Tag: knitting

Vintersol Sweater

LinnKnitting

This beautiful sweater caught my eyes immediately. Jennifer Steinglass’s designs are beautiful and had intrigued me for quite a while when she released this new pattern called Vintersol.

 

Vintersol close up

Yarn
For this sweater I wanted to try the Icelandic yarn Lettlopi. I had heard so much about it that this time I really wanted to try it. Garnr.se has a great selection of colours and a great homepage where you can arrange the colours next to each other to see which ones fits together. It is really a great feature!

For this sweater I ordered:

1418 Straw (main colour)
1703 Mimosa (contrast)
9426 Golden Heather (contrast)
0051 White (yoke background colour)

This yarn is not the recommended, but I found that it worked out really nicely. Be sure to make a swatch too see if you need to adjust your needle size.

Pattern
The pattern is worked from the middle of the sweater. This was a first for me. After having knitted the sweater I can say it is not my preferred method. I got frustrated when I had to unravel the temporary cast on border (a few rows knitted with a different colour) and then make sure all stitches was lying at the correct direction.

Vintersol body without arms

But I guess this is just a thing that you might like or not. The pattern itself was easy to follow. For the edge at the neck I didn’t quite understand the i-cord instructions, so I made the i-cord bind off the way I have learned from before.

I made some adjustments to the sizing for myself which made me have to unravel parts of the sweater. I’m not sure if it was my changes (did I choose a size too small?) or if it was the pattern itself. I found that the added stitches underneath the armpit were too few and I couldn’t fit my arms into it. I had to add stitches myself and I think I added in total 12 stitches underneath each armpit.

I knit loosely and so I used my measuring tape a lot to make sure the body got the correct length. It is always good to measure the body of the sweater and not just looking blindly at the number of rows you are supposed to knit. I knitted way less rows than recommended, because my stitches are quite “long” and I reached the desired length quite fast. I barely had time to make a waist shaping before I had to increase again for my hips.

 

Finished piece

I am in love with this finished sweater. I love how the colour combination turned out and the soft feel of the yarn.

I soaked the sweater in water and laid it out flat to dry. This really helped with all the unevenness I had in the yoke after knitting. Knitting with three colours was a hassle, but it turns out so nice!

Afmaeli-tröjan

LinnKnitting

I höstas var jag med i Kammebornias och Järbos “knit-a-long” för tröjan Afmaeli. Som ni ser så blev det en färdig tröja med ljusgrön som bottenfärg.

Jag har inte stickat i det rekommenderade garnet lettlopi utan med andra garner. Jag kommer lägga upp ett till inlägg där jag berättar om det. Det jag vill berätta i detta inlägg är hur jag använde mönstret för att forma midjan på tröjan.

Mönstret är unisex och enligt måtten skulle S passa för min överkropp och M för höften. Jag ville att tröjan skulle vara lite tajt och ha form, men jag visste också att S skulle bli för tajt runt höften och runt mina armar. Så jag började att lägga upp för en tröja i storlek M, både för armarna och kroppen.

För att anpassa mönstret så stickade jag ca 10 centimeter och sedan började jag att sticka ihop maskor i höger och vänster kant, med jämna mellanrum. Så att jag tillslut nådde det antal som var angett för storlek S. Samma sak gjorde jag för ärmarna. Det krävs lite huvudräkning för att se hur många gånger du måste minska, men det är väl värt det i slutet!

 

Jag stickar en Afmaeli

LinnKnitting

Jag har för första gången tagit mig an utmaningen att göra en “knit-a-long”. Det är Järbo och Kammebornia som tillsammans håller i det hela. Pia skriver så fina och beskrivande instruktioner att jag ser fram emot varje nytt inlägg även om jag själ  inte har hunnit lika långt som det är tänkt.

Jag är själv förvånad över hur lätt det har varit att sticka denna tröja hitills. Arbetet har bara flutit på och jag är inte långt efter i tidsplanen. Det är så häftigt att se plagget växa fram och att inse att det nog går att sticka en tröja med isländskt mönster på en månad. #kammeborniaafmaeli

My second Siri cardigan

LinnKnitting

I knitted a second Siri Cardigan!

I loved the first one I knitted so I immediately stared a second one last year. You could easily say this post is overdue, I finished the cardigan autumn 2016. But better later than never.

This one is knitted with the yarn “Alpakka” from Sandnes Garn. It’s such a lovely yarn to work with. The cardigan is so soft and nice. I am sensitive to yarn that might itch and I was so pleased to know that this one does not itch. It’s been my favourite cardigan this winter. I would definitely recommend this yarn!

The pattern is still as awesome as the last time. This time I did a full length cardigan like the pattern suggests. It’s a good pattern that allows you to decide the length by yourself. It’s work from top down.

Since this yarn is softer the pattern “popped” more on the first cardigan. But it’s still visible on this one. I love the pattern and I’m even considering making a third too!

 

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

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