Who wore it best?

Nearly ready, only steeking and crochet border left.  I used the oppertunity to take pictures of my sister in it while she visited today.

My older daughter wanted in on the action and believe it or not she styled her hair herself and made up the poses.

And also a picture of me in the unfinished cardigan, I still have a few kg to go after the birth of my younger daughter but I´m working on it.  I´m also the one with the long arms in my family, my sister is a swimmer she could have used some of my armlength ;)

My mom was cold, so she borrowed the "cardigan" and I of course took the oppertunity to photograph her  in it as well.

If you are wondering, I think  my sister wears it the best (sorry mom).

Progress?

I´m not sure if I should call this progress, as this has taken me a month to get this far (on 6mm needles).

I sure look forward to finish this and get started with something else.

Can you find the error I made, or should we call it personal touch on the pattern?

Knitspiration - lopi3

Looking for something to knit, here is some inspiration that I saw on pinterest.

Pattern: Astrid

Love this color combination, would look great with either black or blue as main color.

This pattern is also from the book , knitting with icelandic wool.

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.

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

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

Lopapeysa-update

The sweater for my dad´s 60th birthday is almost finished, I just need to weave in ends, wash it , go with the sweater to get the perfect length of zipper, go with the sweater to my mom´s friend who installes zippers in Icelandic sweaters for a reasonable fee.

lopapeysa - update

I´ve only 1 cm left of the body, and finished with 2/3 of one sleeve. So I might be able to finish my objective of both sleeves and body this week.

The color is so pretty and it almost makes me want to finish it in one color, but the yoke of the Icelandic sweaters is my favourite part of knitting so I would be so bored with knitting the sweater in one color.

Back to the future

Yesterday I showed you some old patterns that I loave from www.istex.is. Now I want to show you some of the more recent patterns in age.

The cardigan on the bottom left could also be my sommer jacket, but I think it is knitted from Plötulopi if I remember correctly and I hate knitting from unspun wool. I also like the idea of knitting a cape in létt-lopi in a single color.

These would all look good on my husband.

I

I also love these patterns.

I have already knitted the one on the left, just in Sandnes smart yarn, and of course I had to change it a little bit. My mom and my mother in law both have knitted the purple one in the middle.

The sweater in the Smart yarn.

The sweater my mom made in Navia Duo for my older girl when she was around 1 years old(I get my unwillingness to follow pattern/yarn choices from her).

The sweater my mother in law made and my 2 1/2 year old got for Christmas, in Létt-lopi as the pattern intended. She also made the matching doll sweater and hat, which was a big hit.

There is endless amount of lovely patterns for the icelandic wool, the worst part is that I can´t wear it. I´m however going to try to change it by making one and see if I won´t grow to love it.

Were you inspired to start on some new projects by this post?

Inspiration from old patterns

I love some of the old patterns from Ístex/Álafoss, and specially the fact that they have scanned in many of the old pattern books. When looking through these patterns once again, I found myself drawn to these sweaters.

I would love to knit the gray sweater, but in Álafoss Lopi (Bulky Lopi) it is way to scratchy and thick for my taste. Maybe Drops Eskimo could be a substitute, but it is so much more expensive than the Icelandic wool.  The cardigans I would maybe wear as an jacket/outerwear in the Álafoss Lopi so I might go for one of these for me.

I love the cardigan in the muted colors, topleft (not such a good picture, but this pattern has been republished and in English in the book, knitting with Icelandic wool (can highly recommend that book).  The bottom two cardigans I like a lot, I´m however leaning to the bottom right one in those colors (white and brown).

The one on the bottom left, is almost the same pattern that I´m making for my dad, the newer version of the pattern only has the yoki section and another type of yarn (létt-lopi).

This pattern can be found in english as a free pattern, I have already used it in this purple sweater

Here is a link to all the free patterns that have been translated to english.

I hope you enjoyed this blast from the Icelandic knitting past. I was trying to find the pattern I made when I was 13/14, my first Lopapeysa, but I´m not sure which pattern it is and the sweater is long gone and I never used it.

*pictures are from www.istex.is

Lopapeysa

My dad will be 60 in April, so I have started working on a "Lopapeysa" for him (Icelandic wool sweater).  Navy blue will be the main colour.

I consulted with him before I started because he doesn´t wear everything , he wears wool frequently so I knew he would love a new sweater. He wanted a blue sweater with a zip. I was baffled  with that choice as I wasn´t sure that Léttlopi carried any nice blue colours and was uncertain what colors to choose with it. Fortunately they recently changed the color pallet so I found the perfect blue color. But I was itching for some more colors so I opted for a pattern that has a yoke in 5 colors, without consulting my dad I chose 2 brown colours, gray and white to go with the blue main color.   Here is the pattern I will be using.

When I started to knit again in 2007 (hadn´t knitted since I was a teenager), the first thing I was going to make was a "Lopapeysa" for my husband as a Christmas present, but I didn't swatch and it ended up to small for my husband. Kind of Ironic since my gauge now is always way  to loose, even when I go down a needle size. This is the sweater that I made in 2007.  So I ended up giving it to my dad for Christmas (size medium), he wears it frequently.

The knitting is going slowly, I started last Sunday, and I only have knitted 30 cm... I usually get to knit 1/3 of a row before somebody needs me, apart from my 6 week old my 2 1/2 year old was at home sick most part of the week. My goal is to finish the sleeves next week, maybe I´m to optimistic as I´m getting down with a cold myself.