Traveling Norway

I have a fun 2 weeks to spend in Norway. Internet connections are not always good because we are staying in small local hotels but tonight it seems to be working for now at least so I will try to upload some pictures. Click them for a closer look.

First our friendly sheep. They park themselves on the road over here. Drive carefully, everyone!The GPS was very helpful most of the time. We went up and down the mountains several times! It usually looked something like this.


Here is the road we traveled. Beautiful!

Progress on AH103 Mitten

The past couple of days have been busy so I haven't gotten as far on my mitten knitting. There is a knitting group at Borders that I recently started attending on Tuesday afternoons so I took the mitten along yesterday. I should have known better! Talking and following a pattern don't mix well! HA! I think I need to look closely at the last couple of rows again before I go on. I did get to the decreases at the top though and did the first 2 rounds there. Here is where I am now:


And here is the chain that makes its way up the sides of the mittens. In a Norwegian mitten there are always a few edge stitches which separate the palm design from the back of hand. They usually have a solid line of the main color(the dark one) on either side. You might also notice on the thumb gusset the solid line of the main color on either side. This line will continue up the sides of the thumb when I make it.


We have company coming this weekend from Wisconsin so I am going to be cleaning, cooking and planning for where we will put everyone in the next few days. My knitting time will probably be limited so I may not get this mitten finished right away. It is a fun project though so I will be motivated to get back to it soon.

Denise

AH103 Eight Pointed Star Mittens by Arnhild Hillesland

A knitter commented on Ravelry that the AH103 pattern possibly had mistakes. Arnhild created the pattern in the early 1990’s for classes she was teaching. She hadn't had any comments before now, but mistakes can happen. She has gone through several computer systems in that time and has revamped many of the patterns. Sometimes in making changes and reprinting things can accidentally be changed. She works very hard to make sure there are no mistakes. She does not want to have to post page after page of errata as many publishers seem to do.

So, in the interest of making sure knitters will enjoy working with these patterns, we decided to test knit it again just to check. I have not knit it before so I was elected to do the knitting. I am following the directions exactly to see what happens. I am making the Ladies size on 2.5mm needles. The yarn is Rauma Strikkegarn as suggested in the pattern. I chose 2 of the discontinued colors that Arnhild had.

4/10/10 so far I have knit the cuff and hand through the gusset stitches. Stitch counts all came out right and the fit is good. The first design (arrows) is a 4 stitch repeat. The diamonds are an 8 stitch repeat. That works.

I have knit the gusset stitches on to a holder and I am ready to do the rest of the palm and fingers. I don’t see any problems so far. Stitch counts all came out right and the fit is good.

4/11/10 tonight I knit about 2 inches up from the thumb gusset. At this point there are no changes in the pattern to worry about. I just keep following the graph until I get to the finger tip decreases.

I have been practicing holding both yarns in my left hand as I knit. I usually hold one strand in each hand when I do 2 color knitting. I am very pleased with how even the knitting is.I am not getting as much bumpiness in the work as I usually do. My gauge is loosening up though as I get more comfortable with this technique. I am getting a slightly larger gauge now than I need for this mitten so I need to try to tighten it back up. Otherwise, I will have a very “roomy” mitten.
I have noticed 2 minor things as I have been working.

1. The diamonds on the cuff need to be shifted 2 stitches over to line up exactly with the stars. Remember that I am following the pattern exactly. If I had not done that I would have checked for this alignment and corrected it. Norwegian patterns generally assume that the knitter will know some of these things.
   
2. There is a funky diamond in the cuff just under the thumb gusset. This is the beginning of the round and there really isn't a good way to avoid a jog at that spot. Who is going to see it on the underside of the arm anyway?
   

This is a very pretty mitten. I love the chains that go up the sides of the hand. I will try to get a better picture of those later.

So far, there don't seem to be any errors in the pattern so maybe the knitter just misunderstood something. These mittens are not a beginner project but hopefully with a little help, she will get her mittens made so she can enjoy them. I will knit this one and then do the right mitten as well to see if it works up the same in reverse.

More later,
Denise

Retreat 2010 Photos

What a fabulous weekend! It was the last weekend of the Olympics so we had to celebrate that. This is our Olympic display. Aren't those sweaters gorgeous! The Norwegian ski team was not doing well in the Olympics, so there was some disappointment but overall, it was a great weekend for the 15th annual Arnhild's Knitting Studio Retreat.

We packed up Brunhild (she is on the left here), and her more delicate sister and all the shelving, sweaters and Rauma yarns that we could pack into 3 minivans and a Suburban and we set up a Denise's Needleworks store at the hotel. Everyone loved it!


Our featured teacher, Annemor Sundbø, was wonderful. She is so willing to share her knowledge of Norwegian knitting history. We all fell in love with this woman who has preserved so much of the history from her rag pile. We are so glad she could come and share that with us.

Before the retreat, I was able to get my Margrethe sweater mostly finished. There were still some facings to tack down inside. This one attracted a lot of attention. I think several people took home patterns and yarn for this sweater. The facings won't get finished any time soon though. Sarah, the owner of Blue Heron Knittery in Decorah, Iowa decided she really liked it too so it went home with her to go on display in her shop. Say hello for me if you visit there!


I love the rack of sweaters that we put together every year. Wouldn't you love to have this many beautiful sweaters in your closet?


There were many beautiful sweaters made and worn by our guests too. Here is a "sweater spotting" picture for you. Click on the picture for a closer look.

Cabled sweater for kids

Another sample for the trade show. This one is only a size 2 children's sweater. It is going quickly in Vamsegarn, a worsted weight yarn. Good thing, we leave in one week for the show and this is supposed to be in the display! I have the body done and one sleeve started now but haven't been able to get photos yet.

I had some problems along the way. No, make that lots of problems along the way. Probably because I am trying to get this done quickly. After doing seed stitch for so long on the Window Pane sweater I totally missed the instructions where it said to do the side panels in double moss stitch. I had been working merrily along for about 3 inches above the ribbing when I discovered it! The second picture is of the side panel after I reknit it plus a couple more inches.

I decided that I really didn't want to reknit the whole thing so I took the stitches for that whole panel off the needles -- gasp! -- I know, I know, for some of you that would be a major trauma but the stitches weren't going anywhere . . . yet . . . this is very sticky yarn so the stitches would just sit and wait for me to do something with them.

Now, fast forward a bit. I managed to cross one of the cables the wrong direction later in the sweater. I was telling my hubby how I had to reknit the side panels and now I needed to do the same thing to this cable. He suggested that I take pictures so I could post a how-to about it.

I am working on the how-to. Red is really hard to photograph well by the way! So bear with me. It will be up soon I hope. In the meantime there is lots of preparation underway for the show.

Window Pane Sweater is done!

It is finished and ready to go to the show! I think I looks great. I will be a very warm sweater for my hubby next winter too.

Here are the details:
Rauma pattern 2064
Vamsegarn 1100grams of 5 different colors
Needles sizes 4 & 4.5 mm - US 6 & 7

I would usually use a larger needle with Vamsegarn This was all done as knit 1, purl 1 which is always a looser gauge for me than stockinette.

This is an easy sweater to make, it just looks harder than it is.

We Signed a New Lease!

We are staying at the First National Bank location for at least another six months. Arnhild's Knitting Studio & Fiber Arts School is planning for some new classes and Denise's Needleworks will continue to provide the on-site Rauma yarn shop.

We will be going to TNNA, the big needle arts trade show in Ohio, in a couple of weeks. When we return we will be rearranging the school and store and getting ready for some new activities and classes. Keep an eye on the classes pages at either my web site or Arnhild's for all the new developments.

So come by and see what's new!

Arnhild's Fiber Arts School & Denise's Needleworks store

I wanted to share some pictures of our school and store. We have 2 small rooms in the basement of the First National Bank on Lincoln Way in Ames, Iowa. One of the rooms is set up for classes and has lots of projects displayed. The other room is my store.

We currently have 2 classes going: Basic Knitting and Norwegian Knitting. The classes are running one night a week for 8 weeks. We cover a lot of information in that time. The classes are individually tailored so the students can work on the project which they are most interested in. Many of the students from our first 8 week session decided to sign up for another session so they could continue to learn as they work through larger projects.

There is more information here at my web site or at Arnhild.com

Here is the store. We have a small selection of Rauma yarns.
And of course, needles and notions for your projects and a catalog of the Arnhild and Rauma patterns.

We have displayed many of the projects made up from the patterns that we carry so our students have lots of inspiration! On the left of this picture is a stand which holds the samples of every color of yarn available which we are happy to bring from the warehouse if someone wants them. Lots to choose from!