BABY CABLE HAT

I promised cable knitted projects earlier, and here we are with another one! I've got friend who is due at the end of the month, so thought I'd knit her a little something. Baby and kid stuff is so fun and quick to knit. I've been pretty into knitting cables recently, and since this will be an autumn baby, I thought a little cozy cable hat would be appropriate.

I used this pattern for Veslestrikk's Gullklumplue that I found on ravelry, and knitted it in Drops Baby Merino in off white on 3.5mm needles and finished it off with a faux fur bobble. I don't usually knit with such small needles, but it wasn't as fiddly as I thought and the cables turned out so lovely and defined. I used just over half a ball of wool, so this is an excellent way to use up some leftover yarn for sure.

I'll be gifting it together with either one of the macrame teethers or the fabric teethers I made earlier this year. Hopefully little baby Amanda will approve!

CURRENTLY IN OCTOBER

wearing all the cozy sweaters. This raglan sweater and my skappel sweater have been on repeat!

watching Hilda! I've been a fan of the comics forever, and I let out the most excited squeal ever when I saw that Netflix had turned it into a show! It's turned into a family thing for us as well, and we've all been bunching up on the couch together (Oscar and Bo included!) to watch the episodes.

listening to the Harry Potter and the Sacret Text.

knitting the tiril sweater. So excited about this one.

cooking all the pumpkin recipes! My local grocery store just had a sale on hokkaido pumpkins, and so far I've made roast pumpkin slices, pumpkin & coconut soup, pumpkin & sweet potato curry and pumpkin bread. Next up: pumpkin pie, obviously.

brainstorming Christmas presents.

appreciating these rainy and stormy nights and cozying up inside with tons of candles, blankets and the fireplace. Fall is here, guys! ♥

photo by the hubs

ANKER II

Earlier this year, I shared this sweater that I knitted for Oscar last year. I love this sweater so much, but it turns out toddlers grow incredibly fast and before not long came the day he had grown out of it. So what's a knitting mamma to do? Knit him another one, obviously.

This time around, I chose a more green-y tone, and knitted it in Sandnes Garn Merinoull (the colorway is 7572 petrol). It's actually a bit of a funny color that kind of changes depending on the light, ranging from a dark sagey green to a dark grey. I actually messed up and only knitted three rows of the pattern at the yoke and had to unravel quite a bit to go back and fix it (though no one on instagram noticed or pointed it out haha).

Also, funny story: I thought it'd might be a good idea to get a couple of photos of Oscar in this sweater, but he was not up for it in the slightest haha. He downright refused and a had a giant tantrum instead. As we were on our way outside and he needed a warmer sweater anyway, I gave up and reached for a basic H&M hoodie instead, to which he cried out "JAAA!!" in excitement! Haha. That's it, that's the last time I'm knitting you anything! I thought to myself. But then the next day Graeme sent me this little video:

Oscar's new sweater from Hilde McMillan on Vimeo.

In other words, it's definitely not the last time I'm knitting Oscar something. :)

LIVING ROOM CURTAINS

Ok, this project has taken me an embarrassing amount of time to finish, and I don't even really know why. The curtains and the rods were bought way back in autumn 2016. Can we just stop and let that sink in? Why in the world would it take anyone almost two years to hang up some curtains? I wish I had a good answer haha.

There was a lot of back-and-forthing involved, of course. First, I pinned the curtains and hung up one to test it and decided I didn't like the length. Then that one curtain panel (in the wrong length) hung on the right by the door for far too long, until one day I (I think it was me? I don't even think I can blame the dog or the toddler here?) managed to step on it while I was letting the dog out which resulted in the rod getting pulled off the wall. That one panel in the wrong length migrated to the middle of the rod to semi-shield us from the sun as it sets, and then it just sat like that for even longer. I guess they were never really a priorty as we had a lot of trees and bushes at the back of our garden, but then this summer a lot of them were removed which made it feel a little bit more needed. So that's when I finally decided enough was enough, got Graeme to fix the curtain rod and then sat down to sew.

It wasn't smooth sailing from there either though, of course. The first panel went ok. I decided that I didn't like the look of the long loops at the top, so I folded them over and sewed them in place and then re-pinned the bottom accordingly. But when I tried to repeat the process for curtain panel number two, I learnt that it was a good 5 cms shorter than the first panel! Luckily I pinned and did a test hang before I actually sewed anything! The third curtain turned out to be even shorter, so I had to repeat the process there too. So if you look closely (please, don't haha), you can see that the hemming on the bottom looks completely different on all three panels haha. Luckily, it isn't actually noticable at all though, so it doesn't bother me. I'm just really glad to finally have these curtain panels up haha.

For now I really like it like this, as I love these big windows and I don't like a whole lot of fabric obstructing the view. I don't have any curtains on the opposing windows for that exact reason. Maybe I'll change my mind on it in the future? Just give me like 10 years or something?

CABLE HAT X2

I've been on a bit of a cable knitting kick recently. These two are just the first of several knitting projects involving cables that I've recently finished (stay tuned! September turned into a pretty big knitting month for me haha). These are both going to be Christmas presents and, that's right--I just used the C-word. But we're in October now, so that's ok, isn't it?

Both of the patterns are by Strikkelisa. The hat with the straight lines is the Tykkrillestripelue, and the diamond cabled one is the appropriately named Hat with Diamond Cables. I wanted the hats to be similar but different, so I decided to use the same yarn and color and bobbles for both: Gjesdal Cortina Soft and 8 mm needles. It's a super cozy and chunky yarn, perfect for some cozy and chunky hats.

So that's me officially started on my Christmas presents of 2018! Maybe this year I'll actually be organized enough to not have to stress about it in December? Just kidding, I say that every year. It never actually happens haha.