Stickarboden, The Office!

I proudly present my, not yet but soon finished, house project. I'm moving my office into this place in a couple of weeks. The room next doors is aimed for meetings, knitting courses or parties. It can also be used as a guest house.

At the centre of the floor and the corners I have painted a pattern from the book "Schabloner med traditioner" by Lena Nessle. I have modified the pattern to fit my purpose and made my own matching corner composition. It has been tested once before in my daughter's room and I thought it would be a good idea to use the same pattern again. I'm very happy with the result.

Welcome!

New pattern

Last shawl of my design concept. Now there's one for every skill level. This lovely yarn is one of my favourites, Grignasco 2/28 nm MerinoSilk. That's really a quality yarn and the colour is just fantastic something in between plum and purple.

70's baby dress, småflickornas lilla fina

I started knitting lace before I knew I was knitting lace. This cute dress was made for my daughter 2005. She wore it at a medeival wedding 2006 (was it?). Lovely pattern really, from "Stora boken om handarbete" published by ICA förlag in the 70's something. I think there was a copy of it in almost every home. Even mine, but I wonder why, 'cause nobody knitted in my house until I got 6 years and got hooked. I wonder how many projects I started whithout finishing. But there was nothing wrong with my ideas, they were... so many!

Queen Susan Shawl

I have just about started knitting the Queen ring Susan Shawl. The Ravelry Heirloom project which has such a fascinating history. I am very sorry I missed the opportunity to participate. Though, I am though not sure I want to make another big square shawl at the moment which will take a year something ( done it...). Maybe I will change the yarn, even if dull grey was a long time since I had on my pins :-). It is not dull at all. It is actually a very nice contrast to my most recent projects. Don't miss this pattern, it's all free!



I am testing how to change the flowers the under the bows of small flowers.


Can you see how they resemble each other? Painting on the shoe, and this antique pattern. The same Heirloom all over :-).

There goes the neighbourhood

Not knitting this time, but I think they fit here. Anything traditional or stylish or whatever I like can be posted here. Last week, when skiing in Sälen (Dalarna) I foud these cute high heeled clogs. They are designed by a woman who is from Dalarna (Åsa Westlund). They are hand painted in Dalarna too. Lovely n'est ce pas? Heirloom shoes! Wooden clogs are very traditional in Sweden, certainly if you were born in the 70's (lol!).

Three weeks lace

This is the second shawl of my design concept. It has been hibernating some time while knitting the "Four weeks lace shawl". It is based on the patterns I designed myself for my knitting class this winter, but it also has the traditional Shetland frame. Do you think the choice of colour is peculiar? I knitted a bespoke shawl to match my winter jacket in this colour combination. I don't think I would have come up with such a combination myself , but actually it is very pretty. Happy, happy orange! 45g of 2/28nm Zegna Baruffa Cashwool bought from Colourmart. This 100% merino is very soft, it is a bit thinner than I expected but it is of course also about density, not just length per kg :-). Tonight it shall be blocked.

Four weeks lace

I have designed a series of shawls in 2/28nm lace yarn. This is the knitted lace version. I have called it four weeks lace because if you are working full time and have a family it could still be knitted in about four weeks without too much effort (if you are an experienced knitter). The appearance is very lacy. By the way, I have changed the name of the colour from shocking pink into raspberry :-). 60g of Grignasco MerinoSilk, colour 188. Light as a feather! This is a pattern I can sell, it is well documented and has a logic design meaning you don't have to make many adjustments and do much thinking on your own. Perfect first knitted lace, when you want to try a more difficult pattern (patterned every row) but don't want to spend a whole year on a single project.The pattern repeats are short which does not make it as advanced as its appearance.

Springtime, Keikitime

My Doritis pulcherima does not produce flowers with legs (lol!). It's another Keiki! Keiki-love, my keiki-love...

Swatching for a wedding ring shawl

I have spent a few hrs on swatching (but I never do that...). The Wedding ring shawl and Queen ring shawl patterns had small skeins of sample yarns attached and I was especially curious about the 2/90nm cashmere and the 1/16nm Shetland supreme yarns.




As a comparison I also made a swatch with my favourite lace weight 2/28nm (any yarn really, I always end up with 2/28nm).

Funny enough, Miller calls these thin yarns thread (lol!), but really that's an understatement!

The 2/90nm cash is even thinner than normal sewing thread :-). It has almost no halo because it is tightly spun (like a sewing thread) and with my 2.5mm Addi Lace (I won't knit lace with a thinner needle, it hurts my fingertips and that's not fun and knitting shall be nothing but fun!) the result is not of my preference at all. It has a crispness I hadn't expected and it is much stronger than many lace weight yarns I have tried. Cashmere yarns are normally very fragile, you have to use a waste wool cast on method, but this yarn is really something extra and I think you can redo sections with the same yarn if you have to frog a section. Consequently it is not at all as soft as cashmere yarns are expected to be. Finally, a shawl in this yarn will not warm up any shoulders... aren't they supposed to? I am though sure the result for those that have no pets, no kids and never have to store their knitting while not working on the shawls will be very pleased with the final result with this yarn choice. The shawl will be almost transparent. So delicate!

The Shetland supreme is very fuzzy, though not at all as soft as I had expected. I have to say thin 1ply yarns are not my preference, it's too fragile and too difficult to fix when it snags. Though, the smell of the wet Shetland supreme yarn is fantastic (yes I do love the smell of nondestroyed wool, makes me feel comfortable), smells like a free breeding sheep (I am trying to say I think they spend all year round outdoors, happy sheep). The yarn has the very typical wool roughness and unfortunately I have spoilt myself with cashmere, silk and the softest merino. If I hadn't I would appreciate this yarn much more I think because when knitted the fuzziness is exceptional. Probably the best "ecological" choice, but it is not mentioned so I am just guessing.

So, the result is: 2/28nm is the winner again! It will give a stunning lace effect. The pattern is even and the result is very transparent too (but you can not see it when you compare these swatches :-)).

If you look closely you can see that the yarn samples used, the swatch is on page 12 in the Queen ring pattern, was even too small for making a 10 by 10 cm square. That's not a sample worth swatching with when you are to knit square meters. What if I wanted to redo my swatch with another needle size? Don't misunderstand, I really admire the work Miller has done! Her Herirloom knitting lace bible is really something extra and it must have taken ages to collect all the patterns and make diagrams for them. Though there are many "weak" areas of the designs and I would rather know beforehand than meeting the problems when there is nothing you can do to compensate for the weakesses. I always have ideas of how to fix things. Dealing with fragile yarns gives no margins. When you have set the route there is no turning back else months of hard work can be wasted. Please put the cards on the table. I think Miller needs a testing team giving feedback and a few sponsors to add that little extra to the layout.