Sunday, December 04, 2005

Not trained to knit

I'm so pleased with this (the pattern Hyrna Herborgar from the book Three-cornered & Long Shawls by Sigridur Halldorsdottir and the yarn handspun Shetland). (Please ignore the wrinkled linen used as a background.) Some details...


It must be the most beautiful thing I ever knitted.

So I'm doing another one. Boring? I have a point for doing it again other than the beauty factor.

What bothered me a lot while knitting this was the fact that I really didn't understand what I was doing. I just followed the chart and it came out great. But knitting like that is not relaxing and I need to understand what I'm doing. This time I draw the pattern line by line and try to figure out the same time why the yarn overs and decreases are there. First I draw by myself what the pattern should do on the next row, do my own proposal and then check it with the original. It is interesting and educating! Do you guess the color I'm knitting?


To the Calendar:

Last year as an early Christmas present I gave my husband this.She is a Finnish Spetshund. He had dreamt of the dog for years. But you need the whole family to make a commitment to train a dog so last autumn there was time and energy for a new little one. He named her Tina. And now you might ask me what this has to do with knitting...

Tina was a bird hunter to be. My h's work takes him away for lengthy periods of time and the little one had to get accustomed to being in the woods: I was told that you have to take the dog as a puppy to the forests and the dog has to build a trust in you, she must know that she is not going to be abandoned there although she goes her own ways. So at first you take her to an open place so that she is able to see you easily. You find a spot to yourself where you have to stay and then let the dog sniff around freely and everytime she remembers you and starts looking for you she has to see you in the very same place. So what a knitter does in the middle of the forest while training a little puppy ---

So she is not trained to knit - she is trained with a knit.

To be honest here it takes a lot more to have a good hunting dog. The rest was left to my husband, the girls and I mostly only taught her the house rules, the simple ones. She is my husband's dog and she knows it and adores and obeys him beautifully. But she has an obsession with the wool. Even now when she is all grown up, she can't resist yarn or bambu knitting needles. When she sees that the door to my studio is open she'll go for treasure hunting immediately!

For the fouth of December you get a sweater, knitted in early 80's for the above mentioned man. The pattern - not my own - is long gone from my mind and also the yarn. I know this is not great and fancy piece of knitting but I figured that since the shawl is so beautiful you'll settle with this...PS. about the angel...

It is my own design but there are books that tell you how to make dolls. There is a new one published recently "Knitted Babes" by Interweave Press but I haven't seen it just seen it advertised. Elizabeth, you might want to read my earlier post "Mother Nature it is". I explain there a bit of the process of the creatures.

6 comments:

  1. Voi että osaa olla kaunis huivi! Minunkin on saatava käsiini tuo kirja. Onko siinä paljonkin yhtä kauniita huiviohjeita?

    ReplyDelete
  2. mieletön huivi, löytyykö kirjasta muita vastaavia?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, that shawl is wonderful! I think I need that book now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jösses ton rinnalla kalpenee adventtikynttilätkin.... kirja tänne !

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous22:15

    I'm going to guess wildly about the color of the new shawl: Blue?

    I think Alice Starmore would be proud of you for approaching the lace work so systematically. I've taken both lace and Aran knitting classes from her and in each of them she tried to teach us to rely on the knitting to tell us what to do, rather than look at a chart.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous10:42

    Thank you, thank you. The weekend is over and so is our annual Christmas bonfire. And for the first time I did not feel cold during the evening and night (we sleep outdoors) thanks to the Long John extention of the wollen summerpanties thanks to the inspiration from your family hairloom.
    One of my bonfire friends will the first days of the new year start skiing Norway lengthwise to the North Cape. He will pass Kilpisjärvi in the Botten valley. Is that by any chance near you?

    ReplyDelete