A Brutally Honest WIP Count.

Since I seem to have gotten my knitting mojo back, I thought it would be a good idea to have a look at my WIPs and see how many I have. Turns out I have seven! I thought it was going to be more, actually 😂

From left to right: 

- A Haapsalu shawl with the Hepatica pattern that I started in the spring

- The White Karen lace dress from Lacelegance that I mentioned in a previous post

- A Haapsalu shawl with the ear of grain pattern that I started in 2018 after a very dear friend of mine told me that she had gotten engaged to a guy who farms grain. I wanted to have it ready for her wedding, which was in the summer of 2019, but oh well. At least I made a few bits and bobs for the happy couple's little girl when I was invited to the baby shower last summer.

- My most recent WIP: the Baggy Tweedy Beanie, designed by Siri Anne Ystad-Deglum. I was winding some skeins of yarn into balls recently and decided that the skein of Merino Tweed yarn from Kettu Yarns in the colourway 'Foxy' which I had ordered last year really wanted to become a beanie. So I looked on Ravelry for fingering weight beanies and came across this one, which even has 'tweedy' in the name! Of course I had to cast it on, because the weather is getting cooler and this colour is just perfect for autumn. 

- Christmas socks in the Vanilla Latte pattern from Virginia Rose-Jeanes. I ordered two hand-dyed skeins of yarn from an English indie dyer called Laura who has a webshop called Joy to the Wool last year: one is this Christmasy colourway called 'Holly and Ivy', which came with a solid red mini skein for the heel and cuff and toes; and the other one is a Halloween colourway called 'Joy to the Wooo-l', which is black and purple and came with a solid black mini skein. I decided to use this very simple pattern to let the green and red stripes shine and I am hoping that starting these in August will help me to finish them by Christmas :D

- One of the Squirrel Fun mittens from Knittinglotta, which I started in January. This is probably going to be a longer and super fiddly project, because there are something like 80 stitches per round and these are made with very small needles. Lotta has said that having so many stitches is the only way she can make her patterns so detailed (and they really are, you can tell that she used to be a graphic designer!), which is fair but it also means that the mittens are going to take me a while to finish. 

- The Great British Baking Shawl 2, which I started making last year as a KAL by Mary Annarella. I honestly don't know, but I ran out of steam during the last clue! I literally only have 3/4 of the last clue to finish, so hopefully I will manage to power through and be able to wear this gorgeous (and hella expensive) shawl this autumn already. 

I also had the Wayne pullover that I started last spring as a WIP for the longest time, but I finally decided to frog it last weekend. I sold the unused balls of yarn and will use the yarn I have left from the unfinished sweater to make socks or something. 

Oh and I actually finished a very spontaneous WIP that I started last November a few days ago, but I think I will write more about that one later because it deserves its own post. 

Some lace knitting and a new book!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I got some pretty fancy silk yarn to make the White Karin Dress and after I finished the cardigan for my dear aunt and sent it off to her, I enthusiastically got to work on it. It took me some time to ball it and a few tries to cast it on, since it's obviously very slippery, and I'm sure I've made plenty of mistakes already, but this is where I am now. 

This is roughly half of the skirt portion :D

It's pretty much the only thing I've been knitting on since finishing the cardigan, which is weird for me, since I'm usually knitting several things at once. I have actually been looking for a project that would make good TV knitting and allow me to use some yarn from my stash, so I've bought two patterns recently: the Eudaimonia Tee from Meiju K-P, which I'm planning to knit using the blue Austermann raw silk yarn that I originally intended to use for the dress, and also the pattern for the Celia socks from Sari Nordlund. I have a green ball of Regia Premium Merino Yak from Schachenmayr which is longing to become a nice pair of socks. 

And speaking of Sari Nordlund, she recently published her first pattern book in collaboration with Erika Appelström! It's called 'Neulematkalla', has some lovely patterns for wearables and accessories and gorgeous photos. Sooo when I went on a day trip across the gulf to Helsinki with my mum, I of course had to stop by Lankakauppa Snurre and pick it up. I can't wait to be inspired!

State of the Project: Sulo Cardigan, part II: the finale :D

After getting the need to make cotton summer tops out of my system, I returned to my aunt's Sulo cardigan last week. And about time too, I think, because August and slightly colder nights are not far off anymore. It did take me some time to finish the body it because I got somewhat bored with knitting flat and my auntie did want it to be longer than the somewhat cropped original version, so there was plenty of fabric for me to knit - and also I ran out of yarn so I had to order some more -, but the sleeves really flew by! I knit them on circulars using the Magic Loop method and was quite pleased with how they turned out. The triangular pattern on the cuffs and the buttons with the little flowers on them are probably my fave parts :-) 

A few pics of the Summer Nights cami!

This is kind of old news, but I realised I hadn't actually posted a photo of the finished garment, so here ya go: 

And here's me wearing it, serving Ronald McDonald realness. Love that for me!

But jokes aside, I really liked the clever little details like the body shaping with different sized needles, the cabled straps which are broad enough to cover bra straps and the method of decreasing which leaves a nice neat edge. Kudos to Ivana and I will definitely be keeping an eye on her future designs!

Buying yarn and knitting are two different hobbies.

 Ooff. 

As much as I try to be smart with money, I cannot resist a beautiful yarn/pattern and I've been really bad about hoarding yarn recently. Let's just count the losses, shall we?

• After posting about the Summer Nights cami on r/knitting, I was scrolling Reddit and happened on someone's photo of this absolutely stunning lace dress. I decided that I need to make one for myself as well and spent the next hours hemming and hawing over which yarn to use for making it.I initially settled on Austermann Magic Silk in a teal colourway and placed an order, but when I got the yarn, it just didn't feel right for the project. So last night I decided to bite the bullet and order a new yarn, BC Garn Jaipur Silk Fino, which is a very luxe 100% mulberry silk yarn and costs over twice as much as the Austermann. My dream is to have the dress ready by this year's Haapsalu Lace Day, which is on the 22nd of August, but considering the speed at which I knit lace, I think aiming for next year would probably be more realistic.
• Since I finished the summer tops, I restarted work on the Sulo cardigan for my aunt and to my surprise, I ran out of yarn before getting to the end of the body. So I ordered some more Drops Merino Extra Fine for the cardigan, but because Drops recently also came out with the gorgeous Soft Tweed yarn, I just had had had to get some skeins of that one as well. 
• And yes, I still have four skeins of Schachenmayr Catania in the colourway Sand. 

What am I going to do with all this yarn? Well, I have a few ideas. I'm thinking I will use the Austermann Magic Silk to make the Kevätaurinko shawl designed by Niina Laitinen, as I have enough of the yarn and getting the gauge exactly right doesn't matter that much anyway. The original pattern used alpaca yarn, but mine will be a more summery version. The Soft Tweed is just asking to become a cabled sweater. And the Catania will make another lovely summer top next year.

Having said all that, I am quickly running out of drawer space for my stash 😆

Spontaneous summer tops!

I am happy to report that I finished the Seleste tee a few days after my last post. I was on holiday down South and the weather was really hot (the temperatures were over 30 degrees Celsius, which is a LOT for where I live!), so I decided to let it dry in the garden. I was a bit worried about the sunlight bleaching it and also I didn't have a blocking mat, so I had to improvise a bit and hide it under the lilac bush:

And here is the finished garment! Gorgeous, no?

After finishing the Seleste, I wasted no time in casting on another summer top. I still had three skeins of Schachenmayr Catania in the colourway 'Mandarine' left and just before my holiday began, I saw someone post a picture of the Heart on Fire top in the Drops Workshop FB group and decided then and there that I needed to make one for myself as well. I think I did a pretty good job of it! The only mods I made were making the body a few cm longer, omitting the garter stitch edge and using the 3-way bind off to attach the straps to the back, rather than sewing them. 

Please enjoy this picture of the finished top and my cousin's orchid: 

I actually ran out of yarn as I was making the top and had to order a fourth skein. I decided to use the webshop of the yarn store where I bought the first three skeins from, because Catania Denim has gone out of production and I hoped they would have another skein from the same dyelot. But since I thought paying the delivery fee for just one skein would be silly, I ordered four skeins of Catania Solid in the gorgeous Gold colourway. I was actually a bit embarrassed and felt a bit like a yarn hoarder and didn't even have a plan for the yarn until the delightful Summer Nights Cami from Ivana Sturm popped up on my IG feed! 

It's a pretty simple design, but it has some elements that I think make it really clever. For one, the designer has used different sized needles for body shaping instead of increases and decreases (3.5 mm, 3.0 mm and 2.5 mm)! You can see how the gauge changes on the blocked garment (and please ignore the weird lighting, the sun was already low-ish when I took this photo):

The stitch count is the same for the entire body, it's just the needles that changed!

I also really like the cabled straps and Ivana's neat method for doing the decreases for the armholes and the V-neck. I also really like the yarn! And this gold colourway is actually stunning and it looks like I am knitting with an actual sunbeam! I will post some pictures of the top in better lighting once it's dry for sure. 

Also don't ask me how I'm getting on with auntie's cardigan. 

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 😬