Flashy Knitting

This is one of those occasions where I saw a pattern and immediately wanted to make it. I saw the Volt sweater by Sue Stratford and something about the simple shape combined with the David Bowie lightning bolt called my name. I picked out some Cascade 220 colours and kept them aside as a nice project to do while I was relaxing a bit after finishing with my previous job.

I took this with me on a family weekend (which was PERFECT after the stressful last couple of weeks at work- the shop I worked at closed and we had a huge sale and then had to pack everything and ship it off- chilling with my family and going on long walks was just what I needed after that).

I started with the front, so after the ribbing it's pretty much headfirst into intarsia, which I'm not that experienced at (My previous major colourwork project was mostly stranded since I couldn't face the thought of weaving in SO MANY ends). With this pattern it's entirely possible to carry the different colours of yarn up along the rows, so apart from small areas in the middle of the lightning bolt I could just work with continuous lengths.

I liked the little details that made this sweater a bit more interesting, like the shaped/cabled ribbing on the sides and sleeve cuffs. As usual I worried the overall sweater would be too small, but it turned out to be perfectly slouchy. Construction is straightforward, you knit the front and back first without casting on the shoulders, which are then joined with a three-needle bind-off (which I think it awesome and way more fun than seaming pieces together). After this, stitches are picked up along the side to knit the sleeves flat, and the side and underarm seam are joined in one go. After this, stitches kept on hold at the front and back neckline are put to work again and additional stitches picked up for the neckband.

I'm glad I bothered to try the i-cord bind off for this neckline, since it's a nice little touch.

This sweater knit up surprisingly fast, and I feel like I learned a lot from something that looks pretty simple! I'm definitely not as afraid of intarsia anymore. I'm pretty short on knitting time these days though, with a new job and (gasp!) school work and other things. But there is some pretty interesting sewing going on!

My Inner Grandfather Is Wide Awake

I seem to have a subconscious goal in life to be able to dress myself head to toe in my hair colour. That would explain why I keep making things in different shades of dark green/teal. Or maybe I dye my hair that way because I like the colour?

We had this yarn in the shop for a while, and while I loved the colour (obviously) I never really paid it much attention. Until I realised how well the slighly fluffy mohair mix would work for a textured sweater, like the Brooklyn Tweed Cascades. And then we had a sale on yarn, with my employee discount added to that, so I caved and got it.

Now, I seem to still have a fear of knitting fitted things. I'll check the measurements, knit a swatch, measure it and then conclude that the size I should be making will be impossibly small, so then I'll size up. And then it usually turns out on the large size. I fought this instinct with my Stonecutter (with great results) but gave in on this one. The result is pretty baggy, but it's so nice and warm I don't even care anymore!

The sweater is knit in the round from the bottom, which gives a nice seamless finish, but makes checking the fit a bit tricky. I might also have been a bit enthusiastic while I was knitting the body and a bit tired during the sleeves, because this thing is quite long (and the sleeves are a bit short). It's a very nice stitch pattern though, after a few repeats I knew it by heart and didn't need the chart anymore, which made it a bit more relaxing to knit than the Stonecutter.

I like the combination of tiny cables and moss stitch, even if I did mess up the moss stitch in two places (and these rounds are LONG so going back 400 (cabled) stitches in this fluffy yarn to fix it was too much to bother with). The rows of cables give some interesting lines to a plain raglan sleeves sweater. There are a lot of twisted stitches in here, which give a subtle but interesting extra bit of texture.

I lovingly call this my grandpa sweater because, um, it kind of reminds me of a grandpa sweater. Which can be a great thing. It's cold and miserable in Belgium right now, and I'm happy to have a few handknit sweaters to wear on days like this!

All Hail The Yarn-Eating Beast

I finished this sweater just as the weather got warmer, which means that I'll have to wait a few months before it will get worn.

No big deal, since this project has been four years in the making!

I bought the pattern for the Brooklyn Tweed Stonecutter in 2014, it took me three years to even buy the yarn for it and another year to gather my courage and get started. And in hindsight that was a very good thing. Because four years ago I never would have been able to do this:

I'm a very firm believer in learning new skills by challenging yourself, but at that time I had only knit some scarves and hats. These days I have a few sweaters (very simple ones) under my belt, and more experience with cables and reading cable charts. I was ready!

This pattern has one gigantic chart for the section with the diagonal ribbing/cabling, after that the back and front are repeats of four different charts (one large one for the center cables and a few smaller repeats). I had the gigantic chart printed on A3 sized sheets of paper since I don't like knitting from a screen and it was way too small on A4! Being able to mark the rows I'd already done helped tremendously. I had to stay focused the whole time to make sure I got all the cables to cross in the right direction, and I can proudly say there are only a few tiny mistakes! All those were done when I was knitting during an evening with friends. FOCUS, remember?

I learned how to do a tubular cast on for this! Part of me wanted to be lazy and just do a long-tail and get it over with, but then I gave myself a stern talking to about 'putting in the extra effort' and 'you're already going to spend ages on this what difference is this little delay going to make'. The instructions in the pattern didn't really make sense to me at the time, but I found this tutorial really clear and helpful. After all I'm stoked I went the extra mile, the edges are so pretty!

I did the front and back first, since those were the most daunting parts. The entire thing was knitted on these really fancy interchangeable circular needles I got at the shop when there was a huge sale (+ my employee discount) and after finishing the back I noticed I had forgotten to change one of them after switching needle sizes when the ribbing was done, meaning that the entire back was done with one row in one size and the other a half size smaller. WOOPS. After finishing the front no one could tell the difference though, so I decided against frogging.

After this it was down to the sleeves, which were a breeze after that huge chart. All I had to do was keep track of my increased. One of my colleagues once gave me the tip of knitting both sleeves at once so they're exactly the same and I've been doing that ever since- it also feels like it goes faster.

This pattern requires a lot of yarn, so I went for Cascade 220 since it's a very budget friendly option and I liked the quality, having used it for a scarf before. I also managed to get the right gauge, which rarely happens! While knitting I was a bit worried the sweater would be too small after all, but it stretched a bit with blocking and the result is exactly what I wanted: not too oversized because the bulk of it would overwhelm me, but not tight either. Even the shoulders are in the right place! As you can see, I'm very comfortable and mobile in it.

It's also VERY warm.

I'm actually proud of myself for finishing this. This thing was on my list for so long, and I think I made it at the right time (but maybe not the right season).

Now it's time to get back into sewing and finish some drawings!

Year In, Year Out

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a lovely time. I had a nice dinner with friends and watched the fireworks from an attic window in their new house. We also tried to take a family portrait:


I haven't posted much the past month, not because I haven't made anything but just because most of the things I'm working on are long-term projects. So instead of a nice series of photos of a finished thing I now give you some rambing about loads of different things. And a skirt.

I spent a large chunk of my time knitting these past few weeks. The Stonecutter pattern has been on my wishlist for AGES but I was too chicken to go for it, so then I bought the yarn and bullied myself into starting. It took some experimenting with swatches to get my gauge right and I have to stay REALLY focused on the cable charts, but I can proudly say the back is almost done, with only one obvious mistake (which I'm not correcting):

The yarn is Cascade 220 because this is a yarn-eating beast and I have to keep a budget in mind, but it's lovely to work with so far. I was a bit worried about wether or not the cables would show up well enough in a dark colour but I love it!

There's been quite a bit of drawing as well. I made a sticker!

It's something I had in mind for ages and just finally got around to doing. I've been handing these out and putting them up for the past few weeks, and it's exciting to see them pop up in different places!

I've also been sketching for a project that sort of fits this Angry Girls Club theme (and this other Medusa drawing I did earlier this year). It's also a good excuse to draw naked girls on goats.

I usually don't do resolutions, but this upcoming year I want to try and spend more time making things just for the sake of it. A lot of my creating is done with a purpose, either because it's a comission, or I want to make it into something I can sell, or it's an item of clothing I need or want for a specific occasion. Earlier this month me and my friends Hélène and Nena got together to make papier maché Christmas decorations, and it was so much fun. We were using our hands just for the sake of it, without any pressure, and it felt really refreshing! I gave most of mine away, but kept a skull and a unicorn:

Nena was a bit more ambitious and tried to recreate the Koekelberg Basilica. I spent the night at her place after New Year's Eve and we went outside in the rain to try and get a picture that accurately represents how well her project turned out:

We failed.

Which brings us to one of the only finished things I'm going to talk about: a golden skirt. I got this beautiful sparkly fabric at the Dries Van Noten stocksale earlier this year and decided to let it shine by using it for a simple circle skirt. I'm not sure what it is, but it feels like a wool with golden threads woven through on the right side (the wrong side of the fabric is black and soft). I wish my pictures did it justice but alas, the rain made it into a pretty miserable experience.

This is just my basic circle skirt with a straight waistband and an exposed zipper in the back. I added a lining because the wrong side of the fabric is a bit textured, and I didn't want it to catch on my tights too much. The fabric is really really gold in some light, and a bit more subtle at other times.

So. Cold.

I'm going to finish by saying something about a bigger project me and Joost have been working on for... over a year now? We wanted to recreate the coat Sherlock wears in the BBC version, and I can proudly say that the men's version is now available on freesewing.org! There is a women's version in the works and I hope we can get that done soon, because I have some beautiful coating here that's just begging to be made into something...

Who Needs Armholes Anyway

This project has been a long time in the making. The shop I work at got this really fancy yarn, an alpaca/merino blend that was just the right amount of slightly fluffy and kind of had me drooling. I eyeballed it for a year or so and then it went on sale! Combined with my employee discount this made the whole thing way more affordable, so instead of my usual buy-just-enough-to-make-a-hat-tactic I splurged and got enough for a shawl. I had this one in mind, in black and white. Super stoked, I looked up how to do intarsia and got started right away!

I hated how it looked. The wrong side of the shawl shows so it has to be super tidy, and even though it didn't look awful I knew I was never going to like it. Frog, sulk and think.

I then decided a scarf or shawl wasn't the way to go. I got moar yarn and decided on a sweater. A black sweater with a ribcage on the front. Because what goes better with fancy yarn than pictures of bones?

BAM!

Finding this (free!) skeleton chart wasn't the end of the saga though. The chart itself was really low quality, so I copied it in Stitch Fiddle to get a larger version (I'll post it at the bottom but beware, there's a mistake somewhere in the ribs so it's not entirely symmetrical and I can't be bothered to fix it). Chart problem solved, I found out that I did not like the pattern that came with the chart (by which I mean I didn't understand it very well) so I looked for a pattern for a super basic sweater and used that instead. This bit about using two different patterns and files is going to be important later on.

I got started, and quickly decided to carry my yarn along at the back to avoid having to weave in ten million ends later. This made the skeleton pucker a bit because my tension wasn't always awesome but I don't care because I didn't have to weave in ten million ends. After a while I got worried the sweater was going to be too small. When holding it in front of me it looked like it was going to be really fitted, which would look... Strange. So I started over and chose a size large.

From then on, it was smooth sailing. I worked on this every once in a while for a couple of months, and it was fun to see the skeleton grow. I finished the last rows of the chart and proudly held my work up in front of me. The following ensued:

'This is great. This might be the coolest thing I've ever made.'

'I forgot to make armholes.'

Yep, because I was so focused on the chart I completely forgot there was another file with an actual pattern I had to follow. BUMMER. At this point there were three options: rip everything back to the point where the armholes should have started (urgghh), keep it the way it was and modify the sleeve pattern so it would be a dropped shoulder (so trendy) or cry.

I chose the second option and knit the back the same way as the front, meaning I had two rectangles with a neckhole. This also meant I had to eliminate the sleeve cap shaping (what a shame) and kind of guess how long the sleeves had to be (I got a bit too cautious, thinking too long would be better than too short, and they cover my hands now. They are also super wide so I can easily get super muscular now. YAY!).

After finishing all the separate pieces I blocked them, and realised things were looking... Big. I either overestimated my own size or everything grew during the blocking process, but this definitely went from 'slouchy' to 'I can smuggle an entire candy store into the movie theatre'.

But you know what? I love it. It's warm and soft and cuddly and just the right amount of fluffy, and I'm going to be the spookiest skeleton all winter.

PS: If you're wondering why I'm standing in this weird room with all the smoke and lipstick and stuff... I was helping Hanne with something for her next lingerie collection. It's going to be awesome, so you should all keep an eye on what she's up to! I mean, SMOKE MACHINE!

PPS: My version of the skeleton chart, for those who also want to be a spooky skeleton:

Got a Curse I Cannot Lift

So, I've been knitting a lot lately. I made my father some socks for Christmas, there's an oversized cardigan in the works, I have plans for more socks, hats and sweaters and I finished a scarf!

This yarn was one of those purchases that got the 'you bought something that matches your hair again' comment from the boyfriend, and he wasn't wrong at the time (I've gone a bit greener since then). It's Malabrigo Rios yarn in Teal Feather (I think) and it was amazing to knit with. It's 100% merino wool, so super soft as well. I think my face in the above picture says enough. I have used the worsted version of this yarn in the same colourway to make a hat before, so now I have a (somewhat) matching set!

But what about the pattern? What if I said this scarf was vaguely based on a scarf worn by Remus Lupin for like, one scene in Prisoner of Azkaban? I can't even find a decent picture of the original. Someone had written a pattern for a scarf like this but I can't deal with written cables and just trying to read this gave me a headache. In the end I simplified the pattern to the max, used Stitch Fiddle to make a chart and went to town.

The pattern is not that complicated and was easily memorized. It's basically two cabled rows (mirrored) on either side and a honeycomb panel in the middle. I worked on and off on this for a few months, but all in all it was done surprisingly quickly. I definitely got faster as a knitter! I had four skeins of this yarn, and used almost all of it, so this is a long scarf!

This scarf has been keeping me warm and toasty the past few cold days, and my friend Charlotte seems to approve as well!

Do you want to make your own vaguely Lupin-inspired scarf? Here's my pattern:

(Click to enlarge)

PS: Curious about the title? It's from this werewolf song.

Totally Radical!

I came upon a real treasure some time ago. One of my boyfriend's relatives, a woman who had done a lot of knitting when she was younger, said she had a ton of yarn and pattern books lying around, and if I wanted to have them? "Everything is clean! It's in bags! There are pattern books too, but they are very old-fashioned. I don't think you'll be able to use them."

I don't think I ever said yes so quickly.

And she was wrong about the pattern books. They are mostly from the eighties, and every magazine offers new inspiration for hundreds of amazing sweaters.

I felt selfish keeping this all for myself, so I thought I'd share some of the gems that I can't wait to make!

I feel like this is seriously missing from my life: a biiiiig sweater that makes me look like a dancing ice cream cone. Preferably slightly hairy.

Also incredibly lacking in my current wardrobe: peach/cream combos and massive shoulder pads. Go linebacker or go home!

This one is for Hanne! Or as she'd say: PINK FLUFFY UNICORNS DANCING ON RAINBOWS. Because why would you wear black when you can wear this and look adorable all the time.

New relationship goals, right there. Me and the boyfriend both have a mighty need for those shirt collars as well.

The girl on the left can only dream of being as awesome as the girl on the right, even with two optical illusion panthers (?) on her sweater.

Shoulder-showing sweaters are perfect for mocking manspreaders. You are basically required to spread your legs as wide as your leggings will allow at all times.

With this sweater I'll always feel like it's summer! A constant, blinding glare of eighties light and goodness. Sign me up.

Saving the best for last! I feel like there's something very feminine and sensual about the motifs on this classy sweater, but I can't quite put my finger on what makes it so. I do know that this is now on the top of my to knit-list, but maybe in pink?

If anyone wants to make one of these amazing patterns as well, do let me know! I'd happily scan the instructions, even though they're in Dutch so most of you will sadly have to guess at the magic behind these beauties.

I'm Johnny Two Hats, why do you think they call me that?

Just a warning: this post is going to have a LOT of pictures of my head. Photographing hats, quite the ego trip...

I've been on a bit of a knitting kick lately, and hats are one of my favourite things to knit. They're easy enough to make whilst watching tv, they don't use a lot of yarn so you can splurge on nice stuff and they don't take forever like a scarf or a sweater does. I made a few hats last winter and over the past few weeks, and today I'll show you ALL OF THEM.

The first one is one of my favourites. It's the Rooty, a pattern I spotted on Jo's blog before, and it was a bit of love at first sight. The construction is easy but quite clever: you knit the band first on straight needles and then join it in the round for the body of the hat. This creates a vent in the back so your entire head is covered without any awkward bunching up!

The yarn for this isn't super special: two different colours of sock yarn held together. It was on sale at the shop, and combined with my employee discount this made for a super cheap hat that has already gotten tons of wear!

Here's another firm favourite! This yarn is a nice and warm alpaca blend, and I sort of made the pattern up as I went with it. If I remember correctly it went a bit like this: knitting a swatch, calculating how many stitches to cast on, knitting ribbing until I got sick of it, deciding  this yarn would look cool in a seed stitch, cursing myself for doing what's essentially more knits&purls, finishing the hat as a slouchy beanie, deciding to forego a pom pom for once. I love it. It's burgundy!

This was a new addition to the hat collection, shown together with my friend Dead Waldo (wearing one of the very first hats I ever knitted. So deep, you guys). I had been eyeballing this yarn for a while now (the main problem with seeing things almost every day...) and went for it in the end. It's pretty interesting: bulky strands of white wool (that go from thick to thin) wrapped in dark blue yarn. I used a plain white bulky yarn for the ribbing since that looked horrendous in the effect yarn (so uneven!) and made a big fluffy pom pom with the leftovers. Toasty!

You wouldn't say it, but it's also the perfect hat to be dramatic in.

Next up: another Rooty hat! This one is made from a super luxurious alpaca and merino mix, and it took longer than all previous hats combined. Most of this was my fault: I wanted to knit the pattern with smaller needles (since this yarn is finer than what the pattern calls for) and add a stranded pattern around the brim, so I had to work with a certain number of stitches to be able to make a nice repeat. I think I cast this on and ripped it back out three or four times.

It worked out in the end though: the end result is a bit more snug than what I'm used to, but it's totally wearable. The yarn is amazingly soft, and it has skulls on it. Because I'm really a tough and badass person, yes sir!

And finally, a new favourite! I bought 100 grams of this yarn at Julija's shop when Tasia was visiting Belgium, and I LOVE the colour. Seriously, I have an appointment with my hairdresser later this week (back to blue!) and I'm tempted to bring this hat to show the exact colour I want. Is it silly to match your hair to your hat?

(At this point I was a bit fed up with taking pictures so all the other ones look like this. The life of a sewing blogger.)

Again, no real pattern here. cast on stitches until I think it will fit my head, try on a few times along the way, make big fluffy pom pom. The yarn is a lovely soft merino, dyed in small batches and OMFG THE COLOUR.

And with that, I kind of managed to get hats out of my system! There's more knitting on the agenda though, I have a cabled scarf (ouhhh) almost finished (around 50 cm to go!) and I have some yarn lying around that would like to become a Guernsey wrap...

(For those of you wondering about the post title, click here! And then watch the entire show, 'cause it's amazing.)

Horace?... Mind if I take this? I do love knitting patterns

This might be one of the most anachronistic garments I've ever posted. Wooly sweaters! In april! But honestly, I'm quite proud of how these turned out and I finally got the chance to take decent pictures, so to hell with such a silly thing as the weather. I knitted two sweaters!

Ah, our family. Me, the boyfriend, and a hairy old baby.

I bought yarn for a traditional lopi sweater when I was in Iceland last year, but only got around to the serious knitting in October or so. Once I started it got me into a sort of knitting kick, so I bravely promised my boyfriend I'd make him one for Christmas! (whilst still not making my dad a hat).

Both patterns came from a book I picked up in Iceland as well, aptly called 'knitting with Icelandic wool'. The pattern for my sweater is available for free here! The men's sweater pattern I used is called Riddari and the model doesn't seem to like woolen garments:

He looks angrier and angrier as the book progresses. It's hilarious.

I had never knitted a sweater before and found this kind a very nice way to start. You basically knit the body from the hem up to the armpits in the round, do the same for the sleeves and join the whole thing in the round to make the shaped yoke. No huge seams to sew together at the end, just a few armpit stitches!

I had only very limited experience with colourwork, but I didn't really encounter any problems. The biggest challenge was to get the tension of my floats even on the DPN's when I was knitting the sleeves on the men's sweater, but that was just a small bit. keeping count of my increases in the sleeves required the most attention, the rest was just easy breezy stocking stitch all the way.

I didn't want to make our sweaters too matchy matchy, although we do lean towards the same colours. They are both blue with red and white accents, but I went for different shades. The Aftur sweater has a more delicate yoke pattern so I went from a dark blue to a very dark grey and added shades of red, white and mustard yellow. I chose a faded blue for his sweater, paired it with heathered black and white and added a darker red for a bright accent.

I got all my additional yarn here (I really wasn't expecting to knit two sweaters!). Both of these sweaters were knit in Lett Lopi, which is a bit scratchy but behaves really well! Colourwork might be one of my favourite knitting techniques: it's not that hard to get the hang of and the results look really impressive. I've been working on and off on a cabled scarf for a while, but that's a sloooow project (as in, I'm taking my time). After that, I have some Brooklyn Tweed patterns lined up!

So, hooray for knitting and thanks to the boyfriend for doing this photo shoot thing! Most of the props were his idea, actually. Although it does paint a pretty clear picture of what our living room looks like.