Archive for in English
July 31, 2007 klo 21.01 · Aiheena on in English
I finished the butterfly. I promise to publish some slightly more interestig photos later, but right now we are living in the middle of humongous amount of gray moving boxes. Not so inspiring environment for photography. And speak about light. None of it here.
Back to the butterfly. Simple silk slip works well as undergarment.
Closeup of surface and beads.
Not so much mods with this pattern. I knitted one bead to each diamond and the beads are smaller than advised. Knitted the shouldes straps with stokinette stitch. Didn’t bother to craft the laces on the bottom edge.
I feel knitter’s void after remarkable project. What next? In the meantime some yarn shopping to fill the emptiness…
Strange, but some other people actually pile stuff on their cats, too. Blog cat carries graciously Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock, colourways Sage and Baltic Sea.
Same colours on the windowsill in better light. I encouraged myself to try multicoloured yarn. Love the shades, but still not sure about the finished garment. We’ll see.
Some Rowan, again. Big Wool was on sale in couple of yarn stores ans I wanted some Kidsilk Haze in ss -07 season shade for Lucetta .
And that’s not all. Some cones from Colourmart have mysteriously found their way to my yarnstash. Ecru is 100% cashmere, probably for Eunny’s Tangled Yoke Cardigan. Cool pink might end up as one of the saucy lace tops from the book Knitting Lingerie Style.
July 23, 2007 klo 12.35 · Aiheena on in English
Some rather time consuming finishing job still ahead. I love every detail of this knit: colour, patterns, yarn, double lace at hem, pearls… I admit that knitting the dress body was somewhat boring and it lost some working time to more interesting projects.
July 19, 2007 klo 23.38 · Aiheena on in English
I don’t buy any fashion magazines anymore. Instead i spend illegal amounts of time in sites like Style.com - and I love the current lookbook -feature.
I collected some f/w 2007 knitted fashion - garments and accessories - to the lookbook, 140 images right now. This is not so carefully selected but of course my personal taste affects even this quickly selected collection!
Roll neck sweaters are all over in fall fashion. As themselves and as part of layered outfits.
Style.com, Alexander McQueen
Loads of thin, thin, usually black boatnecks or crewnecks for layering. Loved to see them under dresses, nice way to extend the usability of summer dress or dress down a fancy one.
Classic cables were around, fair isle almost nonexistent. Mohair and other furry materials were combined to shiny fabrics.
Granddad cardigans are still here. I love them! Miu Miu even paired them with skirts - weared tucked in like a blouse.
Style.com, Miu Miu
Chunky weight cardigans and accessories were common sight. Long knitted gloves, knitted sleeves and wristwarmers were here and there. Knitted socks were one favourite accessory.
A hand knitting enthusiast might be most exited to see Nina Ricci’s spiral knits, Missoni and Marc by Marc Jacobs fair isle knits, Pringle and Calvin Klein beautiful cables. And of course all those nice chunky weight cardies and accessories.
Style.com, Anna Sui
Style.com, Vivienne Westwood
Style.com, Nina Ricci
Style.com, Marc by Marc Jacobs
Style.com, Calvin Klein
July 13, 2007 klo 12.40 · Aiheena on in English
I finished the baby cardigan. Well, sort of. Hood is too small because I run short of the mushroom coloured yarn. I need to find some more or convert the hood to some sort of collar.
(unwashed, unblocked)
***
I visited Taito Shop Helsky at Etelä Esplanadi for the first time. Yarn selection was not big. Except very good selection of felting yarns. Small selection of Sandnes and Sublime accompanied some basic Finnish wool yarns.
But the shop was absolutely worth of visiting. Largest portion of the shop was dedicated to Finnish crafts: linen cloths, home accessories, glass, ceramics and jewelry. I fell in love with Jaana Tuomisto’s recycled jewelries. How would I know that old spoons, printing plates or fishing accessories would convert to such beauties. This bracelet is made of spoon baits.
July 12, 2007 klo 15.30 · Aiheena on in English
Print o’ the Wave in progress!
Something small with ice-cream colors here…
Blog cat #1 sends her important message to all: remember to sleep a lot when on holiday!
July 4, 2007 klo 20.35 · Aiheena on in English
Martha is now ready to wear. I happened to have actually two similar but different coloured A-line blouses that go perfectly with M. Several other tops go well with it. I predict long live out for my Martha.
Pattern: Rowan Studio 2 (Rowan books at GetKnitted), Martha. Easy but somewhat interesting pattern. Decent pattern images with measurements would have been very nice when shrinking the garment…
Yarn: Colourmart 100% cashmere tweed
Needles: 3,5 mm ja 4 mm
Mods: some adjustments to achieve right size with another yarn. Left away the small flap on the edge of collarband. Nice, yep, except if you try to wear the cardigan open.
Some of the leftover yarn end up as wristwarmers for my mom:
She’s not big fan of grey, so I dyed them red with Kool Aid. Good thing for my Project Spectrum.
Pattern: Wristwarmers, Last minute knitted gifts, Joelle Hoverson
Yarn: Colourmart 100% cashmere, gray tweed kool-aided to dark wine
Needles: 3,5 mm dp
Mods: 8 rounds more than in pattern, to compensate vertical shrinkage.
July 4, 2007 klo 13.11 · Aiheena on in English
I felt so relieved when I measured the washed and dried Martha this morning. It had shrinked just as I expected it to. Some work still remains. I left the sleeve seams to be worked after washing. Shrinkage in horizontal and vertical directions was dramatically different, so fitting two directions of knit together before washing would have been too daring for me.
I love how you can see the softness of the material in these images.
More sewing images. Matress stitch, anyone?
I found the perfect buttons from Punainen lanka, Hakaniemen halli. I really recommend you to visit Hakaniemi hall to have an old time shopping experience if you ever come to visit Helsinki. Lower floor is dedicated to food and in the upper floor you can find nice cafe, one yarn shop, one very nice button shop, some Finnish design and loads of crafts, pots, toys and kitch.
July 3, 2007 klo 20.45 · Aiheena on in English
I’ve been knitting like crazy these days my cashmere Martha. Well, to be honest, the situation probably seems pretty normal to the occassional observer… But the knit is now ready to take a bath. Can’t wait to see the result!
Meanwhile… …enter the blog cat (with the brand new water bowl from Stockholm).
June 29, 2007 klo 18.46 · Aiheena on in English
I kind of understood earlier that to make two tone socks you actually need two tones of yarn. I had nearly one ball Cashmere Merino Silk as leftover from my bed socks. The colour is white. I’m slowly counting one plus one - wow, what if I dyed a small portion of it with Cool Aid, I could really make two toned baby socks.
Just a tiny amount of Lemon Lime is needed to make substantial amount of water light green. I used my own special coctail to tint the colour subtly, didn’t want acidy green basic shadow. End result is light, yellowish bamboo green.
And two tone socks, at last:
June 28, 2007 klo 13.07 · Aiheena on in English
Yesterday I went to nearest post office to fetch my Colourmart order. I thought that this would be the perfect time for another boring ”look-i-bought-some-yarn” -post. But then something happened. I really had to play with these yarns, immediately.
Colourmart yarns are leftovers from textile industry - so they are prepared for machine knitting. Soft casmere is oiled - my nose is telling that lanoline might be the main ingredient - for firmer and thinner appearance. But washing the oil away makes the yarn bloom. Please don’t get wrong that ”leftover” part in first sentence. All yarn is from quality manyfacturers, see for example Todd & Duncan reference list in the net.
I washed a very small skein and sample swatch in hot water, using dishwashing liquid as detergent - good option for getting rid of grease. This can be done more than once, if one bath is not enough to take away all the oil, but my small samples bloomed very well in just one bath. I used hot water and some hair conditioner to rinse my samples and rubbed them in towel and throwed the sample swatch in tumble dryer, low heat for ten minutes.
Is this really the same yarn! Even oiled yarn is not unpleasant, it feels somewhat like good quality wool-cotton blend. But when washed the true nature of cashmere is revealed, I can’t describe the softness of my swatch. Also the appearance of the yarn is different, yarn seems lighter and gentle halo of cashmere is hiding some detail of knitted surface.
In this image you can see the unwashed and washed strand of yarn and beginning of my newest project, unwashed so far…
I had to decide if I’m going to wash the yarn or the knit. Shrinkage was substantial only in horizontal direction. I’m lazy. So, the latter option might be the best. I don’t really enjoy skeining (don’t have any equipment for this)… …and yarn is impossible to tumble dry - dryer really seemed to give the finishing touch for sample swatch.
Let me introduce my newest project: Rowan Martha.
I started from sleeves, thinking to wash and dry the first one immediately to see if something is going terribly wrong.
Knitting the sleeves was really a snap, I was surprised the ease of knitting the oiled yarn. It is nearly impossible to split the yarn and knitting was quick and pleasant.
On this picture you can see the unwashed sleeve at the bottom, washed one on top of it and unwashed beginning of back on top of all.
Hmm, here are the yarns. I’m using the grey 100% kashmir in dk weight for Martha. Kashmir-silk dk weight yarn is really unusual purchase for me - I don’t have a slightest idea what to make out of this.
I had a very positive experience with Colourmart. They shipped my order quickly, my yarns were well packed, quality of yarns seems to be excellent and their sample pack can be described with just one word: generous. Even small swatches can be knitted from the mini skeins of sample pack. Of course you have to order all the yarns you need at once, no guarantee that you can ever get the same color and quality combination if reordering later. Colourmart is also processing the yarns if you want to, services include twisting thinner yarns together, winding several strands to one cone, winding to ball or skein and washing the yarn. But I do recommend to try knitting with oiled yarn, not bad experience at all!
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