F.O. Tattoo socks

Pattern: Improvised vanilla sock pattern
Materials: Colinette Jitterbug
Amount: Roughly 3/4 of a skein
Needles: 2.0 mm
Finished Dimensions: I've got a European size 39-40 foot, so somewhere along those lines.

Started: 30.10.2009
Finished: 13.11.2009



Some of you might not know that I have a tattoo. A huge one in fact. It starts from my left shoulder, goes all the way down my back and ends on my other shoulder. It's of a dragon and a phoenix playing catch. Around four or five years ago I get the feeling that I really should get a tattoo. I've been wanting one since I was a teenager, but due to lack of money it was always put off. At that time I had just started in a relatively high-paying job (I wasn't even out of the polytechnic), I was between relationships and was just starting to come in to my own as a person. So I decided that it was time for a tattoo. I decided I wanted a phoenix. And it should be around the size of my palm.

As I do with every major decision in my life I started gathering information. How do you care for a tattoo? What's the experience like? Who does good work around where I live etc. I looked at flash art on numerous sites and felt like there had to be more. As if by accident I found Petri Syrjälä, who I contacted with trepidation. He agreed to take me on as a client even though he was doing less and less of such small work. I took him some pictures of phoenix birds I thought were cool and he drew me a sketch and we booked the first session. At the beginning of the session we did a stamp of the bird and slapped it on to my shoulder. It was way too small and I decided it would need to be enlarged to be anywhere acceptable. And it just sort of got out of hand. After that first ten-hour session the bird was done. I was going back for the background anyway and I got this idea of a dragon chasing the bird.

Now, a bit over four years since that first session, the whole tattoo is almost completed. The problem is, the shop is right next to Priima, my most-used provider of yarny goodness. So the time before the last one when I was there, Pete was running late and I was running earlier than I'd planned. So I got some yarn and some new needles and went into the waiting room and started knitting. In time, Pete finished his business and I moved my stuff over to the tattoo side of the parlour and kept on knitting. We laughed about how I was completely and finally destroying all that was left of his street-cred by knitting while being tattooed.

All this is a way of saying I made this completely boring pair of socks that I loved so much I wore them continuously day and night for probably two or three months even after I had walked holes in them and am now thinking about repairing just because I loved them so much.

Growing up

I'm a nerd. Just in case you didn't know. I'm the kind of person when looking at apartments or something always looks at the escape plan in case of zombie apocalypase. I find nature fascinating, but only from a distance. I LOVE computers and games and such. My hubby and I arrange and attend board game nights regularly. I used to LARP for chrissake.

This is relevant because that's also how I dress. Sometimes I seriously look like the Comic Book Guy and I'm not entirely happy about it. I'm almost 30 and honestly I've started to feel like that should mean I should start dressing like a grown up. You know, start wearing other things than jeans and t-shirts all the time.

So I've been reading up on style and how to get it. *LOL* Yeah yeah, 'cause it's just that easy. But even though this will sound conceited, I think I have good taste. I just don't use it. :D Everyone seems to agree that the five key elements of any stylish wardrobe are:

1. A suit, tailored and dark

2. Crisp white shirts

3. Pencil skirt although I'm not entirely convinced about this because in the aforementioned zombie apocalypse it would make me fodder immediately. You only have to run faster than the guy next to you and that's not happening in a pencil skirt. I'm letting it slide though due to the aesthetic aspects.

4. Well fitting, figure enhancing jeans.

And the pièce de résistance
5. LBD or Little Black Dress.

I plan to sew these pieces myself, mostly because I have a figure that defies fitting and flattering ready-to-wear garments.

"Problem" areas are at least as follows:
- weight: mostly at least in Finland anything bigger than size 14 (40 in Finland) is more closely related to moomoos than fitted garments.
- ass: I've got a protruding, JLo type ass. It looks nice, but it means that ready-to-wear garments won't close in the front or leave a huge gap in the waist band, that makes me look even fatter than I am.

After I've done these I'm planning on at least to trenches. One in a vibrant colour of bridal or duchess satin and a more regular, camel look.

Or that's the plan anyway. I'll try to post pictures along the way.

F.O. Spring Sun

Pattern: Girasole by Jared Flood (Ravelry)
Source: Ravelry Pattern store
Materials: Cascade Eco+
Amount: A little over 3 full skeins, approximately 1500 yards or 1400 metres
Needles: 5.0 mm circulars
Finished Dimensions: Didn't measure, but the size is quite big

Started: 10.04.2009
Finished: 22.10.2009



This thing was a love affair from start to finish. I can't even begin to find the words for how much I love this project. It's been in constant use even before it was completely finished. After finishing roughly half of the knitted on border I finished the rest while basking in the warm glory of this gorgeous project.



I have an affinity for lace knitted with thick yarn on large needles, so naturally, when BrooklynTweed blogged about it I had to have one. I pretty much bought the pattern on the spot, but I didn't find the right yarn right away. But when WEBS had a sale of Cascade Eco wool, a yarn I had been wanting to work with for quite a while, I knew it was destiny.

I cannot possibly praise the pattern enough, it was entertaining without being tedious, simple enough to keep being knitted even while watching some television. It looks incredible and very impressive when finished, but doesn't actually require you to tear out your hair to complete it.

And the yarn, the yarn is fabulous. Cascade Eco wools are my new comfort yarn. Something to knit when I'm feeling blue or not good about myself or the world. It's soft and durable, doesn't seem to pill and it's wool, gorgeous wool. I could wax poetic about wool all night.

F.O. Brown Baby Hoodie

Boy, it's been a while hasn't it? But I'm doing a whole whack of finished objects, so that should make up a little for the lost time.

Starting with the oldest undocumented one; Sandnes Mandarin Baby hoodie



Pattern: 0805-7 E by Lene Holme Samsøe (Ravelry)
Source: Moda 6/2008
Materials: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino
Amount: 6 balls, only a wee little bit left over from the last skein.
Needles: 2.0 mm circulars
Finished Dimensions: Didn't measure, but made the size 18-24 months

Started: 05.11.2008
Finished: 24.12.2008

This was knit for my brother-in-law's baby girl as a christmas gift. I have a thing about not liking to reserve certain colours to certain sex, but I wasn't entirely sure whether or not the parents would've been all right with my gifting a pale blue sweater to their daughter (pale blue because for some reason striking blondness runs rampant in my hubby's family, and I thought it would look great on her), so I opted for brown instead. Thankfully her mother went wild because everyone had been gifting their daughter with all pinks and the mother was frankly getting sick of it. :D

This was very fun knit and despite the fine gauge went very fast. Because of the size it was very portable and therefore mostly knit on busses or waiting for something (most likely more busses). It has apparently seen quite a lot of wear since. I finished it on the way to my hubby's childhood home so just in time for gifting.

Unbelievably the yarn has stood the test of time. I've had pretty bad experiences with loads of pilling on other Debbie Bliss Cashmerino yarns, but a year later this one had virtually no pilling. Kudos for that.

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.