No, it´s Not Lonely at the Top

Guess where we went for the mid term holiday – that we in Sweden call a sport holiday?

Here is a clue:

Yes, that is the Eiffel tower and the kids made me walk up the stairs.
668 steps.
But it was walking down the stairs that made me suffer (that´s middle age for you)

And it wasn´t lonely at the top. At all. It was quite crowded actually. Even though we went there pretty early in the morning on a misty day.

The Happy Hound Hat was just finished in time to accompany us to Paris and we took the opportunity to have a photo shoot.

Vive la vovve!

It is a much better fit now and I love the colours.

In Paris we stayed in an apartment on Rive Gauche, a lovely neighbourhood close to the river Seine.

Just across the bridge was the Louvre and of course we went there to have a look at the Mona Lisa. About 10 000 Japanese tourist had had the same idea. Quite a coincidence, eh?

We also went there one evening to have a look at the Eiffel tower by night. There was a light show every hour and the lights on the river were pretty spectacular, too.

The apartment we stayed in was in an old building with wooden beams in the ceiling. Teenage daughter no longer wants to be in photos – unlike her younger brother...

It was a very beautiful apartment and my favourite room was the bathroom – because of the tiles.

I am beginning to suspect that I have a thing about tiles. But this would make a pretty knit pattern, no?

In central Paris there is a quite famous craft shop called La Drougerie. To me – with very poor French – it sounds as if they have called it ''The Drug shop" and it is a pretty apt name for a shop selling this much yarn.

I didn´t actually buy anything at La Drougerie, though. Because I had already spent all my money in a place called L'OisiveThé. And no, I can´t pronounce the name – but luckily I found it (all the way out in a suburb) without having to ask for directions.

It is a combined tea and yarn shop – and what a brilliant idea that was!  Kids can´t talk with their mouths full of chocolate cake, so no complaining about how long mummy is taking choosing colours.
The genius who runs this establishment is called Aimee and being American she speaks both English and French which made shopping a lot less traumatic.

This is me with my loot: two skeins of Madeline Tosh sock and four skeins of Koigu. But I do look as if I have bought something more illegal. (I am supposed to be on some kind of yarn diet but let´s not spoil the mood by talking about that)

 A big thank you to Louise who not only let us borrow the lovely apartment but also tipped me off about this excellent yarn shop!

Kära Hemslöjden!

This post will only be in Swedish.

Grattis på 100-årsdagen.

Så roligt att det blir jubileumsfirande hela året med massor av utställningar: vävning på Nordiska museet, knypplade spetsar i Vadstena, Lilli Zickerman på Waldemarsudde, trasmattepicknick på Stortorget i Östersund och diverse hårdslöjd.

Men... stickningen då?

Jo, lite "Stickmagi från Färöarna" kommer att visas i Sollefteå. Och några av löven på Liljevalchs kommer att vara stickade. Men varför blir det ingen stor utställning om stickning som är så älskat just nu? Vi har ju så många fina gamla traditionella mönster som syns alldeles för sällan.

Kanske finns det en fin tanke med att Hemslöjden vill stödja den slöjd som inte är lika livskraftig som stickning? Hoppas det. Knyppling och vävning kan behöva få visa upp sig för att få nya fans.

Stickningen är kanske rentav lite för populär? Inte fin nog. Det är mer som en folkrörelse – det stickas ju mer än någonsin i hela Sverige, hemma och på stick-caféer, det öppnar nya garnaffärer, kommer nya handarbetstidningar och bilagor med massor av stickmönster och på nätet dominerar stickningen.

Stickningen klarar sig bevisligen bra utan Hemslöjden.
Frågan är snarare klarar sig Hemslöjden utan stickningen?

Stickad ärm från Dala-Floda. Fin nog att visas upp.

Why You Should Listen to those Voices in Your Head

As I was knitting this hat I could hear a voice that kept nagging me about the size.
– It´s going to be rather big, it said.
But did I listen? Of course not.

Turns out the voice was wrong anyway. The hat wasn´t big.
It was massive.

Even if my head is on the small side – and my ability to think seems to be in correlation to the size of my brain, there is no doubt about it. This hat would be too big for most people

But maybe one could wear this instead of a burka if one was of the burka-wearing kind?
And it works much better than an anti-age cream. No wrinkles to be seen anywhere.
But enough of the bad jokes.

This hat has now been ripped and I have started again. Luckily I love the combination of the colours – brown and green/blue – so I am not feeling too miserable.

And the pattern of happy little hounds really cheer me up!

On Show in the Snow

It´s well below freezing and pretty windy, too. Siberian winter has reached Stockholm and it´s the perfect weather to curl up on the sofa and knit. The Maja hat now has a pair of matching mittens.
Of course it meant that we had to go outside to take a photograph...
Brrr.

Luckily I also had a new hat to model or my ears would have frozen off.

Later on teenage daughter took the mittens and the camera out to play in the snow.

The yarn is my favourite Zauberball and Loopy Ewe Solids in bright green. They work well together.

And for all the members in "Friends of the Thumb Gusset" here is a close up of the thumb gusset. Enjoy!

Last weekend something happened that I never thought would actually happen. I finished my first mitten made in the twined knitting technique!

After washing and blocking the mitten softened and even stretched enough to fit my rather wide hand.That was lucky because  I had been worrying a lot about it being too narrow.

By the time I started knitting the thumb I had grown confident enough to risk making a simple pattern. And that is when I actually started enjoying the two end-knitting technique. Which feels like something of a miracle given how much I disliked it at first – but only because it made me feel like all thumbs.

Now I have started the second mitten. The first one took two years, but by now I think I have the speed up so I probably knit twice as fast.

Secret Projects (and Not So Secret)

A lot of the time this autumn I have been working on secret projects. New hats and mittens.
I´m not sure what will become of them, but time will tell.

But here is some stuff that is not so secret. A new pair of mittens made with yarn remnants.
When it comes to colour I always find the more the merrier.

I have loved knitting these mittens. What I don´t love quite as much is weaving in all the ends.

This mitten is nowhere near being finished. I haven´t even started on the next one.
And needless to say both mittens still need thumbs.

As long as the yarn is roughly the same thickness and of the same yardage it works rather well together.
And you don´t need to have a lot of yarn left, just a couple of yards/meters.

I made these mittens as part of a project for the group Stick-Salongen that I belong to. There are eleven of us and we meet once a month to knit and talk. Yes, the Nerd Level* of our conversations is pretty high and would probably bore others to tears. But some of the things we knit are quite interesting.

(*Nerd Level is a way of quantifying nerdiness, measured in social outcast tiers)

Last Christmas I (very nobly) gave my Karin Kurbits mittens away, so I´m now working on a new pair.

So now the pile of mittens that need thumbs is now growing rapidly next to me in the sofa. For next Christmas I´m going to ask Santa for a thumb-knitting machine.

God jul!

God jul!

A Merry Christmas!

(Needlefelted Santa was made by daughter)

All You Need is Paul

Knitting while waiting for a Paul McCartney concert to begin:

Check!

 And finally – there he was. With his Hofner Violin bass.

This was the fourth time I saw Paul McCartney in concert. I was in row 4, seat 34 – right in front of the stage. I couldn´t believe my luck! It´s the best seating I´ve ever had. Maybe 4 is my lucky number?

 It was easy to forget the other thousands who filled the Globe Arena, especially when Paul played acoustic guitar and sang without the rest of the band and told little anecdotes.

Next June Paul will turn 70, even though it´s hard to believe. He still has a boyish look and kept rocking for two and a half hours almost non stop. He played one song for John and one for George. And I bet he played "Maybe I´m Amazed" for Linda, though he didn´t say.

My love for the Beatles made me do a lot of half mad things when I was young. I went to Liverpool as a teenager and walked in their footsteps (it was before there was a Magical Mystery bus tour) and I stayed in London and hung around outside Paul´s office at Soho Square 1 as often as I could. And that´s where I met him and Linda once.

I´ll never forget how kind he was to me and the other giggling, young girls who had been waiting for him in the freezing cold (it was January and had been snowing – in London!)
After giving everyone an autograph he shook hands and even thanked us for waiting for him.

A lot of the people in the audience last night wore Beatles or Paul McCartney t-shirts, but I only took my Winter of Love mittens.

The hat I was knitting in the photo above still has no name and now I wonder if  I should perhaps call it Paula? Or maybe Linda – or Mary, Stella or Beatrice (after his daughters). Then there is Jane, (the actress he was engaged to in the 1960´s) Nancy (his present wife) and of course Martha, his sheep dog.

Since it´s going to be a pretty nice hat, calling it Heather is out of the question.

But do leave a comment – I´m open to suggestions!