Turn A Square Gets Lost in Helsinki

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Bells

Late last year when I knew a friend was going to spend Christmas and New Year in Helsinki, I knitted a hat for him. I knitted Jared Flood’s Turn a Square hat. I’d long wanted to make it and though I didn’t any of the heathered yarns available, the ones that give the original its striking look, I knew it’d work as a red striped hat and that my friend, David, was the kind of guy who could pull of this look.

Here it is modeled by Sean before I posted it to David. It’s made of both Cascade 220 (the grey, in Oyster) and Bendigo Rustic 12ply (the red, in Radiant).

Sure it looks a little like a bullseye from above. I have no problem with that and neither did David who, on receiving it declared he loved it, vowing to send me photos of himself wearing it against the backdrop of snowy Helsinki.

He promptly flew to Helsinki and lost it.

Yep. A week into his holiday. However, he told me none of this until he had been reunited with the hat. By his account, he felt sick that something made especially for him was so easily forgotten on a train. He says he made calls and with some difficulty managed to get someone to look for it and it was found, but by then he was on his way to Denmark and had to go without the hat.

Here he is, reunited with the hat the train station after his trip to Denmark.

I can tell from looking at it that it’s too big for him – I had a feeling it might be – I had already made it once and deemed it too small so I ripped it out and did it on bigger needles – 5mm – but probably overshot. It’s ok, the band turned over is an ok look. I’ll know better next time.

Watching the hat traipse around Northern Europe, including New Year’s eve in Lapland, has been a thrill. I’ve never had a knit go so far from home.

And just quietly, I”m relieved that David was able to find it and has managed to take it so far in a winter much colder than I’ve ever had the pleasure of knitting for. For a gift knitter, that’s quite gratifying!

Helen

ps David, look before you get off the train!

Summer Days

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Bells

Christmas and New Year has been quiet here. Not hosting Christmas means there isn’t really a lot to do in terms of baking or menu planning. That was all in the hands of my in-laws this year.

Christmas day saw us drive out to the country, to Young, the cherry capital of Australia. The landscape is dry, windswept and beautiful.

When my father in law saw this photo he said ‘that’s Australia at Christmas’. Well, one part of it anyway.

Most of our time off has seen us being at home, just being. It’s at once a much loved way to spend summer – away from crowds – and at the same time strangely subdued. I do have the sense that there’s life and excitement happening elsewhere but I’m happy to just potter here and have the odd day out, visiting here or there, seeing people when the mood strikes but mostly just focusing on withdrawing a bit from having to be anywhere. I can garden, knit, read, do odd jobs I’ve been putting off and hide from the reality of the world a little bit. It suits me. It suits us.

And so my afternoons often look like this.

Sean bought me new set of Clover Soft Touch crochet hooks for Christmas (from SuzyHausfrau) and I’ve been digging through bags of years old cotton to replenish my stash of dishcloths.

Over the break I’ve sewed, decking Alice in new summer clothes. I explained to a friend the other day that the reason to make so much stuff for her now is because the time will come when she no longer wants my simple homemade items (maybe it won’t, you never know) and I can make stuff for her now that gives me experience and new skills. It’s fun. This dress turned out to be too tight across the bodice but it’ll do for now.

And this skirt, which the designer said would take an hour, really did only take an hour. She loves owls.

There was New Years’ Eve in the city with Alice. Ice cream, fireworks and fun.

A ride on a sheep statue (it was just pretend, she explained).

We did get away for a couple of days though – to visit my parents with Alice while her parents had a break. It is nice to be somewhere else for a bit, even if home is where you want most to be.

The inlet just near my parents’ house is perfect for toddler swimming. She even put her face under. She felt very brave and none of us got sunburned given it was our first proper afternoon in the sun with less clothing on than we normally wear.

Now that festive stuff is over and the slow pace of days has settled into a gentle rhythm for a bit longer (I’m not back at work for a little while yet) I plan to sew more, keep working on the garden, have an airing of the stash (will wait until Sean goes back to work for that – there are some things he does not need to see!) and continue my general withdrawal from the world. 2013 begins not with a bang but with a quiet, sun filled dawning.

Bells

Julekuler

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Bells

A rash, impulsive purchase a few weeks ago at the Suzy Hausfrau pop up shop lead to some fun and equally impulsive knitting.

You may have seen this book around the traps. Two Norwegian blokes who run a business out of an old train carriage. So dorky looking they’re amazing and gorgeous.

Before I’d even arrived home that day I knew I’d dig out two balls of Knit Picks Palette I’d been hoarding for so long. Their time had come. Isn’t it wonderful when yarn you’ve had forever finally finds its purpose?

Within a day I had my first Julekuler – or Christmas ball.

Such fun. And not as fiddly as you might imagine.

I soon made another.

This one went to my sister, Adele, on the weekend. She said it looked like a little jumper. So true. Many of the designs have come from traditional Scandinavian motifs.

One more. This time with red as the main colour. This one is wending its way north as we speak.

So really I only have the first one hanging on my tree. Whether I make another one before Christmas is uncertain. Perhaps making one more item for my tree each year is a nice way to mark the occasion, and leave room to share some with others.

I just love them. Between these and my Selbu modern hat from a few months ago, I’m getting my desire for fair isle back and can see larger fair isle items in my plans for 2013.

If I don’t write again before Christmas, I wish you all a very merry time with friends and loved ones.

Safety, joy and fun.

Thanks for reading again in 2012.

Bells

Gloves for Italy

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Bells

Several weeks ago a friend told me she was, through some very good fortune, going on the trip of a lifetime.

In the 1950s she migrated here from Italy as a two year old and grew up as the daughter of a western plains farmer. In all those years, she has never been back to her homeland and was not sure she ever would. The day she told me she was going home, through a stroke of good fortune, she had tears in her eyes.

I’m the daughter of a migrant, from England. My mother didn’t return home until forty years after her arrival in Australia so my Italian friend’s story resonated with me deeply. Going home is huge. I’ve listened to her plan and pack and dream for the last month, preparing to set out for the journey she never thought she’d make.

I had to think quickly about what to make for her. Heading north, leaving behind a baking Australian summer for the chill of an Italian winter, I wanted her to have something small but warm. Gloves or a hat? I’ve never seen her wear a hat. Gloves it was. I whipped them up over a couple of weeks.

These are the pattern known as Susie Roger’s Reading Mitts. I wanted something unfussy for my friend, but still elegant. The picot edge struck that chord for me.

I gave them to her this afternoon, just a few days before the journey begins. She was so touched and better still, she said gloves were on her list of last things to buy before going and now she doesn’t have to.

I love this pattern. I used Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 10ply in Autumn Glow, leftover from Alice’s Cardigan. I changed nothing, choosing to keep them as long as the pattern stated even though I wondered if they were too long. But I pictured her slim wrists under a coat and thought these would go well under coat sleeves. She agreed.

Only one glove per photo though – it’s hard to photograph both your hands at once.

This was the second gift for a friend heading to Europe – the next post will cover the other one!

I look forward to hearing, hopefully, how these gloves kept her hands warm as she meets up with long missed family in a place far, far from Canberra.

Bells

Twirling at the Opera

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Bells

What little girl doesn’t love a skirt with a whole lot of fabric in it for twirling? I think you’d have to look far and wide to find one. I made a twirly skirt for Alice recently and she wore it on Saturday to the Voices in the Forest concert at the newly planted Canberra Arboretum. Opera in the sunshine, on soft green grass, with a picnic, family and friends. It was lovely.

In this photo we had just arrived. People were still filling up the seats. There was plenty of room for twirling.

You might notice a lack of a forest. So did Alice. She was well primed for a forest experience. It’s a new forest – it’s built on the site where much of Canberra’s pine plantations were destroyed in the 2003 bush fires that devastated our city. Some of the trees are smaller than she is. We had to tell her it was a baby forest and one day, when she’s big, it too will be big. She was ok with that and went on with her twirling.

This was a fun skirt but not necessarily as simple as the pattern suggested. Or maybe that was just me. It’s a design by Little Bird Patterns, whose designs I’ve used before. I found the gathering really hard. Thankfully my mum visited after I’d unpicked it all in frustration and helped me pull it off. It was a bit of a forehead slapping moment. Oh! You mean you do it like THAT!

Well there’s a new string to my bow.

I knew I was onto a winner with this skirt a few weeks ago when Alice saw it, still in progress and said ‘when can I wear the beautiful dress?’ I breathed a sigh of relief.

The fabrics are all from the stash and quite by chance we ran into the person who donated some of those fabrics to my stash at the concert. Fellow knitter Gretchen was not far from us with her three girls, who probably all had dresses and skirts made from these fabrics when they were small – she recognised the scraps in the skirt right away. I hope she was pleased to see they’d been put to fruitful use.

Our lovely Miss A certainly looked gorgeous in them and I think I know what I’ll be making more of in summer. Who am I to deny her the joy of twirling?

Bells

Blackrose Socks

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Bells

A few years ago RoseRed gave me a skein, a much loved, stroked and admired skein, of Sundara Sock yarn in a rich dark green-black. I loved it for a long time as it was my first ever skein of this lush, rich yarn and I wasn’t sure I wanted to make socks from it.

You see, I’m very hard on my knitted socks. Sometimes I wear through them in as little as six months, the fabric at the ball of my foot wearing away to frail, lifeless threads in one ever-exposed patch, so I’m not always keen to use my special yarns on items that becomes so readily obsolete.

Then I just thought what the hell. I wear through them, I knit more. Life’s too short to worry. I know I’ll wear them happily for however long they last.

The result is these Black Rose socks, a Knitty pattern I’ve made before.

I love this pattern. I loved it the first time I made it. Both times I’ve chosen nearly black sock yarn for them – there’s something about that spray of lace down the side that seems to work in a dark colour – like you need the contrast of your pale skin beneath to really see the detail of the panel.

It’s too warm here for socks now but as always, I get a nice, quiet sense of satisfaction knowing I’m a little ahead on knitting for winter next year. I’ll enjoy these in the winter of 2013. I’m sure of it.

Bells

Cassia Tunic

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Bells

I love an impulse knit. No planning. No days/weeks/months of deliberation. This newly finished top for Alice is one of those. A pattern that had been in my queue for ages, it leapt off the screen at me one day and before I knew it I had leftover blue and white cotton in my lap and had cast on, feeling my way through the notion of blue and white stripes.

Cassia was born. Another Tikki pattern. I never tire of them.

And here she is.

Designed to be a dress or a tunic, I always knew I’d go for a tunic. All that cotton, in a calf length dress, would just be too heavy. I was sure of it. A tunic is more versatile.

I was never going to leave the pockets off. I could picture Alice with her hands in the pockets and knew she’d love them, which she did. The moment she discovered them it was all ‘oh there are pockets! I can put my hands in them!’ Yes and a million other treasures, I’m sure.

I love Bendigo cotton for tops and dresses for Alice. It’s soft, durable and holds up to continuous washing. She’s not wearing anything under the top and she said it felt soft against her skin. Can’t beat that.

Miraculously the little pale blue buttons I used for it were a magical find in a box of buttons that came as a grab bag from Addicted to Fabric. You know those big barrels of buttons some places have, and you can buy them by the scoop? You don’t really know what you’ll end up with. Those little blue buttons were in that scoop. What luck!

As I was knitting the stripes, I kept thinking of it as Wedgwood colours – that lovely white against duck egg blue is so evocative of Wedgwood crockery. I didn’t even know until I first saw the stripes emerging. Love it.

Knitted in a little under a month, in a size just bigger than she actually needs, I hope it’ll be a good year round piece. Come winter, I can see it over long sleeve tops as a layering piece – and as a warm weather top that will let the breeze move in and around her body. Can’t ask for more than that.

Bells

Selbu Modern Beret

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Bells

For the longest time I’ve wanted to make a fair isle beret, more specifically the Selbu Modern beret by Kate Gagnon Osbourn. A pretty little fingering weight beret with intricate detailing.

Finally, I did. And look who it fits.

Not me, that’s for sure. I’ve known for a week it was not going to fit me, even though I stretched it hard over a plate (that was a challenge) and wore it around the house to help it relax. It just wouldn’t. It looks awful on me. But when Alice came to stay this weekend I found myself wondering if maybe….well yes I was right. It fits her perfectly.

I decided after I took these photos though – with some helpful suggestions from Sean – that I won’t give it to her completely. It’s a bit too special to end up tossed in the sandpit or lost, never to be seen again which is so often the way with accessories. Instead, since it’s nearing summer, I’ll put it away until autumn next year and keep it here. She can wear it when she visits – by then I’ll have made another one and we can wear them together. It’s not such a close fit that it runs the risk of never being worn at all. There’s room for her to grow in it.

I really enjoyed knitting it though. After a break of YEARS since my last major foray into fair isle, I felt ready to dip my needles back into the water. It’s so lovely watching the patterns form. I think all that went wrong was that my gauge was too tight. It’s a pattern that can run small anyway. I tried to keep it on the loose side but clearly needed to just go up a needle size or two.

I loved my yarn choice – The Fibre Company Canopy fingering weight – which is what the pattern was actually written for. I in fact bought two skeins of purple for a friend’s birthday, and two of green for me – but when I saw them together I realised we could both have one each and knit a project together, which we did – same pattern and everything. Hers fits. Mine doesn’t. You win some you lose some.

I’ll just have to knit another one and Alice and I can have matching Selbu Modern Berets. That’s no bad thing.

Bells

Cria Cardigan

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Bells

I’ve got a newly finished cardigan and I love it. It’s the Cria Cardigan by Ysolda Teague, a designer I’ve loved for a few years now. This is my second major piece designed by her and I think it’s going to be a wardrobe favourite.

I finished it a few days ago and when I visited RoseRed today in Sydney, she kindly helped me out with some photos.

Cria is a stunningly simple and elegant design, all the while being an innovative and moderately challenging knit. I began it the day the Olympics started – a sort of unofficial entry for the Ravellenic Games – and knew it was never going to be done by the end of the games.

I’d really love to know more about how Ysolda came up with the construction of this cardigan. It’s really quite something else. You begin with two small rectangles for the shoulders and then join them up and do a bunch of short rows and suddenly you have a rather lovely bodice. Even now I look at it and wonder how it actually happened. It’s stunning stuff that keeps you on your toes as a fascinating piece of work before you settle in for the seemingly endless body.

I almost didn’t add the pockets. I wondered if they were just a design feature that wouldn’t prove useful but then I decided that usefulness isn’t always the only reason you’ll add something to a piece. You wouldn’t put anything heavy in them – they’d drag down the cardigan – but you can rest your hands there and small items and actually they were just a fun knitting addition. I’ve not done pockets before. I liked them.

I deliberately made it a little longer than the pattern stated – it was always going to be a layering piece (hence why I kept the sleeves short) – and I’d worried it might turn out a bit small. Turns out I needn’t have worried – it’s actually a bit too big – but it’s comfortable and goes well over other tops. I’m not sure why the sleeves turned out so poofy – possibly short row miscalculation on my part – but they did and I like the effect.

I absolutely want to make another one and would definitely make it a size smaller. It’s just a bit too roomy and could do with some bust and waist shaping I think. I’d also leave out making all the extra button holes – which I’m going to sew closed on this one because I have no intention of using them.

It feels so good to have finished one last ‘winter’ cardigan just as the weather is warming up. It’ll help on the Spring days that are still a bit chilly and it’ll be ready for Autumn next year.

The yarn is Berocco Ultra Alpaca, which I just love. So soft, such lovely drape. The colour is Redwood – such a rich, warm colour.

Many thanks to RoseRed for the photos. Great to hang out with you again after so long.

Bells

Rikke Hat

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Bells

Variegated yarns can be tricky. Haven’t we all had our phases of stocking our stashes with skeins of multicoloured wonders? Haven’t we all, at some point, wondered just what we can make from those skeins?

Variegated yarns can be just so wrong. Sometimes they’re a clash of colours that when knitted up serve only to detract from the overall look of the project. We’ve all seen them. Unsightly at worst, not necessarily successful at best. And at other times, they just work. You find the marriage of project and yarn just comes together and you see that there is really a point to variegated yarns after all. I think my latest hat works really well. It’s Rikke, a nice free pattern I’ve had my eye on for a while.

The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill DK Super Glitz – a discontinued yarn that was given to me several years ago now by Louiz at Random Acts of Yarn. It’s sat in my stash for a long time, waiting. You can’t see from these photos, sadly, that it has tiny gold sparkles in it. That’s how subtle they are. It’s not heavily sparkled – just enough to be eye catching in person.

The sparkles for a long time suggested an Alice hat to me – but I tend not to knit gift yarns for other people – so it’s time finally arrived and it became this fun, slouchy hat for me.

Lots of people hate with a raging fury to purl in the round – but I found after this hat and other hats I made in September that it wasn’t too bad at all. I couldn’t quite see what the rage was all about. Sure it’s not my favourite way to spend my knitting hours but it was far from unpleasant.

I knitted it exactly to the pattern. There are plenty of ways to modify it noted by others, but I found it fitted me just fine. Some knitters find it too big and some feel the length/slouch is just a bit too funky – someone said that, yes! That as written it’s too funky. I just see it as something that’s not going to flatten my hair completely – next winter. Funky or not!

Yes, next winter – because it’s now officially too warm for winter hats. But let’s recap all the fun I had making hats over winter.