The orange cast of thought

The cardigan I wrote about in my previous post is finished. I liked the wool a lot, Yaku from CaMaRose. It was sligthly worrying when I washed and blocked it, because it grew like mad when wet. Fortunately, it gradually shrank to exactly the size I had knitted.

There was enough green wool to make a hat; I used a pattern from the same book by Danish designer Lene Holme Samsøe. The cable pattern is the same that is used between the cardigan raglan increases, although you can't see them in the photos above.

All of a sudden it dawned on me - it will arrive just in time for Halloween! The poor baby will look like a pumpkin wearing the cardigan and hat at the same time...

Speaking of Halloween, check out this post at Bent objects!

Uncle Asplund

Earlier this week I suddenly had to drop all my works in progress and get some new wool. A friend of mine wrote to tell me he and his wife are parents! We were really close friends when we were both students in the 1990s - well, we still are, but they live in the States, so we haven't seen each other for several years now and our correspondence (always handwritten letters!) is quite irregular. Not that such things matter when it comes to genuine frienship - and his way of expressing the news was a delight to read: you're an uncle! (Neither of us has a biological brother.)

Normally, I want to make garments for adults, so this urge must be caused by some natural, avuncular instinct. As I admire Lene Holme Samsøe's designs, choosing one of her baby cardigans was an easy decision. (Ravelry link here.) The stranded garter pattern is my modification, which I added mainly to add the name to make it more personal. They must be excellent parents considering they've chosen a name that is easy to knit, right?

Living on the edge

Estonian shawl wip
Originally uploaded by Asplund

Here's my first attempt at a border around the Estonian shawl. I really like the one in the original design (easy to see in the shawl knitted by Flickr's annalore) but knitting it separately and then sewing it on - no thanks. So, I decided to pick up stitches around the shawl and then knit the border pattern upside-down instead - and resize the pattern to match my number of stitches. (Anything to avoid sewing.)

Unfortunately, knitting a pattern with nupps in the round didn't work,at least not for me: no matter how I try one of the stitches next to a nupp becomes enormous, looking like a big hole. I thought about knitting this section back and forth instead, but finally decided to try something completely different instead. What I've done so far looks promising, but I haven't knitted enough for good pictures yet. Will get back!

Frogging the edge at least gave me an opportunity to take a picture of the shawl. I'm quite excited about it and wonder how big the finished shawl will be. Unblocked and without a border it's about 70 cm (27½ in) wide. I've knitted lace shawls with this yarn before and they grew considerably during blocking.

This one may not grow quite as much, though, since I'm using slightly thinner needles (3½ mm/ US 4) and I don't know if the nupps will make a difference.

Here are some basic notes how I knitted the baby cardigan:

• I cast on ca 90 stitches.
• After getting the desired width I knitted about 1/3 of the stitches with a separate thread (for the sleeve) and then went on as before.
• When the back was wide enough I did the same thing for the second sleeve and then went on to knit the second front.
• Strand removed and stitches picked up around the armholes; sleeves knitted in the round to desired length.
• Shoulder joins sewn together.
• Buttons sewn on and loops crocheted.
• Strings crocheted to be able to tie the two fronts together on the inside.

Happy new year, everyone!

A spot where I didn't bring my knitting

Cinderella was here
Originally uploaded by Asplund

It would get wet in the outdoors hot tub. I took this photo in the morning of the 24th; it was biting cold and in the evening even colder, -35C (-31F). I thought it was too cold to get into the tub that day, but did the next two when we enjoyed a heatwave of ca -20C (-4F). Unbelievably wonderful, especially when it was dark and the stars were out! And yes, I even got into the lake at one point! The water was so cold it didn't feel cold, but tickled all over the fraction of a second I was in. Once was enough, though.

I've finished the baby cardigan I wrote about in my previous post. I think it's a great construction for a baby garment: very elastic and practically seamless with only two short shoulder joins. Aren't the buttons we found at Yll o tyll cute? There's enough yarn left for a matching cap.