How in the world did this happen?

I'm not finishing loads lately, so I haven't been posting. And mostly I've been down with the flu lately as well, so no posting. But now I just had to.

I've kept on the bandwagon that started with the still ongoing central park hoodie and cast on for the February Lady sweater that's been making the rounds internationally for a couple of years now. It seems that it's not possible for me to just knit a sweater or cardi. I have to make a couple of false starts, before actually being able to just knit it.

So anyway, I'm plodding along knitting the garter stitch yoke and I notice this:


I mean, what is that? How does that happen? Knitting garter stitch is HARDLY rocket science and yet I just hauled of and knitted stockinette for what, 20 stitches? Yeah. Great.

Otherwise, pretty though, isn't it? The yarn is Dream in Color Classy in Cinnamon Girl.

An Open Letter to Terry Gilliam

Hey man,

I've been influenced by the work that you do for all my life. When I was a child, I grew up watching Monty Python's flying circus, learning to speak english, not taking things too seriously, learning to see the strange humour that is all around us. Later on I found films like Brazil, that seemed to me to have a deeper meaning in them that influenced me in whole new ways. I've always loved your films, which is why I'm so sorry to say I'll probably never buy another one again.

I was hurt to see that you were among the hordes of film industry people that said "Hey, you know what, it's OK to drug, rape and sodomize a child if you make movies that are good enough." I don't care if you're friends with the guy, I don't really even care if you like him. You do the crime, you do the time. No matter who you are. Roman Polanski has not done the time. In fact he's fled from doing the time to luxury houses all over Europe. He was arrested going to receive a lifetime achievement award for a body of work that was mostly created while he was fleeing the law for raping a child. If this were just anyone, this wouldn't have happened. He would have done his time and everyone could've moved on.

By signing the petition you are openly saying that if you are rich, powerful and famous enough, it's ok for you to rape a child. And dude, for that, you suck.

Disaster struck!

I haven't been knitting or writing for a long time since I managed to get RSI from bad ergonomy, doing overtime and knitting while playing World of Warcraft. Apparently wrists can't cope with all that damage at once for a long time. So I spent five terrifying weeks on sick leave basically doing nothing, because everything was painfull and I was scared shitless of having to get surgery or worse, becoming permanently disabled because of this. I have to say it was bad, worse than I've ever had. At first I was almost literally a prisoner in my own home because even opening locks was difficult due to the pain involved. Thankfully it's slowly getting better, although I'm still not knitting, just to be sure.

Because knitting hasn't been an option and surfing has definitely been out of the picture, I've been kind of bored. At first I just read. Everything and anything I could get my hands on. After a few weeks of that I got bored of that as well and started snapping at the better half. It seems that I get very snappish when I get bored. So I got my sewing stuff back from my mom and started working on a more stylish sewn wardrobe. Pics of the progress soon to come.

Something that's happened over the summer is us selling our gorgeus, tiny apartment and getting a bigger one, further away from the center of Helsinki. Which means I'll be getting a room all devoted to my arts and crafts stuff. I'm completely loving it, because that means, that I won't have to keep putting away and taking out my sewing stuff whenever I'm in the middle of a project.

F.O. Rinsessa hat

I decided I neede another hat for this winter and what do you know, Ulla webmag had just the thing for me.



Pattern: Rinsessa Pipo by Sirkku Isopahkala (Ravelry)
Source: Ulla web magazine - all in finnish unfortunately.
Materials: Rowan Felted Tweed
Amount: a little less than 1 ball
Needles: 2.5 mm dpn's
Finished Dimensions: Good for a 58cm head circumference.

Started: 09.12.2008
Finished: 18.12.2008



I work in software development as a programmer or a dev if you will. The project I'm in now is somewhat stressfull and therefore a lot of the guys smoke. After being there a while, I found myself with the urge to just step out and take a break for a while. I've never touched ciggies and didn't want a silly project to change that, so I started taking my knitting along when the guys went out for smokes.

I needed a hat that didn't need me to carry around cable needles but was still interesting enough to make me take a break from work. Enter the rinsessa.



I need to start blogging right after finishing, because this far out, I can't remember much. All I do remember is that this thing was a really quick knit. It seemed to be over before I really got started. It looks nice and has seen almost constant use since it was finished.

F.O. The Blue Beast

Four weeks before Christmas I decided that the hubby needs a cardi as a present. So like any sneaky bitch, I started showing him sweaters I liked and he either agreed or disagreed. We had a long discussion about two cardis that to me looked basically the same, but to him had a key difference in them. Then I showed him Brooklyntweed's Big Blue and he plain out asked me if I could make him that sweater. What's a girl to do about that but start swatching?



Pattern: Seamless Shirt Yoke sweater (Ravelry)
Source: Knitting Workshop by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Materials: Debbie Bliss Donegal Aran Tweed
Amount: 12 balls
Needles: 4.0 mm circulars and dpn's for the sleeves
Finished Dimensions: 46 inch chest

Started: 28.11.2008
Finished: 08.01.2009



I started out the project trying to convince myself that I have no problem with steeking and I could easily steek if I wanted to. I was lying. Frankly, I was scared about it, I'm not ashamed to tell you now. For now, I am a Knitter.

After the third time I frogged the yoke I simply thought "Screw it, I'm gonna have to sew the zipper in anyway, I'm steeking the rest." I did, and it was GOOD. I had a bit of a gauge problem in that the front was too big. Fortunately that was easily fixed when I was sewing the zipper.

The yarn was wonderful for steeking. Like it was made with that purpose in mind. Even while knitting it was pretty hard to frog, so it didn't require any special precautions for the steek. Even now, after a month of use, the cut edge looks exacly like it did after I cut it.



I grafted the armpits using a techinque described in Knitting Daily's blog just before Christmas to help all us desperate last minute gift knitters finish on time. I have to admit, it's the best finishing technique I've come across so far. I love it.

I'm mostly very happy with this sweater, I just don't like the way the neck opening turned out. After all the frogging I just didn't have the heart to frog it again.

Le roi est mort, vive le roi!

... or in English, the king is dead, long live the king! The endless blue beast that I've been knitting for what seems like an eternity (but is actually only six weeks) is finally finished. I've had to frog parts of it so many times that if every stitch counted, I would probably have two sweaters by now.

See here, here is the monster soaking in a nice bath of hand-temp water and Citrus Soak courtesy of Loopy Ewe's small customer gifts.



And after a nice bath I put it down to block on top of the dog's cage aka the Retreat. See there, in all its glory;



I still have to put the zipper in after which I will be giving the low-down on this thing, with proper pictures. Right now I'm just so happy I had to share it with someone. The future-husbeast is sick and therefore royally uninterested that I've completed my first adult-sized knit ever, the dog even less so. Actually no, she did think the wool was to be played with, which cannot be endured, so I think it might be a good idea not to try that episode again. Now to wait for the thing to dry.