I ♥ Selbuvotter

I have recently become intrigued with knitting Scandinavian mittens. When searching on Ravelry I kept seeing patterns from Terri Shea's book "Selbuvotter: Biography of a Knitting Tradition" so I ordered the book from KnitPicks during their recent 40% off book sale.

The patterns are reproductions of actual old mittens and gloves knit in the Selbu (an area of Norway about 400km below the Arctic Circle) tradition. They are from two sources, the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle (NHM) and the private collection of Annemor Sundbø, a Norwegian textile designer and teacher of weaving.

The pattern I chose is called Annemor #12 and is actually a glove (vanter) pattern in the book that I modified to make mittens (votter). The first modification was to do the Latvian braid on the cuff. First, I cast on with the two colours. Then I knit blue on the blue cast-on stitch and white on white. The next step is to purl colour on colour always bringing the desired colour around to the front from the other colour. The next row you purl colour on colour again, this time bringing the yarn around behind the other colour. I then knit two rows of white. Then I knit the cuff rows from the chart, knit two more white rows then repeated the Latvian braid by first knitting alternating the colours.

The Latvian braiding is the most tedious part of the whole project because you are twisting the two yarns in the same direction for 60 stitches when casting on, then the same direction when doing the first purl braid. (That's 120 twists!) Then twisting in the other direction with doing the second purl braid. It might also be noted I did this riding in the back seat of the car on the way to Scooter's piano recital in The Big City in the last hour of sunlight. I got a few rows done on the cuff before I had to pay attention at the recital and finished the cuff at home later that night.

When knitting the back of the mitten, I didn't exactly duplicate the star above the first one as I thought it would make the mitten excessively long so I simplified it a bit. It turns out I could have duplicated it but I think it looks OK as it is.

On the palm, I put 17 stitches on waste yarn for the thumb and then cast on 17 stitches using the twisted loop method. I came back and knit the thumb in pattern after I had the rest of the mitten done.

I had to fiddle with the pattern a bit for the decreases for the fingers as the honeycomb pattern didn't match the rate of decrease I needed. But I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

 Today when I was looking at Annemor's collection of mittens, I saw the original one and noted the palm decreases had been done the same way I did them.

 I ♥ Selbuvotter.

A Trip to the Library

Today was a lovely, sunny day. I had a bunch of errands to run and I refused to wear a coat even though it was only about 5C. In between stops, I soaked up the sunshine and just lived 'in the moment' savouring the beautiful (although breezy) weather. One of my last stops was the library in the next town to pick up a book I had on reserve, "Latvian Mittens" by Lizbeth Upitis. I was going to ask Santa for it but was thrilled when I checked the library's catalogue online last week and learned that they had it.  Yay!

My next stop was at my own town's public library. It has lots of windows and lots of nice places to sit and look at books and magazines. They subscribe to "Creative Knitting" magazine and I enjoy having a good look at it on my visits - including the back issues kept under the display shelf.

Today I took out these books that interested me: (sorry about the glare)

 "In Sheep's Clothing" was in a completely different section (677) of the library from the knitting books. I only found it by searching for the keyword 'spinning' under the subject.  The rest were in the usual knitting section (746).  I am intrigued by twined knitting but my first impression is that it seems to be a lot of work. And I rather dislike getting my yarn all twisted. But I'm going to give it a shot. I saw some lovely twined items at Rhinebeck.

Our library has a very good collection of knitting books. I find ones I haven't seen before every time I go there. One of the librarians is a knitter, from what I'm told, and seems to be ordering a good variety of new books. The knitting section in the library one town the other direction primarily has books from the 80s and very little which appeals to me. Our library also has a great coffee shop where I can get a good latte to sip on while I read. I often take some knitting to work on while I peruse the books.

Today, a woman sat down at my table and asked me if I had knit my sweater - I had my "Must Have Cardigan" on. I said I did and noticed her lovely scarf. We started yakking and learned she is a knitting addict like I am. She was bemoaning the fact that she felt so isolated as a knitter. And...she hadn't heard of Ravelry. WELL! I whipped out a pen and piece of paper at warp speed wrote the URL down for her as well as when my monthly knitting guild meets (second Wednesday of the month in that same library) and where and when my two Sit 'n Knits occur every week ( Thursday from 1 - 3 at Myrtle Station Wool and Ferguson's Knitting and Thursday from 7 - 9 at Kniterary in Whitby. She seemed truly pleased to meet another knitter and to learn of opportunities to hang out with other knitters on a regular basis.

I feel like such a knitting 'missionary' sometimes. LOL.

This evening after dinner, I made some chocolate oatmeal macaroons and a batch of the prize-winning ($1 Million in the Pillsbury Bake-off) Double Delight Peanut Butter cookies. I heard about the peanut butter cookies on Oprah a while back and printed out the recipe. Both types of cookies turned out really well. I need to package them up to give away so I won't be tempted to dip into them. Scooter is with us this weekend so I'm sure he'll put a big dent in our cookie inventory.

After cleaning up, I made some cute stitch markers! (again, pardon the glare)

I patterned them after some I got in a UK knitting magazine a while back that has a freebie in each issue. I bought some little beading pliers yesterday as well as the jump rings and star beads. If I can find the bigger beads less expensively, I could make a whole bunch of stitch markers. These will fit up to at least a 5.5mm needle. I'm totally winging the beading technique-wise. I know very little about how to do beading properly. But I like my results.

I'm also still planning some Christmas knitting. I found a pattern I liked but will be modifying it a bit which will involve some more research. For now, it's a stealth project.

A Yarny Christmas

My BFFs (Best Fibre Friends) Elaine and Marion and I made our yarny Christmas wreaths at Marion's today. We've been planning this for months and modeled ours after last year's Starbucks Christmas wreaths.

Georgie snoozed by the fire in his basket.
















We played and sang along with some of our favourite Christmas CDs including Barry Manilow's, Barbara Streisand's, Harry Connick Jr.'s, and a couple of traditional carol CDs.

We wrapped styrofoam balls with yarn and planned our layouts. We then started hot glueing and wiring our yarn balls and unbreakable (plastic) ornaments to the wire wreath frames.

Ta Da!                           Elaine's                                                                 Marion's

I had to make two smallish wreaths because I have a double front door. I have broken out my festive attire now that it is December. In my former life - when I was working - I sported a different outfit for every school day during the month of December. I out-dressed many a colleague who attempted to compete with me and always won awards for the most festively dressed teacher. I still continue this sartorial tradition every year.

When I got home I added a few 1" diameter red and gold balls from my former door wreaths to fill in some of the little gaps.

We're already planning our Ukrainian Easter egg (pysanky) drawing session which will be taking place chez moi next March.

We're so crafty!

Lack of Commitment

When we were at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair a couple of weeks ago, I bought some pencil roving from Belle Vallée Wools. There were two light grey and two natural white bundles.

I spun one spool of each and then plied them together. Today I spun and plied the remaining two bundles.

The skein I plied today has 40 more yards and weighs 4g less than the skein I spun and plied a couple of weeks ago. There is a total of 297yd and 134g (4.7 oz.). Because of the inconsistent yarn weight between skeins, I guess I'll have to alternate skeins if I ever knit something with it.


Of course my dilemma always is - what do I knit with the yarn I've spun? I have trouble committing my handspun to a project. It's so sad to use it up. For now, I'll just hang on to it for some special, future project.

Fetching (gently modified)

I finished the Fetching fingerless gloves last night at Knit Night. My knitting friend, Paula, suggested I include a pair of those stretchy gloves to be worn underneath so the fingers can actually be covered. I think that's a great idea.

I added a couple of extra cable repeats above the thumb to cover about half the length of the fingers. I also added 1 x 1 ribbing to the thumb to give it a bit of length and so it wouldn't flare out on the cast-off edge.

I've been working on the Vent d'est Vent d'ouest Smoke Ring. I'm using the Diamond Yarns Alpaca Prima yarn I picked up at Romni on Monday. I bought 2 skeins but I think I'll only use one and just knit until I run out of yarn. 

Blowout Sale!

On the GTA Fibrefaces group on Ravelry I learned about a huge private yarn sale in Toronto. Evidently, someone purchased $90,000 (wholesale) of high end wool with the intention of opening a yarn shop and then decided not to. She has entrusted Laura with selling as much of the inventory as possible and recover as much of her investment as possible.

Feast your eyes. Ooooooh, ahhhhhh!

Behind me was an entire wall of Briggs and Little yarns piled waist high all along the wall.

It's hard to see from these photos but the two of the blue hanks of yarn have sequins in them. I think they were $11.75 per skein (regular $37).

Here are some better photos.



If you are visiting the greater Toronto area any time soon and want to have a look for yourself, the yarn is located in a unit at 174 Spadina St. (a few doors north of Queen St. W.).  First, you should call Laura at 416-389-3866. Her office is located in unit #500. Arrange with her a convenient time for her to take you to where the yarn is stored and she'll take you to the yarn. She spent most of last Saturday there but is nearby on weekdays and will show you in then, too. I strongly urge you to go with projects and yardages in mind so you'll know how much to buy. There are bags of 10 balls and many colourways have multiple bags. The prices are all below retail just to get the stuff sold. Some things are deeply discounted and others not so deeply. There is lots of Briggs and Little, Lana Gatto, Lana Grossa, Mille Colori, Twilley Freedom Spirit, ToFutsies sock yarn and many other fine yarns whose names escape me right now. Laura plans to continue the sale until it is all sold. Possibly until the new year. 

I didn't go completely berserk there as I am one of those strange knitters who doesn't usually buy yarn unless I have a project in mind. I did, however, buy two balls each of two different colours of Lana Gatto Feeling (70% extrafine merino virgin wool/20% silk/10% cashmere) yarn with some neck warmers in mind and two balls of Filtes Australian Merino wool in a beautiful burgundy colour for a pair of handwarmers.

I am doing some Christmas knitting (even though I wasn't going to but the Invertible Hat got me motivated) and have already knit one Fetching hand warmer using the burgundy merino. I modified the pattern by adding a couple more cable repeats up the fingers and a bit more length to the thumb including a 1 x 1 rib before casting off. It is going to take slightly more than one ball of yarn.

The next stop was Romni Wools a few more blocks west on Queen St. I picked up some 100% Corriedale roving, some Misti Alpaca sock yarn I finally found after months of looking, and two 50g skeins of Diamond Luxury  Collection Alpaca Prima (100% alpaca) yarn.

Last week I picked up a skein of Regia Galaxy sock yarn at Myrtle Station Wool and Ferguson's. I love how it knits up into what looks like the rings of Saturn. I'm sure my grand-nephew will find them to be both cozy and 'cool'.

All of these projects are relatively quick knits and certainly completeable within a week as long as I do nothing else but knit. Sounds good to me.

Naughty Knitting

Whilst searching Ravelry for Scandinavian mitten patterns, I happened upon this one. I have a nephew who loves to hunt so I decided to knit him a hat with that pattern. I found another pattern that is a basic lined hat with a Nordic star pattern for the public side and the copulating deer on the private side.

Public side                                                                       

Private side

I call it the Invertible Hat.

The Cascade 220 yarn is so soft - not scratchy at all. With the double thickness, it will be a very warm hat.








I found a neck warmer pattern that is to my liking called "Vent d'est vent d'ouest" by Marie A. Boyer. I've cast on the remnants of the mericash yarn left over from the "Scarf With No Name". I have about 150m of yarn which should be enough - I don't need it long enough to cover the head.