Category Archives: Yarn

Zinnia Socks

Zinnia Socks is sock pattern knitted in worsted weight yarn with a small colorwork detail in the cuffs. They are loose fitting and warm socks to wear in the winter as an extra layer and the best part is they come in size eur 25-46 that is about 3 years – large adult, so you could make matching pairs for the entire family. Which is something I already have done, but it is not so impressive in my case since my husband and I have the same shoe size and we don’t have children. I am however considering making a few as christmas gifts.

Yarn: (85, 110, 135, 170, 200, 246, 295) meters worsted weight yarn. Samples are made in Filcolana Peruvian highland wool (200 meters/100 grams)
Gauge: 20 stitches/10 cm.
Needles: 3.5 mm dpn’s or size that gives you the gauge called for on washed fabric in stockinet stitch knitted in the round.
Sizes: Foot length (15, 17.5, 20, 22.5, 25, 27.5, 30) cm. Shoe size eur (25, 29, 33, 36, 39, 43, 46). They have a loose fit since they are intended to be worn as an extra layer, if you want them snug you might have to go down one size on the width but not the length.

Price 45sek (about 5usd)

I really love this contrasting toe, but it is of course optional and this colour combination makes me happy.

About christmas gifts, it is about time to start if you are planning of knitting gifts, I knit a few every year and feel that it is best to have them ready before december so that your knitting remain pleasant and you don’t panik towards the end trying to finish everything in time. So If you are like me and like to knit gift, start planning and cast on.

Price 45sek (about 5usd)

This is a knitting pattern and you will receive and email with the download with in a few minutes.

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I’m knitting a circus tent

What are you making?

I really love dyeing my own yarn. I don’t have a lot of fancy equipment, but you don’t need it. Last Friday I dyed yarn for two different projects, one being this baby cardigan. This type of cardigan has some history, at least in this part of the world. There are several patterns from different distributors in different gauges, the one I’m using is in Strikk til mamma og mini book I got my self for christmas. I have on and off been thinking of making one since I saw a beautiful striped one made in fabel blue/turquoise longprint and white several years ago. I can’t remember who made it any more, that’s how my brain works, I can remember a sweater in detail but the name of the person is long forgotten. Anyway I finally got around to it and dyed yarn for it and have now started knitting this circus tent. I love the colours, they work so incredibly well together which is something you can do when dying for a specific project. I dyed the reddish colour first and at the end I popped in the blue yarn as well to give it the same undertones as the red, this makes them work so well together.

If you haven’t dyed before and are curious, try, it is really fun and wonderful to try and work out the perfect colour.

Yarn dying tips

Only dye yarn thats skeined and make sure to tie bits of yarn around the skeins with even spacing to prevent tangling.
Pre soak the yarn for an hour or more, take a bucket with lukewarm water and a spurt(about 1/2tbs/liter water) of acetic acid(12%)
Mix your colours (acid dyes) with some of the dyeing water in cups and test the colour with small bits of the yarn before you start dyeing and make it semi-solid by adding a few different colour mixes similar to each other to different parts of the skeins. I think a slight variaton in the skein makes very beautiful projects.

Kaprifol Socks

Kaprifol socks are knitted from the cuff down and have a beautiful cable running organically along the side of the sock and merge at the toe. Kaprifol or Lonicera caprifolium is the flower of the province in Sweden I’m from. It climbs high in spirals and sprouts large flowers with a mild scent of summer.

Yarn: (320/360)meters of fingering weight sock yarn (400 meters/100 grams). The samples are made in yarn hand dyed by me. The yarn base is 75% wool, 25% polyamid.
Gauge: 27 stitches/10 cm and 36 rows/10 cm in stockinet stitch

Price 45sek (about 5usd)

I have finally managed to create the coordinating sock pattern to Kaprifol Mitts, the have an organically flowing cable along each side of the sock that merge in the toe, there was a lot of knitting and ripping back in the design process before everything got exactly as I had planned. Now that it is finished I really, really like looking at them and since it is the most recent, It is my favourite, if you ask me in 6 months I’ll probably have a new favourite but for the moment those orange/red socks made in my own hand dyed yarn and kaprifol sock pattern. I love them and they might just be my favourite project ever. One of my friends said that my style was simple with a small but spectacular detail and these sock definitely falls under that if I may say so myself. I have always thought that my signature style was colour work related, like in my vide pattern series, but after this summer with all the cabling I had made and with the last cabled hat pattern I think I’ll have to redefine what I think my knitting style is. Colour work still is my favourite kind of knitting but the structure and the fabric created with cables is so different and interesting. I’m planning and swathing for another pattern with cable and garter stitch, but it is still in very early stages and will probably take some time before you see it.

This is a behind the scenes photo of the photoshoot for the pattern and for some coming ads, I didn’t have access to three models so I took three of our kitchen chairs, all my camera equipment and cable remote controller and photographed my self in all the three positions. Afterwards I edited them together to make it look like I had three models and a photographer. I love photoshop.

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Lamb

Lamb by Susan B. Anderson, this is the second one I’ve made the first one went to my sister and needed mending a few weeks ago so after I mended her I started a new one to keep. As lats time I change the body and lengthened the legs and omit wire in the legs to keep the toy soft and cuddly rather then being able to stand. The yarn for the head and legs is Sublime yarn cashmere merino silk DK and Drops alpaca bouclé for the body. to make the body extra sleepy I use the reverse stotckinet side and the outside and made the body as one continuase sfeare insead of knitting an oval for the back and picking up stitches, I did try tat first but this bouclé yarn is horrible to work with and picking up stitches did not work out it was one big mess so I ripped it all out and started with a 6 stitch circal increared 6 stitches a row and then every second row until I reaced the number of stitches alled for knitted the length of the body and made the decreases as caled for in the pattern. I have the itty bitty toys book by Susan B. Anderson and worked from the book but the pattern is also available for free on Petite Purls.

This cute sheep that looks like it needs some shearing.

Meet Elijah

You probably know by now that I work in phases and for a period of time, all I want to do is knit sock, sew dresses, play piano… well this time it is make cute toys. This is Elijah by Ysolda and it is made in Sublime yarn’s Cashmere Merino Silk DK in the colour way Buttercream, a wonderful soft yarn and filled with wool and has embroidered eyes. I added a tiny tail since elephants have tails and it certainly makes him cuter. I bought the pattern at one of her birthday sales a long time ago but never got around to making it and I’m so glad I finally did. I made a lot of toys about 2 years back and gave all of them away, I have a tendency to say that I’m going to save them, but they somehow end up everywhere but here. Although they have been played with and that is the important thing, I felt like we should have some here as well so that we have something for our young visitors to play with. And I just like the look of a row with knitted or clothed toys in my “office” when I’m working.

The pattern is easy to follow, you knit the head and then you pick up stitches and knit the other parts seamlessly, which require less finishing then knitting in pieces and then seam. I think that I prefer seaming and did in fact seam the ears instead of picking up stitches, there is no going back and re-seam it if you realise that the arms are crooked if you work seamlessly and the first few rows are tough when everything is straining. I can totally see why she choose this construction, but I prefer to seam. When I made my first toys however I loved the idea of not having to seam everything up. I thought that her very detailed instructions for where to pick up stitches was wonderful and made the toy much more accessible, and it is very clear now that preferences change when your skills grow. I also used to swear by bamboo needles and I can’t stand them nowadays. They are blunt, lack precision and the stitches don’t glide smoothly.

Socks

I did say the I caught the sock bug, here and my newly made bed socks. My old and very loved bed socks got a hole, I woke in the middle of the night possibly caused by a hole at the right toe and when I sat down to mend them I realized the whole sole was thread worn and beyond mending. Despite that I did mend the entire sole of both of them because I do really like them. The next day I however realized that I needed new and went through my stash. I didn’t have enough yarn for my usual pattern that require 150 grams so I made a shorter in stockinet instead I really like these, they’re quick, cute and easy to make, and only require about 100 grams of worsted weight

And then one late saturday evening I thought why not make on other pair, a more colourful version. So I made another pair in some nice scraps I had and home, and oh how I love my new colourwork socks. Colourwork makes me happy in all aspect it’s bright and the most wonderful thing to knit. I love seeing the pattern grow, even if is just a small detail as in this case it brightens everything and makes the world a little happier. So here comes a little bit of bright happiness.

What is your favorite kind of knitting?

Anyone else that’s crazy about colourwork?

No? Just me then.

The yarn is Filcolana Peruvian Highland Wool and I used about 200 meters and the pattern is completely my own and wonderfully simple. And even though there new and it is summer I have gotten a fair bit of use out of them, the heat hasn’t really got here yet and do much prefer this cooler summer so that I can wear my new sock and colourful cardigans, and it’s wonderful.

This pattern isn’t released yet but you can find all my other knitting patterns here if you are interested.

Crocheted cuteness

I started following some awesome crocheter a few weeks back and got so inspired that I got out my favorite hook and fingering crochet cotton even though a few weeks back I was thinking that I would never crochet again. But you never know what inspiration is about to hit you next. I’m really glad that I did save it, because I fear that the inspiration might have faded a bit at the point of buying cotton only to use part of the skein for a stuffed crochet toy. Instead I raided my stash and made this cute little bunny. The pattern is Spring Bunnies by Stephanie Jessica Lau. After making the bunny I found an elephant pattern by Chisachi Kushima on the same blog and just had to make that too.

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Timjan Hat Patterns

I have a new pattern or actually two new patterns. And this is the reason for the slight neglection of the blog lately, I have been working on a few new designs and converting my business from a side/hobby to a company so I can start to work on it more and release more new and exciting things and hopefully make this my living.

Back to the hat, it is a cabled and textured hat that is quite easy to make for the experienced knitter, it has an intermediate level but a really determined beginner could most likely make it as well. The texture is what makes this hat special. It adds elegance without making it girly and can be worn by anybody. The two different versions are an earflap hat for children with a size range from newborn up to 55cm and a beanie style with a size-range of 41 – 69 cm. The beanie pattern comes with a modification guide so that you can make a slouch hat if you prefer that.

You can buy one of the patterns for 45 sek or both for 55 sek just add both to your cart and the price will automatically go down to 55 sek.

Yarn: 65-200 meters of lofty worsted weight yarn (200 meters/100 grams).
The white sample is made in Rauma Puno (110 meters/50 grams, 68% Alpaca 22% Nylon 10% Merino), the mint in Sandnes soft alpakka (100 meters/50 grams, 80% Alpaca 20% Acrylic), the blue in Artesano Aran (132 meters/100 grams, 50% Wool 50% Alpaca) and the purple is made in two strands of Tant Kofta’s Angorett (730 meters/100 grams, 70% Merino 25% Angora 5% Polyamide). The different yarns give very different fabrics, Soft alpaca, Puno and Angorett gives a light and lofty fabric while Artesano Aran gives a dense and heavier fabric.

Gauge: 19 stitches/10 cm in cable pattern 2 repeats (16 stitches) are 8.5 cm wide and 25 rows/10 cm, 4 cm/repeat.

Needles: 4.5 mm or size that gives you the gauge called for on washed fabric. A 40 cm circular needle and double pointed needles or a longer circular needle if you prefer magic loop. When you swath you need to do so in the round if order for it to be accurate.

My favorite part of the design is the star that is created in the crown decreases, isn’t it beautiful.

I have made 6 hats this far and have a photo shoot with some kids coming up and need to make a few more or as many as I can manage before that so we can have some fun and the kids can choose a colour that they like and be happy and cooperating I hope, wish me luck.

Stash Dash

The knit girllls podcast is hosting a completely insane and wonderful knit along at the moment. I find it very inspiring and it has this far led to a few new design ideas that I currently trying out and modifying, and that is the reason for the downtime here on the blog. I have a lot of things that I want to keep quiet about until they are ready and I have decided on most of the details. But back to the knit girllls, the knit along is to finish 3K, 5K or 10K meters yarn in finished and ready to wear projects between May 22 and Aug 14, that is 11 weeks and this far I got a little side tracked by designing so the first week I did good and finished 1068 meters but after the second week I’m only at 1240 meters. Being the very competitive person that I am, I’m going for 10K and I totally think that I can catch up. Stash Dash is more about getting things done that have been laying around then actually knitting all those meters or using your stash. I have a few cardigans that I intended to give pockets from the start but then I got eager to start wearing them to take the time to add pockets in the end it is quite stupid actually because how much time does knitting a pair of pockets take compared to the hole thing it is just one more evening, but for some reason this doesn’t happen and I really do like to have a pocket for my key card.

If you add a little bit of knitting to a project and finish it all of it counts towards your Stash Dash goal. It also made me look at all of my scraps and try to be creative with them. I have a lot of scraps to the point that almost my entire stash is scraps, and scraps normally just aren’t very inspiring are they, half a skein of that and a few meters of something precious but not really enough to make something.

And I made my self a new project bag, isn’t it wonderful. It is made in a striped 50% linen 50% cotton fabric. the narrow striped halv linne is very close to my heart and it makes me think about summer in the Swedish archipelago. The zipper is a heavy gold metal zipper with a navy black meant for trousers and the combination is amazing. And if that wasn’t good enough it is also little with white linen. If the zipper weren’t so expensive I would make bags like this one to everyone I know.

Summer planning

In celebration of the summer I hope is coming (soon) I have a Coupon code for 20% off all my accessories patterns valid until June 13 midnight GMT time. The code is Sommar

Because accessories are perfect knitting in the summer, they’re small so you can easily travel with it or bring it on adventures. Nor will it be unbearable to work on very warm days since they’re so small it won’t make a big, fussy, sweaty pile in you lap. Perfect. Although I could use some extra heat at the moment It’s June and we have 10°C along with strong winds and a lot of rain. The standing joke is that the weather institute had some issues and in the mean time broadcast a reprise of Mars.

You can find all my accessories patterns here.