Christmas flowers

This fall my cousin had a baby girl and I had the perfect excuse to knit a cute little dress.

What: Sproutlette dress / Tanis Lavallee

How: Circular needle 3.25 mm

From: Canon Hand Dyes William Sock, 88 g

I've seen so many wonderful dresses made from this pattern that I've been just aching for a reason to knit one myself.

The only problem was yarn! Oh yes, you would think that there would be some yarn for any project among my 30 kg stash - but no. At least not if I might need more than one skein. Crisis! Finally I browsed through everyone else's projects on Ravelry and found out that one skein should be enough for the smallest size. However, I had heard from a friend that the sizing of this pattern is a bit tight so I would have to modify as I go.

I went trough my stash and selected the fingering weight skein that had the most meters in it and bravely set forward to knit. This delicious raspberry colored yarn is one the prize yarns from Tour de Sock two summers ago. It was just the perfect amount of sweetness without being too girly.

The dress is knitted top down seamlessly. First, you knit the garter stitch raglan top with a leaf motif in the front. It was nice but I found an error in the chart. Well, the chart worked as it was but there was one row with more decreases than increases and it caused me to have two sts too little after the raglans. I just added them on one row after the chart and it doesn't show too much in the finished dress.

The back has a slit to make dressing up easier. The sleeve sts were left on holders for later and then you would add a ton of stitches for the skirt part. The skirt was endless rows of boring stockinette, and then finally more garter stitch with leaf motifs. The whole thing was finished off with a lacy bind off. Though, I had to stretch the holes quite a bit the get my dress to look like the ginger bread edging of the sample photos.

Because I was warned about the sizing, I started off with the largest size. It wouldn't be very nice if you could only wear the dress for a few weeks, no would it? However, since the largest size would use more than one skein of yarn, I decided to knit the stockinette stitch skirt a bit shorter. I was aiming for the skirt length of the smallest size but it turns out, I'm apparently not very good with the measuring tape. In the end the hem was shorter than it should've been even for the smallest size and as a result, I was left with extra yarn. So things didn't quite go as planned but I did manage to knit a super cute dress.

I was saving this post for after Christmas but I just heard a few days ago that certain someone had opened their presents beforehand! Yes, I'm talking about you!

What did I just knit?

Each year, Stephen West's mystery KAL is a sure sign of the autumn. And of course, I had to take part in the craziness.

What: Speckle and pop / Stephen West

How: Circular needle 3.5 mm

From: Canon Handdyes Charles Sock + Lystig Merino Single + Petrichor Yarns Shiny Sock + jämiä, 97 + 52 + 96 + 59 g

The whole thing kicked off with instructions to choosing your yarns. The shawl called for three skeins of speckled main colors that you could fade. So the idea was to form sort of a gradient. Also, you would need 20 grams of five different color pops. This sounded like quite a lot of yarn! But hey, it's Stephen and his shlankets.

For me, it's the whole point of Stephen's MKAL to get out of your comfort zone. So, I chose a quite wild trio for my main colors. If we start at the more serene end, first, I chose a beautiful blue and grey semisolid sock yarn with bling from Petrichor Yarns which I had bought from last summer's knit fest. It was easy to pair up with another festival purchase, a single merino from Lystig that had a very light, almost white grey background and speckles in all the colors of the rainbow. So far very good. And then straight out of the comfort zone: for the third color I chose a yarn I had gotten as Tour de Sock prize few years ago. It was sock yarn from Canon Handdyes. The best I can do to describe the color is to say it reminds me of a unicorn on an acid trip throwing up a rainbow. It's wild and free and yet a logical choice to combine with the first two skeins as it had the same rainbow colors as the speckles on the second skein. Though, I don't usually go for such a wild color choice.

The MKAL started at the end of September. The first clue resulted in a huge half circle type of a thing. It was big enough to be a shawl on its own. The half circle was formed by knitting short rows with the main colors (fading them) and narrow lace rows with the color pops. Right off the back, I started to second guess my choices. The shape was nice and fun to work but the instructions said to start with your darkest/most colorful main color. The unicorn on acid trip was an eye sore on its own. As I finally got to fade it with the second main color, things started to look better. And now, in the finished shawl, I quite like to end result. But the beginning had me guessing for a while. More than one of my knitterly friends took a look at the color and asked if was feeling a bit ill.

The size of the first clue was quite a challenge - not to mention all those yarn ends to weave in. Not that many knitters could finish the first clue in time and I didn't catch up until the third clue. And even at that point, I had only weaved in half of the yarn ends of the first clue.

Luckily, the second clue was a lot faster. It was an asymmetric wedge worked with the main colors. I guess it was meant to shape the shawl to a more asymmetric shape but I felt that mainly, Stephen had come up with a fun texture he wanted to try somewhere. It's some sort of a combination of broken seed stitch and linen stitch. The texture looks fun but the most interesting thing about it was how it blended the main colors so well you can't tell them apart. I'm glad it was such a small piece in the final shawl as I felt the texture was a bit too stiff to work in a shawl.

As if things hadn't been interesting enough so far, the third clue blew my mind in more than one way. It started off wild. You picked up stitches at the bottom edge of the shawl and knitted garter stitch triangles. Yes, triangles! For a moment I thought that was the edge of the shawl but I was wrong. After the triangles, you were instructed to work these huge holes to the shawl. On  one hand, I knew I could trust that Stephen knows what he's doing. On the other hand, it's Stephen! And anything could follow. It could result in a mind blowingly beautifuul shawl or it could end up being something i would never use myself. As I was working the enormous holes, I was mainly thinking WHAT AM I KNITTING? I was suspicous that the shawl was a big hoax and in reality we were knitting nets for fishing trips for next summer.

After the triangles and holes the rest of the shawl was a mix of garter stitcha and brioche. Youu had to knit for a while before you started to see what was happening. At this point, there were 62 stitch markers and ove 800 stitches. One row took ages and as you're knitting brioche, one row kind of takes two rows. So I fell off the MKAL wagon for good and didn't finish my shawl until just a few weeks ago.

The last clue was instructions for bind off. And quite an operation that was too! The shawl was finished off with an i-cord bindoff but not your usual i-cord bindoff. Nope. Each garter stitch/brioche wedge was bound off with a different color pop. It took quite some time to work the bind off while hiding the yarn ends inside the i-cord at the same time. A few times I already found myself thinking that I found my groove and had good pace - only to notice I had forgotten to keep hiding the yarn ends.

What a project! If you wanted to be extra wild, you could have made a crochet edge for each hole but I wasn't feeling quite that frisky.

All in all, it turned out really pretty. That unicorn on an acid trip calmed down well once I got all my main colors in the shawl. And even those giant holes made sense in the end. And this was a really interesting knit as you can probably tell by the amount of stuff I had to say about it.

Alma hat

You can never have to many hats, beanies or toques. So, I wanted to include two hat patterns in The Girl Who Said Baa.

What: Alma / Own pattern
How: Circular needle 3.0 mm
From: Tukuwool Fingering, 48 g

I wanted to keep this design simple. Mostly stockinette, some cables to keep the knitting interesting, and finally, a fun envelope bind-off which I learned while working on another hat pattern, Hiekkamyrsky.

The cute little cable travels along the hat on both sides at the same spot and the cables meet at the top with the bind-off.

When working an envelope bind-off, you'll want to make sure you work enough hight for the hat because the bind-off takes a good chunk of it. The pattern includes detailed instructions for the bind-off as well as a picture tutorial for making the folds.

I for one can't get enough of this amazing green color, Selja, of Tukuwool. It's the perfect green. You can also find it in the i-cord details and the pockets of Manta cardigan. Perhaps I should knit an entire cardigan in it?

The photo credits go to Miika once again.

Manta cardigan

Since I'm above else a cardigan and sweater designer, I had to include a cardigan pattern in the e-book The Girl Who Said Baa.

What: Manta / Own pattern

How: Circular needle 3.5 mm

From: Tukuwool Fingering, 405 + 30 g

Cables seem to have been on my mind lately as you can find some in this design as well - this time as simple honeycombs.

Manta is a long cardigan with a warm and sturdy folded collar and raglan sleeves. There are honeycomb cables along the right front and in the hem of both fronts. The back hem is first stockinette stitch and then rib.

The cardigan is finished off with a contrast color i-cord bind off. The hem cables also hide contrast color pockets behind them. Because pockets! I've never heard anyone say "Pockets? No thanks."

My favorite detail in the design are the button holes. They are hidden inside the honeycomb cables.

Tukuwool makes for a lovely and warm cardigan. I was nervous on the photoshoot day thinking I might catch a cold but once I put the knits on me, the fear melted away. I didn't miss my winter coat a bit.

If the winter here in Finland will turn out as freezing as some people are predicting, I'll stay inside this cardigan the entire winter!

This cardigan gives the perfect opportunity to explain the inspiration behind the names for all the designs in the book. I wanted to name the patterns after sheep. I googled a bit and found a forum where Finnish sheep farmers were talking about the names they use and I picked the ones I liked the best. And the best thing was that on the photoshoot day my Manta cardigan met a sheep called Manta.

Photos by Miika, sheep by Hakamaa sheep farm.

Aada mitts

If you ask dear Hubby, these mittens are the best design in The Girl Who Said Baa. Even so much that he wants a pair for himself!

What: Aada / Own pattern

How: Circular needle 2.5 mm

From: Tukuwool Fingering, 55 + 12 g

The third design I wanted to include in the collection were these mittens that would have a fun stitch pattern combining stranded knitting and simple cables.

The mittens have a looooong brim you can fold in two if you like. Or, if you coat has shorter sleeves you can leave it longer to make sure your wrists won't freeze.

The stitch pattern is a combination of stranded knitting in two colors and cables. It looks fancy but is really easy to work. Originally, I wanted the contrast color cables to be purled stitches but that proved impossible. Perhaps it was for the best as these look really lovely as they are now.

This is a great pattern for trying out different color combinations. The pattern has two sizes so it works for bigger hands as well. And it seems, I'll have to work the bigger size quite soon - and even in the exact same colors! The smaller size took only one skein of the main color because the skeins tend to be a bit overweight.

Photo credits to Miika and sheep credits to Hakamaa sheep farm.

Saana shawl

Next design from the e-book, The Girl Who Said Baa, is a shawl pattern.

What: Saana / Own pattern

How: circular needle 4.0 mm

From: Tukuwool Fingering, 115 + 72 + 87 g

The first thought about the shawl was its shape. I wanted to design an asymmetric triangular shawl that is shaped with short rows. The kind that is wider on the other side. Also, I wanted to play around with different color combinations.

Saana has alternating garter stitch stripes with two colors and lace sections with a third color. The stripes are nice, mindless knitting - perfect for social knitting or watching tv. And the lace is shaped with short rows. The lace keeps thing interesting but is easy to memorize. Finally, the shawl is finished with a picot bind off.

The pattern has two sizes. M is your average sized shawl. Not too small. And the larger size is a true shlanket. You could really use it as a blanket while laying on the couch. For the smaller size, you only need one skein (50 g) of each color - at least if you don't have the loosest gauge in the world. The larger size has one stripe and one lace section more and for that size you will need 3 skeins of color A and 2 skeins of B and C.

This design gives you the chance to play with different color combinations as it uses three colors. I would suggest something light for the lace. For the stripes, choose two colors that have enough contrast with each other.

I've been waiting for months to actually get to use these knits. Finally, I can wrap myself in my huge woolly shlanket of a shawl.

Thank you for the pics to Miika and thank you for lending your sheep Hakamaa sheep farm!

Helmi hat

Let's start going through the patterns one at a time.

What: Helmi / Own pattern

How: 3.0 and 4.0 mm circular needle

From: Tukuwool Fingering, 76 g

Let's start at the beginning. So, I had the idea of designing a collection of knitwear for Tukuwool yarn. And the first design I conjured was a cabled hat.

First of all, the hat was to have a tall folded brim because my main priority in the winter is to keep my ears from freezing. Second, the hat was to have cables with moss stitch inside them. And third, the hat was definitely going to have a pom pom. That's how Helmi hat came to be.

After the folded brim there are some cables and you decrease part of the stitches while knitting the cables. The rest of the hat is reverese stockinette stitch because I feel it let's the cables shine. You could work garter stitch but let's face it, garter stitch in the round is a bit blah.

And finally, there's a pom pom to top it off. You can never have too many pom poms, right? I still haven't managed to buy a pom pom maker so I still cut out one from cardboard as they taught us in kindergarden.

The best thing about the hat is how cute it makes you look. Even if I don't think I look too shabby, I rarely glance in the mirror and think I'm super cute. But this hat makes me do that! So keep your ears warm and get cute - all in one hat. There are two sizes and you can make them with two skeins of Tukuwool.

The amazing pics are by Miika. And here's a link to the KAL in Ravelry.