Topaz

Topaz:ini on valmis, langan kanssa otetuista matseista huolimatta :D



My Topaz is finally finished, after a few matches with the yarn :D

Sea silkin kosto/ Revenge of the Sea Silk

Murphyn laki päätti kostaa pari päivää sitten. Juuri kun olin hehkuttanut, että pääsin taas Sea silk-huivini makuun, lanka päätti mennä jumalattomaan takkuun. Lopulta kärsimättömyyteni voitti, ja päädyin poikkaisemaan langan n. kolmesta kohtaa ennen kuin takku selvisi. Voin sanoa, että silkkilangan jatkaminen on sieltä ja syvältä! Pääsin kuitenkin vihdoin jatkamaan tämänkin vastoinkäymisen jälkeen.


Murphy's Law bit me in the arse the other day. I guess I shouldn't have gloated about my Sea Silk-shawl, as the yarn exacted revenge by tangling in the most viscious way. While at first I promised I wasn't going to cut the yarn, my impatience won over, and I ended up cutting it at least 3 times. I can now say that Russian joining a silk blend truly and totally sucks! Oh well, work on the shawl continues.

Neulojan matematiikka / Knitter's maths

Joskus yksinäinen lankavyyhti hyökkää takavasemmalta ja vaatii päästä ostoskärryyni. Näin kävi myös kevättalvella 2009 kun aivan upean turkoosi vyyhti Handmaidenin Sea Silkiä vaati päästä kotiin kanssani. Vyyhti istuikin sitten reilun vuoden muiden ihanien lankojen joukossa ja yritti päättää miksi haluaa isona.

Huhtikuussa kuulin, että vanha ystäväni häitä juhlitaan heinäkuussa. Kunnon neulojan tavoin rupesin heti miettimään asuuni sopivaa huivia. Mallattuani muutamaa vyyhtiä mekkoni kanssa huomasin Sea Silkin olevan paras väriltään. Joten ei kun miettimään lankaan sopivaa mallia. Viime joulun jouluvaihdossa saamani Evelyn Clarkin Heartland Lace Shawl kutkutteli niin paljon, että loin huiviin silmukat pian vapun jälkeen.

Lanka on upea ja malli mielenkiintoinen mutta mutta... Purin ensimmäisen kaavion kertaalleen ennenkuin sain kaikki silmukkamäärät täsmäämään. Samoin olen purkanut rivejä muutamaan kertaan omien virheittäni takia. Viimeisin taisto käytiin eilen, kun en muistanut millä mallikerran rivillä olinkaan. Naapureillani olikin varmaan naurussa pitelemistä kun kämpästäni kuului seuraavankaltaisia ääniä:

"Yksi, kaksi, kolme, kuusi, kahdeksan, kymmenen, kaksitoista... Kaksitoista?! Voi hemmetti ei sen näin pitänyt mennä"
"Mä en enää ikinä neulo mitään, arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
"Mistä näitä silmukoita oikein tulee? Minne ne pikku pirulaiset karkailee?!"

Lopulta sain selville oikea rivin laskemalla silmukoiden määrän, vaikka se kaltaiselleni humanisti-yhteiskuntatieteilijälle hankalaa olikin. Joten projekti jatkuu. Uskon jopa saavani huivin valmiiksi heinäkuuhun mennessä :)


On occasion single skeins of the most scrumptious yarns will mount a sly attack and refuse to let me go until I've finally allowed them to jump into my shopping basket. One such occasion took place in late winter/ early spring of 2009. A beautiful skein on Handmaiden Fine Yarns' Sea Silk (in the lusciously turquoise Topaz-colourway) simply would not leave me be until I bought it. It then spent around a year amongst the choisest skeins of my stash figuring out what it wanted to be when it grew up.

Fast forward to April 2010 when I heard that an old friend of mine will be getting married in July. I then went on to check which of my yarns would best match the dress I had decided to wear, and lo and behold, the Sea Silk won. After that, the hard process of deciding what shawl pattern would work best with the single skein I had began. I received a copy of Evelyn Clark's Heartland Lace Shawl last December as a part of a Christmas swap I took part in, and the decision to knit it had already been brewing in my mind for a while. That lead me to casting on shortly after the May 1st festivities.

I love the yarn and the pattern is both well charted and pleasing to knit BUT... I frogged the first chart once before getting it right. I've also partially frogged several rows in an attempt to get it right. The latest battle took place last night when I simply could not figure out which pattern row I was on. I'm sure my neighbourghs had an interesting time yesterday when I kept on muttering to myself:

"One, two, three, six, eight, ten, twelve... Twelve?! Oh for the love of.. That's so NOT right!"
"I'm never knitting another goddamn thing, GAAAH!"
"Where the Hell are all these stitches coming from? And where are the damn buggers hiding now?!"

In the end, I managed to figure out which row I was on. Even though it involved a fair bit of counting. Which for my mathematically challenged and linguistically capable political scientist's brain was a bit of a challenge. But I'm glad that I'm making progress once again. Here's to hoping it'll be done by July :)

Pellavarätti/ Linen scrap

Olen aiemmin neulonut komeampiakin asioita, mutta ohessa (Rav-linkki) on ensimmäinen rätti jonka sain aikaiseksi helatorstaina. Malli on omasta päästä, ja lankana on Toikan liikkeestä viime syksynä ostettua pellavalankaa.



This (Ravelry link), ladies and gentlemen, is the first scrub/dishcloth I've ever made. It doesn't look like much, but it means I've popped my dishcloth cherry ;)

Success!

I started my False Modesty (Rav-link) last July a few days before a childhood friend got married. In the end it took almost exaclty 9 months from casting on to binding off and blocking. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to take swanky action shots of my knitting during my trip, but I did manage to take a few non-knitting related pictures during my trip.

Aloitin akoinaan False Modesty-tekeleeni (Rav-linkki) viime heinäkuussa juuri ennen ystävän häitä. Loppujen lopuksi huivin tekoon meni melkein tasan 9kk silmukoiden luomisesta pingotukseen. Valitettavasti en saanut avustajaa nalkitettua kuvaamaan kätteni töitä, mutta sainpa sentään otettua muutaman kuvan viime viikon matkaltani.

Malabrigo lace

Like many knitters, I'd heard about Malabrigo, a brand of yarn famed for their lusciously soft products. However, it wasn't until last autumn that I came across a skein of Malabrigo in person. I received my first skein of the laceweight in a swap in September, and started to ponder on what the yarn wanted to become. That skein will likely join 3 other skeins of the same colourway to make my very first Anne Hanson stole.

However, the damage was already done, as I'd become rather fond of the softness of Malabrigo Lace. So when a very talented Finnish indie dyer had an undyed skein for sale, I asked if she could dye it green for me. Laika kindly obliged my request and produced this pretty skein:


I finally wound up the skein tonight, and just finished knitting the first section of Citron, the semi-circular shawl published in the 2009 winter issue of Knitty. The spring-summer 2010 issue went up yesterday, and I'm already rather infatuated by a few of the patterns. Ooopsie...

Pictures, for a change

So far I've only finished one of the 10 shawls I hope to make this year. I cast off another shawl today, but as it was a test knit, I'd rather wait until the pattern is published before I display the finished product. The fact that I've yet to block said shawl isn't an issue :p Suffice to say, I love how the Dream in Color Smooshy knit up.

But as promised, here's the Mara I finished on the last day of January:


I was also given a copy of the Wollmeise 2010 calendar, which has brightened up a few gloomy days ;)

And to finish off, a few pics to remind me of how pretty the weather was only a few days ago, before the temperatures rose to above freezing.