In Finland I picked up Veera Välimäki’s book “Huivileikki” (translation: Shawl Play) and the first shawl I made was called Viuhka.
Tag Archives: merino
Rainbow handspun yarn and rainbow birds
What is it about summertime that I’ve become interested again in spinning yarn? I first gave it a whirl last summer and I’ve played with it randomly through the year but last week I truly got the urge to make use of a big bunch of fibre my mum had given me. Continue reading
Nurmilintu shawl
I thought I’d be making socks for the relatives I’m seeing in a few months but… I’ve become fascinated by shawls.
I wanted a variegated or striped yarn in red colours but I couldn’t find anything locally so I fell back on the trusty Morris and Sons Empire yarn (100% Australian superfine merino). I chose the 2ply because I hadn’t tried it before but I wasn’t sure if it would work because it’s incredibly thin with 700m in a 50 gram ball. Continue reading
Lokki pipo beanie
In Finland I picked up a knitting pattern book called “Pipo on Pääasia” which roughly translates to: The beanie is the most important issue… which misses the play on words from the Finnish because “Pää” means “head” so… the beanie is at the head of important issues. Sometimes language nuances just don’t translate :)
Anyway, keen to continue cabling practice, I checked out a few of the patterns and decided on one called Lokki (which translates as “seagull”) that looked suitable for a few balls of Debbis Bliss Cashmerino Aran I had waiting to be used.
I read reviews on Ravelry suggesting that some people found even the large size too small so I began with that and tried it on my head as I went. It was feeling large but it was hard to judge how large it would be. I finished it up and … oh boy … it’s massive!
When fingerless mittens go right
After my recent hiccup with fingerless mittens, I took a more sensible approach and knitted test swatches, took measurements, created charts to figure out stripe patterns and thumb increases, and came up with a variety of much better fitting fingerless mittens.
The end of financial year sale at Morris and Sons suckered me in so I stocked up on random colours and played around with stripes, ribs, and yarns. Continue reading