Otello

As promised - here's another finished knit. I bought the yarn from here and it was a total impulse purchase. I saw that they had many Louisa Harding yarns on very good price and as I have the wonderful Cardigans book filled with her designs I decided there and then to purchase Ca'D'oro yarn. Even though it clearly was a novelty yarn. (I admit that the price had everything to do with my decision to buy - was feeling a bit low at a time and treated myself with some yarn... also bought some Cinnabar and RYC cashcotton...)
Pattern: Otello by Louisa Harding from Cardigans
Yarn: Ca'd'Oro 550g
Needles: 6mm & 7mm
I'm having a bit of a mixed feelings about this cardigan. On the other hand - it has a wonderfully vintage-feel to it. Sort of 1950's small & sweet collar - 7/8 sleeves etc. On the other hand - it is evident that I need to be extra careful what to combine this with. Otherwise it is going to look very grandma-ish. (When the photos were taken I just through it on and the black long skirt & jersey top are not the ideal match to it.)
I'm thinking it will - however - look great with my favourite (= quite worn out) jeans and a nice bracelet...

Note on the buttons - they are actually vintage ones. From 50's or 60's . I was amazed how much it would have changed the cardigan depending on which yarn to use to sew the buttons on. I always use the same yarn to attach buttons that I have knitted the actual piece with (unless I want the buttons to pop out more and decide to use contrasting coloured yarn) And with Ca'd'Oro I had 4 different yarns to choose from - as the yarn is actually 4 different yarns plied together. There is a light olive viscose/rayon yarn that gives shine, a mustard yellow and deep purple wool yarns and a mauve mohair blend yarn. In the end I chose the mohair yarn to attach the buttons.

Lace shawl

Finally finished this one. It's been on my needles since June - but I haven't been exactly faithful for it, to get it finished earlier...
Pattern: Shawl in Cherry leaf pattern, by Jane Sowerby from Victorian lace today (rav.link)
Yarn: The Yarn Gallery (TYG) Compass - in Earth approx. 120g
Needles: 5mm

Absolutely love this yarn. It is "scrunchy" and the colour has amazing depth. (especially the purple looks gorgeous in nature!) It also handled really well in wet blocking - and now I have one cozy shawl. Although I probably will be wearing it like a scarf around my neck - attached with a nice brooch.
(Just bought the maple leaf brooch from this shop in Etsy.com . Beautiful!)
I have so many things on my needles right now - a true startitis going on. I've begun 3 new projects in 2 days - and I also have quite a few FO's (at least 6) that I haven't presented here yet. will need to update this blog more often...

(Otello still on the needles - just finished it a couple of days ago. More pics in near future. I hope.)

Wanna see some really nice lace patterns? Check this out. Just finished one of her designs and have begun another one. Pretty - pretty:-)

Parsley

Another finished knit that I'm really happy about. Love the colour and lightness of the lace.
Pattern: Parsley by Marie Wallin from The organic wool collection (Rowan purelife)
Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton in Pumpkin #962
Needles: 3,5mm & 4mm
(for some reason I'm - once again - not able to access Ravelry - so no Rav.links this time...)

Modifications:
Knitted sleeves on dpn's and on the round. Made the body part 1 lace pattern repeat longer (before beginning the v-neck) as I would not wear it if it was that short than in the pattern... Also - 3 buttons instead of 2.

The whole thing looked a bit distorted and the lace pattern was somewhat messy - but the proper wet-blocking really transformed the garment completely. Now the lace pattern is crisp and clean - the surface of the knit is smooth.
A few words about the yarn - Rowan Wool Cotton. It is wonderful. Feels more like a buttery soft cotton than 50%cotton /50% wool that it actually is... But the wool content makes it easy to block after knitting. Just lovely stuff. Gotta buy more of this in different colour. (I'd imagine that this would be ideal for child's knitwear as well. so nice and soft)
Taas yksi valmistunut neule - Ihanainen Parsley pitsineuletakki vajaamittaisilla hihoilla. Oikein kiva. Modasin ohjetta sen verran, että tekeleeni on n.5cm pidempi kuin mitä ohjeen mukaan piti olla - ja neuloin hihat kokonaan pyörönä sukkapuikoilla. Tosin minä nyt neulon aina hihat sukkapuikoilla joten tarvinneeko sitä edes erikseen enää mainita...

Lankana pehmyt Rowanin Wool Cotton - eli 50% puuvillaa ja toinen mokoma merinovillaa. Voisi luulla puuvillalangaksi - paitsi että blokattaessa villan kyllä huomasi. Pitsineulepinta selkiintyi huomattavasti märkäblokkauksen ansiosta (ennen sitä neule oli varsin ryttyisen oloinen) . Tykkään myös noista suht. leveistä ainaoikein reunuksista - varsinkin pääntiehen se tuo sitä kaivattua ryhtiä todella kiitettävästi.

Summa summarum - varsin mukavanoloinen käyttöneule - sopii mainiosti kerrostettavaksi pidempihihaiseten päälle ja miksei ihan itsekseenkin topin seurana, kun taas säät joskus ensi vuoden puolella sallivat.

Nyt takaisin omenasavotalle - tänään olisi tarkoitus rahdata takakontillinen tuohon mehuasemalle. Saas nähdä millaista mehua saadaan.

Apples and one not that ugly scarf

This weekend we've been raking apples. Lots of them. Normally we have had a good apple year (when we feel that we are drowning into apples) and bad apple years (when out of our 9 old apple trees we've been able to get apples for maybe 3 apple pies. and that's it.) on every other year. Last year we had a good apple year and this summer we were sort of hoping that we wouldn't be getting that many apples this year. (because that's just the way it normally goes) Well - no luck. This year seems to be the ultimate as far as apples are considered.
It looks pretty though as long as they are up in the tree.
However - as Newton already discovered - everything must come down eventually. And the raking part - that is not fun. Not anymore.
Oh - and to knitting :I've managed to finish my super ugly scarf. I joined the ends to form a loop (infinity scarf - as they are sometimes called).
Pattern: my own
Yarn: OnLine Linie 246 Move - 100g
Needles: 10mm

Guess what - I don't think it's that ugly anymore. I can totally wear it. It's not pretty-pretty, but it is nice and comfy and warm...and not half that ugly that it looked like when I had only knitted few inches of it.

Noro Yuzen vest

Here's one of the knits I've finished recently. A hooded vest made with Noro Yuzen (a wonderful blend of wool, silk & mohair) .
This was a very fast and simple knit. The biggest issue I had was probably with stripe sequencing. When I finished one ball of yarn it seemed to take ages to find the corresponding place of the next hank. (I hate it when some magazines have photos of "artful" self-striping yarns and then they have knitted the garments out of it with no thought at all. Stripes go this way and that way and the overall look is just a mess.... so I'm trying my hardest not to repeat that mistake in my own knitting.)
Pattern: Noro Yuzen Ladies waistcoat (Y848) , from Noro the world of nature , vol 26
Yarn: Noro Yuzen in colour #4 - approx 250g
Needles: 5mm

It is a very simple knit. Knitted all in one piece beginning from the hem and then decreasing on both edges steadily all the way until the top of the hood is grafted together. I love the colours in this yarn but I wish they would not change so rapidly from one colour to another. In the beginning it looked like I was knitting thin 2 row stripes... All in all a nice project anyways. Won't be using this to work but will most likely be living in it outside the office hours. Which is all good.

It's mushroom time again. We spent a couple of hours both on last Saturday and Sunday picking mushrooms. This is only a fraction of our "loot". Love walking in the forest - it really makes good for the soul. (and momentarily washes away the stress)

Spot the difference?

One of my current WIPs is a lace scarf from Victorian Knitting today and I'm making it in TYGs Compass. A lovely silk/lambswool blend in a yarn painted with gorgeous shades of purple, olive, moss, old-rose, rust / amber.
I had knitted the border for a while when my 5yr-old daughter asked if it is the same yarn again than the Noro Yuzen vest I was wearing. And really - I hadn't even noticed - but their colouring is very close. Almost identical.

(on top - TYG Compass, under - Noro Yuzen)
Pretty funny actually.

Serious Ugly

I rarely get fooled by the yarns ball appearance and can pretty much imagine what the yarn looks like when it is knitted up but this time... oh boy...

I partly blame the timing of this yarn purchase. Last Thursday I just had my tattoo done in tattoo shop and I was (most probably) full of adrenaline and endorphins... not the best time to enter the yarn shop where I very rarely visit. Plus that they had a sale.... (now that I think about it - it was a disaster waiting to happen) So there I was - pumped up with exhilaration and what not - and even when I'm at my normal state I find yarn sale quite hard to ignore. This time I did not even try. So I went through all those baskets of sale yarn and ended up buying these:
now - I'm pretty happy that I only bought that amount - at one point I could detect that maybe it was not a good idea to buy all the yarn from the shop - so I cut my purchase down to this. Which is still quite a lot - considering that I have a quite a sizeable yarn stash at home. (try somewhere around 60kg of yarn... )

But, this yarn is not all for me. I'm actually planning to make a couple of pairs of socks and a scarf or two out of it for xmas presents for all the lucky relatives. It is actually quite wise to buy yarn for xmas presents already in august. Right?

However - the yarn I planned to blog about is this.
So nice when it is all wound up in this cushy ball. I totally could see myself whipping a scarf out of it and how nice it would look with my leather jacket...

I began knitting and...
What the???? It looks like nothing I had envisioned in my head. Actually it looks damn ugly. I could hear Laura from Project Runway (season 3) in my head stating "there is some Serious Ugly here".
It looks like a roadkill or a pile of stale dog poo to me. Now how could I see it so wrong in my head? I must be mad to be buying novelty yarn in the first place - but this - it is just disgusting... I don't know what to do. Maybe I continue knitting and it will "grow on me"(???) Or maybe I just throw it to the rubbish. (after all it was dirty cheap as well - only 1EUR/ball)

What the h*** was I thinking???