Born to knit

Birthday Girl!

The fourth generation of knitters in the Born to knit-family turns nine today.
Yes, the Force is strong in some families.
Elise learnt how to knit when she was six and has already developed a taste for exclusive yarns.

On top of her wish list was some Mulberry silk that she spotted at Marias garn, the last time she was there.
And she is getting yarn, though not Mulberry silk, but a lovely multicoloured cotton – just right for knitting doll´s clothes.

It´s very nice to have a daughter who really appreciates having a sweater made from Blue Sky Silk Alpaca. And it´s darn lucky that people in general have no idea how much money yarn for a hand knit sweater can cost.

When Elise went swimming with her school earlier this winter she left this sweater behind in the changing rooms. But a week and a half later, when Johanne had searched the whole school and realised the sweater had to be somewhere else – it was still lying there in the Lost and Found-box.

Yes, it´s sheer madness to send a kid to school in a sweater that costs more than the rest of her clothes together. And Johanne was rather upset that it might be lost forever. Then again it would have given her the perfect excuse to go out and buy some more yarn...

And when you first look at your new born baby lying there on your arm you learn the first three rules of parenthood: you have to love them, you have to feed them and you have to keep them warm.
Grattis på födelsedagen Elise!

Slightly Deranged

Can you guess what day it is today?
It´s "Show Your Cromarty Day" of course!

So this is Johanne´s Cromarty.

And like her friend Wendy pointed out it is indeed made in cotton.
Some vintage Rowan cotton that is now believed to be extinct.
Which is a shame because this much worn sweater has kept its shape remarcably well over the years.
Only the neckbands have stretched a little too much.

Like Wendy so eloquently put it you either have to be terribly courageous or quite mad to knit a cable sweater in cotton.
Johanne would actually prefer to use the term "slightly deranged".
And sometimes lessons have to be learned the hard way...

At the time she made Cromarty she had no idea how much harder it was to knit cables in cotton than in wool.
But she was so young that it didn´t even make her hands hurt.
Now when she is so much older – this Cromarty was made way back in the 90´s – she knows better.

Mais elle ne regrettez rien!

This sweater is still one of her favourites and because it´s not too warm it´s been worn a lot.
Starmore´s design has a timeless beauty and was a delight to knit, even if it took ages.

Ye Olde Cromarty and Ludvig, who asked if he could be in one picture.
His older sister Elise, who has been appointed First Blog Photograhper, is behind the camera instead.
She will no doubt soon have her own knit blog.
Just look at what she made her mum for Christmas.

A knitted hot dog with knitted tomato ketchup.

Consider yourselves warned

This is what Johanne has been busy knitting lately. It´s been very hush-hush.
But for a very good reason – these mittens were a birthday gift for Johanne´s sister Emelie.
It was her 25th birthday last Sunday!

For Christmas Johanne gave Emelie a shawl in handpainted alpaca from Marias garn.
So the perfect present would of course be a pair of matching mittens.
And luckily Maria had some handpainted alpaca left that matched.

After frogging the first attempt Johanne came up with a design that worked, in the nick of time.
She finished the mittens late the night before they were due to be sent off.
And even more amazing was that the postal service actually worked for once.

Now, Emelie has been known to lose mittens before – within a week of receiving them.
But Johanne is hoping that her sister is now not only older, but also wiser.

That does sadly not apply to Johanne herself.

A little while ago she just happened to once again find herself at Marias garn.
Johanne had won a raffle at work and decided to spend her winnings on some
carefully selected merino silk in a lovely burgundy. And nothing more.

Then, without warning, Maria pulled out a few new skeins of alpaca she had just dyed.
And Johanne didn´t stand a chance. The colours were simply glorious.
See, people who run yarn shops can simply not be trusted!

Of course there was nothing Johanne could do, but hand over her money.
Still, she walked away feeling a lot richer.

A Post for Wendy

We all make mistakes sometimes. And when Johanne saw this post a little while ago she made the mistake of telling her friend Wendy something about her own past relationship with Beatle-Paul.

Not only was it a longlasting, passionate and totally onesided affaire.
Her burning love for the Beatles and Paul McCartney in particular also took Johanne all over the world.
Well, she got as far as Liverpool and London anyway.

It made her do strange things – like pose in a photo with her complete collection of records, books and magazines.

When Johanne revealed to Wendy that there was such a picture, Wendy said that she needed to see it.
And it´s hard – impossible in fact – to deny someone who´s given you so many beads (all Japanese) and so much yarn (a lot of it Koigu) such a modest wish.
Even if when you look like a complete dork in the photo.

So if you´re ready for this – Born to Knit gives you Johanne at 15:

Please note that this was most probably one of Johanne´s good hair-days...

You might think that there is not much knitting content here. But if you look closely at the picture you can see a bit of a blue cardigan that Johanne´s mother knitted for her in the acrylic mohair yarn that was the very essence of the 80´s.