä "last but not least" Kauneimmat Joulun Käsityöt-lehti! (Nopeasti selailin läpi, ihan kivasti löytyi kaikenlaista kivaa, aika paljon virkkausohjeitakin - pitäisikin jossain vaiheessa taas virkata jotain, vanha himovirkkaaja kun olen!)
Ja ihanan rentouttavasti - paketissa ei ollut lainkaan lankaa!
KIITOS jälleen Salaiselle Ystävälleni!

Got my ssny2010- november package today - a Christmas knitting magazine, a pair of extremely cute socks for my daughter, and a knitting-related dishcloth (stating that "Those who create with their hands... ...thinks with their brains".) This should make tidying up the kitchen more fun!

ELMA-mässan

Besökte ELMA-mässan i lördags, hela familjen. Medan jag gick igenom handarbets-avdelningen roade sig far och dotter i hallen med skogsmaskiner och djur. Alla var riktigt nöjda, så jag är glad att jag tänkte på att ta med hela familjen!
Jag lyckades också hålla mig, och köpte inte mycket - litet Drops Alpaca-garn att sticka julklapps-fingerlösa-Sirja-vantar med. Och en femtioårspresent åt en jobbkompis som nyss börjat sticka sockor. Och så införskaffade jag innehåll till decemberpaketet till min hemliga stickvän i höstens finska SSNY.

Sirja-vantarna får bli årets julklapp, får se hur många jag hinner med. Rätt snabbt går det nog, särskilt som jag i Watson-sockprojektet äntligen lärde mig sticka flätor utan hjälpsticka, men i går stickade jag hela tiden fel och blev till och med tvungen att riva upp ett par gånger. Men första paret är klart, så några ska jag väl hinna med!

Visited a fair last weekend, and managed to make only reasonable purchases! And the rest of my family enjoyed themselves watching the animals (oh, well, I paid the alpacas a quick visit too).

Knitwise I now enjoy my newly acquired talent to knit cables without a cable needle, and knit Sirja-fingerless mittens for Santa's sack.

Watson Socks!

It took some time, but now the Watson Socks are ready. (The amount of time used does not have anything to do with the pattern, the reasons are strictly personal - my little toddler does not leave me with much knitting time, and also I've spent a lot of time sorting all the photos I've taken of her in 2010 - that's a Christmas present project too).

I'm very pleased that I stumbled upon this pattern. The instructions are clear (at some point I did do some interpretation of myself, but that was just because I was too lazy to read properly ;-) ), but the main reason is that I've learned a lot of new techniques, which is always fun!

I wrote about the toe earlier, and the bind-off recommended was also an interesting new experience. And I'm almost ashamed to admit that this was the first time I've tried to knit cables without a cable needle!!! "Sent ska syndaren vakna" as my mom would say (the sinner will wake up late).

So I take three very useful new experiences with me from this project, and got a Christmas present for my FIL too!

It's hard, by the way, to fit in big man socks in a picture when you're used to knitting baby socks... :-D.

The details do not show well, since a solid colored yarn would have been more suited for this project, but I'm knitting from my way-too-big stash. It's Supersocke 100 from Online by the way, on 2.75mm dpn's, and I needed 110 grams for the socks (plus a lot extra that ended up in small yarn balls since I wanted to color-match).

Water Melon Shawl

I took part in a swap in the Scandinavian RAK-group on Ravelry some months ago, and got a wonderful package from Knittermarie. The Lace yarn in the package immediately insisted on becoming a Melon Shawl (from the book Victorian Lace Today). I've wanted to knit this shawl a long time, apparently I've just waited for the right yarn, which turned out to be from Saffron Dyeworks. The colorway is Citrice, I think, and, well, to me this is the Water Melon Shawl. The color in the pictures is a bit more pink, it actually has a lot more water melon in it... Knitting needle 4mm (also in the package from Knittermarie).

It blocked out wider than I thought (45 cm), but not too long (approx 120 cm). But the 80th birthday hero that I think will be the recipient of this shawl is quite petite, so I think it'll be ok.

I was hoping that I'd get to take pictures on snow today, but yesterday's snowfall turned into rain, so there's no snow left :-(.

Magic cast-on rules!

Wow! Just wow! I started knitting a Christmas present for my FIL. I found the pattern on Ravelry (of course...), it's the Elementary Watson Socks. And they introduced me to a new (new to me, that is) to cast-on for toe-up socks (and anything else where you need this type of cast-on of course), and I thought I'd give it a try, and, well, I'm amazed! The cast-on in question is Judy Becker's Magic Cast-On.

The video I linked to is looong and slooow, but I think it was worth watching it through first - then there are shorter videos to use to refresh your mind when actually casting on. I just did this, and knit two rows, and I'm just so amazed with the result that I had to drop by here. Just look at this toe:

Just beautiful!

I did he cast-on on the two circulars as recommended, but I feel more comfortable with dpn's so I already switched over to them.

(Plus I like to feel like I'm a knitting goddess ;-). I'm referring to a comment in the pattern right now, not feeling that divine really, since I probably was born with a set of dpn's in my hands... still just kidding apparently... ah, but my first memory of knitting with dpn's is when I was nine, so I've used them a long time.)

Oh well, back to knitting!

Små små tofflor

Jag stickade en sjömanströja åt min dotter av det härligt mjuka garnet Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk (jisses så många ord, månne jag fick dem i rätt ordning?), och fick ganska mycket garn över. Så då jag öppnade Allers för någon vecka sedan blev jag glad då de hade beskrivning på babytofflor i samma garn. Först tänkte jag göra stora tofflor åt dottern, men sen hörde jag att min kollega fått ett pyttelitet barnbarn (prematur), så jag utvecklade en ministorlek <0 månader, och garnet räckte precis till ett par sådana, och ett par i storlek 0-6 månader.

Det här är de pyttesmå tofflorna

De större tofflorna fick helvita hälar, för jag hade mer vitt restgarn än blått

Bildkvaliteten är inte den bästa, men tofflorna är i alla fall jättesöta.

En förfärlig mängd med lösa trådar att fästa var det; jag trodde att de aldrig skulle ta slut, men så är det då toffeln stickas i tre delar som sen sys ihop, och dessutom i ränder, samt till råga på allt av restgarn.

Instruktionerna för hur man skulle sy ihop toffeln var litet bristfälliga tycker jag, eller så förstod jag bara inte vad som menades, så jag hittade på det själv, och nog blev det tofflor av dem till sist!



I had some leftover yarn from making a sweater for my girl, and stumbled upon this pattern for booties of the same yarn. A colleague got a premature grandchild lately, so I developed an even smaller size <0 months (fully striped booties), and also had just enough yarn to make a pair of size 0-6 months with white heels. Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk.
These were fun to make, but there were a lot of loose ends to fasten, yuck! And the assembling instructions were very poor, I think, or maybe I'm just stupid. Anyway, I ended up figuring out myself how to sew the three parts together.