More shawls

For being a person who doesn't knit shawls, I've sure knit an awful lot of them this year..! ;-) First up I give you the Hogwarts Express shawl, with owls on it! The owls have beads for eyes, greyish blue 6/o Gutermann glass beads that I thought went really well with the yarn. The yarn is Fleece Artist Trail Socks in the Salt Sprey colorway. Perhaps not as soft as for instance Malabrigo sock, but lovely colors!

This shawl I've actually worn a couple of times. Amazing, I know! It's special also because I knit on it during the "Knitted Sweaters Aroung the Baltic Sea"-conference I attended in Viljandi, Estonia this summer. Such a great time we had! And I saw Nancy Bush.. total fan girl moment!!

The second one is the Cladonia shawl. Very nice pattern, loved the stripes, and the lace looks so beautiful. The cast off edge took FOREVER.. but overall a very nice project!

I used Sandnes Garn Mini Palett and I love the colors of that yarn. The slow color changes really work with this pattern. The white is ordinary Drops Alpaca, and I'm not overly impressed with my yarn choice, the alpaca is a little too “hairy” for me, especially knit with such a loose gauge. Might give this one away, we'll see. :-)

Third is the Revontuli shawl. Nice shawl, very nice pattern. Absolutely hated knitting with this yarn! Had to knit outside due to the smell of the yarn (mostly the spinning oil, not so much the lanolin, I think). It took me almost two years to finish this one, because I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. Yuck!

 

It softened up a lot after a bath with a lot (!) of Eucalan. I probably still can’t wear it. But it looks nice though.

Lacy things

I'm so behind on this blogging thing, I need to get my act together! It's New Year already and I'm still into summer knitting. Yeah well, life kind of got in the way. Between getting a full time job and opening up an online yarn shop.. there just wasn't that much free time I guess. Also blogger was acting up. In a bad way! But it seems to be behaving today so here goes.. Some lacy things, from this summer.

 

My little girl needed something to wear for a wedding, and this little shrug was perfect! She chose the softest white yarn she could find in my stash. I wanted to use 100% merino but no, she totally went for alpaca and silk.. (Drops Baby Alpaca Silk) ;-D This knit up really fast. The lace was a bit tricky, but otherwise a very enjoyable knit! More specs over on ravelry, this is the Cornwall Park shrug.

The next lacy thing is this hat with leaves on it. It's a free pattern from Drops. Again, check out my rav-page. It has a very nice leaf pattern, but the decreases are a bit weird. I made two full repeats and on the third half left out the YO, thus compleating a third leaf repeat while decreasing. Then decreased as stated in the pattern - way too quickly in my opinion. Blocking didn't do much to improve the shape. The yarn however was very nice and soft, it's Hjertegarn Merino Silk.

En spetssjal!

Jag är ju inte så bra på det här med sjalar. Jag använder inte sådana. Egentligen använder jag inte så mycket överhuvudtaget av det jag stickar, konstigt nog. Tur då att jag har en dotter som gärna tar på sig mina stickade plagg (så länge de är rooosa..) och ett antal kompisar som ibland vill ha nya sockor (eller som inte täcks säga nej.. ;-)

Hursomhelst så har jag nu stickat en liten sjal. En spetsig sjal. Nästan en spetssjal ju! Och den är till mig. Eller ja, vi får se. Tänkte ha den som halsduk, men det återstår att se om jag kan ha ylle runt halsen. Det här är ändå något av det mjukaste som finns så det kanske går bra. Roligt att sticka den var det åtminstone! Jag börjar förstå varför folk stickar sådana i parti och minut. Fast de inte använder dem då. :-)

Pattern: Holden shawlette

Yarn: Malabrigo Sock (colourway 809 Solis)

Needles: 4mm

My first somewhat lacy shawl, and it’s all for me! Knitting it was super quick and easy. I did the stockinette part until I had 189 stitches and did the lace pattern without the two extra stitches in the pattern. Love this yarn! Even the blocking was easier than I thought it would be. It remains to be seen if I'll ever wear it - it would be a first! :-)

All about lace

Jag har varit på stickkurs! Hangö sommaruni ordnade en kurs i spetsstickning 12-14.6 och jag anmälde mig naturligtvis direkt!! Man läser alltid, speciellt på svenska bloggar, att folk går på trevliga kurser och mässor och happenings, och det är så sällan det ordnas nåt liknande här. Kursen var riktigt kul, jag lärde mig en del nya saker och det bästa av allt var att få sitta och sticka i tre dagar. Ostörd. Inga oväsentligheter som jobb eller dylikt.. :-D

Inga bilder har jag från kursen. Vi var så koncentrerade på stickningen tydligen att det blev bortglömt. Däremot några foton från en utställning jag var på nyligen; spetsjalar från Haapsalu. (Klicka på bilden för att se den större.) Wow, okej sånt där kan jag inte ännu! Spännande utställning, liten men riktigt sevärd. Två av sjalarna hade stickats åt berömdheter som Greta Garbo och drottning Silvia. Och alla var de gjorda i så tunnt garn att man kan dra dem genom vigselringen..

I've been to a course in lace knitting! You read all the time about people, especially in Sweden, going to all these nice courses and events, and very rarely we have anything like this here. The course was great fun, nothing but knitting for three whole days. No interruptions. No trivial things like work or cooking or cleaning.. :-D

No pics from the course either. Apparently we were too focused on our knitting. Instead some pictures from an exhibition; Estonian lace from the city of Haapsalu. (Click on the picture to enlarge.) Wow, okay this I can't do yet! The exhibition was small but definitely worth seing. Two of the shawls were made for famous people like Greta Garbo and Queen Silvia. And all of them were thin enough to pass through the wedding ring..