4th Advent Sunday

goodmorning Sunday 4th Advent, the count-down or up whichever way you like to see it, is almost finished, christmas is near.

Here's the pattern for the 4th Sunday, enjoy the knitting.

3rd Advent Sunday

 goodmorning, here's your pattern for the 3rd Advent Sunday Yulekugle. Hearts for compassion.

2nd Advent Sunday bauble

Here you go, your project for 2nd advent Sunday.

Happy knitting!!

1st Advent Sunday

 Here's the first advent sunday bauble, have fun.

Mega knit lounge boy

This is the third incarnation of this material. In this incarnation it has become a low lounge pouf or fat boy. The fat yarn is a knitted i-cord that I knitted appx. 10 years ago, when I first crocheted the mega crochet pouf. What happend was that I found some left-over yarn, and as the pouf couldn't become much bigger, I had to think of another object. My husband liked very much to sit on the pouf but was missing back-support, hence I thought to re-knit it into a twisted cube, so that the long side would function as a back-support.

the lazy leaning pouf with some back support

Close-up of the texture, where you can see the knitted i-cord

Staircase for size

Me holding the mega yarn ball

knitting on needle size 35mm, too loose texture

Knitting on needle size 12, too tight texture

knitting on needle size 25, perfect texture

Second incarnation, the mega crochet pouf from 2007

The first incarnation of this material, a jacket probably knitted in 1992

The Steve McQueen cardigan

This sweater once was featured in the Volkskrant magazine, and my hubby immediately shouted; This is what I want! It took a while to find suitable yearn, it has to have body to not be too feminine, yet on the other itchy yarn; nonono. Finally last summer in Norway we found the lovely Rauma Tumi yarn, 50% wool, 50% alpaca, just perfect for the project.

first of course quite some work went into figuring out the stitch as well as figuring out how the switch from band to body was done. Quite opposite the normal way of knitting I ended up decreasing stitches from band to body to make the stitch -pattern work.
Also spend quite some effort on getting those fully fashioned details that I love so much. Eventually I love how the shoulder is looking. I decreased 3 stitches at the time in a sort of cable way. Looks fantastic, but I must say it's a little too narrow, so the sweater tends to pull backwards a bit.

By now I have also put on elbow patches (no pictures)
My hubby loves this cardigan so much, he's wearing it all the time. I think I'll have to make another one, just like this one when it's worn out.

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi

Finally when I saw a picture the Art Walk Cardi by Hannah FettigI knew what to make with the yarn from my half unraveled synthetic green sweater from the 80's. I had come a long way of endless swatching in search of a nice stitch that would work with this yarn and colour. Seed stitch variations turned out either too vintage, old-fashioned or boring to work with the colour. More textured swatching made the fabric look like a forest or lawn. Now here was something (the Art Walk Cardi) in a super simple texture stitch which just worked perfect.

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi by Knitbitch

I admit I totally copy catted it. To buy the pattern on Ravelry I had to buy an e-book with a total of 13 patterns, so I simply looked at the pictures and played it by "ear" or in this case rather eye. Also I decided to just finish all the yarn, so the Cardi became a bit longer. The cropped version looks younger and fresher, but this longer version probably fits my figure better.

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi by Knitbitch

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi by Knitbitch

this is my sweater from the 80's that I unravelled

Mosaic knit mini towels

The one small trip to the home country and I come back home with 3 bags of donations. Which really is just yarn stash that somebody else doesn't know what to do with. You can check my Ravelry there is some of this stash that I'm happy to swap or even just give away.

So figured some of this stash could be gifted back to the giver in the form of mini-towels, so I knitted some using mosaic knitting technique. Always wanted to try mosaic knitting by hand. Once in a previous life I did do slip stitching on the knitting machine.

It's really a wonderful way of knitting, so much more easy than real intarsia or fair-isle. The Bible of mosaic knitting is of course by Barbara G. walker. For these towels I used the free pattern and instructions by Purlsoho. I added a couple of variations myself inspired by a Danish kitchen cloth FB group. Particularly nice I think is the detail of the attached i-cord edging and the strap that I made using Purlsoho instructions. Not so easy. Honest is honest I have to watch the instruction video every time.

Knitted christmas balls advents calendar

This knitted christmas balls advents calendar is for my mum, she loves christmas. It's a labor of love, I would say, what have I gotten myself into? 25 christmas balls is a lot. I have now knitted 14, just 11 to go..... the pattern is now published in my Revelry shop, so you can start making your own.

Number one

Finally started knitting that advents calendar started. Funny note: I'm starting knitting in the same place where I first started designing it in january 2014, at our favorite chalet in the Vogezen, France.

How-to knit Kings Balls

Here's the patterns for the Kingsday rings I was knitting in-public on Kingsday in Korte Lauwerstraat in Utrecht. Pattern is fairly straight forward and self-explanatory. The basic model is based on the infamous christmas balls by Arne & Carlos. If you want to make an easier and simpler model, you can easily drop the flag stripes in the tips.

Easy Peasy necklace

Spool-knitting a necklace is super-easy, and it creates quick decorative results, like this necklace I'm wearing here. Probably made it in an evening, using some scrap-yarns that I had lying around. Using these two tints of mustard yellow and olive green which I like very much right now.

Old knitting photos

Recently I posted the finger-less gloves with Space-invaders sort-off intarsia pattern. I was telling how these gloves were made of the yarn I had used for the rim with running-men for a sweater I knitted many, many years ago.
One of my good old friends Sandy picked up on this story. Out of her archive she dug pictures of me knitting the sweater back then. Unfortunately I'm myself much more disorganized, live in boxes because of never-ending re-build etcetc, so I cannot find any old pictures right now, but one day when things get more organized I will dig out an old picture were I'm actually wearing that sweater.

we think the pictures date back to 1986'ish. Which means the finger-less gloves are re-knitted out of yarn dating back almost 30 years ..... this is what I love about yarn, you can use it again and again, (as long as the moths haven't eaten it) because it's and (almost) endless thread. Read more about that in my re-knit manifesto.

The pictures are from times when people were more conscious about when to taking a picture, i.e. took pictures at special occasions etc, were it was not normal to take picture of everything all the time, so Sandy remembers that Ulla (to the left) and myself were making fun of here photographing us in such a uninteresting situation.

How I loved those shoes.

Street inspiration from Hong Kong

I was lucky to be able to visit Hong Kong in the beginning of December. Here are some inspiring street shots that I made along the way.

christmas Knitting graffiti in Patterson Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Swatch shop front

Exhibition by local HK artist Prudence Mak in the mall in front of the office.

Japanese knitting books galore at Tomato Books. There was even Arne & Carlos translated to Japanese.
 Thx Jur for the tip. But I couldn't choose. #hk

Chinese knitting magazine galore at Shenzhen Central station.
Again surprised by how many Scandinavian and English original titles there were