I have finished the third rainbow project, a cowl. It's a brilliant free pattern on Ravelry, called Ambitus. I have found the pattern via Annepaalandet, who has made several cowls. I used what I found in my stash sport and fingering weight, and rainbow colours. Yesterday, ends were woven in by a good friend, who was in between projects, and was itching to use her hands. Thank you very much!
Free hat pattern! (Not just today and not just Chelsea - the football hat patterns are all free all the time)
You find the Chelsea hat pattern here.
I hadn't, till I saw Yarnstarved version of my Lizard mittens on Ravelry.
Acording to Wikipedia the"Texas Blind Salamander(Eurycea rathbuni)is a rare cave-dwelling troglobiet amphibiannative to San Marcos, Hays County, Texas".
"I love the story behind these mittens. I saw Torirot’s lizard mitten pattern while cruising around Ravelry one day and decided my 7-soon-to-be-8-year-old nephew Tim might like them for his December birthday, so I called my sister and while we were on the phone my sister asked him if he liked lizards and his reply was that he really liked Texas Blind Salamanders! Tim is a little science guy and proceeded to describe these unusual critters that only live in the water-filled caves along the Edwards Aquifer near San Marcos, Texas. They are completely blind because they live underground and have blood red external gills on their necks. Sadly their conservation status is listed as threatened because of pollution and water overuse caused by growing cities. After being educated about these creatures by Tim, I pulled up pictures of them on the internet and modified the lizard mitten pattern by removing the eyes. I also added in Tim’s name and the year on the palms, and after knitting them embroidered the gills on the necks of the salamanders. Auntie Alice has done her small part for conservation because I am sure that Tim tells everyone who notices his mittens all about Texas Blind Salamanders. So don’t pollute and turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth!"
be sold at Epla's Christmas Market. If you want to make your own, I give you the pattern here. 
In last year's Christmas knit along, I managed to make a Christmas gift almost every month. This year - well two so far.. (I blogged about three, but the hat became a birthday present in stead.) But here's finally the next: Kiss me fingerless mittens.
Pattern: Kiss me by Dorothée Moulé
Yarn: from my aunt's stash
I fell in love with the cute frogs. The pattern is free. There are some long floats, and several rounds with three colours. If I were to make another pair, I'd consider embroidering some of the details.
Those of my readers who are not interested in pot holders, have probably stopped following by now. In an attempt to get you back, today I'll show you some beatiful socks.
Remember my Selbu Sea Horse Mittens?
Here are some Ravelry projects of the mittens.
It's a free pattern that can be downloaded from the "free mitten pattern" page on top of my blog.
Rose Hiver (ravelink) has made a beautiful pair of socks based on the pattern.
"Hold your Sea Horses"
Btw, there's still time to join the pot holder swap, click here.
All the patterns are now free, and can be downloaded here or on Ravelry.
Thanks to all those of you who have contributed for new football fields, it's been greatly appreciated!
Click on photo to get a larger version.
If you want a shorter hat, beanie style, omit the first row of stars and skiers.
I liked the pattern when I first saw it, but had no intention of making a fitted dress. But when I saw Jettshin’s Not Sparkle Dress, I could not get it out of my head. I had quite a lot of white ang green yarn in my stash, so I decided to cast on for a cardigan. (Had to get some more green yarn after a while, but more than half of it was from my stash).
The dress is a free pattern from Vogue Knitting. In the original pattern, the shaping is achieved by different needle sizes. I did not do that, but I used the heavier weight green yarn first, and then went down in yarn weight for shaping. It worked ok for a cardigan, I think.
In the original pattern, the dress is worked flat, in two pieces, and then sewed. I really don't see why anybody would do that! Are there any good reasons not to work this in the round? Exept fear of steeking, which I luckily don't suffer from.
You can see details on Ravelry. Yarn weight ranges from light fingering to DK, 100 % wool.
The sleeves are worked top down, the way I learn from the Audrey in Unst cardigan, with short row cap shaping. I did not plan to make puffed sleeves, but I obviously picked up to many stitches, so that't how they turned out - and I decided I like them that way.
For the front ribbing I then picked up too few stitches, had too unravel, and then picked up a stitch on 3 of 4 rows and from every stitch in the back. I used short rows for shaping. I could have made the a wider shawl collar, maybe I will.
Sorry some of the photos are a bit dark - day light is still scarce. And sometimes you think it's quite light, and when you see the photos, you understand it's not so light anyway. But it's getting lighter each day!
I have tested this pattern for Sigrun. It's called Le Vesinet Square after the place she lives in France. It's a really nice pattern! I love the small circles, and you can get to use really small amounts of yarn. So there is no reason to throw away anything! I think I will use it in my now more and more modified Babette Blanket.
I had decided not to start any new projects before finishing some old... But I could not resist when Annepålandet came up with a pattern for her gorgeous pot holders! It's free, and so far only in Norwegian, but will be translated she says. The other one is Disc-Disc (ravelink) from ChickenBetty.
Thanks, Anne, it's a lovely pattern, I will make more! 
This was a nice pattern, too!
On Saturday, Pinneguri announced me as winner of her Easter contest. And today I heard, first by a congratulation from Knitnetty on Ravelry, and later directly from the publisher Samlaget, that my Selbu Sea Horse mitten won an extra price in their Selbu Mitten contest. You can see all the winners on their site. And spring is finally here!
This is a “Selbu version” of my Hippocampus mittens, originally published in the Winter issue 2008 of The Inside Loop (now closed). Some people (from Selbu, which is a place in the middle of Norway, not far from Trondheim) have criticized Terri Shea’s book about Selbu mittens, saying that not all of her mittens are authentic Selbu mittens. Then the Norwegian publisher of the book announced a competition; they wanted knitters to send a photo of their best Selbu mittens. So I was inspired to make a mitten that would pretend to be a Selbu mitten, but that the “Selbu purists” certainly would not accept. Just for fun :-) I don't know what the criteria for a real Selbu mitten would be, but I've read somewhere that animals are not allowed, so these ones are definitely bastards. The text says “Selbu mitten or not” and “This is a real mitten”. If you want to make yourself a pair, you can download now , the pattern is a gift from me.
For some reason, my friends keep turning forty... And I've been making mittens for them. These are for Torgun, who turns 40 today. It's a free pattern by Hanneke Sieben. You can download it from her Ravelry shop. I modified the ribbing, otherwise followed the pattern.
These were for Charlotte. Free pattern from Knitty Winter 2006, Tiffany.
And these were for Marianne. My Hippocampus mittens, pattern can be found for free in the left sidebar.
Edit: I just realised I had spelt 40 wrong - it's forty, not fourty. I also didn't know that this is the only English number whose letters are in alphabetical order! Good to know! This is what Wikipedia says:
Despite being related to the word "four" (4), 40 is spelled "forty", not "fourty". This is because etymologically (and still in accents without the horse-hoarse merger), the words have different vowels, "forty" containing a contraction in the same way that "fifty" contains a contraction of "five". The letters of the word "forty" are in alphabetical order; this is the only number that has this linguistic property in English.
Some days ago I got a message from The Inside Loop to let me know that the website will be taken down in a few months. This is what they wrote in The Inside Loop group on Ravelry:
Diane and I have decided that The Inside Loop website will be taken down sometime shortly after 31st January 2010. Due to other commitments we will not be producing further issues, and have therefore decided to take the site down rather than keep it up indefinitely with no updates.This is how my patterns looked on the website:
The patterns and articles will remain available to download until the site closes, although we have already contacted everyone who has contributed to the magazine and expect that everything will still be available somewhere. :-)
Thank you for your interest in The Inside Loop. We have really enjoyed running the magazine.
Diane and Kate
I bought this lovely fabric in Congo (Brazzaville) in 1988. I made a dress, that I used to like a lot, a big sack with shoulder pads, as you might guess, at some point I stopped liking it. But I still loved the fabric, so I decided to turn it into a tunic. I sort of removed the central part of the dress; I cut it right under the bust, and then sewed on the bottom part of the skirt. I made a V-neck and added a velvet ribbon and some flower buttons. It was still a bit wide, so I knitted a lace to hold it in a bit, and add to the cuteness. I found the lace pattern through Ravelry, it's from Janine. I thought the story of the lace was sweet, so I'd like to share it with you. Here how Janine describes the pattern on Ravelry:The pattern is easy, and gives a simple but cute lace. It's worked from one end, so you can make it as long as you wish. Thanks for sharing, Janine! I added a crocheted cord of chain stitches to the lace in this tunic."I was recently going through my late Mom’s craft things when I found this knitting pattern.
It is the pattern my Grandmother used to make lace. She was a simple country woman. A farmer’s wife and mother of four children.
I can remember her making quilts and knitting lace.
She used this simple lace to edge all of her pillowcases.
I am not a knitter but I wanted Grandma’s lace to live on so I decided to share the pattern. "
