Category: Knitting

The Siri Cardigan

LinnKnitting

My Siri cardigan is finished. I am so pleased with this cardigan, it turned out just as I wanted it to.

Close up on the back of the cardigan
I am in love with this pattern and I have all ready bought yarn to make a second one.

For this cardigan I used Sandnes yarn “Smart”. It’s a 100% wool yarn that’s superwashed. It was quite nice to knit with and the finished piece is both warm and does not itch.

siri cardigan2

I did two modifications to this cardigan. The first was to make it waist length instead of hip length. This is an easy modification to do as the pattern allows you to try the cardigan on while you are knitting. That way I knew when I reached my waist that I didn’t want it much longer. So I just stopped and did the ribbing right there.

My second modification was the sleeves. According to the pattern the sleeves were to be a length of 36 cm (If I remember correctly), but when I tried the first sleeve on it was too short. It had a middle length and ended somewhere in the middle of my forearm. So I had to lengthen the sleeves with approximately 10 cm.

siri cardigan4

You can find the pattern on ravelry by the designer Clara Linnea. I really recommend it since it was both fun, easy and quite fast to knit.

The photos of me were taken by sweet Cheryl Low.

 

Next project – Koftan Siri

LinnKnitting

I had decided to finish my fair isle pullover before I started a new project, but it’s going so slowly and I’m just itching to start something new. If you are a knitter and haven’t registered on the awesome knitting site Ravelry I urge you to do so! Ravelry is the most amazing place for a knitter with tons of patterns, groups, galleries of photos and so on. Ravelry is my place to go when I need inspiration.

Photo by Clara Linnea

The Cardigan Siri is my latest obsession. I need to make one of these! I heard about it on the podcast Rätt avigt and after I looked at it and pictures of people’s finished cardigans, I just knew I had to make one. The pattern creates these wonderful leaves from you neck and down over your back and bust. I think I looks amazing! I have never tried a pattern like this before and so it will be a challenge for myself to try something new.

The construction of the cardigan is new to me. I haven’t knitted many cardigans before and this one does not follow the same construction as the only one I knitted before. It’s going to be very fun to knit this way and try out a new way. I’m a bit unsure how the armhole part will be, but I guess I’ll see when I get there.

I’ve bought yarn and started this project already.  fell in love with the colour “Cerise” (4600) of Sandnes garn “smart”. Smart is a superwash yarn and it’s super soft! 10 skeins of this raspberry red ended up in a bag and I cast on as soon as I got home. So far it’s very fun, but it took me a while to get the right hang of it. I always knit in with the back of the stitches and so I had to remember to do it the “right” way because otherwise the pattern wouldn’t show as it should. I’ve now finished the first skein and I hope to finish the cardigan before April is over, we’ll see.

Siri,latte,cheesecake

Näverstickning is so much fun!

LinnKnitting

cowl

In the book Sticka sjalar, halsdukar och lite till by Erika Åberg there is a lovely pattern for a näverstickad scarf. The pattern looked so amazing that I right from the start new I had to try it.

sticka sjalar

For this pattern I use a different yarn size and needle size than recommended. I used the icelandic yarn Alafosslopi and needles size 5,5mm. I wanted a nice and cool looking cowl to contrast with my new black winter coat and so I bought four skeins hoping it would be enough.

garn1

The pattern itself was tricky to understand at first. I had to do a testknit before I started, to understand how this pattern worked. But once you get going the pattern becomes more and more clear and after the first skein of yarn I felt like I was getting the hang of it. The pattern creates a beautiful texture and I am very pleased with it. I made a long scarf that I sewed together at the ends to make it a cowl. The Näverstickade pattern gives this cowl a big pop and I love wearing it!

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Photos from February

LinnBooks

Here are some photos from my February instagram feed. You can follow my knitting and book journey if you want to. I’m at @booksandknitting

spinna1  snow1

I spun some yarn of the nice wool I got for Christmas. It also snowed a lot one morning and I was very happy for my knitted accessories during the walk to work.

garn1  sticka1
I spontaneously bought four skeins of icelandic yarn and started a big scarf or cowl using a new technique for me, näverstickning (or entrelac in english).

fika1  fika2
Book club fika was great with nutella filled semlas! I also drank a lot of tea (as always).

books1  wuthering heights
I bought new books that I’ll review once I’ve read them. I also finished reading six books this month. Wuthering Heights was one of them.

sticka2  books2
I tried to block my cowl with lace boarder, but it still curls ut. I might have to do it again so I can present it here at the blog. I also started to read Blood Chimera, which is really good so far. I’ll review it!

books3  sticka3
I also read Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo and decided to borrow the next book from the library. I love the cover! I have done a lot of work on my fair isle pullover and I might be coming close to being done.

All in all, a good month even though I had a cold for three out of four weeks.

My eternity project – Fair Isle rib tank top

LinnKnitting

I never seem to learn that projects of greater size knitted with size 3mm always will be “eternity projects” that I almost am forcing myself through. This is one of those projects and I thought it’d be fun to do a post about it.

läststickatfinstickatThis project is a knitted tank top with a ribbed back and a fair isle patterned front. The pattern is from the book “Lättstickat, finstickat” by Anna Wilkinson (Link to ravelry.)  It looks very lovely and I guess I underestimated how long it would take me to knit this vest. I had my eyes set on getting done before 2016, but since it’s 2016 all ready you know I didn’t reach that goal.

väst

The pattern recommends yarn from Jamisons. I didn’t know where to get at hold of that yarn and instead I bought Sandnes “Mini alpakka” yarn. It’s a soft and nice yarn which feels almost slippery to knit with (I have metal needles points). I changed one of the colours in the pattern from dark blue to a green.

yarnväst

I’m really happy how the pattern is turning out and I really want to finish this one. But there is still a lot left on the front piece and it goes very slowly due to it not being knitted in the round. I did two swatches of the colours before I started with the front and I’m glad I did. Since I’m not using the original colours and a different brand it was good to see how it would turn out. So I swatched two colourways and knitted a third non-swatched colourway. I love it! I’m gonna be so happy when it’s finally done.

framsidaväst

 

Wool to spin

LinnKnitting

wool1

For Christmas my mother bought me these wonderful braids of wool. When you unravel the braid you use the wool for spinning you own yarn. These three lovely braids is bought from Forsbacka ull. My first drop spindle and the first wool braid I ever bought was from Forsbacka ull, and I’m so glad for this gift. I can’t wait to start spinning these lovely braids into soft and colourful yarn.

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I really like this blue, orange mix is lovely and it even has some brown/purple spots as well where the orange and blue comes together. It’s Corridale wool and I’m very excited to try this one since I haven’t tried Corridale before.

wool6

wool7

This braid has a amazing colour! The colours are really as vibrant in reality as they are in the photo. This will be a great firey yarn when spun. It’s a superwash merio wool which I know gives a nice and soft yarn.

wool4

wool5

And lastly we have this soft and silky Wensleydale wool. The green and turquoise is lovely and really makes the wool shine. I’ve never spun Wensleydale wool before and I’m really looking forward to it. The wool is so shiny and I’m wondering how lovely the finished yarn will be.

I’ll post an update when I’ve spun these yarns!

Orange blanket with giant needles

LinnKnitting

orangegiant2

For Christmas  I received the yarn and needles shown in the image above from my dear Cheryl. These aren’t any regular needles and yarn, these are giant size. The yarn came in two large balls. One ball is about the size of my head! The needles are giant as well, 130 mm in circumference with a soft plastic tube making it into circular needles. 130mm!

orangegiant

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So, of course I had to cast on and make myself a cozy blanket. I cast on 24 stitches and I made a ribbed pattern by making 2 knit, 2 purl.

I must say it wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve knitted. It might look easy but holding those needles and actually doing the knitting wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. It was heavy towards the end but the needles were also a bit hard to grip due to their size. It was very fun though, making something this big. I would like to try the needles again maybe with an airy, soft yarn and make a big lovely scarf.orange3

orange4

Here is the final result. A soft and nice blanket for the sofa. It’s already in use and I really like it. The blanket is very stretchy so it’s hard to tell the finished size. But it’s about 150 cm long and 100 cm wide.

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orange1

 

Thank you Cheryl for the Christmas gift.