Hellurei!

Happy New Year to everybody! Hyvää uutta vuotta! Bonne année! С наступившим Новым годом! Auguri di Buon anno! Gott Nytt År!
(Sorry for a late wish.)

Well, I really hope you had great celebrations of Christmas and New Year. I bet you received many presents and you gave as many.
At the end of the last year I did't have much time, so I didn't manage to make many hand-made presents. But among those were mittens, which I would like to present:

They went for the very loved ones.
And I'm in such state of mind that I'd like to share a description of the grey mittens. I called them "Tamara's mittens".
Feel free to download the PDF. I really tried my best to make the description as clear as possible, but I'm not sure if I've succeeded in that :) So you're very welcome to ask question (if you have some) in comments.

;)

Tamara's mittens PDF

New Year pullover

Yep, I must say I'm not very successful with knitting something for myself. But last year before Christmas and New Year celebrations I finally finished a white pullover. I've been knitting it for more than a year. In Autumn 2012 I made a white pullover, wore it couple times, but then understood I didn't like it, so i destroyed it. Then I started a new one, made it slowly for couple months, but then again stopped liking it, so destroyed it again. And finally I understood what I really wanted. I wanted a simple piece of clothes which would look humble and warm me in cold days, but at the same time it should also have something interesting, so I found a pattern, which in its turn was also simple. (Yep, simplicity is my disease, if I can say so).

So here it is:

For this pullover I used needles #5. (And it's all for XS size.)
I'm, frankly, too lazy to tell about the whole process, but can tell generally.

For the back and the front piece I cast on 72 st. The rib's height is 5 cm.

The back piece and the sleeves are entirely in st st after the rib. For the back piece: in the next row after the rib I add evenly 4 st and continue in st st until I come up to armholes, where I cast off 9 st from both sides of the piece. Then I continue in st st for 19 cm, after what cast off all the st.

The front piece goes the same way as the back one, but there is a pattern in the middle, so it goes like that:

5 cm in rib, next 2 rows - in st st, while in the first of them I evenly add 4 st. Then we start the pattern: edge st, k12, p1, cable (on 3 st), p1, pattern (36 st), p1, cable (on 3 st), p1, k12, edge st.

And it goes like that until armholes, where I cast off 9 st on both sides. So now instead of 12 k, we make 3 k. And then 19 cm more and cast off all the stitches.

For sleeves I cast on 38 st, knit 5 cm in rib, the next row I add 2 st on both sides, and then stitch adding goes like that: add 2 st in every 8th row 9 times, and after that add 2 st in every 6th row 4 times. Then continue until needed length and cast off all the stitches.

Sew all the parts together.

As for the cable and pattern. We make cable on 3 st: 2 rows in st st, for the next row slip 2 st on cable needle behind the piece, k1, k st from the cable needle. And repeate like that.

And pattern is here:

This pattern shows how it looks from the right side.


Signs:
k
slip as to k, k, po
tk
k2tog
yo
p 



Yep, too much to read, but I hope you manage it :)

Socks

It's snowing today and the ground is finally white, so i thought it's time to tell about another "work" of mine. Made it several months ago (as a birthday present), so it'll be quite difficult to remember details.

For these socks i used a thread which, as producer says, was specially for knitting socks (40% wool, 35% acrylic, 25% polyamide) and needles #4 (4 mm).
The size was supposed to be 37-38.
So at first you need to cast on stitches to four needles (not sure already but in my case it should have been smth like 51 st). And the first row you just knit on 1st and 4th needle but on 2nd and 3rd you make 2x2 rib starting and finishing with 2 k.
Next row you start pattern on 2nd and 3rd needles. I found my pattern on internet on some website and it was probably taken from some magazine. I changed it a little and finally got pattern which took 22 stitches in width and 16 rows in height. And you knit the pattern until the piece comes to the toe.
On the 1st and 4th needles you continue in rib until it comes to the heel. You knit the heel on two needles (1st and 4th) in traditional way in stockinette stitches.
After the heel you continue the piece again on four needles and again continue making the pattern on the 2nd and the 3rd needles, while stockinette stitch on the 1st and the 4th.
When it comes to the toe you start knitting in st st on all the four needles.
So when your sock is ready you can see that its top has quite interesting pattern: it has pattern in front, 4 k st on each side and a rib on the back.
Through the length of the sock the pattern (in my case) was repeated four times (as you can see from the photo).
It's Christmas and the New Year celebration soon. So if you can't decide what presents you wanna give to your family and friends and definitely wanna do presents by your own hands socks could be a good idea. One can always find a way to use them :)

Bolero for a little princess

As, I think, most of those who knit, I knit for presents and very often those are presents for children. Here are couple of pictures of one of such works. Inspiration came from Garnstudio models.
This bolero consists of 5 parts: 2 sleeves, 2 front and 1 back pieces. It was knitted by the needles #3,5 in stockinette stitches.
It really didn't take a lot of time and pattern is extremely easy as you can see: only hearts on the left front piece. I think flowers would look good also. The edge is crocheted in contrast colour, I just thought that sharp contrasts is one of those things which distinguishes kids' clothes from adult outfits.

P.S. And I should have ironed the edge before taking pictures :)