Wraped in a pink cloud

When I was in London last fall, I found a beautiful yarn from Haiku called A-32B silk mohair kusa. Unfortunately, they only had some leftovers left. I bought everything where they had enough of the same colour for an entire shawl. They also had two lovely pink shades, but not enough of each to make an entire shawl. Thus, I decided to make a shawl with different shades of pink on the centre and the outer border.

For this shawl, I used a twig pattern I found in Siiri Reimann's book "The Haapsalu Shawl". This is a classical Estonian pattern, and you can find it in almost every book on this subject. For the outer border, I chose a rounded border from Nancy Bush's book "Knitted Laces of Estonia". This is the same pattern I used for the Weeping willow shawl.

This is an easy shawl to knit. The reason why I did not make it any lager, is that I did not have more yarn left. But I thought that it would be perfect for a little girl wanting to wrap herself in a pink cloud.

The Day flower shawl

This shawl I have called the Day flower shawl, as the motif in the centre of the shawl is of a small Chinese herb called the Day flower (Commelina communis in Latin). This herb has some lovely small blue flowers (see picture). I really love this pattern, and it is one of my favourites.

 

 I found this pattern in Barara G. Walker's book series ”A treasury of knitting patterns”. The pattern is called ”Dayflower”. The pattern in the inner boarder is called ”English lace”, and I found it in the same book. I composed the pattern in the outer border myself, based on a small flower motif I found in Siiri Reimann's book "The Haapsalu Shawl".

 

The centre and the inner boarder is knitted in two equal parts, and sewn together in the back of the shawl.  After the two halfs are sewn together, the outer border is knitted on. This makes the shawl symmetrical. For this shawl I used a beautiful mohair yarn, which I found on my trip to London last fall. The yarn is soft and elastic, and it fills in the pattern. This is important to make the Day flower pattern look good.

This shawl is relatively difficult to knit. Even after knitting a considerable number of lace shawls, I still had to concentrate when making this shawl. The reason was because the number stitches changed across the rows of this patter, making it difficult to remember and hard to block out afterwards, as some rows had considerably fewer stitches than others. It is however this change in the number of stitches that makes the beautiful arches in the stem of the flower. Thus, even if it is a bit hard to make, it is absolutely worth wile the effort.

Also the English lace is a bit of a challenge to knit, as the pattern is also knitted on the purl side. These are not the patterns you chose the first time you knit lace shawls, but if you are experienced and want a challenge, they are worth all the effort. 

A sensation of the forrest

When I visited London last fall, I went to one of my favourite yarn shops on the net, Loops. There I bought many lovely yarns, among them a silk and mohair mix called Alchemy from Haiku. I fell completely for this yarn, and bought many different colours, among them this beautiful green called Junep. It reminded me of the forest a summers day, and I tried to make a pattern that gave me the same sensation.

In the centre, I used a pattern called "Twin leaf pattern" from Siiri Reimanns bok "The Haapsalu Shawl". The inner board is a classic Shetland pattern I found in Sharon Miller's book ”Heirloom Knitting”. For some reason, it reminds me of spruce branches, even if I do not think this was the intention of the pattern. I made the patten for the outer boarder myself, based on the leaf in the pattern in the shawl centre.

This was not a terribly difficult shawl to knit. The biggest challenge was the inner boarder, as the pattern is knitted on every row. Also, I wonder if it would have been better to knit it as a stole and not a rectangular shawl, as the yarn made it a bit thick when it is folded. However, the Norwegian summer nights are not particularly warm, so the extra thickness may proof to be a blessing.

New blinds for my daughter new room

When my daughter was four, and were going to get her own room, she wanted every thing to be pink. The walls, the sofa bed and the blinds. Now, when she is eleven, pink is not so cool anymore, and we needed to redecorate her room. This time, the colours are white, black, turquoise and other shades of blue. Much more suitable for a young lady.

She bought some lovely checked pillows in different tones of blue for her new room. She loved this pattern so much that she asked me to make her some new blinds in the same pattern. So I did.

I used the old blinds as background, making the new blinds very thick and preserving the mechanism for folding the curtain up during the day. It worked like a charm. But best of all, my daughter was pleased.

Here is a picture of her old and very pink room.

Hardanger bunad in a hurry

One of my ongoing project this year has been til make a Hardanger bunad for my daughter. However, since she started in the marching band this fall, she will not need her bunad for the 17. May parade, since she will be wearing a uniform. Thus, I was in no hurry to finish her bunad. However, we received an invitation to a confirmation in the beginning of May, and I decided to try to finish the bunad before then.

The only problem was that I had only five days to finish the bunad. I had finished all the embroidery on the chest cloth, the belt and the apron, which where all finished. I also decided to purchase a shirt, as my 11 year old daughter is still growing quite a bit. So the only thing remanding was to assemble the bunad itself. I was a bit unsure whether I would be able to make it, but I decided to give it a try. I have to admit that I was working from I came home from work and until late in the evening every day that week. When I was finished I was tired, but I made it!!!!

I had some serious challenges making this bunad, particularly since my daughter is only eleven and I bought the materials for a grown up bunad. I did this to avoid making a children's bunad which she could only use a couple of years. The challenge lay in assembling the bunad in such a way as to make alterations to the size simple. This meant that I had to deviate from the guidelines somewhat, but it was easier than I feared. The main problem now is that there is a lot of fabric in the skirt for such a small girl (it is made of heavy wool), and she does not fill inn the area behind the chest cloth very well. I guess this will be better as she grows older.

As I was going to buy the shirt, I expected this to go without a hitch. Unfortunately, this was not so, as both the neck line and the manshetts around the wrists were too tight, even if I bought a small sized grown-up shirt. So I had to increase the size, resulting in the arms being far too long. So I had to adjust them as well.

Finally, I have to tell you about the apron. It is a copy of an apron made by the sister to my father-in-law's mother. She was from Eiterheimsneset in Hardanger. I do not know how old this apron is, but moster Mari (as she was called) died of old age in the mid eighties, so it is probably quite old. The apron is made in cotton, as the original, and has a very light and beautiful Hardanger embroidery in the border. My mother-in-law is waring the original apron on her bunad, so now grandmother and granddaughter have matching bunads with identical aprons.

It was a very exhausting week, but I am very pleased with it. The house looked terrible, and my husband was not thrilled by having to do all the chores in the hose for an entire week, but it does not matter. I still have a deep feeling of accomplishing something good. Now, I only have to make a linen apron and a linen shirt with elaborate Hardanger embroideries, and to make a new chest cloth and belt with pearl embroideries, before I consider this bunad project for officially finished. Luckily for me, the rest of the work can wait a couple of years until my own daughter's confirmation.


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The London-Beads Shawl

I knitted this shawl on vacation in London last fall. I needed something to knit, and I had recently purchased six skeins of KidSilk Haze in the colour pearl. The only thing I was missing was a pattern. So I went through all my books and found three of my favourite diamond patterns, and put them together for this shawl.

I found the pattern for the centre of the shawl in Siiri Reimann's book "The Haapsalu Shawl". The pattern looks like two twigs which is intertwined, with nubs in a zigzag pattern in between. I love the simplicity and tree dimensionality of this pattern, and the symmetry of the nubs winding themselves in a slightly larger zigzags than the intertwined twigs.

For the inner border, I choose a pattern which I found in Sharon Miller's book "Heirloom Knitting". This pattern is called "The Shetland Bead Lace Pattern", hence the name of the shawl (since I knitted the shawl in London).

This pattern looks very easy to knit, but it is not. The problem is that, since the lace is knitted in gather stitches, with pattern on both sides, it is hard to see where in the pattern you are at the moment. I made many mistakes, and had to unravel my work more than once.

The outer border is also from Sharon Miller's book, and is knitted onto the shawl in a traditional Shetland manner: First you pick opp stitches along the edges of the shawl (if the inner boarder is not knitted in a circle). Then the outer  border is knitted crosswise onto the shawl, by casting on the number of stitches in the with of the border, and by knitting together the last stitch in the border to the next stitch in the shawl on the pearl side.

This is without a doubt my favourite way of attaching the outer border, as it gives rice to an almost endless amount of patterns. It is also easy to compose your own patterns with this way of attaching the outer border.

This was not the easiest of shawls to knit, in particular due to the pearl lace pattern in the inner border. If you have not knitted nobs before, they will also require some practise.

I am pretty pleased with how the shawl turned out in the end. It became a large, soft and warm shawl. As a bonus, I think of the lovely week we spent in London, and the trip to Stone henge, every time I look at this shawl.

Flower shawl

Here is a shawl I knitted last fall, which I have called "Flower shawl". The base of the pattern is taken from a design from Heirloom Knitting, called "Daisies shawl". However, I did not like the fringes on the edges of the shawl, so I added a rounded knitted lace edge which I found in Nancy Bushes' book "Knitted Laces of Estonia", which I liked much better.

The shawl is knitted on 4 mm. needles in KidSilk Haze from Rowan. I have used the colour named pearl, which has a beautiful off white tone. KidSilk is a lovely mixture of mohair and silk, which gives the shawl volume even when knitting with such thin yarn on large needles.

This shawl is relatively easy to knit, but it is fun to knit as well, even for the more experienced lace knitters. It was far more fun to knit than I expected, and it is also fast to make. I can truly recommend this pattern. I have written down the pattern (with my lace edging), and you can download it for free HERE. Unfortunately, it is in Norwegian, but with Google translate, it should be possible to follow also by non-Norwegians.

Needle bound driving mittens

Here comes the last pair, and the jewel in the crown, of my series of mittens based on Heidi Fossnes' book "Håndplagg til bunad og folkedrakter". The original pair of mittens was found in Sauherad in Telemark. The original pair came to the museum in 1892, but they do not know exactly how old they are. They do, however, have a similar pair at the museum, which they know is from 1811, because it is embroidered on the back of the mittens. Thus, it is reasonable to believe that this pair is from the first half of the nineteenth century.

These mittens are made by an ancient technique called "nålbinding" (Norwegian) or needle binding (English). They have found garments made by this technique all the way back to the viking area, and even earlier. Needle binding is great fun and quite easy to do, when you get the hang of it. Basically, you are winding the yarn around your thumb, while you are anchoring it in the loop under and besides. This is an excellent technique to use on mittens, as it does not run. This makes the mittens easy to repair. On the other hand, it makes it extremely difficult to correct an error, as it is virtually impossible to unravel the work. The last point was a problem for me, as I had never tried needle binding before. On one occasion, I had to cut of an entire thumb to fix a problem.

Heidi Fossnes does not describe how to needle bind in her book, so I had to look it up on the Internet. It turned out not to be a problem, as there are several good instruction videos out there. You only have to search for "naalbinding" or "needle binding", and several alternatives pops up. I preferred this video. It is in German, but if you know some German (as I do) it is a very good instruction. For this project I used "der Oslo stitch", since it looked like this was the stitch applied in the original pair of mittens.

The mittens are made in PT 3, which is a thick wool yarn which is easy to felt. The mittens are relatively large when they are made (43 cm), but they shrink dramatically during the felting and is just over 30 cm when finished. The embroideries are made in a combination of cotton thread by DCM and a fine wool thread by Appelton, which I doubled in order for it to fill out the embroidery properly.

I could not use a fabric pen to draw the pattern on the mittens prior to the embroidery, since the felting made the drawings unclear. Thus, I needed to sew these mitten by free hand. Thus, I waited a while, to get some practise on the other mittens I made in this series of mittens (which was probably wise), before finishing the embroideries on these mittens.

In the book, there were almost no instructions on how to make the actual mittens, only a down scaled drawing of the outline of the mitten. Thus, I did not know how many stitches to cast on or how to increase or decrease to give the mittens its shape. This was a bit problematic, since needle binding is like knitting and crocheting: it tightens up after a couple of rounds. Thus, it took me several attempts to get it right (in particular considering the difficulties I had undoing what was already made). I have written down the pattern for the mittens I made, in order to make it easier the second time around.  You can download the pattern free of charge here. Unfortunately, the pattern is in Norwegian, but with the help of Google translator, I hope it will be possible to understand for non-Norwegians as well. Together with the book and an instruction video of how to do the needle binding, it should be possible to make these mittens. The embroideries are pretty hard to do, but the needle binding is easy when you get the hang of it. And the result is tremendously rewarding. Good luck!

Fingerless mittens with rose seam II

Here comes my favourite pair in this series of mittens based on Heidi Fossnes' book "Håndplagg til bunad og folkedrakter". Originally, this embroidery was sewn onto a pair of grey mottled gloves found on Vaalund farm in Tinn in Telemark. They do not know how old the gloves are, but they believe they are from the turn of the last century.

As I was making fingerless mittens for my film project, I used a pair of white mittens based on a pattern from Ål in Hallingdal as a background for this embroidery. My mittens are knitted using a thin yarn called Dale Baby Ull on needles number 1,5 mm. The embroideries are made in a fine wool thread from Appleton. In comparison with the other pair of fingerless mittens with rose seam, this thread worked very well on these mittens, because the area to fill in the embroideries was much smaller.

In the beginning, I did not notice this pattern in the book, because the embroidery kind of despaired in the mottled background. But when I saw the drawings, I figured that maybe they weren't so dumb after all. I had already finished the number of mittens that I had promised to make, but I had a skein of baby wool lying around, so I thought it might be worth while to give it a try. And I have not regretted this decision for a moment.

This is definitely my favourite pair. In particular, I love the straws curving slightly up towards the index finger. I am also pleased with the colour balance in the embroidery, and the little circle on the thumb, which I attached to give it some colour on the back of the mitten. And I also love the pictures my husband made for me.

Fingerless mittens from Valle in Setesdal

Here comes yet another pair of fingerless mittens in my series of mittens based on Heidi Fossnes' book "Håndplagg til bunad og folkedrakter". The original pair was found on Løyland farm in Valle in Setesdal. They do not know how old these mittens are. You can find a picture of a reproduction of the original pair of mittens here.

These fingerless mittens are knitted in a yarn called Falk from Dale on 2 mm needles. The embroidery is done with a fine wool thread from Appelton. I doubled the thread to give the pattern more fullness.

I knitted two pair of mittens; one white pair and one black pair (like the original). The white pair was the first one I made, and the black pair was the last mittens I made in this series of mittens.

These were by no comparison the most difficult pair to make, despite that they looked strait forward. However, the angle of the stitches and the coarse knitted fabric made it virtually impossible to get the edges of the hart pretty and even.

Furthermore, on the black pair, I was not able to transfer the motif by tulle and fabric pen, as I was able to on the white pair. Thus, I needed to sew the pattern on the black pair by freehand.

These are not the pair that you start on the first time you try to make such mittens. They are far to difficult to make. But if you have some practice, and you get the angles right, they become really beautifull.