Monday, November 16, 2015

Frosty aftenoon

 I have many-many favorites from the 2015/2016 DROPS winter/fall collection. Also I have plans (and yarns) to knit some of them... Among others I have the original pink/mauve/beige colored Delight, but when in the fall I was looking for something I can wear with my red boots... I knew that some change is in the air...
 I think as for thicknes and gauge goes DROPS Delight, Alpaca and Fabel are interchangeables... 
As much as I love Drops Alpaca...it is really warm and have a tendency to felt at the uderarms (as I saw with my much loved Bergen cardigan). I wanted a fall cadigan, which is not as warm... So, instead of the unicolored alpaca I used the grey Delight with its changing shades, but where the Delight should be in the pattern I set free the soul of some unicolored red sockyarn that was in my stash... for who knows how long.
As for modifications... I added long ribbing to the cuffs (as usual) and added some extra stitches to the arms, as I have hmmm... not so thin forearms...
 That is about it, the pattern is rather easy, and straightforward (as far as DROPS patterns go--- I actually love this way of pattern writing, I feel they suppose, I KNOW what I do... at least when it comes to knitting that is.
Pattern is Frosty Morning from DROPS Design.
Yarn: Drops Deight and Fabel.
Needles: 2,5 mm and 3 mm.
Photos: Deli Christopher Laurent.... shot in a pretty cold fall afternoon.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

shetland

A shawl was knitted for a present...
The yarn waited for its fate in my stash for many years now, I received it in exchange for knitting. Then a few years ago, in one of my not so good periods (I didn't know back then that things could get worst. A lot worst...) I started to knit it as a meditation or prayer shawl...
I thought I will concentrate on a certain thing I wanted to achieve while knitting on this shawl... If I achieve that something with a help of somebody... then I will give it to that person.
This help could have been anything, a word said in the "right" place, a helping hand, a reference, whatever, but it did not came (at that time), and thingsturned for the worse...and then I just put away... later (years later) when someone really helped me, I made/gave her something else...
However, when a few months ago I did get an opportunity from someone I knew, that the time has come for this yarn... I frogged what was started from it, I didn't want knit into that sadness and struggle and negativity...I started anew, and fresh.
The pattern (Shetland Triangle) is an old favorite. The gift giving opportunity came suddenly, so we had no time to have a proper photoshot, I can only documen with the wek-pictures of blocking...

Monday, November 9, 2015

Camera fun- in other words... mama has fun with her hair.

When, in the summer we braided felted woolstrips into my hair, it was a great succes, however I didn't had many pictures of it, which, surprisingly Christopher minded the most
We repeated teh feat for teh fall's Wool-day, and as to Chris's request I let him make some picture of it :-)
 And while we are at it, I asnwer to the questions that are asked.
No, it is not (much) heavier than my hair would be, if it would be this long... The wool in it is about 200 gramms. First I dyed the naturally slightly yellowish wool to the lightest of grays to kind of match my haircolor. Then felted narrow strips, which were then decorated with bits of wool from teh fibers I dye. Some colored and metal beads were added here and there for more decoration.
 My friend, Tilda, sectioned my hair off to tiny strands, folded the woolstrips into half and braided it to the hairstrand. The ends are fixed with tiny white rubber bands. When I want to undue the thing I just cut the rubberbands and unbraid the strands.
 The first time it took about 3-3.5 hours, the second time she outdone herself, and finished it in two.
When my head gets sweaty, or dusty in the city, i give it a light shower. Felted wool is water resistant to a point, the trick is not to get the wool soaked, just lightly shower off. 
No, I do not go swimming when I have wool in my hair.
The first time I had them in for about a week, then the weather became way too hot, so I unbraided them... but I inmediately anted to have them back--- we got around doing them again in a few months... will see how long it will take me this time.