Congratulations, it’s a house
Before:
After:
The books are back on the shelves, hurrah!
And I found some time to mess around with string and a crochet hook and ended up with a pincushion:
In Depth Research
Wall-coverings in a residential neighbourhood in Den Haag (The Hague), a short study
The building in question was erected around 1929 at which time the interior walls would have been painted white, possibly with a low-grade material such as white-wash chalk. It is probable that the first residents put wallpaper up, only to be pulled off and replaced again by subsequent generations.
The present study was carried out during two weekends and used the following materials: screwdrivers (both Philips and flat), two hammers (one died in the process), one mean steam machine on rent from the local do-it-yourself, a paint scraper and a camera.
The first stage looked rather dismal and obviously had nothing to do with the original colour scheme:
Trace research in layers followed, where underlying layers were laid bare using a paint scraper. There is some evidence that at some point the walls were tinted grey and blue:
Although one past resident had a very strong preference for a colour we may only describe as raspberry disco:
The garish pink/salmon paint on half of the walls turned out to be covering acid-green wallpaper:
The wallpaper was quite hard to remove and took two people two entire days. Careful examination of the area covered by the wallsocket revealed that there were in fact two layers of wallpaper to be removed.
#1 – horrible green paper with vertical patterning in places
#2 – cheapo white paper with raised bubbles
#3 – crisp white paint applied to the once again stripped wall
Taking into account the choices of past generations and being of the opinion that they obviously had no taste at all, it was decided to strip the entire house and paint everything stark white. Not broken white, not cream white, not RAL9010, simply utterly and completely white. Cleanliness is, etc.
Thank you for your attention and stay tuned for our next paper on floors.
*Sand, Scrub, Paint*, Repeat from*
The house is shaping up, slowly but surely:
There’s been lots of knitting during my daily commute, but so far no time to take decent pictures of it!
So here’s one picture, a bit older, of my attempts to use up all the Araucania Ranco Solid in the stash and getting caught in a seemingly endless jag of hats both large and small:
Bear necessities
I am pleased to introduce Herr Doktor Professor Friedrich Bhaer (named for Josephine’s lover in Little Women):
Materials: about 4 hours of time, 25 grams soft merino, 4mm needles, some stuffing and one piece of ribbon. Pattern by Erika Knight, Simple Knits for Cherished Babies, Collins & Brown 2001.
Professor Bhaer stands about 23 cm / 9 inches tall, likes to read and write snarky literary comments on volumes of essays, enjoys the occasional glass of fine port and can darn his own socks.
Happy Birthday to me!
That was quite a long time ago.
This is me in a bit more recent picture with my wee cousin Rose (both of us wearing cat-knit sweaters):
I may have gotten some more hair and some more teeth since 1980, but otherwise nothing much has changed 
Although of course I also learned how to knit in the past years of my life, very useful and a lot of fun:
Night Blooms Shawl, by That Logan Chick
4,5mm needles, 2 skeins of Lang Yawoll Magic in orange/red
I hope for many many more years to knit and live – and no more Faroese bus shelters falling on my head.
Not knitting
Please excuse the lack of updates. Today I got the keys to my new apartment and I am equally excited and absolutely exhausted at imaging all the painting that needs to be done!
Lots of friends have offered to help already and I am planning on a big pre-housewarming aka roping-friends-into-painting-party. Until that time I am revelling in having a nice, central, affordable place to move into. It’s the details that I am most in love with:
See that white “lantern” on the banister? Original wooden detail of 1929. Me love house.
*thanks to Dad for the pic!
PS: see the salmon pink trim on the right there? That’s what all three rooms look like. I enjoy salmon pate, smoked salmon and grilled salmon, but not salmon on my walls. Two big vats of stark white paint have already been acquired. Painting will commence soon.
Ravelry Shawl Exchange
Last winter I participated in a swap on Ravelry: the Shawl Exchange. We formed a group and had 5 months to knit a shawl for a “downstream” partner, while another “upstream” partner was making a shawl for yours truly.
A lovely women called Donna made me a beautiful shawl and sent me a package full of lovely yummy yarn and other goodies:
I made a package for another woman called Gwen and since she has now received her shawls and gifts, I can post these pics.
One mini-shawl of Citron pattern, with Mini Mochi Crystal Palace Yarns.
One large shawl with beads (fun!) made in Araucania Ranco Solid, from pattern La Cumparsita. Gwen and I both like to dance and “Cumparsita” is a tango, usually the last one played at the end of a tango-dance-night (= also know as “milonga”).
Stuff that grows
I love plants. It’s Springtime and it feels like everything is new and shooting out of the ground and anxious to show the world how alive it is. Spring always makes me feel more alive too, after the last two dreary months of winter. My little mini-winter-sadness combined with having a bus-shelter fall on my head on January 1 means that I am only now starting to feel like me again. Like a better me, even, if you can say that of yourself.
Sometime a hundred years ago, when I was still studying Art History, I grew a basil plant from organic basil seeds and it was humungous. It was also the best basil I have ever tasted. In the end the plant got so big (the trick is to keep snipping out the flowers) that I made a big pot of hand-ground pesto from that one plant. The pesto was, again, the best pesto I’ve ever tasted.
Something about the Springtime made me want to repeat the experiment. Also, I am cheap. Yes, I am Dutch. What’s your question?
€ 4,- Organic basil seeds + pot
€ 1,- Extra potting soil
€ 9,- Plastic mini-greenhouse with 20 cardboard cups
Now assuming the crop grows well, I shall have twenty basil plants grown from organic seed. Which means each plant has cost me € 0,70. And I can re-use the greenhouse.
Comparison: 15 grams of basil at the grocery store is €1,40. And 15 grams of basil is three little sprigs, whereas one plant will yield more than that, if properly cared for. Of course the catch is that in a month or so I will have twenty grown basil plants on my hands and not enough time. (I think my friends won’t mind, seeing as most them enjoy Italian cooking too.)
Going to the garden centre is just as dangerous as walking into the chocolate section of any store. There’s always something pretty I could use. Like this:
It’s a “seeding roster” suspended over a glass bowl filled with water (change water daily) and comes with different kinds of seeds. You can grow shoots like alfalfa, arugula and water cress to adorn your salad. I happen to love shoots in my salad, so it came home with me. I love seeing the little white roots grow every day. For a few euros, this is endless entertainment. And healthy too!
In crochet news, I’ve been making a bunch of these flowers:
So far we have 28. You’ll know why before the month of April is over.
Update on the frogs
Mama frog is guarding her spawn.
Palomena prasina
Yesterday’s insect was this one.
Knitting Nature
Our afternoon in the garden today included:
1) a Nature Quiz: what is this?
No bigger than 1,5 cm long for sure. I can’t figure it out. It must be a weevil of some kind, but there are so many kinds! It came flying out of the reeds sticking out of the pond when I got closer, so it can fly and it likes watery areas.
2) The following chapter in Miss Leika’s interest in frogs. Did I tell you she came into my bedroom on Easter Monday, carrying a very large frog by its hind leg? She nearly dumped it in my bed and then proceeded to play with it. Obviously I was supposed to have been very proud of her hunting skills, but unfortunately for her I have evolved into a citygirl and I managed to throw the frog back into the garden before Miss Leika had done any real damage to it.
“Come here a minute, I swear I heard something humming”
“I mean it, right here”
“Can’t you hear that?! How do I get in there?”
“We’re outnumbered! Runnnnnnnnnn!”
Yes, that’s right. Three frogs livin’ it up and making humming noises while doing so – I first thought there was a bumblebee merrily sailing along the pond, until Miss Leika identified the source. You know what this means. Lots of frogspawn. We’ll have to scoop it out of the pond to prevent all of it from hatching – I’d rather not find tadpoles in my bed, either.
3) Knitting Nature arrived:
Or well, it’s been around for a while since it was published in 2006. But I just got it. Fantastic work by Norah Gaughan, who now works for Berrocco as house designer. Her stuff is amazing – mostly because she is a mathematician and a nerd and introduces math and biology into knitting in a way that actually makes me want to read more about fractals, phyllotaxis and logarithmics.
I mostly bought this book because I fell in love with a sweater that would look pretty bad on me, but that I am still aching to make. Knitting is like that. I can spend hours and hours, blood (pricking my fingers with darning needle), sweat (mostly over details) and tears (when said details frustrate me to the point of running to the fridge for a shot of vodka) on a gorgeous product which I then will never wear. One of my friends is going to find this tucked between birthday presents some day in the future:
Sand Dollar Pullover, p. 42.
And there are other designs in here that justified me spending grocery money on another book makes this a very useful purchase:
Sunflower Tam, p. 115
Serpentine Coat, p. 136
Now that I think about it, maybe I should make the Serpentine Coat first since I would definitely wear that. And then I could go to London and take a picture at the Serpentine in Hyde Park wearing the Coat…ahh…springtime dreaming!
Little thing
Just a little Tam, loosely based on Kathleen Taylor’s pattern for the “Grandma K Tam”. I kept the stitch count and increases the same, but altered the colourwork pattern.
One skein of El Hacho Mirasol (very nice sturdy twist on that one, kind of like Socks That Rock) and one skein of Merino Essentials DK Rico.
Size: about 10 years old. Now to find a kid to wear it.
A little trip to the Frogpond
Traditionally a frogpond is a pond with (aha!) frogs in it.
However, knitters across the globe have developed a parallel vocabulary and thus sending a knitted garment “on a trip to the frogpond” means to rip it out. Bear with me, it takes a few leaps to explain this one. When you rip out a piece of knitting, you rippit…rippit..and ribbit..ribbit...is sound that frogs make, or at least the English-speaking of the amphibians. So to rip out = to frog.
Today I decided to frog this baby:
Once upon a time this was going to be the Central Park Hoodie – a hooded cardigan with fairly simple cables going down the front, back and sleeves. It’s knit in pieces. I have diligently knit all the pieces and even blocked them (above) before deciding that this cardigan will never ever work for me.
Inventory of problems:
- Central Park Hoodie is knit in pieces. I hate knitting in pieces and specialize in knitting everything in the round.
- The ribbing on the front and back don’t match. I probably forgot to switch from the smaller to the larger needles, or vice versa, on one of the pieces.
- The length of the front and back don’t match. Either this is related to the problem above of not working on the right needles or, equally possible, of me running out of steam on the front since I was bored to tears.
- The seams at the shoulder are terrible. I mean really horrific. I’d show you a picture, but you would never again believe that I am actually quote capable of knitting, so I won’t.
- The side seams look even worse. It’s impossible to seam this yarn properly since it’s very thick-n-thin and doesn’t like to be messed with too much. Also, since the pieces don’t match in length (see above) the seaming pulls in something dreadful.
- I’m bored. It’s all green, all the same cables, allover.
- It’s too big. The sleeves are two sizes bigger than the rest and won’t fit into the armholes.
I have no qualms about blaming all of the problems above on the fact that I cast on this project sometime in September whilst at knitting night in my favourite yarn shop, and having a glass of wine at the same time. Here’s the evidence:
First I cast on the wrong number of stitches and had to rip out. Then I forgot to switch needles. It’s been a wretch from the start. Clearly it’s not my fault (ahem) but I’m having to bear the consequences for having beautiful yarn turning into an unworthy project. No more, I say!
The yarn, by the way, is Debbie Bliss’ Donegal Luxury Aran Tweed – a lovely soft and fluffy combination of 85% wool (sheep) and 15% angora (rabbit). I bought enough of it for at least two sweaters, since I love it so much. I have masses of green, a few balls of bright pink, about six balls of cream and one smidgen of dark purple in the house.
This morning, after trying to get the side seams on the Central Park Hoodie to look right and then giving up in a fit of rage, I buried the half-finished Hoodie underneath the yet-to-knit balls of the Luxury Tweed and started a totally new project.
I love new projects, they still carry every possibility in the universe to be completely fabulous…until they are done and we can actually asses how cool they came out. I’ve high hopes for this one, because:
- It is a topdown constructed raglan, a method I am very familiar with and very fond of. I’m winging it and feeling very good about it. No pattern, no rules!
- It has colourwork, which I love deeply. More than cables.
- So far, it looks like a dream. A little dream filled with hearts.
Since it is officially Spring today and the weather is being very faithful about following the calender, I’m knitting in the garden. Miss Leika is out with me and seems, as usual, more interested in me than in the nature around her. After all, I am the one feeding her. Ants and earthworms is all very well, but Miss Leika is a city-bred-cat and prefers her dinner to come out of the familiar foodbag.
Please note how she completely disregards the real amphibian in the garden and comes to sniff my camera instead.
I point out the wonder that is Nature and she is not amused. Frogging is only for knitters, it seems.
“Wut? Eat dat?! Hell no!”
Random in sunshine
Actually it’s raining today. But this week was the first time I could sit in the garden and enjoy the sunshine without a sweater on. Spring must be finally coming.
Miss Leika enjoys being outside.
Once I started designing, the ideas just keep coming. I’m working on the next design, for a boy this time:
Free Pattern: Roos
Cardigan with lacy detail for baby girl ~ 18 months
There it is: the baby cardigan designed for my second cousin Roos (“rose”) in Rico Baby DK Classic, knit on 4mm needles (and 3 mm for the cuff and border). It took me a little over 2 skeins, so about 120 grams, or 363 yards.
Pattern for download as PDF format right here: Roos
Since I enjoy knitting all this baby stuff (small garments = quick results!) and wanted to share it with fellow knitters, I put it up on Ravelry as well as here.
In truth: the pattern is not fantastically written, sizing is only for a 18 month old baby and the measurements are all in centimeters. So imagine my surprise when I saw this, just 3 hours after posting the pattern:
There are 37 people who hearted this pattern…thirty seven! Really? 37 people like this? Who would’ve thunk it…I am pleasantly surprised and flattered and uhm…slightly ashamed that I didn’t put in any more effort in writing up the pattern.
(I’m preparing to put in a little more work for the next pattern…it is to include both inches and centimeters and maybe even…*gasp*…. a gauge swatch!)
Caturday came early
Presenting Miss Leika manifesting the universal feline manipulative technique better known as “being cute until food appears”
And fresh off my needles, here soon to be yours: free pattern in Rico Baby Classic DK, for 14-18 month old girls. Or larger, if you upscale yarn thickness and needle size.
Now I know why I always need more
There is a group around on Ravelry that proposes to knit 10 shawls in 2010. I didn’t join the group yet, but I think it’s a great idea especially since I have a lot of yarn kicking around and I love wearing shawls. The original idea was to knit from my stash as much as possible and produce a number of wonderful shawls to either be worn or given away to other people who would, presumably, wear them.
Unfortunately I tend to walk into knitting shops from time to time. I also tend to fall in love with what I see there. And therefore I came home last December with two skeins of Trekking Handart Flamé in grey and purple. The colour numbers were different (#555 Provence and #552 Mauritius) but we couldn’t really see a difference in the skeins at all. Besides, in a shawl it doesn’t matter if there is a bit of a transition in colour – it’s so easy to pretend that you meant it to look that way.
I loved the last lacy shawls I had made, but there are very light. So the concept of beading came into my head, to weigh down the shawl and add some visual interest. Equipped with 3 boxes of antracite grey seed beads, a roll of dental floss and a good source of light, I set to work. I fell in love. Beading is tiring and very very slow…but oh my it’s pretty.
Maybe, if I had enough yarn, I could also make a little beaded purse and a beaded hair net? Already I saw myself floating down the aisle to my first-row seat at the opera, dressed in a silk black dress with my elegant shawl, elegant purse and original hairnet.
The shawl grew and grew and I got to the last chart of the pattern ….and this happened:
That is a really small ball of yarn compared to the 400 stitches on the needle – with a border and a crocheted cast-off still to be completed. My dreams of matching purse and hairnet disappeared in an instant and instead I started worrying about being able to finish the shawl with only the materials at hand. I worried so much that I felt a knitting-block coming on and I put the shawl away and worked on something else for 3 days.
Then I realized I could probably order more yarn. One more skein of #555 Provence made its way into my house. I happily continued knitting, my mind at rest, knowing I had more than enough to complete the shawl, make several beaded purses and probably enough hairnets for all of my female friends. (One skein has 420 meters/459 yards on it!)
The tiny ball of yarn from Original Skein Nr. 2 ended right here:
So that is why I buy more. To bind off twelve stitches.
Maybe it’s why you buy more too – just to make sure you have enough. To set your mind at ease. To quiet all the “what ifs”- ?
Pattern: Haruni by Emily Ross (free download through Ravelry) on bamboo 4.5 mm needles
Size: 100 cm deep and a whopping 200 cm wide. This thing is huge!
Blocking:
Wearing:
Love it!
Ardeidae
There’s a lot of herons around in The Netherlands. Here’s one posing in the early morning light of the suburbs:
And I made some socks for friends’ birthdays:
His (SuperSoxx,my own improvised cable pattern on 3 mm needles)
Hers (Araucania Ranco Solid, Pattern: Nutkins with mirrored pattern on 3mm needles)
Sewing on buttons: I wish I could do it every day
NOT. Sewing on buttons is the most boring thing in the world. But it does have very pretty results:
Pattern: improvised top-down raglan. Also improvised a hat to go with is, just to use up all the yarn.
Yarn: Gedifra Living, 4 balls, Colour 5167. It’s a strange colour. I think of it as “boiled frog” .
Size: about 6 months (baby)
And this one:
Pattern: Little Coffee Bean Cardigan, by Elizabeth Smith (free pattern)
Yarn: Dale of Norway Heilo in black and white, about 4 skeins of left-overs from the stash.
Size: about 3 months (baby)
Free pattern: logo of Faroese metal band Týr
My favourite band is the Faroese metalband Týr. They make great music, they give an overwhelming and enthusing performance every time and they are great bunch of guys.
Official promo pic taken at the Faroese village of Saksun, 2009.
Download free PDF here: TYR knitting logos
Preview of logo, both small and large:
We’ve become friendly over the years and I sometimes help them out with press material or the fanclub. How fitting that my first available free knitting pattern should be their logo, converted for intarsia (or stranded) knitting.
In Flensburg, Germany, September 2007, with a shawl I knit sporting the name of the tour and the logo of the band:
Detail:
And you can use the logo pattern for pretty much any design, like this hat:
Enjoy!
*Thanks to the band for letting me use their logo for knitting! Spread it around and cover the world in metal!
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