Hummingbird

Oh my, how time flies! A year ago, I was starting my very first MKAL and now, the second one is already gone. Did you finish your Hummingbird yet?

What: Hummingbird / Own pattern

How: Circular needles 3.75 mm

From: Twisted Fintch Singles + Lystig Merino Single + PetrichorYarns Merino Twist Sock, 71 + 75 + 72 g

I had a blast last year hosting my first mystery shawl knit-a-long. I knew right away that it would become a tradition for every fall.

People fell in love with last year's mystery, Shake it up and I had a lot of pressure to produce something equally lovely. I knew I wanted to use three colors, there would be garter stitch and brioche. But above all else, it should be something surprising and unexpected.

So Hummingbird starts at the center of the shawl. It begins with a magic circle cast on and you'll first work a triangle of garter stitch with a little one-color brioche stripe.

Next, you'll bind off the edge of the triangle and work two wings with short rows. The turning points of the short rows are left visible on purpose as they get to form pretty little eyelets between the sections.

After the wings, the shawl continues in a more traditional manner with brioche. The two-color brioche section is followed by one more set of wings - this time is seed stitch. And to keep it unpredictable, the wings are of different sizes.

Finally, you'll work two edges with each color and every corner will have a little brioche bit. The stitches are bound off in i-cord and you can use your yarn ends for pompoms.

What: Hummingbird / Own pattern

How: Circular needle 3.75 mm

From: Martin's Lab Merino Singles, 240 g

The shawl started off with a scetch. Once I was happy with the amount of surprise elements and the placement of colors, I went stash diving for my first sample. I weighted the yarns I used for the first shawl, counted the amount of stitches in each section and how much yarn those sections ate up. I like to leave as little waste yarn as possible so I calculated how much bigger I could make the shawl without running out of any color so that you wouldn't have to play a game of yarn chicken.

This year, I had yarn kits in my webshop. It was fun planning the color combos with Martin's lab and I asked for each kit to have a special color not found in their usual colorways

When the yarns arrived in the mail and I saw that one special color was called Anna, it was settled right there and then which kit I'd use to make another sample shawl. So now I have to Hummingbirds but they're so lovely I might keep them both!

There will be a new mystery next fall but before that we're going to have a meetup and a photoshoot for all the Hummingbirds. Please join me for the fun on October 12th at Nurja, the new LYS at Tampere. See you there!

Harmas

I a world where everything is covered with chemicals, true, fluffy wool is pure love. It's especially wonderful it is local and soft.

What: Harmas / Own pattern

How: Circular needle 3.75 mm

From: Rintalan tila Iivari 2ply, 380 g

Last fall, at the craft fair, I fell in love with this soft Kainuugrey wool yarn by a local farmer, Rintala sheep farm. The yarn was beautiful, undyed and smelled a bit sheepy - just the right amount. And, it was sport weight which is ideal for a light sweater.

And a sweater it became! Last spring, I started designing a new favorite sweater for next winter. It should have lots of positive ease to make it comfy and relaxed. I wanted the sweater to have a tall collar to keep the back of my neck warm. And it should definitely have nice texture to it. Lots of good things!

But above all else, I was visioning my new favorite sweater with extra long sleeves with folded cuffs and thumb openings. That way I wouldn't have to wear mittens for quick bursts out in the cold.

This all became Harmas. It's a boxy, a bit corpped sweater - no waist shaping. Most of the sweater is moss stitch with stockinette at the 'seams' - though it is of course seamless. The sleeves are raglan sleeves, and not only extra long but also have some positive ease to them. The cuffs are folded and bound off into place, and the thumb openings are finished off with few crochet stitches.

The sweater is topped off with a lush, tall collar. It's one-colored brioche, making it soft, crunchy and drapy all at once. And of course, the sweater is worked seamlessly top-down. The pattern includes sizes XXS-3XL and you can find it on Ravelry.

I made my sample back in the spring. I already thought that I'd have to wait until fall to get some pictures taken but one sunny and bright spring week ended with a blizzard. The trail along the river offered us a magical place for a photoshoot. Now, I'm just waiting for the temperatures to drop a bit so I can start wearing this again!

It might be just barely fall still but this is the perfect time to cast on if you wish to finish your sweater before it gets cold! Until Sunday September 22nd, you can get the pattern with an introductory 25% discount using the code KAINUUGREY.

Rakas

Sometimes I feel so romantic that I happen to designs socks with lace and beads on them. I guess that just happened.

What: Rakas / Own pattern

How: circular needle 2.0 mm

From: Vole's Nest Twist Sock, 75 g

Last spring, I was at the Crooked Needles knitting retreat and my dear friend was selling gorgeous yarns she had dyed herself. Of course I had to buy some. I fell in love with this high twist merino sock yarn and all those green shades.

When it came time to cast on, I was feeling everything! So I ended up designing socks with a stitch pattern that combines twisted ribbing with lace. And then, I added a few beads.

The socks are knit toe up and the lace starts right away when there's enough space for it. The heel is a round French heel that's worked with short rows.

My favorite part is the twisted rib heel and how the lace goes around the socks after it. The pattern includes detailed instructions on when to start the lace on the heel so that it will match the lace on the instep no matter how long legs you might have.

You can find the pattern on Ravelry. There's an introductory discount with the code DARLING (which happens to be rakas in Finnish). The discount is valid until Tuesday night September 10th.

Dripping Honey

Some things take their time. This is a sweater I designed several years ago. I just never had the time to actually knit it - until now.

What: Dripping Honey / own pattern

How: Circular needles 3.5 and 3.75 mm

From: SnailYarn Merino Sport, 341 g

I love to wear chic boxy sweaters and they are usually at their best when they're mostly plain vanilla stockinette stitch. The trouble is that plain old stockinette doesn't keep me interested long enough. So couple years ago, I thought I might have the stamina for a boxy stockinette sweater if there were cables on it to help me measure my progress.

Besides boxy sweaters, I'm a fan of all things asymmetric. When I was younger, I used to knit mismatch socks with the colors reversed on the other sock. I'm the one you should be looking at if something is not straight. So I came up with this idea of a boxy sweater with asymmetric cables on each shoulder - back, front, left and right!

Dripping Honey is a top-down seamless boxy sweater with braided cables dripping down from the shoulders. One of the cables continues all the way to the split hem. The sweater features a v-neck and 3/4 sleeves.

You'll need a bit of concentration at the beginning with the shoulder shaping, starting the cables and increasing at the neckline. But once that is done, most of the sweater is relaxing stockinette stitch with just a few cables at the sides to keep you interested.

The name of the pattern got its inpsiration from the yarn. Few years back, I had the honor of my Utu cardigan being featured on the cover of Laine magazine and Valentina from SnailYarn wanted to thank me by sending me a bit of yarn. A bit is what I thought but the mail man came with a box filled with more than just one sweater quantity! One of those treasures was this wonderfully plumpy Merino Sport in the colorway Honey - hence the name of the design.

SnailYarn is having a shop update today to help you get your sweater quantities. There's a new sport weight non-superwash yarn in gorgeous colors - one of them Honey, of course.

You can find the pattern on Ravelry and until Sunday September 8th, you can get 25% discount using the code HUNAJA (honey in Finnish).

Stash as old as time

There's yarn, and then there's Yarn. There are yarns you have to cast on asap. There are yarns that are so precious you can't cast on until you find the perfect project. There are yarns that are forgotten at the bottom of the stash and loose their magic over the years. There are yarns I loved years ago but don't any more. And then there are yarns that never found the right project but are too nice to let go. This is a story of that kind of yarn.

What: Ursa / Jacqueline Cieslak

How: Circular needle 6.0 mm

From: Rowan Silky Tweed, 195 g

Years ago, back when I was still in highschool, I didn't even know that there were actual yarn stores. I was an enthusiastic knitter but got my yarn from the market while we were shopping for food, and I had now idea there were other yarns available. Not that there's something wrong with market yarn but I was unaware of anything else. Back then, there were no smart phones with all the knowledge of the world at your finger tips in a matter of seconds. I didn't think to google yarn shops as I didn't know they existed. And I had no idea you could order yarn online.

I don't remember how I found out about this little shop in Helsinki but Menita opened my mind, not to mention my wallet. During one of my shopping trips there, I bought a sweater quantity of soft and tweedy Rowan Silky Tweed - a yarn that's now discontinued.

I let my treasures marinate in the stash for a couple years until I read an interview of a knitting artesan. The piece showcased the artist herself but also some of her knitted pieces of art. One of them caught my attention and I had to make one for me. And I had to come up with the pattern too because it was just an interview.

So I cast on for chunky, woolly corset! Yes, I'm afraid you read right. I dreamed of a chunky corset with big cables and several layers of peplum hem. I had just found English knitting patterns courtesy of Kim Hargreaves and had just learned to shape peplums with short rows so I was eager to use my newly found skills. I bet you're not very surprised to find out the corset was a bust. Luckily! What in the world would I have done with a woolly corset?

After several failed attempts, I lost my cool and threw the needles in the corner. I was so bummed over the time I had waisted and the fact that I couldn't realize my cool idea that I didn't want to even touch the yarn. Hubby was chivalrous and offered to unravel and re-cake the yarn. And ever since then, the yarn has been sitting in the stash. And did I mention this was over a decade ago? 

Then one night last week, it happened that I had only one wip on my needles. Working the lace edge of a huge circular shawl takes so much concentration that I can only muster a little piece at a time. So I was in need of a simpler knit. I remembered I had been eyeing the Ursa sweater over on Instagram. I did a bit of digging only to find that I had already placed the pattern on my Ravelry queue and even paired it with stash yarn! I bet you can guess which yarn.

I almost can't believe that the decade-old, once unraveled yarn actually found its way back onto my needles. And not only that but it turned into a really nice sweater that will get lots of use. I hadn't held onto the yarn for nothing. The yarn was a bit too thin for this pattern but a few extra increases took care of that easily.

Ursa is a really simple sweater. It's worked top-down and it has v-neck and raglan sleeves. The interesting part is that the raglan seams are worked in half-brioche. That means working brioche only on the knit stitches and working the purls normally. The sweater also features half-brioche stripes at the center of the front and back. At the hem those stripes slowly grow into these triangles that will meet at the sides. I liked the triangles a lot so I made them on the cuffs as well. Not that anyone would notice but I will know they're there and they're pretty. on erittäin yksinkertainen pusero. Se neulotaan ylhäältä alas ja siinä on v-pääntie ja raglanhihat.

I haven't worn such a short cropped sweater since the days when I bought the yarn. I guess I could give into the fashion cycles this much.