Knitting with some bling

When the last of my plastic stitch markers broke, I knew it was time to take some action. Just like I started knitting again after wearing mismatched gloves for an entire winter, I now realised I had a considerably large amount of beading supplies, including many items not really suitable for wearing, yet perfect for making colourful stitch markers.




These markers can now be chosen according to needle or yarn colour. Knitting will be even more fun with some bling effect and some of the stitch markers may well double as earrings.




I used jump rings, closable earring hooks and lobster clasps, the latter will be great as row markers. Just have to test, which types work best.




No more plastic markers in terrible colours that clash with every knitwork.

Traditional style colourwork mittens

These mittens were made during the coldest time of the winter, which means too late. I was hoping to take some nice snowy pictures of them, but it's raining instead.




The main stitch pattern is from the recently published book of Estonian mittens from the collections of Estonian National Museum. There are more than 300 examples of old mittens in the book, accompanied by colourwork patterns (stitch patterns only, no full instructions).
Mittens with this particular pattern found their way into the museum in 1920.




These thumbs are not traditional, but have a gusset like fingered gloves. I think they are more comfortable and easier to make. I wanted to use these yarns, although the brown and dark grey stripes should have more contrast. Colours from the wider stripes in just a slightly lighter shade would probably work best for this pattern.




This kind of zigzag wrist section is also quite traditional and widely used. The mittens are incredibly warm because of the stranded colourwork. Don't think I've had a pair since childhood, had completely forgotten about that. Next winter, used they will be.

Fireside socks

Since I bought a load of sock yarn last year, I have to make some socks every now and then. Otherwise there will be no new yarn, no matter how pretty the colour.




This is an improvised pair of socks, worked from top down. The heel is a classical one with picked up stitches, the strongest and most comfortable, in my opinion. But I do prefer starting from the toe, as that is so much less stressful - no fear of running out of yarn or having leftovers. The latter is what happened this time.




The socks are made of Admiral Bambus by Schoppel-Wolle, with 75 per cent wool and 25 per cent bamboo content. While working, the yarn seems somewhat like cotton, but becomes much softer after washing. In the end, it has a really nice natural feel, like it should be. Just love this warm colour scheme.




After a long search, I found these lovely sheepish wooden sock blockers on Whorl Drop Spindle, a great place for handmade spindles and other wooden wool tools. (One day I will try spinning.)

Plum and olive mixture

Just accomplished my first yarn painting experiment with purple and green textile dyes. That seems like a dangerously addictive activity, no need to look for that perfect shade of yarn again.




As there were no better vessels for this operation to be found in the household, a cake tin had to be sacrificed, and it worked out very well.




The colours came out really bright, except for some parts of yarn inside the hank, that remained unintentionally a bit too light.




This is how the yarn looks after knitting:




Leftover dye made it into more experiments, a painted piece of lace




and plain cotton fabric (so many new ideas for making a matching wardrobe instantly coming up):

Lacy days

No time for a shawl, but the lace bug still needs feeding from time to time. These are simple tube shaped lace cuffs, with nupps, of course.




The stitch pattern used is the third lace edging in the pink Haapsalu Shawl book (page 172), with some improvised rounds added to form the diamond shapes.

Teddy ready to sail

A little playtime in summer is allowed, I hope. After all, the yarn stash is all sorted out and detangled and ready for the autumn season. Some leftovers found their way to this seaman's sweater, teddy can now enjoy the summer and the sea.
The naked glass buoy got a rope net around it and does not roll off anymore.

Cosy needles

In order to make the finding of double pointed needle sets easier, I made some special cosies for them. Although I liked the look of them all together in a jar, this way the sets are always handy and any member less likely to be misplaced.




The cosies are simple tubes worked in the round and embellished with a tiny crochet flower.

Cotton baskets to put things in

There can never be too many vessels at home, where to put smalls things in. These white baskets with 'woven' pattern are knitted in the round almost like hats. Firmness is not their strongest quality, when empty, so all the more reason to fill them up.

Takeaway knitting sack

To make knitting projects portable and take them outside now that the weather is warming up, one needs a suitable bag that would blend in with the natural environment.
This drawstring bag is made of linen fabric and cotton yarn, the knitted embellishment, of course, is essential to show that this is a knitting and not sewing bag in question.




The drawing strings are made as knitted i-cord. They end with vintage wooden beads that are attached using yarn tails.

Easter eggs and chirpy chicks

My first food post: the Easter eggs have not been dyed yet, instead this year's chicks are extremely bright and colourful. And absolutely non-angry. On the contrary, they have very soft characters and big warm hearts inside.
Have a happy Easter!

Half a day sweater

Winter meets spring - woollen turtle neck sweater with snowdrops, completed in just a few hours. The lower body part and neck are worked in the round, sleeves are knitted flat and sewn on.




The sweater is in medium ladies' size in 1:12 scale: the body part measures 5 cm in height and 4 cm in width. It is knitted using lace weight merino wool (1400 meters per 100 g) and needles 1.5 mm (US size 000 apparently and not -1 as I first thought). Knitting tension is 60 stitches and 70 rows to 10 cm.




Here is the colour chart for snowdrops and grass, would probably pass for crocuses and cyclamens just as well.

When out of yarn...

When I was a child, old ladies used to crochet bathroom floor mats out of strips of white plastic milk bags. I found these really ugly. Nowadays the selection of plastic bags has increased tremendously, all sorts of colours and qualities are available, even bags with colour blends.




I cut some bags to spiral strips 10-15 mm wide and used 4 mm metallic needles for knitting. Not hard at all. The most useful know-how learned, was to hold the strip folded in double, if the bag's inside colour would not fit the project. Some sample swatches:








Floor mats for bathroom or mud room would probably still be the best usage for plastic knits. Perhaps a shopping tote or swimsuit bag for a hiking trip? But seriously, nothing really pretty and cosy can hardly be brought about.

Linen table linen

It had never occurred to me to knit a doily before, but it did now. Probably because of this one lonely skein of thin linen yarn calling out from the stash and the curiosity to see this material in a finished form.
My dream is to knit a large tablecloth designed by Herbert Niebling one day, for testing purposes, this small round doily with 40 cm diameter should be sufficient, though.




The pattern is from Burda Stricklehrbuch and the doily was small enough to be knitted on double pointed needles (2 mm). Knitting was quite easy and I managed to learn a couple of new tricks on the way, e.g. circle cast on, crochet bind-off, how to handle double yarn overs.


The yarn used is a lace weight linen named Midara Linas, shade No. 650. Approximately half a skein required, only 23 grams.

The new Haapsalu Scarf book is out

The warm and stylish presentation of 'Haapsalu rätt / The Haapsalu scarf' book was held in Haapsalu yesterday. The first books were sold at the event, it will be about a week until they hit the stores.




This post is intended to make your mouths water, because I already have the Pink Bible! And naturally, signed by the authors.
These are just my first impressions, it will take a while to take it all in and fully comprehend all the contents, after all, the book has 272 pages and weighs 1.888 kilos (4.2 lbs)!
This time it is published simultaneously in Estonian and English, that may add somewhat to the volume, but charts still make up most of the contents.




There are 47 patterns for square shaped shawls in the book. A square shawl consists of a centre section and a border section with a special narrow stitch pattern inbetween, plus a sewn-on lace edging. These stitch patterns are already conveniently combined together in the book, but can be used separately to design your own shawl as well.




The triangular shawl pattern count is 26 and there are three different techniques explained: knitted beginning from the upper edge, from the lower point or decreased in the centre. Triangular shawls/scarves also have a sewn-on edging.




Must be my favourite part of the book, because these can be used in so many other types of knitting projects too - the lace edgings. A lot of them, all so gorgeous and more intricate than in the first Haapsalu Shawl book.




Since the charts are given fully with all corners included, making enlarged copies or using a magnifying glass might be necessary for some of them. Of course, there are pattern repeats, so the large chart can be used as an overview.




As a nice little gift for everyone attending, these pocket calendars were handed out at the presentation. The text says: 2012 - the year of knitting a Haapsalu scarf. Everyone could then mark those (few) days they were not knitting. Great as a bookmark and chart marker.




More pictures of the event can be found in a gallery of the local newspaper.

The first Haapsalu shawl completed

Two months have passed in a flash and changed summer to autumn, now finally the shawl started at the end of this post is really finished. Everything was made following the steps of a true Haapsalu shawl and I'm very glad I attended a short course last winter with Aime Edasi, who showed all the necessary techniques.




Knitting the centre part was very enjoyable, but all the finishing from sewing to gathering the edge stitches after blocking - not my favourite pastime at all.




The stitch pattern used is Karukellakiri (Pasqueflower pattern), I like its varied texture. Made four pattern repeats in width and 19 lengthwise to obtain the standard size, but the shawl seems a bit small. Rinsing with cold water might have been a mistake, this made the wool stretch significantly less on the blocking frame.




The seam is not quite perfect, there are some occasional larger spaces in it. These are probably caused by looser edge stitches, next time I will focus harder on the end stitches of every row and pull them more tightly around the needle, maybe that will do the trick.
This made me a little unhappy first, but I'm sure nobody will notice it while the shawl is worn. Besides, I discovered that the seams look similar in the Haapsalu Shawl book (blocking frame photos).




The yarn used for the shawl is Midara Micro in natural white (shade No. 025, pure wool). Not the easiest lace yarn to knit, because it's not very smooth and tends to dangle easily, but ripping it was quite possible - had to try this a little along the road. Perhaps the yarn is not quite thin enough either, but the result seems fine and the shawl has a better hold than those knitted with merino wool.