Color Therapy

I'm really looking forward to spring right now, but it's still very wintery here in Finland. Time for some color therapy to cheer me up.

Apparently, blankets are the new socks here at the moment. This is Ten Stitch Blanket by Frankie Brown. You can find it on Ravelry, if you're there. The yarn is Noro Kureyon Sock. One repeat of all the colors got me this far (it's about 30 cm wide). I think there are two or three more of the repeats, so it won't exactly be a huge blanket. I'm thinking of adding a white border or something to make it larger. I'm not really thrilled with how the blues and greens are gathering in the same place, but I guess I'll have to live with it. I just wish there was more red and yellow... Bad photo again. I blame the winter light!

There's also color therapy of another sort going on here. I'm a big fan of subtle colors: brown, beige and "natural" shades. This yarn is one of my favorites: Evilla. It's veeeery woolly, some might even call it scratchy, and it has a lot of lanolin left in it. It's a bit smelly too! Perfect! This will be a Pinwheel Sweater. I'm already waiting for warmer weather so I can wear it as a jacket.

Gift knitting

I'm not the only one with a bun in the oven at the moment, so I've been doing some gift knitting. Let's just hope the recipient doesn't read the blog before the package arrives...

Baby Booties again. This time the yarn is Sandnes Smart. This pattern is so versatile. It's simple, but you can adapt it any way you like. And all little babies need little booties!

I also made something for the mom and dad to be.

Pomatomus for mommy. The yarn is Storm in the Attic, Storm in Wolhalla.

Adapted version of Resoleable Socks from Favorite Socks for daddy. Yarn: Novita 7 Veljestä. I added a twisted cable to make it more interesting. Let's just hope these fit. Rumor has it that Mr dad's feet are slightly on the gigantic side...

February Lady Sweater

Pattern: February Lady Sweater

Yarn: Rowanspun DK, held double

Needles: 5,5 mm

Also in my Ravelry notebook

 

What can I say. I love it! I wanted to knit myself a quick and easy "belly cardigan", and this turned out to be a perfect choice. I actually did finish it in February, but I've been a bit lazy with the photographing lately. And it's still winter her, which means crappy light.

I used up almost all of the yarn. I wanted to be on the safe side, so I started knitting the sleeves before the body. Then I just continued with the body until it was long enough.

Oh, and remember this?

Yup, it is now a finished February Lady Sweater, instead of a Green Sweater Experiment in never ending progress.

Comeback attempt

After a looong absence from blogland, I've decided to try this blogging thing again. I probably don't have many readers left out there anymore, but I'm hoping at least a few of you will find your way back here.

There wasn't that much knitting going on here during the fall, but I'm making up for that now. There's definitely a theme to my knitting at the moment. You can probably guess what we've been doing instead of knitting by looking at the pictures... ;)

Quilt (Square Counterpane with Leaves)

Yarn: Novita Tennessee

I only knit the leaves part of the square and used a much thicker yarn than the pattern called for. The squares are crocheted together, and I also added a matching crocheted border. I'm really pleased with the result.

 

Top Down Bonnet

Yarn: Madame Tricote Almina

The ears are too cute!

 

Handle and Baby Booties

Yarn: Regia Crazy Color 6-ply

 

 

Another pair of Baby Booties to match the blanket above.

 

Modular Tomten Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann. From Knitting Without Tears.

Yarn: The green is Araucania Ranco Solid, and I used Sandnes Garn Lanett for the buttonband and cuffs. It still needs buttons.

I do have a few non-baby projects on the needles, but I'm saving those for another post. If you're allergic to baby knitting blogs (I know I was before), you'll probably need to avoid this blog until June. These little projects will be popping up in between bigger ones from time to time. Let's just hope I can keep going with this blogging thing. The laziness has been overwhelming lately!

A whole lot of knitting going on

Just because I haven't been blogging in a while, that doesn't mean I haven't been knitting. But I guess I don't need to tell you knitters that...

Anyway... The garter stitch jacket I've been working on for a while is almost finished.

It just needs a button band, some buttons, and one more of these:

I've also been working on some seeeecret knitting... Shhhh!

Check these out on Ravelry if you're there.

And what else... Oh, that's right. I've been thinking about hemp yarn for a long time, and I finally got around to ordering some from Titityy. It knits up really nicely, not as strawy as I expected. And it absorbs water really well.

Kitchen towel with stripes in two-color linen stitch. (Sorry about the unevenness... I really couldn't be bothered to iron it!)

Here's a close-up of the stripes. Linen stitch in two colors creates a really nice effect.

Nothing else this time. I do have a million plans for coming knitting projects. But I should really make a serious effort to finish something first! Oh well... Let's see...

Quick update

Finished this.

 

Face cloth in old shale pattern. Yummy organic soap from here.

Working on this.

 

Druid Mittens by Jared Flood, Vogue Knitting fall 2008. I'm knitting with two colors. The purl stitches on the cuff were a bit tricky. I had to tweak them a little to make it look less messy. Other than that, fun project.

Project Spectrum - Water

The theme for Project Spectrum 3 in August/September is WATER. Before I pulled out my blue/black/purple skeins, I thought: "Meeeh, not really my colors. I probably don't have that many skeins in my stash." Well...

I guess this proves that my stash denial is pretty severe. To be fair, a large part of my blue stash consists of those Jaeger Extra Fine Merino that are already on the needles becoming a sweater for my Significant Other. The rest is mainly sock yarn. But still, I had no idea! Again!

What about purple and black then? I knew there COULD NOT be that much purple in my stash, since it's one of those colors I just don't use (like yellow). And this time, it turns out I was right.

Oh gee, who would have guessed there would be some more Rowanspun in my stash?! What the heck am I supposed to do with those bright purple skeins? They look almost lilac in this picture, but they're actually really bright. Sigh... On the plus side, there is some Noro Silk Garden, and that single skein almost makes up for the purple Rowanspun-craziness. I looove me some Noro!