The Valentines day shawl

All girls love harts. However, I have only found a few knitted lace patterns of harts. The reason is probably that they are hard to knit. I have gathered what I have found for this shawl, which I have named the Valentines day shawl.

This shawl consists of a centre, which is knitted in two parts (sewn together), an inner and and outer boarder, which are knitted on afterwards. In the centre, I have chosen one of the most famous Estonian lace pattern, named the Greta Garbo pattern. On the outside of the Greta Garbo pattern in the centre, I have added a row of harts.

The Greta Garbo pattern was made for a shawl which was knitted for Greta Garbo. Most of the patterns dedicated to famous persons is given to them when they are visiting Estonia. Not this pattern. According to the story, the shawl was sent by mail to Greta Garbo (in Hollywood) in the hope that she would use it. It is a lovely pattern, which comes in many varieties. I chose this one, which I found in Nancy Bush's book "Knitted Laces of Estonia". 

I found the pattern for the harts surrounding the Greta Garbo pattern in one of my favourite blogs; A passion for lace. Monique, who is writing this blog, has made many lovely patterns, many of which are sold on Raverly. These harts are from the "Love on the Edge" shawl. Outside the row of harts, on the inner border, I have used a pattern which looks like a thousand small flowers. You may find this pattern on Monique's Love on the Edge shawl as well. You may also find it in Sharon Millers book ”Heireloom Knitting”. I have used this pattern several times, among others on the lilac shawl and wrapped in a pink cloud. The pattern for the outer border is also from Monique's shawl Love on the Edge. I used this pattern, as I thought the three circles looked like small harts.

The shawl is knitted in a bamboo yarn called Habu Textiles XS-6, 20/3 Bamboo. The skeins are incredibly large, containing almost 1400 yards on each skein. I used only 1/2 skein for this shawl. This bamboo yarn is shiny, slippery and firm, so the shawl falls pretty heavy around the shoulders. It also makes it difficult to knit the pattern evenly. In hindsight, it might not have been the best yarn to knit the row of harts in the centre with, as the slippery yarn makes the treads that holds the shape of the harts together slide back and forth. It was also pretty difficult to block. Well, you never know these things until afterwards.

 

This was a relatively difficult shawl to knit, both because of the yarn, the knobs and because the row of harts in the centre and the pattern on the outer border was knitted on both sides. But I am pretty pleased with the result.

Lilies of the Vally shawl

One of the most beloved patterns in the Estonian tradition of lace knitting is the 'Lillies of the Vally' pattern. There are numerous variations on this pattern, all with nobs on a bent stalk. I just had to make a shawl with a Lilies of the Vally pattern for my book project. I chose my absolute favourite among these patterns, and made this shawl.

It has a very simple and traditional design, with a centre with the Lilies of the Vally patter and a rounded outer border. I found both patterns in Nancy Bush's book "Knitted Laces of Estonia", but you may find this Lilies of the Vally pattern i many other books as well, e.g. in Siiri Reimanns book "The Haapsalu Shawl".

The shawl is knitted in "Fine Lace" from Rowan. It gives a smooth wool shawl which falls heavily around the shoulder. The colour is a light violet.

When you learn to knit the nobs, this is not a terribly difficult shawl to knit. However, there are some special stitches that needs to be mastered first.  The pattern is also relatively complex, so it takes some time to remember it all. But the end results is always very pretty, and the pattern becomes very beautiful after blocking.

Trellis shawl

When I started knitting laces, I could not find any book in Norwegian describing the tecniques. Thus, I have decided to write one, including all my own designs. Looking at them, I realiced that most of the patterns I had made required at least some experience knitting laces. Thus, I wanted to make some patterns for beginners as well.

I went through all my books to find some easy patterns. I found the winner in Barara G. Walker's book series ”A treasury of knitting patterns”, and it is called "Trellis". All you need to know to knitt this pattern is to knitt two stitches togeter (in both directions) and yarn over. The pattern consist of four sticthes and four rows. As simple as it gets.

For the outer border a used a rounded edging I found in Nancy Bush's book "Knitted Laces of Estonia". This edging require some consentration on the pattern, but the most complex stitch is to knitt tree stitches togeter.

The shawl is knitted in one of the yarns I bought on vacation in London last fall. It is from Haiku, and is called A-32B silk mohair kusa. It is a lovely mix of  silk and mohair. I didn't have much of this yarn, as I bought the last three skeins of that colour in the store. So I made the shawl narrow.

 

This shawl is increadably easy to knit, and will hopefully be a nice introduction to lace knitting for beginners. Even if it is easy to knit, I thought it turned out rather well. It has clean lines, is light and not too noisy with too many patterns going on at the same time, as many of these shawls have a tendency to have. Some times plain and simple is the most pretty.

Rock carvings on Tweed

One of my favourite places from my childhood is a big stone with 3000 year old rock carvings. It is located in a field at Penne on the Lista peninsula on the southern tip of Norway, with a view strait out onto the ocean.

Sheep are gracing in the field, and the landscape is flat and sloping upwards towards Nordberg, where an old stone monument is situated. There are about ten ships and a couple of sacrificial pits on the rock. It is always blowing a cold wind out there.

On Nordberg Fort, above the stone, there is a museum where your children may make a print of the rock carvings based on some reproductions. I have to admit that it was I, and not my daughter, that did the drawings last time we visited the museums. The taught was to give the prints to my sister in law, who likes to paint rock carvings on T-shirts. However, this time it was me who needed the drawings.

This spring, my local yarn shop took in some new types of yarn, among them from Rowan. They started to sell two types of tweed. I used one of them, Rowan Tweed, for this jacket. When I was standing in the store with this yarn in my hands, I knew that it belonged in a cardigan to wear when hiking at Penne.

So I made this jacked. I chose a long ribbed border both on the arms and on the bottom of the jacket. The neck line may either be worn as an open or a high-necked collar, depending on the weather. Also, I was fortunate enough to find wooden buttons in exactly the same colour as the yarn.

 On the back, I embroidered one of the ships from the rock carvings at Penne. The embroidery is made by couture stitches, and the pattern was transferred to the jacket by tulle and a fabric pen. 

The boat looked a little lonely, so I decided to sew some waves and a sacrificial pit as a sun as well. The embroideries are made in a dark brown-purple colour, also in Rowan Tweed. Now, it only remains to bring this jacket with me the next time I visit my father at Lista.

The Lilac shawl

I love lilacs; their leafs, flowers and sent. When the lilacs blossom at my cabin or at home, I become happy and glad. So, when I found a pattern that reminded me of small lilac flowers, I just had to knit a lilac shawl.

For the centre of the shawl, I used the pattern resembling the small lilac flowers. Unfortunately, it's hard to see from the pictures. This is a commonly used pattern, and you can find it in many books, among them Sharron Miller's book "Heirloom Knitting", where the pattern is called"Small leaf". I Sharon Miller's book, the pattern is knitted in gather stitches. However, I wanted to knit it in plain knitting.

For the inner border, I used a pattern called Lilac leaf. This is a traditional Estonian pattern, and you may find it in Nancy Bush's book "Knitted Laces of Estonia". For the outer border I chose a rounded edging, which I also found in Nancy Bush's book.

The shawl is knitted in a lace weight yarn from Rowan called "Fine Lace". It gives a somewhat glossy wool shawl which falls heavily around the shoulders. The colour is somewhat dark and not really red enough for the lilac flower, but it was the closest that I could find in my local yarn store.

                                                                                 
These are easy patterns to knit. The largest challenge knitting this shawl was to keep track of where one pattern ended and the next started, but with some markers it was easy enough. These are fun patterns to knit, both for novices and more experienced lace knitters.

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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