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Proof of life

Summertime, and finally the weather has decided to cooperate. This is my third day off, and so far, no rain and temperatures well over 20 C.

I hope to finish the first baby Barkarole tonight, and so far I'm delighted with the soft and light yarn.

I fished out a ball of Onde (white) from my box yesterday, which explains why I had to make a narrow neckband. I know that I have knitted harder than I should have, so I was surprised when I thought I had run out of yarn. Maybe I should go back to the neckband and add a few centimeters.

The sangria is still waiting for my decision, I will let you know...

We have received the addresses for round two of our secret Nordic friends swap. This time it is something small and encouraging, for 50 NOK. I have finished my shopping, but we can't send our things before 15/8. I would love this myself, so I hope the recipient will like it!

Hot summer tanks

We finally have a touch of summer after a miserable - and very long - spring. The Sangria II has entered a critical phase - I'm planning some surgery.

The weather has been too bad for photos, so I'll try to explain verbally. Sangria is knit in Schachenmayr's Micro in three colours, a burnt orange, a dark red and "Hot tamale" (see image). I started with orange ribbing and an orange garter stitch row, and then I have continued with alternating red and multicoloured stripes, with orange garter stitch in between. It may sound weird, but I think it's OK. I'm knitting in the round, and I have just come to the point where it's time to shape armholes.

Two problems:
- I'm running out of the orange yarn. My local yarn store only had a few shades of Micro left (this yarn is from last year) and of course no orange. I bought one ball of blue, but it's not the right shade and it would probably look very weird to change the colour of the garter stitch rows when the pattern is so regular. One solution could be to continue in red only from the armholes (it's a lovely shade and I have several balls left). This solution would only highlight problem numero deux:
- I don't like the orange ribbing. I would like to have red stockinette, with a picot edge, or possibly red ribbing. If I would knit a new "lower edge" of the tank, cut off the old one and graft on the new, I would have more of the orange yarn to do more garter stitch rows. This would make the tank better looking if I succeed, and it would be a complete disaster if I fail.

The safe thing would be to accept the orange ribbing, continue in red, avoid ribbing round the armholes and the neck, and to finish this weekend before the summer is gone.

Talking of tanks, Claudia has a very good post on knitted tanks, where she says:

Sweetie pie, you can't wear a t-shirt ALL THE @#%* TIME.

OK. Good point. But. When I look around at the sweet young thangs in their spiffy summer duds out on the street or in the fashion mags, I've noticed that the knitted tank is not a popular item. Is it only knitters that think knitted tanks are a good plan? Is this because they want to knit (or must feed the knitting addiction) year-round, but don't want to knit a wooly sweater in the midst of summer?

Yeah, so. SO! We want to knit, Knit, KNIT. Like this is a bad thing?

And here, my friends, we reach impasse.

Maybe I should abandon my plans for tank nr 2 and go straight for the cold season clothing...

Chicago chic

The Onde knit-a-long is hosted by the toujours chic Bonne Marie Burns, who writes Chicknits when not working hard in TV and constructing new patterns. The Chicago clock must have more hours per day than our old tired European ones!

Bonne Marie kindly showcases my finished Onde pull today.

If you arrived here by following the Chicknits link, welcome! The activity on the blog is low at the moment, but you're welcome to look around!

Dare to design!

An interesting post from "the yarn harlot" about creating your own patterns. Good comments too, and probably another dozen or so of nice blogs among the signature links.

What's the worst thing that can happen? I'll have no sweater and a dumbass attempt? That's where I'm at now! Afraid? I'm never afraid to try something with my knitting. I'm afraid of skydiving, and downhill skiing gives me the willies and I'm deeply concerned about war and injustice, but yarn? What could happen? Worst case scenario is you learn a little something about dumbass sweaters. That' s helpful, that's one more mistake I can wipe off the list of stupid knitting mistakes I'm destined to make. (I wonder how long that list is...)

Photo editing

At work, I have all the professional software I ever need at my hands, but at home, it's a different story. Yesterday I used something called ArcSoft Image-something to work on my secret gift photos. The software has a cutesey "intuitive" interface, with very little absolute control over what you are doing. Coupled with a laptop screen, it makes for some random image editing, that's for sure. The resizing had no absolute numbers, and when I found out which size the yarn shot really was, well then it was far past bedtime and I couldn't care less.

What are you using to resize and edit your photos? A full-blown photoshop license is not in my budget for our home computers.

It has arrived!

When I came home after work today, an envelope with Danish flags and cute stamps of the newly-wed prince lay in wait for me. I am proud to say that I did the planned groceryshopping before opening it!


Inside was a pair of ten millimeter bamboo (?) knitting needles, and a lovely skein of bouclé yarn from the Danish "Tind mohair". And instructions for how to knit a shawl!


I used an unknown piece of software to crop the photo and adjust the colours, I hope it turns out OK, hard to say from the laptop I'm writing this on.

I am very happy with this gift, and I thank my secret friend, who also happens to be my favourite Danish knitblogger. Three cheers for Fru Schwartz!

C'est fini!

Onde Status: done!

So, the Onde is finished. Am I happy? Well, yes and no. I'm happy to have finished, but I am not sure about the result.

The test of all things knitted:
Would I buy this for twice the cost of the yarn if I found it in a shop? No, I wouldn't.
Would I buy it for the price of the yarn? Yes, I might. But I would consider a larger size. I think my gauge in the knitted item is tighter than in the swatch I did.
Do I regret having spent time and money on the Onde? Mais non. Je ne regrette rien.
Would I knit it again? I really would like to knit something in the volcan colourway (the shocking pink/orange shade). I would choose another model, probably something ribbed.
Would I do something differently if I did it again? Apart from the size/gauge thing, I would make sure to buy an extra ball of yarn. The collar is too narrow. I had 1.5 meters left of the yarn after binding off and seaming.
What did I learn from this project? That I need to check my gauge "under way". And I did that invisible side seam for the first time, and it worked very well.

In other knitting news, the Sangria II is moving along just fine, and I think she will be fit for a halfway photo soon. I have decided to make my first baby Barkarole a tiny aran (but with sleeves and back in simple stockinette). I have foolishly cast on for something that might turn out to be a baby blanket. I give the expression "mindless knitting" a completely new meaning, in my case it means to cast on something and knit furiously without thoughts of what the end result will be. It's stupid, and I do it All The Time. I am considering a Colinette shawl to use up some very nice off-white and pale green wool from my great Colinette binge. (See pictures here)

My two bags are still handleless and sad, I hope for inspiration.

Secret mail!

The package has been sent off to its secret destination. I had to look up the place in my atlas, and wow, I hope I can come and visit one day! I have a photo of the contents too, but to publish it would be like cheating, wouldn't it?

Note to self: dogs

"Stikkemor" who organises the nordic secret friends swap displays some very nice Unfinished Objects, among others a half finished green sweater with dogs. My boys would love these happy dogs. I will try to find out where the pattern comes from. Maybe I could draw something similar, and add cats?

Secrets

The Secret friends are distributed, and I have received the name and address of... somebody. I will put together a nice little package and I promise to send it off on time - i.e. before 15/7. The value of the contents should be around 100 NOK, but I don't know what to do if I find a nice bargain again. Should I squeeze in 20 balls of 55 cent yarn, or should I think of the normal retail price and send 3 balls? I suppose it depends. The really nice Barkarole is gone from Kleinpreismarkt, if they have something new I might put in enough for a smallish project. As long as they only sell fluorescent acrylics, I will spend my money in more expensive (normally priced) shops...

Secret knitting... Have you seen Knitty's underwear issue? I don't have any lycra-mixed yarn in my boxes, and I don't know if i would enjoy a knitted nightie. For the 302 calories, you need to see it for yourself... This may well be the funniest issue of Knitty so far, but I'm not sure that's a good thing.

New kid onde block

The Chlorophyll babe is washed, blocked and undergoing extensive stitching. I have very little yarn left, so the neckband will be narrower than in the origial pattern.

I have started on Sangria II, re-using yarn and experiences from last year's failure (below). The yarn is Schachenmayr's Micro, and I think I have "pumpkin" and "baked apple" from this colour card and "hot tamale" from this one.