Stash busting knits

I've been watching a lot of Finnish knitting podcast videos on YouTube lately and found a few projects which not only look cool, but also have the added benefit of me being able to use yarns that I already own. 

The first project, which I already cast on tbh, is the Syyslaulu shawl by Heidi Alander. I had been trying to find a use for my Aade Lõng Artistic yarns and thinking of turning one of them into a shawl, but I hadn't found a pattern that I liked until I saw Iina from Neulenojatuoli mention it as one of  her WIPs. It is a really simple pattern: mainly garter stitch with a lace edge, and the size can be easily adjusted. I have already made pretty good progress and I think it will be a worthy replacement for my emo scarf. I am also loving the colour gradient of the yarn!

The second project is the Ekorre sweater by Anna Johanna. I saw the word Ekorre mentioned in one of Anna Johanna's IG stories - perhaps in a photo from a subscriber that she had shared - and was instantly intrigued, because ekorre means 'squirrel' in Swedish and I am a huge fan of squirrels. Needless to say, I found the pattern with the acorns and the squirrels and the oak leaves super cute and I am all about top-down seamless sweaters these days, so I think I will get to work on it as soon as I finish the Skärgård sweater for my mom. My plan is to use the Artistic yarn in the colourway Sheep as the main colour and then use the one and half skeins of rust-coloured Drops Nord which were left over from my Southampton soft for the pattern. The gradient of the Sheep colourway does go pretty deep, but the it is still pretty muted and I think the fall orange of the Nord yarn creates a good contrast without either of the colours being overly loud. 

The third project is the Suolaulu mittens by Jenna Kostet, which use a motif from her Suolaulu sweater. My plan is to make these and give them as a present to a lady from work. The pattern calls for fine fingering weight + lace weight yarn held together and I think I have the perfect combo: the red yarn from Rauma Finull which I ordered when I was picking out the perfect shade of red for the Suolaulu sweater - this one is more of a true red than a cranberry red, but that's ok - and the one, used raspberry red skein of Drops Kid-Silk which I couldn't send back when I stupidly ordered the wrong thickness yarn to make the Fleuriste cardi. As for the contrasting colour, I'm not too keen to buy a new skein of lace weight yarn to add to a light fingering weight yarn (or to faff about with four balls of yarn tbh), so I thought of using a natural white skein of Drops Karisma which is sport weight and which I have laying around in my drawer. 

State of the Project: Southampton Soft, part III - the finale!

Yaay, she's done! I have to say, I am really starting to warm up to top-down knitting. I very much enjoyed not having to sew anything and I could also very easily make the sweater a few cm longer than what was suggested in the pattern (though in all fairness, the pattern does say '25-35 cm or desired length'). Since my doggie hasn't yet learned to take photos, but the lace pattern doesn't really show up very well when the sleeve is laid flat, I decided to wear the sweater to work today and got a colleague to snap a photo of the sleeves. I think she did an excellent job:

I really like the lace - so simple but elegant. Also, how are we feeling about the tubular cast off on the cuffs?

The only bit I question is my choice of the button for the back of the neck: 

I feel like I should have found something nicer and not quite so simple. Anyway, I might change it later.

But yeah, I am pretty chuffed and will definitely be wearing this one loads even if it is the tiniest bit itchy.  True to form, I already have a new sweater on my needles and several projects planned, all with yarn from my stash! But more on that in another post. 

 

Another week, another cast on.

I finished my Southampton soft last night and cast on the Skärgård sweater that I am making for my mom. I have made the first increases and I am working on the colourwork yoke:

The knitting is probably going to take a while, because the needles are fairly small (3.5 mm) and my mom is slightly bigger than me. I think it's really pretty and I am really enjoying the feel of the Baby Merino yarn - so soft and snuggly, but not fluffy like Nord. 

In other news: I will post pictures of the finished Southampton soft as soon as it's dry, because I think I need to put it on in order for the lace panel on the sleeve to show up. 

New techniques I've learned this year!

Where I live, September is also nicknamed the month of knowledge because that's when the kids start school. I also like learning new things, so I thought it would be fun to discuss a few techniques that I've learned when making some lovely patterns this year. Of course, the patterns don't necessarily teach you how to do them, but for example Sari Nordlund is really good about linking tutorial videos for certain techniques in her patterns. Also how did people ever learn things before YouTube?

Anyway, here they are, in no particular order:

• The crochet cast on: this one was used for the Southampton soft which I am working on right now. I never would've thought to use a crochet hook to cast on a knitting project before, luckily I have some laying around.
• Judy's magic cast on: was used for the Fleuriste socks, which are knit toe-up. I hadn't knit toe-up socks before, so that's why I wasn't aware of this technique, but it actually makes the toe look really nice and seamless. 
• The tubular bind off: I used this one for both of the projects I mentioned previously. Sewing through all 252 stitches of the ribbing of the Southampton soft got a bit tedious, but it does look elegant and elastic. 
• The German twisted cast on: I used this one for the Kuiske socks after seeing it mentioned in a tutorial for the Magic Loop method. I have always done some weird method of long tail cast on where I hold two needles together - or in the case of Haapsalu lace, used a knit cast on, of course -, so I thought it would be fun to try a new way of doing it. It's pretty easy and straightforward and I will probably keep using it for socks. 
• Which brings me to... the Magic Loop method - even though I ended up knitting the Kuiske socks on DPNs, I decided to give it a go when knitting the sleeves of the Southampton soft, and I think I've got the hang of it now. I'm not 100% sure if it's saving me time, but at least I don't have to worry about DPNs going missing :-)
• The three needle bind off: was used for the Fleuriste cardigan and the Suolaulu sweater to connect the shoulders and I am HERE for it! Anything to avoid sewing.

So that's six new techniques I've learned this year! At the ripe old age of 34! Go me!

A Forkton of Yarn.

OK, OK, maybe it's not that much, but it's still a lot for me, considering that I freed up a second drawer for my stash (which, to be honest, it was surreptitiously taking over anyway).

As I mentioned in a previous post, a local dyer from had a new batch of yarns for sale and of course I had to support local businesses :-) So those two lovely colourful hanks are sock yarn from the Woolmint brand. 

I also decided to order two skeins of self-striping sock yarn from Flotte Socke, because why not. 

But the Baby Merino is actually for my mom! I told her that I wanted to knit a sweater for her and she got to pick the pattern and the colours. I showed her the Ravelry stores of Sari Nordlund and Meiju K-P (Meiju Knits on Youtube) and she chose the Skärgård sweater. The main colour is going to be a rosy pink and the contrasting colour is going to be a natural white. I think it's an excellent choice - not only is the pattern beautiful, but Skärgård is also fun to say! It will probably be a few days before I get to cast it on, but I decided to take advantage of the Drops Merino Mania sale and bought the yarn earlier this week. Of course I have more skeins, but they didn't all fit in the basket :P

State of the Project: Southampton Soft, part II

Yeah no quippy title this time, I'm afraid. 

Today's post was actually going to be about how I finished the body part of the sweater and was moving on to the sleeves, but as I got to the k1p1 ribbing last night, I discovered, much to my chagrin, that I my stitch count was off: it was an odd number instead of an even one. I first thought that I must've picked up a rogue stitch somewhere, so I knit two stitches together to have an even number of stitches and cracked on with the ribbing. But then I counted the stitches again several times and realised that I had actually been missing a stitch, so now I was two stitches short. I also noticed that I had only knit through half of the strands in one stitch several rows before and decided to rip back to that stitch, fix it and look for the place where I lost the one stitch. I found that I had knit two stitches together another few rows before. I decided to not rip back to that place and made a new stitch instead, so now I have the correct amount of stitches and no half-knit ones. Yay me!

Here's where I'm at. Excuse the weird colouring, I took the previous photos in natural light, but this one was taken under lamplight.

In other news, I bought a forkton of yarn today and on Saturday! More on that when everything gets here. 

 

Yet another cast-on aka Knitting monogamy just isn't for me, baby.

Encouraged by the fact that I managed to complete the fiddlier part of the Southampton Soft and inspired by two posts I saw on Facebook (namely one by a local yarn shop announcing that the pre-order period for the Estonian version Niina Laitinen's third book, Villasukkien Uusi Vuosi, was being extended because the local publisher was experiencing some delays and the other one by a very local yarn dyer from the brand Woolmint announcing that she would have some freshly dyed yarns for sale this weekend), I decided to cast on a pair of socks from Niina's first book, Villasukkien Vuosi (The Year of Wool Socks). The pattern I chose is called Kuiske (Whisper) and the yarn I am using is Woolmint Opera - a fingering weight sock yarn in the colourway Orlando. I bought the yarn in August and the lady behind Woolmint was actually kind enough to deliver it to my workplace personally, because she was in the neighbourhood. Of course I want to support her again and place an order this weekend, so I thought this would be the perfect chance to put Orlando to good use and knit one of Niina's older patterns while waiting for the new book.

Anyway. The pattern calls for 2.5 mm needles and I actually wanted to try the Magic Loop method with these socks, but it ended up being a fail, because my 2.5 mm circular needles have a really long cable (I believe they're 100 cm in length) so instead of forming just the one magic loop, the cable formed like two or three and it was kind of a mess. I also remembered that Niina's patterns are written for DPNs and they are often rather specific about the amount of stitches you should have on each needle - they require you to do some shuffling around from time to time, which would've been a bit hard to do using the Magic Loop. Not to mention that I also remembered that her socks often tend to be quite narrow and I had to cast on the Pride and Prejudice socks like three times because my leg wouldn't fit through the ribbing. In the end, I went with 3.5 mm DPNs.

This is where I am now: 

How gorgeous is this colour though!