The cow and the reptile

Finally finished object: Cow sweater for my niece. She commissioned this sweater when she turned 18, it should be a look-alike to a sweater she loved as a kid, and it took me just 2,5 years to knit it..... why? Because I took some side-tracks in-between and knitted some other easier projects, because this was a hard one. I had forgotten a bit how tiresome it is to do this kind of color-blocking work were you need to twist the two colours of yarn on the backside, and you need to deal with the mess of 7-10 yarn balls getting completely tangled up. But hey I managed! Hehe.

So it’s me to the left (the reptile or dinosaur, whichever you like) wearing my COS sweater and my niece to the right wearing her cow-sweater that I knitted. 

I developed the pattern myself. The nice thing about knitting is that you can approach it just like a pixel painting. So basically I just used some checkered paper and the tried to make a drawing looking like a cows spots, asymmetric and irregular.

Here came then also the difficulty of the knit. Because of the complete irregularity and randomness of the pattern you need to look and count on every single row. It’s not a knit to relax with, it actually requires high concentration.

I used twisted rib on the edges, I just love the twisted rib, because it gives such a nice definition, on the neckline I made a double folded edge, I love the puffyness it creates, opposed the the flatness of the single layer.

The beloved sweater from 15 years earlier

Sketch

From when I just started and had not realized yet I would need to toggle 7-10 yarn-balls simultanously

Etsy market

This weekend I am exposing at the Etsy Made in NL market in the "kas" in Utrecht, so please come by if you want to buy something. Particularly the big objects will only be on sale on the market because they are too big to ship.

My exhibition on the market is actually a discussion-piece, I want to talk to people about "true prices", therefore I have developed a pricing label that first shows the material and labor (front side) and then shows the price on the back side. I hope that by presenting this way, people in the split second when they turn the label will think about the material and labor that went into the object, before they turn the label to see the price and conclude that that is very expensive. Actually these "true prices" is the real price of objects if we want to be good to the planet and people, they are made locally often with recycled materials.

(c) Knitbitch

(c) Knitbitch, table seen from the top

(c) Knitbitch, QR-code

(c) Knitbitch, pricing label

(c) Knitbitch, Broomstitch lace bag

(c) knitbitch, shopping net

(c) Knitbitch, kitchencloth

(c)Knitbitch, Lila and Agnes

(c) Knitbitch, christmassbaubles / Julekugler

Twisted rib cables

Recently I have been finishing some odd skeins by making twisted rib yoga-socks and finger-less gloves. This was great way to try out a new stitch. I must say I really like this stitch, it gives good texture to the cable.

I first tried the yoga-socks by Twisted Fiber Design. This first try was with a frogged acrylic yarn I had once got from my mum with a slight fading. Not a super quality but good enough for a first try, however as you see the cables don't stand out very well. My sister has now nicked these leg-warmers, perfect for pilates she said.

First try in an acrylic fade, cables don't stand out every well here

For the fingerless gloves I had even less yarn so they became just big enough to cover the hand, though I did manage to insert a wedge for the thumb. This yarn was from a frogged collar from Margriet's sweater. So now she has got matching gloves. The stitch works much better in this yarn which has much more definition.

the stitch works much better in this yarn

Last try was in a light purple acrylic, this yarn has more body so the stitch stands out very well. Generally I find that the twist makes the cable stand out much better than a regular cable.

Leg warmers for a young girl who was very happy with these for her gym-lessons,
and she has got the matching light purple bag

35 years ago hand-me-down

The daughter of my sister has started wearing the rainbow sweater i knitted for my dad appx. 35 years ago. Isn’t it amazing? I’m quite flattered. I think she likes the unicorn colours (she used to like unicorns) and she finds it fascinating that i made it so long ago when i was about her age, plus many young people i know like vintage.
Here they are: 2 people; representing 3 generations

© Knitbitch sister

I had so many reactions to this post on Facebook, that I decided to display an anonymised view of them here. It sparked in me this idea about how a piece of knitwear can form a family connection, be an inter-generational piece when shared and bridge time. Just like the act of knitting itself often also is, passed down from generation to generation. at least I learned knitting from my grandma and my mum. I know nowadays many new knitters learn knitting from YouTube, so we are breaking the pattern.

© knitbmitch

Gift reveal

As the festive season is now over I can finally show you some of the kitchen cloth i had made for my mum, sister and cousin as advents gifts.
Almost Everything i make is made out of my existing stash, this is no different, only i make a special effort out of gifting them back the stash they have donated me. And their stash again for a big part is stash they have been donated by others. Anyway this way it returns to sender. Its quite a puzzle to try to match up different thicknesses of yarns and different colouts into sets that you think can work. And in this case trying to make total sets of 4 (advent) that match and fit their kitchen or taste

I regretted later that I had not used this green yarn to knit christmas trees.

Matching colours and yarns from the stash

Matching colours and yarns from the stash

Christmas decoration

just in time! On the 22nd of December just before leaving I finally got that Christmas decoration up and hanging. This time a modest amount of 7 knitted Christmas baubles hung on a string. All I could muster this year.

My street-facing window

and seen from the right side

There are some new patterns there, all of them using the new fair isle tam technique top and bottom. I'm a bit behind with my posts and knitting patterns.... hope to be able to share these patterns soon, then you should have plenty of time to prepare for next christmas :-)

Snow covered fir tree yulekugle

I knitted this yulekugle whilst we where on a delayed autumn holiday in the Vosges Mountains in France. In fact we where so late that we experienced some of the seasons first snow, which was beautiful.
I had seen these beautiful fair isle mittens by Ysolha where the top had been finished using the technique from a fair isle tam. I thought it would be nice to try that on the top and bottom of the yulekugle because I always find it difficult to make a nice top and bottom.
Also partly because I forgot to bring my sock needles I decided to knit using a magic loop, which I have never done before. I must say it really works fantastic, much less hassle especially with this fair isle tam finishing.

snow covered fir trees yulekugle with fair isle tam top and bottom

so whilst you are here, why don't you take a look at my amazing (saying it myself) numbered advent calendar yulekugler that I knitted for my mum a couple of years back.

Supersize wool ball

I decided to unravel my big grey pouf and to knit the I-cord a little longer as I still had some yarn left. This is what the ball of supersize yarn looks like. So heavy I could hardly hold it must be 3+ kilos.

giant yarn ball made with i-cord

first trying to knit on size 12mm which I had, but that made the fabric way too hard and dense

bought these beautiful size 35mm wooden needles at the Phildar shop in Saint Die des vosges, but unfortunately they made a too loose fabric

More mini-towels

Some more mini-towels, I'm a bit obsessed with the mosaic knitting, it's such a great stitch, minimum effort, maximum effect. That's what i like. I'm using the towel pattern by Purlsoho, but filling it in a bit myself as well, using different mosaic knit patterns. I love the U-cord edging detail.
This time I have again dived into my humongous heap of donated stash and digger out this turquoise bamboo yarn, which is originally from the Aldi. I got this batch from my cousin, who in tun got it I think from a distant kind of relative. To make it work I bought some supplementary navy and white from Schoeller+Stahl Bahia. Looks quite nice like this, even if I'm just saying it myself.
It has been a while since I made these, but can now publish as they have now finally been been given away.

Swapping with Jacq

Closed another swap deal with my colleague Jacqueline. Swapping is working so much better for me than Etsy, I seem unable to draw any traffic to my Etsy shop, some day soon I must install a badge pointing to the Etsy shop here on this page.
Jacqueline got two mosaic mini-towels for her brand new kitchen in her new house and I got a pair of Fred de La Bretonniere boots which she had too many. We are two happy people.

Grand Kingsday earbells

For kindsday this year I decided to wear the kings balls as ear-rings. why not?
got lots of positive responses.

The Christmas swap deal

Did this great swap with an old class mate; I got 3 sets of counterfeit royal Copenhagen Christmas decoration, which he produces under the radar together with an old friend. He got 8 knitted Christmas balls.

My Christmas decoration this year

Just picked up this random branch from the street and suspended it from the ceiling. Perfect to hang your knitted Christmas balls. I'm not a fan of the traditional Christmas tree. So sad all those trees that get cut down just to decorate our homes. Don't want to think of the carbon footprint it represents

Upcycle kitchen cloth

1350 gr of cotton stash, leftovers, recycled yarn, abandoned projects and yarn from the thrift shop has been turned into 37 kitchen cloths. Already given some away. My little effort to limit micro plastic washing into the oceans. Still plenty of ends to weave in, for a rainy Sunday. There is a very nice Danish Facebook group called "vi strikker vores kareklude selv".