Britannia-esque

April 4, 2019 stgeorgeknits1 Comment

Ta-dah! Another finished jumper for hubby.

This is a ‘granddad shirt’ type jumper. I thought I might get bored out of my wits knitting this, it being fairly thin yarn and all stockinette. But because it’s all stockinette, it was really quick – I didn’t have time to get bored out of my wits. The pattern is once again by Novita. They have lots of patterns in English but I seem to be good at picking patterns that are only available in Finnish. The yarn is Nalle by Novita and the colour is lovely denim blue.

I really wanted to add European Union buttons but I didn’t have any, so Union Jacks it is. EU buttons would have been a statement, but these Union Jack buttons are just buttons. No political undertones. ‘Nuff said.

Happy knitting!

Stash Buster

March 30, 2019 stgeorgeknits5 Comments

I made a jumper a few years ago and was left with less than a ball (75g) of the yarn. I wanted to use it up now.

The yarn is Novita’s Puro Batik, a 100% acrylic which feels and looks a lot like cotton. I thought the best way to use it up was a cowl. It’s just a straight tube in seed stitch and I carried on knitting till I ran out of yarn. Easy peasy, and quick. I love the look and feel of seed stitch, and I quite like knitting it, too. One less odd ball of yarn in my stash! Hurrah!

Happy knitting!

Jumper · Knitting

Ribbed

March 27, 2019 stgeorgeknits2 Comments

Over half a kilo of yarn bites the dust as I finished another jumper!

Another wardrobe staple. The pattern is free by Drops Design and I used Gjestal’s Raggegarn. Again, a very nice and straight forward pattern with no problems. The jumper is warm and simple and sits well. It could have been maybe a couple of centimeters longer but other than that no complaints. Both maker and receiver are well pleased.

Happy knitting!

Knitting · Shawl

Lace Shawl

March 23, 2019 stgeorgeknits3 Comments

In between other things, I made a little lace shawl.

I had some acrylic and viscose blend yarn I couldn’t find a use for, and thought a small scarf/shawl would work with it. It’s a very subtle light green, light grey and off-white yarn.

I found an interesting, yet easy, pattern by Novita. I don’t know if you people, who knit scarves and shawls all the time, are familiar with this kind of construction: on one end, every second row, two and three stitches on alternate times, are left on the needles. The stitches left for knitting reduce all the time, and once they are all done, the stitches that were left on the needle are knitted for 4 rows. This makes the triangle’s longest garter stitch edge. This is probably the world’s worst explanation for it. I guess the right way to describe it would be short rows. Anyway, I thought it was a nifty way to knit a shawl.

Here it is, on my famous prop tree, surrounded by lots of snow. I think, however, that this shawl would be a nice spring or summer shawl. That pesky snow just keeps on coming. We now have over a meter of it, and more and more keeps coming. This winter started with less snow than usual, but it’s making up for it now.

It might sound like I’m complaining but I’m not really. I mean, I like snow and winter – it would be stupid if I didn’t, because I moved up here voluntarily. The trouble is that often snow keeps coming all the time, so that all you end up doing is ploughing. I’m spending all the spare time I have and all the spare time I haven’t got, on ploughing. And that means that I can listen to audio books! Yay! It makes you almost forget you are ploughing. I’ve just started a new book: A Bakeshop Mysteries book 1: Meet Your Baker, by Ellie Alexandra. It’s very entertaining! I recommend this book, especially if you’re into cooking and baking. They tell about the yummy stuff they make in the bakery, and it’s all mouth-watering. You might want to take notes! The titles of the books in this series tickle me: A Batter of Life and Death, On Thin Icing, Caught Bread Handed and Fudge and Jury, just to mention a few.

Happy knitting!

Jumper · Knitting

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!

Jumper · Knitting · Stash busting

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!