I knit the sleeve now, flat because I did not have a circular short enough. And why did not I think this: the unbalanced yarn looks so much better knitted back and forth! Not perfect, but significantly better. Should I frog the body piece or what .

Another slowly progressing knit is the cashmere sweater for my husband. And now I have lost my faith to the math I made when calculating the shrinkage of the yarn (Colourmart oiled cashmere). My original swatch is lost. Should probably knit a new one and calculate again.

Relatively fast is my latest design, a summer top from oddballs of cotton; mercerized and unmercerized; white, beige and couple of shades of brown with hint of rose. I knit up separate sections with different stitch patterns, pick up stitches, crochet the pieces together. This is so much fun and I really wait to see the result. Should resemble distantly this, the middle piece has two folds on top, creating the A-line.

There are some real gems in the more affordable Miu Miu line, too. Perhaps some day…

Image from Style.com

Yarn is fantastic Matka Silk from my LYS Vihreä Vyyhti. This knit took 2 skeins of that loveliness. Upper part is knitted with 3,5 mm needles, the lace with 4 mm to emphasize the loose structure. And probably you can see the crocheted edge at the bottom (although these images are quite bad quality, sorry…). Top is completely seamless. I moulded the neckline with some short rows, created the new stitches underarm with crocheted cast on ad picked them up later for sleeve. The pouf sleeve has some short rows, too, a technique I test drived with Ophicleide.

That lace part actually ruches nicely, probably I could wear this one belted, too. But I don’t actually like the outfit I picked to this shot – too bland. Actually the best company for this top has been my generously flared jeans, a large hippie-style necklace and some bagles would not do any harm to that outfit.

I had few stripes of it done and the rest of it did not take too long, now I need some pink or orange cotton voile to line it perfectly.

I do remember, though, how I got this crazy idea of pink-orange striped sunskirt. I was browsing (once again) Style.com and found this:

I admit that I use fashion photographs quite a lot as an inspiration. The outfit in that image is impossible to pull off with my figure and it has several details that do not particularly attract me. But I found the combination of orange and pink, boldly striped to contrast to the girly feel of those shades, very refreshing. And I love that splash of colour combined to peaceful shades of sand.

First I had some ideas about a silk dress that would combine those ideas in one garment. But on the other hand my wardrobe is full of too dressy dresses that don’t have too much use. So I decided to modify the concept for everyday use and when I saw those delicious shades of Mandarin Petit in the LYS shelf, nicely next to each other, the solution was quite clear for me. The skirt has lightly A-lined silhouette and it is quite short to let some ultraviolet radiation for my pale legs. And actually I believe that it doubles as a top, too!

***

A while ago I got a delivery from Amazon Japan.

I can warmly recommend these Japanese stitchionaries. All patterns are presented in very clear charts, so the language barrier is not an issue.

Basic stitch patterns are well presented and numerous, the difference to all western stitchinaries that I know is the selection of large (sts and rows) patterns with great level of detail. These patterns often combine cables and lace, the result is light and three dimensional at the same time. Twisted stitches are very common in these patterns.

One of these books is specialized in lace patterns and is probably more basic level than the others. But I love the idea of presenting multiple variations of almost similar pattern in a compact way: it serves the purpose of picking just the right one for particular project – or in some cases gives ideas how to combine patterns or gradually ghange from pattern to another or to unpatterned surface. Actually all books experiment this in some extent.

And at least one previously unknown technique here! It seems to me that those “background stitches” are knitted helding those two yarns together. For the pattern stitches the pattern color is knitted in front and other colour knitted separately in the backround with reverse stocking stitch. I really should test how this works in practise, allthough I can’t just now say if I can make up an actual project out of this. Exciting, anyway!

***

I would love to end my every post to a flash of fresh yarn p**n, but you know, the budget does not allow. Anyhow, at this time of year one can easily argue that now it is the right time to get something new for the summer, and so I left from my LYS with some skeins of this lovely ivory silk. I have a quite clear idea of what it shall be in the future…

I haven’t always been too interested about knitting socks. It was probably Eunny Jang’s beautiful Bayerische Socks pattern that managed tho prove me that sock knitting could actually be interesting and challenging.

Before those bayerische I probably had had another thing against knitting socks. I had always knitted too thick ones. While nice in rubber boots and comfortable when sneaking around the house there is not much use for bulky socks for city person (like yours truly). But socks knitted from fingering weight yarn fit in any boots!

The third thing on my road to serious sock knitter was the two-socks-at-the-same-time-on-magic-loop technique. No more lonely singles in my WIP basket!

But back to these chartreuse ones. Actually this pattern is not a good candidate for two socks at the same time technique. Stitches are crossed around the sock body and when that crossing point occurs inbetween needles, you should be able to slide the stitch conveniently from one needle to other. This is possible with two socks on magic loop, but not convenient by any means. The best option for socks with pattern like this would be a short circular. My hands have never adapted to those, though, so I decided to knit one at a time on a long circ, sliding the stitches when necessary.

The pattern itself is quite simple with few but thought knitterly details. Legs are decorated with narrow lace border.

The main pattern was nice to fit to sock surface – I got those diamonds align pretty neatly to heel flaps with those crosses occuring just beginning and end of flap and reinforced heel stitch beginning between the diamonds.

For the toes I got the idea to extend the lines of stitch pattern to wonky whirlpool toes by modifying the standard round toe a bit.

Of course the assistants were around while photographing! They were not too helpful, though…

I have pretty decent notes about these, too. Now I should lay my needles down and write up couple of patterns!

I like the result, too, but I’m not completely satisfied. I saw actually two yarns that would have been so much better options – but I was on my way with Alpaca Soft and couldn’t just think another large bulky knitting project for it to justify frogging. Alpaca Soft has lovely feel, beautiful surface and quite luxurious softness, so I’m completely happy that I happened to run on it on yarn sale. But I saw a beautiful finished object made with Rowan’s Cocoon – it had so amazing drape and so light feel in spite of a heavily cabled texture of the garment, it would have been a perfect choice for this project.

A very nice budget option woul be OnLine Linie 208 Nature-Wool – a very similar quality to Cocoon, not quite as soft (soft still!) but great drape, too, and similar gauge.

This is not easiest garment to wear, there is so much material that it is quite possible for small person to disappear in or end up looking huge (well, I’m not small, so possibly that is the actual problem for me). I would rather wear Selma with my black skinny jeans and slouchy boots with high heels, but those jeans happened to be in the laundry bag today. A short A-lined or flared skirt – no mini for me, but over the knee – with opaque tights might also be a nice option; if considering longer skirt a pencil silhouette might work. Gotta experiment a little.

I wrote down pretty decent notes about Selma while knitting, so there is a good probability that I’m able to write a pattern out of them!

Those buttons really deserve some extra attention. I found them in a rush, thought them to be just some very nice plastic ones, but closer examination revealed some irregularities that speak of the origin. I guess that they are made from horn or something like that.

Overall pattern is adapted from 220 Aran Stitches and Patterns: Volume 5 (The Harmony Guides). I combined it to narrow lace border from Knitting on the Edge and my favourite heel.

Lately my knitting bookshelf has mainly expanded with new stitchionaries. I have to say that get those old Harmony Guides, while they still are available! Those new ones are pretty and practically sized BUT contain quite small selection of stitch patterns – old ones simply offer better value for money (I’ve got one of the new ones: Harmony Guide: Lace & Eyelets: 250 Stitches to Knit (The Harmony Guides))

And of course there are interesting options in other languages, too. I’ve been in awe of intricate and detailed Japanese stitch patterns seen in blogs everywhere, to get a taste just search Flickr for Japanese knitting pattern; (of course you get some patterns for whole garments, too). Latest IK:s bookshelf article was all I needed. Amazon Japan just got a new customer.

Well, that knit just happened.

In spite of all that serious yarn love I have strong doubts if I’m able to convert that thing to wearable and equally tempting knitted item. Right now I’m pretty sure, that it shall be a plush shawl knitted with some rich texture stitch (I’ve done my dose of garter stitch for this winter). I’ve also considered a sweater, knitted carefully in circle, matching those colour pools exactly. But I’m pretty sure that this colourway is not for that purpose.

And Selma – well, I’m almost there. Only those about one million yarn ends waiting for weaving in are in between us.