Yarnlove

It is so foggy today I can't even see the City Hall tower, on which I normally rest my tired eyes. It's all white out there. The weather is just sad, and will be so for the rest of the week according to experts. I feel so tired...

Sunday we went to Linköping and the baptism of my best friend's three adorable kids. And I'm their godmother! Alex had made dresses for them, very unsentimental and stylish ones, and they looked like angels. The middle girl carried the cross as we walked in, the oldest poured the water into the font as the priest said a prayer, and their little brother was just plain sweet. I feel very inspired to knit them something... I still haven't knitted anything for kids, except for the grenouillère I did for Hugo. If you have a nice pattern that with some modification covers ages 2 to 6 I'd appreciate some tips.

Yesterday I went on a little trip (a very small one) to Enskede. I got off the subway and payed a nice lady SEK 60 for an old garnvinda she had advertised. What do you call it? An umbrella-like thingy that you put your hanks on so you don't have to use friends and family to wind them into balls. (The hanks, that is.) Anyway, I'm very happy to be able to take my hobby to a new level of even more gadgets. Next on my wishlist is a skeining machine (?), as the one Mia has. Her "garnromantik" last week (pretty close to "yarnlove") made me pine for more technical stuff, and the skein winder was totally new to me. Great idea, though. My balls suck.

On the knitting front, I've switched from Frost Flowers to Argyle Vest. A week ago I couldn't imagine when I would ever want to knit on the vest again, since the shawl was so much fun. Now it's beginning to dawn on me that this shawl will take, honestly, ages to finish, and I've been calculating to try and figure out how much yarn I need, ordered another hank from Helylle (lovely people, lovely yarns!) and am now beginning to need a longer circular, which isn't quite so easy to find. My burning passion for this shawl is therefore cooling off. And I really want this vest finished so I can use it, and the only way to finish is to knit. So I knit.

Last night I went on a blind date with Pia from the vestalong, and we went to check out the Stockholm knitters at Gino's. It was very nice, and fun to recognize projects you've seen on different knitblogs IRL and with its respective knitter.

Less thrilling was the inferior lighting at Gino's, which will soon result in a cerebral haemorrhage due to the fatal errors I made in the dark. I am now trying to tell a YO from another, and since I can't I fear I'm facing at least a two-row rip. Buhuu...

Just a tiny post to let y'all know that I have made a button, finally, for you all to decorate your blogs with. Please save it to your own server.

My progress on the vest has been filled with ups and downs, mostly due to my own negligence. Last night I had a major down, and I started another project while my blood pressure slowly dropped. Since I am the long tall Sally of any crowd, I added a few extra rows to make sure the vest covers my middle. I have consistently adjusted the pattern repeat to my own increases and decreases, but since I think I'm such an excellent knitter I don't really think too much about it, and when I had six (6) rows until bind off I found that the only thing I hadn't adjusted was the neckline, who was still on the same latitude as before, giving my deep V vest a deep U in the back. I tossed the vest far far away and cast on a lace shawl instead, which is surprisingly fun to knit. I'm only on row 16 or something, but I like it so far. Hopefully I will be calm enough to frog two inches of the vest this weekend, and then FINALLY cut my steeks, which is the major goal of this project.

Also, I had a gauge crisis the other night. I found that I didn't have 30 rows/10 cm, but 21. I had a chill to the bone, then discovered that if I stretch it to gauge stitchwise, I will also get gauge rowwise. Oh, the constant excitement of knitting, and oh, the benefits of careful blocking!

But let's go back to the lace part, shall we? I have wound a skein from one of my two hanks of 1-ply burgundy wool and cast on the Frost flowers and leaves shawl (anything Eunny knits I can knit too), true to my habit not to read the instructions too carefully. I discovered this morning on the train that there is something called "circular beginning" and "invisible cast-on". Sorry, I'm on row 16, it's not gonna happen. I just cast on as usual, long-tail, and then had fifteen troublesome minutes with the even distribution on four DPN's, knitting two rows and then start working the chart. After two attempts I distributed the eight stitches evenly on two DPN's, knitted the two rows and then transferred them on to two more needles. Much easier to handle. With two stitches on each needle I couldn't even tell what order they were in.

Here's a pic of my last night:

Yum yum yum. I made a swatch to try the pattern and see if I really can make something as pretty as the picture, and apparently I can! This swatch measures 14 x 20 cm, which is quite big. The yarn is not the one I intend to use, but I think the needle size, 4,5 mm, is, so even if I'm not sure what the actual gauge will be I think I can expect something quite close. The yarn shipped today, so I won't have to wonder for very long now!

I was very happy to discover that you actually can learn a 10 row lace pattern by heart. At first I had to read every single stitch in the chart, but after a while it became clearer and clearer and the symmetry of the pattern appeared, and after only three repeats I felt that I can definitely do this for four metres. Knitting equation: If the first hour of knitting makes 14 cm of lace, and considering the acceleration that comes with learning the pattern, when will I finish the edging?

Now I'm into lace! I've ordered 2 hanks of 1-ply wool from Helylle, and I've studied the fine art of Shetland lace shawls by browsing the web for almost two days now, so I think I'm ready. A fine Shetland shawl appears to consist of an edging, knit first, an optional border and definitely a center square. I've found an edging I like, Betsy's Rose Leaf Lace, so I think I'll start with that. It looks quite wide to me, so maybe I don't need a border? One thing I haven't figured out is this corner issue. It's hard to find edging patterns with corner instructions. "A gathering of lace" has one corner pattern, so I've been thinking of using the same principles for my lace. But now it just occurred to me that maybe you don't have to knit corners? Maybe careful blocking (oh, the benefits of careful blocking!) is enough to make a flat corner from a straight lace edging? Hm. Any ideas, suggestions, experience? Anything at all? Anyone?

It won't ever stop snowing, I think, but this morning was stunningly beautiful with glistening snow in the sunrise, -8 C... And the roads were ploughed! Yesterday was also a day to remember, when we took our bucket grill (a bucket that is also a grill, very convenient), bought sausage and an incredible inflatable snowracing device and went to the park below the castle, where there are some really good, though short, slopes. We grilled the sausages and tried to hurt ourselves sliding downhill with an amazing speed. The good thing is that inflatable things really are great shock absorbers, so you don't break anything, and the jumps (yes, we built some) don't hurt your spine. Excellent! We even spotted Swedish actress Lia Boysen in the park.


Yes, and Friday night I was dressed as a 19th century parisian prositute, in the good company of other girls with slut ambition. I looked like this, and please notice the skirt I worked very hard to finish in time. But it actually turned out quite alright, so I might even use for an event less clownish. If I behave, you can't see the mutli-coloured tull ruffles on the petticoat...

My inner knitting compass is slowly turning back to wooly greyish chunky sweaters instead of light and tiny scarves and lace socks, which seems to just until now have been the direction for the next months to come. If anyone knows of a pretty lace sock pattern, please let me know! I've been googling like crazy, but all I can find is, and I'm sorry to have to put it like this, ugly ugly multi-coloured american crap. What is wrong with you people? Who ever invented self-striping yarn and why are you using it? And why do you knit lace with it? You can't even see the stitches! Yeesus.

From my window on the sixth floor I see snow all day long, falling top-down, left-right, bottom-up, here-there. I feel like I'm inside one of those Christmans things that you shake and it starts snowing, but without the shaking.

My progress on the b-ful vest can be seen at http://vestalong.blogspot.com. I've just reached the waist!