can yarn hold laughter?

i went to the yarn shop the other day for some glittery yarn to use in the weft of my reputation tea towels. i saw a vest that looked easy and ended up buying two colorways of yarn for knitting it (the yellow and the pink you can see in this basket). i started the yellow one the other night. i'm still a beginner and i have this habit of forgetting how to purl if i haven't done it for awhile. even looking at this picture, i can see some mistakes. 

i took it to the knitting/weaving group last evening. i admitted that i had forgotten how to purl. the lovely ladies laughed at me, and then they helped me. and they loved the colors i had chosen. we laughed a lot while i relearned how to purl and i hope that all that laughter got knitted right into my vest. the idea of that appeals to me. i want to feel that laughter when i wear the vest. 

 

at the end of a long weekend

husband should be home from his trip to ukraine in a few hours. i picked some roses and brought them in an attempt to have some serenity on the window sill that i haven't necessarily felt for the past week, worrying about him being only 30km from the front in eastern ukraine. that said, i am really looking forward to hearing about his adventures. now that i'm quite sure he'll be home safely. 

we've had a four day weekend, thanks to all those awesome spring holidays in denmark. i spent most of it in the company of yarn. getting started on my reputation era tea towels, planning the next ones, visiting the linen weaving museum, starting a summer knitting project (see above yarn) or two. it will be a vest. i started the yellow one and i want to make a pink one too.

i also picked a lot of rhubarb and made 9 bottles of rhubarb & ginger cordial. and you can't even see that i've picked any rhubarb. husband will be happy, as he loves my homemade cordial and we were getting dangerously low. 

got to weaving on the reputation tea towels. i tried a looser weave on the first one. i won't really know how it is until it's washed, but i already decided that i want to do my usual tighter weave, i think it's what makes my tea towels the lovely fabric that they are. 

i also spent some time trying to figure out what to name these two. butter & toast? peach & cobbler? peachbottom & featherstone? maybe something ukrainian, to commemorate that i got them while husband was traveling there? hmm...stronti & cesia after chernobyl? gogol & viy? perhaps a little too much existentialist dread. they're so sweet and i'm so happy to have ducks again. they're safely in the old chicken enclosure where no fox can get them. 

it's nice to be in this space again, jotting down a few things i'd like to remember. while i count down the minutes until husband is safely home again. 

yarn porn

i got my latest order of weaving yarn from kinna's today. ordering from them really tries my patience, as it takes them at least a week to even indicate that they've noticed one's order and then another week or so to send the invoice so you can pay it. why not actually have an online payment as if you're in the 21st century? but i digress. look at all this goodness! i think i can do most of the eras now, though i need to restock black, white and some grey because of TTPD, after running the reputation warp (again, more about that soon, i promise). i also got an idea, looking at this picture, for a warp that's cream and that hot pinkish orange color. but that's not really one of the eras, so i'll try to stay focused. or maybe i need another loom. 

i sorted it all into boxes, more or less in color families. that was weirdly soothing. and goodness knows i need some soothing, what with worrying about husband driving all over the place in ukraine, only 30km from the front. 

i'll be able to do another rainbow warp as well with all these colors. it seems everyone i've given some of those to wants more. 

these remind me of my old blue room! i'm looking forward to working with them. 

i'll play around on this long weekend (we have four days off!) with some of the colors, preparing some yarn windings for more of the eras. tomorrow, my friend and weaving teacher is coming over to help me get started on my more graphic warp. i'm trying to learn something new every time. i think what i mostly learn from the loom is patience! 

i couldn't resist the way the sunshine fell on this jar of yarn clippings i've been saving. i want to do a rather fiddly project with them, but i need enough of them. and maybe a bit more patience.

🧶 yarn candy 🧶

i had a couple of days in minneapolis at the beginning of my trip, so i made it my mission to visit yarn stores. funnily enough, they had a lot of the same yarns and patterns that we have here in denmark. the danish knitwear designers and yarn companies are clearly hot all over the world. i knew that from knittok, but it was fun to see it in reality. this store, bewoolen, had a lot of hand-dyed yarns that weren't scandi, but they were very pricey and i didn't see anything that i couldn't live without. 

i do just enjoy seeing lots and lots of beautiful of hanks of yarn though. i don't think i'm experienced enough to be able to see the potential in them and think that they would be perfect for one or another sweater that i have in my ravelry queue. i'm not honestly sure that i'd really like hand-dyed for sweaters. i think the variegation can yield weird results. but maybe one day, i'll just see the perfect hank and have to have it.

i did get this cute little bundle of minis, though. the color combo just appealed to me and wasn't one i'd have thought of on my own. that's the best part of visiting a yarn store - getting inspired. i don't know what i'll make with it - i was thinking of using it in some colorwork socks, perhaps. they also told me it would make a nice winter hat.

i'd been seeing lots of talk about japanese noro yarns on knittok, so it was fun to see some of them in person. i got these two to make another sophie hood, so it's not entirely true that i'm not inspired by variegated yarns. i also got myself some of the famed chaiogoo needles - just 3 pairs in the sizes i seem to be using most. i don't feel worthy of the full $200 set of interchangeables as of yet on my knitting journey. 

i went back to the store a second time with my sister (she knitted that sweater she's wearing, by the way, and even made up the pattern herself!). we didn't end up buying anything the second time around, but it was our last stop that day and we were getting a little bit hangry by the time we were there. sometimes there can be so many choices that you end up not choosing at all. 

i got some beautiful yarn to make a bella blocking sweater at another yarn shop - dandelion fiber co. here, they had some of the danish knitwear designers and knitting for olive and other scandi fibers, but they also had yarns from some american manufacturers. the yarn i bought was from tumalo fibers in oregon. 

i got enough yarn to make the bella blocking and with two skeins of lucky tweed by kelbourne woolens, another american yarn maker, i can also make the vest no. 1 by my favourite things in the same pretty mustard yellow tone.

one more basket of inspiration - someone at bewoolen has an eye for this color combo, it's very similiar to the small hanks above. i had to snap a photo to remember it for future projects. 

and on my needles

 

at the end of march last year i got my first real knitting lesson from my friend emily. i didn't finish that sweater (the novice sweater by petite knit) until late in 2024, but since then, i've been rather actively knitting and getting a bit more adventurous. 

i've finished four sophie scarves by petite knit - two long and two of the shorter version. they're a nice project to have on the needles for taking on the go. i've got a couple more queued up and i just have to cast one on again. i'm thinking the next one will be brown. 

back in november, i bought all this luscious yarn to make the holly sweater by knitting for olive. my friend emily, who taught me to knit, is making it too. we both wanted to finish by christmas, but that didn't happen. for me, it's because i encountered the berries, which seemed a little advanced for my level of knitting. i think for emily, she just ran into a knitting dry spell and hasn't felt like working on it. 

but thanks to the wonderful, experienced knitting ladies at my tuesday evening knitting group at our local museum, i have now learned how to make both german short rows and the berries (turns out it wasn't really that difficult) and am well on my way again. it will for sure be done in time for next christmas. 

and then last friday, i decided on the spur of the moment that i had to make a sweater that i saw in the window of a knitting store in a nearby town. it's icelandic wool and an icelandic pattern called the kastali sweater. it's supposed to be a cropped sweater, but i bought extra wool to knit it a bit longer. i'm already well on my way - this one is knitting from the bottom up, which is my first time trying that.

i'm even further than in this picture - it's quite easy to just knit in one color while watching t.v. in the evening. and much nicer than doom scrolling on my phone. i would actually never have imagined that i would be good enough at knitting to be able to knit and watch t.v. at the same time. i'm still a timid knitter, but my skills are coming along and i am getting braver. 

and lastly, the end is in sight on my sophie hood, also by petite knit. i'm so glad i went back for the last ball of yarn, because i definitely wouldn't have had enough. it's kamelia by permin and it was in a sale basket at my local yarn store. when i first started, it nagged at me that i might not have enough yarn and so i went back and got one more. good thing i did! it's so soft and i can't wait to wear it. i hope to finish it and block it this weekend. 

i'm currently trying to leave all meta platforms because i finally realized how evil those running them are and i don't want to give them any more of my attention, but you can find me and my knitting projects on good old ravelry. and i hope to be back here a bit more regularly now too. plus, i might actually start posting in earnest on substack. 

weaving lately

 

the first set of rainbow tea towels were so much fun, i made a second batch of them! they make me so happy. i might even have to have a third round! though i want to make some bath towels and two scarves first. here's the colors i bought for the bath towels. they'll be in a waffle weave, so they should be good for toweling off after the shower. 

and a few more shades for the weft.

and this is the wool i got for the scarves i want to make.

and when we went to latvia in october, i bought some green wool for a rug for the bedroom at the market.

on the little loom, i've set up a warp for making rag rugs. then i came into some wool leftovers from a carpet factory and i'm now experimenting with those. weaving with wool is new to me. i'm making a small rug for the guest bedroom.

i got almost halfway on the weekend. keeping it simple. i have four shades of blue and i got some neon yellow for the stripes. i'm doing the walls in that room in light blue and i'll have some neon yellow accents - like an old wardrobe that i intend to paint neon yellow. light blue and neon yellow look surprisingly good together. 

before this, i did a small colorful rag rug using two duvet covers that i found. i made it as long as it could be with the fabric i had. it's about 180cm and will be perfect for the entryway by the back door.

i think i'll clip these both off the loom when i'm done with the wool one. i've got 16 meters of warp, so i can continue once these are clipped.  i also have fabric to make a new runner for the kitchen to replace the one i dropped a new bottle of olive oil on right after i made it. but i have plenty of warp for that. and maybe a couple more. i've been gathering old duvet covers in nice colors in the secondhand stores. it's so nice to give old textiles a new life.

oh, and it's not weaving, but i also finished my very first knitted sweater! it's the novice sweater in chunky by petite knit, using yarn that i had. it's not perfect, but i'm very happy that i knitted a sweater! i've already started another. 

i'm going back to weaving!

when i went back to the magical randbøldal on wednesday evening, it was like coming home. and i wondered how it was i stayed away so long...sometimes we have to lose ourselves for awhile to find ourselves. i'm going to make a long runner for the kitchen. and it doesn't matter how long it takes.

a burst of color in the midst of a grey, dreary january

soft and supple, fabric-like goat leathers + a springbok hide in purple (i know it looks blue here, but it's really purple). i'm planning on making myself a new purse in these couple of weeks i have before i start my new job.

the leather store is a decidedly dangerous place. i couldn't resist these four hides. the dark purple is for lining the springbok purse. i'm not sure yet what i'll do with the others, but i intend to think of something. sometimes it just helps, having new supplies.

i got these rolls of bright felt to use as table runners on the dining table. amazing how a little color can brighten up these dull, january days.

we saw the sunshine today for the first time in several weeks. it was most welcome. and my stack of the new anna maria horner line (which i got from my sis for christmas) looked fetching in the late afternoon sunshine.

next weekend, we're having a weekend drink & draw at a friend's summer house, so i thought some new inks were in order. i also got some fabulous teeny tiny brushes in a higher quality than i'm accustomed to, so i'm going to be painting some stones while we're there.

and lastly, a bit of soft, snuggly alpaca to make a scarf. i'm going to venture away from my knit-stitch only knitting and actually try some other stitches! wish me luck!

i'm not sure there's anything that makes me as happy as having new supplies to make into something wonderful.