Phantasy swatch purse

Swatching is crucial for a good result, I know.. And when you knit in the round, you should always swatch in the round.

Which I did before I made the first Phantasy hat. But still, the swatch gauge was very different from the hat gauge. The hat turned out to small for me, so I had to give it away and

cast on more stitches to fit my big head.

A friend was the happy receiver. She recently had birthday, and I made her a purse from the swatch. First, I meant to line the purse, because of all the floats, but then I saw some felted purses in the shop. And after a couple of rounds in the washing machine (first at 40 degrees, which resulted in surprisingly little felting, then at 60), there was no need for lining.

February snow

As you can see, we do need all the wolly stuff I'm making.

(Photos from Maihaugen, open air museum.)

Scrap gnomy pattern for sale

My Scrap gnomy pattern is now available as a Ravelry download. Thanks to "Knittingcouple" (ravelink) it's also available in German!

The hat has been test knitted by Olesdatter, you can see her beautiful version here. Thanks a lot!

This is a perfect stash busting project! I used 6 nuances of main colour (MC), and three contrasting colours (CC), but you can choose to use more or less different colours, depending on your stash.

Sizes:
Child: suitable for head circumference 45 – 50 cm.
Adult: suitable for head circumference 52 – 58 cm.

Requirements:
For adult size: Appr. 150 g of DK/light worsted scrap yarn (tension 23 sts/10 cm and 29 rows/10 cm in stranded pattern. )
Needles: 3,0 mm and 3,5 mm small circulars and dpns.

For children’s size: Appr. 100 g of fingering scrap yarn (tension 28 sts/10 cm and 37rows /10 cm in stranded pattern)
Needles 2,0 mm and 2,5 mm small circulars and dpns.

Recycled dress

You need:

One sweater/T-shirt that is too short.

One turtleneck sweater that is too wide.

Scissors.

Sewing machine.

And voilá:

What techinques have you used?

When I first saw this, I thought - no, I'm not going to waste my time on this. But then I saw more of them, among them Yarndancer's and it was kind of fun, so I decided to give it a go.

The idea is that you mark with bold the things you have done, mark the ones you plan to do sometime in italics, and leave the rest in plain text. I have included crochet too, I've always done both. Some of the techniques I don't know at all, others I have looked up on Wikipedia or in dictionnaries, because I didn't know the English terms.

Afghan
American/English knitting (never ever!)
Baby items
Bobbles
Buttonholes
Cable stitch patterns
Cardigan
Charity knitting
Combination knitting (what's that?)
Continental knitting
Cuffs/fingerless mits/arm-warmers
Darning (had to check on Wikipedia to find the meaning of this word)
Designing knitted garments
Domino knitting (never finished...)
Drop stitch patterns
Dyeing spinning fiber
Dyeing with plant colors
Dying yarn
Entrelac (don't think I have the pacience...)
Fair Isle knitting
Free-form knitting
Fulling/felting
Garter stitch
Gloves
Graffiti knitting
Hair accessories
Hats: Cuff-up
Hats: Top-down (Marnie's Halley's Comet Hat)
Holiday related knitting
Household items
I-cord
Intarsia
Jewelry
Kitchener stitch
Knitted flowers
Knitting a gift
Knitting a pattern from an on-line knitting magazine
Knitting and purling backwards (What the .... is that????)
Knitting art
Knitting for a living
Knitting for pets
Knitting for preemies
Knitting in public
Knitting items for a wedding
Knitting on a loom
Knitting smocking
Knitting mittens (or other small tubular items) on one or two circulars
Knitting to make money (designing, that is)
Knitting two socks on two circulars simultaneously
Knitting with alpaca
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Knitting with beads (my Phantasy hats)
Knitting with camel yarn
Knitting with cashmere
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with cotton
Knitting with dog/cat hair (no, but I once borrowed a sweater made from dog's hair - it was incredibly warm!)
Knitting with dpns
Knitting with linen
Knitting with metal wire
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Knitting with self patterning/self striping/variegated yarn
Knitting with silk
Knitting with someone else’s hand-spun yarn
Knitting with soy yarn
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Knitting with wool
Knitting with your own hand-spun yarn
Lace patterns
Long Tail CO
Machine knitting
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Moebius band knitting
Norwegian knitting
Participate in an exchange
Participating in a KAL
Pillows
Publishing a knitting book (I can always dream...)
Purses/bags
Rug
Scarf
Shawl
Short rows
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Slip stitch patterns
Slippers
Socks: toe-up
Socks: top-down
Steeks (Lots! Norwegians are barbaric when it comes to steeking!)
Stockinette stitch
Stuffed toys
Swatching
Sweater
Tassels
Teaching a child to knit
Teaching a male how to knit
Textured knitting
Thrummed knitting
Toy/doll clothing
Tubular CO
Twisted stitch patterns
Two end knitting (looks very time consuming)
Writing a pattern

Stripey along

Some kind of Ravelry hick up, I thought, when I noticed that my Stripey pattern had been downloaded 147 times on the 1st of February. But then I understood that the hat is chosen as the February knitalong in Hobbyboden (a Norwegian craft site). And new Stripeys are popping up, for example Tesha's (blog in Norwegian).

Some people have found it a little short. You can easily make it longer by knitting a cm or two more before starting the decreases.

Here is Stripey's brother, Curly:

Less is not more...

...in this book by Tine Solheim, Maskeball, one of my favourite knit and crochet books.

The title "Maskeball" has a double meaning in Norwegian, masquerade and "ball of stitches". Tine Solheim combines knitting and crochet; cables, lace and colourwork; beads and colour. So you can imagine, I love this book. Some of the designs are a little too much even for me, but others are great. I have lots of plans. but right now I don't even find the book - grr!

I don't think the book is translated. Norwegian crafters can also find her designs in "Familien" from time to time, this is from their Christmas edition 2008. I love the dress to the left.

I am making a tunic from the 2007 Christmas edition. I'm afraid it's been hibernating for a long time now...but I hope to finish it this winter.