Happy Cake Day to Me!

Yay! I’ve now been around for a quarter of a century and it’s been pretty awesome.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, mom knitted and sent me this hat that I *just* got in the mail! I love getting mail. I love getting hand knitted things. Lookee here, at my most excellent new hat!

She made one for herself and promised me one as well, and this is it I think she began doing an Ekaterin Slouchy Hat but ended up changing everything but the earflap construction and the cable pattern. I follow patterns to the letter, whereas she’s a fierce knitter and does what she wants! My brother’s approach to knitting is the same. Boatloads of respect to them And I got this fabulous hat out of it ^^

Anyway, back to cake day things (i.e. studying).

 

A Hat Made of Awesome

Some time ago I had a happy because my other brother asked for a new hat. The old one wasn’t all that great because it was too shallow and didn’t cover his ears. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand hats that don’t cover the ears. They’re not any good at keeping a head warm, so their sole purpose in existence is to create hat hair.

The whole problem came about because I basically guestimated how tall the hat should be. This time I took some pretty darn precise measurements.

Pattern: Double Layer Sockyarn Hat

Yarn: Sisu from Sandnes Garn, under 50 g

Needles: 3,25 mm

*****

The good thing about a black stockinette stitch hat is that it’s a really quick knit, so it’s never a problem that it gets a bit repetitive. Sometimes the simple knits are the most enjoyable ones.

I’ve always used the long-tail cast-on almost exclusively. Usually I do it on two needles to ensure a stretchy cast on, but this time that resulted in a series of holes in between the cast-on edge and the first row of stitches. This prompted me to try other stretchy cast ons.

I first tried Jeny’s stretchy slip-knot cast-on but I was soon discouraged because it was a bit tricky to learn and I did have 170 stitches to cast on. I wanted to get knitting already. Jeny’s stretchy cast off is amazing, though, so I’m going to give the cast-on another chance some day with another project with less stitches to cast on.

I settled on this very stretchy cast-on because it’s meant for double and single ribbing. It was easy to do once I memorized the steps, but the first row was a pain to knit. The cast-on edge really is stretchy, so that’s good.

The other big fault with the first hat is that for some reason I didn’t line it.

For the lining I used a pretty thick black fleece. I used my own store-bought wind-stopper hat to sketch out the shape of the four pieces that make up the lining. I zig-zagged over the seams so I could cut off all seam allowances to prevent them from being visible from the outside. Then I sewed the lining onto the hat by hand.

The hat seems to be a good fit and a flattering shape for my brother. Now I can be sure it’ll stay the right shape and keep him warm for many years to come.

Arctic bramble

Last month I tricked myself into buying two skeins of the loveliest silk and wool blend, and was going to start knitting a hat with the yarn right away (you know, to justify buying it).

It just so happened that a friend of mine was throwing a birthday party that weekend. I didn’t have anything to give to her, and I couldn’t buy anything since I had already splurged on yarn earlier that week… Well, what could’ve been a better solution than knitting this for her.

You know, apart from the fact that I had and still have no way of knowing if these colors are to her liking, or if she liked the fit of the hat, and so on. I’m always hesitant about knitting something like this for people without their consent on the colors and the shape and fit because pretty much everyone is understandably picky about their hats.

I did think while knitting this that she wouldn’t abhor it, and I even kind of believed that she might even like it a little, maybe. And since it was going to be something I knitted or nothing, I opted for the knitted thing, in hopes of showing her I had thought of her.

I only knit for people I consider knit-worthy, and I wouldn’t mind if someone gave away or didn’t use something I knitted for them. The recipient of a gift has no obligation to like or use the gift (knitted or not) as far as I’m concerned. I can only hope that my gift (if not forever cherished, haha) at least didn’t seem inconsiderate or stoopid.

Pattern: Mesi

Yarn: Regia Silk 6-fädig (50 g = 124 m) from Schachenmayr nomotta, 2 skeins

Needles: 4 mm

*****

I only had Friday evening and the next morning before the party to complete the hat, so the pictures I have are pretty hurried. When I give something knitted to someone I usually include a little note saying what materials were used and instructions on washing, but this time I didn’t have time for that either. I’m hoping it won’t matter, since this yarn is machine washable.

The pattern itself was one of the best hat patterns I’ve used.  I loved knitting the honeycomb stitch pattern. It seems complicated when finished, but it’s really simple to do once you realize you only have to knit with one color at a time. The yarn I think is amazing for a hat. It’s wool, so it’s warm, and the silk makes it soft and non-itchy. It also has a nice sheen which works well with the honeycomb pattern.

I’m calling the hat Arctic bramble, which is a sort of plant. It’s called ‘mesimarja’ in Finnish, a word which happens to include the name of the pattern and the name of the pal I knitted it for. Yes, very amusing, and not far-fetched at all. Har de har har.

Well anyway, this was a nice, quick knit, and I hope the recipient liked it too.

The Stash Grows (plus a couple of FO’s!)

Lemme just say:

Yay for mom!

She brought me two skeins of lace weight merino wool from her trip to southern Finland. She asked me what colors I would prefer and I was going to go with green and black, but then I realized green and black are all I ever knit… It wouldn’t hurt me to have accessories in different colors. That’s what I’m probably going to make these into: beautiful lace shawls. I’m going to take my time choosing the patterns.

Meanwhile I went shopping for yarn with my brother who just finished his first pair of mittens and now wants to knit gloves and a Bactus scarf (how cool is that?!), and while in our LYS, I too had to pick up a skein of yarn

I first mistook it to be Noro yarn, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a new yarn by Sandnes Garn: Mini Palett (100 g = 420 m). I especially loved this colorway and another one in shades of gray. Oh man, I’m so happy about this yarn! I kind of like Noro yarns but not enough to spend that much on a single skein (the prices I’ve seen have been around 17 € per skein). Besides the Noro colorways are too much for me. This yarn in my opinion was cheap in comparison (9,90€) and the colors more subtle.

Underneath the skein you can see a Show-Off Stranded Sock I knitted yesterday. Knitting it I learned a new way to make a heel and so far it’s my favorite of them all, but I’ll post more about it once I actually finish a pair.

In addition to these beautiful yarns, there are more happy news from my knitting world. I don’t know if I mentioned it before but a week ago or so I finished a pair of fingerless gloves that have been haunting me for months.

Pattern: 7 veljestä Jättiraita -sormikkaat

Published in: Novita, Nuorisoextra 2006

Yarn: 7 veljestä by Novita

I promised my boyfriend’s dad I would knit him a pair waaay back in July. I don’t know why it took me so long. These are your basic gloves and the pattern wasn’t difficult. The knitting was quick because of the worsted weight yarn and 4 mm needles. I guess I was just so worried about him not liking them that on some level I didn’t want to knit them at all. Well, a promise is a promise, and so I knitted them. Turns out my bf’s dad likes them and they are just what he had hoped for (he asked for the extra long cuff and the thick fabric). Phew! That’s a huge weight off my shoulders.

Even though making these gloves proved I’m not over my issues with knitting gifts, I did manage to knit one gift last week that didn’t cause me any stress at all: the double layered hat I mentioned in passing in an earlier post.

Pattern: Double Layer Sockyarn Hat

Yarn: Lanett by Sandnes Garn

For some reason the idea of a double layered hat is very appealing to me. When my brother commissioned a simple black hat, I suggested this pattern to him, and he okayed it. I used needles sized 3,25 mm and I really like the look and feel of the fabric. The yarn is soft and doesn’t itch. All in all, it came out perfect… Well. There’s one beauty flaw: it doesn’t completely cover my brother’s ears. But he still seemed to like it, so I guess it’s ok. Maybe I’ll get to knit another hat for him if it turns out this one isn’t warm enough

Oh, btw, about the second picture: I have blonde hair and bad eye sight. So when I take pictures of finished objects, I almost always end up with pictures of my hairs. So no, I don’t have a cat or a dog: the hairs in the pictures are mine, embedded in the knitted fabric as I knit. I try to pull them out, but some always remain and I can only see them in the pictures… Maybe I need new glasses.

That’s it for tonight! I have a headache and I can’t sleep (a nice combination) so I decided to post… But posting always takes me longer than I intended and now it’s 2 am which means I’ll have to get up in 6 hours. Oh, man… Today was the last day of my autumn break, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve been on vacation because I spent most of it worrying about studying and not doing anything about it. Still I did get to relax and knit a lot, and spend some quality time with friends and family, and shouldn’t feel tired at all, so maybe I’ll feel better once I get back into studying and on top of my schedule next week.

Right now I have a lot of projects I’m excited about I can’t wait for tomorrow afternoon when I can get back to them after classes.