Grin and Bear it!

So it was my niece´s first birthday about a week ago. I am trying not to drown the poor kid in hand knits – and I have to admit it´s not going terribly well. But just as I was losing another battle against the urge to cast on something new for her...

Enter Teddy!

The solution is of course to knit something for my niece that she doesn´t have to wear herself.
(Yes, that is both sneaky and clever isn´t it)

Since I had some yarn left over from the cardigan that I made her before, Teddy got a matching outfit.

I spent a whole day knitting this tiny sweater – Teddy is a pretty small bear. Albeit with an acute dress sense.

And this is the happy birthday girl being introduced to her new friend.

I really thought that I had outsmarted myself – when I found that I somehow had cast on something pink and with a lace pattern around the bottom. 

No, surely.

It couldn´t possibly be. 

A knitted dress for someone small?

Oops.

The original pattern is from the 1930´s, but like many patterns from that era it´s not very accurately written. No given gauge, no needle number, no measurements given for how long to make the skirt part...

So knitting this dress has been a bit of trial and error. There has been some ripping (and swearing) but now it´s more or less done. Just need to crochet a picot edging – and of course no instructions given for how to do that. In those days you were more or less expected to be born with knowledge like that.

Cardigan in Action

This is my niece in her new Hound cardigan and matching hat. Exploring the world.

Examining a small leaf.

I just love her big cheeks!

In only two weeks time she will turn 1.

So, eh – what am I doing sitting here writing a blog post?  

I need to go and cast on for her birthday present.

P.S. That French beret thing in the last blog post got frogged and now I´m re-working the top part. C'est la vie!

With a Little Help From My Friends

After our long weekend in Paris in the beginning of March I have been obsessing about knitting a kind of French beret. And then we went to the cinema and saw the film Hugo Cabret – that showcases an admirable collection of lovely knitted pieces.

So I went home and started working on something that now is a rather odd looking mess of a hat. It is a crossbreed between a French beret and a Scottish tam. Or something.

Eiffel tower included for atmosphere.

But I have to confess that I am not completely happy about how the top bit looks. Should I rip or should I leave it as it is?

I am VERY pernickety so chances are that I will have to try and improve it in some way. But I would nevertheless appreciate some good advice.

While I have been considering what to do about the beret I´ve knit yet another little baby hat. It´s not for my niece this time, but for six-weeks-old Ebba – whose mother loves cats.

But I wasn´t happy with the top of this hat either to start with so it has also suffered a bit of a remake.

Somtimes I think that the knitting process involves a disproportionate amount of swearing and gritting of teeth. 

But once something is finished I´m quite happy to let bygones be bygones and I tell myself that it was a one off. Next time it will all be smooth sailing...

A Cardigan and Two Hats

My niece´s cardigan with hounds, hearts and paw prints is finally finished. It is a little big for her, which is a good thing. She actually came along to the button shop and helped me pick out the buttons. 

She really enjoyed being in the button shop and we managed to pick out suitable buttons.

My sister has promised to send me a photo of my niece in the cardigan, but of course it´s now rather warm so maybe she won´t be wearing it much.

Since I had some yarn left over she also got a matching hat.

Of course she might not be wearing the wooly dog hat much either in the spring and summer season.

So I made her a spring and summer hat in cotton instead – and without dogs.

The colours made me think of ice cream while knitting it.

Or maybe of cherry trees in full bloom.

Good News and Bad News

Okay, the bad news is that I still haven´t darned in all those ends on the mitten that I showed in my last blog post.

The good news is I have finished the neck cowl and blocked it.

The pattern is called Ogee lace and comes from one of Barbara Walter´s books. It´s a cute little lace flower.

The neck cowl would look a lot better photographed on a human being than it does on my foot stool, but the foot stool had to do.

I have also worked on the Hound cardigan for my niece. The first sleeve I made turned out too small, so I decided to pick up stitches along the sleeve hole and knit the sleeves from the top down to make sure they fit.

This way the sleeves will already be attached to the body when they are finished and no extra sewing is needed. And that in turn will increase the chances many times that shw will actually receive her cardigan before she has outgrown it...

But just to be on the safe side I have made it a little bit bigger than what I first intended.
Because – my, how she grows!

Not that I know if I deserved it (after not darning in those ends), but this is what the Easter bunny left for me:

Those are tiny balls of cotton yarn from Svarta Fåret. They look good enough to eat, don´t they?

No 1 on my Ultimate Wish List has always been a swimming pool full of Shetland yarn, but this is close enough, I think.

Hope everyone had a nice Easter!

A New Start

A new start is so much more fun than finishing an old project. Winding the yarn, casting on, knitting the first fresh rounds.

And then you end up with something like this:

Such fun! Not.

But I have only got myself to blame. What a stupid idea it was to make a pair of mittens out of remnants. Just look at that mess.

To cheer myself up I started a couple of new knitting projects instead.

This will eventually become a cowl. I am using a sock yarn combined with Kidsilk Haze, so it is going to be a very cosy cowl.

And this is a baby cardigan for my cute niece. It has a pattern of dogs, hearts and paws in brown, pink and purple. It is the dog from the Happy Hound hat – because I am really fond of their melancholy look.

Actually, I should probably not call it the Happy Hound hat. The Melancholic Mongrel hat would be a much more befitting name, wouldn´t it?

A Day Off

These days I mostly knit my own designs. But sometimes I like to relax and just enjoy someone else´s work. So when I came upon Maria Näslund´s lovely hat Tulipanaros I decided to order some yarn from Sjöalyckans silke and cast on.

The original hat was made in green that suited the leaf design very well, but I am a sucker for pink and simply couldn´t resist this particular shade (and I didn´t try very hard either to be honest).

 It was such a quick and easy knit. Almost went too fast. I´m so used to having to rip back at least a couple of times – instead it was finished all of a sudden. Isn´t it a beautiful design? Especially from the back.

So this morning I decided that spring is here, put my new hat on and took the bike to work. Big mistake. It was freezing and started to snow. But at least it meant that I had the bike lane almost to myself.

The Tulipanaros hat matches my favourite shawl Grace designed by Heléne Wallin to perfection.

How can you not love a shawl that has both beads and ruffles? Heléne is a genius.

My friend Eva-Karin took this and some of the other photos for this blog post.

Tack för hjälpen, Eva-Karin!