glitterhippo (gestrickte sachen) : topic:knitknitknit

finished october - december 2008

glitterhippo — 2009-01-06T23:16:00Z

update:

my latest FOs with you... all made with yarns i ordered from richard at ColourMart

except for the cash/silk cardigan which was air-dried, all of these were hand washed in hot water and then tossed in the washer & dryer and came out lovely fulled and soft and warm and generally gorgeous... okay, here goes:

made from colourmart 10/28NM heavy dk wt 30/70 cashmere/wool navy, 5/14NM heavy dk wt 30/70 cashmere/wool nero navy and 6/20NM dk wt 50/50 cashmere/wool fuchsia

my christmas dress! from a drops design pattern that i modified a little and embellished with a lace edging from a japanese knitting pattern book (mentioned in an earlier post, i believe =). i wore it on the 25th for all the family christmas celebrations and i really liked it! now i'm pondering if it's really only a christmas dress or if it could maybe be worn at other times, too...

made from colormart 6/20NM dk wt 50/50 cashmere/wool fuchsia & greige

the first dress i knit! and not only the first dress, but the first garment i produced that is actually wearable and that people other than me like! and it's soooo warm and soft and nice... of course, i intended to wear it as a dress but it turned out a little short so now i wear it with jeans and i think that looks just fine.

made from colourmart 10/28NM heavy dk wt 30/70 cashmere/wool navy and 5/14NM heavy dk wt 30/70 cashmere/wool cardinal

a blazer/cardigan "Prepster" by Fay Lin from the "Stitch 'n' Bitch - The Happy Hooker" by Debbie Stoller, which i modified a little to my liking. getting the sleeves to fit in the armhole properly took a few tries on this one, but i'm really pleased with the outcome. i wear it a lot and am already looking at colours for the next one! =)

made with colourmart 5/14NM heavy dk wt 30/70 cashmere/wool nero navy and 6/20NM dk wt 50/50 cashmere/wool fuchsia & greige

two pairs of mittens, one fingerless and one not. the pattern for the fingerless ones is "Fetching" by Cheryl Niamath, from knitty. the other is "Daisy Stitch Hand Warmers" by Whitney Van Nes from the purl bee and i modified it to make mittens. warm! nice! i wear the fingerless ones a LOT and the others when it's colder. i've also worn the daisy stitch ones over the fingerless ones for added warmth which works fine, until i try to remove only the top mitten layer. =) ah well...

made with colourmart 10/36NM dk wt 55:45 cash/silk lemonade

and finally and most recently, a cardigan/shrug made from the lovely cash/silk mix that is shiny and soft and a joy to work with and to waer. i made it shrug larger as specified in the pattern to turn it into a cardigan, next time i'd probably just make the next size up and still make the ribbing parts longer, but for now it's fine and in summer over less and lighter clothing will be even nicer. i also made an i-cord chinese knot closure but haven't attached it yet. for now, i'm wearing it open or close it woth a brooch, but open is nicer, i think, because closed it looks like it's just a bit too small... maybe i'll add to the ribbing. we'll see...

day 5

glitterhippo — 2008-09-18T21:45:00Z

my parents came back from japan tonight... and they brought this book back for me.

i only leafed through it so far, but i can tell you this - it's beautiful. the patterns are so pretty, the design so ingenuous, it is amazing.

i had already decided on a pattern for the silk yarn from my last post, but now i'm thinking i'll make a scarf/stole based on three or four patterns from the book. but i think i'd need to practise first, some of these look pretty complex. i'll keep you posted.

the book is absolutely gorgeous. seriously.

day 4

glitterhippo — 2008-09-17T08:11:00Z

i fell asleep yesterday before i could post, so this is oficially the new day four. yesterday, something very exciting happended - it's here! okay, so "exciting" is stretching it a little... let me rephrase, something that made me very happy happened. my yarn arrived! it's here! and it's soooo beautiful. and soft. and it shimmers. now, what to knit with it....

sadly, i don't know how to get the colours to show correctly - both pictures show the same yarn. i think there is just too much blue in the picture. i'll ask boyfriend how to tweak that tonight. (yeah, i know, get the right set-up and put it in a soft box, but that seems like just too much trouble....)

okay, now i gotta work, then i'll go look at pretty patterns while i pat my yarn.

day 2

glitterhippo — 2008-09-14T19:52:00Z

boyfriend and i are watching "bullit" with steve mcqueen and i'm trying to get all my project pictures updated. turns out, i have yet to take most of the current projects pictures, so taht will be my goal for tomorrow (when there's daylight).

but for tonight, i'm going to show off two pieces i finished in august. one is a wips-wrestling ravelympics project that didn't quite make the finish line (i finished it a few days late). it's a ribbed scarf i made purely because i got the grey and the pink merino wool cheap (turned out the grey had a few cut strands, i repaired as best as i could as i went along. the pink was perfect, though) and the black wool came from my stash. i didn't weave in teh ends but knotted them to little bows along one egde of the scarf - i have yet to decide wether i like it or not, it was more a choice out of convenience and lazyness than of personal preference. if temperatures keep dropping at the current rate here, i'll have a chance to wear it very soon. =)

the other one is the second pair of baby booties i made from an online pattern by sock pixie (via ravelry) for friends of ours who have a new baby - the first pair turned out rather too big, was finished with the recipient in the next room and the two booties somehow weren't the exact same size. i don't have any pictures of those (my first pair of booties ever!), but these are of the second pair i knit. this is pre-wash, so the still look a bit lumpy, but they will be fine i guess. i used a heavier weight wool than appropriate for the pattern, so i had to change it quite a bit. i'm thinking of making up my very own baby bootie pattern, actually. i'll keep you posted on how i'm getting along. i also made a matching bib from a pattern in ravelry, i'll show you pictures of that tomorrow.

until we meet again - be happy!

day 1

glitterhippo — 2008-09-13T20:17:00Z

okay, so i didn't keep my promise to post more often - but i'm trying! knitting keeps getting in the way. and singing. and life in general.

i have a few FO's that turned out rather nice - tell you what, we'll make a deal. starting today, i will post something everyday to get this blog going once and for all. i'm changing the title of this post from something even less original to "day 1". (no, i won't tell you what it was. i would be embarrassed. maybe i thought of this posting-thing just to hide that title from you. nah, okay, i didn't. do you know why? because i'm more lazy than embarrassment-prone.)

annnnnnyway... i joined two KALs in september, a loosely organized one on ravelry to do the celtic knot stole and a really very pretty, interesting and exciting one, the mystery stole 4 kal, which i both love. but i have to admit, i like the ms4 more because - it's a mystery. and i love surprises, especially nice ones.

i'm doing the celtic knot in a navy laceweight 50:50 silk/wool blend and the ms4 in a cobweb weight cashmere yarn with 15% lycra (i really don't know why i picked that, except it was the only yarn i could find that came in the colour i was hoping to get). i had the cobweb wight yarn wound double stranded so it's an untwisted 2-ply and it looks and feels great. i ordered both yarns from colourmart, they were quick, friendly and i think their prices are awsome. i'm impatient to be finished knitting, so i can watch the yarn bloom to full glory - their yarns are oiled for machine knitting and have to be washed to bring out their full glory. i washed the swatch and the yarn went from "nice looking and very soft" to "dreamlike". ms4 comes with beads, i swatched with different colours and setteled for black in the end - it's looking really good. will post photos tomorrow.

oh, and i ordered another yarn from colourmart, simply because i could. not. resist. i tried for two days and then i stopped trying. i was just going to post a picture, but appearantly the yarn has already sold out and then the pictures are no longer available. instead i'll post a link to the page where similar yarns are listed, so you can have a look and i'll show you mine as soon as it gets here. oh, and i nicked a picture of my ms4 yarn for you to drool at:

okay, so my resolution for tomorrow is getting my project pictures up on ravelry and writing another blog post, this time with my own pictures.

until we meet again - be happy.

mission accomplished!

glitterhippo — 2008-04-08T12:58:00Z

it's finished! i did it! yay! you can see it in all it's baby-blue blocking glory.... who knew that blocking makes all the difference (or that it even existed, truth to be told - thank god for the internet! =). i'm rather pleased with how it turned out...

although i did screw up the tufted edge somehow - things just didn't line up, no matter how hard i tried and i didn't want to frog waaaaay back. the error must've been made fairly early in the piece, because i counted stitches and rows and everything (one night i even gave in and made myself some stitch markers) and the pattern lined up beautifully, only the last few rows were uncooperative. ah well.

maybe i'll add a crochet edge to make it a little bigger, although i have no idea what kind of stitch would be good for that. i'll figure something out... i'm thinking maybe i'll add the edge in a different yarn, something very lightweight and "hairy", if you know what i mean.... ideas, anyone?

the one hunderedth

glitterhippo — 2008-04-04T08:52:00Z

i just knit the 100th row of my japanese feather and fan shawl, as mentioned extensively in the previous post. and i thought i'd celebrate by posting my hippo-in-the-shawl picture. i like how it looks liek he's sitting in a lake. :o)

this picture was taken before i actually started knitting with the new yarn, so you can't see the difference, but the new yarn is working out quite well - the knitting actually looks much neater with the thinner yarn. i'm hoping the old yarn will even out a little better in blocking. all in all, i'm rather satisfied with how it's going and can't WAIT to be finished and show it off.... 33 rows to go. that is if i don't decide to make another pattern repeat, because maybe that will make it just soo much more gorgeous... we'll see.

light blue over the decades

glitterhippo — 2008-04-01T15:04:00Z

left: bought over 15 years ago --- right: bought today

today i found out that crocheting yarn colours haven't changed in the last... well... 15 years. when i re-organized my stash two months ago, i found two skeins of very lightweight mercerized cotton. both had started but unfinished lace doilies on them, which i frogged and rewound. because i was eager to start, i used the light blue yarn to cast on the japanese feather-and-fan shawl as featured in izzys blog. this ball of yarn must've been bought at least 15 years ago when i needed the thin mercerized cotton for crocheting at school. i had chosen baby blue and powder pink - i think these were the only pastel colours available and i was really into pastels then.

when i ran out of yarn today, i figured i'd get something matching or contrasting and was amazed that i was able to buy the exact same colour (if not the exact same weight)! and all the other colours i saw - black, white, undyed/natural, egg yolk yellow, burgundy, forest green, navy and the light blue i bought - were the exact same colours i remember having in my stash. and i got these stashed yarns as hand-me-downs from my grandmother... obviously, yarn colour really hasn't changed that much - at least not in crocheting yarn. which turns out rather well for me, but is still amazing, i think. i'd have thought the colours would have changed.....

in the picture below, you can see the old yarn (knit) and the new yarn (ball).

this is my current favourite project - my first attempt at lace knitting, too! in reality it is rather less complicated than i imagined, although i did have problems starting out. from my project journal:

finding the pattern: lovelovelove this.... need yarn for it!

first attempt: now trying with yarn i found and originally used for crochet in ground school...

first conclusion: you need to cast on really really loosely.

after first frogging: okay, halfway through the pattern i realized i made a mistake reading it and now... ah... i'm going to frog the whole thing, see if i can get the kinks to come out of the yarn and start over. (i feel like crying =) but i'm ready to do that because i'm really happy with the pattern and how i imagine it will turn out when i've kintted it correctly. the yarn works really well, too.

after second, third, fourth, fifth and not-counting-anymore froggings: the kinks came out of the yarn easily (i rewound it and held the roll of yarn in the steam when i ran a bath, then let it dry for a day - worked like a charm) but i still had problems figuring the pattern out so i contacted the wonderful izzy and she promptly helped me, explaining what i needed explained. she was really really nice and i want to thank her here again. i'm one third into the shawl now and i really like working on it. this is my first lace project and it's not as hard as i imagined, although it does require concentration. but i like that, i like the feeling of sinking into it.

second conclusion: you have to count a LOT. also i found i can't hold a conversation when knitting lace, but i can watch tv. if i am too tired, i make mistakes. well, no, actually i make mistakes wether i am tired or not, but when i am not tired it is easier to figure out where exactly they are and what i need to do to fix them.

current status: well, almost on the last page of the pattern now and i ran out of yarn.... (of course). i went to two of my local yarn stores that are in easy walking distance. i didn't get anything that really matched my yarn or made me completely happy, but i woke up with back pain today and it hurts most when walking (does this mean i am getting old? =) and didn't want to walk any farther. so i ended up choosing yarn that is the same colour, but slightly more lightweight (a nr.10 instead of what i think must be nr.5). i am currently trying if the difference is noticable. if so, i might consider ripping back and changing to a different yarn altogether - maybe something more wooly, like the ggf soft kid yarn i used for the chick-n-egg... we'll see.

please meet rick

glitterhippo — 2008-03-28T09:41:00Z

this is rick, the lobster. he's sitting in a bunch of lovely flowers i got from various people after singing my "lied und oratorium" final exam.

when i first forund the pattern for rick, i was so excited! a knit lobster! i HAD to try him right away.

in a little seaside town in ireland, there is a very small marina and a very small aquarium. there, they have fish, mostly, and starfish and - rick. rick is a blue lobster and is adored by everybody, especially by the children. and by me. so i a very happy i have my own rick now....