Spring Blossom Mittens

A last minute Christmas gift, I knit these in two days. To keep the knitting marathon less monotonous, I reversed the colors for the second mitten. Oddly, this changes the way the colors look; the turquoise appears darker as a contrasting color than as the main color.

I wasn't completely happy with the pattern. The gauge information given is misleading: You're told to pick a yarn that knits to 30-35 stitches per 9 cm, while the width of the mittens is supposed to be 30 stitches and 10 cm. Knit with the given gauge, the mittens turn out pretty narrow. I knew to expect this, and with some blocking I was able to get the size closer to what I wanted. Also, the decreases or supposed grafting of the stitches are not explained at all in the pattern, so I would imagine some beginner knitters might have problems following it, even though I was able to figure it out on my own.

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Zugspitze

Knit from start to completion in one weekend, an otherwise simple pattern turned into an intensive project. Just like the first time knitting Lintilla, I did not pink up the wraps. Wollmeise Pure in the colorway Mont Blanc with its subtle variegation fits the pattern well and makes me think of the highest point in Germany, Zugspitze, not so far from the origin of Wollmeise.

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Marin

I had the same feeling knitting this shawl as I did with Ysolda's other pattern Rose Red, that it's designed in such a genius way that it blows my mind. The shaping and the reversibility is done in such a way that, it seems to me, it takes special skill to envision it. Or, at least I wouldn't be able to design something so simple and genius at the same time (or even separately, for that matter).

I knit it in Cephalopod Yarns Skinny Bugga!, in a custom colorway from when Cephalopod Yarns had a limited-time offer to dye a sweater quantity in any color from an inspiration photo. Everyone else went for something multi-colored while, unsurprisingly, the color I most wanted to see was a simple semisolid. An example of the adventurous spirit of the same person who had her hair dyed, and had it turn out so close to her original color that nobody noticed (true story). The shawl is going to be gifted to someone who's a big fan of red.

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Fontainebleau

It was a pleasant experience to be a test knitter for this shawl pattern, Fontainebleau, by Elise Dupont. The pattern was well-written and the knitting pretty easy-going. During knitting it seemed as if the columns of slipped stitches would pull the fabric too much, but wet-blocking evened it out quite well. The Vikkel braids felt a bit slow-going at first, but knitting them got faster after a little practice, and I like the kind of edging they create.

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Persnickety Mittens

For a while now I've wanted to combine a bright red with a light blue yarn. I'm happy with the colors, but not completely happy with the mittens otherwise. I think they are a bit too short, particularly the part between the cuff and thumb. Will take note of this and make sure in the future I add rows to mitten patterns that don't seem to have enough. My gauge in stranded knitting tends to turn out pretty tight, and I still haven't quite mastered the tensioning of the floats. Patterns, like the palm sides of these mittens, that repeatedly have the same amount of stitches of each color in a column are particularly troublesome tensioning wise. While trying to prevent too much tension with the second mitten I ended up with a larger mitten. Not a perfect project, but at least it was a learning experience.

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Old Forge

I wasn't too excited about my two skeins of Wollmeise Pure in Golden Pear until I figured out I would like that color in a blanket. It was my least favorite of my Wollmeise oranges whenever I thought of something I'd like to wear, but it turns out my color preference for decorational items is different. While the Graf Ratz and Golden Pear combination is not the most exciting, I like it for something I'm going to have lying on the couch. Since I knit this with a fingering weight yarn, it isn't exactly the same blanket-sized item as in the original pattern, but I'm often fine with something smaller for cover.

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Green Memories

Not my most successful colorwork project; I think the colors turned out kind of boring. I tried to go with the original idea of choosing two main colors, a lighter and darker version of each (blue and purple in my case). Despite my wide selection of Wollmeise Pure colors, I had a hard time finding a combination of four that worked so that the dark version of one color works with the light version of the other, and that all four together would appear balanced. The light purple (Meilenstein) barely stands out from the grey (Maus jung) background, and the dark blue (Moses) appears more teal than I would have expected. It's weird how the context has so much effect on how a color looks. Wolke is a great color that works well with many; who would have known I'd like light blue so much. Well, I'm going to take this project as a lesson on colorwork. And I do like how the tubular cast-on and ribbing turned out.

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Color Craving

Knitting the 2013 Westknits Mystery Shawl really was an adventure, and without a doubt the weirdest shawl I've ever knit. It was fun, even though I don't think I will end up wearing this myself. In any case, I do give Stephen West maximum points for originality and creativity of design.

I used Wollmeise Pure in colorways Wolke, Zarte Knospe and Versuchskaninchen (the green is one of my favorite colors ever). In hindsight, seeing other people's color combinations, I think I would have enjoyed knitting this with neutral colors as A and B, like light and dark grey, and then something bright and saturated for color C, like orange. But I'm not unhappy with this finished item, either.

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Styvmorsviol

My first project from the Swedish mitten book Solveigs Vantar, a pattern called Styvmorsviol modified for fingerless mittens. I started them off with the intention of knitting full-on mittens, but as I knit along I realized they would turn out way too small, so I improvised a fingerless version. There is no size or gauge specified in the book (for many patterns even the number of stitches to cast on or which stitch pattern to use for the cuff are not mentioned), and it turned out my gauge was way too tight for a comfortable fit. The photos in the book are mostly of very poor quality, and the colors used in the samples off-putting, but what inspired me to buy the book was seeing the mittens Pinneguri on Ravelry has knit from it. The colorwork charts, at least, are decent. I do want to knit more patterns from it, but it looks like I'll either have to do something about my gauge or add some stitches to the patterns to make regular women's sized mittens in the future, since I want to keep using fingering weight yarn. Here I used Wollmeise Pure in five different colors: Versuchskaninchen in green and dark purple, Petit Poison Nr. 5 light and medium, and Safran.

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Hedera For Billie Jo

After she saw a photo of my finished pair of Hedera, um, more than two years ago, Billie Jo asked if she could have a similar pair in grey for herself. It took me this long to get around to it, but I finally had the perfect yarn in Cephalopod Yarns Skinny Bugga! from the Grey Ombre Set, a beautiful, silvery shade. I estimated the size based on her shoe size, but I'm not 100% sure if these are the correct size. The pattern is mercifully stretchy, but that won't help if they are too large. Let's hope they fit!

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Istanbul

The pattern I was most drawn to in the Cookie A Sock Club August edition was Istanbul, but I wanted the socks in a more delicate color than the club yarn, so I used the yellow end of the Skinny Bugga! Gradient Set 4. The pattern was pretty fast to knit, and it produces a nicely fitting, stretchy pair of socks. I've noticed none of the club patterns have been of the level of complexity as some of the other Cookie patterns I've knit recently. I've been drawn into more difficult sock patterns lately, but it's nice to knit more relaxed patterns every once in a while.

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Secret Garden

I've had an idea for a while to knit a circular shawl out of a somewhat accidental gradient set I realized I had out of Wollmeise Pure. I happened to put side by side all three different intensities of Magnolie and the two darkest intensities of Petit Poison Nr. 5 and noticed that they looked like a gradient someone might have designed. I decided they needed to be made into a circular shawl, starting with Magnolie light in the middle, Petit Poison Nr. 5 dark on the edge, and the remaining three in between. Then someone suggested the Secret Garden pattern, which was originally written for a similar purpose, and I decided to give it a try. The shawl turned out a bit smaller than I expected, and at a closer look the color changes are kind of abrupt, but I think it'll do for my first gradient project. I did replace the crocheted edging in the pattern with an improvised knitted one, because the only time a crochet hook gets anywhere near my projects is when I need to pick up some dropped stitches.

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Gothic Spire

The Gothic Spire pattern by Cookie A was slow going, and required a special cable needle, but after I got going it was enjoyable. I had tried earlier to do the wraps with a regular, straight cable needle, but it was so cumbersome I decided I could not deal with the countless wraps in the pattern without a more functional tool, so I found a horseshoe shaped needle from an Etsy store that made the wraps a lot more fun, even if still slower than usual knitting. And Cephalopod Yarns Skinny Bugga! in a colorway from a gradient set was the perfect match for the pattern. I'm very happy with the result, and I think I might want to knit this pattern again.

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Tiberius

The Tiberius pattern from the Cookie A Sock Club was a joy to knit. My pair is not from the club yarn, but Wollmeise Pure in the colorway Petit Poison Nr.5 light. I oscillate between wanting to knit socks in 100 % merino, or a merino/cashmere/nylon blend. I have a tendency to knit my socks slightly too small, probably at least in part due to my very tight gauge (I've bent solid stainless steel needles by just knitting with them), and I'm starting to learn that 2.5 mm is probably a better fit than 2.25 mm when it comes to needle size with socks knit from fingering weight yarn. These socks turned out exactly the size they were supposed to. I would gladly keep them myself, but they will be gifted.

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Taygete

Romi Hill's Taygete was my first time using multicolored Wollmeise. For me, multicolored yarns are a bit tricky to use, and I like in the striped portion, but I think the edging would have been better off in a solid yarn; it just looks too loud for my taste. Otherwise, I really like the shape and size of this shawl, and I might re-knit it in some other colors. This time I used Neptun medium and Aurora WD. I also modified the edging, which in the original pattern was a picot one. Instead, I knit 2 x 2 ribbing for the bottom edge, and for the top edge I knit one row of purling and then bound of by k2tog on the wrong side. I really like how the top edge turned out.

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Nuvem #2

My second Nuvem, cast on last December, is probably the longest running WIP that I've actually finished. Usually, if it takes me longer than a few months to finish a project, it inevitably ends up being frogged. I've been working on it inconsistently for the past six months, but a few stitches here and there doesn't really add up that much when it's a project that uses up 1700 meters of yarn.

This time I went with the modification of doing the edging in 2 x 2 ribbing, and I prefer this version. Also, Wollmeise Lacegarn in the Petit Poison Nr. 5 dark colorway makes a really nice stotckinette stitch surface. When doing the casting off, which took several hours, I decided two Nuvems is enough, but now that I have the finished item, I'm not so sure that I wouldn't cast on a third some day.

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Sherilyn #2

My second time knitting the Sherilyn pattern from Ysolda I thought I was being so smart by knowing exactly how much yarn I would need based on my first version. Turns out my calculations must have been wrong (the skeins probably were heavier with more yardage than listed, so I'd used more yarn than I thought), and I had to leave out two rows from section 4 in order to not run out of yarn. My plan B was to use a different yarn to finish off the shawl, but since it lasted this far, I figured it might be better just to skip a couple of rows that weren't critical. I think the Wollmeise Pure in the Ooohm colorway makes a perfect spring shawl.

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Tulip Socks

This time with the Cookie A Sock Club pattern I went by the book and actually used the club yarn, Dream in Color Everlasting Sock in the Violet Hour colorway, because I felt it was the perfect choice for the Tulip Socks pattern. The yarn is a bit splitty, but with this pattern it was manageable, and the socks are so soft. This is an example of a yarn that I probably would not have bought were I to pick something up from a yarn store, but the color grew on me during the knitting process, and I enjoy the very slight color variation (that is not evident in the photos).

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Twisted Flower

I've been wanting to knit the Twisted Flower pattern by Cookie A for years, and I've started on it at least three times before, but I never got further than half a sock until I got exhausted. Having knitted a few more or less complicated sock patterns recently, I figured I might be finally ready to knit a pair of Twisted Flower socks from start to finish, and I was right; the pattern just didn't feel as demanding as it did before.

For a pattern with such pressure to finally succeed, I decided the yarn had to be perfect. My recent experiences with Cephalopod Yarns Skinny Bugga! made me convinced it would be the ideal yarn base, and since Blue Lobster is possibly my favorite ever colorway of any yarn, I decided my dream socks deserved nothing less. This skein of Blue Lobster was slightly more variegated than the one I had earlier, but not too much so.

Knit with my current favorite needles, the DyakCraft Heavy Metals, Magic Looped, the knitting process was as pleasant as possible. I wish I could knit every project with these needles, but unfortunately they don't come any larger than 3.25 mm.

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Newton

Second pair of socks from Cookie A 2013 Sock Club's first shipment finished. These were slightly more difficult than the Ernie pattern, because you had to keep an eye on the chart all the time. Or, at least my photographic memory is not well-trained enough to memorize the pattern. I knit the largest size, because I wanted them slightly bigger, but apparently my gauge was so intensely tight that they turned out more like a small or medium size. I hope they are roomy enough for the recipient's needs. The yarn was Cephalopod Yarns Skinny Bugga!, just like with the other club socks, but this time in the colorway VW Bug.

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Walk on the Moon

Admittedly not something I particularly enjoyed knitting, the pattern from the Wollmeise Lace Colourbag was still something I wanted to finish. I did like my slightly adjusted color combination at first, but grew somewhat tired of it during the process of knitting. I combined colors from two different bags, and ended up with Gianduia, Aquarius and zartbitter. My lack of patience for getting it just done already was not helped by the 1200 stitches per row in the end. I do like the ribbed edging, though.

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Ernie

My first Cookie A pattern knit as a legitimate sock club member. I did not go with the club yarn, because I felt the dye lot of the yarn I received (there were a few different dye lots, some more variegated than others) was not solid enough for this pattern, so, instead, I chose Cephalopod Yarns Skinny Bugga! in the colorway Bronze Moth. I think the pattern and yarn work well together. This was the easier of the two patterns for February 2013, because the pattern repeat is easy to memorize, but I'm going to knit both patterns, anyway. I have an ambitious plan to knit each of the 12 patterns in this year's sock club.

I knit the majority of these socks Magic Looping my new DyakCraft 5-inch Heavy Metal interchangeable needles, and these are best needles so far I've used for this technique. I also learned of a trick to use a smaller needle in your left hand to make it easier to push the stitches around, since the size of the right-hand needle is the only one that matters for gauge, so I used a 2.00 mm needle on the left and a 2.25 mm one on the right.

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Carson

I really enjoyed knitting Romi Hill's Carson pattern (except maybe for the lace edging, when I just wanted to be done already, there were so many stitches on one row). The way the two-colored section works is so genius and simple at the same time. I think I want to knit this pattern again, with a different color combination. Choosing Wollmeise Pure in colorways Wolke WD and Grashüpfer WD (both colors I received in a grab bag as surprise skeins, neither color necessarily being something I would have chosen myself originally) may have been a surprising move from me. I really enjoyed knitting with these colors, but I have to say the finished shawl, while pretty, is probably something I will not end up wearing myself. It will likely end up being gifted to someone who is more comfortable wearing this color combination. That's fine, though. If I really end up knitting 12+ shawls again this year, I don't think I need that many new ones for myself, anyway.

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Batik

A solid beginning to the 12 shawls in 2013 challenge, Kitman Figueroa's Batik pattern in the largest size has moderate yardage and an allover lace pattern. It's a good thing the shawl is knit in a way that the rows get shorter and shorter towards the end, because in the beginning, when you're still full of enthusiasm about a new project, the long rows don't matter, and then the rows get shorter at about the same rate as your motivation diminishes. The last 10% of knitting took me about 25% of the knitting time (in days). Wollmeise Pure, in the colorway Ebenholz, is great for maximum stitch definition. For being the largest size, this shawl is strangely small, even though I used slightly more yarn than the pattern estimate. The size is fine, but I wonder how small the smallest size would have turned out!

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Haleakala

The official first finished project of the year is Cookie A's Haleakala sock pattern. The socks turned out a perfect size, and, as a bonus, they are also quite pretty. I used Wollmeise Pure in the colorway ein klein wenig verrucht WD, a skein slightly warmer in tone than a named skein of the same colorway I also have. I'm very happy with the result. Not much more I can think of to say about this project.

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