Summer knitting!

Hello again, dear (non-existent) reader!

A few weeks ago, I was pretty bummed when I didn't get a chance to test-knit the gorgeous Sunkissed top and I didn't want to wait for the pattern to come out, so I decided to make my own summer top. I used the pattern for the Breeze Racerback by Jessie Mae as the base and substituted the stockinette stitch on the back with a lace pattern that I found in the Estonian book 'Pitsilised koekirjad' by Leili Reimann. The yarn I used is Catania from Schachenmayr in a gorgeous coral/watermelon colourway.

The pattern in the book was written for knitting flat, so I had to redraw it for knitting in the round. It was actually way easier to knit it in the round, and I was a bit worried that there would be a visible difference in tension with the one repeat that I knit flat (the part between the shoulders), but it all evened out nicely with blocking. Of course, I couldn't resist getting some new toys to block it with: 

Please excuse the fact that the colours are a bit off, I took the picture when it was already dark.

Anyway, I am chuffed with the end result and have worn it outside on a few occasions already. I am sure it will find lots of use this summer! 

After completing this top, which took me roughly four days, I decided that I also needed a summery tee with some lace. As luck would have it, Sari Nordlund had just published the pattern for the Seleste tee, which is the summer version of her Seleste pullover. The original hadn't really called to me, but having a short-sleeved cotton version with the Estonian-inspired lace yoke seemed like a great idea, so I ordered some yarn (Rowan Cotton Cashmere in the colourway Dark Olive, by the way) and got busy. After having to redo 17 rows of the lace yoke because I missed reading one line in the explanations for the chart the first time, and then redoing the short row shaping because I put an increase in the wrong place, I have finally moved on to the body decreases:

It should all be smooth sailing from here and I'm hoping to have the top ready by midsummer. I have plenty of football to watch while doing some mindless knitting :D

As for how my aunt's Sulo cardigan is going... don't ask 😬

A knitting update and State of the Project: Sulo cardigan, part I.

 Well!

About a week after I last posted, I finished the Kuutar pullover by Sari Nordlund, completing it abouth a month before the end of the official KAL :-)

Here is what she looks like. She is so cute and warm and soft, but not really weather-appropriate, since we've had a very nice warm spring: 

I have also made some moderate progress on the Haapsalu shawl with the Hepatica pattern: 

In other news, I also cast on the Sulo cardigan from Anna Johanna for my dear aunt a few weeks ago. In these few weeks, I have finished the yoke and separated the sleeves and am now working for the body, but it's really slow going, having to work back and forth and count rows to make button holes with the right intervals! Here's more or less what it's currently looking like: 

Cast on, cast off.

Well! Somehow I totally missed that I hadn't posted about finishing my Ranunculus sweater way back in March. I actually wanted to take it outside to take a photo of it with some actual buttercups, but it's still a little early for those, so I settled on just the coastal meadow: 

It was a fun, quick knit which took me a week. I initially made the i-cord on the first sleeve I finished a little too tight, so I decided to rip back and redo it with larger needles and it turned out just fine. This was the first time I'd done an i-cord edge or short rows for sleeves, so that was fun too. I just have to figure out what to wear this sweater with!

And in other news, I actually cast on for another Breeze racerback a few days ago, but when I saw last night on IG that Sari Nordlund was coming up with a new racerback-style top with a lovely lace panel on the back, I decided to rip back and wait for her to publish the pattern - or maybe even try to become a test knitter. 

Also, because I was really feeling the Haapsalu lace love after finishing the scarf last week, I cast on another shawl. Whoops. The pattern on this one is called the Hepatica pattern from the book 'Knitted Shawls of Aasa Jõelaid' and I am using a gorgeous cobweb weight merino yarn in a stunning cornflower blue, which we sometimes also call 'flag blue', because ya know. It's not exactly the blue of Hepaticas (literally called blueflower in Estonian), but it was so lovely that I just had to get it. 

Next on my needles.

During my days off, after I finished sewing the scarf, I also made some progress on the Kuutar pullover. Currently I have finished the lovely lace yoke and separated the sleeves and body. I was a bit surprised that I had to knit quite a few rounds of stockinette after the lace to achieve the required length of the yoke, but then I realised that the yoke is somewhat longer than what I have become used to with other patterns.  Ah well. I an enjoying how soft these yarns are and also the fact that I'll be able to hide in plain sight everywhere with this very neutral-toned pullover :D

Once I finish the Kuutar, which hopefully is before the end of May when the KAL ends, I will once again cast on a garment for a family member: for my aunt's birthday this year, I gave her a card saying she could ask me to make her a sweater in her preferred design and colour and she picked the Sulo cardigan by Anna Johanna, so that's what I'm making for her. I already bought the yarn (Drops Merino Extra Fine) and the buttons, too. 

Aaannd of course I had to buy some yarn for myself as well while I was at it 🙈

I am planning to make a second Breeze racerback using a sea green cotton yarn (Safran from Drops) and also the Hali pullover by Leeni Hoimela at some point. I was also quite inspired by finishing the Haapsalu scarf, so I picked up an unfinished Haapsalu shawl and I'm looking through my Haapsalu lace books, pondering if I should make one to give as a gift to a dear friend of the family who is turning 70 in December.

State of the Project: Haapsalu scarf, part V: the finale!

 Well, this was quite the journey, wasn't it?

After sitting on the lace edge and not feeling like sewing it to the centre portion since last summer, I finally finished the scarf! 

I was very worried that the yarn would snap on the blocking frame after I've spent the whole day sewing, so I actually contacted Haapsalu Lace Centre to ask if I could send the scarf to them for sewing and blocking (I know for a fact that they will block your shawl for you for a fiver), but they said they don't provide a sewing service so I had to do it myself. I had some days off recently, so I decided to just go for it. I spent the better part of last Sunday sewing and I put the scarf on the blocking frame a few days ago.

Picture with my doggie for scale: 

And a slightly closer look at how the shawl looked on the frame:

This thing is huge! It measured 130x130 centimetres. The frame I use is a collapsible and adjustable blocking frame from a local company, which you can also use for blocking rectangular and triangular shawls/scarves. The set comes with eight bars and four connectors, which I used to make four very long bars so that the scarf would fit.

Last night, I took the scarf off the blocking frame and went through all the cast-on stitches (well over a thousand!) of the lace edging with a knitting needle to make them nice and round. I then pulled on each individual scallop (of which there are something like 120) to give them a nice shape, folded the scarf, and left it to rest under a pile of pillows. 

You're actually supposed to let the scarf rest for a bit longer, but I couldn't resist the urge to take a few glamour shots this morning 😁

Why the ring, you may ask? Well, because Haapsalu lace is supposed to be so fine that you have to be able to pull the scarf or shawl through a ring.

Anywho, I am chuffed to have finally finished it and I can't wait to wear it with my red dress!

Edited: BREAKING NEWS! The lady who wrote the book that this pattern comes from just liked my photo of the scarf that I posted on Facebook. I can now die happy. 

Some knitting surgery and a new sweater!

After I finished the Ranunculus sweater (which I promise is done, I just haven't got around to taking pretty pictures of it yet!), I was eager to start a new project and settled on a summer top to use some hand-dyed sock yarn from Woolmint that I had in my stash. The design is called Breeze Racerback, and it's by Jessie Mae.  However, when I finished making it to pattern, I decided it was a little too cropped for my taste and decided to do some knitting surgery. I cut the ribbing away from the body: 

I then added about 10 cm of stockinette and grafted it back to the body: 

And this is what the finished object looks like!

You can totally see where I grafted it, so I clearly something wrong, but hey ho I am banking on my décolletage and shoulders drawing the attention away from my waist :D 

This was a fun knit! I originally started with just one skein of a more fall yellow yarn, but ended up doing alternating rounds with a brighter, more summery yellow as well. I don't think it shows.

I had been very tempted to make the Kuutar pullover by Sari Nordlund ever since I first saw it on her IG, but I had mostly been resisting the urge to buy more yarn. However, after I saw her talk about the Kuutar KAL on her Youtube and an IG Live with the girls from Nurja yarn shop, I cracked and decided to go for it. I had enjoyed using Drops Flora so much when I made her Fleuriste pattern, so that's what I went with, as well as Drops Kid-Silk. This is my first time using mohair with another yarn and I love how saaawwft the alpaca and mohair feel together! I am also very much enjoying this lovely unassuming beige colour that goes with everything.

More projects! And squirrels!

Well! I thought I'd lost my knitting mojo for a while there after I finished the Ekorre sweater, but I think I am back on track for now. True to form, I couldn't just work on one of my WIPs and actually started a few new projects... 

First things first: as I mentioned in a previous post, I started the perfect companion to my my Ekorre sweater, the Squirrel Fun mittens by Lotta Lundin. They are knitting up quite slowly, because the needles are tiny and there are 80 stitches to a row. I can't wait to see the end result though! Click on the link to see some mittens that others have made.

Also, I identified the white yarn as Drops Baby Merino leftovers from the Skärgård sweater :-)

End of February/ beginning of March is also when we get our tax returns here and I decided to treat myself to some alpaca yarn from a nearby farm. As is the case with this kind of yarn, it's all hand-made and the labels have the names and pictures of the Alpacas who provided the fibre. 

I was very excited about the new yarn and of course felt the need to cast on something new. I settled on the Helix brioche hat by Jonathan Tollow: 

It was a fun and quick knit and I thought the instructions were very clear (even though I am usually a chart kind of gal). However, I did have to start over once I realised that the ribbing, which I made with 3.0 mm needles was going to be too small for my big head. Ah well. 

And as soon as I cast off the hat, I felt the urge to start another project, this time with some yarn that had been sitting in my stash for a while. I decided to make Midori Hirose's legendary? notorious? Ranunculus sweater that everyone and their mom has made using Aade Lõngad Artistic 8/2 in the colourway 'Lamb', which is a lovely ombre with show colour transitions. The sweater is somewhat textured, but I don't think the ombre distracts from that, as there are rows of stockinette between every couple of rows of textured pattern and I think you can see the texture pretty well. The sweater is made on 6.0 mm needles, so I made pretty good progress with that first evening of knitting: 

I'm excited to see how it turns out and what the fit will be like!