arts and crafts in the old scullery

I’m a bit late posting this, but I wanted to share some photos from an arts & crafts shop (in Norwegian: Bryggerhuset i Brekkestø) that Nene and I visited last week. It’s only open in the summer, and uses the old scullery rooms of an old grocery shop. The scullery rooms have absurdly low ceilings and thick walls for modern people, but it just adds to the charm of the place. They sell art, pottery, jewellery, handknits, felted hats and accessories, rope fenders and other nautical rope stuff – all handmade. Nene loves it there, and while I talked to my cousin who is a participant (she makes pottery), Nene spent the time well, adorning herself with the felted hats and corsage flowers on display.

full of thought

Nene: mommy, are there thoughts in your head?
me: uhm, well, yes, I like to think there are..
Nene: how big are they?
me: uhm, I don't know, maybe a little smaller than I would like?
Nene: I have lots of thoughts in my head, and they are this big (stretches out arms to demonstrate) - they fill me up all the way down to my toes!!

my next project

I'm working on my red plissé cardigan, and making good progress (pictures later, maybe tomorrow) (or some other day). Nene (4) saw me working on it, and asked if I could knit a red cardi for her too. I thought that was a splendid idea, especially as I have frogged the pink one I started way back in the stone ages, and immediately decided I wanted to use my favorite alpaca yarn from SandnesGarn. I couldn't think of a kids pattern I wanted to do, so decided to visit my LYS to have a look at their (=SandnesGarn) books. This is usually the last place I go to look for inspiration or good patterns, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found a pattern I liked immediately, and not only did it have a pleated edge, just like my Plissé cardi, but it was even designed for the alpaca yarn I had already decided on. I'm struggling very hard to fight the startitis now!

Here are the official photos of our pleated cardis, except I'm making both red:

weather girls

we met up with some friends who are on a cruise when their ship went to port in Stavanger today. The weather wasn't great, but the girls had a good time anyway. We took a stroll through the old town, which is just behind the quay, and the sight of the huge cruise ships compared to the little old houses never ceases to fascinate me:

eye candy friday: gone fishing

done!

spec:
pattern: celtic from rowan 40
yarn: Smart and Alpakka from SandnesGarn
started: 30 september 2006
finished: 15 july 2008

modifications: none

comments:
1) the original yarns are felted tweed and kid classic. My choice of yarn
makes this a budget version, as they cost about 25% of the rowan yarns. I'm not familiar with felted tweed, but believe it is much finer than Smart, which is a quite rough and rugged yarn. Smart worked really well though, and I love the contrast between the super soft and cozy alpacca and the tweedy, rough Smart.
2) there's a mistake in the chart, errata here.
3) difficulty level: the cables are a bit tricky, I was happy to have done Durrow before so I was prepared. I find that the hardest part about this pattern though, is that it is cabled all over, so there's no place to relax, not even on the wrong side.

previous posts

knitting again

it's summer, so I'm knitting again - because there's nothing like suntan
lotion in your shetland wool! I have finished (!!!) Celtic, it's blocking as we speak, and I'm ready to start procrastinating about the finishing. In the meantime I have started Plissè. I've had the kit for over a year, so I was developing quite an itch to get it started. It's my third Hanne Falkenberg project, but the same poppy colour I always choose - I just can't resist it. The construction is unusual - as usual with Falkenberg. You start knitting a narrow band that is the middle of the back, and pick up stitches from there, and then knit upper front, back and sleeve at once.

this is middle back:

 
and these shots shows it folded over - what you see here is the left half of the upper body, back and front. From this point you start decreasing your way into a sleeve.



this is what it's going to be. Plissè means pleated, and you can see why it got that name.


sorry about the lack of links, but I'm on vacation and blogging with a desperately slow dial-up, so this post took the better part of my evening! The previous Falkenberg projects I referred to can be found in my 2005 and 2006 FOs in the sidebar if you're interested.