Lilirious knits

I’d like to share something strange with you, my dear reader. I work with my hands, both my hobbies and in my professional life I work with my brain, eyes, and hands. This has always been a reason for me to be very careful with what I do (or don’t do) with my hands (and eyes). Now this fear can get a little extreme and I’m really trying to work on it. During the TdF this summer I ordered my first russian spindle from IST Crafts, and I was loving it. I had already practiced with the takhli from Cotton Clouds I bought at De Spinners. It’s a takhli with a hook so I could practice om the movements without constantly unwinding the yarn.

One of the greatest videos I’ve ever seen on spinning with a russian spindle is the one by fleegle. There’s also a lot of other great videos out there so go check them out if you’re interested in spinning on supported spindles! It might be me but I’m a big fan of videos that simply show you what to do without the talking. I’m way too impatient for the talking (I’m so sorry).

I started spinning the gotland roving I had left and plied it and I was absolutely thrilled with the yarn and the spindle. The spinning process was a bit different… I love spinning on my golding but after a while it tends to get really heavy and it’ll hurt my wrists and I have to take frequent brakes. Like I said I’m very overprotective over my hands and wrists and I don’t take pain too lightly. I will stop immediately and that will be the end of it. Unfortunately this is what happened to my russian spindle as well. When you’re trying to learn something you’re more focussed on the yarn you’re producing rather than the way you hold your hand, so my thumb and wrists started hurting and it was enough to freak me out.

That was until my cousing came for a holiday trip and brought me something I had asked for but had forgotten. An Iranian/ Kurdish spindle!

The spindle design is simple, but I love it! It’s a household item after all. I’m still a bit unsure how the yarn is supposed to be wound on but the shame makes me feel it should be wound in the center on top of the ‘whorl’ like thingie, but I’m really unsure So when I was looking at spindles I fell in love with my own pretty russian spindle again and started spinning. After a bit of spinning the pain in my hand returned, but this time I was determined to find out what I could do about it. I descovered something very important and I’d like to share this with you because it might be one of those things you accidentally do when you’re trying to learn something. Instead of flicking with my fingers I was flicking with my thumb… I didn’t even know that this was possible, but I managed to do it while my wrist was in an awkward position. There you go, a recipe for disaster. So I went too the googles and the youtubes and found this video by Lisa Chan. It made me realise I spin for fun, not because my life depends on it

I can now happily report that the pain is gone and I’m spinning again (in a scandalously comfortable position).

The two happy spindles enjoying a little sun.

I’ve been working on Tenney Park as well. I’m still really happy I chose the TLS method instead of knitting raglans. Maybe it’s because I think my upper arms (and shoulders) are a little flabby and I simply don’t like the way they look in raglan sweaters. It makes them stand out I guess.

It’s going on rather well, and I’m still very happy with the way it’s turning out. Yesterday I felt bold and decided to try it on, and thankfully it fits me! Unfortunately I was working with 80cm cables and I had a hard time taking it off without dropping half of the stitches

On another note I’d like to show you how I knit during the colder months:

They do get heavy after a while  :P

They’re finally done and I’m really happy with the way they turned out! When I asked the BF what kind of socks he’d like me to knit him his answer was ‘rainbow socks’! My BF is a happy fellow and, as it turns out, is a fan of cheerful socks!

The socks are knit with drops delight and some zettl sock yarn in white using a 2.75mm set of dpn’s. I was really happy knitting this project because of all the colors. Knitting something this colorful during the early days of January was very pleasant.

The obvious drawback to rainbow yarn is that you’ll inevitably end up with socks that don’t match. The first is a nice rainbow sock but the second sock turned out a bit too pink.

I loved knitting this sock, not only because of the colors, but also because I was familiar with the pattern. Unfortunately knittin socks while being with family/ watching movies/ doing other stuff might cause some other problems. As you can see the first sock is half a repeat longer than the second sock. I don’t even know how this happened.. but I know for sure it’s not going to be fixxed any time soon.

This is the third time I’m trying to type something here. This time I won’t erase it so bear with me.. I’m having trouble starting the January post because there’s something about January that makes me want to do a lot of different stuff instead of knitting/ blogging. The month of January is overcast and foggy. Today, however, it’s not. It’s a beautiful day, blue sky and sooo sunny! I’m not exactly sure why I have to do anything at all.. I just want to curl up on the couch (in the sun) and  knit all day. Unfortunately, that is exactly why I couldn’t finish this post and why I restarted everytime. My mind just wanders off to the sun and knitting and the post doesn’t get finished.

The new year came with a mellow form of startitis. I felt like knitting something nice and warm for me to wear with muted colors and tones of gray in it. I needed something that made me feel like I was a part of January and I was blending in.

The pattern is Tenney Park and it’s a whole lot of awesome if you ask me. I’ve never knit entrelac and to be honest I never felt like knitting entrelac. I think it’s like stranded knitting, when you don’t do stranded knitting you don’t like it, but once you try it you’re going to love it. I guess it’s the same with a lot of things in knitting. I had it with cables, socks, stranded knitting and mittens so why not with entrelac as well. It felt reallly good to read that the designer had the same experience as me and didn’t like entrelac at first either.

Let me tell you one thing: entrelac and variegated/ rainbow yarn were destined for eachother. It’s a chicken and egg story, it doesn’t matter which one came first, they’re basically the same thing. You don’t want to knit entrelac with a solid color. You can, but you’ll need different colors and the effect will be much less dramatic I suppose.

So I had this ball of frogged rowan tapestry in rainbow lying around and when I saw this pattern it became clear I had to start digging for it again. The gray yarn is the awkwardly named Zeeman Nigar. I don’t know who named the yarn but I personally feel the yarn should be renamed something else…. (just putting my opinion out there… ).

So the pattern calls for a fingering kind of yarn, but I’m knitting this with a heavy yarn and because of that I had to hold the tapestry yarn double. I’m modding the pattern because I’m using a heavier yarn, I don’t like raglan increases because it makes my shoulders look weird and because I don’t like to sew the entrelac front piece after I’ve knitted the whole sweater.

I’m using the tailored sweater method instead and I’m loving the way it’s turning out. I had made a little mistake in the calculations so I had to frog a bit and redo part of the sleeve increases, but now it’s all fine.

I know the edges (between sweater and the entrelac front piece) will be less obvious if sew them in the end, but I feel the sweater has a ‘sturdier’ feel because of the heavy yarn and I like the edge because it seems like the entrelac piece is behind the rest of the sweater. I might knit a ‘summer’ version of this sweater with light weight yarn if it turns out good!

This is probably the last update before the first FO post of 2012, but the socks are going nicely. It’s a bit awkward to knit with small needles after battling with 6.0mm needles, but it’s a nice change

I cast on a little mystery project on the side, but I’m not really focussed on it just yet. A while ago I bought the same yarn I had used for my Jailbird in a purplish color, but I didn’t know what to do with it just yet. So I went searching trough my faved Rav projects and found this. I fell in love with this adaptation of the original pattern (I’m truely sorry but the sleeves…… oh God the sleeves). I had fallen in love with it ages ago but I wasn’t confident enough and I didn’t have the right yarn. Until now

Knitting socks is amazing. At first the construction of a sock seems both difficult and easy at the same time. Sock knitting can be very easy or very complex. It can be a very quick knit, or if you’re thinking of stockings it can be quite a long project. I have 37-38 size feet, which I believe is a little smaller than average 38-39. This means that when I knit socks for myself I’m usually done in two or three days of leisure paced knitting. I haven’t knit much larger socks than size 42, which is also quite easy with a larger needle size. I like knitting socks and so I’m not really worried about wear.

I knit them a lot faster than I wear them out so there’s not much of a problem I should mention I wear them a lot and for much longer time periods than I would wear machine knit socks. So far, and I haven’t been knitting socks for that long so this might change (soon…?), I haven’t worn out any of my socks so I’m feeling very brave. Maybe this is exactly the reason why this new problem has arisen.

I’ve finished one pair of socks with handspun yarn and now I’m knitting my second pair. One of the things I’ve noticed about knitting socks and sockyarn is that the sock (and yarn) tends to relax once the FO is washed for the first time. Most of the socks I’ve knit have been knit with the same kind of yarn, so after a number of socks I was starting to understand how the socks grows after washing and in which areas.

Here you see the first finished sock after it’s first little bath. As I may have said in previous posts I’m knitting this sock for my grandfathers birthday this year. If I were to use this yarn for a bigger project I would’ve made a swatch, but since it’s just a sock I winged it. Thankfully enough it worked out perfectly and the whole sock was quite nice. I asked my dad if he would try it on and it turned out to be a great fit.

Then I gave it a wash, before knitting the second one.

I may have to explain why I did this. The pattern calls for 38 stitches for the instep and 32 for the sole. While knitting and trying it on the BF I decided it might be a better idea to leave 38 stitches on the sole because it might become too tight. My grandfather’s circulation isn’t what it’s used to be and socks that are too tight might not be the best idea. Thankfully for me I remembered this, and once I was finished weaving all the ends I decided to give it a bath before casting on for the second sock.

The sock on the picture is still wet so I couldn’t show a better picture with some one actually modeling the sock (sorry about that), but the sole turned out too be much too wide. Like 6 stitches worth of ‘too wide’.

I already started knitting the second sock but I’m still knitting the cuff so I’ll make sure to decrease the right amount stitches for the gusset so I’ll end up with 32 sole stitches. Once it’s done I’ll frog and reknit the first sock. Lesson learned

I finished them a few days ago but with all the christmas cheer going around I had no time to post them here.

They’re done and I’m very happy with the way they turned out. Now let’s just hope my mom is happy too! It’s amazing how much easier knitting gloves has become. The first time I was really intimidated and I wasn’t really sure of what I was doing. Knitting them seemed to take forever and ever. This time I was done before I knew it, and I didn’t even have gaps between the fingers! I’ll take them to my mom tomorrow and if they fit I’ll weave in the ends and give them a gentle washing.

I’m always amazed at how much less scary things become when you get better at knitting. There’s still things I’m scared of (a little), but I’m still silly enough to just jump in anyway.

This is the first christmas in our new home and unfortunately much of the old christmas decorations have been damaged or simply shattered during the move. It’s made this years decorations a bit less festive but I still like them. It’s enough to present you with a little merry christmas picture with me and kiwi

My cats and I have an understanding. I knit, and they sleep in my lap. It’s how it’s been since we have them, though they don’t sleep on my lap during the summer when it’s hot.

The last thing I’d like to show you is my grandfathers birthday present. January 1st is my grandfathers birthday and he’s being plagued by cold feet. I’m knitting him socks with handspun shetland yarn from this years tdf. I’m also using drops alpaca in natural white and black. The alpaca yarn is held double because the shetland yarn is thicker and sturdier. I’m surprised at how fast this thing knits up, I’ve actually already turned the heel on this first sock and it’s going really good.

We’re doing some remodeling this week and I hope to be able to post the FO picture  before the end of the year. I’m also still hoping to finish the BF’s tomten vest, but I still have to spin some yarn for it, so I’m not sure if I’ll make it.

I love knitting hats, socks and mitts. They’re so quick and easy to knit it almost feels like cheating! This post is a double FO post because I have two hats to show off ^.^

The Scott Pilgrim hat! I knit it with a heavier yarn so I CO 80 stitches instead of 100 and I didn’t do as many repeats, but the result is pretty much the same. It’s nice and warm! The pattern was made for Michael Cera (the actor who played Scott Pilgrim), so I guess it’s super awesome! (I really loved the movie )

The other FO hat is the Corbin! I really love this pattern because even though it seems like the hat is really really thin it’s actually fully lined and really warm

I loved Corbin so much I’m going to knit one for myself as well. The only mod is that I added another repeat because the hat was a bit too short. Like I said, these smaller knitting projects almost feel like cheating.

I’m hoping to finish the knotty gloves and the deep in the forrest mitts too before the end of the year!