Category Archives: Finished Projects

Hirne 2: The one that pops!

Posted on by
5

I love my Hirne cardigan so much that I decided to knit another one. This time, I chose to knit with mohair, in a knock-your-socks-off glorious orange-y red! This cardigan pops!

In fact, it pops so much, that it is very difficult to capture in a photograph. Suffice it to say, if you saw it in real life, it would have you smiling. It’s hard to resist a good red!

Hirne is a fantastic pattern by Kate Davies. As with the last time, I knitted it flat (back and forth in one piece, rather than in the round and steeked). This is a fairly straight-forward modification.

I was worried that the textured pattern in the yoke, made with twisted stitches, wouldn’t show up in the mohiar, but it looks fantastic.

For comparison, below is my original Hirne, knitted in Kate Davies Ooskit yarn. It is a really lovely neutral knit, and I have been wearing it almost constantly since I finished it at the beginning of the year. (See my blog post on the first Hirne here.)

I love the way that you can make the same pattern twice and yet by experimenting with yarn and colour, you can make something unique.

I rarely knit the same pattern twice, and almost never with a garment. I am not sure that I have done so since I knit Audrey by Kim Hargreaves for myself and then for Emma over 10 years ago (see my posts here and here). One advantage of knitting the same pattern is that the project flew off the needles: it took me four months to knit the first Hirne and six weeks to knit this one!

For this version, I used 10 balls of Gepard Garn Kid Seta in shade 1008, which I purchased at Ulstedet in Copenhagen (blogged about here). I held the yarn double throughout.

I have always worn bright colours, especially red, and I gravitate more and more to them as I get older. They are really good at mood-boosting. I find that this red looks good with so many things in my wardrobe. I know it will get worn often.

It is amazingly light (it weighs in at under 250 ounces, or less than half a pound). This means it is just the right thing to throw in a suitcase. And for such a lightweight garment, it is surprisingly warm and cozy.

Its been a beautiful Bank Holiday Weekend here in England! I hope you have had some sunshine and maybe a pop of colour where you are.

A little sparkle

Posted on by
2

A few weeks ago, I noticed that I kept borrowing Doug’s mittens (these ones) and decided I needed to knit a pair of mittens for myself. Just as I was having that thought, serendipity struck and I received a newsletter from Loop London about a kit for a pretty pair of sparkly mittens. Clearly the universe was speaking to me; I hit the buy button and shortly received a lovely little kit:

The pattern is by Fabienne Gassmann with Loop and is available through the shop. The kit comes in three colours – rose, mustard, and black – and can be found here. (I said to Doug “What do you think of these mittens? I like the rose.” Doug replied, “Those are nice. I like the mustard.” I can’t explain why I then chose the black, but I am glad that I did.) The nice thing about mittens is that they take little time to knit, and then you have warm hands.

Although I am happy with the black, it was very difficult to photograph. In nearly every shot they either looked grey, or there was no sparkle. We tried many times to capture them properly. This is my excuse for the look on my face in the above photo. I was standing there, in the cold, for some time.

Despite the photo to the contrary, the mittens make me smile. They are warm and sparkly and soft.

I am heading to South Africa tomorrow, where my mittens will not be needed. Have a lovely week, everyone, and a little bit of sparkle.

Hirne: a beautiful cardigan

Posted on by
9

I finished my Hirne cardigan early in the month and have hardly taken it off since. It is beautiful!

This cardigan, designed by Kate Davies, has the most lovely and understated features. Each detail of the design has been thoughtfully worked out and they combine in the most pleasing manner. I find it very peaceful, both to knit and to look at. Kate says that, in Scots, ‘hirne’ means ‘a cosy nook or corner’. It is a very apt name for a very cosy cardigan:

I used Kate’s yarn, Ooskit, a 100% wool, which is DK, undyed and worsted spun. This is the lightest shade, Riach, which is described as a pale, silver grey, but which I find is slightly more oatmeal than grey. This shade is very much outside of my usual palette of bright jewel colours. I worried that it would be a bad choice and wouldn’t work with anything in my wardrobe, but I’ve been surprised by how much I like this neutral shade.

I started knitting Hirne in mid-September, when I was still on sick leave and both my brain and body were operating at half-mast. I needed something calming and simple to knit. Although one might argue that the lace patterning on the yoke adds complexity, I trusted Kate to write a pattern which would fit and which would flow, and where all of the details would already be worked out. (And I hoped that by the time I was up to the yoke, I would be feeling better.)

The pattern is designed to be knitted in the round and steeked. I decided to knit it flat instead. This involved a few very minor changes, but is really an easy conversion. This turns out to be the only modification I made. Everything else was knitted exactly to pattern.

I wrote in a previous post that I struggled a bit with choosing the size, and in particular, I kept second-guessing myself while kitting the sleeves, which I worried were too tight. I ended up, after doing a bit of frogging and re-knitting on the sleeves, following the pattern exactly and I think the fit turned out really well. I made a size 5, 43.5 inches, and the blocked cardigan is bang-on gauge, which gives me zero ease.

One of the most interesting features is the way the buttonbands are done in the front. It uses an i-cord bind-off and incorporated i-cord buttonholes, which are nearly invisible. It is a new technique to me and I really like the look.

You may have noticed that there are no buttons on my Hirne; I haven’t yet found any that I like. But as you can see, the cardigan doesn’t look like it is missing something because the buttonholes are not in your face. In fact, I won’t worry if I don’t end up finding buttons I like, because I am very much enjoying this cardigan the way it is.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Opus Hat

Posted on by
2

As soon as I saw the pattern for the Opus Hat, I knew that I would knit one for Doug. It is such a fantastic hat:

The pattern is by Maxim Cyr, whom I have gotten to know from two knitting retreats we both attended. (You should have a look at Les Garçons, the company owned by Max and his partner, Vincent; they have delicious designs, kits, and beautifully dyed yarns.) Max had previously put out a shawl pattern with this design, and I almost jumped at it, but I held back because triangular shawls are not my favorite. I’m glad I did because I like the hat and cowl combo better, and I knew they would really suit Doug.

This is a win-win because it also gave me a chance to try out the Opus yarn from Walcot, which I have wanted to try since seeing Carmen Schmidt from A Yarn Story wear a shawl knitted from this yarn at a wool show some years back. It is a sport weight yarn which the label describes as “70% Argentinian Merino, 30% Baby Alpaca, 100% Awesome”. That makes me giggle every time I see it, but now I know it is true. This yarn IS awesome.

The hat is fantastically cosy. The stitch pattern is made by stranded knitting, so the fabric is doubly thick with lots of little air pockets on the inside to keep the warmth next to your head. The brim is also doubled, which you can see here:

Carmen put together lots of kits for this pattern in many different combinations of Opus colours; I loved the original combo so much, it was an easy choice. The kit is enough to make both hat and cowl. Do I plan to knit the cowl? This yarn is too lush and the pattern is too more-ish to even think of resisting.

The pattern photos show the hat with a giant pompom. I like it, but I don’t think Doug is the pompom type. In any case, just look at this beautiful crown:

Doug started wearing this the minute I finished it, even before I had woven in the ends or blocked it. I had to steal it away to give it a bath and finish it properly. I am very happy because I came up with a great way to block it. Below is the hat lightly stretched over a rubber pilates ball. The ball is inflated to 23″, which makes it perfect for blocking a hat for Doug, and it is rubber, so no problem with it getting damp.

This hat is a winner. I love it. Doug loves it. Even bears love it.

Happy Sunday! I’m off to cast on a cowl!

Frigid weather, warm hat

Posted on by
4

I finished my Oslo Hat – Mohair edition (pattern by Petite Knit) in time to keep my head warm during a very cold week.

How cold was it? This cold:

Yes, I know that it is not Ottowa cold, or Edmonton cold, or Wisconsin cold, or even Boston cold, but it is most definitely England cold, and my poor system isn’t used to it.

The resulting hat is pretty, but I must say that I had some issues with this pattern. It is written in a Scandinavian style, which is spare compared to the very precise and articulated patterns we have become accustomed to in the download era. I have commented before about this with respect to Danish patterns. As someone who knows how to knit, I don’t really have a problem with the spare style, but there are a few more serious issues here. First of all, there is a mistake in the pattern. In the directions for the decreases, she leaves out a critical K1, K2tog at the beginning of Round 1. If you’ve knit lots of hats, you can just scratch your head for a minute and say “huh, something’s missing here” and figure it out. But if you are not practiced at this, it will mess up your decreases, and thus the crown shaping. I ended up substituting a “ssk” instead of a “sl1, k1, pass sl st over” in the decreases as well; I think it is neater. The finished crown is nice, but beware the directions!

More critical for me is that the pattern has a odd construction. The bottom portion of the hat is doubly folded, meaning that the brim has three warm layers. The first fold is knitted in, that is, the fabric is folded over and knitted together. Then, she has you knit for a few rounds on the wrong side before reversing direction with a short row and continuing to knit on the right side. She gives no reason for doing this, and no photos to show what it is supposed to look like. This, by the way, is what it looks like:

When you wear it, you fold up the brim again, to get the three layers. I still can’t figure out the purpose of the purled ridge. It means that the fold is not neat. There is no clear fold line. Every time I wear it, I have to fiddle with the fold so that it doesn’t look weird. I don’t know why this annoys me so much, but suffice it to say that it annoys me. I notice that there are over 4000 of these hats posted on Ravelry, so I think I may be in the minority here, but next time, I would just skip the pattern directions and wing it.

I knitted this with some old Malabrigo fingering weight yarn from my stash together with some mohair, also from stash. I always keep yarn labels, which drives Doug crazy, and literally yesterday I decided to just toss away the labels on my desk, and of course they were these ones! There is a reason to my label-keeping madness, Doug! I think this shade of Malabrigo was called “paper”, but in any case, it’s white. I have enough left over to make another hat.

I’ve noticed this last week or two that Doug seems to have confiscated my red hat. I have finished this one just in time. I hope that, wherever you are, you are keeping warm and dry, and keeping hold of your hat.

We do so hate to be bored

Posted on by
16

Last August, I was lazing around, reading through a bunch of knitting and book blogs (as one does). I came upon a post about knitting the fandoms – patterns and projects based on various comic book, sci fi, or fantasy franchises. In the post, they review a book of Star Wars-based knitting patterns and also showcase some Dr. Who and DC Comics projects. I myself have knitted a Tolkien-based project in the past, which I blogged extensively in these pages (the latest post is here, with links to the previous posts).

I clicked onto the next blog on my reading list, this one written by the husband and wife writing duo, Ilona Andrews. They write urban fantasy novels, which combine some sci fi, a bit of romance, a little magic, a bunch of scary monsters, fun world-building, and generally kick-ass protagonists. They are very popular, have written at least six separate series, and have a wildly devoted fan base who call themselves the Book Devouring Horde (the BDH). I immediately had the thought “What would a knitted piece of Ilona Andrews fan art look like?” And a fully formed picture of such a pattern popped instantly into my head! It would look like this:

Well, that was in August, and it took me some months to get around to knitting it, but I can happily say that I have now finished and I think it looks pretty cool. “But what does it mean?”, you may ask (thus proving yourself to not be a card-carrying member of the BDH). In the Hidden Legacy series, the super bad guy – who is known as Caesar – causes chaos while his identity remains secret. The only clue that readers have to his identity is in the very last scene of the the third book, in which he has a conversation with a fellow plotter. It is the first time he appears on page, and he says “We do so hate to be bored”. It is, in fact, the last line of the book. The BDH are busily engaged in wild speculation as to Caesar’s identity, which will hopefully be revealed in the next book, and this clue is central to the debate.

As the months went by and this pattern idea continued to percolate in my head, I realised that I liked it more and more, because this statement is a very truthful one, in ways completely orthogonal to Ilona Andrews and fandom knitting. I find that the line “We do so hate to be bored” has two very powerful meanings for me, both of which I suspect will resonate with many of you.

First, it appeals to me as a maker, as someone engaged in creative activity. I think this statement could be seen to define those of us who see ourselves as artists, inventors, creators; we do hate to be bored. We like to create things with our minds and our bodies – be it knitting, sewing, dancing, painting, cooking. Putting together the flights of fancy of my imagination, the know-how of my hands and fingers, the magic of yarn and needles, and the gift of knitting heritage, I can make something new and unique – and in doing so, I am not bored.

The second meaning has become clear to me through two years of this pandemic, and it is that we, as human beings, need connections. We need interactions, we need to engage. We need to keep our brains busy. Lockdowns have taught us that we hate to be bored. It is a deeply felt part of what it is to be human. When we are bored, we stagnate.

If you see me on the street in my new jumper, you can nod your head and think “yes, I’m with her; I do so hate to be bored.” Or, if you happen to be a card-carrying member of the BDH, give me a wave. I have my theory about who Caesar is and I’d be happy to debate it with you.

We took these photos this morning in Henley-on-Thames. It is still cold but it is gloriously sunny and people were enjoying being out and about. This is the first time in a while that I have knitted a sweater which I designed myself. For those who are interested in the creative process and/or the technical details, I will write it up and put it in a separate post, which I hope to publish in a week or two. (We are spending next week in Wales, taking a much-needed break, which may effect that timeline.) In the meantime, I wish you all a lovely, non-boring weekend!

West Wind Mittens

Posted on by
3

Today is Boxing Day, and it is grey and windy, which means that I can stay in my pyjamas and knit and eat chocolates all day. One of the things I like best about Boxing Day is looking at photos of all of the knitting projects that were made as gifts and therefore top secret until today. I had no intentions of knitting any gifts this year – why put more pressure on myself in 2020? – but then we went for a walk and Doug had cold hands. What’s a knitter to do?

These are the West Wind Mittens, designed by Dianna Walla of Paper Tiger. The Ravelry pattern link is here. Christmas morning was cold and sunny – it was below freezing – and we went for a long walk. I think these kept him warm.

The yarn is Sheepish DK British Bluefaced Leicester, hand-dyed by Ginger Twist Studio in the colour Mister Thomson. It’s a lovely yarn, plush and soft and bouncy. I think it looks great with the cable twist pattern. The yarn blocks beautifully.

The pattern is well-written and easy to follow. It contains instructions for either mittens or fingerless mitts. Diana gives detailed notes for knitting the twisted stitches without a cable needle. I must admit that I really struggled with the first 10 rows or so of the pattern – knitting a purl into the back of the second stich was incredibly fiddly to me. I then switched to using a cable needle and the mittens just flew off the needles.

Doug and I found an abandoned and ancient orchard while we were out walking, and took some nice photos there. It was beautiful early in the morning with the sun shining on the frost.

One of the things I like about this pattern is that the thumb gusset is off-set. You can see this in the below photo; instead of being at the side of the mitt it is moved a bit towards the inside of the hand.

And here you can see the offset gusset from the inside of the hand:

I think this makes it extra comfortable, and allows good motion of the hand.

I received some cool knitting stuff this Christmas. I’ll post about it soon. Stay safe everyone.

Creative upcycling for your hand-knits: from skirt to pillow

Posted on by
11

Exactly ten years ago (even before I started this blog) I joined many knitters in making a Lanesplitter skirt [Ravelry link]. The pattern was designed by Tina Whitmore and published in the free on-line magazine Knitty in their First Fall 2010 edition. It used Noro yarn, a self-striping yarn in cool and interesting combinations of shades with long colour changes. It was all the rage back then. Here is a photo of mine (from 2010):

The problem with this skirt (as with many knitted skirts) is that the waistband is bulky. I never felt comfortable with this big bunch of fabric at my waist (it has a knitted-on waistband, which is folded over, seamed, and has a strip of elastic running through it). As a result, I almost never wore this skirt. (One type of knitted skirt that avoids this problem can be seen with the Carnaby skirt that I knit for Emma – blogged here and here. No elastic, and no bunching! Alternatively, if you are knitting with a thinner yarn, then an elastic waist can sometimes work really well, as with this skirt which I also knitted for Emma.) I tried, over the years, to change the waistband on this skirt to make it more wearable but never found a good solution. I recently decided to completely re-conceptualise it:

Behold! A Lanesplitter pillow!

I love this idea, and it was fun to do. First, I ripped out the waistband and undid the side seam. This left me with a rectangle of fabric knitted on the bias, which I washed and blocked.

I wanted the finished pillow to be square, but when folded over, the pillow was 4 inches (10 cm) short of square. In other words, I wanted the length to be twice as long as the width, but it was four inches short of that. So, I picked up stitches along both short ends and knitted up a 4 inch band of seed stitch on each end. (These seed stitch bands overlap in the finished pillow, so they each needed to be 4 inches). On one side, I knitted button holes, and on the other, I sewed buttons.

Then I folded the fabric together, with the right sides facing, and slightly off-center, so that the button band would be about 1/3 the way down the pillow. I made sure that the two seed stitch bands were overlapping with the buttonhole band sandwiched between the button band and the back, as you can see here:

I pinned down the sides and sewed them together.

Here you can see the seam and the overlap at the button bands. When the buttons are undone, you can slip the pillow form inside. This means that you can also easily slip it out if you want to wash the pillow fabric.

I think the pillow turned out great, both front and back:

Since knitters like to know these things, the knitted tee I’m wearing was designed by Mary Annarella and I blogged about it in this post.

There are 3,722 Lanesplitter skirts listed on Ravelry today. I wonder how many of them are getting out and about? (It’s a terribly cute skirt, so I hope most of them are!) If, however, yours is stuck in a drawer somewhere, or you have another project that seems game for a refresh, you might want to try some creative upcycling.

Hatcher

Posted on by
15

I finished knitting Hatcher a few weeks ago, and given the cold and overcast weather we have been experiencing, I’ve had lots of opportunities to wear it.

Hatcher (Ravelry link) was designed by Julie Hoover. I have long wanted to knit one of her patterns; this one has been in my queue since the pattern was released nearly four years ago. It is a very wearable, comfortable, and smart pullover.

I like her easy-going style and I like her attention to small details. Take for example, the double decreases (using a technique I had not seen before), used at the armscythes and sleeves, which provide for an excellent fit and beautiful full-fashioned tailoring.

The folded over neckline is also brilliant; it really makes a difference to the finished tee:

I knitted this using Kettle Yarn Beyul DK, a blend of Baby Yak, SIlk and Merino. It is luxurious, with a brilliant sheen and a soft feel reminiscent of cashmere. I enjoyed knitting with this yarn immensely. However, I am very worried about the potential to pill. A Raveler alerted me to her experience with the yarn (“very pilly”), and having worn this a few times, I am afraid it might be true. I will withhold judgement until it gets more wear and report back to you.

The real draw of the pullover is the cabling, which has perfect dimensions and really sets off both front and back:

I highly recommend this pattern; it is a quick knit, and very well-designed. I had some troubles getting the neckline to hit at the right spot of the cable pattern (detailed in this post), but I think the problems were more a result of my slightly-off row gauge, than any problems with the pattern.

I look at these photos and all I can think is “Yikes! Covid hair”! Here is the Covid mask to go with it:

I am really struggling with this new WordPress editor. This and being in a bit of a funk means I have been posting less. But never fear, I am knitting away as always.

Hyggelig

Posted on by
5

Doug and I spent the weekend in London.  On Saturday, we went to Collect: The International Art Fair for Modern Craft and Design, held at Somerset House.  This was an amazing event.  It will now go on my yearly calendar of must-see events.  We spent today walking around in the sunshine and then catching the Troy exhibit at the British Museum.  While in town, I managed to get some photos of a project I finished a few weeks ago.

wp-1583094675702.jpg

This is the Hyggelig Hat, designed by Verena Cohrs.  Hyggelig is a Norwegian word meaning “nice, pleasant, cosy, comfortable.”  I think that right now we could all use a bit of huggelig.

wp-1583094285434.jpg

I saw this hat at Yarnporium in 2018, where I bought the yarn (I blogged about it here).  The yarn is Tulliver Yarn British Masham Blue-faced Leicester in the colour Scarlet 60, which I think is the perfect shade of red.

wp-1583094166344.jpg

One of the things that makes the hat so cosy is the brim, which is a double layer.  The inside layer is cast on provisionally and knitted in stockinette stitch.  The decorative brim is then knitted, and the brim is folded in two and the two ends are knitted together. It makes a thick, warm, brim which is incredibly neat and tidy.  Here is the inside of the hat:

wp-1583093797139.jpg

Here I am with Achilles, who seems to be indifferent to my hat:

wp-1583094938698.jpg

Doug, however, isn’t:

wp-1583093100681.jpg

I think this is a lovely project.  It was fun to knit and is lovely to wear.  However, chances are good that it won’t be mine for long!