Some shopping

I posted a while ago about my Eyeball shawl. It will be too warm to wear during summer, but I sure would love to have it finished until autumn because I think it will turn out really good. But I figured out a while ago that I would need one more skein of the white main color. I wouldn’t blame the pattern for that though because the yarn that I used for the main color is on the heavier side of fingering weight yarns compared to what is suggested in the pattern so it’s no surprise that it ran out faster. I bought 200 grams as suggested in the pattern and it would have been just enough for the main color but not for the brioche edge.

Anyway, ordering one skein felt a bit silly and I thought I was good for the summer when it comes to my stash… But then again I am a fan of shopping, so of course I had to order yarn for all of my other plans and also come up with some new, to reach the limit for free shipping ;).

The grey skeins of cashmerino aran was actually a christmas gift, I just brought them out for a photo with their new yellow friends! I haven’t used them since christmas because I wanted to use the yarn for some sort of scarf, and then two balls were not enough. The yarn is really soft and therefore not really suited for mittens or anything that has to go through a lot of wear and tear. I think they will have to rest until autumn and then I will come up with some sort of colorwork cowl pattern.

The other skeins are all Stylecraft dk, which I have seen recommended as the best cheap acrylic yarn out there, and I am willing to agree. It’s almost as cheap as those supermarket yarns  but much more soft, fluffy and without that plastic feel to it. Of course it still feels like an acrylic yarn but it’s really nice to my hands when working with it. Also it comes in a ton of different colors! The grey skeins are for the shark bag that i wrote about in my last post, the color silver grey I found to be a nice shark color.

For me since I as a student have a limited budget, I enjoy having a go-to acrylic yarn at home. Especially when it comes to buying a sweater amount of yarn, cheap wool is not an option for me because of the itching, and I don’t want to waste some really nice yarn until I trust myself with being able to knit totally flawless sweaters… An acrylic yarn sweater can look just as fabulous, and not having to worry about your nice sweater being ruined in a washing accident is of course nice. The burgundy skeins will therefore become a sweater, inspired by this project. Probably I will use another pattern, but I was inspired to knit a sweater in the exact same color.

Burgundy was actually my favorite color for a long time as a kid, I guess I was an old soul because it’s not really a “kids’ color”, is it? Nowadays I would probably list teal, pink and black as my favorite colors… But I think the reason that having a favorite color is not really a grown-up thing is that you understand that there are too many shades of one color to describe and some of them you will always consider to be awful. If I were to give a proper answer it would end up like: Whats your favorite color? -Blue, but I would say C.I. 77510 rather than 73000, you can google that if you want to know what I’m into!

I have a plan for those three skeins to the right as well, but I will actually keep that a secret until I’ve started the project so you can see for yourselves. But I can at least say that the lovely color combo is inspired by this crochet pattern which I found in my ravelry favorites, it’s cool isn’t it?

As for me I will be studying for exams, but after next week I will probably be blogging and knitting more throughout summer.

Enjoy your knitting!
//Nelly

Crochet

I’m not that into crochet, however I have done a few things in the past, lots of granny squares, dog toys and such but it’s been some time. Now however I’ve started on the Shark Bag because of course there is no better way to carry my valuable stuff to the beach this summer. I love it when these cute and silly things come in adult size as well. Grown-ups also want to have fun!

Here’s the Shark coming along nicely, crochet is so fast!

I also stumbled upon a crochet blog, not your average crochet, which seems nice with lots of nice crochet projects,  free patterns and also some knitting. I also love the name of the blog, that’s some nice attitude right there. The reason I found it was that someone linked to this Navajo 3-ply technique, sounds really fancy doesn’t it? You make a loop with three strands of yarn when you crochet, so that you can make your thin yarn thicker and still only use one ball at a time, neat! I can imagine that it would be nice to be able to switch back and forth between one and three strands, so that you could do some freestyle crochet where some sections have thicker structure.

Something that is usually crocheted are different sorts of mesh carrying bags, but this one, the weightless produce bag is actually knitted which makes it more lightweight, and compared to the ones I’ve seen before it looks more “shrinkable”. These bags are quite popular right now for those who are already trying to not buy plastic bags to use from the store, and also want to stop using those bags that you put fruit and vegetables in. I really don’t like those because they’re not sturdy enough to re-use so they often go right in the recycling bin. I know what you’re thinking, just when will some citizens get “level up” badges from the government for doing all this?? Lately what I’ve been doing is buying say, 10 potatoes, without any bag at all and I can imagine that being mildly frustrating for the cashiers in the future… Anyway, thats the point of the bag not weighing much, that you can just throw it on the scale with no panic about the price. This pattern is also available in Swedish so that’s why there’s a bit of a hype at the moment. That is one thing that I love about us Swedes, how excited we get over saving the world with knitted produce bags! I guess they would also be a nice gift since you can give them away with their content (maybe chocolate and fruit instead of 10 potatoes) and then your friend can also join in the world-saving.

Enjoy your crocheting and knitting!

Over and out, Nelly

 

Summer patterns

Hello!

I have been really excited about summer due to the nice weather we’ve been getting lately. Therefore I chose some of my Ravelry favorites and created a new bundle for spring and summer inspiration. I have collected some nice short sleeved tops and tank tops because I think that type of patterns can be difficult to find. But even a long sleeved sweater can be a summer garment according to me, if it’s airy enough and not knit in wool. People often state that sheep’s wool is no nice because it keeps you warm in winter and cool in the summer… Maybe those people are just really cold in general or something, because they are wrong. However wearing some actual clothes in summer is always a good idea to block the sun and keep cool, especially if you, like me get sunburnt easily. Even if it might be too late now to start a summer garment and have it finished for this season, it can still be nice to knit in thinner yarns just to have a more portable project and less sweaty hands!

Happy knitting!

//Nelly

Sweater weather

I have been enjoing the first couple of really warm days here in Linköping. Me and my boyfriend have been making plans for the garden and we have been caring for the baby plants.

Here is our little garden! There are some nice tulips going on right now.

The risk of snow should be over and everything that had started to sprout has also survived so far, except for the lettuce that died because it was too cold so I have planted new seeds now. The same thing happened last year… so maybe until next year I will have learned to wait… I’m planning to continue taking photos of the plants so I can follow the progress of everything.

Here are the baby Zucchinis that also got a dinosaur friend the other day.

I created a new space to grow peas, we will see how that works out.

As far as knitting goes I have some plans for nice projects but they are secret so far since I hope to publish the patterns on Ravelry, I hope you forgive me for that. Until then you will have to do with the Shapely Boyfriend cardigan that I’m currently working on.

The yarn that I’m knitting the sweater in, Novita eco cotton, is some eco-friendly recycled cotton mix that i bought last year. Its unusually soft for cotton and really nice to wear, and it was super cheap. However, I would not recommend it because there’s a lot of dust going on that comes from the yarn when knitting with it. The problem goes away after a few washes of the garment, I know that since I knit another sweater in the same yarn (but dark blue) and that sweater is fine now and there’s no pilling. It is however quite annoying to knit with a yarn that makes a mess and crawls into your nose while knitting… I would get a cat if I wanted that kind of experience.

 

One of the skeins also had like 5 knots in it, not ok! I got trust issues and had to re-roll the rest of them to not miss any knots.

I’m almost done with the body and will pick up stitches for the ribbing around the body. I have been following the pattern but doing another raglan increase, I always do M1L and M1R nowadays. They always look symmetrical and nice and don’t create holes.
What’s your favorite increase or decrease?

Here you can sort of see that there are side decreases above the hand and increases for the hip where the hand is. So it is quite a fitted cardigan.

I will also add pockets, and they will be adequately sized for an iPhone. There are black lines marking the pocket placement at the moment. If you have ever done an afterthought heel for a sock, that’s how I do pockets as well, so I will remove the black yarn and pick up new stitches.

I changed the ribbing to K1 P1 instead of K2 P2 just because it always looks better in my opinion. I am also planning on making more (and smaller) button holes and using smaller buttons. I don’t have any good buttons at home, so I will probably just bring the sweater to the sewing store when it’s finished to try and find buttons of good size and color.

I really recommend this as a first cardigan pattern. I have knitted sweaters before but without following a pattern, so my plan for this one is that it will be my first actually wearable sweater… The pattern is free, the sweater looks great (I guess I don’t really know that yet but it seems promising). It knits up super fast in aran weight yarn which is also important for beginners (because they have no patience). The top down construction allows you to make the sweater shorter or longer, and the sleeves could also be made shorter. I think it’s always a good idea to knit the sleeves after the button band, pockets, etc. because then you could make them 3/4 sleeves if you run out of yarn (and I love 3/4 sleeves).

Another thing when it comes to cardigans, many people nowadays are scared of purl rows and want to knit everything in the round and then Steek it, I think I would always do that if there was a lot of colorwork going on, but otherwise, the good thing about knitting back and forth like I’m doing with this one is that trying on the sweater as you go is so much easier! Whenever I’ve been knitting sweaters in the round I’ve had to change to a longer cable to try them on properly.

Thats all I have to say for today, hope to have more stuff to write about soon!
// Nelly