Bohus Stickning

My current obsession.
Blue Shimmer wristlets and the alpaca blend I bought to turn them into mittens.

Mom and I took Susanna Hanson's Bohus Stickning class at Stitches Midwest. I am completely in love! I love the geometric designs, I love the subtlety of the fine color patterns, I love how the angora blooms and makes it even more blended, I love how the angora feels. (Mine haven't really bloomed yet as they're still beeing kept in a plastic bag)

A close up of one wristlet. The red thread at the bottom is a provisional cast on and will not show in the final mittens.


Susanna told us about the history of the Bohus Stickning company/movement. I imediately grabbed the Poems of Color book from the library and started obsessing. I really want to get one of Solveig Gustaffson's kits. She is meticulously recreating the dye formulas from the original sweaters. Look at her site and drool a little. I have been. Mostly over the Wild Apple, the Egg and the Forest Darkness.

Paraphrasing Susanna:
Bohus Sticking began as a way to help out an economically depressed region of Sweden. It was a coture design house, retailing sweaters for hundreds of dollars. About a third of the profits went back to the knitter (not the percentage usually paid to textile workers). The company closed it's doors when the demand started to die off in the late 60's, not wanting to sacrifice construction methods or materials to bring prices down.

New Favorite Yarn

I ordered this blue green yarn from an online shop.  It is super soft, very cushy.  I made everyone pet it.  

I think I'm going to use it for a gift though, so I hunted online and in real life for more.  

I bought this at Jo-Ann Fabrics, and I'm going to order some in a pale pink from e-bay.  Yum.  

Aeolian Shawl for Me!

All lumpy, as yet un-blocked.  

First go round of blocking.  Center of each flower pinned out.  

Each flower with five points pinned out.  The shawl gets stretched further and further as I work my way around and around.  

Flower close up.  

Socks!

An adaptation of Barbara Walker's Northern Lights stitch pattern.  

Theses socks are for my enormous feet.  

Ta Da!

The birthday girl, in mom's lap with dead fish hat.  

Dad, with the catch of the day.

And the birthday girl again, with mom holding up the tail for effect.  

Tee Heee

Done!  The dead fish hat from Knitty.com.  I'll try for modeled shots later today.  I love it.  

Damp Wool

The hat, now blocked, on our bathroom counter drying.

Click on the image to view full sized!

And a Hat

When I used up the second ball of yarn for Stephanie's scarf I checked the length.  It was longer than I am tall, and will probably stretch more when I block it.  Usually you make a scarf as long as the wearer is tall and I am a bit taller than Stephanie.  I sent her a quick email to see if she would prefer a very long scarf or a ridiculously long scarf.  She chose very long, and I offered to knit a hat with the remaining yarn.  This is the hat, as yet un-blocked.  

Blocking is a process where you wet down the knitted object and stretch it to it's final dimensions.  Depending on the type of object/garment you are blocking you will stretch it more or less vigorously, using one of many stretching/wetting techniques.  This guy was supposed to be wet down and stretched over a dinner plate.  The hat seemed smaller than a plate while dry, but once soaked, it grew on it's own.  The hat is now larger than a dinner plate, so I didn't bother with it.  I simply shaped it by hand on a towel.  Blocking smoothes out all the bumps and wrinkles you see in these pictures.  

The bottom of the hat, I'll weave in that loose strand of yarn.  The ribbing won't fold over on itself after blocking.  

Drop Stitch Stephanie

I'm using this beautiful yarn that Stephanie bought to make her a scarf. She found a really lovely dropped stitch pattern that she liked. It's my train knitting because it shouldn't get to big or too intricate to haul around.




I had almost three feet of scarf knit. On my lunch break the other day I lay it out to take a blog photo, when I noticed a giant mistake. And the giant mistake was only about a foot from the beginning. Argh. I had to rip back, it was a little demoralizing. Now that I've knit back to where I was, I can talk about it again.


The scarf pre rip. You can see where my circular needle is, way back by the beginning. That's where I had to rip to.




And the offending row. You can see how the scarf is all wavy lines and offset openwork. But mid frame there is a big honking straight line, where I did not offset the openwork. There was no way I could leave it.



This is actually very addicting to knit.

Sorry for the poor photo quality, all taken with my iPhone.

More Spinning, and the Kureyon

I started working on the brown wool again. You can see I spun a lot more this time. I have to figure out what to do with the portion already on my drop spindle. This is so much faster, it's great!

Yesterday I also ripped out my Kureyon wrap and cast on for gloves. I wasn't sure that I had enough yarn to make a wrap the size and shape I wanted. And I had read that it wouldn't soften up as much as I was hoping. So I ordered another yarn from the same company that contains a hefty percentage of cashmere. I will make the wrap with that and I will make fingerless gloves from the Kureyon. I am calling them my iPhone gloves (you need your finger tips for iPhone manipulation).

The Kureyon wrap, before destruction.

The new Kureyon gloves, in progresss.


Sandy just said that these are very "Fame!"

Kureyon Wrap

I just cast on for this yesterday. I'm knitting up another wrap with the fishtail lace pattern. This one should be smaller than my purple one, better to wear as a scarf.



I've been wanting to try Kureyon, but didn't want to purchase a sweater's worth. This, their sock yarn, was on sale at Loopy Yarns when I took my parents there this weekend. I might have to buy another ball, still cheaper than a sweater. I'm not sure that I want to commit to a whole sweater in these colors either. A wrap seemed like a good idea on several counts.