Sring socks

I finished the other sock. They are a bit to big, but will probably fit this fall next winter.  They are however already in use.

Pattern:  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/stashbuster-spirals

Yarn: several different types of yarn, dale baby , kambgarn istex, lanett sandnes, navia uno.

Needles: 2.5mm and 2.0mm

Modifications:  see below

16 stitches (8 on each)-  cast on (toe-up  method)

Inrease until 44 stitches

switch to gray-   8 rounds

switch to purple - 8 rounds

switch to gray-   8 rounds

Orange - 5 umferðir

start increases , in total 8 sitches until  52 stitches, after 3 rounds orange change to gray, after 5 rounds you have the 52 stitches and start on the heel 

22 stitches heel 

Knit 11, wrap next stitch, turn, purl 22, wrap next stitch, turn.

slip 1 - knit 20

slip 1 - purl 19

slip 1 - knit 18

slip 1 - purl 17

slip 1 - knit 16

slip 1 - purl 15

slip 1 - knit 14

slip 1 - purl 13

slip 1 - knit 12

slip 1 – purl 11

slip 1 - knit 10

slip 1 - purl 9

slip 1 - knit 8

slip 1, purl 6, p.enc

knit 7, k.enc

purl 8. p enc

knit 9. p enc

purl 10 p.enc

knit 11.k.enc

purl 12 p. enc

knit 13 k.enc

purl 14 p.enc

knit 15 k. enc

purl 16 p. enc

knit 17p. enc

purl 18 p. enc

slip 1 knit 18. k enc. slip 1

After the heel, start again with gray, and do 3 rounds, also start at the same time decraeses so that you will again have 22 stitches.

Switch to light-pink and continue with the decreses - 8 rounds of pink

Switch to gray and 2.0 mm needles, knit one round, and then 26 rounds of 2 knit, 2 purl. 

Cast off - I used this method

  

Springtime yarn swap

I sent this on Wednesday, and it should be arriving soon to the recipient.  I didn´t get a chance to photograph the parcel I put it together in a hurry, my in-laws picked up my older daughter in day-care as my younger one was sick so I decided to let them babysit for the first time and made a quick decision to go to the post-office. You never know when you will get the chance next.  The colors are not to good in this picture (the green and purple are more vivid.

I already gathered together a lot of ideas for pattern´s that this yarn can be used for. When I think of spring I think of big shawls, nice wool socks, mittens and hats. We do have lovely spring-sun here in Iceland, but it is often very cold and to be able to enjoy it you need to cover up.  I therefore sent some lace-weight wool and unspun wool, both can make up very light and airy garments that are extremely warm. 

The unspun wool can be knit double (use one thread from the edge of the plate and one thread from the center) and then it is ca. aran or worsted weight,  the Unspun wool can also be knitted together with the Einband (lace weight) and then it is also ca. aran or worsted weight.  I however recommend experimenting with gauges with the unspun wool as people tend to knit it with very different gauge´s.  If you are knitting with the unspun wool, don´t mind that it breaks easily, you don´t have to weave in ends, you just split the ends spin it together in your hands and the thread has been re-joined. 

Out of all the pattern  Ideas thet I collected  I would probably knit Bitterroot with the 2 gray skeins of the einband, and then I would knit sundagsvotter with the burgender/purple color, then I would knit with 1 strand of green einband and the gray plötulopi the litle garter cardi.

 Or I would knit the modern lace shawl with the Einband, and use the lefover einband for the rubiayat mittens, and then use the plötulopi double and knit giftie slouchie beanie


I´m excited to see if the recipient will find a use for the yarn and hoping to see what she will do with it.

 

Knitspiration - Lopapeysa2

Saw this picture on pinterest there was no link to the original source, so I don´t know where it is from.  But I do know where the pattern is from if you would like to knit this sweater. The pattern is for free and in both english and icelandic on the istex website, here is the ravelry link.

Stashbusting - Toe up, shortrow heel socks.

I saw these socks on Ravelry and I had to cast on immediately, not sure how wise that is as I still have several projects ongoing.

But my soon to be 3 year old, needs warm socks, as they seem to disappear  I knitted one this winter, and her grandmother as well and they have both vanished at daycare. These are from various scraps of yarn (Dale baby ull, istex kambgarn, navia uno, lanett). Incredible how little yarn you need for a pare of socks in size ca. 25-26. I don´t think these will dissapear... to colorful to be taken by mistake (the other were one color gray and the other purple, rather unisex and similar to the socks that many of the other kids have).

I have been doing some amendments to the pattern, and the sock that´s finished fits perfectly. Now I just need to finish the other sock.

Pattern:  spiral sock pattern

Yarn Swap - pattern idéas for the yarn I sent

I have gathered a lot of links for my yarn-swap buddy, with ideas on what she can use the yarn for.

 Spring is cold in Iceland so these are idea´s on how to keep warm. The links are all to free patterns on Ravelry (or projects with free patterns in the yarn) where she will have enough yardage to knit (at least one, and probably more of them)).  When the yarn-swap buddy has received the yarn I will post a picture of the yarn (colors and yardage of the yarn I sent).

I had the intention that yarn I bought could be used for a cold spring-nights-shawls, and as I have had on my knit-bucket list an Icelandic lace shawl I bought yarn suitable for that and sent my yarn buddy.

Einband

 Icelandic modern lace shawl

Spring time bandit

Holden shawlette

bitterroot

Swallowtail-shawl

Mittens in Einband

Sundagsvotter

rubaiyat-mittens

bird-mitten

 1 strand Einband + 1 strand Plötulopi (similar as Létt-lopi):

lina

little-garter-cardi

Use the Plötulopi double stranded

 (one strand from the center and one from the outside of the plate) for
 Giftie Slouchie Beanie

hineri-hat

subtle-twist-hat

give-a-hoot-2

 1 strand plötulopi:

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/triscote/you-dont-know-our-women-hat
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Tinnna/autumn-leaves-2

Knitspiration - lopi

If you wan´t to make one of these for yourself you can find the pattern in the book "Knitting with icelandic wool". The pattern is called Vetur. 

Icelandic Lopi sweater for me

I wen´t buying some yarn for the yarn swap yesterday afternoon, and came home with yarn for a cardigan for me as well.

I took my little helper with me, she wasn´t agreeing with all my color choices and tried to convince me to buy some additional yarns in colors she preferred (black with glitter (gold/silver) are apparently her thing along with acrylic yarns.. not exactly my cup of tea).. she through down 3 shelves full of yarn. I think this was the last time for a while I took her with me yarn shopping.

I have had intentions to knit this pattern for a long time, and I think now is the time, as I plan on spending the spring outside (as soon as my girls stop being sick) and as it often gets cold here during spring some nice Icelandic wool sweaters are just the perfect outfit.

The pattern I´m knitting is an old Icelandic pattern.

The pattern has been republished, in the book "Knitting with Icelandic wool" so the pattern can be found in English as well.

I fell in love with the color combination in this sweater (eventhough I promised my self to use the sheep's-colors... the natural color of the sheep's as in the picture above).

(the original link to this sweater is lost, it was a link to an etsy shop).

There is also a sweater on Ravelry with similar color combination (shade darker main color)

I now need to find the perfect buttons, any suggestions on where to find similar buttons (metal) to these on e-bay or anywhere else where they don´t cost an arm or a foot?

Dad´s sweater

Pictures of the finished birthay present for my Dad

Crochet adventures

I finally decided it was time to learn how to crochet (my new years resolution for 2013). Over a month ago I got for my birthday a crochet book, yarn and hook (I already had bought crochet set of needles in  2010 with the intention to learn).  This is the results of my first crochet attempt.

I´m making granny squares.  The book(Þóra heklbók) was of no help for me until I had mastered the square through youtube then I could use the picture, impossible to understand the text in the book (maybe not well written or maybe it is just me). I can´t recommend this book for beginners, but there are some lovely patterns in it so when I have mastered crocheting I will be making some lovely things from it. 

This is the book: 

The Youtube vidoes I used are these

1 - beginning

2 - continuing

22.5 degrees

I decided on Saturday evening that I also needed to knit for my Dad´s twin sister a birthday present, she apparently has also 60th birthday tomorrow (She doesn´t read the blog so I think I´m safe to post this)
After looking through ravelry for some quick shawl that had garter stitch and some border I ended up with this shawl, not so much of a lace border as I intended but I like the knitted edging. The yarn (Sandnes Alpakka) is very soft and nice to knit with, I hope it will hold up well.

Pattern: 22.5 degrees

Yarn: Sandnes Alpakka

Needles: 3.5mm

I´m going this afternoon to pick up the cardigan I made for my dad, a zipper has been installed. I will be giving the shawl and the cardigan to  my dad and his twin sister tomorrow, so on Saturday I should have a picture of my dad in the cardigan and maybe his sister as well :)

Sweater for a special girl

I wanted to make something for my cousin´s girls (she has three) as she takes these amazing pictures of my girls which I love. I wanted to do something to say thank you.

I started with this inspiration (and the hope to use some of my stash).

I first decided on the bottom sweater, as I had similar colors in the Icelandic wools Plötulopi and Einband (to be knitted together), but when I started the yellow and the white weren´t so great together.

With the colors I had on hand , I was reminded of this color-combination from wool rocks.

And this was the result (no pattern, was to wide in the bottom so I ended up doing a lot more decreases than I anticipated..  maybe should have started over.. but I hope it will fit her).

  Not exactly where I started off, but I hope that it fits and that she likes it.

Pattern:  none, and did not write down what I did.
Yarn: Plötulopi (istex) and Einband
Source: from my stash, but true to destashing karma I had to by one skein of the Einband (had enough Plötulopi).
Needles:  3.5mm and 4.5mm

Finally got rid of this green.

My girls have kept my busy the last week so there hasn´t been done much knitting. My older girl was at home sick most part of the week, and the younger got her first vaccination, and then I was not feeling well when I finally thought I would maybe have some time to knit.  But I managed to invent a game where I could knit for one of my older girls dolls, so I was sitting on the floor involved in a game with dolls for 3 days and managed to knit this, and got rid of almost all of this horrible green baby wool.

My 3 month old loved having her older sister at home. And the older one loved it the first 2 days (this was on day 3 at home)

I was planning to finish this, but there is always next week. This is also wool from my stash.

Yarn swap at wool rocks

Will you be participating in the spring yarn swap at Wool rocks?

Sebraleggings

This is recycled fabric, used to be a dress , I made leggings for both my girls. I was planning to photograph them in them together, but that won´t be happening any time soon I think.

Pattern - used leggings that both my girls own from Polarn&Pyret as a pattern base. They fit perfectly on them both. Not exactly perfect leggings, as I just barely got enough fabric for two leggings, but I like them none the less.

Bellas top

 

Pattern:  Another pattern from "Babystrik på pinde 3".-Bellas Top

Yarn: Lanett, not sure how much, had a skein that had been started and some scraps (maybe from that skein). 

Needles: 2.5mm and 3 mm

Size:  started with the 3-6months size, found out I had the width for the 9-12 month size while knitting, then when I had washed it it was more like 12-18 months old size (somewhere between 9-12 months and 18-24 months size).  It´s light and airy.

knitted for my giftdrawer, or maybe for my younger daughter.

Doll vest - no pattern, just improvised, was planning to make a cardigan, but didn´t finish it and had it laying in my knitting basket and as I was planning to use as much yarn as I could in Q1 I decided to finish it as a vest much to my toddlers appreciation.

Q1 - new years resolution status update

In total I have now 865g less of yarn  than when the year started. 

Q1 : Stash increased 1300g
Q1: Stash decreased 2165g

Plans for Q2 is to use try to use all scraps of yarn for socks- and etc and increase the amount in my gift drawer.