WoollyMammothKnits.com

This blog has moved to my new website!

WoollyMammothKnits.com

or cut and paste this URL intro your browser: http://www.woollymammothknits.com

Besides my blog, the new site has free knitting patterns, a selection of hand-dyed yarns, random assorted knitting tips and more.

I hope you will stop by and have a look!

 

cardigan without leaf ties

I just finished Stephanie Japel’s Cardigan with Leaf Ties, except, I made it without the leaf ties. I got a bunch of delicious Knit Picks Andean Silk for Christmas from my husband, and after some deliberation decided to knit it up into the cardigan with leaf ties. What a fun project!

Unfortunately, the only thing I didn’t like were the leaf ties. I did really like how they looked in the picture that came with the pattern, and I liked the leafs and I-cord when I knit them on a (much) smaller needle than recommended, but the I-cord that went around the neckline just kept bunching up and pulling on the neckline in a weird way. I don’t think it’s my way of picking up stitches that did it, as I normally never have this problem… anyway, after letting the project sit for some time while deciding what to do with it, I finally decided to frog the collar and instead, knit on a narrow 2×2 rib collar and have it close with a button. I really like how it turned out. I will definitely be wearing this one a lot!

Pauline Trigère and pomegranate sunset colorway

This has nothing to do with knitting, but I’m so excited! I just won an amazing 1950s Pauline Trigère dress on Ebay! I love the designer fashion of the 50s and love Trigère, but normally her dresses are always very much outside my budget. This time I got really lucky! Trigère, besides amazing dresses in general, designed the clothing worn by Patricia Neal’s character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and I think the dress I bought shows a similar style. I can’t wait for it to arrive. This is the dress:

I had two other successes yesterday. Unfortunately they were not exactly the success I had hoped for (the success I had hoped for had something to do with a certain job interview, but alas, no success there) but they were nice anyhow. The first was that after 5 years of experimenting once about every few months to get my tofu to come out the way it does in Asian restaurants, it finally did, last night! I had stir-fried tofu, fried it, grilled it, deep-fried it, and had tried pretty much everything I could think of, but none of it worked. The key turned out to be that it has to go in the oven, marinated and all, for about 30 minutes at the highest degree possible. We ate it with satay, rice, veggies and cucumber salad, and it was yummy
My second success of the day was my latest wool dye colorway. I call it “pomegranate sunset” because of the deep reds and purple. I’m very happy with the result and can’t wait to re-skein it and knit with it!

stitch markers

After using random items such as pieces of leftover yarn and old rings for some time, I finally made me some proper stitch markers. I’ve only made four, because I only had four of the little necklace-closure ring thingies. I’d love to get a bunch more and make some more!

hand-dyeing!

Yay!! I have become absolutely, completely addicted to hand-dyeing yarn. I just love how the colors can be mixed to form so many different combinations… I guess most of all, I just love color!

In other news, I just finished my warm winter sweater design. Can’t post any pics (yet) as I’d like to try submitting it somewhere. It’s great to have finished it, it turned out exactly as I had hoped! Now I just need to write the pattern for it.

car boot sale yarn loot

Today, husband, puppy and I went to our first English “car boot sale”. Living in Holland, I had seen car boot sales on tv many times (the BBC has several shows about them, which just happened to coincide with my daily lunch break from studying when I was in college) but despite our love of all things thrift store and garage sale, we had yet to check this phenomen out for real. Before we went, I told my husband that I would look for anything yarn and knitting-related, and he told me he’d be looking for trumpet stuff (he is quite the virtuoso on the instrument, in my opinion). Still, I had not expected we’d do as well as we did. Husband found a cornet, the one instrument he’d been looking for, and I found this:

Just as I was thinking to myself that my stash heap was in need of replenishing after much knitting from it! There was a stand with huge bags full of yarn, priced at 5 balls for £1! Most of it was 100% or 90% acrylic, but after quite some digging around (while husband dutifully held a bag full of yarn and chatted with people petting on pup). I came away with 25 wonderful balls of yarn for just £5 total. This is what I got:
(from bottom to top and left to right):
- Wendy Merino four ply, 100% wool, in light pink and coral, 1 ball each
- Wendy Family Choice chunky, 50% acrylic, 40% nylon, 10% wool, pink, 1 ball
- Patons Cotton Soft, 100% cotton, light pink and light blue, 1 ball each
- Viking Narvik chunky, 100% wool, burnt orange, 5 balls (This is my favorite. At 100g. each, I’m so happy!)
- Handspun wool, chocolate brown, large ball of approx. 250 grams, without tag or band
- Wendy Mohair, 90% mohair, 6% polyester, 4% acrylic, light blue, 3 balls
- Wendy Cotton, 100% cotton, red, 1 ball
- Patons Capstan, 60% wool, 40% nylon, cream, 1 ball
- Wendy Orin Co chunky, 60% acrylic, 20% nylon, 20% alpaca, 4 balls red, 1 ball moss green
- Wendy Family Choice DK Tweed, 38% acrylic, 36% wool, 26% nylon, 4 balls red & grey

Needles to say, we’ll be going back to that car boot sale again soon!

Ravelry!

I have been on Ravelry for less than a day and I love love love it! I had no idea it could be so easy to look up patterns, keep track of projects, etc. It’s sweet!

In other knitting news, I have almost finished Stefanie Japel’s cardigan with leaf ties (from knitty). I just need to finish the i-cord that goes around the neckline. It’s been a very fun project to work on, and the Andean Silk yarn from Knit Picks that my sweet husband gave me for Christmas makes for a very nice cardigan indeed

I’m also working on two designs of my own and knitting them up as I go along with the pattern-making… more on that later.

birthday socks

for Brandon’s 28th birthday (first socks I ever knit, I’m so happy they fit! In Knit Pick’s Wool of the Andes hand-dyed):

mad hatter

This is a hat I knit as a gift recently. I only had one day to knit it, so I was knitting madly all day long, and finished it just in time! The pattern is called Cloche du Bois and can be found here. I knit it in Sirdar Chunky with Wool – not my first choice, since it has only a small percentage of wool, but the only thing I could find at short notice in the desired color. I’m quite please with how it turned out, though.

 

 

I did not knit this…

…but I wish I had! I love love love going treasure-hunting in thrift stores. It’s one of my favorite things, especially since I love vintage clothing. On one of our recent trips to our local store, a special find was this:

It’s 100% pure new wool, handknit, the tag reads “Fisherman, out of Ireland”. I love the fair isle pattern as well as the tweedy flecks. It’s making me want to tackle a fair isle project next! But I think I should focus on some summer cotton knitting first.

Anyway, I took this beauty with me when my husband, puppy and I went camping last weekend. Even though the weather was gorgeous, it still got pretty cold at night. The sweater kept me wonderfully warm by the campfire in the evening and I even wore it on top of my pajamas while sleeping. We had such a fun time camping, walking in the woods, shivering on the (due to the strong North Sea wind still cold) beach, grilling our dinners and telling each other ghost stories by the fire. It was great! 

That reminds me, I recently read a discussion somewhere about whether or not wonderful handknits should be taken on such trips at all. The drawback of course is that they might get dirty, but I firmly believe that handknits should be worn, especially, even, on occasions like these. That is what they are made for after all, right? I can understand the sentiment of not wanting something you put so much time, effort and love into making, to get dirty or worn out at some point, but then, what is the point of having it at all? Wool is such a wonderfully strong material, and handknits stand the test of time much better than store-bought items. It makes me think a bit of some of the rugs we have in our house. They are stunning, handmade Middle Eastern rugs made of wool and silk with beautiful colours and patterns. At first I was almost afraid to step on them! Well, not really, but the thought of our then-not-yet housetrained puppy having a “moment” on them definitely worried me. Yet my husband, the rug afficionada who taught me all about rugs, was not at all faced by the prospect (which in the end did happen several times). As he said, these rugs have been made for centuries, and were originally designed to cover the sandy floor of a bedouin’s tent in the desert. Not only people, but camels as well, would walk on them. They can withstand a whole lot, which is why they’re so great – they’re functional, yet beautiful. That’s how I feel about handknits as well.