Stocking's fail and Cable-Practice

Failed Stocking-Knit

Summer has been filled with a lot of trips, a long one including a wedding at the Moselle and a birthday party in the Alps in the heart of Switzerland, meeting dear friends and surprisingly, a lot of knitting. I have been knitting as if it was fall or winter, I even tackled my “second sock syndrome” and started a second Norwegian-stocking, so that I can wear them this winter. Maybe due to greater experience, I progressed quite quickly and only after I had finished the heel I realized I had made a mistake and taken the wrong white yarn. The yarn in the new sock was less shiny and slightly less bulky.  Admittedly, I must have known all along that something was wrong, the whole new stocking was smaller than the other one, but I couldn’t figure out why. My problem now, I am sure which red yarn to take, but which white yarn I took, I have to figure out by going through my stash. That’s the punishment for never taking notes about my projects. As you can imagine, I needed a break from stocking-knitting for a while. So after this big fail, the second Norwegian stocking still needs to be knit.

However, I haven’t been lazy. For a little boy who will be born in December I knit another Klompelompe Süßer Fratz cardigan. It’s so easy and finished really quickly, that my stocking-trauma was almost forgotten. This time I also managed to sow in the threads and add the buttons the same evening that I finished the cardigan. I think that has never happened before, so I am really proud of myself. Another baby blanket will be knit till December as well, but surfing through Ravelry, I rediscovered my love for cables and started a little collection with cable patterns. I hope you can understand how I fell in love with the Beatnik pattern. Isn’t it gorgeous? I love the name and how it has a 60s vibe, but the cables… They are so cute but they might be a bit challenging as I have never knit anything with that many cables before. What is the first thing a knitter does, when planning a project? Ordering much too much new yarn, ignoring the yarn she has in her stash. And that I did, so exciting and beautiful!

Baby-Cardigan from the Klompelompe-Book

New Yarn - Always Exciting!

The nicest pacckages!

In order to practice knitting cables I decided on trying out another free pattern I had put into my collection, a dishcloth. Ever since I used the knitted cotton dishcloth my friend Amanda has in her home I was planning on making some of my own anyway. The project had many advantages: it’s finished quickly, it has a lot of cables to practice on, it’s useful, little mistakes don’t matter and it’s a nice gift. Also I have tons of cotton in my stash that have been waiting to be used for ages. The last few days I have been knitting dishcloths, finished three, gave away one as a present to my friend Amanda – she had given me the idea after all – and not one of them is without mistake. Such a bummer! I swore to myself to continue knitting them until I finish one perfectly. The problem is not my incompetence of understanding the pattern, it’s the problem of not paying attention. To be honest, I am not sure if practicing the dishcloth pattern will help me with a perfect Beatnik sweater, but I am stubborn. If I say I will manage a dishcloth without errors I will. 

In order to see where I am in the pattern I always use some washi-tape

Cable-love!

Pinned down...

Treated myself with a new bed for my knitting needles

Babyblanket Chalice

Babyblanket Chalice

Babies, babies, babies... All around us people are pregnant. Reason enough for me to knit presents for all of them. There is not many cuter things than babyknits. Also, homemade gifts are always the best and as all of those babes need to be clothed, knitting babystuff are the small and quick knits I cram in between my bigger projects.

The blanket before blocking

Babyblankets are very welcome gifts for new parents. One of the charms of them is, that they don't only fit a short amount of time. As the babygirl in question will be born around the end of November I decided to use very bulky yarn. It is called Rico Baby and much thicker than the yarn recommended for baby blanket Chalice, the pattern I chose.

It is an ajour pattern which reminds a bit of leafs. After a while you get the knack of it, I couldn't knit the pattern by heart however, my little notes were always at my side. As the yarn is so much thicker, the beauty of the pattern was not very obvious during the process. I was worried that the yarn was too bulky for the pattern. But after washing and blocking I am happy with the result and surprised with how soft the blanket is.

Chalice was my main project during our almot three weeks of holiday, so I got most of it done during, although I didn't manage to find nearly enough time for knitting in my opinion, but that is another story. After a while I understood most of the pattern, but I never knew it by heart, so I always had the little drawing I had made right by my side. It's no pattern you can knit while watching a new episode of Game of Thrones (at least not for me), so you always need a little bit of concentration, but at least after a while I could feel when something was off and I had made a mistake in the pattern.

Now, the blanket is sitting on the antique leather chair in our living room, waiting for the baby to arrive in November.

The blanket taking a bath

After the bath I gently rolled it into a towel

I used our old carpet to stretch and block the blanket, waiting for it to dry. 

I blocked it with needles

Ready for take-off

Knittting Fever

I am hooked again, the needles have me back. Although, as I already wrote before, 2017 hasn't seen the drop in my knitting summer usually brings. Maybe the weather has just been too bad for not thinking about fall and warm sweaters.

Right now, after having finished the baby blanket Chalice for my friend Franzi (turned out that after blocking, the pattern looks pretty nice, even with the warm wool) I am finally knitting my second sock with the Norwegian pattern. I think I finished the first one already about a year ago. Shame on me! But reading blogs of other knitters the Second-Sock-Fatigue seems to be a thing. And I seem to be less infected thatn some, at least it is only that one pattern that I only did one sock of. Anyhow, it is coming along nicely and I am pretty fast, at least sitting at home, with the book on my knees. I intended to finish the sock on the way to work, on the train, but it is too complex to knit it by heart. Let alone with a book balancing on my knees while I am on the train.... I am looking forward to finishing this project, not only to have it done, once and for all, but also to wear the socks with skirts and stockings.

I have been pretty naughty as well and just ordered a bunch of new yarn. We do not have any space, but I want to knit a nice cable-filled sweater for winter and I found this free pattern on Ravelry. The Beatnik. Being a big fan of Beat-culture, not only the pattern, but also it's name spoke to me.

So I ordered some marineblue Drops Nepal for this adventure. Let's see how it goes. It will definitely be one of the more difficult items I have ever knit.

The first one...

...finished

Bergen Jacket - My first Norwegian Kofte

It is summer in Germany, but you cannot really feel it. The weather is highly unreliable and I already feel a bit of autumn-motivation in me. Do you know this feeling? The hunger for warm soup, the good feeling of selfknit socks on your feet and some needles in your hands.

In the beginning there was only yarn...

Summer often is a time of little knitting as you don't feel like wearing woolen clothes, or not even like holding them in your hands for making them. But I have been a busy bee and finally finished my Bergen Jacket.


You can find the free pattern on Ravelry. It is pretty easy to follow, but I mainly used it for the measurements. For the flowers in the colourful part I decided on an old pattern from Norgestrikk, a book I really love, mainly for all the history behind it and all the pictures. My wardrobe is not crazy with colour, so most of the patterns I would recreate with different colours than the vibrant Nordic ones.

I will not lie, it took me a while to finish the Kofte and it still has one or two flaws that I will hopefully improve in the next one I might be knitting in winter. I used Drops Nepal yarn, which is pretty warm, so unlike my fellow Norwegian knitters, I won't be able to wear my Kofte until winter. The Nepal yarn is easy to knit, feels nice and is not too itchy on the skin (almost every yarn feels itchy on my skin, I am a real sissy here.)

What took me longest, was, as always, adding the buttons and sewing the threads. Are you also as lazy when it comes to that last step? The button border turned out to be quite a challenge. After steeking (cutting the knit as a tube cardigan into a cardigan) one might assume that both halves would be the same length, sounds logical, doesn't it? However, when I wanted to add the button border they weren't. It was pretty weird. Now the added border wrinkles a bit, but I am ok with that. If it doesn't happen with a second one!

The shoulder part is a little bit tight and I was too impatient to add long sleeves. Having extra long arms I should have added some centimeters to the arms of the pattern, but no, by the time I was adding the arms I really wanted to be done, so now I always have to wear something underneath that has real long arms.

For all the flaws, I still love my Bergen Jacket and the way it turned out. It was a little adventure, especially with the steeking, but I am looking forward to more Kofte knitting and I am grateful for all the inspiration I get on facebook and instagram by all the Kofte-communities.

Now I am happy to finish the baby blanket Chalice and the socks I still have on my needles.

Securing the Steek 

Steeking, cutting into the cardigan

Newborn and Baby Knitting - Klompelompe

A few months ago a friend of mine who also enjoys knitting asked me whether I had recommendations for knitting books about baby clothes. I didn’t, as I have never bought a book for baby clothes only. Loving to buy knitting books I took the request as an invitation to search for the cutest pattern books for kids. It’s shocking how gendered most children outfits are. Buying gender-neutral clothes is almost impossible and I am not a great fan of all the pink-kitchy stuff. As most of the time, Scandinavian knitting patterns did the trick. The duo from the blog Klompelompe (if anyone knows what that means, please tell me) offer their most popular patterns in a book. As young moms they were motivated to create their own patterns, as they found there were not many nice patterns out there, especially not for boys.

The colours, shapes and texture of their patterns are mostly unisex and so beautiful, I would wear most of the stuff myself if it was my size.

So I started knitting. Kid’s stuff is always finished so fast, it’s great fun. First, for my friend’s baby, who will be half a year old when the cold and sometimes brutal Berlin winter hits. I decided to go for the pattern “Fritz” and made a whole outfit with cardigan, pants, socks and hat. (When those friends had their first baby three years ago I also knit something for them, looking back at those things I am so ashamed at the quality of them. The socks didn’t even look like socks at all, it was horrible! And yet, I was so proud J ) Anyhow, the new outfit for the little one turned out cute and the pattern gives the fabric a nice, thick texture while being amazingly easy to knit at the same time.

The whole Fratz- outfit

The Fratz Jacket

The Fratz Hat and Socks (colour is actually a dark burgundy)

The hat "Oline"

Reusing the "Water for the Elephants"-pattern for a cardigan

The first Bonnet I ever knit

Pompoms are so adorable!

Another Oline-Hat.

After the outfit for the toddler I was hooked and when the friend who had asked me for baby patterns sent me an ultrasound of her baby girl who will be born in the last weeks of November, I was totally motivated to knit as much newborn-stuff from Klompelompe as I could till we went on holiday. The newborn-hat patterns in the book are so adorable, you will love them. I ordered a pompom-maker on amazon and am quite happy with the results. The hats look so cute with them!

If you need a gift for new parents or want to get a great book as a gift to a new mom or dad who knit, Klompelompe is my recommendation!

Finished cardigan for the little newborn

Happy knitting folks!

Fehmarn

The Baltic Sea. So blue and beautiful!

If there is one thing I learned on our tours with the bus is, you don’t need to travel outside of Germany to discover beautiful and versatile landscapes. This might be one of the reasons why traveling via camper van has become immensely popular over those last few years. More and more of our friends get their own “home on wheels”. Two of them live in Lübeck and we have always wanted to spend a weekend traveling together. At first we wanted to meet in the “middle”, which basically would have been the middle of nowhere, but then, going to the Baltic Sea seemed to be the better idea. We quickly agreed on the island of Fehmarn, which can be reached by a bridge, so no ferry and offers a lot of nice camping grounds. We normally don’t use camp sites, but rather just park in the middle of nowhere, but as our friends have no shower or real kitchen in their bus, we agreed on a “luxury” trip.

We arrived just as the last little bit of the sun went down, offering a glorious view over the ocean just as we were passing the bridge. The radio played a funky Didgeridoo-theme, it felt like a very magical moment. Fehmarn itself is flat, covered in corn fields, meadows and nice little streets bordered with trees.

On our way to the Beach. Kites in the Background

As our friends had just discovered kitesurfing as a new hobby, they were eager to camp near fitting beaches to go onto the water. It was pretty amazing to watch the hundreds of kites out there, barely ever getting in each other’s way and our friends doing their best to at least surf for a few meters. I have to say, I was impressed. As I usually suck at those kinds of sports I was amazed how long they managed to stay on the board. While it was still chilly on the first day, we took a long walk along the beach. The sun came out later, so we drove around the island a bit (it is pretty small, so you keep on ending up in the same spots) to go to a nice little café (Hofcafé Albertsdorf), which we went to again later, as the cake was really superb!

We spent three nights on Fehmarn and decided to spend each one on a different camping ground. The first one was already so pleasant, witch nice neighbours, that we were tempted to throw our plans overboat and to stay there. It was called Flügger Strand, including a beautiful lighthouse, which we visited on our morning jog. The weather was fantastic for our whole trip! At home people were suffering in the first heat wave of the summer, while at the sea we had very agreeable temperatures of 20° and a blue sky.

Camping Fehmarnbelt is huge, covering a vast area including bays and nature reserves, truly beautiful, with lots of nesting birds and an awesome view on the setting sun. While the evenings were still pretty cold, the sun was warming the days.

Camping Niobe on the other hand offers pine trees and little Scandinavian looking holiday houses you can rent. Linda and me, we took our little boat and dared going onto the water. The sea was a bit cold to swim in, but to lay in the sun, adjusting our little boat to a buoy in order to anchor it, we had a great, chilling time. The men had a great time sharing technical details about campervans while we were catching up about everything that happened after Linda had left Düsseldorf and moved North.

During our stay, Fehmarn celebrated their biggest Surffestival on the Southern side of the island. Here you can find some not so pretty hotel-towers, witnesses from the time when Fehmarn was pretty popular with tourists in the 90s. I had the feeling that today it was much more sportive tourists and nature lovers, leaving a lot of the island truly beautiful.

The sun was greeting us when we left the beautiful island. Probably not for the last time. 

Hundreds of Kites in the Water

Lisek waiting for his share of the barbecue

Beautiful Sundowns

Metallic Sea

Enjoying a glass of wine in the setting sun

Fehmarn, we will be back one day!

Cardigan Raja

The pattern is really pretty (excuse the wrong colour, that was probably evening knitting)

Summer is finally here and although this usually means a decline in knitting, this year has been different. I bought some nice yarn on one of our many trips with Scottie and felt motivated to start a new cardigan from the book my brother-in-law gave me for christmas once.

It is a Danish knitting book and has many very beautiful patterns with a lot of structures in it. I already made one cardigan out of it, Palma. Check it out here. This one is called Raja and consists of a semi-open front and a hood. The pattern is worked with increases and decreases and cables. It takes some time to get used to it, but after a while it's relatively easy. Iit fits pretty well, which is great.

Sleeves are still missing. Knitting with dogs is the best. 

The cardigan is intended to have long sleeves, but I had to improvise, as I was running out of yarn. I kind of like the result though, as I can also wear it now, when it gets colder in the evenings.

Done! 

Fits really well

I am a rather slow knitter, but with Raja, I was relatively fast. I might want to do it again one time as the result is pretty nice, even with the cheap yarn that I bought in France.

The next project is also almost finished, a cardigan for a little one.