Green and yellow

June 12, 2019 stgeorgeknits10 Comments

More wintry pictures? Why not. Up here in the Arctic we’ve gone from roasting +30 °C to almost 0 °C with horizontal sleeting in a matter of couple of days. So what’s a couple of snowy pictures in the middle of summer?

When I saw the pattern for these fingerless mittens, I knew that I would have to give them a go, even though I think it’s slightly daft to have a seam on mittens. The pattern is Beatrix by Drops Design, and it’s free. I used Novita’s Florica yarn from my stash. It’s a crazy combination of green and yellow but I didn’t want to buy any yarn and I wanted the colours to really stand out. Hence green and yellow. The yellow was actually dyed with Kool-Aid some years ago.

The mittens are knitted with 3 dpn’s back and forth. The pattern is quite simple, although I did get my brain into a knot at first and I got all my increases in the wrong place. Once I got my brain rebooted, it was quite simple.

Just waiting for autumn now to wear these mittens. No wait, what am I talking about, it’s summer in the Arctic. The day to wear mittens could arrive any time.

Happy knitting!

Crochet · Stash busting

Wasp fooling

May 18, 2019 stgeorgeknits1 Comment

I’m really struggling for time at the moment. I keep knitting a little in the evenings but my usual bottle neck, photographing the finished items (or any item for that matter) and blogging about them is getting an even bigger bottle neck. Still, such is life, I guess. I assume our normal service will resume sooner or later.

In the meantime, my sister asked me to make a fake wasp nest. They have lots of wasps bothering their BBQ times and she’s getting sick of them. Apparently, a fake wasp nest sends the message to any wasps that this place is already taken, bugger off. And, in theory, they should do that. How well this works in practice will be seen later, I guess.

My sister might be a little late though, because the fake wasp nest should go in place before the real wasps make any nests. Apparently, a crumbled up newspaper or stuffed coffee filter bag would do the same job. This crochet nest is a high-end luxury version that will last a bit longer. Years, in fact.

Happy knitting!

Cowl · Stash busting

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 · 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!

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!

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!

Crochet · Hats · Outdoors · Stash busting

Fall on the fells

January 29, 2019 stgeorgeknitsLeave a comment

I’ve decided a hundred times that I would crochet more. I want to learn to crochet better and to be more comfortable and relaxed about it. And still I don’t crochet that often. I guess knitting just takes priority every time. But I do make the odd, simple crochet project once I put my mind to it.

I crocheted these cool, simple hats with some leftover yarn from a cardigan project. The blue is for my hubby and it has one more increase round than the white one, which is mine. The yarn is Novita Samos, which is 50% cotton and 50% acrylic. It’s a very spongy yarn and it feels nice and it’s lovely to knit and crochet.

There’s me wearing my cool hat just before snow came. I love this hat for hikes because it’s non-itchy and it stays well in place. It’s warm but not hot, even when it’s not cold.

This place is close to where we live. We usually cycle there because it’s so much faster and then we might continue by foot on top of the fell. The climb up here is a bit of a struggle as the path turns almost vertical at one point. You need good brakes on the way back down. The view out over the fells is especially nice in the autumn and is typical Lappish landscape.

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!

Knitting · Scarf · Stash busting

Tiny scarf

November 29, 2018 stgeorgeknitsLeave a comment

Over the years I’ve been given lots of yarn by my mother and grandmother. Lots of the yarn is the kind that I would not necessarily buy myself but I have no problems using it. I’ve often made these little garter stitch triangle scarves.

Here’s how:

Cast on 3 st.
1st row: Knit 3 st.
2nd row: Knit 2 st. and knit the last stitch from front and back. (4 st.)
3rd row: Knit 3 st. and knit the last stitch from front and back. (5 st.)
Continue like this, increasing 1 st. at the end of every row until the scarf is the desired size or you run out of yarn.

Alternatively you can use any other increasing method you prefer, at the start of the row, or that the end of the row.

Gauge and needle size are not important. The beige yarn I used is by Lammy Yarns and it’s called Pluche. It probably hasn’t been in production for donkey’s years. The gauge mentioned for this yarn is 20 st. and 22 rows = 10 x 10 cm. Needle size 4. I used 4 1/2. 50g is 125m and that amount, little over 100m, makes a scarf that’s just big enough to tie around your neck but not too big to fit under a coat. I find that they fit nicely under a thinner autumn jacket. This scarf measures 66 cm on top (widest part) and 36 cm high (highest part). Obviously, if you have more yarn and/or want a bigger scarf, keep knitting until it’s big enough.

Shame the colour of this scarf is a bit anemic but teamed with a darker coat it should be ok.

Happy knitting!

Knitting · Mittens · Stash busting

Two shades of brown

November 26, 2018 stgeorgeknits3 Comments

Here is a star mitten I started to knit…

And ta-daa! I’m done!

I can hear you thinking that a) she’s a really fast knitter or b) there’s a bottleneck here somewhere. No prizes for guessing that it’s the latter. Actually, the WIP picture is quite rare for me – I almost never remember to take one. I’ve always finished the project until I remember and then it’s too late. Also, the WIP picture in my mind should be a quick snap of a picture but as we are heading towards the darkest time of the year, a quick snap is not really an option. This is why: today November 26th, sunrise 10:07, sunset 13:54, length of the day 3 h 47 min. Just as you think it’s getting lighter, it starts to get darker. Ha! Of course there are ways around that, but I digress…

Back to the mittens. The pattern is by Drops Design and the yarn is probably not much younger than me. It’s my grandmother’s old stash and it’s by Finnish Novita, called Brunners Polka. I’ve not managed to find out anything at all about this yarn but my guess is that it’s from the early 80’s, possibly older. Weird thing is that the yarn label is in blue and yellow (Swedish colours) and it has on it, in my opinion, a very Swedish looking image of a couple in national dress. Also, all text is in Swedish only. And yet, Novita is a Finnish company. Perhaps those days they had a range just for the Swedish market, who knows.

So, the yarn has a possible Swedish link, the pattern is Norwegian and the knitter is Finnish. Hurrah for Scandinavian co-operation!

Anyway, I digress again. The pattern is very nice to knit and it makes a rather long pair of mittens, which is good on these latitudes, as I don’t like cold wrists. Two shades of brown is actually quite nice, even though I almost never make or buy or wear anything brown. These mittens look like dark and milk chocolate to me. Yummy.

Happy knitting!