« October 2005 | Main | December 2005 »
November 27, 2005
Snow!
We had some snow this weekend! I so glad winter is finally here, after the unusual warm fall. There is a large possibility this will be all we get to see of winter at all, so I enjoyed it as much as I could. This is what the center of my town looked like after the snow had started to melt:
My feet got wet, but thankfully I was wearing a pair of handknit wool socks (which I always am) so they didn't get cold.
We did have a weather related problem on Friday, when we tried to get home from a big computer market in Utrecht (we're geeks, we actually look forward to this thing every year). The way home took us 6 hours instead of the usual 1.5 hours because of the traffic jams caused by the weather (you can tell the Dutch are not used to this kind of thing!). On the bright side, of course I had some knitting at hand: a pair of socks for T. from the yarn I bought in Germany earlier this week.
I did have to take breaks every now and then, because my wrists started to hurt. Anyway, we did get home, which is more than lots of people can say, who had to spend the entire night in their car, with Red Cross volunteers bringing them blankets and water, and I bet most of them had left their knitting at home.
Long lost
Do you ever forget things you knitted? A friend of mine returned these gloves to me this week:
click
I had left them in the coat of a raincoat I borrowed from her. This was at least 5 years ago, I think. Untill the day last week, when she called me to announce her find, I had never thought about those gloves at all. I completely forgot I ever made them. Well, I still like them!
Question
Basak asked: I'd like to second you on the lack of yarn shops and the variety available in this country. What about the prices, are they any better over the border?
I don't think there is much difference in the price of yarn in Germany and the Netherlands. It's just that in Germany, you have so much more to choose from. Of course, you have to bear in mind I'm mainly looking at sock yarn, for that, Germany can't be beaten. I don't know about for example Rowan yarns.
Maybe that's what Maartje is talking about: I find it amazingly that you drive to Kleve, in order to buy wool. I thought always in Holland would be more low-priced wool. In the online Shop "ribbels - alles om te breien" seemed to me in such a way. I wanted to order myself wool in Holland!!!
Tina seems to agree with me: right we have some great yarnshops over here!
Maybe this also has to do with where you are in Germany? It's a big country. Any ideas?
Posted by saartje at 8:35 PM | Comments (12)
November 24, 2005
I guess I have got a lot to say!
First of all: thanks everyone, for your kind words about the Christmas tree hat! It's so nice to read all your comments, it really made my day. I haven't heard about the baby yet, but it could be any day now.
Shopping for yarn
There are lots of advantages of living close to the German border. One of them is the opportunity to visit yarn shops. I believe there is at least one yarn shop in every German village. On Tuesday, I took the bus to Kleve. Kleve is in Germany, about 30 kilometers from Nijmegen, and it has about 50.000 inhabitants. Nijmegen has almost 160.000 inhabitants. In Nijmegen, there is one (not very well stocked) yarn shop, not even in the town center but in a suburb. Kleve, on the other hand, has at least three yarn shops that I know of, all within walking distance of each other right in the town center. Why can't we have that over here [sob]?
I went to the two shops I like best:
Pulcinella, Hopfensackstege 6
This shop sells ggh yarns and of course the Rebecca magazine. It has some Colinette yarn, and most importantly, it has lots of Regia sock yarn in stock. No website available, unfortunately.
Handarbeiten Ververs, Kavarinerstrasse 26
To be honest, this shop is really more of a cross stitch and embroidery shop, but they also sell Lana Grossa yarns, including the Meilenweit sock yarn.
So what did I buy?
A 50 g ball of Regia Silk in a very dark blue (to make wrist warmers), a 150 g ball of Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch Special (390 m, color no. 8830 (orange)), a 150 g ball of Fortissima Colori Socka Color (375 m, color no. 12) and a sock book by the makers of Regia. The large balls of sock yarn will be used to make socks for my SO. He has such large feet, but with this thick yarn I will be able to finish a pair before I go mad with boredom. Yay!
What else is new?
I made a pair of small mittens, just for fun.
click
Source of inspiration:The Mitten Book by Inger and Ingrid Gottfridsson, once again.
Yarn: Fortissima Socka 75% wool, 25% polyamide, 50 g/210 m. White: color no. 1001 and blue: Fortissima Jeans color no. 03.
Needles: 2.5 mm dpns.
Gauge: 9.5 spi - 38 st/10 cm
Finished dimensions: 5 inches - 12.5 cm from cuff to tip.
Ajoursteek asked: where did you get your copy from The Almanac? Is it for sale here in Holland?
I got my copy a long time ago from Amazon, but I just checked with Proxis and they've got it too, for only € 7.70 + € 2 shipping. I haven't seen it anywhere in a Dutch shop.
It's a lovely little book (pocket size), especially if you like to read about knitting. It doesn't have any color pictures or color charts, in fact, it looks a bit old fashioned, but don't let that scare you!
Just to prepare you, here is a picture of the front page:
And somewhere inside:
I just love it and read it over and over again, as you can see from my tattered copy. And for just € 7.70, you can't go wrong. (And if you order for more than € 25, there are no shipping costs. Now that wouldn't be hard to do, would it? Proxis has lots of great knitting books...)
Posted by saartje at 11:55 AM | Comments (6)
November 21, 2005
Christmas hats
Today, I finally finished the little hat on the left in this picture.
click
I used this idea from p2 designs. The first one (on the glass) I made, I did according to pattern, the second one I changed a bit. I wanted a slightly bigger hat with a pointier top and I had an idea for a star on the top. The pattern for the star comes from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitters Almanac, a book I totally adore.
The intended recipient could be born any minute now, so I'm glad I'm ready!
Posted by saartje at 9:53 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack
November 20, 2005
One finished
Last week was very busy indeed! Not with knitting, unfortunately, but with work. But I'm going to make up for it this week: I've got the whole week off! I do have lots of Sinterklaas shopping to do. [By the way, I found this very interesting website called St. Nicolas - Disovering the truth about Santa Claus. If you want to know more about the way we celebrate Sinterklaas in the Netherlands, go here.] Knitting will come right after shopping this week.
I finished the first over the knee sock by Cindy Taylor, from Handknit Holidays.
Excuse the crappy picture, this color is really difficult to photograph, especially in artificial light.
I did find a problem in the pattern. There is a mistake in the ankle chart, in row 8. The right cable should start right at the first stitch instead of the second. Also, when you finish the ankle part, your are told to end with row 1, a RS row. So how can you continue the turn heel part with a RS row as well? Maybe I'm overlooking something, but I decided to just do purls instead of knits and vice versa, and it came out allright. If anyone can enlighten me as to what I did wrong, I'd be much obliged.
Of course I tried it on, and I don't think it will stay up, but I like it anyway!
As a little knitting snack, I made an ornament from the same book.
I'm getting in the holiday mood!
Posted by saartje at 11:19 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
November 14, 2005
I stand corrected.
Mmmm, I was a little quick to judge yesterday, when I compained about Handknit Holidays not giving meters and grams in the yarn descriptions, only yards and ounces. As it turns out, after I took a closer look at the other patterns and not just the one I am making, I found they just list the yarn details as they come with the yarn. If the manufacturer gives yards and ounces, so does the book. The same goes for meters and grams, I even noticed a combination of yards and grams. So it's convertion time for all of us!
The over the knee socks are coming along fine, especially since I spend another day on the couch.
Maartje asked about the color of the yarn: It's Lana Grossa Meilenweit 6 fach color no. 7.
I hope my adaptions to the pattern will turn out alright. I didn't use any calculations, which I should have of course, but I'm just going with my gut feeling. So I did the 'shape thigh' part according to the pattern, I extended the straight part after that (instead of 25 rows I did 35). Now I'm at the calf part, where it tells you to decrease every 6 rows, so I'm going with every 8 rows. When it comes to knitting, I don't mind taking a risk!
Posted by saartje at 7:55 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
November 13, 2005
Cold
Thanks so much for all the kind words about my mittens! I wasn't sure the color combination was going to work, but now I know it does. This evening, when the sun had set and the living room was turning dark, the mittens almost seemed to glow.
On to a new project!
After leafing through my new knitting book Handknit Holidays for a long time, I can conclude there are a lot of patterns in it I will probably never knit. It won't be my favourite book. I'm more into books like Nancy Bush's Folk Knitting in Estiona, or Latvian Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis. Those are the kind of books I live for!
However, there are some very nice things in Handknit Holidays. This for example:
Of course, the yarn called for, Haneke Exotics, isn't available in the Netherlands (or is it? let me know!). And it would have been a nice touch if the book listed the specifics of this yarn not only in yards and ounces, but in meters and grams as well, so the rest of us outside the US wouldn't have to convert everything. Of course, this isn't hard to do, but still.
Anyway, when I was in Utrecht yesterday (trying to find yarn for the red and white mittens, which I didn't succeed in), I bought 4 balls of Lana Grossa Meilenweit 6 fach. And started the Over-the-knee Socks.
I just hope the yarn substitution will be succesfull... I'm getting 28 sts and 37 rows per inch, instead of 28 sts and 32 rows per inch, so mine will be a shorter if I keep knitting according to pattern. Even though my legs aren't very long, I think I will have to ajust along the way. I'm using safety pins to keep track of my decreases.
We'll see how they turn out. I got a lot of knitting time today, because I've got a terrible cold and all I can do is sit on the couch and knit. As long as I'm not really sick, life could be worse.....
Posted by saartje at 7:32 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack
November 11, 2005
The Swedish mittens are done!
I finished them last night:
click
I had to steam block the hem for it to lay flat. I like the way they turned out. They are not as soft as they would be if I had used the yarn called for in the pattern: Indiecita Alpaca. I'm happy I used yarn from my stash, but I would love to make these again in alpaca!
Pattern: Vante i blå och vitt from Vantar, mössor, sockor & sjalar by Anita Gunnars
Yarn: Rauma Finullgarn 100% wool, 50 g / 175 m
Needles: 2.5 mm dpns
Gauge: 8.6 spi
Started: October 31 2005
Finished: November 10 2005
So that was that, on to the next project!
I ordered this book and it arrived yesterday:
It looks very promising. Everytime I look through it, I see something else I want to make. The only negative thing I can say about it is that it doesn't have any really small gauge projects. Guess that means I can finish things sooner!
Oh, and by the way, if you want to check out this book before you buy it and you don't have a book shop nearby where you can leaf through it (like if you live in the Netherlands or anywhere in Europe I guess....), check out this photo album that Savannahchik put together. I bought my copy at Proxis.
Posted by saartje at 5:53 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
November 8, 2005
Feeling crafty
I'm still working on the Swedish mittens. I finished the first one and the second one is coming along just fine. I'm almost at the point where the stitches for the thumb are put on waste yarn.
I did the top of the mitten in a different way than the pattern suggests. I like a pointy tip.
I'm thinking about knitting a bigger project than the usual socks, mittens, scarfs and hats. I might do Mermaid by Hanne Falkenberg. I really like the shape. I found out there is a shop in Leiden, called Ribbels, that sells the kits! I just might have to go there this weekend....
Oh, and thanks to Biba, who led me to this blog, I was inspired to make a pin cushion from felt.
Felt is such a nice material to work with. And I had all the materials to make the pin cushion in my stash. That's what I'm most proud of!
Posted by saartje at 8:08 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
November 5, 2005
The fringe is on
The Noro scarf is finished! I had to force myself to put on the fringe, because I'm not good at that. It took me some tries to finally get it right. As it turned out, the best way to do it was to just attach one folded strand of yarn to each casted on (or off) stitch.
click
I like the end result, and I will wear it. One thing I learned is this: because the colors in this yarn don't vary as much as some other Noro colorways, the scarf has a little less 'depth' than this version by Yarnstorm. I would like to try this scarf again with a different Noro yarn.
Yarn: Noro Kureyon color no. 124, two balls for the scarf, a little of the third ball for the fringe
Needles: 5 mm (I think...)
Finished dimensions: 14 cm x 123 cm, which is 5.5" x 48.5" (excluding the fringe)
Something else
When I visited the Crafts Market in Den Bosch some weeks ago, besides yarn I also bought a kit to make this:
click
It's a little wooden box with a autumn scene made of felt on top of it. Can you spot the little squirrel? I really enjoyed making this! It's very small, I think that's what makes it so attractive. Just to show the dimensions, here's another picture of it, together with a ball of sock yarn (I figured that is something we all know the size of).
Cute, isn't it? I'm going to town this afternoon to find more of these kits. I think I've got a good chance at De Regenboog.
Holiday season here we come
I came across this pattern by p2 designs and I just had to make the Christmas tree hat.
click
I'm starting to get in the holiday spirit. If only it wasn't this warm, still. There is absolutely no need for any hand knits right now, besides socks which I wear year-round. At least it's sunny!
Posted by saartje at 10:41 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
