Happy new year, everyone! Thanks for visiting and commenting in 2009. See you in 2010!
1. Knitted H for poetry society, 2. a, 3. Pperu, 4. Allison's Baby Shower, 5. LetterY, 6. Lucky Love Heart, 7. Nnantucket, 8. jumper with E, 9. P1000146, 10. knitted star tutorial, 11. Letter Y 001, 12. E, 13. A for Anna ~ my sis, 14. letter R, 15. Peace Baby embroidery detail
Created with fd's Flickr Toys
When it comes to knitting, I think I'll always remember 2009 as the year of the football hats. This has so far raised 16 000 NKr for football fields. (We need one million, but luckily, there are other ways of getting money too..)
But there have been other projects also, most of them you can see in my Flickr set, FO 2009. 
I have tried some new techniques in 2009. The most useful thing I learnt, was spit splicing (see under tutorials in the left sidebar, if you wonder what and how). I've also understood what "wrap and turn" is all about, didn't really know about short rows before.
I also had the great pleasure to teach a little girl to knit. I recently learned from her family's Christmas letter, the pot holder is now finished.
This beautiful hat is a gift brought to us from Ecuador. It's all alpaca, I think, very soft and warm. And I love the colours! But there were no matching mittens.
The mittens are made of 100% wool, different scrap yarn, worked on needles 3 mm (cuff) and 3,5 mm. I was going to make a corrugated rib, but beeing in a lazy mood, I invented a "Lazy currogated rib" (I'm sure it's done before, but haven't seen it.) I don't like purling with two colours. So I started out in black: k1, p1 (working in the round). Next round only knitting: 1 black (over the knitted stitch from last round), 1 blue (over the purled stitch from last round). Then repeating these to rounds. I'm quite happy with the result: A firm and elastic (and quick) ribbing for lazy knitters. 
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or whatever you wish to celebrate!
Yesterday was Winter Solstice, and from now on the days are getting longer, a good reason to celebrate up here, anyway. This is how it looks outside my window today. Beautiful, qiuet, cold (18 degrees below zero, to be exact). Knitting weather. 
When I finsished this summer's football hats, I promised myself I would not make another hat till after Christmas. But I haven't been able to keep that promise. At the end of the football season (which in Norway is in October..), the ten year old's football trainers were to receive a gift. One ManU fan and another Liverpool. I knitted, the other parents paid money to the football field project and the trainers were happy.
One of the mothers told me she had been an Aston Villa fan since childhood, because she liked the sound of the team's name. And now they even have a Norwegian player, John Carew. So, a hat for Cathinka:
The pattern (in English)is available for purchase, 4 £.
I made the Brann hat this summer, and the pattern is now updated with a child version with earflaps. You can download it here for 50 nkr (Norwegian pattern)
Pattern in Norwegian, 50 nkr.
The pattern is for sale, and has been updated with a children's size. Pattern can be downloaded from the left sidebar. If you prefer the Norwegian version, please send me an e-mail. When I saw Kristin Nicholas ' new book on Twist collective 's blog, I decided I had to get that book. I ordered it straight away from the author's side. But then got an e-mail about additional payment for postage, which turned out to be 22 $, almost as much as the book itself. I thought that was a bit too much, and Kristin Nicholas was kind to refund what I had already payed.
But I still wanted the book, of course, so I looked for it in Norwegian online stores. It took a while before I found it, because they showed a different front page (I notice it's been updated now). I finally ordered it from Tanum. And the book is lovely! I really like her bold use of colour. The projects are worked at a gauge of 20 per 10 cm, which is an unusual gauge for me. When working stranded colourwork, I normally knit at a gauge of around 25-27. But the book is full of inspiration! And I might make the mittens - or something else.
Leaving rainy and cold November weather for a week in Gran Canaria was a good idea! It's amazing how quickly you get used to 25 degrees celcius. (But I'm still happy I live in a place with four seasons, where I get to wear my woolly knitting.)
Puerto Mogán
In the sun I finished my green Noro Scroll Lace shawl (from Ysolda's Whimsical knits 2). The picot edging did not turn out nicely, so I omitted it, and did a plain cast off. (Choosing to blame the ugly picots on the yarn, and not the Spanish red wine..)
Judith has given me a blog award.
Thank you so much! I'm supposed to give it to five other blogs. (Judith did, you should have a look at my fellow award winner's blogs - blogs I did not know before, but will certainly visit again!) It's hard to choose five favourites among the blogs I follow. So consider it given to all the blogs I like to visit. "Ingen nevnt, ingen glemt" as we say in Norwegian (meaning "nobody mentioned, nobody forgotten")
