Winter blues

March 16, 2019 stgeorgeknits4 Comments

Another jumper finished!

This is a very quick top-down jumper that knitted up in a week. The pattern is from a book called Neuleita, by Saara Toikka. It’s very simple; there is no funny business and that’s the way I like very thick jumpers. The main thing to me is that the (thick) jumper is warm and fits under a coat well.

The yarn is Viking Naturgarn. I really like the colour. When I was a kid, my favourite colour was blue. Then I adopted a black period, and although I wasn’t a goth or anything, I did wear a lot of black. I remember thinking those days that blue was so boring. Now I’ve gone back to wearing colours and liking blue again. Blue and lilac. And lots of other colours.

Happy knitting!

Tom, Dick and Harry

March 14, 2019 stgeorgeknits4 Comments

There’s a moose loose aboot this hoose!

And not just one moose but three! They have been totally naked until now. I promised them jumpers and although it might take a while, I usually do keep my promises and hey presto! We have 3 tiny jumpers. They are all top-down jumpers and all of them slightly different.

These moose, if you were wondering, are small liqueur bottles. They used to contain Swedish lingonberry liqueur, which is aptly named ‘Elch Blut’, ie. ‘Moose Blood’.

Is it just me or does anyone else think of Northern Exposure when you see a moose? With me, it doesn’t matter if it’s a real moose or a novelty liqueur bottle moose, my mind goes straight to Cicely. I’m looking forward to the new series. I hope they go ahead with it. Do you remember the piano catapulted across the skies? That was brilliant!

Happy knitting!

Knitting · Mittens

Double Teddy

March 9, 2019 stgeorgeknitsLeave a comment

Just a quick job today: Orange mittens.

Do you remember these blue Wookiee mittens? When the Wookiee picture was taken during a winter hike, my hubby was wearing his orange padded pants and I said to him that I have this same furry yarn in orange. He immediately said that he NEEDS a pair of orange Wookiee mittens. Finally I’ve knitted them – they were done in one evening.

My blue Wookiees are just Teddy yarn (which is by the Finnish Novita and consists of 45% wool and the rest is polyamide and acrylic). These orange mittens are a little warmer because I knitted them with Teddy and Nalle. Nalle is also by Novita and it’s a fingering weight yarn made of 75% wool and 25% polyamide. I used fairly small needles, 6mm, because I wanted the mittens to be dense. And that they are. The recommended needle size for Teddy is 8mm.

Hubby should be quite visible now on white snow with his orange pants and orange mittens. Not that I’ve lost him often anyway.

Do you know what Nalle means in English? It means Teddy. So, these mittens are knitted with Teddy and the other Teddy.

Happy knitting!

Knitting · Scarf · Shawl

Fab shawl

March 3, 2019 stgeorgeknits11 Comments

I bought some Patons Fab yarn some years ago during my travels in Britain. I bought it because it was so colourful and I had a plan for it, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was. I knitted a shawl with it instead.

I used the Rio pattern by Drops Design, which is a nice, not-quite-symmetrical shawl. I used a thicker yarn than that in the pattern, so I cast on less stitches (131 instead of 165 – just an arbitrary number that felt right). My shawl is still bigger (206 x 36 cm instead of 180 x 30 cm).

The pattern is very nice. The stitches are increased on one end every other row and decreased on the opposite end every row. So the stitches go down by one every second row and you carry on until you run out of stitches. It’s all garter stitch. Perfect no-brains-required knit.

Because the shawl is relatively big, it’s difficult to take a photograph to show the shape of it properly. I pinned it to a fallen down tree with thumb tacks! So you can see that the highest point of the triangle is not in the middle and the shawl is nicely kind of skewiiff.

And just a detail picture because I like the bright colours against the clean, white snow. The yarn Fab is 100% acrylic. I can’t quickly come up with any benefits that acrylic yarn has but at least it feels soft around the neck. Of course, I think the colour is just fab.

These outdoor pictures were taken on a swamp, just behind our house. My plan was “just to nip out and take the pics”, so I didn’t bother with snowshoes. It would have been hard work even with the snowshoes on but without them, I was up to my thighs in snow. The distance of just 20m feels almost like a marathon. In the middle of the winter you always appreciate how simple and easy it is to move around and to photograph your knitting when there is no snow on the ground. Couple of more months to go!

Happy knitting!

Jumper · Knitting · Stash busting

Doing a Spike Lee with purple

February 27, 2019 stgeorgeknits3 Comments

I have a very-quickly-knitted jumper. For once it’s a jumper that I started recently, and finished in just a couple of weeks. So no procrastinating here for a change.

The yarn, however, I’ve had for some years now. I’m trying to use up my stash and a lot of the yarn I have is at least a few years old (and some even a few decades). This yarn is called Novita Rose Mohair. It’s 65% acrylic and 35% mohair. It’s obviously not the warmest of yarns/jumpers, but right now, as it’s not so cold (it’s been close to zero degrees C, or even above), it’s ideal. The pattern is by Novita, too. I only changed the striping a bit.

I’m very pleased with the jumper. I wasn’t 100% sure I would like it when I was knitting it, but I do. There’s enough positive ease to make it very comfortable and it’s also very light. It only weighs 230g. At the moment it’s perfect with a long-sleeve t-shirt.

Happy knitting!

Alpaca · Cowl · Hats · Knitting

Cowl and hat combo

February 23, 2019 stgeorgeknits1 Comment

Oh no, another hat! But also a matching cowl.

I’ve had this lovely Artesano 100% Alpaca yarn for a few years just waiting for the right project to come along. Then I spotted the Structured Alpaca Cowl and knew this is it. The picture is from a funny angle and the cowl looks a bit like a dog’s jumper but trust me, it’s a cowl. It’s a very nice cowl.

I knitted the hat with the leftover yarn. It’s such a nice and soft yarn that I didn’t want to leave any left over. I don’t have a pattern for the hat – I just winged it. It’s a top-down hat, which is great when you want to use up all of the yarn. I like the way the pattern is formed on the hat. First it’s thin stripes on the crown and then they turn into thicker, irregular stripey shapes.

The hat and the cowl work nicely together. I like how half of the cowl is rib. It can be lifted up to cover the neck completely from evil cold winds in the winter. There is also a little flap on the front to keep the chest nice and warm.

Technically, this set is good enough to rob a bank! Not that I would, but, you know, in theory.

Happy knitting!

Jumper · Knitting

Don’t worry, the sleeves will ride up with wear

February 16, 2019 stgeorgeknits9 Comments

I have another finished jumper. It’s another one that needs a bit of an explanation.

Unlike the Viking Knot jumper, this one didn’t take 11 years to knit but it wasn’t exactly a quick one either. In fact, I knitted it a few years ago but I really, really didn’t like it at all. The sleeves were too long – and I mean monkey-long – and I’m sure I had followed the pattern. Also, I ran out of yarn and couldn’t knit the collar high enough and it looked really stupid so short.

I had bought the yarn, Drops Vienna, in a sale. I figured mohair would be really warm. I don’t know if it’s the case, but I assume lots of air is trapped between all those long fibers making it warm. That’s the reason I bought the yarn. Of course it was discontinued by the time I finished the jumper the first time round and I couldn’t get anymore to knit a higher collar. With the monkey sleeves and the world’s stupidest short collar, the jumper ended up to the back of the wardrobe. I didn’t know what to do because I knew that mohair is notoriously difficult to frog.

A couple of years passed and in that time I grew a spine! The sleeves had to be tackled one way or another. And what did I know? It wasn’t that difficult to frog. It only stuck a bit on the edges of a row and with the help of a large tapestry needle, I managed to get all the tangles out. I shortened the sleeves and with the extra yarn, I could knit the collar higher. Now I’m happy with the jumper!

Question is, why do I always procrastinate? It took me one afternoon and a bit of another to fix the jumper. It took me a couple of years to pluck up the courage. Well, better late than never, I guess.

The pattern is also by Drops Design, 80-1. My collar is a little bit shorter than in the pattern, as are my sleeves. Maybe I have really, really tiny short arms. I’ve not noticed that before but it’s good to know.

Oh, and on a side note, remember the Arctic Wookiee (also known as a muppet or Cookie Monster)? I have a hat and a cowl with that same blue mitten yarn. Now this jumper. All I need now is blue socks and pants and I have an entire frozen Arctic Wookiee outfit! Awesome, right? Did you know, that the original Chewbacca outfit was handknitted with yak and mohair yarn? Yes, that’s a fact. I bet the designer is a bit annoyed now having not made the Wookiee blue.

Happy knitting!

Knitting · Mittens

Sodankylä mittens

February 13, 2019 stgeorgeknits7 Comments

I live in the municipal of Sodankylä (since 2006), which is located in Finnish Lapland. The municipal is large in area but small in terms of population. The two official languages of Sodankylä are Finnish and Northern Sami. It’s extreme northern location means short summers and long, cold winters. For a knitter, that’s kind of ideal.

The coat of arms of Sodankylä is really cool. I like the colours black, silver and red and the very graphic design. It’s said to symbolise the Lappish wilderness. The black means the long, dark polar nights and the red flames are from a type of open fire, where the fire burns in a crack between two large logs. Because of the star (which can be seen during the dark long nights in the winter), Sodankylä is called the star municipal of Lapland.

I wanted to turn this cool design into mittens.

I stylised the camp fire by knitting it without the squiggle.

On the palm side I knitted a dotted starry night pattern – I thought that would be appropriate.

I used Novita 7 Veljestä yarn, which is nice and fairly thick, so it makes warm mittens.

This last picture was taken in the middle of the day. Around the polar night time (in December), daytime is short and very blue. I like using my ski poles for photo props.

Happy knitting!

Jumper · Knitting

Viking Knot Saga

February 10, 2019 stgeorgeknits9 Comments

I finished another jumper. This has been on the needles for some time. Let me explain.

A little while ago I decided that this jumper has to get finished now. It’s been in my knitting basket for some time. 4 or 5 years, I thought. I looked at the printed pattern and the date on it was 22nd September 2007. Yes, 2007, that’s not a typo. I started this jumper over 11 years ago. This takes procrastination to a whole new level! [rolls eyes]

I said I would explain, but I don’t really have an explanation. I must have just put this to one side to knit something else first and it somehow snowballed. There was nothing wrong with the pattern, nothing wrong with the yarn, all that was wrong was me. Apparently.

The pattern is Viking Knots and the yarn is Drops Alpaca. I made the long sleeve version. I love that yarn and the fabric it produces. It’s very soft and it feels really substantial and yet the whole jumper weighs only 310g. When I was finishing the knitting, I was convinced it would not fit me. The fabric was so thin and the edges curled up so much that I thought it would fit a doll at best. When it was blocked and finished, the size is perfect! Everything about this jumper is perfect, except the knitting time.

The colour I used is petrol (mix 7240) and it’s fantastic. I’m toying with the idea of knitting another Viking Knots. I’m drooling over the different colours of Alpaca: dark olive, dark purple, light maroon, rust, golden rod…how could I decide? What if I took another 11 years to finish it?

Happy knitting!

Hats · Knitting

Forever green

February 9, 2019 stgeorgeknitsLeave a comment

Yet another hat! I had to knit this hat because I found a small ball of this green yarn and simply had to get rid of it.

The yarn is Sirdar Country Style for Kids. I bought the whole packet (a kilo I guess) a long time ago. It was a good offer and I was a student at the time – say no more. Over the years I’ve been knitting and knitting and this never-ending yarn just – well, never ends. Until now.

I’ve knitted a cardigan, a bolero, mittens, fingerless gloves, a scarf and now a hat with this yarn. Maybe something else too. The yarn is 45% acrylic, 40% nylon and 15% wool. It’s clearly not a very warm yarn but it’s easy to care for. Just throw the knit in the washer and it comes out the same as you threw it in, only cleaner.

This hat was knit with double yarn, and top-down. I used 3½mm needles because I wanted the fabric to be dense. I suppose I could have knitted some interest into it but I simply wanted to see the end of this yarn, so speed was of the essence. I get a bit neurotic when I find yarn that I thought was already gone, or when I find a little bit of yarn that would just be enough for some small and quick knit. It burns a hole in my yarn stash until it’s gone. This hat was knit in one evening. Phew.

I once again proved that even if I have a big yarn stash and some yarn has been sitting there for years, even decades, eventually it all gets knitted.

Happy knitting!