Summer Knits

I want to share 2 knits that I made for last summer. I love them both.

One is a sweater that I made from a pattern in The Yarn Girls' Guide to Knits for All Seasons

I used my favorite color in two slightly different shades. The yarn is Bella by Numei. It's a blend of rayon and cotton. It has great drape and is really cool, which makes it suitable for summer projects. The only problem is that it pills easily (as with all cotton yarn) but the price is right. I pretty much followed the pattern except I made a row of single crochet around all edges to prevent it from curling. Blocking with a steamer also helped with that.
I loved making this, and love wearing it. It's what I wear when I really want to be comfortable, like when I travel.

The next project was this fabulous skirt from Greetings from Knit Cafe.

It's a popular pattern and it was the first time I knit lace. It turned out OK, apart from one mistake that I wasn't able to correct. Oh well... I equally loved making this and wearing it. I used the same yarn as above and the drape is fabulous.

Another radical knitter

I am always excited when I find out that someone super cool is a knitter. Imagine my surprise when I found out while watching La Vie en Rose, that Edith Piaf was an avid knitter. I was frogging something with the help of my husband while watching the movie and we both chuckled...

It's funny when you think about it. At a time that knitting was mostly associated with domesticity someone like Edith Piaf, who was everything but domestic, loved to knit. I guess knitting was subversive much earlier than we think. It makes sense that someone like her would knit though. She went through so much in her life, I am sure knitting was a refuge where she could just be.

I loved the scene where she knits on the beach while being interviewed by a journalist. When the journalist asks her who she knits for, she answers: "Anyone who will wear my sweater". And this bit of the interview was beautiful:

Journalist: If you were to give advice to a woman, what would it be?
EP: Love.
Journalist: To a young girl?
EP: Love.
Journalist: To a child?
EP: Love.

The Last knit

This is where I see myself a few years from now...



If this isn't radical, I don't know what is...

Last FO for 2008

I spent most of New Year's Eve felting the bag that I had been knitting lately. The pattern is called Pony Express and it's a very roomy saddle bag from Pursenality Plus. I wanted a messenger bag but this design is much more interesting and easy enough. I knit it over a few nights while watching movies.

I used my hand dyed Ecuadorian yarn double throughout. Felting went well, I had to run it through the washing machine a few times and I am happy with the result. However, this yarn is very hairy and there is hair all over my apartment now! The bag is very roomy and has a nice round shape. I don’t think I will use any of the decorations (feathers etc) for now. I like it just the way it is. The hand dyed yarn already makes is busy enough for my taste…

Getting lessons from an old timer...

While I am all about the appropriation of knitting and making something new with it, I cannot help but nod to our grandmothers, who kept the art alive for us.
This is my father's aunt, who has made many socks for me over the years...
I was curious how she makes them though because they did not look like the ones I see in pattern books in the US. This summer, while I was in Greece I got her to teach me how to do it while I was videotaping it. She starts from the toes and goes up and the heel looks a bit pointy. I think that is the way all women in Greece make socks. They may look a little weird but they are just as comfortable....

Crochet coasters

This is how I practiced different crochet stitches. I was too bored of just making swatches and I was really confused about all the different crochet stitches. So I grabbed a book with all the stitch instructions and picked a few patterns that use a variety of stitches and voila! The result is a useful item, plus almost instant gratification. Now I am not scared of a pattern that uses double or treble crochet anymore!!!

Pattern can be found here.

Pattern.


Pattern.

I made all of them with a cheap worsted weight cotton yarn like Sugar n' Cream.

Toasty Mittens

So, this winter turned out to be every bit as bad as the last one so when the temperature hit several degrees Celsius below zero, I knew I needed mittens. And not just any mittens, I realized that the ones I had were not warm enough for this temperature so I HAD to make new ones and fast! Even though I like shopping as much as anyone, I try to reduce my consumption and use what I have, so I raided my stash and came up with this gorgeous hand-dyed wool yarn I had from Ecuador. Too itchy to use for a hat or scarf but great for mittens. I had never made mittens before but it turned out to be much easier than I expected. I used a pattern called Gauntlet Mittens from the book Speed Knitting and used my yarn double throughout. It took a few hours over the weekend to make them and by Monday I had these great mittens to wear at work! The cuff is a pain to make (maybe because of the bulkiness of the project, not sure) but it's gorgeous - it looks like it's woven!!! I liked these so much that I made a pair for my husband with a different yarn and a "manlier" cuff!

I love my new mittens more than anything I would have bought in a store and they are super warm!