About Easter and some knitting

Páskaliljur

The long five days of Easter weekend are over and now everything goes back to normal again. Even the weather decided to calm down a bit around here. The weather during Eastern was CRAZY even scary at times.

The wind was blowing almost constantly during most of the weekend while we were getting all you can imagine falling from the sky! In a matter of minutes it went from sunny to cloudy, raining to hailing to snowing and then sunny again. Take a look at this two clips: sunny and snowing and a few minutes later somekind of blizzard!

 As I said: CRAZY!

Despite of the weather,I would say it was nice, nice weekend. This kind of "cozy weather" kept us  mostly at home except for one day that we decided to go out biking because the weather seemed to be calmed enough to do so but in the middle of our "trip" guess what!? Yes, rain and hail... not fun considering that we live on top of a hill so biking all the way up (which under the best conditions is terrible) was HORRIBLE! We watched some movies, played some games, cooked and baked bread, had friends visitings. In one word: COZY.

Settlers of Catan

Sourdough bread

Skyrterta

"Sunday breakfast"

Sunday, humm sunday was really nice... chocolate eggs! I really like icelandic chocolate eggs. They come in different sizes and filled with candies but the thing I like most about them is that each of them come with a little message inside (called málsháttur in icelandic). My favourite this year was: "Sá sem þekkir aðra er lærður sá sem þekkir sjálfan sig er vitur" which translates "the one who knows others is educated the one who knows himself is wise". If you want to know more about icelandic eastern eggs look at this video that I found :)

About knitting: I finally finished my lopapeysa (Vetur n°3) that I was knitting using one thread of plötulopi (and that was actually the second one after having knitted exactly the same one but resulting in a size that was too small for me). As soon as I finished it I darned all the loose ends and blocked it. The new size is a lot better than the one before but still I think it is not perfect. It is a little bit short in the arms and sleeves but nothing terrible. As I mentioned before I find it really hard to knit for myself. I am too critic about the things that I made but this time and I decided just to relax and enjoy the pullover as it is and see all the god things: I love the colors, love the pattern, it is very light to wear (so it will be PERFECT FOR SUMMER) and I can wear anything I want on it! So mission acomplished!

I also finished the first one I made before (the little one) and blocked it. They look so cute together! But they are not exactly identical:

* The pattern above the ribbing is slightly different
* The pattern on the sleeves is different. I made more simple in the new one.
* The neck is different. For the last one I decided to make it double (folded and sewn). It gives a more finished look to the F.O. and at the same time makes the neck line more resistant than just simply binding off.

And here I am wearing the holy lopapeysa :þ

Liliac leaf

As soon as I finished both pullovers I started with the wedding shawl for Irene. At first I wansn't totally convinced about the pattern that Irene chose but now that I am knitting it and seeing how it is developing I am really liking it... and a LOT. What I like most about it is the garter stitch frame that surrounds every leaf. I guess that it doesn't show so well right now... but you will see it after it is blocked. The other great thing about this pattern is how simple and easy to memorize it is! I think that (at least) the body of the shawl will be ready pretty soon.

Remember that I got my Zenit camera last week? Well, I already tried it and it works WONDERFULLY! I had forgotten how much fun it was to use a fully manual camera and how exciting it is to have the film developed and get to see if all those things you pictured look how you were expecting them to look like. FANTASTIC! I feel like a kid with a new toy.

I am done with two 36 exposures films. This is a little sample of the pics I have taken (and also some of the pics posted above):

J

K, T & Ástjörn

Just playing

K

Mushroom

The next shawl

Evilla 50%linen 50%wool

I have been thinking a lot about what will be my next lace project and for who. There was a yarn at my favourite yarn store in Hafnarfjörður was always catching Gummi's attention but not mine really, I wasn't really sure about the color. It is a blend of linen and wool from Evilla. Finally, I decided to buy one skein for Gummi so he could try it. The funny thing is that after looking at it for a while I started to like it a lot also! Besides I have been looking for a yarn with a solid color (not color changing) and unfortunetely most of the yarn from Evilla is not solid except for a couple of skeins... so I ended up buying three skeins (all of it actually... they were the last ones in this color).


Then, I had the yarn but I was still missing two things: what to knit and for who. I suddenly came up with the idea of knitting a shawl for Irene, to whom I had already given a lopapeysa. She will get married in September and I thought that this would be the perfect gift for her and she could maybe even wear it during the ceremony. So, I told her about my idea and she got SO EXCITED about it! Especially because she was thinking about getting something to cover her shoulders and back during the church ceremony and had no clue about what to use! I guess that my idea came just at the right moment for her!

This will become Irene's shawl :)

The orange yarn woud probably be too bright for an occasion like this. I decided then to invite her to come with me to the yarn store (We actually went to a supermarket called Fjarðarkaup that has a very good "knitting section")  and see what we could find there. In the end, we decided to use Loðband, icelandic lace wight yarn, both because it is icelandic and it i very light and can be warm to wear during winter. The color, she went for a classical white.

Taken from The Haapsalu shawl

Next step: Pattern. We went through some of the books I have and her eye was cought almost immediately by Estonian lace. We took a look at The Haapsalu Shawl. She marked about ten patterns that she liked to finally decide for a very simple pattern: just leafs and no nupps. It will be a long rectangle with a sewn on edge all around and with nupps.



Irene's shawl got really excited, almost beyond words, because I have never used Loðband and most importantly because the shawl will be part of a very special day in the life of a very special person :)

Recepient: Done.

Yarn: Done.

Pattern: Done.

Vetur: beginning the yoke.

I am now planning to finish my Vetur that is going really well even though I didn'tn manage to finish it during the weekend (busy, busy weekend). But I already began the yoke: FINALLY! It is looking pretty good and definetely bigger than the first one. I hope to finish it tonight and start with Irene's shawl!

Oh, and I was forgetting that when Irene and me were at the store she insisted in letting me let her buy some wool for my stash (which was totally uncecessary). Then I thought of a friend that I would really like to surprise with either a shawl or a shawlette... so she gave me four skeins of a pale rose (I am not sure about how to call the color) einband that now are waiting in my stash to become a shawl :)

Pale rose?

And the last thing for today... On friday I got really excited bacause when I got home around six I found in the mailbox a notification from the post office saying that there was a package for me! Finally! After three and a half weeks the box that my sister sent me from Chile had arrived! I went to the post office as quickly as I could. I got there at 18.03 and it was closed! (at 18.00)To my disappointment  I had to wait until monday to go get the box.

I got my old Zenit camera! (along with merquén and roasted peanuts) I had totally forgotten that I had this camera until I saw Genieviève and Kristina use theirs! I hope that mine is still working!

Happy Eastern for eveyone!

Gleðilega Páska!

¡Feliz Pascua de Resurreción!

Knitting for myself...

First lopapeysa I was happy with.

Whenever it comes to knitting something for myself is always complicated. Things are usually either too big or too small or I see all the little mistakes I could have possible made while knitting and so on. Most of the times that I knit something for myself I end up giving it away! 

Of all the things I have tried to knit for myself I have only kept:

* A lopapeysa which was the first one that I could finally say "yay! It fits perfectly on me!"

Haka, THE hat I have.

*A hat, that I rarely wear and not because I don't like it but because I am not really a hat person... I don't like the way I look with a hat on. So, to wear a hat it has to be really freezing cold and I have to feel that my ears are about to fall off! (I would love to be a hat person!!)

My favourite scarf.

* A short scarf with buttons. This was a HUGE achievement. I was still very new into knitting when this scarf came across. It looked very simple but NO! It wasn't at all. It is Brioche stitch. It has been my only experience with it and it was so hard! I remember that I couln't make any mistakes because it was so hard to "read" the stitches. I started it several times and everytime I made a mistake I had to frog it all and start all over  until I managed to make it all without  making any mistakes!  I have used it  A LOT.

* A pair of mittens.

I would really like to have a closet full of things for me made by me... but it doesn't seem to work. 

The last thing I tried to knit for myself was a lopapeysa. I wanted it to be very light and easy to wear under any kind of jacket. Lopapeysas are usually a bit chunky and not very comfortable to wear under a jacket, parka or wind jacket (unless it is huge). So, I wanted to try to knit a lopapeysa using only one thread of plötulopi. I am a HUGE fan plötulopi because it is much softer than létt lopi or álafoss lopi and it is so much fun to knit with it. Until now, I had always used it double., which makes a gauge that is similar to Létt lopi but I find that the stitches look much better and the colorwork results absolutely flat and beautiful.

Everybody is always saying that it is so difficult to knit with a single thread of plötulopi because it breaks all the time. NOT TRUE. The thread is really strong. I must have broken it no more than three times and it was only because I was clumsy or just steped on it and pulled it. It is amazing for long the fibers of lopi are! And how strong they are because of that!

Vetur (pic taken from Lopi 28)

I have always liked the yoke pattern of a lopapeysa called Vetur but without all the snow pattern of the body. The pattern is written for Álafoss lopi so I had to calculate the gauge for single-strand-plötulopi. I am using 3.5mm needles for the rib and 4.5mm for the rest and I got .... stitches in 10cm. 

I have been wanting to have a grey lopapeysa for a long time and I found that combined with dark brown and off-white looked just great! There are so many beautiful colors in plötulopi that sometimes it is SO hard to choose! 

I cast on with double-stranded-plötulopi and then continued to knit with one strand. I must say that the stitches don't look as pretty as when knitting with two strands, it is a bit difficult to keep an even tension but over all it looks good.  Once I had it finished  I thought everything was alright but no, no. It was too small for me! Both, a bit to tight (not terribly tight though) and a bit too short in the body section but the sleeves were ok.  I did definetely something wrong with the numbers. I probably miscalculated the number of stitches in needed to cast on. This time I didn't have a FURY attack and frog everything, I just left it in the basket waiting to be blocked and hopefully find someone who would want it. And I did find someone!!

Vetur I: Too small and unblocked but found an owner!

Irene and her Vetur (II)

Soon after I finished this lopapeysa, a friend of mine from Italy that is now living in Iceland for half a year, asked me if I could knit a lopapeysa for her. I asked to search in the internet for patterns or an idea of how she would like it to be. She did so and to my surprise she chose Vetur!! But like me, she wanted it without the !snow". The colors she chose were black, grey and white, a color combination that I personally don't like so much (at least for me, I am much more into earth tones) but apparently it is very easy to combine. We also decided to make it with létt lopi, a much more known yarn for me since I have used it several times and I know exactly the gauge I get (as well as with double-stranded-plötulopi). The whole process went pretty quick, considering that at the same time I was knitting a shawl. 

In general, whenever I am knitting a lopapeysa all I want is to get to the yoke section a soon as possible. Knitting the body and the arms can be tedious and boring. No action at all! I am usually always complaining while knitting those sections (and poor Gummi is always just listening to me, hehe) until I arrive to paradise: THE YOKE!! Colorwork is so exciting. It is almost like drawing. I love to see how with every new row it is possible to see a little more of the drawing you are knitting. 

Once I finished this second Vetur (and the shawl shortly after) I thought it was time to give another try to MY VETUR made with single thread of plötulopi. I started a new one... this time (hopefully) the right size. I recalculated the stitches and yes, I was about 10 stitches smaller last time. So, it all began again. By now I have already finished the body section and one sleeve... I am getting closer to paradise!  I will keep you all posted about how it goes!

Vetur III: Hopefully finished over the weekend!

PS: I am also starting to thing about the next shawl I want to knit. I am little bit undecided. But it will be something definetely from either of the two new books I got. For now, I already bought the yarn I will use. It is a blend of linen and wool from Evilla and I beautiful dark orange color!

And to finish: Spring doesn't seem to want to come (not that I have a problem with that... if it were winter all year it would more than fine with me!) and yesterday (as most of the week) was windy, cold and started to snow one more time... today in the morning it was all white outside... wonderful! Too bad it will probably not last too long but it seems that there more snow coming over the weekend!

(I made the video yesterday from the balcony of my apt. Watch it with audio so you can hear the wind!)

What I found in the stash (1st part)

If you have been reading this blog you might remember that last week I went through my stash and cleaned it a little bit. It had been ages since the last time I had done that so some surprises came up through out the process.

I didn't only find a lot of yarn, some of them I didn't even remember why I bought them! But also some of my first "knitting attempts"! I thought I had just thrown them away but (luckily) I didn't. It was so much fun to have them again and see how TIGHT I was knitting!

As I said in one of my previous posts it was my mom who showed me the very basics maybe eight or ten years ago. I remember that she gave me a pair of 4mm straight needles and some acrylic wool to start with. She showed me how to cast on (long tail cast on) and make knit stitch and purl stitch. So, when I picked up knitting again two and half years ago under the guidance of Gummi (gingig on Ravelry) and internet it was pretty easy to cast on but when it came to knit wow! I was so stiff! After knitting a tiny rectangle I had so much pain in my wrists! And missing a stitch was terrible! I got paralized and went right away to Gummi crying out for help!

First garter stitch rectangle (it is tiny!)

My mom tought me to make the knit stitch using the back loop of the stitch. I think that is a normal practice in Chile (actually I confirmed it when my sister came to visit me and I saw her doing exactly the same). That got me a little confused at first because Gummi and most of the turorials I checked in the internet showed knitting through the front loop. So that was a new thing to learn (adding to that the fact that I am lefthanded so it took always an extra effort to undestand things, both for me and for the one who was teaching me). 

When it came to purling I must say I had a bit more trouble. I just couldn't get it at first. Somehow I was ending up with all my stitches twisted after every purl row. I found the solution to this problem at Knittinghelp... WHAT A GREAT WEBSITE! I learned most of the basic and some more complicated technics there. They have amazing videos and all of them are so clear! But purling kept on being one of my least favourite things to do (until I discovered the Norwegian purling... which is just WONDERFUL).

First knitting in the round, cuff and one stripe!

After trying knitting flat, I wanted to try circular knitting which gave me the great surprise that no purling was necessary at all! I took my first steps, again, by the hand of Gummi and Knittinghelp. I remember I even tried the magic loop! (but I must admit that I don't like it at all, I prefer double pointed needles) along with knitting in the round I added color: I made one stripe!

My first FO was a pair of mittens (I used as a model a pair of mittens that I had bought in the Red Cross) which contain all the things I had learn that far: knitting in the round and making stripes. But I had to learn how to make decreases in order to be able to finish them. I made some mistakes doing that because at the time I didn't understand that my stitches would slant in a different direction because I am leftie. In fact, I didn't even know that the decreases had different slanting directions at all!

First fair isle attempt

When I began to knit my goal was to make a lopapeysa. So, in order to so I had to learn fair isle. This is my first attempt: terrible! I was knitting so tight! The floats are too short and the piece of fabric looks horrible!

It took me knitting a whole lopapeysa that ended up being too small for me and with a fair isle yoke that was all wavy because of the tension to learn how to make it right. When I finished the lopapeysa and tried on I got so angry because it was too small for me that I frogged it ALL! (fortunetely I took a picture of it, hehe). 

First lopapeysa: FROGGED

After this huge fail, I decided to go for smaller projects to learn fair isle. Since I already knew how to knit in the round I went for a pair of socks. I made a simple pattern on paper and started to knit them. The result was ok. At least the tension in the colorwork was good but the pattern itself was aweful.

Then I made a hat that looked A LOT better than enything I had knitted before. It was my first nice fair isle project: the right tension, a pattern that looked good and the perfect size! 

Now, I felt I was ready to start a new lopapeysa and the result was this:

Orói

Now that I look back, learning how to knit has been such a nice "journey"! A journey with a lot of frogging but always interesting and fun!

A new shawl: Mar esmeralda entre marismas

Hagakiri

The idea of making this shawl began when I shared some pictures of the last shawl I made (Hagakiri) on Facebook and my friend Þóra posted a comment on it asking how much it would cost to make a shawl like that one. I am REALLY bad  at putting a price to the things I make basically because I make them just for the fun of it. I have sold just a few of the things I have made (a couple of Icelandic pullovers and a headband, it is all I remember) to people that are not really that close but selling something to a friend... IMPOSSIBLE (at least for me). In the end we agreed to make an exchange which is much more fun than getting money, isn't it?

It always amazes me that everyrhing
 begins with just 7 stitched.

I replied to her comment inviting her to meet in the yarn shop, I would bring some books and she would choose the yarn she liked. So, we met, took a look of a few books, looked up in the internet and some other books that were in the shop until she finally decided that she wanted a Hyrna Herborgar.

That was great for me because this is one of my biggest favorites! I actually bought the book Þríhyrnur og langsjöl mainly bacause of this pattern. I really like the transitions it has, starting with the double yarn overs and the spider web sections and ending up with the amazingly beautiful edge, unlike Haruni, that is also very pretty but it has just one big leafs section and pretty edge. It is a lot of fun to knit something that changes so much so you are not doing the same forever.

  

About the yarn. She chose from Evilla Artyarn 8/2, which is also one of my favourite yarns to work with. I think that the color combination is wonderful but I must say that I wasn't so convinced about it at first because I thought that the colors were too unusual and my main corcern was that I wasn't sure about how the colors were going to "develop" across the shawl. And I think that Þóra wasn't so sure either but we just went for it!

As soon as I got home I winded the yarn and started to knit! At first it went a little slow because at the same time I was knitting this lopapeysa for another friend but still managed to have both projects done pretty quickly.

First Hyrna Herborgar

I had already made a Hyrna before so I thought that knitting another one would be definetely easier since I knew all the tricks already. But the process of knitting this shawl wasn't as smooth as I thought it would be:

Just finished. Unblocked. It looks so ugly!

* After having knitted almost all of the first section of the shawl (double yarn overs)99 I realized that I didn't like how the colors were showing up so I frogged everything and started again but this time using the other end of the ball. Now it started to look very nice. Fortunetely this part of the shawl is a very fast knit.

* When I was kntting the second section, the spider web, which is very simple because it is the repetition of only two rows, another accident! I was almost done with half of it when my stitch count went off!! I looked at the charts... then looked at the needles... then the chart again... and so on for about 15 minutes without being able to find the mistake! (I forgot to say that it was pretty late already... around 2am maybe?) In the end I had a "FURY ATTACK" and started to frog and frog and frog. In total I went 16 rows back to finally realize that there was no mistake at all... I was just reading the wrong row from the chart!!!

After these two little "accidents" everything went smooth again and managed to finish the shawl really quick, even though the rows were getting ETERNAL!

Off the needles and ready to let magic happen: BLOCKING. What a wonderful thing! Once blocked I could see that the colors go great together... it looks kind of eatable!!

Blocking. I used 4.5mm needles and the result was a lot bigger than the one I made before using 4.0mm needles.
0.5mm make a HUGE difference.

So, after finishing this project two things (or rules):

1. Before starting knitting with these multicolored yarns: TAKE A LOOK AT IT AND SEE WHAT IS THE BEST END TO START WITH.

2. Which should be RULE NUMBER ONE: NEVER KNIT LACE WHEN IT IS TOO LATE AND YOU'RE TOO TIRED. Bad things can happen.

I really like the colors!

PS (and last thing): I wanted to say thanks to Rosalía who wrote a comment on Ravelry and described the colors of the shawl so beautifully that I used it as the titles for this post (and name of the shawl as well). I don't know exactly how to translate it into english... so if you have any idea? suggestions? Please let me know : )

The Holy Stash

Last week I decided that I needed to do some stash diving and see what was there. My stash is a little bit all over the place. I have three boxes: two of them hiding behind the sofa with all the staff that use the most and the third one under the bed (mostly with létt-lopi, lots of leftovers that I always think I should just throw away but Gummi never lets me do so!)

Messy Stash

So, I took all three boxes and took everything out of them and tried to find a way to arrange the stash somehow.

Most of the stash is plötulopi, I think this is because we were making a lot of "bottle warmers" (that are really quick to make so it is almost instant gratification and it is possible to play a lot with the design and color combinations) to give to our friends or as "emergency gifts" for any occasion, so we were always buying some to have more colors to make new bottles. We got to have something around 30 to 40 of these bottle warmers! During Christmas time we gave many of them to friends that needed presents to give (especially to their relatives or friends that are abroad).

There is a lot of létt lopi as well. The reason... I have no idea! I can't recall any reason why there is so much of it in the stash. Maybe is it mostly left overs (and some new balls) of old projects. All this went to a box (along with some other things like bulky lopi, álafoss lopi, kambgarn and a couple of balls of sock yarn) that is now under the bed.

The third box contains the most "luxury" yarns: lace yarn from Evilla (one of my favourites), merino lace, alpaca, cashmere, some blends and others.

In the process of putting some order I had to get a fourh box to put all the yarn I was going to use to make a  pullover that I finally never made. It is Debbie Bliss Donegal Chunky Tweed . I have NO idea what to do with it. I bought it in a sale (and it wasn´t really SO cheap), I really like the color but now I think it is way to chunky!! What to do?! So, this new box went straight under the bed!

Not so messy stash

I am very satisfied with having put some order in my stash but while I was doing it I couldn't stop thinking about how much I would like to have a proper place to keep all the yarn, a place with an easy access to everything, that allowed to arrange things in a more logical way and that didn't involve having to dive into the stash to find something. By now, unfortunetely I don't have the space to think about something like that... but SOMEDAY!

Now to finish, when I was doing all this a couple of surprises came up. I found some things that I had totally forgotten about! But  that will be a story to tell in another post... hehe.

New Books

During March I got two new amazing books:

Victorian Lace Today:

My dear friend Kristina gave me this book as a birthday present, even though my birthday is in December. The problem was that by then the book was not available in the shop, they had only the one to show in the shelf and they didn't want to sell it! So, Kristina decided to give me a gift card from the shop so I could go and see what I could get as a birthday present. The only thing I really wanted (from this shop) was THIS book so I had to wait patiently... THREE MONTHS later the book arrived. Now, I must say that the wait was TOTALLY worth it!

This is a beautiful book, from beginning to end. It has a lot of patterns and a really nice section with instructions with very good and clear illustrations at the end of it. I can hardly wait to start knitting something from it! I'm sure it will be hard to choose among so many cool patterns.

I must admit that I am a bit afraid (well, maybe not afraid but a bit worried) because these patterns look a lot more complicated than the ones from The Knitted Lace of Estonia (another of my big favourite books that I have been using lately)  and Þrihyrnur og Langsjöl (that I bought mainly for one pattern: Hyrna Herborgar).

There are several patterns that involve knitting lace pattern on both sides (I mean, the ones on which the wrong row are not simply purling but doing all the staff, as yo and decreases). The problem with that is the fact that I am left-handed and then I have to be really aware of what I am doing to avoid making mistakes. I have to mirror all the instruction and sometimes that can be a bit confusing. My only experience doing so was the Percy Shawl, in which there is one section, called frost flowers, that is patterned both sides. It was difficult at first, it required a lot of attention but after a few repeats wasn't so bad at all. Now, I can't wait to get rid of my queue to start one of this shawls!!

The Haapsalu Shawl:

My interest for knitting lace began when I knitted the Swallowtail. That was the first time I ever heard of the Lily in the Valley pattern and had to knit these crazy beautiful things called nupps. Thanks to this shawl I got to know that there was an amazing knitting lace tradition in Estonia.


I have always wanted to take a trip through the baltic countries and now I have one more reason to go there!

The first lace book that I bought was Knitted Lace of Estonia, a wonderful book that is definetely on my top list, from which I have knitted already two shawls: Maikell and Hagakiri. Then, one day I was at my favourite yarn store in Hafnarfjörður and I saw this book, The Haapsalu Shawl, I took a look at it and fell in love with it immediately... but I didn't buy it bacause I thought it was a little bit to expensive. Mistake! Because when I finally decided to get it, guess what!? It was no longer available so, the same story... I had to wait. Fortunetely the wait wasn't as long so in just a couple of weeks I became the happy owner of this book.

What I like about this book is the fact that it is more of a pattern dictionary than a book full of recipes for shawls or scarves. It has many body stitch patterns (a lot of variations of the same patterns) and some lace edge patterns. So, there is plenty of room to create something as you wish. It also has really nice illustrations with instructions, some history and explanations about the origin of the patterns (most of them based of nature).

The only think I am not really convinced about is the way the patterns are charted. The charts look too full. Maybe I am wrong and it is better. I don't know. I will only know that when I put my first project on the needles!