Knitting in colour - g r e e n -

Judith 's challenge this time is green. Which is on of my favourite colours. Just go back to my last post to see my newest green projects. Here are som older ones:

Top, from left to right

• Vaila verde (Green Vaila in Spanish, I liked the letter rhyming) And I love the sweater!


• Loppem Pattern by Norah Gaughan


• Curly My free hat pattern )

Middle, from left to right

• Lizard mittens My free mitten pattern


• Old hat, combination of two patterns from Small Sweaters: Colorful Knits for Kids by Lise Kolstad and Tone Takle


• Little fish sweater from the same book

Bottom from left to right

• Bonsai tunic by Norah Gaughan (Interweave knit)


• Green hat, no pattern, for sale here


• Square for afghan The motif is Asturias' logo, Paraíso Natural (Northern Spain, Natural paradise) A beautiful part of Spain.

Lion mittens - or how to mirror a chart

The little boy of the Lizard mittens now wanted lion mittens:


I used Juvel yarn from Idena, needles 3,5 for the ribbing (36 sts) and 4,5 for the pattern. I should have used smaller needles for the pattern, they are a bit loose, and a bit big, but he'll grow into them.

I ran across a discussion on Ravelry about how to knit Selbu style mittens, and there I was explained how to make a mirrored picture of a chart. When the pattern is not symmetrical, I like the mittens to be mirrored pictures of each other. So, for the second mitten, I use to read the chart from left to right. But since you knit from right to left, some people obviously find this a little tricky.

I use excel to creat the chart. Marnie has a very nice tutorial on how to do this. But I've not been able to flip the chart in excel. (It might be possible too, for all I know). But anyway, it's very easy to do with for example Paint:

- Make a chart, for example using excel.
- Mark the pattern and copy it (ctrl C)
- Paste it into Paint (or any other editing program like that, I suppose) (ctrl V)
- Save as for example "Left lion mitten"
- Then choose "Rotate/flip" (I have the Norwegian version, but I suppose this is what it says in English)
- Click on "Flip horizontally"
- Save as "Right lion mitten"

Left lion mitten

Right lion mitten


Click on the charts to have an enlarged picture.
Text, charts and photos are © torirot design. The pattern is for personal and non-profit use only. Have fun with the lions, knitting and playing in the snow!

Ready for a green winter

And a white one, I hope...

Droplet hat from Norah Gaughan's book Knitting Nature.

I searched for projects on Ravelry when making this hat. And found Tora's post about it. I totally agree with her that there's no reason what so ever to work this hat flat. (Unless you don't find a suitable circular needle and want to start knitting straight away, like i did.) And like her, I had to add more rows to make it fit, at least ten more rows.

About the book: Coming from a family of mathematicians and phycisists, I enjoyed reading about how she has been inspired by math and geometrical and fractal figures from nature. I read all the chapter introductions with interest (I often skip them in knitting books). Except for the Droplet hat, there were no patterns that I immediately wanted to make, but there are elements I might use later, and maybe a cardigan or a sweater somewhere in the future.

The yarn is Kilcarra Aran Tweed, bought from Koolkitten destashing. I had almost two skeins left from my Loppem, also by Norah Gaughan.

Owl mittens, "Give a Hoot", free pattern by Jocelyn Tunney fom Kelbourne Woolens.

A nice and quick project. My gauge was too tight, and I had to make them longer and block them quite a lot to make them fit not too tightly. So they're not my warmest mittens, but very cute, I think. The black and white buttons were just coincidence, I only found four buttons in my stash that were small enough.

Congolese tunic and Mama's lace

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:

"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. "

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.

Seminar knitting

I used to knit during classes, at school and in university. Nowadays I sometimes knit at conferences and seminars. This is the result of two days of seminar and a train trip:

It's a child version of my Scrap Gnomy , or Pointy Striped Color as Annie Modesitt called it in her book project 1000 faboulous hats. I love using left over yarn, and putting together colours. I'm quite happy with how they're turning out so far. They're going to be Christmas presents for two little sisters, I think.

I started the blue one when the pink reached the point where I wanted to change to double pointed needles. There is too much jingling with dpn's, I don't want to annoy people. And I don't want everybody's look on me when a needle falls to the floor...

There's another hat on the needles, too.

Can you guess what football team it is?

Fretex tunics

I come from a family who seldom threw things away. At a time, reuse was a necessity, but still now, when we have everything we need, I like the idea of reuse. We throw away too many things in this part of the world.



These tunics are made from one sweater from Fretex, the Salvation Army's second hand shop in Norway. The rest is fabric, ribbons and buttons from my stash. By making the two "flowers" with buttons, I managed to use the whole sweater! The darker green turtle neck is from the bottom ribbing. The rest of the ribbing was turned into a flower (see collage).

I don't have a photo of the original sweater, beeing too eager to cut it up. There were some stains in the front, those are now hidden behind the cuffs.

I intended to make a sort of tutorial. for the flowers. But when it came to finishing, I got to eager, and the last steps went without photographing. But you can probably work out how they're made, it's quite simple. Here you see the first steps, anyway.

Then you just sew the cutted edge with tack stitches, pull tight and fasten. Hide the stitches with a button. Voilà!

This little girl wanted to help sewing, too!

Knitting in colour - p i n k -

Judith 's challenge this time is pink. Which is not my colour, but when I had a look, I found several projects, so obviously I use more pink than orange! All of these have been given away, though. Most of them are free patterns, maybe you can get some inspiration.



Top, from left to right

• Stella Polaris hat, my design, free charts and notes on my blog (I'll make mittens and write down a proper pattern and put it up for sale - some day..)


• Amiguitas wristwarmers, my design, free pattern


• Amiga neckwarmer free pattern in The Inside Loop (my first published pattern)

Middle, from left to right

• Pink version of my Phantasy hat


• Free form crochet and knit necklace


• Modified version (baby size with earflaps) of Staceyjoy's headigan

Bottom from left to right

• Selbu modern hat, free pattern from Zeitgeistyarn


• Pudorosa neckwarmer from the Spanish online knitting magazine Tejemanejes.


• Tiffany mittens from Knitty