Hitchhiker, or Babysilk for the Soul

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Tekopp

These days, after work,  when the only thing it feels like I have the energy for is to collapse on the sofa with my feet up (starting a new job where you are on your feet all day is really hard on them) I pull up my new favorite little project.

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Not only is it a simple and pretty mindless/autopilot project. The ingenious Hitchhiker scarf/shawl by Martina Behm is a simple garterstitch scarf with a simple 8 row repeat.

The other thing that makes it really glorious is the yarn, BabySilk by DuStoreAlpakka, a 80/20 alpaca/silk blend, sport weight. I picked some muted handpainted colours of grey, brown, white and cream. Just touching the yarn makes me feel better, looking at the subtle colourplay in the garterstitch makes me smile and knitting with it makes me think… “yeah, this is the nice stuff!”

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Travel fever

Posted on July 3, 2011 by Tekopp

In less than 12 hours I will have left for Italy!

I’m traveling alone, with plane first, and will try to get on the correct train all by myself to reach my final destination.
This worries me slightly, as from past experience I doubt italians ability to speak english, and my italian is still very much at a beginner state…

But what will I knit when it’s over 30 degrees (around 90 f?) celsius you ask?
Well, I’m bringing with me my wonderfull yellow Hidcote shawl for the train ride, the travelling socks (visited 5 countries this far) for the plane ride and a virgin ball of red sockyarn in case I run out of other projects/motivation.

Updates about my travel and probably my ongoing struggle with understanding italian will hopefully follow shortly…

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Hidcote garden love

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Tekopp

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Sometimes I really enjoy knitting, the repetitive nature of endless creation can be very soothing for the soul.

Even more so when the pattern is just complex enough to captivate your mind and make you focus on it.

And this shawl, Hidcote Garden Shawl by Miriam Felton, is the perfect thing at the moment. It’s difficult enough to make me feel clever, but not so difficult that I make stupid mistakes. Well except for the 10 rows I added between chart 5 and 6 before realizing that I was trying to correct a non existing mistake… Frogging 3000 lace stitches is not fun. Getting the stitches back on the needle even less so. But when everything works out again it’s a sweet feeling.

The yarn is something I picked up in Dublin at the shop called ‘This is knit’. It’s the perfect yellow I spent months looking for. Thank you ‘Dublin dye company’ for making the colour in such a nice yarn. The silk content is just a nice bonus (I’m becoming a luxury animal in yarn choices it seems).

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Sockyarn february part 2

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Tekopp

In my stash, I have some yarn… actually a lot of yarn if you ask a non-knitter, and a reasonably sized stash if you ask a lot of knitters. I would even say it’s a bit small, and that I need to move to give it room to grow.

The problem is that I have some yarn that I’m not that excited to knit, like most of my self striping sockyarn. It’s perfectly fine yarn, and I know it wears like iron, but I’m mostly not inspired to knit it. Using up all my sockyarn in 2011 means dealing with this, and so far this year I’ve done pretty good.


These socks were a particular challenge, and after trying 3 or 4 different patterns I ended up with a variation on a rib pattern. Every other pattern just got lost and this one at least went along pretty quickly. I’m not happy with this yarn (Opal bamboo), not because of the colour, but the bamboo makes the socks grow when I wear them. Hopefully they will shrink a little with washing, as most socks do, most people have bigger feet than me and will be happy to get a pair of socks :)


Babyhat details
Some sockyarn is better off not becoming socks, in this case the yarn is so soft that it’s better to put it on a baby head. The rest of my Berroco comfort sock will be turning into baby garments as well. The only problem is that one hat takes up a surprisingly small amount of yarn…

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Sockyarn february part 1

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Tekopp

Not only am I still super inspired to knit socks, I actually started and finished a pair in this month. Part of this must be that I used a really cool stitch pattern in a yarn from my deep stash.

Emerald Flutters on Ravelry

I also did a pair of simple socks for my sister, in another deep stash yarn. The yarn was actually doing so much crazy stuff that I kept it very simple… But these are the kind of socks my sister seems to like so that is ok. In figuring out how long to make these socks I used a very good foot length/size chart that saved my day.
Weirdly flashing/pooling socks on Ravelry

I made a brandywine shawl, a pattern I actually won in a stash and burn contest :) in some really nice black malabrigo sock yarn. I enjoyed knitting it immensely as lace and garter stitch are two of my favourite things in knitting. But also because the yarn is so soft. I don’t think it would make good socks, but it’s great around my neck (I’m wearing it right now)
Brandywine shawl on Ravelry. And thanks to my friend Trish for modelling it, and giving it back when afterwards ;)

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