Two Shawls Finished!

It's been a while, but finally I have something to show again!

Last, but not least, therefore first (...eeh - logic?), I dug up my Mystic Desire Shawl. Or actually, I lifted it down from the top shelf basket, and finally blocked it!!! It's been finished for a year or so, I just never got on to blocking and weaving in loose ends - blocking is difficult with a 1-year-old in the house so basically I understand why I placed it on the shelf back then, but postponing things is dangerous!

I'm not 100% satisfied with my blocking this time, but as my assistant helping me with the needles is not yet 2 years old, this is good enough! And I am very pleased with the shawl, as usual when it comes to Anna Dalvi's designs :-). The size is just what I wanted - height approx. 1 meter, and almost two meters wide, and as I used Grignasco Merino Silk on 3,75 mm needles, it's as thin as nothing else, and weighs 62 grams. On to the pictures:

Also, a couple of days ago, we blocked my Panache shawl. The yarn is a mystery yarn that I found in my freezer... I think it's Evilla, it's Estonian wool in any case. Knitted on 5 mm needles, and while knitting I was sure I'd end up with lots and lots of leftover yarn. In the end, the last rows, as usual, needed lots and lots of yarn, and I ran short. I think I knitted, tinked and re-knitted the last few rows three or four times and in the end had less than 1 meter yarn left after weaving in the ends... I had to leave out the last four knitted rows, that, and making only 8 chain stitches instead of 9 on the last crocheted row, was the solution to the problem.

While knitting I was also very disappointed with the yarn colors - too much boring gray for me. But as usual, blocking makes miracles happen, and I'm very happy with the result. Even the dull gray turned out to be a really pretty green color in daylight after blocking.

Shawl size a nice 90 centimeter diameter, weight 200 grams. Ready to fly:

Triangular Summer Shawl

I was going to knit the Anniversary Mystery Shawl 2011 by Goddessknits, but could not find any appropriate yarn in my stash, which feels kind of improbable since I have loads and loads of yarn... But I still wanted to knit a shawl, so I looked through my shawl books and decided on Triangular Summer Shawl from Nancy Bush's book Knitted Lace of Estonia.

This is the second triangular shawl I make from that book, and for some reason they're both a bit on the smallish side for me - I find that I tend to prefer big shawls. But it's pretty and was a nice knit.

The yarn is Estonian too, an angora goat wool blend that I ran into by accident on our local market last year. Thin, soft, nice to knit. The only problem I had was when I was sewing the lace border onto the finished shawl - the yarn is a bit furry and was difficult to sew with. Also it would run very thin at the end, and I ended up transporting a lot more yarn through the seam than I first counted on, since it would break every now and then. For shawls with sewn-on border I guess a stronger and less fuzzy yarn would be more appropriate...

Summer hats

I made two more summer hats this week. First I made one with red flowers. Then I planned to make another one with red flowers, but after a day or so I realized that I did not have enough white yarn. And since I had very little red too, that would never work. So I dug up the blue yarn instead, and made the brim and the flowers blue. At first it bothered me that I could not make the hat all white, but actually I think it turned out almost even better this way.
Yarn Novita Kotiväki, hook 2,5 mm. Size approx. for a two-year-old.

Ruched Yoke Tee

Tried to update yesterday, but blogger was not available - let's see if I remember what I was planning to write... My subscription of Interweave Knits ended with issue Spring 2011 (no time, no money, must take a break), and I decided that I really wanted to knit something from it. Chose the Ruched Yoke Tee simply because I liked the looks of it, and got the first available suitable yarn from the nearest store, and ended up with an old colorway of Novita Tennessee. Not my favorite yarn, since it splits a bit too easily, and not my favorite color either, but the best they had.

Anyway, knitting was fun, and amazingly quick. I guess I have not knitted on size 4mm needles for a while so everything went very fast. If I could have kept from knitting in the early morning hours I would probably have knitted even faster - I made a couple of really silly mistakes early in the mornings and ended up ripping twice. First I actually managed to make the yoke Moebian i.e. forgot the part "join together being careful not to twist"! And another morning I cast on only 3 sts under the arms instead of 6. I did wonder a bit about the placement of stitch markers, but not enough to see that the instructions said to cast on 3 more sts after placing marker. Well, on the next row the stitch count did not match, so I realized my mistake pretty soon.
I was a bit worried about the attached i-cord, but that turned out really well too, so in whole this is a very easy pattern with a pretty result.

Now only to wait for my girl to grow into it - it's still a little too big, but, well, she ain't 2 years yet.

Sommarhatt och klänning

Liten har gillat att bläddra i mina gamla sticktidningar, och plötsligt fick jag syn på en klänning jag alltid velat göra, och insåg att största storleken är 92 - liten är nu minst 86 cm så det var verkligen dags att ta itu med den. Mörkblått Kotiväki-garn finns inte just nu, men via Neulomo tycks man alltid hitta nån som har det man vill ha, så jag fick flera svar på min annons, och hade ett mörkblått nystan inom en vecka. (Eller skulle ha haft, men liten var sjuk så det tog nästan ytterligare en vecka att få hem paketet från posten.)
Eftersom jag inte gillar att sy sömmar så stickade jag allt i ett. Och jag behövde använda stickor 2,5mm för att få rätt stickfasthet.

Sen då klänningen var nästan klar (väntade på dragked) så hade jag ju garn kvar, så jag virkade en sommarhatt. Först använde jag en modell ur Novitas Muksuekstra, men den gillade jag inte, så jag rev upp och modifierade och rev upp och virkade om och höll på så några gånger tills jag fick ihop en hatt som passade min smak bättre. Den är kanske litet stor ännu, men helt okej, och testades idag för första gången på morsdagslunchen. Klänningen testade vi inte ännu för den är nog litet onödigt stor.

Summer dress and hat. Hat ended up being my own design.

Barbiedock-klänning

Vi blev bjudna på gudsonens syrras födelsedagskalas, och ville förstås ha nån liten present med oss. Grävde fram beskrivning på Ravelry, det blev en Morning Glory Fashion Doll Dress (bild + länk till mönstret en bit ner på sidan).
Sen blev liten sjuk och vi kunde inte gå på kalas, och sen blev hon ännu sjukare, så sista varvet virkade jag först igår, och idag sydde jag fast knapparna och strök klänningen. Får se när vi kommer oss ut och överlämna presenten. Och hoppas den passar på hennes Barbiedocka - vi har ingen modell att prova på här hemma.

A Morning Glory Fashion Doll Dress as a birthday gift for a friend´s daughter. I hope it'll fit! The last row felt long - I think it's ages since I last did some crochet :-).

Och litet dockkläder...

Så där småningom behövs säkert mammas dockklädestillverkning, så jag smygtränade litet. Samma mönster som jag använde till toppen åt unga fröken (Novita sommar 2006) fanns också som dockklänning. Garnet är ett mysterienystan som jag hittade,möjligen Novita Butterfly, eller så inte. Mössan gjorde jag fel - glömde tre varv, men den passar ju bra så här, så det struntar jag i. Och för att säga som det är så förstår jag inte hur man med den beskrivningen skulle kunna få brättet att stå ut. Inte genom att följa beskrivningen, det är jag nog rätt säker på. Fast jag har förstås aldrig kommit riktigt överens med finska, ritade virkmönster, tacka vet jag Allers 70-tal, och Hemmets Veckotidnings Gunilla Olmarker - det är beskrivningar jag förstår mig på!

 A dress and hat for a doll, from the same magazine (Novita summer 2006) as last week´s top. Mystery yarn, possibly Novita Butterfly. Oh, and the hat is "heavily modified", i.e. I forgot a few rows.