New loot from Knitpicks

Moving to Singapore has opened my yarn-related world even more than before. Mainly because I can participate in overseas online yarn sprees. Before I simply didn't order because of the sites not selling overseas or the price for shipping was too high. Now I share the shipping fee with other participants and vPost helps out with overseas shipping (one of my knitting friends here has an address in US thanks to that service).
This time we went berserk on knitpicks.com. I got:

Knit Picks Bare Peruvian Highland Wool Fingering Weight - 4 hundred-gram skeins.

3 skeins of the same yarn in Worsted weight and

2 skeins of Knit Picks Shimmer in Turquoise Splendor.

I am pretty sure it's not going to be the last one, and neither is the next one far along the road.

Halliste Girl - Folk Costume

It's done! (nearly). I got the set ready just in time.

The apron is still not quite "full" - it is supposed to have a very crowded embroidery. But I'll do it one of these weeks - I still have the other side to do anyways. The motifs on the apron are very old - they represent crosses, roses, cart wheels, sun and arborvitae.

Finish is near. 6th day

The hip-apron is nearly done. We had a weekend get-away to Tioman island in Malaysia and I didn't stitch a single stitch those days so I've reached the 6th Day:

I'll fill in the caps and attach the fringe tonight (I hope) and can consider it wearable (it should be embroidered from both ends, but I simply have no time). Actually I am not too sure it ever will be done from both sides, since my knuckles really hurt me. I do embroider a lot in one day: 4-5 hours, but not continuously.... if I will ever complete it, I promise it won't be more than 1 hr per day of embroidery.

5th day

I've nearly finished adding yellow - it turned out to be more tricky than I thought, because it's silk and tends to un-spin and then break.

I've also added some more brown and green and am currently "drawing" more figures.
I included in the picture also the woven belt she is going to wear with the apron.

Day 4

I added some brown...


And splashed some green.
Today red and yellow.

Third day

Day 2 of hip-apron

I hope to finish "drawing" today and start with "coloring"

Project - folk costume for a child

I'm making a folk costume from Estonia for my daughter for the school's Culutral Celebrations day. I chose clothes from Halliste region in Estonia.
I'm cheating a little, first because a six year-old shouldn't have a hip-apron (it is usually introduced in the clothing of a young girl in teenager years, more or less at the confirmation day), I have to use techniques that are somewhat different from original (the headband for instance is not made by the the exact traditional techinique, but has the right pattern and colors) and I cannot dress her in wool - for instance the stockings and skirt should be woolen. But I would like her Cultural Day costume to include as many as possible of items from Halliste (a village in Estonia) - I chose this costume because of its simplicity and because of the materials I could get my hands on.
I have already finished the tasseled headband:


and thanks to my mother for sending me the wool (and one silk) embroidery yarns on such a quick notice:

I got started on the hip-apron embroidery:

This has about 2 hours of work in back stitch - I'm not a very fast stitcher, but I'll post pictures of my progress here shortly again. This is one of the limited time projects again - I have until 27th of March.

Stash flash 2008

As a method of self-control in buying new yarns (hahahahahahahaha) I recorded all skeins I have at home at this moment.

I have cleverly hidden my stash here:


I have a total of app. 10 kilos of yarn and the full list can be found here.


This is just the stash inside my bed. I also have a basket in the living-room and that is the camouflage stash - if my significant other would ever realize I have yarn in other places as well, he would so go berserk. Luckily he seems to have forgotten that you can open the bed, and would most probably fail to open it without first giving up.

Updated:

This is my stash in the living room - leftovers of latest FOs, materials for current projects or wool for swatching when I find nice stitch patterns.

So what are you hiding and where?

Little surprises

Piecework January/February 2008
Originally uploaded by Sun Shines Better

I went to local bookstore Popular on Saturday to get some reading books for my daughter and stopped by the magazine section as well. Even though major part of the magazines sold are about embroidery, bead work or even crocheting, sometimes one might get lucky and get something about knitting as well.
I found Piecework. And this time it was all about knitting. I've been eying the Rovaniemi mitten technique for quite awhile now so I mainly got the magazine for this. I also was intrigued by the poetry in stitches mittens. I also found knitting in Lithuania article enlightening and was happy to find an article about kimonos.
The rest of the projects were a little simple for me on the first glance so I didn't care to read them. And then suddenly looking at the cover I saw a title: "Traditional Estonian Lace" ---- my first reaction was: hey, how could I have missed that before, it has been staring me most of the afternoon!
It shouldn't be a huge surprise though. Nancy Bush is fond of Estonian colour work, traveling stitches and knitting techniques; Evelyn A. Clark uses a lot of Estonian shawl patterns to create her own artworks: in the last few years there have been quite a few articles and patterns in Interweave Knits and Vogue Knitting mentioning Estonia; and with each year, more and more people come more interested of our knitting heritage. It's not much for big countries, but believe me, when your people are about 1 million in the entire world and your country has no real influence in the history or economics or science or literature, then our crafts are about all we can be really proud of.

Oh Happy Days...

... until I realize how much money I've spent.
Today was out March Knit-Out with Lois handing out the long waited Jaggerspun Spree goodies. Since the loot was still on cones we had some winding to do:



I had 12 OZ (app 350 grams) of Zephy 2/18 (wool-silk blend) waiting for me:


Close up of the thread:




Copy-paste for future reference:

JaggerSpun Zephyr 2/18 Lace Weight Yarn Specifications

Content:	50% Chinese Tussah silk, 50% fine grade Merino wool
Length per Cone:	5040 yards
Length per 2-oz:	630 yards
Weight per Cone:	Slightly over 1 lb.
Ply:	2/18 Lace Weight
Care Instructions:	Hand wash lukewarm, do not bleach Preferably dry clean Cool iron can be used under a pressing cloth, never iron wet Do not tumble dry
Storage tips:	For long-term storage, make sure this yarn is in a moth-proofed environment. Clean, clear plastic containers work extremely well. You can also wrap the garment in archival tissue paper to extend garment life.

Next week: Stash flash!

Mimosa Odysseia Final

I wanted to follow the process of this huge shawl on the blog, but the darned cord that transfers photos from my camera to my laptop was missing and turned out just today... from my husbands backbag... I have a stinky feeling that this may be the result of my quick clean-ups at my home, when I stuff things in the less likely places all around the house without giving it a second thought. Ah well, at least it was safe traveling forth and back between home and office.
As a result here follow pictured process from day 1 to day 20:


02.02 I managed to cast-on twice. That wasn't nice because 599 stitches is not nice to CO again. Not to mention that I figured my Moebius mistake out after near 5 rows - that is nearly one and half ball of yarn. And then count and count and re-count countless times. Believe me you do not want to err with that many sts on your needles.

05.02 This where the expected setback happened. I ran out of beads. I had to wait until 13th of February to get the beads (I'll write a separate post about that specific bead shop).

14.02 I just got the beads the day before and decided to spread out the shawl on 3 circulars to see how wide it was going to be. Obviously it was going to be wide (that measuring tape is 150 cm / 60 inches long).

16.02 I've injured my left hand index finger. I have a small cut that often occurs when one is knitting a lot with drying hands. If you didn't know - knitting dries hands quite a deal.

Luckily my daughter takes care of me and offered one of her band-aids to help me through my injury.

18.02 The wrap is 3/4 done, it goes much faster to knit a row, but I've been making silly mistakes, like decreasing too much or too little, or knitting into the stitch below (often happens when knitting on high speed and in stockinette stitch), I've had to rip back 10 cm (4 inches) once but usually my good friend crochet hook helps me out.

20.02 Fresh off the needles. Washing and darning in the ends are ahead.

I'm darning. I only had 22 ends. Until I decided to split the yarn and it became 44. But I got through it pretty fast.

The shawl is blocking. And it became even bigger (I have a king size bed). And then I remembered. Merino stretches - A LOT!!! So from 22 sts per 4 inches / 10 cm it fell down to 19 sts

Here it is, on the ground with two 60 inch / 150 cm measuring tapes close by to show the size.

I used app. 1200 Toho Craft square beads - they are gold lined and it gives them a darker color than they really have.

This is a closeup of the central part here panels come together.

And the last shot:


Stats
Yarn: 11 balls of Sublime Yarns Cashmere Merino Silk DK (75% extrafine merino, 20% silk, 5% cashmere; 127 yrd/116 m for 50 gr ball)
Needle: 4.5 mm
Pattern: Mimosa by Sivia Harding from Big Girl Knits
Extra: 1200 Toho Craft square beads, color 39

I used less beads: didn't insert beads in the diamonds and didn't put them on the edges as well.

Hat attack

Hat attack was fun, but a big waste of money on postage costs. I won't participate again, even though I enjoyed it quite a lot - at least enough to stay up until 2 am in the morning to finish the hat.
So without further a do here is my hat for Tanya from Texas

Stats
Needles: 4,5 mm
Yarn: Bella Baby Sugar (100% wool) held double
Pattern: Binary Cable Hat

I got killed ruthlessly by a hat from Australia by Mel (after it killed me, that sneaky hat made my daughter into a zombie):

Mimosa Odysseia Part Two

So, I'm into my 4th day of knitting and this is how far I've gotten:

It doesn't seem much, but believe me it is, since now i have to bead only every 4th row (instead of every second) and I've gone from 599 sts to, I am guessing, about 490 sts. With every pattern repeat I decrease 10 sts so it gets less and less daunting by the row.
But I'm awfully close to finishing beads, I have some 170 left, but they disappear real quick, I just hope I get the rest of the beads from Japan on time.
Oh, by the way, I was wrong about the amount of days I have to knit this little big monster shawl - instead of 25, I have 21 days - that includes blocking it. So I'd say I have to have it done by 20th at least.

Mimosa Odysseia

Oh, I can feel it on my fingers that this is going to be a long project. I CO yesterday 599 stitches, or that's what I thought, knit 5 rows of garter stitch, one row of 599 purl stitches, started with the edging pattern, worked through 19x26 stitches of edging and then saw that I had more stitches than needed. I started counting and discovered I had done Moebius in the middle of the first row. Argh.

I got some beads as well. I'll go back today to get some more and order the rest. I decided to go with less beads and therefore I'll need about 1000 nr 8 beads. Just I didn't imagine that they'd be so difficult to find here.

I've bought a lot of yarn lately. I've got even more in my Ravelry queue - 52. I have some yarn arriving soon. And I have made promises to myself and to my daughter.
I am way over my head in projects I need or want to finish or start. So I thought I'd make a list in the order of importance.

1. Mimosa shawl from Big Girl Knits - I have 26 days
2. Hat war hat(s) - starts on 9th February
3. Elefante nr 1 to be finished in 26 days (nearly done)
4. Ecquinox pullover - needs to be sewn up and some ends still are not darned.
5. Write down a pattern that has been waiting for awhile
6. I promised a new pullover/cardigan for my daughter already last year
7. I frogged my Artistic - I need to plan better, change the motif a little and start over.
8. Salina for me
9. Wall ornaments using Estonian traditional mitten patterns and 1.5 mm needles
10. Design from Rowan Tapestry
11. Design something elegant and sexy from BBB Meriseta
12. I have material for at least 4 lace shawls - I want to knit at least 2 shawls this year, one will be Mystery Shawl 4. Lace yarns I already have are: Kaalund Echante', TitanWool Merinos Extra, Canetta Super Zephyr, Handpaintedyarns.com Merino Lace. And I have some Jaggerspun Zephyr 2/18 arriving.
13. Finish a baby blankie from random stitch patterns - it doesn't have recipent, so there is a lot of time with it.

I'm pretty sure, I've forgotten something...

MORE YARN!!!

I'm losing it. I just bought more yarn - Sublime Merino, Silk, Cashemere DK


I need nr. 8 seed beads to go with it. And I have about 27 days to finish a huge shawl, with hundreds of small beads, block it, pack it and send it off to Italy for a dear friend of mine. Wish me luck.

Stash enhance

I have projects for next 6 months chosen, but I couldn't help myself to buy more yarn. This time from a fellow knitter here in Singapore.

I got 6 skeins of Jaeger Silky Tweed (alpaca and merino) and...

4 skeins of Kaalund Yarns Enchante' (100% hand-dyed silk).

So 7 months of projects. And I have ordered half a cone of Jaggerspun Zephyr.

And I have to buy some cobweb for a shawl. 

I think I am set until my next trip to Europe... and beyond...

New purchases for 2008

My stash, even though still high on kilos is low on material to work with. Sounds funny, when I say that I have about 12 kg of yarn, but quite understandable, if you look at the content - it's all odds and ends and odd balls I've bought thinking I will try freeform crochet soon (yeah right, but I still can have that dream can't I?)

I must say that buying yarn from Estonia is real fun! Mainly because the prices ARE much lower than in Europe, even though the brands and yarns might be exactly the same or at least same quality.

Like any Virgo, I must make lists, so here is my list of Holiday purchases:


Two 260 gram hanks of Artistic by Aade Lõng (it looks very similar to Kauni Effektgarn), but I am not convinced fully, I would have to compare. I have serious feeling that it is the same.

8 balls of BBB filati Meriseta. It has 70% wool and 30% silk, and I have a felling it will turn into something really beautiful. It's price - low for a silkblend.

6 balls of Rowan Tapestry. Like the feeling of the yarn, have an idea, something to do with the Noro I ordered from Japan....

Two hanks of Titan Wool Merinos Extra for a lace shawl in mind. And yes, it is more convenient to buy Italian yarns from Estonia, rather than from Italy.

Three hanks of Estonian 100% wool by Elotroi (name: Liisu) which is excellent to knit traditional socks and mitts from Estonia.

To achieve the patterns of handknit mitts of Estonia one needs correct tools: I bought new double pointed needles, for which it seems US folks even don't have numbers - 1,5 mm and 1,25 mm needles. The lowest if I'm not mistaken is US 00 which is equivalent for 1,75 mm needles?

As an addition to my serious yarn addiction I also bought knitting books:

A vintage knitting pattern collection from 1950ies: Claire Hallik "Silmuskudumine" and it's newer colored version from the 70ies.

And something I suggest even if you don't read Estonian, but can read colored charts (that's 100% of you):

Photo from:
http://www.rahvaraamat.ee/?id=63&no=R069511#

Eesti Kindakirjad (Estonian Mitten Patterns) by Elo Lutsepp and Irina Tammis. Since I am the proud owner of Aino Praakli's booklets of Patterned mittens (Eesti kirikindad I and II) I can fully recommend this book as an addition to the other books. There are none (or very few) overlapping patterns as I've conculded so far. The book is entirely in Estonian, with a short introduction to knitting mittens and gloves, but an experienced or even advanced mitt-knitter should find no problems by the lack of language knowledge, all patterns are colorfully charted so that the knitter can decide on its own how she or he wants the mitten.

As an addition I bought a book: Vatt, Troi, Vamsa - Knitted Jackets from West-Estonian Islands by Riina Tomberg, it's a bilingual book (estonian-english), but doesn't have any patterns, it is a research based reading for people interested in this type of subjects illustrated with many photos.

Faux-roositud

These mittens are not the very first FOs of the 2008, I managed to finish a pair of baby mitts beforehand, but I won't present them without a decent picture, so there Faux Roositud have the honor to be very first ones presented on 2008.
,

Why are they Faux, one may ask. Quite simple, roositud inlay is supposed to be done with just a single thread, but I used it double, otherwise I would have had to go down on needle size and there simply wasn't much to go down to. But I already bought 1,5 mm dpns, so soon I want to go for another attempt.

Info:
yarn - simple estonian homespun, no idea who made it though, approximately 80-90 grams.
pattern - my own.
needles - for cuff 2mm, else done with 2,5 mm.