Arctic Wookiee

February 2, 2019February 5, 2019 stgeorgeknits8 Comments

This is one seriously frozen Chewbacca!

It’s been so cold that even Chewbacca freezes. Or is it the abominable snowman? I prefer Chewbacca, being a sci-fi fan and all 🙂

We’ve had temperatures below -30C for over two weeks now. These temperatures are not unusual here but when they continue for weeks on end, it starts to get on my nerves. We had a mini heatwave for two days of only -10C but today we are back to -33C. We have just over 50cm of snow now. I’m not sure but I think this is little less what we normally have at this time of winter. So there’s something positive.

Last weekend, Sodankylä, which is the municipality where we live, broke the cold record in Finland this winter, -38.7C. It was also the coldest place in the whole of Europe, if you don’t count Russia.

It is, however, business as usual here. I’ve never, ever, heard of any school ever being closed because of snow or low temperature. Buses or trains might be little delayed if tons of snow comes all at once but other than that, people just keep adding more clothes and start to look more and more like Michelin Men.

The mittens above are not a recent knit. I knitted them about 10 years ago. I use them a lot. I realised that they were really warm while ploughing snow, when combined with another pair of mittens or gloves underneath. Fingers freeze really easily while ploughing snow because of the metal bar you hold on to. I also put the blue furry mittens in the rucksack when going on winter hikes. I like to put them on while on a break and my fingers are frozen from messing with the flask or after taking some pictures. I think it must be those fluffy hairs that make them warm, even though they are only 45% wool and the rest acrylic and polyamide.

I hope you are all keeping warm, wherever you are.

Happy knitting!

Jumper · Knitting

A hoot

January 31, 2019 stgeorgeknits3 Comments

Hubby’s owl jumper is finished and I think it might be a new favourite.

This was a very quick knit – I surprised myself. The yarn is (surprise surprise) Novita’s 7 Veljestä and it was knitted with 4mm needles. The gauge is 18 stitches to 10 cm. The pattern is here but unfortunately only in Finnish. (I will update these links if the patterns are translated into English at any time.)

I don’t really have anything else to say. This was such a pain-free and quick knit without any drama or disasters. I basically sat down and started and soon it was finished. The size is very good, too. I’m going to knit an owl jumper for me, too, but it will be more colourful. Perhaps all the different images in a different colour. The pattern for the ladies’ version is a tunic but I might do a normal length jumper instead. But not yet.

Anyway, this owl was well received, and that’s the main thing!

Happy knitting!

Jumper · Knitting

The dress that never was

January 25, 2019 stgeorgeknits2 Comments

Yay, I finished a lacy jumper!

The pattern was actually for a dress but I made it a jumper instead. I’m not much of a dress wearer and thought that a jumper would get much more use. For once, the pattern is also available in English. The yarn is Novita’s Venla, which is a fingering weight yarn and it’s a blend of 75% wool and 25% polyamide.

Because I made this a jumper, I added some decreases and increases to the waist (which weren’t there for the dress). I just winged it. I made it quite long and it’s on the limit of being a tunic. It’s a top-down pattern and the lace yoke is very easy. The whole jumper knitted up very quickly, despite the thin yarn.

The front and back are the same. I wanted to mark the front somehow, and attached a wooden button to the hem. You can just see it on the bottom right. It says Handmade on it. I don’t know if people are usually bothered about which way they wear a jumper that’s the same both ways, but I always like to know that I wear it the same way every time. Hence the button. All in all, I’m quite pleased with this jumper. I had my doubts many times along the way, but it pulled through.

Happy knitting!

Dublicated stitches · Jumper · Knitting · Stash busting

Heart on the hem

January 20, 2019 stgeorgeknits6 Comments

This was a Christmas present for my 5-year-old niece. Oh, how quick it is to knit a 5-year-old-sized jumper!

I used an Angry Bird jumper pattern but because I used yarn from my stash, I didn’t have enough red to knit an Angry Bird jumper. I just took the measurements and the numbers of stitches from the pattern. The yarn is probably as old as me, named Novita Cora. It was my grandmother’s, then it ended up as my mother’s, and now to me, and I knitted it for my sister’s daughter. Ha, how to involve generations with just one jumper! The little heart was done by duplicating stitches. I found two round red buttons in my stash with a heart image in the middle, which were perfect.

The jumper is a good fit. I hope they remember to wear this jumper now that the temperatures are close to -20C even in the south, where they live.

Happy knitting!

Knitting · Outdoors · Woolly pants

Mandatory use of woolly pants

January 17, 2019 stgeorgeknits7 Comments

Probably the best thing I’ve ever knitted for winter use are my woolly pants. They are so warm and I don’t know how I’ve managed to stay alive without them. When you live way above the Arctic Circle where temperatures can easily drop below -40C (-40F), clothing needs to be seriously practical and most of all warm.

What you need to do is this: First put on your long johns and socks. Then woolly pants. Then padded pants. Add woolly socks as needed. That’s warm.

I used a pattern (sorry in Finnish only) by Novita and also their yarn Nalle Taika. I love that colour. Shame that these pants are usually hidden from view.

Then of course my hubby needed woolly pants too.

Their pattern is also by Novita and yarn is Nalle. He is also very pleased with his woolly pants.

I like the woolly pants so much that I’ve already earmarked another pair which I’ll knit some time. These are for me and these for hubby. I have yarn ready for mine as well.

Talking of woolly pants, there was a children’s programme on TV when I was little. It was called “Mandatory use of woolly pants”. A little boy, Timo, has been ill with a chest cold and he’s been off school for a few days. When he’s well again and gets ready to go to school, his father says that it’s very cold outside and he must wear woolly pants because he’s just been ill. Timo thinks this is embarrassing because the other boys don’t wear woolly pants. The pants his father brought to him had even a heart-shaped patch on the bum. Timo tries to protest by saying that he does not breath with his bum, but it doesn’t help. He has to put the pants on.

At school that day they have a doctor’s check-up. Timo is terrified because he thinks that other boys might see his woolly pants if he needs to take his clothes off. He can’t concentrate on anything and just has terrible images in his mind all day. He came up with the idea that if the president would announces on TV a mandatory use of woolly pants, he’d be ok. Everyone then would have to wear woolly pants. With his mind’s eye he sees the news anchor announcing the mandatory use of woolly pants, ordered by the president. It would last till first of May, when the use of summer clothes would be allowed, weather permitting. And then the news anchor starts a woolly pants rock dance presenting woolly pants fashion. That’s classic!

This whole film used to be available online not too long ago, but all I could find now were little snippets. If you want to see the woolly pants rock, click here. This is Finland in 1977. Enjoy!

Happy knitting!

Hats · Knitting

Top-down hat

January 6, 2019 stgeorgeknits6 Comments

Yet another hat. I like knitting hats in between other (bigger) things. I like how they can be finished in an evening.

I had one 50g (100m) ball of this yarn, Novita Puro, which is a soft, variegated 100% wool yarn. I knitted the hat top-down so that I can use every last inch of the yarn – which I did. The tiny orange pom pom is some other yarn and I had made it sometime earlier. It seemed to match well.

I like blues, purples and oranges. And this yarn has them all with a little green thrown in for good measure.

Happy knitting!

Bag · Knitting · Knotting · Yarn

So hideous it’s cute

December 29, 2018 stgeorgeknits5 Comments

The last few days have flown past! The best thing about holidays is having time to just sit and knit.

I discovered audio books some years ago. Here in the north we have long winters and lots of snow and we spend a lot of time ploughing. Audio books make that job enjoyable! You can completely forget that you are actually ploughing while listening to a book. All last winter I ploughed with Jack Vance’s Cadwal Chronicles. Fantastic! Little while ago I realised that audio books would work equally well with knitting. Even though knitting is enjoyable even in total silence, audio books are a nice distraction (as are films and tv series). Past couple of weeks I’ve been knitting to Sylvain Neuvel’s The Themes Files.

I hate wasting anything and one of the things I do with knitting and yarn is to collect short bits of yarn in a box and once I have collected some, I knot them all randomly and wind them into a ball. I use anything longer than about 30cm/12″. Bags are a good thing to use the surprise yarn ball for because all the knots are hidden underneath the lining.

For the project bag I used mostly specialty yarn. Some 15 years ago there was a bit of a thing with card making using specialty yarn, and because my mum loved specialty yarn and had lots of it, I asked her some for my card making. She gave me loads but I never made more than maybe one card. I decided to knot mostly these specialty yarns but also some ordinary yarn. The result is a project bag so hideous that it’s almost cute! I added a satin lining and a drawstring. It’s big enough to take a sock or mitten knitting for a car ride with you.

Waste not, want not!

Jumper · Knitting

Petrol blue

December 18, 2018 stgeorgeknits6 Comments

Yay, a finished jumper! This is for my hubby. I knitted this fairly quickly until the sleeves, and for some reason no matter how I knitted, the sleeves didn’t seem to get any longer. It’s one of those things, I guess. Eventually I made it. I finished the jumper off with metal buttons.

This pattern is by Novita (again) but the funny thing is that it’s a teen pattern. And I made size 160cm. I usually make him men’s S. It’s a good fit and he likes it, so I’m happy. The yarn is also by Novita, called Wool (probably because it’s 100% wool). The colour is lovely petrol and the good news is that I have enough of it left to make another jumper – perhaps for me. As far as jumpers go, I usually knit one for him, two for me. That’s about right, yes?

Happy knitting!

Knitting · Mittens

North Karelian

December 7, 2018 stgeorgeknits2 Comments

These mittens are going to be a Christmas present for my sister. They are traditional North Karelian mittens. North Karelia is a region in eastern Finland and it’s where our father comes from. This makes me and my sister half North Karelians, yes?

Traditionally these mittens are very dark brown, white and red. I didn’t have all those colours and as I wanted to start these mittens sooner rather than later, I tweaked the colours a bit: dark gray, light gray and red. I used Novita’s discontinued Florica yarn, which is 100% wool.

The symbolism of these mittens is as follows:

Dark brown (dark gray): Karelian earth/land
White (light gray): Snow and cleanliness (my version is a bit dirtier!)
Red: Joy

The traditional Karealian snowflake motive is also a reminder of the (Russian) orthodox tradition of the region.

I’m very pleased with the mittens and with the fact that I actually made them – at last. It’s been a plan for a few years now. I want to make a pair for myself too sometime. I will make mine with a slightly thicker yarn though because my hands are a lot bigger than my sister’s and these mittens are a little bit small for me.

Happy knitting!

Knitting · Mittens

Black mittens

December 3, 2018 stgeorgeknits3 Comments

I finished a quick pair of mittens.

As so often, these were knitted with Novita’s 7 Veljestä (7 Brothers). It’s my go-to yarn for lots of things – mittens, socks, jumpers, you name it. This yarn is available in our local (and by local I mean 20 km away) supermarket, making it really easy to get the yarn/colour that you need. This is not something that I can do easily with many things, living out in the sticks. Of course I could order yarn online (and I do!) but those cases when I’d like to start a certain project NOW and not a few days/weeks later, a supermarket yarn aisle is handy. I ~~often~~ always walk down the yarn aisle even when I don’t need/want anything. It has become a joke with us that I say: Let’s go and touch the yarns!

The pattern for these mittens is here. Unfortunately, it’s in Finnish. They have leg warmers in English with the same colour work, but for some reason they haven’t translated the mittens (nor the hat or socks).

So, I was complaining about the black yarn on my hoodie, and then go and knit mittens in black. Well, black yarn in general isn’t a problem, even in low light. Smooth yarn can be knitted eyes closed, mostly.

Happy knitting!