Libelula Piper

I knew I had the right button when I saw the Piper hat in Twist Collective Autumn 2009 .I first saw these buttons in an Art and Craft Fair in Oslo last August. Later, I saw that the museum shop at Maihaugen had started to sell these buttons, and that's where I bought this pretty dragonfly button. I tried to find a link to the museum shop, but couldn't find one. (You have a job to do, Tove! Here is a photo from the museum pharmacy.) You can see more buttons at Snella og Petronella. And here is my hat:

I used Garnstudio DROPS Silke Alpaca. It's very soft and nice, but lacks a little bit in elasticity. But I think I'll be happy with the hat. It's a great pattern, well written, and easy to follow. You can read about the design process on the designer Christa Giles' blog here.

I started out with the larger size, but I realised it would become to big. I'm so used to stranded colourwork, so I forget that stockinette stitch is much more elastic. So I omitted the last increase round, and it turned out ok for my 56 cm head (22 inches).

Summer green Loppem

Another finished object - summer holiday car knitting, Norah Gaughan's Loppem.

Yarn: Kilcarra Aran Tweed, bought from Koolkitten destashing. It's hard to find this kind of yarn in Norway, at least where I live. I really like it, both the green colour, and the tweedy texture. I made size 38 (by using stitch numbers for size 32 and measurements for size 38 with a gauge of 15 in stead of 18 ). Maybe I should have made size 36, it's a little bigger than I expected, but I'll get used to it. It's warm and cosy, anyway. (Notice the cabling mistake under? The cables should have been mirrored, but I did not bother to unravel..)

The pattern was easy to follow, exept I might have misunderstood something about the placement of button holes. Never mind.

I used less than three skeins, so I think I'll have enough for a pair of mittens and a hat too. Yummy!

Cavalos marinhos - portuguese sea horses

I'm happy to announce that my sea horse mittens

are available in Portuguese!

Download now

Translation is by Susana (Acucena on Ravelry).

Obrigada, Susana!! Thank you!

My corset tank top

I finished my corset tank top this summer - it was a fun knit, easier than I thought it would be, and the result is even better than I hoped. It's definitely a pattern I would recommend to lace newbies, and I might make it again.

I used Brilla from my stash. Didn't think of this pattern at first, but then I searched Ravelry projects that had used Brilla, and I found Marnie's tank. I asked her how much she had used, and saw that I would probably have enough. Isn't Ravelry a great resource? (Later I realised my skeins were not the same lot, and the nuances were quite different. So I bought some multicoloured Brilla, and worked 1-4 rounds og yellow and 1-3 of multicoloured.) I used appr. 6 skeins altogether.

Looks strange when not worn..

Modifications: Worked in the round - partly because the colour changes made that the easiest, partly because I don't like purling, partly because I don't like sewing buttons (all in all - because I'm lazy...)

New blog design

I was happy when I managed to get a left sidebar earlier this summer. But after a while I dicovered some bugs - some links weren't showing properly, they would only show when you moved the mouse over them - a little annoying. So I redid everything, this time using a free template from bloggerbuster. I think it's ok now. I don't like spending so much time on these things. I had to redo some of the widgets in the sidebar, but I got the label cloud I've been wanting automatically.

More interesting, Twist Collective Autumn 2009 is up. I have just browsed it quickly, and these are my faves so far: Piper by Christa Giles, and Vine yoke cardigan by Ysolda Teague.

Nice things seen in Gothenburg

"Kram zon" = Hugging zone


I also found a nice yarn store, Strikk.
"Strikk" means "knit" in Swedish
(and in Norwegian, these are closely related languages)

Summer holiday hat production

It's been a rainy summer...

The patterns will soon be available, Norwegian team hats here, Arsenal here and Holland here.