MOONSTITCHES

Blue Skies

Blue skies again!
The rainy season seems to be over and sometimes the blue up there really looks unbelievably blue. So intense and convincingly blue, you almost forget that it has ever been different.
I am blocking a new Swallowtail Shawl right now. Having been doing the cast off last night and honestly, I was very happy to be finishing this shawl. Not that I got tired of looking at that very, very blue colour, I still love it though it's pretty unusual for me, no, the yarn itself was quite a challenge for me and I am glad I made it through the whole pattern, nupps included. Especially them.

The lack of elasticity makes it a bit difficult to find the right tension for knitting. It must be loose enough to get your needle into the stitches but not too loose because you still want to recognize the pattern and not end up with a whole lot of just loops.
At first I used Addi Turbos but as the stitches kept slipping from my needles I switched to Clover bamboo needles. Then I had more difficulties inserting the needles into the stitches but at least there were stitches on the needles ;)

I love the way the unblocked lace looks and am only blocking it to let it relax and spread a bit.

So much for the moment. It was a busy week and whatever I wanted to get done took me longer than expected. But I think I am catching up now... just quickly get into the kitchen, doing the dishes until the family gets back from the pool...

Have a beautiful weekend!

UM

UM.
As in umi no hi (Ocean Day).
A national holiday which brought us to the shore. It was really hot and we had a bit of wind.

The night before today I had, following a sudden inspiration, finished some cut out and half sewn owls that had been put away for around two years, I guess.
Gosh, I checked it, three and a half years!
Time flies.
Should give us all hope that those UFOs we are hoarding might actually get finished one day :)

Hope you had/ are having a beautiful day!

PS: A pattern for the owls will be ready soon and I will publish it during this week.

Continuing cleaning out the fridge

First of all, hello to everybody who came here via The Quilt Show, hope you'll be having fun with the owls. I am thinking hard to do something regarding a template, let's see if we can finally find a solution for that.

Last week I have starting to sort photos and remove them from my hard disc, so here is the next, "old" knitting from last winter. A hat I made twice because I chose very bad colours when I knitted it first. The contrasts were so subtle, and the colours so wrong, you couldn't see a thing... parts of the pattern were visible, other parts were absolutely hidden... I thought it should be fine with the first colours I chose, and I kept hoping the pattern would, row by row, getting more obvious, but it didn't, which I only was ready to admit when the hat was finished.
So, on I went, with different colours.All from stash, therefore I had to make things work with material I already had (Puppy New 4Ply and Hamanaka Pure Wool Fingering).

The pattern came from Kazekobo's Fair Isle Knitting (ISBN 978-4529046763) which I picked up in a local book store and which made me get Alice Starmore's BOOK OF FAIR FAIR ISLE KNITTING (978-0-486-47218-8), a book originally published in 1988 and republished last year. Kazekobo's book has some pretty projects that might lure you into Fair Isle Knitting, and Alice Starmore's book provides you with all useful and interesting information about it.

I didn't like some of the patterns in the hat because they looked too dominant, so I changed that a bit, and the ear flaps were done in only two colours, as the first set of flaps I made according to the book really didn't suit the hat - way too busy. Again, great, I noticed only afterwards...got a lot of practice making this hat!

The hat's been worn a lot until getting photographed, so you see, the yarn is holding up well, both the Puppy and the Hamanaka. They are a good deal finer than the recommended RichMore Percent, but worked well for me as my head is smaller than the pattern's size.

The new cardigan I spoke of last week has been assembled, s l o w l y because it's mattress stitch and I used the Beaverslide which meant having to work really carefully to prevent the yarn tearing apart. 

It's very sunny today, lots of light in our washitsu, so I will try to get the cardigan photographed.

Take care and have a beautiful day!

take pokkuri

Today: spending the pocket money on a pair of those... simple pleasures.

Cleaning out the fridge

My mac is getting slower by the day. One reason might be the many, many pictures I have temporarily stored on my hard disc, just until I have been using them for the next posting... one of those postings would have been about a Baktus which I made for my sister last winter...

Here's a link to the scarf on ravelry.

When I made this I had difficulties getting the edges right, eventually asking Terhi (mustaavillaa) what to do... she kindly helped me, telling me to just keep the two alternating yarns exactly where they were, not slipping any first or last stitches... and it worked out well. It was as easy as that. For further details follow the ravelry link, please.

So, first photos ready to be moved onto the external disc... a beginning :)

Take care!