Lots of Lanterns

This cowl and me, it's a lovestory in the making. The pattern alone, fiddly, a bit neverending  but how fun it is to see the lanterns, tassels and stars grow under your fingers! The pattern is called Lantern Festival Cowl an is simply mindboggling.

I am knitting it with Sandnes Lanette as a base color and Shoppelwolle Zauberball Crazy as a lantern color. The fading colors in the yarn turns rather nicely out in the project. The same designer (Thea Eischliman) has made lots of nice stranded patterns, and I kinda want to try them all.

Knitting 1914- 2014 University of Southampton

Knitting 1914- 2014 University of Southampton

Wow. Just look at the video above. I really wish I could go and see this exhibition. It seems awesome.

And they have an archive too, I love archives!

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/intheloop/knittingcollections.html

Real life Alpacas!

A couple of friends of mine are keeping lots of Alpacas and fill up my Facebook- feed with furry, fuzzy cuteness. I have kinda been wondering what they do with all the fur, because you know; really soft locally bread and born fuzzy fur= awesome yarn. Today I found out that they are actually selling it through their webshop, Kullholen . No gauge, and no yardage, but yarn that begs to be experimented with! They also sell feathers from their birds, which they have lots of. The webpage is in Swedish, but if you don't speak the language, just ask (they speak English) them because they are really nice people and surely will help you.

So fuzzy!

Procrastination, no more.

Good mentors are the best thing. I just got my head sorted out for my spring paper and now I'm on it again after being slightly overwhelmed for a while by the sheer complexity of history. You know, it's not the straight line with little dots at regular intervals you learned in school- reality is way more complicated. Lots of things intersect with each other and morph into new phenomenons and structures. I kinda like it being this way, it feels very human for history to be so complicated and messy, but it's also a bit of a bugger because it makes it so hard to pin things down.

Another tricky thing is the Grace Cardigan. The lace part looks alluringly easy, but what's very easy is how easy it is to make a mistake and not realize it until a couple of rows later. And this is not the kind of cardigan you will be able to just frog a bit and then pick up again, the lace part goes all wonky. It's just frog the whole deal and start over.... I only had to frog it once this time (I have knitted one of these before) and have now passed the fiddly lacepart and just have endless rows of stockinette in front of me.

And I might meet my bf:s parents tonight, for the first time. How scary is that?!

The rise of the FrankenCat

The morning begun without even a sneaking suspicion from Whiskey that the day would evolve into something dramatic and horrible. If he had known, I strongly suspect he would have peed in my bed or something like that, just to make a point beforehand.
He was working hard on his "being really annoying to make The Female take of that stupid cone"- routine so that he could scratch that itch in his ear and go out again to kick that other cats butt.
Poor kitty never saw it coming...
Me on the other hand had decided that the situation of his ear probably was out of my hands and needed to be seen to by a vet. In to a carrier he went, wildly protesting and off to the Vet. The Vet told me that this was deep and that they needed to keep him for some hours to patch him up.

I forgot my own knitting at home. Would you belive it?!

During this time I managed to borrow some yarn and needles from a friend who was kind enough to be the designated driver of this whole ordeal. Some wrist warmers in a really soft yellow and wine red yarn are in the making.

Rubber antennae satelite cat. He gets more space-y every day.

Later on we went home, me and a heavily drugged cat who for all I knew hallucinated about the zombie apocalypse, at least he was behaving that way. It was kinda scary. The only was to keep him relatively calm and not try to walk or jump was to hold him tightly and stroke his back. He has two rubber drainage thingies sticking out from his head, and he got his teeth cleaned when they were at it and had the whole 5,5 kg (yep, he is a big boy) cat under sedation, so he now drools heavily. Guess who has to wipe that up? Well, I don't mind. I feel kinda sorry for him, he is going to be fine and all, but I can't really explain that to him.

Oh, well. On to new yarny depths, with FrankenCat by my side.

Gecko Green Ginko

To be quite honest I have no idea of the color of a Gecko lizard. Some kind of green, hardly this viivd bright one, but it made a fun headline.
The Ginko Shoulderette Shawl is done, and it's a bright reminder of the teaser spring we had/have that after some promising alluringly sunny days turned back into snowy winter. I know this kind of weather is expected in this place of the world, but nevertheless it's a bit of a disappointment.

Something that is NOT a disappointment is this knitting. Great pattern with good instructions for how to make it bigger (or smaller) and an interesting double sided lace part that came out as pretty ginko leaves. I think mine didn't become as clear as they could be, if you want your ginko leaves to really stand out I would recommend a hard spun sock yarn, not mohair.
No matter, I think it's really pretty the way it is.

An intruder/attentionseeker in a cone again.

My one is bit bigger then the original, I knitted stockinette until row 107 when I started the lace part. It came out as a good sized shawl, rather then a shoulderette. Not a huge one, but not small either.
I used aprox 1.7 balls of ONlinie 253 Hommage color and an unknown amount of some kind of 2-ply lace yarn I got in a swap way back. The subtle color changes in the mohair yarn made the color of the shawl almost shimmering, the effect really was pretty.
Also, remember to BO really loosely so that you can get the pretty edges.

A bit of Meh and a lot of Wants.

I'm having a period where the only thing I really feel like doing is sitting around, knitting and maybe listening to some music. It's making it really difficult to get something else done, you know- that whole being a responsible grown up- part. The cats are making their part to keep things this way too, Whiskey has once again been out fighting and got his ear bitten and infected, and Amelia is just really clingy and cuddly.
There is really tons of projects I would love to do, another vintage cardigan, the Lantern Festival Cowl or anything by Thea Eschliman . Or the Sherlock lives cardigan in some pretty colors. Yes, I'm kinda hooked on stranded knitting for the moment, I love to see the patterns growing.
The other day I cast on another Grace Cardigan , this one for myself in black Cascade Fingering. I can never have too many black cardigans, I can't see that happening. I need a torch to find anything in my wardrobe, and proud of it!

A little stranded

Oh, and I made another baby cardigan on leftovers. I still have a pile of leftovers that could be something...

I don't even know what to do with the cardigans. I'm not preggers, no one I know are and no one have a baby that would fit in one of these cardigans for aprox 3 months olds. Ah, the daily knitting problems...

The obstinate pile.

The magic of mixing yarns

I have had these yarns in my stash for a rather long time. One (the mohair, ONlinie 253 Hommage color) comes from a awesome LYS called Kecathu and the other one (laceyarn, wool, no label) comes from a swap at a knitting café. Some time ago I happened to place them next to each other and magic happened. Since then I have been looking for a great pattern for this magic and found it in Ginko Shoulderette Shawl . The Ginko Shawl does also exist as a cresent shape, if you are not too keen on the triangular. Search for Ginko Cresent, and you will find it.

Recipe for magic.

There has been some outdoors knitting going on with this project, since the spring and warmth is beginning to show it's face. Only today when I woke up, the world was white again. The cat that likes to be outdoors gave me a not too pleased look of disbelief when I let him out. I could only be so sympathetic and offer a warm spot when he was done outside.

Some days ago. Glorious, glorious sun.

Long overdue tweed cardigan

Yeah, it's the same session as the last post. And the same garden gnome.

When I had my birthday I started knitting a cardigan from a Rowan pattern in some Rowan Yarn. I had some reservations about the pattern, Cressida but it was one of those "Looks really good on the picture. In reality? No idea". It all worked out in the end, and I knew what I was getting myself into, sorta. The yarn is Rowans Fine Tweed, by the way, a really lovely yarn.

I have this to say about Rowans patterns. Lots of them are well written, have interesting takes and they have awesome yarns to go with. But then there is the fit. I don't get why they are all so ill fitting?! Specially the sleeves, and it's not like they even are great for people with larger sizes either, because it escalates. Not in a "trendy, oversized, really comfortable" way, more in a "we thought it might be a good idea to give you room to grow double size in case you want to" way. Maybe it's just me, but there it is.
If you want to knit Cressida, be aware that you probably can use a slightly smaller size than your measurements, and add some to the length if you like. It will not be too tight, I promise.

Well, we get along more or less, the cardigan and I. I will add a few cm to the bottom sleeves to make them longer and to keep them together more.
Oh, by the way. A new issue of Knitty.com is out. There is octopus socks. Just saying.

Zig Zag vintage Cardigan and the importance of a good photographer

No garden gnomes was hurt during the taking of these pics. It already was melted.

OOOOhhh! It's done! I feel like jumping up and down and running around in circles, that is how excited I am over this one. It turned out sooo pretty! The yarn had to have a good soak in water and conditioner to stop being itchy, but now it's really nice.
The bust is a little too big for me, it would fit some one with aprox 90-100 cm. Again, if anyone wants to buy this piece, send me a email at knitting.ozelote@gmail.com
I really should get an Etzy account if I go on like this.

These really great pictures was taken by my close friend who after this NEVER will get rid of me, and who has been appointed royal photographer. I hope he has lots of patience, but we have known each other a long time... Good pictures makes all the difference in the world. Remember me bitching about the color of this cardigan in my last post, and how hard it was to get a proper picture of it? Well, this is spot on.

Yeah, my neck is shaven.

Out of the dark

We have spring! And it's wonderful. For someone who comes from a part of the world where the seasons are more similar it might be difficult to understand the Scandinavians feelings towards the spring, but this part of the earth has been very dark, cold and grimy for the last half year so the feel of warm(er) winds and the sun against your face is awesome. Just don't look in a mirror, everyone looks like ghosts, and not pretty ones that is...

Knitted stuff looks great in the sun too. Here's one of my favorite shawls. In the sun.

The very complicated color

Blocked and unblocked pieces.

The 1947 zig zag cardigan is soon done. It's just some sewing left to do. The only problem I'm having is that it's that kind of green that is so darn difficult to get a proper  picture of. I have tried in lots of lights and so on, and it always come out different, but never close to correct. These pics are all modified, to get a better idea of the actual and very annoying color.

The zig zag pattern changed a whole lot when blocked, and my initial reaction was "Meh.", but I think it will come out really nice when done. The blocked result looks much tidier and neater anyway, and more like the picture in the magazine.

Perfect buttons!

Some yarn goes a long way

It was Friday evening and I felt like all I wanted from life for the moment was a new knit and a beer. Luckily, the part of me that seems to think ahead had provided the beer, so all I had to do was to grab some yarn and cast on.
My fingers found almost a whole skein of Rowans Felted Tweed in a color that I think was called Treacle (awesome name) and two balls of two-ply wools in different shades of green. They looked great together and seems to whisper that they wanted to be something with nice buttons on. Who was I to deny then that? These small coconut-imitation buttons has been laying in my button bowl for ages and matched the brown tweed perfectly.

Ok, I said. Another baby cardigan it is (can someone please have like quadruplets soon? The baby cardigans seems to work a bit like Tribbles).

I'm not too sure about the cuffs. I think I might change them to brown if it'll be some of that left.

Sometimes I feel that I knit and knit and knit and never really get to an acceptable level of leftovers. It's not a problem, really. If it was I would just round them up and give them away, but I have this idea that I should make something out of my existing yarn before I can buy more.
A really annoying idea, is what it is.

More arms please!

I wish I had more arms, like one of those Hindu gods so that I would be able to spin, knit and preferably read all at the same time.