Born to knit

Fair, but Unfair!

Late in the evenings strange noises have been emanating from the bedroom.

Rustling of pages being turned, followed by heavy breathing, gasps and moans.

This has been the bedtime reading the last month here at Born to Knit:

Yes, I´ve been slobbering over Selbu mittens.

And then turning the page and seeing this – it´s almost more than I can take!

Serious hardcore.

My absolute favourite type of literature. Patterns in black and white. Page up and page down.

A little while ago I did a private swap with Norwegian knitter Pinneguri.

She got some Malabrigo yarn and I got a treasure of Norwegian knitting patterns.

While she has already used up all the yarn, I´ve far from finished reading these five booklets about Selbu knitting.

She thought it was a fair trade, but I´m sure I got the better deal!

One thing that I DO find unfair, however, is that Norway has such a rich and flourishing knitting tradition while Sweden – well, frankly we haven´t got that much. 

Not in comparison to our "nabo" in the west anyway.

I´ve often wondered why knitting has always been so cherished in Norway, but at times almost neglected over here?

If you happen to have a theory about this, please feel free to comment. Any explanation is welcome!

Especilly if you happen to be Norwegian and reading this. Go on, you can share your secret with me...

But since I´m not comfortable when things are unfair and I´m not in a position where I could easily defect from Sweden to join Norway (even if I wish that I could) I thought I´d "help" our Swedish knitting tradition by – well – inventing some Swedish Selbu knitting.

I figured that I could stealth-knit something in Selbu-like style and then pretend that I had found it in an old barn or something. Okay, maybe not a barn, since they´re pretty scarce here in the middle of Stockholm. 

But I live pretty close to the "Old Town" where  some of the houses date back to the middle ages. 

And who knows what one could dig up in a basement there.

Maybe a hat?

Promise you wont tell anyone about my little scheme.

Thumb trouble

Writing instructions that are crystal clear is a hard thing to do. 

It´s easy to get lost in translation. 

Someone who is knitting Signe is having trouble understanding how to do the thumb gusset so I thought I´d post some pictures in case that might help.

This is what the palm looks like:

I´ve started making the increases for the thumb gusset six stitches from the right edge.

I´ve increased one stitch on each side of stitch number seven in the chart.

I then knit two rounds without increases and then I´ve increased another two stitches on each side of the thumb gusset.

The written instruction tells you to cast of the stitches for the thumb gusset and then cast on 15 new stitches. 

But I´ve actually cheated and used what I think is a very clever Norwegian method of taking a piece of spare yarn in a different colour and knit the thumb gusset stitches with that, put them back on the left needle and knit them again using the background colour.

Then all I have to do when it´s time to knit the thumb is carefully unpick the orange yarn and put the live stitches on the four double pointed needles I use for knitting the thumb.

It looks like this:

 

The pattern for the gusset decrease can be the same as for the gusset increase – or if you wish to use the same pattern as on the palm.

Finished with a thumb Signe looks like this:

It might be easier to see how the increases for the thumb gusset is made on the Edith mitten.

But on Edith I´ve placed the thumb gusset three stitches from the edge instead of six stitches from the edge like it is on Signe.

A little while ago some friends and I discussed where the best placement of the thumb gusset might be and we were all of different opinions. 

Some were in favour of having it more to one side or right at the side edge. My advice is take a look at your hand and see where your own thumb base is. 

Of course some mittens have no thumb gussets at all. But I think they have a better fit with a gusset and I believe it makes the mitten last longer.

Good luck!

Completely Wonderful!

In the end I did nothing to disguise the circular needle that I was hoping to be able to bring on the plane to London.

I had already cast on a little pink wristlet and started knitting on the bus to the airport. 

I simply couldn´t restrain myself any longer. Pink Koigu and pink Japanese beads – need I say more?

To my great delight the needle made it through security. I celebrated in style.

One of the air hostesses on the plane noticed my knitting and raised one eyebrow:

– Did you manage to get that through security?

Well, yes.

How else would I have got it on board the plane?

But not wanting to risk an argument and have the needle taken away from me I wisely refrained from making snide remarks.

Little Miss Sunshine then proceeded to tell me that it would not pass through the security at Heathrow on the way back.

With such a good start I felt that nothing would go wrong during our four day stay in old Blighty.

And nothing did. We had a simply splendid time!

We stayed in a room in the middle of Soho.

A room with a view:

 

Ah, a sight for sore eyes.

Honestly, it was great waking up in the morning and immediately understanding where we were.

The weather was fantastic. Not a drop of rain and a mild temperature.

Even sunshine and a feeling of spring in the air.

We did some shopping (like you do).

Why, yarn of course. And a book.

"Knitting Around" by Elizabeth Zimmerman and two skeins of Louet Gems are hiding in that bag, to be more precise.

I Knit London was a lovely little shop south of the river, near Waterloo station.

Recommended to me by knitblogger Dawn. Thanks Dawn!

I  When we got back to the hotel room in the evenings we were pretty beat, so I didn´t actually get that much knitting done. But I did some while travelling on the tube.

Most of this was knit on the plane, though.

As you can probably guess the circular needle made it through the security at Heathrow, too.

Henceforth it shall be known as my Lucky Circular Needle. All is well that ends well!

This trip to London was even worth my having to decline an invititation for a dinner at the Royal Palace in the precence of the King, the Queen and the Crown Princess.

Oh, well. What´s a royal ball?

B-sides

I know that this is really going to show up my age, but – remember when there singles with A-sides and B-sides instead of downloads?

 

I first wanted to make the Winter of Love-mittens double A-sided, so to speak. 

That way you could chose whether to have the writing on the palm or on the back of the hand. 

But then I realised that the thumbs would mess up the writing, therefore that had to go on the back of the hand.

So this is what the flip sides look like now:

Love & Peace, man!

These mittens are going on a trip with me – to London of all places. What could be more suitable?

I think they really do need to visit Carnaby Street and come with me to Soho Square 1 and wave to old Macca. It will be a bit like a happening!

I´ve spent the last few hours packing and stringing beads – because wristlets must be the best travel knitting to be had. I´m fed up with trying to crochet my way across the North Sea.

The only problem is how to get the circular needle through security and onto the plane, since I´m only bringing hand luggage.

My husband is afraid that there will be an embarressing scene, though. 

He´s made me promise not to argue with security if my needle is taken away from me. I shall also try to avoid attacking anyone with said needle or break down and start screaming and crying hysterically.

Just in case it gets confiscated I´ve decided not to take my favourite circular needle, but an old one I hardly ever use.

And a friend, who luckily happens to be a genius, told me to get creative and make the needle into a necklace with the aid of a few stitch markers.

This should do the trick, should it not?

I hope my husband doesn´t see this blog post before we board the plane.

I fear it might put a damper on his holiday spirits.

I´ll let you all know how it went when we come back.

... and Understanding!

Thank you for all the excellent suggestions! 

Some commenters thought that the writing on the right mitten would be SNOW. 

But I think the majority were in favour of YARN. 

I must say that I´m surprised that writing YARN didn´t even occur to me. 

I could of course knit another mitten – or two. And I could rename them "The Mittens of Many Options". 

But being a child of the 60´s I thought that it would be obvious that the right mitten would read:

Peace!

I first called them " The Psychedelic Mittens", because of the colours I had in mind.

The yarn that I´m using is the fairly new Noro sock yarn and though I think that the colours are perfect the yarn is a bit too uneven for my liking. 

Even if I´m prepared to go through thick and thin for yarn, I prefer it the yarn itself didn´t.

Last week I went up north again to Hälsingland – a private trip this time – and in spite of the fact that the train was on time (for a change) I managed to finish the second mitten. 

It´s always very peaceful at my mum´s so I got a lot of knitting done while I was there.

There was still a fair amount of snow, but somehow it felt as if spring was in the air.

See why it´s so easy to chill out at my mum´s...

Of course it will take a while to melt all this.

So there will be plenty of time to wear my new mittens.

A friend (Hej Erika!) suggested that I should knit a headband with "AND UNDERSTANDING" on it to accompany the mittens. I have to confess that the 80´s never was my favourite decade of fashion. 

But the 60´s... 

Those were the days.

I might have been wearing some  flowers in my hair back in the Summer of Love.

But (sigh) I was also wearing diapers and I´m pretty sure I never made it to San Fransisco. 

I can´t help feeling that I was born 20 years too late. 

Therefore I declare that the Winter of Love starts here and now! 

(Or rather as soon as I´ve made the thumbs)

...and understanding

And perhaps one day there will be a hat instead of a headband.