Winter, where are you?

We have lots of nice woolen hats that want to be worn during cold times. But here it’s about 10° warm and it’s raining. Not the perfect woolen hat weather. We want sunshine and cold temperatures! That’s much nicer than rain! Looking forward to christmas we of course want cold weather. We’d enjoy snow as well!

All these hats are hand-knit in Bolivia of Alpaca wool. Being curious I just read about the Alpaca animal. In my naivety I always thought Alpaca is a sheep, but it is a camelid domesticated in South America for the wool production. And you know what: Alpaca wool is soooo soft, especially in the deluxe mixture: baby alpaca and silk…hmmm.

(pics from Wikipedia (linked to its source))

I always remember my grandmothers socks and scarfs made from sheep’s wool which were really prickly. We (me and my sisters) never wore the scarfs because they were so prickly. Sometimes we had to, because my grandmother invested lots of time in these scarfs and socks and we wanted to do her a favour: she elevated the sheep, gave them food every day, spun the thread herself and then knitted the socks. These were really ecological socks and scarfs!

(pics from Marsupialia, except indicated above)

FO – Fernglade

So much fun to do this pattern “fernglade” from Megan Marshall! And now I´m armed for the cold weather here in Berlin. Have a look at the blocked piece:

And the proud new owner, me:

It´s freezing cold!

… how lucky me, having two strong and busy hands, knitting me a new cold-banishing shield, named “fernglade”.

The original pattern was created by  Megan Marshall for the knitty winter issue. Isn´t it great? More into lace knitting at the moment I immediately fell in love with this beautiful piece. I knit it with Wollmeise Sockyarn in Veilchen-color and needles in US 2/3mm and a US 4/3.5mm. To stay close to the gauge measurements I added one pattern-repeat more as described for the slouched model (Megans instructions: 8 times, mine: 9 times) and I will repeat the rows 2-7 more than 8 times. I don+t know how much, but I will let you know here or on raverly, when it is done.

Did you recognize my cute, little Christmas-present from Nadja? Yes, yes, yes my first knitting stitch marker! I´m so happy about it. She never made such markers before, so it´s her first time too. She sent me another one, which I had to test, but for my taste it was a little to heavy, but the one here is GREAT.

I love it. Hope she will put some new ones in her DaWanda-shop soon, so you guys will be able to get them too.