Born to knit

That Little Thing Called Gauge

How. Did. This. Happen?

Me and my big head.

My best friend wanted a Karin Kurbits hat so I decided to knit her one.

And I had this new lovely American sock yarn from the Loopy Ewe that Wendy gave me for Christmas that I wanted to use.

What? Check the gauge? Who – me? 

You must be joking.

I designed this pattern and I´ve knit it sooo many times. It always turns out great.

Besides. Knitting swatches is for wossies. 

Or so I thought.

The hat didn´t look quite so appalling on my friend because her head isn´t as stupidly small as mine. That might be because she – unlike me – has a brain.

But it still kept falling down over her eyes.

Apart from the little problem of it being too big I think that this is the best Karin Kurbits hat that I ever made.

Luckily I still enjoy knitting this pattern and now I have an excuse to start yet another one.

And this has hopefully turned me into a much humbler and nicer person. 

May I introduce Maja

I may live in the middle of a big city but I´m a flower child at heart. 

Okay, so I have to confess that I hate gardening. But I love flowers. I think they have healing power. Along with cats. And babies. And chocolate. And...

But let´s get back to the flowers, shall we?

The thing is is that I´ve made another flowery hat. And this one is very flowery indeed. It´s as flowery as a greeen summer meadow in full bloom.

 

I wanted a hat that would match my hippie mittens called "Winter of Love (and Peace)" – and carry a message of peace and love but without spelling it out in letters – if you follow me.

First I made a green hat and then I changed my mind and made a brown hat – because my winter jacket is brown.

I then had to decide what to call my new hat – because I give all my designs old fashioned Swedish girl names. But I got stuck so I had to ask my friends for help and got lots of brilliant suggestions.

In the end I opted for Maja, because to "maja" used to mean to dress something in flowers and leaves. Very appropriate, no?

So this is Maja, the hat.

And this is my daughter Elise modelling the brown Maja. Notice her purple fringe?

This is me taking a photo of Elise modelling the new hat.

My new "brother-in-law" Per Dahl took these photos. He´s a real photographer.

We swapped hats and Elise modelled the green Maja.

The purple fringe looks slightly better with the green hat I think.

Maja comes in two sizes and the green one is slightly bigger. On me it´s a slouchy hat.

 

 

So I can wear it when I want to be down with the kids.

Real groovy, baby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uggel Guggel

Before I became a one-woman hat knitting factory I managed to make a warm sweater for my 12-year-old daughter Elise. It was the Owl sweater designed by Kate Davies. You can find the pattern here.

Kate is such a talented designer with a great eye for colour and I love everything that she´s done.

There is a reason why the sleeves are a bit extra long.

It was a quick knit. Or it could have been a quick knit.

Thick alpaca yarn and 6 mm needles – for me who usually knit with 2 mm needles it was almost a shock to see the progress. But then...

I was almost done with the body part when Elise came home from school after the annual visit to the school nurse.

Not only had she outgrown me – which admittedly isn´t that hard since I´m only 159,5 cm tall - but the school nurse also predicted that Elise would grow another 7-8 cm in the next two years.

So I decided to rip and add a bit of extra length to make the sweater last more than one season.

And it was still a fairly quick knit.

 

The owls are so cute!

I´ve got a thing about owls and I have to confess that I´m very close to starting an owl collection.

But I´m fighting the urge, because we do not really have any room for an owl collection in our already crowded, little flat. 

I like it that all the button eyes differ a little in size and colour.

The buttons were donated by my mum, aka the Button Queen.

Mum has a collection of an estimated 600 000 buttons. It that might be the largest one in Sweden, perhaps in all of Scandinavia – but she still does not enjoy parting with any of the buttons.

However, for this good cause she managed to dig out 18 pairs of nearly identical mother-of-pearl buttons for the eyes.

And to sew on all the buttons probably took as much time as it took to knit the whole sweater!

 

 

A New Beginning

Christmas does have a tendency to take over one´s life. But today we´ve packed away all the decorations and hoovered the last of the pine needles. 

 

Needle felted family made by my daugher Elise.

I didn´t knit many Christmas presents, just a pair of socks for my father-in-law:

But I must have done something good, because Santa brought me some really, lovely presents. Like this set of needle case and purse in Dala Floda embroidery made by my friend Eva-Lotta.

Tack Eva-Lotta! Vilken underbar present.

I love Dala Floda embroidery and I wish I could make a knitting pattern like it. But so far I haven´t been able to get even remotely close.

This little beauty came all the way from the States, courtsey of Wendy:

Thank you, Wendy! You know my taste so well.

I´ve declared 2011 "the Green year" because I think that I´ve finally moved on from pink. 

Of course pink and green look very good together- in my humble opinion. So the transition doesn´t have to be too abrupt and painful.

But what I´ve enjoyed most this Christmas is having a bit of extra time to draw new patterns and knit. And that is all I have done this last week – caught in a creative avalanche.

First I made this hat with a traditional star pattern:

I´m going to name it Greta, after Greta Garbo. Can you guess why? 

The yarn I´ve used is amazingly soft and lovely to knit with. It´s called Cashmere queen – made of cashmere, silk and merino wool. It´s quite a bit thicker than the yarn I usually use so this hat was a quick knit.

The reason I´m going to call the hat Greta is because it has star quality, of course.

Ha ha ha ha. Ha.

Okay, sorry about that appallingly bad joke.

And on to the next hat. Pink and green!

Same lovely yarn, Cashmere queen.

And here I was thinking that you couldn´t go wrong with s pink and green. But. In this case I don´t think the colours have enough contrast. You can´t really make out the swirly pattern.

It´s a little bit easier to see in this picture. Bit I might have to knit this hat again using different colours, even though it pains me. 

My head is very small so the hat looks quite big on me.

The pattern was inspired by an old pen case that belonged to my grandmother Lotte.

I´ve already started a new hat with a different pattern. Multicoloured flowers on a green background. So I´ve got to go.