Pikku-Lilli

Drops Baby Alpaca Silk in color 0100

70% Baby Alpaca 30% Mulberry Silk

Ever since I knitted Pikku-Pete hat, baby hats have been bouncing around my head. While Pikku-Pete is sporty with its visor, Pikku-Lilli is a bit more soft with lace. They both have this old fashioned-feel to them but with modern yarns and colors, their look is just right for today.

Pikku-Lilli can be knit with one color or with two-colors or with even more. There are many places to play with colors, the edge around the face, the piping in the back, the striping in the main body and then the ties. It can be fashioned towards the old times with silk-ribbon bow.

Sandnes Garn Lanett in pink 4402 and off white 1012

100% Merino wool

 

Drops Safran in color 20

100% Egyptian Cotton

Sandnes Garn Mandarin Petit in color 1002 for the piping

The body is knitted in one piece with only one seam with few stitches to graft. It is fairly quick to knit and there is plenty to keep one entertained during the whole process. There is a bit of purling, lace and stockinette, just little bit of each, so little that one cannot get bored. If you have never done piping, there are instructions for doing it.

The beauty of knitting in my mind is the flexibility of making the fabric, with increases and decreases one can sculpt the yarn into just about any form. How the fabric grows in one's hands is almost like organic process, one stitch builds onto another and one shape can turn into another seamlessly by careful planning. I think this is the best way to describe how Lilli takes shape. Sometimes no matter how well you plan, one cannot avoid seams, but the way Lilli is constructed, it is almost seamless (except this above mentioned short Kitchener stitch strip - 9 stitches to be exact).

 Alchemy Silk Purse in color Sugar Mountain

100% silk

Rowan Kidsilk Haze held doubled for the piping, in color 633

I loved the process, and I do love the outcome! The pattern for Pikku-Lilli is in my Ravelry shop should you like to make it too.

Weather update:
While I sit here at my desk I can feel that it is very cold outside. Cold air is spreading over most of Europe this week and we are already getting some of it. It is -23°C (-10F), for us this is normal in January and February, but for large parts in the south this is not normal, I sincerely hope that where ever you are, you are warm.
Can you believe that the length of the day is already 5 hours 59 minutes (0925-1524/0324pm). It feels like a real day now, the light is already real light and not these different shades of blue. We are making good progress and when we reach June 5th, the sun does not set at all. I don't want to start thinking about it setting again, so I will postpone that information after the Midsummer...

Wool with you all,
Lene

Of paper and wool

I began writing this blogpost yesterday and I wrote that, it is a brisk and bright winter day up here. The temperature is somewhere -20°C (-4F), I might even skip the daily walk today, since it is so cold. The length of the day is 5 hours and 4 minutes already, which means that the sun rises before 10 (0952am) and sets 1457 (0257pm).  Not much has changed from yesterday, so these lines are almost appropriate for today as well.
 
I have been knitting but there is something else I would like to blog about. At first I thought that I would not share this, because I thought that nobody would be interested in this paper pulp (paper mache) adventure but then since this is knit-related, I decided to write about this anyway. This post is about making a head in small size, head that I could use for both blocking and taking pictures.
 
When I knitted the Pikku-Pete hat, the baby hat, sometime ago, I really had difficulties in taking good pictures of it. I did not have anything suitable to put it on, except for a blue bottle that has about the same circumference as a small baby's head but since it is blue, it was challenging to use. Ever since I have been thinking about this. 

Couple of weeks ago I cast on for another baby hat and I was once again dealing with the same problem, how to take pictures of that new hat. I have been pondering the idea in my head and it was a big leap in problem solving while out walking when I realized that I could make the head.  

First I made it of cloth, linen, and the outcome was not quite right. It came out too block-like, and this was not the image I was after. 
 
Then on another long walk I thought about making it of wool. This resulted in these knitted/felted bunnies that I showed to you last time, but somehow taking pictures so that there would be wool on wool, did not appeal to me either. So I cast aside the felted head.

One more two hour walk was required before I realized that I could make it in paper-mache, use the blue bottle that was almost the exact size I wanted as a base and build my head on this.

I use very easy approach to paper mache and I am sure this is not the best way (I know it is not the best approach) to do this, but here is how I do it. I just pour glue into a bucket, add water (the look and the feel of the water as my measuring tools) and tear newspapers into small shreds and pieces and let them sit in this gluey water for a while. Then I add these newspaper bits onto a surface I am making. Sometimes I need to add some glue directly to the object and sometimes my object becomes far too wet, but then I will leave it alone and let it dry and harden. Depending on what I am making, I will add layers upon layers always letting the object dry in between. I have done really big pieces in this way, and it has always worked beautifully.

I glued and layered paper layer after layer and the result was very clumpy, not nice at all. My paper must have had too much water in it and I probably had layered it too thick in the beginning (probably due to the fact that it is such a long time since I have done this). But I let the piece dry and become hard and decided to think about it for a while before continuing. At this point, I knew somehow that there would be a solution but I just had to be patient and go and walk away and not to spoilt the whole thing. Really, this was the most difficult part of the process, to walk away and to come back.
 
I tried to use sandpaper to even it, but no sandpapering by hand was going to even it out, it was so bad. Then I remembered that I had this Dremel-tool and I used that to smooth the surface. The result was good, it was tedious work but the head started to take shape. Finally!!

 
Then I had to cut the piece in half to get out the bottle. Again I had to wait for some time for the layers to dry on the inside as well, while the outside was completely dry, the inside felt damp. Waiting and waiting and then waiting some more before making the next move became the theme of the project. After every single step, I was most worried of not having the patience to take one step at a time slowly enough so that I would have enough time to think and plan ahead well.
 

After the piece was in two halves, I had to glue them back together, then more paper and glue and more Dremel to even out the surface and then onto painting. First I thought of gluing cheesecloth onto it, but when I wrapped the head, I lost the sharp lines of the object and that was not good. Paint was all I applied on the head (except of adding some gesso for the base layer).
 

Alchemy Silk Purse in Sugar Mountain colorway, Rowan Kid Silk Haze for the piping

And finally here it is, I am quite happy with the outcome, both with the head and the hat on it. The head does bear some signs of hand work but I am fine with them.
 

Hope you all have a good woolly week!
Lene