zaterdag 18 februari 2012

Winter cold

Rhodesian Ridgebacks are an Africa dog breed.Their fur doesn't have an undercoat like for example a Golden Retriever, so they feel cold in winter when they go for just a little walk. There is no problem of course when they can run long distances for a workout. Thorin, my oldest sons dog, loves standing next to the heater and when temperatures outside dropped down to -16Ç last week, I could not stand the thought of poor Thorin shivering in the cold outside. So I went looking for a pattern to make a dog coat and I found one here
It only needed a few modifications and appeared to be a quick fix. It took me about an hour to make a simple test coat from a piece of brown fleece, some velcro and a reflecting band. Piece-o-cake! The fleece coat was delivered and Thorin even wanted to sleep in it.
Quite a success so far, so I made him a raincoat out of a piece of sturdy nylon, lined with fleece an a warm wintercoat from a leftover of dark brown imitation lammy fur fabric (called borg in Dutch). Both seem te be quit a succes.
Rhodesian Ridgebacks zijn een hondenras van Afrikaanse oorsprong. Hun vacht heeft geen onderlaag zoals die van de Golden Retriever. 's Winters is dat best koud wanneer ze voor een ommetje naar buiten gaan. Wanneer ze even goed kunnen rennen lopen ze zich wel warm, dan is er geen probleem. Thorin, de hond van mijn oudste zoon houdt ervan om tegen een warme radiator aan te staan. Hij is best een koukleum. Toen het de vorige week zo hard begon te vriezen had ik wel met hem te doen en ben ik op zoek gegaan naar een patroon om een hondenjas te naaien. Dat vond ik hier Het patroon is heel eenvoudig en hoefde maar weinig aangepast te worden. Een stukje bruine fleecestof, wat klitteband en een stukje reflecterend band voor de veiligheid vormden al snel een proefmodel. Het bleek een succes: de hond hield de jas het liefste ook in zijn mand aan! Het was een kleine moeite om nog een regenjas voor hem te maken van stevige nylonstof (Jan Sikkes), gevoerd met een stukje fleece en een warme winterjas van een couponnetje donkerbruine borgstof (ook van Jan Sikkes).

dinsdag 14 februari 2012

Aspen leaf hat

Yarn 1: Evilla 8/3, deep purple, Dye lot 38 Purchased at astridsdutchobsessions (out of stock) Yarn: 2, handspun Ouessant from my own sheep called Madelief, natural undyed white
Notes Knit on my Brother 260 as a test for my version of the shaded aspen leaf sweater by Elizabeth Zimmermann. Funny, it looks a bit like another Elizabeth Zimmermann design: the pillbox, which I only realized afterwards. Felted the hat slightly afterwards in the wasdryer. This opens the rather course Eville wool nicely. Alas, it shrunk the hat so that it didn't fit me anymore. Well, it does fit 8 year old Sophie nicely and wears it all the time. I made a punchcard of the entire Aspen leaf pattern for the tunic and used only the first pattern repeat for this hat. Gauge 18 st x 33 rows = 10 x 10 cm on Tension 2.2 Cast on 84 st. with waste yarn on tension 2 and knit a few rows. Change to main colour and knit 13 rows. Move every other stitch to the adjacent needle and knit one row.Change tension to 2.2.Knit 13 rows. Unravel waste yarn and pick up cast on stitches for picot edge.Knit one row to bind picot edge. Carriage on left side: insert punchcard, choose KC for selecting needles and knit one row. Carriage on right side:insert contrast colour, and change tension to 3. (You might ad a small 2 row border motive here, I forgot) Knit 22 rows (complete Aspen leave motive) Knit 2 rows main colour. Knit 2 rows of small border motive. Change to tension 2. Knit 2 rows main colour. Pick up all stitches with a circular needle and handknit decreases knitting in the round: Decr. every 13th and 14th sts. knit 1 row. Decr. every 12ht and 13th sts* Knit 1 row Decr. every 11th and 12th sts. a.s.o. Matress stitch open edge. Soak the hat and dry it in the washdryer. Watch out for shrinkage and take the hat out while still moist. Shape the hat and let it dry.

donderdag 9 februari 2012

In this article my Sarah Lund look-a-like sweaters are being mentioned. A good reason to show another Sarah Lund sweater I made. This was my first one, the one I made for my daughter in law Stephanie. This was the try-out version for the motive and it appeared that it had long floats. For Thomas'Sarah Lund cardigan I made a small alteration in the motive chart.
Here are my knitting directions. The original motive is copyrighted by Gudrun&Gudrun and I had to make adjustements anyway to fit the motive in a 24 punchcard. So I made my own variation of the motive. For an improved version of the punchcardmotive look here. This is a combination of machine knit (straight parts) and handknit raglan yoke, borders and finishing. Yarn: Ístex Létt-Lopi, 10 skeins = 1090.0 yards (996.7m)of Colorway light heather grey and: Ístex Létt-Lopi, 2 skeins = 218.0 yards (199.3m)of Colorway bright blue Both purchased at Astrid's Dutch Obsessions Brother 260, Tension4 Front , back and sleeves knit flat. Then joined them for a handknit circular yoke with raglan shaped decreases. I used the instructions from the Lopi book number 27, pattern 18 Nost. Joined sleeves, front and back and decided to knit raglan shaping instead of evenly spaced decreases as usual with circular yokes. I couldn’t manage to make the decreases fit with this large motive. Designing a motive for machine knitting is not easy: this one has very long floats on the backside of the fabric. I had to sew them afterwards. I made a lining for the neckband to prevent the wool from itching.