Knitting dreams

I go to work and I dream of knitting. The things I want to make, yarn I want to try. Then I come home and get to knit maybe one hour total after having dinner and putting kids to bed and before yawning too much. Yesterday was Saturday so I knit a lot. Started and finished a project in the same day even. OK, so it was a hat, but still...

Pattern: Turn A Square by Jared Flood
Yarn: Dream In Color Classy in Cocoa Kiss (28 grams) and Noro Silk Garden in colour 226, a mix of purple, aqua and grey, (20 grams)
Needles: 4 mm dpn's for ribbing, 4.5 mm Harmony circ and dpn's for the rest.
Size: A little too big... It looks great on M (but he thinks it is too small somehow) but I made it for my dad and he doesn't have M's thick hair. We'll see. Maybe I have to make Dad another one, I've got plenty of leftovers.
Great pattern. I have seen so many awesome incarnations of this hat over at Ravelry. I will surely make this hat again, but maybe a little shorter before I start the decreases.

Quickie project of last weekend was a Dumpling bag.

I knit and felted it and it slowly dried with a balloon in its belly. I removed the balloon when the bag was dry on the outside so it could dry on the inside too. Today I managed to sew on the magnetic snap.


It is Loopy sized!

The Houdini socks got finished too! Yes, I have had way too many projects on the needles lately. Yes, it feels good to finish stuff for a change and not just start them.

I didn't do the fancy leg in the pattern, it didn't work very well with this yarn. These are for my sister in Australia, so I didn't make them as long as I usually do.
This was a fun way of making socks, an afterthought leg. Good thing: you get to choose the nicest side of the foot for the instep and toe. Bad thing: six ends per sock to weave in, instead of the usual two. This is a Cat Bordhi pattern, and I think that her next book will be all about this way of making socks. Maybe other new ways too. I loved her New Pathways book and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Now I really want to finish my February Lady sweater. The body is done and the first sleeve is about elbow length. I keep trying it on to decide how long I want it, about halfway between elbow and wrist. I have to find nice buttons too. Large dark wooden ones I think.

I got the first Wollmeise sock club package on Friday! I don't think I will blog it just yet. Anyway, both colours are awesome! One of them is so me, the other one not so much but still lovely. And the pattern is stunning. I won't start it right away though. It demands some concentration and I don't want to knit that kind of pattern right now.

Coming soon: Adamas is blocking!!!

Package and Projects

The final Hemlis 4 package arrived on Friday. Look at the stuff!

A big skein of Grignasco merino-silk lace yarn, 1400 meters/1500 yards, enough for a sizeable shawl, in a beautiful deep blue. A ball of pure silk yarn from Louisa Harding, DK weight. Luxurious wrist warmers maybe? Six pretty stitch markers that my pal made herself, and a big bag of licorice. Yum! Thank you so much Ulrika!

Knitting news: I am chugging along on my February Lady Sweater. It is coming along nicely and grows visibly whenever I work on it, the yarn is so thick. I'm not quite sure how long I want it to be, about hip length I think. That means 19-20 inches (maybe 50 cm) I am a bad knitter, I didn't wash my swatch so I have no idea how much the fabric will grow or shrink with washing and blocking. It feels like it will grow a bit though so I don't want to make it too long. I love to be able to try the sweater on as I go.

Because I have sooo much time on my hands now that I have gone back to work (note: severe irony) I started another sweater.


Cobblestone in the purple Bendigo Rustic I recently got from Australia. This time I swatched properly, so I know that if I follow the stitch count for the 47.5" size I will end up with a 43.5" sweater, which is what I want. I will of course follow the length numbers of the smaller size.

With all the large project going on I felt (ha ha) the need for a quick project that Got Finished. Enter the Dumpling from Interweave Knits Fall 2008. Here it is pre-felted (OK, pre-fulled, but everyone else is using the word felting for this process anyway)

A really quick knit that took less than two balls (100 meters) of the pretty Sarek yarn I got in another Hemlis 4-package. Here it is felted and drying with a balloon inside to get a nice shape.

I have never felted anything before (intentionally) so I wasn't quite sure how to do. I sewed it into a pillowcase, put it in the washing machine with a pair of jeans and ran a short cycle, and then another one, because not much had happened. It was a bit more felted after the second cycle but I finished the job with hot water, detergent and abuse in the sink. Maybe I should have just tossed it in a proper 60 °C long cycle. Might try that next time. Anyway, now it just needs to dry and then it will get a magnetic closure.