Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Periodic table of fibre

The geek in me is thrilled. Click for full size.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

The Shopping Socks

I finally got some photos of the finished socks.



You can see that the navy blue that Jodie gave me blends in nicely with the rest of the sock, even if it is obviously not the same yarn, it's not glaringly obvious.



The flash exaggerates the difference quite a bit and the real colors are somewhere in between the photos with and without flash.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Photos of the Tomten

I finally have photos of the finished Tomten, complete with zipper and all. It's been a while since I finished it, but I have not been able to take a photo. First the kids were sick, then the parents were sick and when we were finally all well again, the snow was all gone (I'd hope to get a nice outside photo).




When it came to putting the zipper in, my mom came to the rescue with a link to a Knitting Daily video, showing how to prepare a zipper for attaching it to a knitted garment. You use a knitpicker, and put stitches on the zipper.



This is a bit fiddly, and time consuming, but boy, oh, boy. It's a great way to attach a zipper to a knitted fabric. Sewing a zipper in a machine is hard, because you tend to pull the fabric out of shape. Handsewing the zipper in is better, but it's still a bit awkward, and stiff. By running these stitches up the zipper, the knitted fabric isn't restricted as much as for a sewn-on zipper.

First I marked the location of each garter with a permanent marker (sharpie) and then I made the stitches run up the zipper (using black einband (Icelandic lace weight yarn), which is stronger than the plötulopi) . Then I used crab stitch (reversed single crochet) to attach the zipper to the jacket, using one strand plötulopi and one strand einband, and to outline the hood while I was at it. I think it looks great and I'm very happy on how the zipper is attached.

The younger daughter wants one too, in pink. Oh my, oh my. There is no way a pink jacket is going to look nearly as good as this one. I have the yarn, had planned to use it for a pink dress, but she´d rather have the jacket. Wow, now that's a compliment. Just that she'd prefer this jacket over a DRESS, is saying a lot about it. Of course, she'd also just want what her sister has!