I have been ignoring my loved knitting

I have been doing everything, but knitting! It is such a long time since I had some remotely knitting related thing done, that I had completely forgotten my password, lol. I have been wringing my head for 2 weeks now to remember it :) And I still haven’t done any knitting (and feeling down for it :( ). Only read some old knitting magazines I have, and wondering where I can buy some new ones where I live now… haven’t found a magazine kiosk here that have some about knitting yet. And I have answered the reader survey at knitty.com

Why do knitting magazines describe almost everything with colour work as Fair Isle?

I learn about Fair Isle knitting long before I took an earnest interest in knitting. From I started to take an interest in clothes I have had a fascination for 30s and 40s fashion. And having that interest you can’t avoid Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII, some of the biggest fashion icons of the 30s. Haven seen a lot of photos of him in golf attire, reading descriptions of general colour use in the 30s and looking at fashion drawings from that time, I had an image in my head of how this kind of knit work would look like. So when I took up knitting and started buying foreign magazines (Norwegian books and patterns are either for fashion knitting, or they are, well, for Norwegian knitting) I was disappointed. What the magazines called Fair Isle knitting was just easy two colour work, or what look exactly like very simple Norwegian knitting, or just a garment with lots of colour. Nowhere was to be seen the vests I had imagined with geometrical patterns on a changing background colour. But after reading blogs and browsing the net for knitting related stuff I realised the magazines had it wrong and my imagination had it right! After seeing photos like those one this page, I even realised it look very much like the patterns used in traditional Norwegian tapestries. Not so surprising maybe when remembering that Norway and Shetland was part of the same cultural spear around the North Sea in the Viking and medieval times. I also found out that there are many books about the history of Fair Isle knitting. The knitting magazines certainly have better access to the sources like these than me. So why to the magazines I have read still describe patterns not remotely looking like the pictures as Fair Isle? Why did the fashion historians get it right, they cover a vastly bigger field than just knitting, and not the magazines, which only covers the field of knitting? I’m almost wondering if the staffs at the magazines do any research. To stomach a job as editor for a knitting magazine, you would have to be more than average interest in the subject would you not? This makes me wonder even more why they describe patterns that are not at all Fair Isle as just Fair Isle.

My poor boyfriend…..

…. he asked me to put away some of my knitting, to make some more space. He could not have asked for anything more unlikely :) Well, at least I did go
through it all, that’s something…

I store my knitting stuff in a big, big basked standing on the floor. Now it is a lot more presentable, not spilling out over the edges, and on to the floor. And I also learned a few things about my knitting self. I have surprisingly many needles. This may account for my tendency to have UFOs laying around…. Also my thickest needles are 4mm, and I think they are huge! Seems like I actually never have knitted anything on thicker needles than those 4mm, hmm. Another surprise was that I don’t have so much yarn laying around! I have more different sets of needles than I have different yarn. A bit strange I think. Granted I do know that there is some more yarn stashed away other places. But I generally store all my yarn in my basked, or else I forget about it:)

On to the fun part a FO. Its been lying in said basked for ages (somewhere about two years…) waiting for some crocheted flowers. Since I know crocheted flowers are never going to happen, I just did it up and I’ll start using it tomorrow :)

Planning some knee socks

Bought some yarn today :) The producer is Viking Garn. I have never heard of them before, but after looking them up it seems they have been around for quite some time.  The yarn feels soft and is going to become knee socks. It was cheap to, about 3 US dollars for a ball, that is a very low price in Norway anyway :)

The four to the left is sock yarn and the one to the right is baby wool. The baby wool is 100% merino and the sock yarn is 80% wool and 20% nylon. I bought the baby wool just on a whim, so I don’t know what it will become :) But I’m looking forward to casting one my knee socks, even thou these will be plain ribbing :)

I think there is too few knee socks patterns out there. At knitty.com only one out of about forty patterns for your feet are knee socks.  And if you search the nett in general you get tons of sock patterns but no knee socks. I find that a bit depressing since i love knee socks. Not that I actually am any good knitting after patterns, but I like to look at them for inspiration. And I want knee sock inspiration! Does anybody out there know of some good knee sock inspiration……

Going a tiny bit crazy

I am almost finished with my cell phone cover. Only one thing left. But I was just to lazy, to go out of the house yesterday, to buy a ribbon to decorate it with.

So instead I have been planning and knitting my mp3 player cover. It is such a small project that my fingers fells like big unmanageable sausages compared to it! And now I’m going a tiny bit crazy, and this is the reason:

Six stitches on 2.50mm needles knitted in the round, becoming the tube, that is going to be the cord to have around my neck. The safety pin is about 3,5 cm long. So the photo is actually bigger than the real thing!! I have always preferred the thinner yarns and smaller needles, but this is so tiny even I am going a little bit crazy over the smallness :O

My personal half a ball of yarn wonder

I have finished my own half a ball of yarn wonder :) I certainly know what to knit with toes leftovers now :) Steps!

The self-striping yarn was the left over ball from a friends project. She knits after patterns and didn’t have a suitable pattern for only the one ball of yarn. Since I seldom knit from patterns she gave it to me so I could experiment with it :) Considering I didn’t like the colours the first time I saw the yarn I am very happy I knitted the steps. I think they turned out beautiful \o/

The yarn is Sisu Fantasy in 9367 buy the way. The producer Sandnes Garn doesn’t seem to have an English page. But there seems to be a lot of places on the nett using English selling their products. I think the quality of the Sisu yarns are very good, and use them quite a lot. I knitted my steps on 2.50mm bamboo needles. I do have small feet (European 35, UK 2.5, Japanese 225, and I can never figure out what in US size), but I am impressed by the amount of yarn left over after finishing both my steps:

The leftovers are in bits and pieces because I had to fiddle to get all the colours in the yarn on one step. And then I had to fiddle some more to get the second step equal to the first one :) But the leftovers are soon to be a cell phone cover and an mp3 player cover….

So much I want to knit…

… and so many things that take priority over knitting.

There is so much I want to knit lately. I have this pullover in my head that I call Classic. I want to knit two versions of it*, one in gray, and one in black, with beige and light mustard yellow stripes (it sounds a bit ugly, but is quit nice actually). And I really want to knit Rosmary from the Rowan Newshapes book. And from issue 35 of Simply Knitting, there is three designs I think will be lovely with some tweaking. And i read this little thing her over at Hooked Up Knits, and I totally, totally feel for the sofa cover thing. It would be heaven for tension squares, and a beautiful stitch library. It would be a really long term project! But I am just not able to make up my swatches in to a blanket. This is because I want the blanket to look just as beautiful witch ever way it is turned. And a lot of patterns have gorgeous fronts but not so attractive backs. And a sofa cover solves the problem! No unsightly backs! :)

*I freeze easily :|

So after deciding, re-deciding, and then re-deciding back, I’m making my version of Tubey at knitty.com. Everything except from the construction method is different :) I’m using smaller needles, thinner yarn and its going to be short sleeve. I’m also knitting a 1/1 rib instead of the one used in the pattern. And its all blue, very blue :) A colour I’m getting more and more partial to. Lol, I’m not fare from becoming my mother. My childhood was spent fighting of here attempts to get me to wear blue, her favorite colour :) Well I have decided it isn’t so bad, she was a very god person.

Im a bad blogger :)

lol, I’m no good at blogging. I start a blog and then I abandon it. But then I haven’t been doing so much knitting either, so I guess I could be excused :) My brown jacket is still on the needles and it has become quite cold, not as cold as expected, but still cold. Seems like I’m the Queen of UFOs :)

And as befitting a Queen of UFOs I have started new project, a blue vest. It has a good deal of ribbing, so now all of a sudden I’m able to knit ribbing without watching the needles all the time, it feels good! I’m knitting in the round, its so much faster, so it is more likely that I will finish it. lol, seems like the projects that I finish are the ones I knit in the round.

I have started the body for my jacket. I’m knitting a sort of waist band now. I will need to block it before continuing, just now it is curling terribly around it self. It doesn’t matter if it shrinks a little. I am picking up more stitches than normal around the edge of it to get a little bit of wave anyway. But I am wondering if maybe should have done the waist band in garter stitch?