Twice a year?

It seems that I only make it here twice a year. Once again, time for a autumn/fall report.

This summer was really hot, so knitting bamboo/cotton felt like a good idea. I combined some stash bamboo and some LYS bargain cotton with a charity knitting blankets (and other stuff) for prematures at our local hospital.

This one was knit in Novita bamboo yarn from my stash, size a bit less than 50*50cm... for someone really small, that is. Pattern is the same one I used to knit a blanket for my own babies more than 9 years ago.

That was a quick knit, but took me a long time to block and weave in ends...

Next I decided to try out a really interesting pattern with my bargain cotton. This blanket is bigger, maybe 70*70cm. A really simple knit, with a really interesting result. I don’t think I could have made more than 9 squares, though. Gets a bit heavy, and a bit boring.

Looks really cool, though. Especially on picture. Not flawless, but I do not think anyone will notice. Crocheted border to keep it square. (1 row sc and one row backward sc if I remember the crochet terminology correctly.)

Also, I finally weaved in the last loose ends in my DD’s new mittens. Winter is coming.

Spring report

Still not much time to document what I've been up to, but let's make a try. What have I been up to this spring, well, mainly socks it seems. So hold on, here comes the "Socks for pre-school teachers 2018 edition":

Now, let's start with the Fluffy Unicorn Socks for the head teacher of DS's class this year. They're a bit different from what I normally would knit, as the yarn is a lot thicker than usual (Novita 7 veljestä?). But thenagain, they do spend a lot of time outdoors with the kids at our pre-school, so I think they may even be useful even though I prefer thinner socks myself. The pattern comes from Pirjo Iivonen's wonderful book Unelmien silmukat . Haaveista sukiksi. I've knit many of the patterns in this book, and still have some must-knits left.

 This pattern I just had to knit to find out how-to-get-the-cables-do-what-they-do. And as the light snowy feeling I first got from this pattern felt perfect for this teacher, off I was knitting.

The final name was developed by DS, who was having sleepy unicorn thoughts at bed-time some weeks ago. When I started to think of it - yes - those were the words I had been looking for to define this teacher - she is a Fluffy Unicorn! Soft, & sweet.
Beads from DD's bead stash. Sometimes it's very practical to have an 8-year-old in the house!

Next I have a pair for a dear stand-in teacher. She has been there as a safe extra resource for my kids all these years. I am so happy that our kindergarten and pre-school have decided to have these extra resources around on an every-day basis. Whenever one of the teachers is ill or something, they do not have to call in unknown, unfamiliar people, but they have these wonderful people on stand-by, that know our children so well, so that the children probably not even realise that they are having a substitute teacher this day. 

Another one of my DS's teachers this year apparently likes roses a lot - her sandals have a rose pattern, her other clothes too. I did not succeed completely in finding the correct pattern for her socks, so I ended up concentrating on a color that would remind of the colors on her sandals. These socks, and the blue ones above, I knit so long ago that I do not remember what patterns I used - will add credits if I recall them. Yarns in both yellow and purple socks was Drops Fabel anyway.

 Now, the fourth teacher getting socks this year comes originally from "the town of  Birch Trees" So knitting one of my favv sock designer's Niina Laitinen's pattern "Koivun alla" (Under the Birch) was pretty obvious. Had some Rowan sock yarn in my stash with the perfect color too. Wonderful soft yarn to knit; I wonder how it will last, though.

So, I have knit all pre-school teacher socks, and it's only May 5th. That's pretty unusual, but then again, I did start well before Christmas this year.

Just in case, and because I had time, I also knit a pair of socks for my DD's school teacher, as we are not yet sure wether she will be around next year or not. If she can stay, I'll just have to put these away until another year.

These "Seitsemän palmikon sukat" by Jorma Saarinen from a Finnish magazine "Rakas Villasukka are knit in Alize Superwash. Not as soft as the Rowan - quite a huge difference - so probably will hold a lot better.

Sporty, looking simple but with a lot of twists. And a bit unpractically white, but they are superwash... I hope she will like them!

I know I would:

Autumn / Fall report

I just logged in (May 5th 2018) and noted that I have not done anything around here for almost a year! Not quite true, though - found this draft unpublished. I must have got interrupted and forgot to publish! That was some great fun I had back then!

Apparently it’s time for a half year report, I haven’t really been around much, have I? Working, mommying and trying to squeeze in some knitting, so not much news, really.

Had a couple of weeks actually finishing some projects now,

and I went to the Finnish Parliament to air my Kalevala blanket:

I think we were about 40-50 crocheters there, with blankets from this popular CAL to honor Finland’s 100th birthday. Pls google Kalevala CAL for more info, it’s late and I’m tired. Mine is the blue blanket in the middle :)

Crocheting after a long break was fun (but weaving in all those loose ends was tough), and it felt good to update my crochet skills from the 80’s with some more modern stitches and methods!

Today I weaved in the last ends on my Valentine’s Day mittens. Yes I know, I started almost a year ago. And yes, those have been taking up space in my bookshelf for a long time now, only lacking thumbs. Ended up knitting thumbs on bigger needle as my kn itting was really tight compared to last spring... But now I have matching mittens to the socks! (For patterns and stuff check out Niina Laitinen designs and Taimitarha eg. on Ravelry, she’s quite productive!)

Socks for kindergarten teachers #2-4

As I wrote earlier, upgrading kid to pre-school is ahead. And I wanted to knit socks for all the personnell that we leave behind. Well, I blew it. One of them left two weeks ago, and I only learned about it the same afternoon she left.

 

But now, with one week to go, I finally have the last pair blocking (minus one).

These are for the sweet, kind-hearted one, that has been around all 3 years. She was awsome the first months when DS was so little and really needed her warm heart.

 

 

These are for the one, who held him in his lap two years ago when I came to pick him up, when he had developed chicken pox.

 

 

And these for the one, who has been there all three years, In charge of my kids' group, always on-the-spot when it comes to my children's development and needs. Need I say that she is kind of a goth. Yes, they exist, goth kindergarten teachers, and I am so happy that we got to be in her group all these years.

 

 

Thank you to all of you! It's been a blast!

 

(And fortunately most of you will still be there next year, we just won't be in your group. But we'll still see each other almost every day.)

Knee-high socks in a week?

So, is it possible to knit a pair of knee-high socks in just one week. Apparently it is. Another question is why you would want to do that. Well, having kids sure introduces you to all kind of new challenges. We just learned (last week), that one of the personnell at DS's daycare was having her last work week at hand. Combine that with my decision to knit socks for all personnell in this group this spring as "thank you and good bye", as it will be time for upgrade to pre-school next fall. The girl quitting now was actually the first one I knew what kind of socks I was going to knit to, and I had already bought the yarn (months ago), but I really thought I'd have three more months to do this (and four other pairs...) I had a week. So I started right away when I heard the news. I combined this with DS having the flu coughing all nights, two eye infections of myself and one for DH, and as DS started feeling better DD went down with the same flu and I got diagnosed with a bad sinus infection to accompany the renewing eye infection. Oh, and DH went abroad on a business trip. All together, quite a busy week, when I've been working on distance, looking after 1-2 sick kids and knitting in between on my non-existent spare time. I confess I feel a bit... insufficient. Hyper-efficient yes, sufficient not so much. Well, tomorrow is her last day, I rolled up the socks for DS to give her. No time for blocking as it's almost midnight, but at least they look neat when worn.

Pattern from Novita, winter 2016 I think, Heart socks.

Socks for babies born in Finland 2017

 

Since last summer, there's been a project going on to knit baby socks for all babies born in Finland during 2017, our 100th year of independence. There are lots of projects going on, more info on (all?) the official ones can be found here. As a knitter, a person who loves blue, but with not too much spare time, it was easy to choose this project. Also, I picked up a pair of red socks myself some years ago when my firstborn turned up (Finnish Martha organisation had an anniversary that year) and have always wanted to pass that favour along to other mothers too. I've been knitting on these small socks every now and then, often on the bus when commuting to work, as they're small and easy to carry around. At last, I have made it as far as to actually add the washing instructions and add them to the huge masses of socks that others have already brought around. I have 1 1/2 pair waiting, so maybe I will add them to my contribution later, but the speed with which people knit right now is unbelievable, so I'm afraid the project will end and I'll have to find some charity to take the rest of my socks. Win-win whatever happens.   And as the middle pair needs some extra explanation:

KAL socks

Ok, so what's up. Socks, socks and socks... Last spring Niina Laitinen (pages in Finnish) arranged a flower sock KAL on FB, that I happened to stumble upon. As a beginner, I only knit one sock during the KAL, and was to finish the second sock when the KAL was over. Well, that KAL sure is over now, about a year later. I still have the 1.000.000 loose ends to take care of, but I finally got this far:

The true motivation to get the second sock off the needles was Niina's newest KAL, Valentine's Day socks that started three days ago.  As I learned from the flower socks, I will need to knit both socks simultaneously this time, so I really needed the 3mm needles used for these socks. That should save me from knitting half of sock #2 before noting, that I was knitting it in the wrong size. Which in turn should save me from a lot of frogging and bad temper this time. Other things I learned during this sock project was, that they would have been even nicer had I chosen more similar colors. These colors were what I happened to find around the house, and it does not show that clearly in the pic, but there are two really dark flower colors, and two much brighter, also the leaves are pretty bright. Some more similarity would have been better, but I still like them of course. Very much. Back to the reason for freeing the needles: 

 

I knit with the wooden needles, and keep stitches on hold with the metal ones.