Born to knit

Help, I´ve Been Hijacked by Hats!

My participation in the Ravelympics didn´t exactly end in glory and a rain of gold medals. I have really no idea what happened, but I seem to have been overtaken by this URGE to knit hats. 

Not only have I been knitting on that irresistable pink Bohus hat. I´ve also made a new Karin hat in a slighlty diffferent colourway. Last Wednesday it was my mum´s birthday – and all she wanted was a black Karin hat. 

This is my friend Erika modelling my mum´s hat before it was sent off to Hälsingland:

Isn´t she lovely!

The post actually managed to deliver my packet in time – despite difficult weather conditions. I was quite impressed.

  

Tack för hjälpen, Erika!

I like this new colourway so much that I started knitting a Karin hat for myself, in white. And even though I´m now knitting this pattern for the forth time I´m still not tired of it.

But I haven´t only been knitting hats. I´ve managed to squeeze in a pair of mittens, too. When I read about the Selbu Mitten Contest in Norway I was so inspired that I sat down and made a Swedish Selbu mitten.

You could say that it´s an improved Edith mitten. The Edith mitten was my very first attempt at making a knit pattern and I´ve never been completely happy with it. I always felt that it had more potential. Espcecially after coming up with the Edith hat – I´ve wanted a mitten that would really match that hat.

And this time I think I got it right. I´ve decided to call the Improved Edith mitten Elise, after my daughter. She is very pleased.

This was my first attempt and I´ve made a few changes to the final Elise mitten. There will be a pattern soon, but the Excel program on my computer decided it wouldn´t cooperate tonight. I suspect that the levels of frustration on this earth have risen a lot since computers were invented...

Fun at the Fair

The weekend that was we had a Craft Fair here in Stockholm. The snow and cold probably kept some people away – but I made it there. It was a different story trying to get home again, though. But I will not bore you with details of how badly the commuter trains run in this weather...

I spent Saturday in Nysta´s booth, helping out a little – but mainly just sitting there knitting and talking to other visitors about knitting. It was great fun! 

Tack alla ni som kom fram och hälsade och berättade att ni brukar läsa min blogg! Det är jätteroligt att få träffa nya trevliga stickare.

My new Karin Kurbits hat and mittens were very popular. 

I didn´t even have the time to buy any yarn myself. I think that was a first...

I haven´t had any time to knit on the pink Bohus hat either. All those rows in subtly different pink shades demand concentration – you can´t talk and knit at the same time.

The pink Bohus hat is not my own design, though I wish I had come up with something that beautiful. I bought it as a kit from Karin Kahnlund, our teacher at HV craft school. If you´d like a hat like that – get in touch with Karin.

The designer – who also put all the colours together – is called Kerstin Olson and worked for the Bohus knitting company from 1958 until 1969. She is the genius behind the fantastic "Wild apple" sweater, that I would love to knit one day.

You can find photos of Kerstin here if you scroll down. And some of the Bohus kits that you can buy and knit yourself. They used to be sold only as ready made handknit sweaters.

Next door to the Craft Fair there was another fair – the Antiques Fair. In one booth I found the most amazing collection of Dala Floda embroidery. Just look at this mitten, for instance.

Does anyone know what kavelfrans is called in English? Cause I certainly don´t.

There were lots more.

  
Can you guess what this is?

 

It´s a wristlet.
 

There was also a cute collection of old Dala horses (and a Dala pig). They are Kurbits painted and sort of next of kin to my Karin design. Notice how elegantly I managed to tie this little blog post together?

All these things are for sale and if you would like to own an embroidered heirloom you can contact Naima at Klingboden.

Next time I will show you what I have been knitting in secret this last week.

Pig Pink

I´ve knitted a lot, but not worked so much on my sweater Hermanna. There are too many loose ends that need darning in. I wish one could make one´s children do a bit of serious work occasionally. I mean – when does pay back time start?

So instead of darning in ends I´ve been darting between projects. A little bit like slalom knitting.

For instance I´ve started a new Karin hat in a different colourway. But I can´t show you a photo, because someone who reads this blog is going to get it for her birthday next week.

Though if you happen to be at Syfestivalen on Saturday I will be in Nysta´s booth knitting away on the new Karin hat. Do come and say hello if you want to!

I also have to confess that I have sneaked in a few more rows on my pink Bohus hat. I think I have to show you just how irresistable it is.

One of the colours is called pig pink in Swedish

I can understand that this might be too pink for some. But for me there is nothing like too pink! 

Now I only have one more row with three colours – those rows are a bit of a pain. But the technique used when doing twined knitting has actually helped me when knitting the three coloured rows. I can hold the third colour in my right hand and throw it. Holding all three colours in one hand proved too hard.

I´m pretty sure that if I went to a phsycic she would be able to see more Bohus knitting in my future. I have got the kit for the Large Lace collar tucked away somewhere at the back of the warderobe. Knitting on needles size 1,5 this will keep me occupied for quite a while. 

 

Rocky Start

Even if I missed the OS opening ceremonies, I fully intended to catch up later in the day. But something tripped me up. A little hat in pink angora that I started knitting last weekend. 

I only meant to take it along as commuter knitting on a bus ride, but when I got back home I couldn´t stop knitting on it.

"Put it down", I told myself in a stern voice. It had no effect on me what so ever.

I didn´t give up the pink knitting until it was time to go to bed. Now I suspect that a member of one the other teams might have planted it in my home, to waylay me...

But this morning I outsmarted them. I got up and didn´t even look at the cute, pink angora hat. I went straight for my old fair isle sweater, that I haven´t touched since October last year. 

All the yarn and the finished parts had been put away in a bag at the back of the warderobe. I had to dig so deep that I was almost afraid of ending up in Narnia.

But. The pattern was nowhere to be found! And this is not the kind of sweater where you can just wing it. I looked everywhere. I went through all my heaps of paper – and there are quite a few. I´m not the tidyest person I know. In fact, it´s mr Borntoknit who does most of the cleaning round our flat.

I was getting desperate when I  – as a last resort – pulled out the file from the bookshelf named "My Knitting Patterns". And lo and behold, there it was. The elusive pattern for Hermanna.

When did I file it away so neatly? It really isn´t like me. And mr B knows better than to interfere with my knitting stuff or I would never find anything.

After this little ordeal I was really glad that I hadn´t got up in the middle of the night to start the OS-knitting. Me going beserk in the flat at 3 a.m. would have been a disaster.

So anyway, I´ve finally  started working on binding the shoulders off and I´m getting ready to cut the steeks. There are quite a few loose ends to weave in, too. 

All the time the little pink angora hat is lying there, ever so seductively in the knitting basket beside the sofa. And it´s sooo boring to weave in loose ends...

I hope that all the other members of Team Sweden are doing better. Heja, heja!

Mix and Match

I suspect that this blog will soon sue me for neglect. I´m really too busy knitting to have time to blog. And that is why this blog isn´t called "Born to Blog". In case you wondered.

This week all my new patterns went up for sale at the Loopy Ewe! The "Karin Kurbits" hat and mittens, the "Ulrika Nejlika" mittens and the "Winter of Love" mittens. Sheri has also stocked up on all my old patterns.

Mönstren finns på svenska hos Nysta. De kommer också att finnas i butikerna Marias garn och Anntorps väv.

Last week I finished the "Inga Snöflinga" hat for the second time. It was a relief that I didn´t have to rip it out again – that I actually thought that it looked okay. Last year when I was struggling with the Edith hat I think I frogged it seven times. I certainly wouldn´t want to be employed by me...

So here she is in all her snowy glory:

I also like the way the top of the hat looks like a star.

It will match the mittens really well.

But before I write up the pattern I want to knit an Inga hat that is a size larger - because the one I´ve made is quite small to fit my own little head.  

I´m thinking of making the bigger Inga Snöflinga black with silver snowflakes. What do you think?

This week I´ve been at home to nurse my son who had a bad cold. But he was well enough to help out with the photo shoot today.

We´ve spent a lot of time lying on the couch watching children´s television. Now when he´s 8 it´s almost enjoyable. I´m glad we´re passed the stage of watching "Teletubbies". Nono, the hoover, was kind of scary.

So I´m all revved up to participate in the Ravelympics that start tonight. I´ve decided to work on my fair isle sweater that I call "Hermanna" (my own pattern), so I dug it out from the bottom of the warderobe and dusted it off and saw that next on the agenda would be the cutting of the steeks. 

But getting up at 3 am to cut the steeks didn´t strike me as a particularly good idea, so I´m going to give the opening of the Olympics a miss.