rosebud

just when we thought summer would skip our grand nordic nation entirely, that she would cruelly ignore our very existence in this odd peninsula--affectionately nicknamed either the armpit or the asshole of northern europe, depending on which warped position you imagine us in--she arrived in a blazing chariot of heat and sunshine.

"go out and get naked," she said, and the entire nation went, "okay."

except me.

this is me celebrating summer in the best way i know how, i.e. by posing in a long-sleeved shirt and a chunky woolly hat, looking as soulful and tormented as edgar allan poe, or robert smith, or to a lesser extent, aaron lewis. i can't believe that band still exists.

rosebud by jared flood

ravelry link

size small

brooklyn tweed shelter (50g / 4.5-5mm)

what can i say. hats are my weakness.

against every last grain of intuition i had in my body i made the smaller size instead of the slouchy one. usually i'm drawn to anything that's labeled slouchy like gum on shoesoles, but this time something in my brain said no. by the time i reached the point of either continuing on to crown decreases, or knitting the cable chart once more, i just found myself having less and less stitches on the needle. i like to wear my hats pretty far back so somehow i managed to figure out even the shorter model could work.

and this time, completely out of character, i even weaved a lifeline into the stitches of the final row before the decreases, so that if i totally changed my mind i could go back and undo the rows without counting them and getting all messed up on the chart. i have no idea where all this epic far-sightedness comes from right now.

it sits really well too now, and the shelter yarn (in homemad jam, for those interested) was every bit as pleasant to knit with as i expected. although i have to say that both loft and shelter tend to lose some of their perky fluffiness with blocking. or maybe i'm doing it wrong. they get a little droopy. not too droopy, but i could do without some of the droopiness. it doesn't really show in photos though.

what's also not showing in the photos is my mom crying because of my fascistic art direction during this photography session. sorry mom. at least the girl knows what she wants.

and i haven't had a haircut in 13 months. does that show? sheesh. no wonder i'm still single.

march of the sinister knits

well the crochet thing is off. having trudged through 400 meters of yarn in one sitting (with this lovely shawl in mind) i somehow just went "meh" and moved on. the construction and shape didn't feel right. or maybe the butch trucker lesbian side of me's just not ready for pink lace. how sweet is the taste of giving up.

but i do have something to show you instead. throughout the spring i've made lots of stuff which i haven't had the time to present here, due to an unexpected and outrageous lack of spare time. being currently sick with flu offers a welcome break to do some blogging as well as the inevitable jurassic park marathon.

and so, a terribly long and incoherent cavalcade of finished knits follows.

seasons by jared flood

ravelry link

size 3

brooklyn tweed loft (70g / 3 & 3.5mm)

i got the brooklyn tweed seasons kit as soon as they went on sale back in march or something. i just had to get my hands on that loft yarn. (it's totally hot, by the way.) my colorwork is rather, um, amateurish, but the colors themselves are heathered enough to cover up a lot of my inability to comprehend the concept of "color domination".

the hat was a little snug when finished, so i wanted to block it to a nice generous slouchy look. a delightful little encounter ensued at a local department store, where i just happened to walk past the flower section with some completely unrelated business in mind, and saw a white flower pot that, when turned upside down, just caught my eye as the most perfect hat blocking device ever. so i took it to the counter and asked the girl what the circumference was.

"the diameter's 19 centimeters," she said. "no no, i need to know the circumference," i replied and made her look at me like she couldn't understand the words i was vomiting out. i was then forced to explain how this particular pot seemed the perfect size to aid me in wet-stretching a knitted garment which i couldn't pin down and flat-dry because i didn't want the side creases and how the pot needed to be between 60 and 65 centimeters because my head is 58 and i liked my hats a little loose, and i just needed to be sure about the pot size before i bought it.

she was probably lost at "wet-stretching".

but in eerie silence she took out a measuring tape anyway and announced that the circumference is 62 centimeters, to which i responded with some joyous hand-clapping, to which she in turn responded with a look as if i was actually intending to use the pot in some completely different affair, possibly relating to eating babies and/or having sex with leather-clad muppets.

just imagine what a girl can do with a pot like this

but i took it home anyway and blocked the hat, and it's perfect. never mind the fact that i'm probably on some stockmann persona non grata list now.

"i never should've fallen for that muppet"

speaking of hats, back when it was -25C outside i made me a wurm to keep my precious, precious ears warm with its double-layered edge. the size was perfect at first, but after blocking and in use the yarn got all droopy to the point where it's almost too slouchy. so next time i'll be making a smaller size.

wurm by katharina nopp

ravelry link

size biggiest

lana grossa cool wool merino (70g / 4mm)

then i made two of these ruffle necklaces, one for me and one for a friend for her birthday. i had to adjust the pattern a little because following the chart i couldn't get the edges symmetric.

ruffle bib necklace by stefanie fail

ravelry link

mayflower cotton 8 big (25g / 3.5mm)

mine totally look better than the originals, by the way.

then there's a couple of socks i made as presents for some nice people who are working hard to relieve me of my family curse of hideously crooked teeth. yes, i should've gotten them fixed back in the 90s. yes, i'm a 27-year-old with braces. no, i'm not very smart. but just a couple more months and i'll be stunning. yeah. take that.

a girl at work, a.k.a. miss R, a.k.a. my partner in crime in all yarn-related mischief (no it's not an oxymoron) taught me broomstick lace because, as it turns out, i'm not inherently the ultimate master of all knittingy and crochety bits. so with this newly-acquired skill i made some bracelets. they make me look all pretty. and cool.

the yarn's schachenmayr catania in various colors and there's 10 repeats in each. one bracelet took maybe 5 grams.

and finally i made another shallows, this time with some egyptian cotton and one less chart repeat so it sits a little snugger. also i took a crappy photo of it with a warped perspective, distorted colors and dismal white balance. it's all part of the process.

there. i'm all puffed out now. i shall be dreaming about jeff goldblum tonight.

saffronian success

you know that feeling when you've entered a project thinking, "there's no way in god's name this thing is ever gonna work out"?

and the amount of sheer ecstatic orgastic joy when you realize that, against every single possible odd in the universe, it does?

saffron by me (!)

ravelry link

rowan creative focus worsted (60g / 4mm)

i had absolutely no expectations of success when i cast on the stitches. i didn't even know how many i would need for a good fit. if you've read any of my previous posts regarding my giant trapezoid head, you know that fitting hats for my head is an epic exercise in futility. none of the supposed slouchy models work for me. i just end up with six tons of excess fabric in the neck. and a couple of self-inflicted broken bones.

but after approximately 15 years of making hats that don't fit it occurred to me to use short rows to make the front longer than the back. which i did. and added a nice braided cable to the side. and ended up with the single most awesome piece of headgear i've ever owned. it's so freakin' gorgeous that i'm in a compulsive need to get undressed and run back and forth main street wearing nothing but this hat and the curly winter hair on my legs. i don't know what else to do with these waves of completely unexpected pleasure rushing through me right now.

i may look calm but inside i'm going OH YEAH GIVE IT TO ME BABY

everything just went right with this piece. the yarn is awesome and has the exact right tone of yellow. blocking made it drape beautifully and smoothened the stitches except for some of the wrap&turn rows that are more prominent than others. but then again, hand-knitted items won't look as polished as machine-knitted ones, and why should they? this one screams "NO CHILD LABOR USED" from a thousand miles away.

ravelry has more detailed info on the construction. i will be writing the pattern out at some point so leave a comment or something if you're interested.

oh, and here's something i picked up at a local book fair.

http://pulpcovers.com/?tag=drugs

why yes, that is a picture of me taken around three weeks ago. although i'd be inclined to leave the question mark out.

props to miss M for the photos!

b-day & hat resurrected

greetings from planet birthday. it's a pretty sweet place, where everyone likes you and wants to give you cool things for no reason at all except for being born on some random day. and you gladly accept this lavish attention with pink buttercream smears in one hand and a spongebob balloon in the other. but the price, of course, is that the next morning you realize you're now twenty-schmumble which is exactly four wrinkles and a lady moustache away from oh-god-let's-not-go-there. how fleeting life is, you ponder, and drown your worries in leftover cake.

cupcakes work too

well, getting old can't be all bad if you have the right kind of friends to get old with. the kind that knows you well enough. the kind that gives you stuff like this.

it's a tea strainer, believe it or not.

speaking of dying, i recently found the smoldering remains of a certain hat accident from last winter and decided to try and resurrect them. fairly brave of me, since all attempts last time ended in nothing short of bloodshed. meaning the hat looked less like a hat and more like a condom with vertical ribs. this time it only took four cycles of knitting and frogging to get it right, but who's counting. it looks like a simple pattern, which it is, but fitting it was a nightmare. hats for me always are. because of my giant trapezoid head.

ravelry link

size kinda loose

novita jussi (under 100g/4mm)

it's kind of amazing actually how persistent i was with this piece. i'm not saying there weren't any ohmybloodygodandfuck moments, because that would be a dirty dirty lie. but sometimes the amount of tenacity hidden under my onion layers scares me.

i'm also working on a very special surprise project that again concerns lace, since i'm now the bona fide master of intricate knitwork. more information on that next week. for now let's just say my mental capacity is growing by the minute.