Steeka – den misslyckade versionen

Så jag håller på med kattfilten till S:s lillasyskon. Den måste bli klar snart. Och eftersom det är flerfärgsstickning så stickar jag den med rundsticka och gör en uppklippningszon. För den ska ju steekas, klippas upp.

Normalt sätt är inte detta något problem alls. Jag har gjort det förut. Men den här gången stickade jag hela zonen i en färg, och kanske var det detta som skapade problemet.
Det man gör är att man syr två sömmar med symaskinen, gärna fram och tillbaka ett par gånger per söm. Och sedan klipper man mellan sömmarna. Ta-daaa! Och det går utmärkt. Ju mer ulligt ett garn är, ju mer obehandlat, desto bättre går det.
Problemet var bara att symaskinen kinkade. Och jag gjorde något annat medan jag sydde. Lyssnade på något. Halvtittade på något. Och märkte inte att undertråden gick av mitt i sömmen. Och inte gjorde jag mer än en söm heller.

Så när jag plockat upp maskor för kanten och börjat sticka så började det blå garnet krypa upp. Och det är korta stumpar som det handlar om. Ofästbara.

Okej. Bort med de upphämtade kantmaskorna och tillbaka till symaskinen. Som maken fixat till och meckat med så att den skulle lyda.
Jag har fått gå mycket närmare katterna än vad som var meningen. Och en del av de blå garnstumparna måste fästas på ett eller annat sätt. Men det löser sig nu. Ser bra ut. Det gäller bara att inte börja bli arg på filten och lägga den i träda. För rätt vad det är som kommer lillasyskonet. Och det ska ju stickas en filt till, till E:s lillasyskon som kommer en månad senare.
Oh well.

/Maia
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Sontröja – provlappar

Jag ska sticka en tröja till Sonen. På riktigt. Och det blir en stor tröja till en lång man. Beställningen säger att den ska vara vid i halsen.

Det kommer att bli grått, grått och vitt, och jag har gjort provlappar. Bortsett då från att den undre är stickad med stickor 6 och alldeles för lös och den övre med stickor 5 och lagom, så ser man direkt hur olika det blir när man tar den mörkare färgen som basfärg i de stora rutorna (överst).
I det undre provet sticker det vira ut mycket mer, eftersom det bryter av mot det mörkgrå. I den övre blir övergångarna mycket mjukare. Och det är också den övre kombinationen som jag kommer att välja, om inte Sonen säger något annat.

Garn: Drops Nepal, offwhite 0100, ljusgrå 0517, mörkgrå 0506

/Maia

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Kattuppdatering

Katterna är på blockning.

Det känns som om det blir en liten kattväska till en liten person som gillar väskor och som fyller år snart.

/Maia

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Katter på rad

Jag har börjat sticka. Rauma finullsgarn ljusgrå 403, blå 438 och stickor 3.

Färgerna bryter igenom, men det löser sig nog i blockningen.

Lustigt nog ville baksidans katter bli annorlunda. Alla tre har sin egen karaktär. Den i mitten ser ut som kungen i Disney's Robin Hood.

/Maia

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Det blev en mössa

Lite för sent på kvällen för långa kommentarer, men här är den i alla fall!

Favoritrutningen.

Slätstickat varvat med resår.

Slätstickad linning.

Tofs!

Godnatt!

/Maia

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The anatomy of an Icelandic sweater, 0.1

Since I've been to Iceland a couple of times I have been thinking about the anatomy of the Icelandic sweaters made from their wonderful lopi 'wool'. There must be some way to knit these without a pattern.

So... I have been trying to figure out the anatomy of the Icelandic sweater.

To make a top-down sweater I figured out that I needed to add 16 stitches every other round. So I started with 16 dark grey triangles and added a stitch in between them (light grey) every other row, at the same row I made the dark gray triangles narrower by substituting gray stitches by a light gray.

Easy to understand? No. But easy to knit. I'll try to make a more comprehensive description later.
/Maia
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Mittens - The tree

Next pair of mittens on the needles. The pattern is another one of my own. The tree.

This is the try out mitten with white base and the tree in dark grey. My plan is to make them with the tree in green.

I also try to knit with needles no 2. Small, but the stitches get very snug.
This time I try a checked pattern for the palm of the hand, with dark grey as the dominant colour. White doesn't go very well with insides, I reckon.

/Maia

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Fair Isle mittens - for Christmas

I'm working with the Christmas gifts. Early bird catches... and so on.


My first pattern consists of polka dots. I use a grey yarn, Rauma Finullgarn, and a tutti frutti coloured yarn that I dyed with egg colouring this winter.


When I knit one of each colour the knitting gets more narrow, as here on the palm side of the mittens. The outside kind if bulges out a bit.

So I chose to go another way with the next pair. The red ones.


With thin stripes on the palm side the both sides are more even.


Oddly enough the red polka mittens are much more tightly knit on the whole than the tutti frutti ones. Weird.

Anyhow. I have designed four more patterns (folklore, tree, dolphin and sheep) so I have a lot of mittens to knit to work out the gauge mystery.

/Maia

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Thistle mittens – finished

Now they are finished! With some flaws, but anyhow.

And the snow is still here!

/Maia

Thistle mittens – getting over the obstacles

The first mittens I made from the Finullgarn, the star mittens, had the thumbs far too low. There was enough room at the top of the hands to store thinks. Like small buns or a couple of chestnuts or the likes.

As you can see from the grey horisontal stripe on the right mitten in the picture below, I made the same mistake on the first  one of the Thistle mittens. (Yeah the right one came out all wrong, funny, funny!) But in conference with my eldest daughter, I decided to go out on a limb and... cut a hole higher up, where the thumb should have been in the first place. (And when I knitted the second one, I made sure the hole was in the right place, see the mitten to the left.)

Of course I didn't just cut a hole.

I entered the pins in the stitches above and under the row where I wanted the hole. Then I carefully cut the threads, both the white and the grey, in the middle and drew them out, one stitch at the time. When I got to the ends on both sides, I turned the mitten inside out, and sewed them in very thoroughly.

And it worked. As you can see.

But I don't want to do that again. Really.

I will keep these mittens for myself. They are so pretty, but I have made so many mistakes with the fair isle pattern, that I don't want to give them away.

/Maia

Thistle mittens – red, grey, off-white

So I got on with the next pair of mittens. This time with a self made pattern. I call it thistle, because the flowers were purple when I made it up, and the stalk and the leaves were green. But I wanted to work with the three colours that can never go wrong: Gray, off-white and red. Så maybe these are actually carnation mittens?

The palm side gets kind of striped, following the colour of the pattern on the other side.

/Maia

Star mittens – finished!

Faire Isle knitting should look as nice on the inside as on the outside. You should be able to see the stars on the wrong side of the knitting, and you do, don't you?

Also the thumb differs from the original pattern.

And here they are. Finished. Fluffed on the inside (nailbrush!) and slightly damped and ironed on the outside. Now, the question is whether it is my dear sister or my dear eldest daughter that needs them the most.

I have already started planning the next pair. With my own pattern of thistles! And this pair costed me less than 75 SEK in yarn. Neat!

/Maia

Star mittens update – hands

The hands are ready. This is the palm pattern. I chose to use a checkered pattern instead of the pattern suggested in the book. And the thumbs will be the easiest possible, Just twelve stitches times two straight up.

I have used a brush to smoothen the surface a little, and I will try to do the same to the inside when I am finished. This makes the wool less itchy and makes the mittens warmer. Not that they aren't warm enough already.

/Maia

Fair Isle Shawl - in the round IV

Progress. Cast off for parts of the edging. Picking up for the last part.


/Maia

Fair Isle shawl – in the round III

First of all, I am sorry that the photos are so dark. But... anyhoo.

So I cut the shawl and used a KnitPicks tunisian chrochet needle with a very long cable (or rather two unified cables) to pick up the stitches. Many, many of them. Then I put knitting needles on the cables.

Here is a close up on the edging so far. It's going to be at least twice as wide. It's two knit, two purl, just as I did for the Kotten blanket.

And at the very bottom, increases. This is fun. It really is great fun to make the edging. Strangely enough.

Again, sorry about the photos. Some other day, brighter photos!

/Maia

Fair Isle shawl – in the round II

I've finished the body of the shawl and now it is time to sew off and cut it open. Right now it looks like a crazy giant hat. Or a funny looking knit skirt.
/Maia

Fair Isle Shawl – in the round

Following the brilliant idea of Pinneguri I am now knitting a fair isle shawl in the round. This way you avoid the nuisance of color knitting the purl side.  Since I was quite happy with the edging of Kotten's blanket my plan is to make a similar edging on the shawl.

I am knitting a checked pattern, and some stars. But most of the shawl will be checked. 

/Maia

Kotten blanket, finished

We went to see our daughter, son-in-law and dear dear grand daughter E this morning for some coffee. Lovely! While sitting there chatting I managed to get a lot of work done on the Kotten blanket, that I prepare for our next grandchild, the cousin of E, who hasn't arrived yet. And tonight I finished it. 

Here it is. The roses are from a sweater pattern that I found at Garnstudio, and the snow stars are also from Garnstudio, I think it was a sock pattern of some kind (Red. January 2014: I found it!), but I can't find it anymore.

I have used Drops Lima, offwhite (0100), light grey (9015) and dark grey (0519). Check out the price for this yarn right now. At least here in Sweden there is a sale on Drops Alpacka yarns, and I complemented my stash with some six or seven balls of Lima for 20 SEK/50 grams at Deisy Design in the center of Göteborg this friday.

No lining on this blanket, since all the threads on the back are interweaved.

The corners turned out quite all right and I also put the year in one corner. Too soon to put the date there, but Kotten, you may come now! Any day you think fit to be a good birthday.

/Maia

Blanket for Kotten

Work in progress.


/Maia
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Savoy cardigan

So, again there is that steeking part...


Figure why I want to call the cardigan Savoy?


/Maia
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