Cloudberry

Monday, June 25, 2018

Narwhal Sweater

I first saw the Narwhal sweater on @sari_n instagram last year and have been waiting for her to write up the pattern. So when she was looking for test knitters in the beginning of May I was soon to tell her I wanted to test knit it for her! I have used the same yarn as in the pattern, Safran from Drops, which is a cotton yarn. And I am pleasantly surprised by how soft it turned out.

Ravelry project page
Pattern: Narwhal sweater by Sari Nordlund (the pattern is not published yet)
Yarn: 365 g Safran #medium pink 2
Needles: 2,5 mm / US 1.5 and 3 mm / US 2.5
Size: large

Saturday, May 19, 2018

Humulus, Bird Boxes & Narwhal

So when Rauma decided to join the two yarns pt2 and Finullgarn into one brand, Finull pt2, my local yarn store put all their pt2 yarn on sale. And I just couldn't buy some of it ;) So this beautiful dark blue came home with me along with some various shades of pink which will be knitted into another sweater or kofte later. It's the first time I have knitted a garment out of pt2, I have just used it for mittens earlier. But after a wash and a soak with some hair conditioner it turned out soft and squishy!

The pattern is Humulus which "everyone" seems to be knitting (along with Zweig, which I am going to cast on this summer). The pattern on the yoke is inspired from the Humulus plant. A plant I really want to get for my garden, it's so pretty when it grows upwards on the walls or on a trellis.

Ravelry project page
Pattern: Humulus by Isabell Kraemer
Yarn: pt2 dark blue #37 and Finull white #400
Needles: 3 mm / US 2.5 and 3,5 mm / US 4
Size: large

And as you could see on one of the photos we have been making bird and owl boxes from old wood planks. We have already put them up in trees around our house and hopefully some birds will move in. We usually get European pied flycatchers in our boxes, which is great because they eat a lot of insects. But we also have other small birds from the Tit family.
We made owl boxes because we have had a little Boreal owl here this winter. It's not afraid of us and have been sitting and singing next to the house. So maybe it will find a mate and move in in one of the boxes :)

When I had finished the Humulus sweater I saw that Sari Nordlund was looking for test knitters for her beautiful Narwhal sweater. I first saw the sweater on her Instagram account a while ago and just knew I had to knit it if see wrote up the pattern! I sent her a message telling her that I would love to test knit and I could. I am using the same yarn as in the pattern - Safran by Drops, and it's going to be a perfect summer sweater!

Friday, May 4, 2018

Reusable Cotton Pads

After seeing how much plastic that ends up in the ocean as micro plastic, I (or we) are trying to reduce our use of plastic and other things we only use onetime. One of those things are cotton pads for removing make up. I have used cotton yarn, but the pattern said that by using yarn with a cotton and bamboo blend they would be softer to use. I am not using cotton pads a lot, so we'll see what the teenager in the house thinks about these...

This pattern is from a Norwegian book with dishcloth patterns - Kluter by Bitta Mikkelborg. And as you can see they have a leaf motif that was easy to memorize.

Ravelry project page
Pattern: Rensebladet
Yarn: Various cotton yarn
Needles: 3,25 mm / US 3

The other one is just knitted the same way, but without the leaf motif.

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Prism Socks

It's been almost a month since I posted here and we are finally starting to get some spring feeling here in the arctic! The snow is smelting, the birds are chirping and I have been able to knit outside in the warmth of the sun :) And most importantly the water well is filled up again and I have never been so happy to do laundry again ;)
I have been knitting quite a bit this last month and the Prism pattern was so addictive that I made three pairs using leftovers from socks I have made earlier. It's almost like knitting a vanilla sock, but with a little bit extra every third row to keep it interesting. I'm sure these won't be my last using this pattern :)

Pattern: Prism (free pattern)
Yarn: The white is Sisu and Silja and the others are leftovers of OnLine and Opal yarn
Needles: 2,5 mm / US 1.5

Ravelry project page

Ravelry project page

Ravelry project page

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Sagavoll, Sovereign and Don't Take Your Water For Granted

I've picked up my Sagavoll kofte again and hopefully I'll finish it before I cast on a new sweater. I feel like casting on all the sweaters the last few days :) The last time I was knitting on it I was also reading about the lawyer Matthew Shardlake. I really enjoyed the last book and have now started the third book in the series Sovereign. I am also reading a non fiction book about how the start of educating midwifes started here in Norway in the late 1700.

Last time I knitted on this I actually finished the yoke and have just the steeking, button bands and the neck left to knit. But it seems to be the hardest part to knit though...

What are you knitting and reading this week?
I'm joining Nicole at Frontier Dreams for Craft On and Ginny at Small Things for Yarn Along.

This is my third pair of Prism socks. They are so addictive to knit and great for using up leftover yarns! I'm sure it won't be the last pair I'll knit.

As I mentioned last time we hoped for some great weather during Easter. Well that didn't happen. It snowed almost every day and we ended up getting over 50 cm of snow. So a lot of snow shoveling and not so much of skiing in other words. But on Monday, the last day in the break we woke up to some wonderful weather :) Yesterday was also sunny and warm, so my youngest and I went for a ski trip after school.
We have had a strange winter weather wise this year. All January, February and half of March has been cold, windy and dry with no snow or rain. So that means the ground as well has dried up and our water well is almost empty. Someone compared the weather we've had to an arctic desert. So for the last two months we have been almost out of water :( Hubby have to fill up big water cans twice a week and we have to do the laundry at my moms. So I am SO ready for spring now and for all I care it can rain for weeks now so we can get our water back again. 10 years ago we were out of water from late January to June, but that time the water froze and I remember how strange it was to have running water again after all those months! Fortunately this time we have running water, but it's not enough of it for normal day to day use... But that's life on the country side in the arctic and it is strange how fast one adapt to not having enough or no running water at all ;)
But people - Don't take your water for grated!

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Prism Socks & Easter Crime

Since it's Easter I had to start reading a thriller or crime story as we like to call it here in Norway. I've just read a few chapter in The Marsh King's Daughter by Karen Dionne. And so far it seems to be a good story. Reading and watching crime series on tv is something we Norwegians typically do during Easter. Even our milk cartons has a cartoon crime mystery we can solve and win a prize if you send in the answer ;) This year Hubby and I are watching the last season of Shetland on tv and we really like it. They are showing the last two episodes tonight, so I guess we'll have to watch something on Netflix the rest of Easter. We started watching some episodes of the Frankenstein Chronicles a couple of weekends ago, so I think we'll pick that up if we don't find another good crime series instead.

My knitting mojo isn't what it once was due to the things happening in life at the moment. But socks seems to knit them selves. This is a pair of Prism socks, a free pattern and I'm using some leftover yarns together with some plain white. They are not going to be matchy as the two balls of pink/orange yarn didn't start on the same place, but I don't care ;)

What are you knitting and reading this week?
I'm joining Nicole at Frontier Dreams for Craft On and Ginny at Small Things for Yarn Along.

I've also finished some socks the last month or so. I'm not going to post them all here, but you can find them on my Ravelry page. This is however the latest pair I finished as part of the only kal I've joined so far this year - 12i18, a sock kal hosted by Garnbutikken Fortuna, a Norwegian yarn store and podcast. We are knitting a pair of socks each month from Norwegian designers. This pair is designed by one of the owners of Fortuna and it's called Parus Major, which is the bird Great Tit or Kjøttmeis in Norwegian. Mine does not look like the bird as I have used pink and purple instead of yellow and black.

Ravelry project page
Pattern: Parus Major
Yarn: Sisu pink #4517 and Ida Strømpegarn white #300 and purple #336
Needles: 2,5 mm / US 1.5

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Selbugloves

After almost three months of beautiful, but oh so cold weather (-20 C) we got some fresh snow and milder temperatures. Perfect for Easter break. We've been out snowshoeing, skiing and made food over the fire several days now and I really hope the great weather will continue as long as the Easter breaks last.

I made my youngest a pair of gloves with moose on at the end of last year, but they are already used up (he has worn them so much they got holes..) so he requested a pair of new ones. This time I made them in a thicker yarn which is superwash, so hopefully they will not wear out so fast. I really like the little pop of green on the cuffs :)

Ravelry project page
Pattern: The pattern is from a booklet from Viking Garn, but is also available free from their website here - 0907-2.
Yarn: Rubin #441 green, Mor Aase #1088 and #1032 dark and light grey
Needles: 2,5 mm / US 1.5 and 3 mm / US 2.5

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Mittens & Life

It's been a month since I posted last time and well, life just happened. I won't go into details, but it has been a rough couple of months lately and my knitting mojo has been on the low side :(
But it seems like things are working out for the better and the sun came back over the horizon the 31st of January, so the days are getting lighter and so does my thoughts. So hopefully the knitting mojo will come back too. There is so much I want to knit this year!

Last time I talked to you about all the mitten kals that was going on. And I had so many plans for all the mittens I wanted to knit during January. I only managed to make two pairs...

We have been having a long period of frost with temperatures down to -25 C for almost a month now. Cold temperatures doesn't bother me much, but when it last so long as we've had this time, I've started to get a little cabin fever...! Fortunately the weather changed yesterday and I'm crossing my fingers that it will last. We really need to get some snow or even rain as our water well is almost dried out do to the cold and dry weather we've had so far this winter.

The first pair I finished is Rev or Fox in English. They have been on my knitting list since I bought the book they are in. But can you see the little mistake I've made?

How about now that you see the palm side too?

If you look closely you can see that I have changed the dominant colour after I set aside stitches for the thumb. From the thumb and up the withe dots are popping more out than what they do below the thumb. I didn't notice it until I was about to knit the foxes heads and it didn't bother me enough to rip back. It's just a pair of mittens. If it had been on a sweater i.e I would have fixed it though.

Ravelry project page
Pattern: Fox
Yarn: pt2 orange #71 and Finullgarn white #400
Needles: 2 mm / US 0 for the cuff and 2,5 mm / US 1.5 for the mitten

The second pair is a pattern from the Selbuvotter book. It's one of the charted patterns in the back of the book.

Ravelry project page
Pattern: Damevott Bårdsgård
Yarn: Tove in white #1012 and purple #5024
Needles: 2,5 mm / US 1.5

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Knit All the Mittens

You can find all the books in my library on Ravelry.

I have decided to join in on the year of the mitten knit along that is going on on several places. So I have found all my knitting books with mitten patterns. There are so many mittens I want to knit, so I guess this is the year!
If you want to join in there are lots of places to do so. We have the I Make Mittens group on Ravelry where they knit mittens all year long and are having the NaKniMitMo which is a kal they have in January. On Instagram p4chen and treehouseknits are hosting a mitten kal this year where you knit a pair of mittens each month. I guess they have some info on their podcasts as well. Skeindeer is also having a mitten kal, the 2018 yearlong mittalong.

As you can see I have almost finished the first pair, they are just missing a bind off at the top and the thumbs. I have wanted to knit these Fox mittens since I bought the book, but haven't had any fox colour in my stash so I had to buy some wool yarn when I was at my local yarn shop last week :)

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Dark Fire & Sagavoll Kofte

What are you knitting and reading this week?
I'm joining Nicole at Frontier Dreams for Craft On and Ginny at Small Things for Yarn Along.

We are still waiting for the sun so my photos are a bit dark and gloomy today. I bought a new teacup on sale after Christmas. It's from Porsgrund and it has a traditional Norwegian pattern on it. It's also available in red.
I loved the first book Dissolution in the Matthew Shardlake series and I have the rest of the series in my bookshelf, so this year I have decided to read them all. The series is set in the 1500 and I love this type of story! I've only read a few chapters in the second book Dark Fire, but I just know it will be a good read.

It is 1540, and Henry VIII has been on the throne for thirty-one years when Matthew Shardlake, the lawyer renowned as "the sharpest hunchback in the courts of England," is pressed to help a friend's young niece who is charged with murder.
Despite threats of torture and death by the rack, the girl is inexplicably silent. Shardlake is about to lose her case when he is suddenly granted a reprieve - one that will ensnare him again in the dangerous schemes of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's feared vicar general.
In exchange for two more weeks to investigate the murder, Shardlake accepts Cromwell's assignment to find a lost cache of Dark Fire, an ancient weapon of mass destruction. Cromwell, out of favor since Henry's disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves, is relying on Shardlake's discovery to save his position at court, which is rife with conspiracy. -from Goodreads-

I'm knitting on another traditional Norwegian kofte pattern - the Sagavoll kofte. I started it back in the beginning of November, but it has been lingering in my knitting basket until yesterday when I finally joined the sleeves to the body and started the fun part aka the yoke. The yarn is Tove from Sandnes garn and it has become one of my favorite yarns lately. It's perfect for both sweaters as well as for mittens.

It's hard to capture the oker colour of this project with the little to non daylight we are having these days. But this was the best I could to.

Monday, January 1, 2018

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year to you and your family!
We spent the last hours of 2017 out in the forest at our tiny cabin in -15 C under the stars and the northern light, keeping warm by the fire while watching the fireworks.

When it comes to crafting I managed to knit (and a bit of crocheting) 66 projects. You can find all my projects from last year on Ravelry under the 2017 set on my page.

As always it was mainly socks ;) And I knitted up 34 pairs. Next was 13 pairs of mittens, 4 sweaters, 3 shawls, 3 blankets, 2 kofter (cardigans), 2 cowls, 2 hats, 1 pokemon dragon, some hearts with selbu pattern and new sleeve cuffs on my Heart Yoke cardigan that I made back in 2010.

My favorite knits and the ones I have used the most are these :)