This is What Happens When You Don't Blog for a While

Ok, since I haven't posted in ages there's a lot to share!

First of all, as soon as I had finished Mermaid's Song, I cast on another Susanna IC shawl, Ferywen. It was a quick one and I've already worn it lots. I love the Regia design line hand-dye effect by Kaffe Fassett that I used, the colors are so subtle and pretty.

I also finished a long-in-the-making pair of socks, Simple Prim by Yavanna Reynolds. It's a free pattern and as I only used 50 g of yarn, the total cost was only €3,90.

I've also knit two completely new pairs, both from Cookie A.'s Knit.Sock.Love. I've still not knit all the socks from that book but almost!

Here's BFF in Four Seasons Gründl Hot Socks Spectra:

And German Stocking in Hjertegarn Sock Wool:

Finally, I've also made two cards. The first was for a couple friends of my boyfriend's who got married:

And the second for my cousin and his family, they got a baby:

This weekend I've made a lot of progress on Kasha which I have shared some pictures of with you much earlier. I actually started knitting this cardigan in the beginning of September 2012! And now it is finally going to be finished. Here are all the pieces except for the collar blocking:

Snowflakes

I'm so happy with my snowflakes that I want to share some of my favourites:

Royal Crown Snowflake by Sandi Marshall, pattern

Chain Loop Snowflake, pattern

Vintage Snowflake from 1952, pattern

Aren't they lovely? I have also finished some cards already but I haven't yet taken any pictures. If there only was enough light to take good pictures but this time of year those days are rare...

I finished my Bobble Topper and the slipover for my boyfriend, now I'm knitting another hat for myself with the leftovers from Bobble Topper and the cable hat I knit for my boyfriend. This one is called Regina, it's a free pattern by Carina Spencer with a vintage 20's style twist. I bought a new winter coat and now I'm having trouble with finding matching accessories since it's plum-coloured and I'm not sure if anything I have matches is very well. What a lovely excuse to knit something new...? I saw this great soft orange scarf but a graphic cable on it. Orange is not a colour I usually go for but in that soft tone it was quite beautiful and I think it would be quite smashing with the plum... Well, here's my Bobble Topper anyways!

Kasha Preview

This week has been, well, interesting, with people I hardly know and who definitely don't know me undermining my abilities to write half a page of text or pretty much to do anything. But, thanks to my grandmother and mother, I will always have knitting and I'm pretty sure those people know next to nothing about that. I have been knitting the beautiful vintage cardigan Kasha and also started, out of a whim, to knit fairisle mittens with a Swedish/Scandinavian wooden horse, dala horse, after this pattern on Raverly. But I am not very far along with those, as I am still very excited about the cardigan. I have knit a sleeve and started the back, but I am sad to tell you that my original idea of having 40's buttons on a 40's cardigan didn't work out as the cardi needs at least seven buttons and I only have four of the old gold ones I had thought of putting on it. But not to worry, I am sure I will find the perfect buttons when I just have the time to go look for them in a button store. Ah, buttons stores are just what a troubled soul needs, aren't they?

Here on the first picture you can see the lace pattern for the cardigan and the second picture features the finished sleeve which you can see hasn't be blocked yet. I used tubular cast-on, which is a technique I first really hated but now am in love with. I guess it's just that having to learn a new technique is a little intimidating, I am afraid of not learning it well enough. But learning the tubular cast-on is really worth it as the result is a beautiful stretchy edge and it really isn't even that hard!

I am really happy with my yarn choice, although to get the correct gauge I have to use 2.5 needles although the original pattern uses 3.25. But I feel no revulsion towards knitting with smaller needles so it really doesn't matter. But I do have a problem: I calculated the yardage based on the original but as the yarn is so different, my calculations are just really, really wrong and I need a lot more yarn! I should go to the store without hesitation to get more while they still have some from the same dye lot but here I am, writing to my blog about it...

Vintage Knitting Surge

I bought yarn for Kasha today: light yellow pure wool, nice and soft. And only 13 euros, too! I was supposed to swatch before buying as I had a little of the same yarn already, but I made the mistake of going into the store to "look at" and "finger through" the yarn so no hope for me. But I am pretty sure the yarn is going to be good for the project so I just have to hope for best. I think I also have the buttons ready as well, they are old gold in colour, and actually old as they are part of the treasure I took back home from my grandparents'. So I am making a 40's sweater with buttons that may very well be from the actual 40's. My boyfriend told me that I've gone crazy wanting to make a yellow sweater with gold buttons or maybe it was just the way I said it, I was almost singing about gold buttons and yellow yarn on our way from the store, that's just how happy I was. Anyhow, he really is not the person to take any advise from when it comes to colour-schemes. I think old gold and light yellow are perfect together, how about you? Below is my yarn, I'll post pictures of the buttons a bit later, when I finish my swatch because only after I see the pattern knitted out will I be sure if the buttons are good. They have some kind of pattern on them so I have to see if the lacy structure will go with them or will it be too much.

Kasha-to-be ^^

However, I will not be able to start knitting Kasha until I finish my beautiful 50's gloves I started yesterday. They are going to be so adorable, and so lady-like. I'm knitting them from bright but not dark blue, and they are just so beautiful, don't you agree? I am so in love with the pattern, it's difficult to stop knitting them.

50's lace gloves

I just have to take this opportunity to advertise for this website. It has so many free(!) vintage knitting patterns that I am almost losing my mind over it! There is also one for free vintage crochet patterns, here. Just lovely to have so many free vintage patterns, and so many of which are absolutely worth knitting/crocheting, so lovely. The pattern for the gloves is there, under women's lace gloves. If you are into vintage knitting, that is definitely a site worth checking out!

About blogging and vintage things

This blog is something I have thought about a lot and for a long time. I have knit for quite some time and as more and more people have started up their own blogs, I have also felt the pull to do so myself. Writing about knitting feels natural as it's something not everyone does but what I do a lot.

Recently I have been very into vintage knitting. I'm not sure where it started, but pretty early on I saw Susan Crawford's A Stitch in Time books that have vintage knitting patterns rewritten with more sizes and more understandable directions. I really fell in love with those books with all their pretty patterns and pictures. For last Christmas I got the A Stitch in Time vol. 2 from my boyfriend. It's been a regular leaf-through ever since, and I have also knitted some garments from it, for example the rose jumper of the last entry.

A few weeks back I was staying at my grandparents house for a night. I went through the knitting and other handicrafts supplies there, as there was a lot of real treasures there as you can imagine. There was a whole bucketful of buttons and it took me hours to go through all of them. But it was all good fun, and my mother really enjoyed it too, as she remembered most of the buttons from her childhood, having played with them. The best part is that I have already found use for some of the buttons. It is so great, having real vintage buttons! And they don't even have to be on a vintage sweaters, not all buttons have really even changed that much. Right now, I am knitting a bright green collared jacket and among the buttons I took from my grandmother's stash are just the perfect ones, they are of perfect shape, size and colour. It's almost too good to be true!

I also found some vintage knitting magazines at my grandparents house. I took a few back home. It was so fun to leaf through them as some of them were from the 50's, others from 70's and 80's. I noticed that crocheted peter pan collars that are quite hot right now have also been in style in the 60's. I think it's kind of funny how fashion is nothing but recycling. My uncle has had long legged tennis shoes today worn by all teenagers in his teens in the early 60's.

Buttons

The perfect buttons for my jacket to be

The very first entry

Welcome to the first entry of my first blog. Very exciting! In this blog I plan to write about knitting which has been an important hobby of mine for almost nine years now. I'll probably also write about other handicrafts I do. And because movies and TV shows are tightly connected with knitting for me, as I always watch something while knitting, it is inevitable that I'll write a line or two about those as well. I'll confess this upfront: I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Hate me if you must but she is a goddess to me. But that doesn't mean I like everything she is in. Just today me and my boyfriend discussed how unimportant a movie The Air I Breathe actually is! Even with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Brendan Fraser starring. But here I go, rambling on my first entry. Better stop here. Below a picture of my 50's style jumper I finished couple months back but which still deserves to be the first knit to be displayed on this blog. This picture is taken in action: I'm looking at pictures my boyfriend took of the jumper (and me, naturally). What I chose to display you can see on Raverly, on Blue Roses