If someone told me three years ago, when I first started knitting, that in 2007 I would be on MTV talkning about knitting, I wouldn't have stopped laughing. Well, I guess sometimes unexpected things happen. Anyway, the Stitch n' Bitch Stockholm co-ordinator, Tanja, was contacted my MTV Sweden last week because they wanted a couple of knitters to talk about the SnB group and knitting in general on their morning show "Mycket mer än müsli" (Much more than müsli). So Tanja asked me if I would do it, and I thought it would be fun, so why not?

The show will air on Friday the 20th, and on Fridays they always have like a fashion "theme" to the program so two thirds of the very stylish Swedish fashion designers at Dagmar were invited too. They do a lot of fabulous knitwear, it was great meeting them.

I've never been to a television studio before, and the whole thing is a bit surreal and I can confess I felt a bit out of place and old amongst all those young, hip people. But they were all very nice.

The funniest part of the whole thing was that Swedish pop star Darin (who, like so many other these days it seems, came to fame by participating in the talent show "Idol" here in Sweden) was also invited to the show. They programme hosts had set up a number of tasks he had to accomplish, one of which being KNITTING! So I had to teach Darin how to knit... Poor dear, he probably thought it was terribly boring, but I'll grant him that he did make an honest attempt!

Blogger and editor of new fashion magazine Modette, Eleonore, is the fashion commentator on the programme, and she has posted some photos on her blog from the recording, and to the left there is a photo of some of my knits and WIP's along with the lovely needle case Myra made for my birthday!

So if you want to see me talk a bit about knitting and teach Darin how to knit, tune in:

Time: Friday April 20th 07:30-09:00 (rerun at 14:30) Swedish time, of course...
Channel: MTV Sweden

I really like knitting socks, but a big problem with socks is that you don't really see them, they usually disappear in a pair of shoes or under a pair of trousers. And wearing short socks with skirts isn't all that attractive in my opinion. There are so many lovely patterns for knee-high socks out there that I've been ogling for a long time and I've finally decided to knit a pair. I bought some Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply last summer on sale but had no plan for it. I knitted the "Molly's Headband" with it, but I still have about five 1/2 balls left. Then I remembered the lovely sock pattern in Interweave Knits Winter 2004, and lo and behold, I needed four balls of... Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply to knit those!


 Well, now that's settled! I've been a good knitter and done my swatch, chosen needles and started knitting the openwork rib (much more pretty and interesting than an ordinairy rib).


However, it's definitely turning out way to stretchy. And I've considered myself one of those people with ahem, shapely calves (a fairly common topic among sock knitters) and suspected that they would be too tight. Well, no real harm done, I'll just exchange my 3 mm dpns for 2,5 mm instead and start over.


I could almost claim that I'm keeping with Project Spectrum, since there are some definite pink flecks in this heathery yarn, but my PS contribution today will be these lovely daffodils in my window (at home! I have Easter holiday and won't be back at work until next Tuesday!).

This was actually a fun knit, despite the last four rows of 1600 stitches and actually having to cast off the same 1600 stitches! I can definitely see myself knitting more of these lovely scarves, but probably not back-to-back. This is my first "Handknit Holidays" project, but I promise more in the future!

This was an intended gift from the beginning, I had the yarn but was looking for a suitable pattern. My friend C loves this shade of blue and has several pieces of clothing and accessories in this colour (just look at the pictures!), so the yarn basically had her name on it from the very beginning.

I think she's quite happy with it, but she was perhaps not overly happy that I forced her to model it for me to day because she has a really bad cold at the moment, poor C.


Pattern: Ribbon Scarves from Handknit Holidays
Design: Jillian Moreno
Yarn: Rowan Kidsik Haze, shade 582 "Trance", less than 1 1/2 balls
Needles: 5 mm circular
Modifications: None, really, I made the version two shawl, but omitted the glittery edge


Click on the small images to see larger versions, as usual.

Yesterday Project Spectrum entered phase two with new colours: pink, green and yellow. I find it hard to see myself knitting anything in yellow, but I like both pink and green, so I'm sure I'll knit something using those colours. However, I'm just about to cast on for two new projects that are neither, so I think I have to hang back with my PS participation for a little while. It's too dark to take any decent pictures of what I'm about to start, so I might show you those tomorrow instead.

I want to start by thanking everyone for their nice comments about my Feather and fan scarf! You are all so nice!

I'm keeping with the Project Spectrum colours still (not a big chore for me, since I love blue and grey...) and have soon finished another scarf. I have earlier praised "Handknit Holidays" and decided to try a little something from that book. It's a very simple scarf in Rowan's Kidsilk Haze, completely in stocking stitch, but you start out with 100 stitches and end with 1600 to create a kind of ruffle. The yarn came from my stash, I received two balls of KSH as a membership gift from Rowan a couple of years ago and I consider this a nice use of it for my little experiment. I have some ideas about what to knit next, might be an old UFO or something new... I will probably have something to show you in a few days.

Here's the frilly scarf in it's current state:


Bye for now!

Spring is here! Oh, wonderful, glorious spring. Why do I have spend the day indoors when I want to sit in the sun with my knitting or a good book? (Remember - this coming from a person who all her life has detested early sping, I suppose it's got something to do with age? I mean mine.)

Anyway, I've actually finished TWO peices of knitwear in the last couple of weeks, although I have only pictures to show you of one of them. These photos are hot off the camera, so to speak, C took them less than an hour ago after we'd had lunch at Texas Longhorn. I had a terrible urge to post them, so here they are:


Pattern: generic Feather and Fan pattern
Yarn: Fonty mohair
Yarn Source: Nysta
Needles: 7 mm circulars


Click on the images if you want to see larger versions (as usual). I don't have a link to a pattern that I can give you, but just Google "feather and fan" and you'll find a ton of versions of it.

The other thing I've finished is the Lace Leaf Scarf from Vogue Knitting summer 2005, but I've yet to document the finished product. Hope to post about it soon, though.

I normally try to keep this blog and it's contents strictly about knitting and crafting, but sometimes I have to make an exception.

A week ago, Friday march 16th, I went to the much expected Dolly Parton concert here in Stockholm. She is currently doing a European tour, and this is the first time she's toured Sweden since the late 70's.

I've been a Dolly fan for quite a few years now, I have a couple of "best of" type of albums with her classics like "Jolene", "9 to 5", "Coat of Many Colors" and others. And I also have her brilliant bluegrass albums from 1999-2002; "The Grass Is Blue",  "Little Sparrow" and "Halos & Horns", of course. I will readily admit that I didn't listen a lot to Dolly during the 90's, it wasn't really my cup of tea at the time, although I did sectretly love her old hits "Islands in the Stream" and "Jolene".

One of my earliest Dolly memories is when I was standing in front of the big mirror in my mum's bedroom and miming to "Islands in the Stream" (I must have been about seven or eight, it was released in 1982 as far as I know) and my eight year older sister saw me and started laughing at me. I felt awfully embarresed to be caught pretending to be Dolly in front of a mirror, but I've loved the song ever since (even though it's not written by Dolly). Another strong memory is when SVT (Swedish national Television) showed a Christmas special with Dolly and Kenny Rogers that I thought was wonderful, being a complete Christmas fanatic and totally fascinated by Dolly. I don't know what year this was, but I think the programme I remember is "A Christmas to Remember" which was shown in 1984 originally in the US.

Anyway, last Friday I saw her live and I was completely blown away. She is so cool and such a wonderful singer and musician. When she sung "Little Sparrow" a cappella I almost cried. I'm so impressed by her professionalism and her humour and her spirit. I haven't been able to listen to anything but Dolly since the concert and I'm prepared to go to the US to catch one of her performances there. I've heard a rumour that she sometimes lip-sync some songs during her concerts, I don't know if that's true about her concert here, but if she did it, I couldn't notice it.

I brought my camera to the concert, and I shot a lot of photos, but they mostly turned out really crappy. Anyway, here are the best ones:

   
Click on the images if you want to see larger versions.

I also made these short clips, take a look, the quality is really bad and they're not complete, but i glad I have them anyway:


Here are some great Dolly links:

Official:
Dollywood
Dollywood's Splash Country
Dolly's Imagination Library
Dixie Stampede
Dolly Parton's Official On-Line Store
Sugar Hill Records

Fan sites:
Dolly Parton On-Line
Dollymania
Rare Dolly

I've amost finished the first sleeve (take two) of the Colchique jumper, but it's annoying me because the pattern has given me so much trouble. I don't like the fact that I have to count and calculate so much. I normally don't have a problem with doing that, but this time it's really getting to me.

Instead of letting Colchique slip out into the cold again, I decided that we just needed a small time off. I wanted something quick and easy. I rumbled through my yarn stash and came across about 400 grams of ice blue mohair that once had been an awful tube type top that turned out waaaaayyy to big (I didn't even dignify it with photo) and hence frogged. The yarn is a bit knotty from frogging, but I don't care, I just wanted to use it somehow. After seeing Satoko's lovely Feather and Fan shawl (Satoko, you haven't posted any photo's of it!), I decided that I wanted one too. And talk about quick and easy! It is so gratifying with a lace pattern that looks kind of complicated but in reality is very, very easy.

Anyway, here it is so far:


I have hopes for this project. I might actually be able to finish it sometime in the near future! ;-)

And now for some praising: I recently bought "Handknit Holidays" by Melanie Falick and I'm in love. There are so many nice and wonderful patterns by brilliant designers, it makes me want to knit everything and have it ready by Christmas! I'm serious! I want a knitted Santa Claus hat! I want the cabled knitted Christmas tree mat! I want the knitted Lucia crown! I want knitted Christmas tree ornaments (they're cat safe, too)! And, oh, how I want those Log Cabin Socks... Just look at the ones Brooklyntweed knitted... *very, very deep sigh*... Oh, about the knitted Christmas tree mat; my boyfriend says it's out of the question, so I guess I'll have to make it a present if I manage to knit one. And I also love how the title of the book is: "...Knitting Year Round for Christmas, Hannukah and Winter Solstice". How comforting to find a seasonal knitting book for an old pagan, too! ;-)

Well, the Colchique sleeve is behaving better now on my second attempt, I've knit all the way up to the raglan decreases, so there's hope for the old jumper yet!

The spring term has started at Stockholm University, so I won't have so much knitting time (again) because I have loads of homework to do. But it's fun! Chinese is really difficult, but fun!

Haven't got any new photos to show you except the birthday present my boyfriend gave me last weekend:


Isn't it wonderful??!! I have a swift! I have a yarn winder! No more ugly balls of yarn in my stash! ;-)

Another preview is up! The spring/summer 2007 issue of Rowan magazine can be viewed here. Some nice things, it feels like the people at Rowan have shaped up after the dip into the world of stange knits we saw in issues 38 and 39. Last issue, 40, was really nice too, although I haven't gotten around to buying it yet. But now both 40 and 41 are on my wishlist.

The Colchique sleeve is coming along, but I'm not gonna bother with a new photo as this stage, hopefully I'll have one for you soon with two sleeves!

I am feeling a bit better today and will be back at work on Monday. And yes, Kristen, I probably owe it all to Johnny... ;-)

The urge to start new knitting projects is always terrible, but sometimes the wish to see them completed is stronger. I have really wanted to finish the Colchique jumper for ages, but the pattern itself have posed a big problem from time to time. Not only that it's in french, but even when I there is a translation (mostly thanks so the Colchique knit-a-long, but I do know a little french too) one cannot be sure to understand it anyway. Well, the best way is to get back in the saddle. If I'm ever going to finish it! From what I've read, many others have had problems with the sizes, which I took into account when I started the project (on my second attempt, I started out with size 3 but then switched to size 2). Front and back seems fine so far. But the sleeve... nope, after knitting about 75% of the sleeve I tried it on and it both too long and too wide! And it's given me loads of trouble, that wonky little thumb thingie to start with was a nightmare to figure out (which I wouldn't have done without Mia) and the decreases and the button band is giving me a headache. So I decided to frog the stinking thing. But, I haven't given up! I cast on for a new sleeve, without said thumb thingie and in a smaller size, and I've knitted about 20 cm of it. I AM going to finish it now! Linster has promised to help me out, too, thank you dearie!


Well, well, there's no reason to mope! I have, of course, started a new pair of socks (socks are fun to knit! Really!). This time from "Knitting Vintage Socks" by Nancy Bush, pictures below:


And here are some other progress shots, I started this slipover a long time ago, but it's also been laying around for a while. I'm so in love with the yarn, 2-ply 100% wool from Morjärv that I traded with Erika on the yarnswap day last summer, and the pattern has such a lovely simplicity to it. I'm doing some modifications: a v-neck instead of a round one, and some waist shaping. My gauge isn't the same as the orgiginal pattern either. However, I only have 200 grams of this yarn, so I'm a bit worried I won't have enough. And since I have a tendancy to make things too big when i try to "design" something by myself, I might have to frog it and start over. I might do that anyway, because I think I should have knitted it in the round instead of on straight needles. We'll see what happens. Here are the photos:


And speaking about frogging, I started a striped jumper in August, I think, in a lovely light blue and dark brown with Garnstudio's Alpaca. It's also just been lying around and I took a look at it the other day, thinking I should finish it. I wasn't happy with neither the decreases or increases, so I thought I'd frog just a little bit and then give it another go. But then i tried it on and... it was about three decimetres too wide!! I really shouldn't try to design my own things, they ALWAYS turn out too big! Very, VERY annoying!

Here's a pre-frogging photo saved for eternity, since the jumper is an... ex-jumper (in the style of Monty Python...)


That's all for today, folks! I'm going back to my knitting and Pirates of the Caribbean (I'm home with a cold, so that's pretty much all I can do.) Oh! I almost forgot! Today is the start of Project Spectrum 2.0! Why don't you join in? Read all about it over at hostess Lolly's blog!