Making a matching greeting card and the next shawl

I was thinking about how to make a nice greeting card that would go together with the Harebell Fichu.

The first thing I knew was that the card HAD to have some knitting. Until now I had made cards using cross stitch and bobbin lace but never with a knitted piece.

I made the cross stitch motif based on a traditional Mapuche (native culture from the south of Chile) pattern called Pichikemenküe and külpe ñimin.

I have talked about this one before but I never mentioned it was meat to be a wedding greeting card :)

The color choice was really easy, I used the leftovers of the einband I had from the Fichu. So, the only thing left to think about was the pattern.

I went for a very simple Lilly of the Valley pattern. I really like the simplicity and beauty of the Lilly of the Valley. The amount of yarn and time I used to make this was minimum. In a blink of an eye I had a cute greeting card that matched perfectly the Fichu.

So, first is first: knit the piece. Then cut the paper and use some glue.

The card is very simple. 

The final result is far from being perfect but I guess that is part of the charm of handmade things. 

Now that the Aeolian is done it is time make a new shawl.  I must admit that after knitting the Aeolian (which turned out to be much more beautiful than what I was expecting) and making Eva's lopapeysa I was a little bit uninspired... It took me a while to find what to do next. I started to look at my books and Ravelry and nothing seemed to catch my attention!

Until I found the problem. I needed to have someone to knit for! Things are so much easy when you have someone to knit for... then it is possible to think about patterns and colors that the person you're knitting for might like.

So, I began thinking about what could be the best for her.

First I thought that blue would have been a good color option for her so I got some Einband in a very nice light blue. The color looked great on the ball but once I knitted a swatch my opinion changed completely!! I really didn't like it for a shawl. I thought it would look great for ababy blanket or so.

The pattern didn't convinced me either. I even made some mistakes on the swatch... shame on me!

I needed to find a better color. I went to the wool store again and this time I found the perfect color! It is a very, very nice light green. It looks very organic and natural.

The pattern I am making is taken from The Haapsalu Shawl book. It is leaves and nupps. What I like abput this pattern is the asymmetric position of the leaves and the movement it has bewteen each pattern repeat.  I also think that the color looks great in this pattern.

Leaves and nupps

I am planning to make an edge at the end that will be sewn to the body.

Now I am also starting to think about the next lopapeysa. On Ravelry there is a group called the Spanish Swap and we've been talking about making a Lopi KAL in September. I have already chosen the colors and today I was working on designing a pattern for the yoke using some ideas from the book Íslensk sjónabók.

More details about the lopapeysa soon!

I already have developed the films from my trip to the east. I will be sharing with you some of my favorite shots :)

This was one of my favourite spot. This is Mjóifjörður (The narrow fjord). The road was terrible but the place is a paradise.

One of MANY waterfalls everywhere.

In Mjóifjörður there used to be a whale station. At the beginning of the 20th century there were up to 200 people living there. Today there is not whale station and only 30 people live there.

Mjóifjörður. It was so quite. No wind and fog. 

A very decorated front yard in a cute little house in Eskifjörður.

On the way to Vopnafjörður there is a gravel road that is the highest road in Iceland. This is the view from that road of Héraðssandur. 

The cutest house in Borgarfjörður eystri. 

Well, that is all for now!

The Liliac Leaf Shawl: Finally finished!!!

The Liliac Leaf Shawl is FINALLY finished!!

I love to see the pattern blossom after blocking. It looks so pretty!!

To had to put a little bit of thinking on how to block the stole. I usually use the bed which is normally big enough to hold shawls but this time this stole was way to long. I had to add a little piece to the bed. To do so I used a foam matress and my new Ikea bobbin lace pillow. It worked pretty well.

Blocking: wires and pins make miracles!

Grafting is like magic. It is barely possible to say where the grafting is. Isn't it?

The liliac leaf pattern. The pattern has so much movement  and that is thanks to the garter stitch frame around each leave.

Blocking has become so much easier since I got the blocking wires. Holy blocking wires. They don't only make the hole process easier but also the result is a lot better. The straight borders become really straight and the scallops look a lot more beautiful!

Notes about the shawl:

* Body pattern: Liliac Leaf Pattern 1 from the book The Haapsalu Shawl.

* Edge pattern: Taken from Madli Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia.

* 3 1/2  balls of Loðband (icelandic lace yarn) Each ball is 50g.

* Needles: 5.0 for casting on and off and 4.0 for knitting.

* Casted on 100 stitches using the knitted on cast on technique (my favourite for shawls).

* Made 34 repeats  of the 16 rows leaf pattern slipping the first stitch with the yarn in front of every row.

* Made two edges that I grafted to the each end of the body. When grafting watch the tension, it is ver easy to have an extremely tense graft with will be a problem when it comes to blocking.

*Final measurements: 62 x 230cm

The hole thing :)

It is too bright outside but I guess that it is still possible to see the pattern.

Folded, ready to be packed and given :)

I am very, very, very, very happy with the result. It exceeded all my expectations :)

New Books

During March I got two new amazing books:

Victorian Lace Today:

My dear friend Kristina gave me this book as a birthday present, even though my birthday is in December. The problem was that by then the book was not available in the shop, they had only the one to show in the shelf and they didn't want to sell it! So, Kristina decided to give me a gift card from the shop so I could go and see what I could get as a birthday present. The only thing I really wanted (from this shop) was THIS book so I had to wait patiently... THREE MONTHS later the book arrived. Now, I must say that the wait was TOTALLY worth it!

This is a beautiful book, from beginning to end. It has a lot of patterns and a really nice section with instructions with very good and clear illustrations at the end of it. I can hardly wait to start knitting something from it! I'm sure it will be hard to choose among so many cool patterns.

I must admit that I am a bit afraid (well, maybe not afraid but a bit worried) because these patterns look a lot more complicated than the ones from The Knitted Lace of Estonia (another of my big favourite books that I have been using lately)  and Þrihyrnur og Langsjöl (that I bought mainly for one pattern: Hyrna Herborgar).

There are several patterns that involve knitting lace pattern on both sides (I mean, the ones on which the wrong row are not simply purling but doing all the staff, as yo and decreases). The problem with that is the fact that I am left-handed and then I have to be really aware of what I am doing to avoid making mistakes. I have to mirror all the instruction and sometimes that can be a bit confusing. My only experience doing so was the Percy Shawl, in which there is one section, called frost flowers, that is patterned both sides. It was difficult at first, it required a lot of attention but after a few repeats wasn't so bad at all. Now, I can't wait to get rid of my queue to start one of this shawls!!

The Haapsalu Shawl:

My interest for knitting lace began when I knitted the Swallowtail. That was the first time I ever heard of the Lily in the Valley pattern and had to knit these crazy beautiful things called nupps. Thanks to this shawl I got to know that there was an amazing knitting lace tradition in Estonia.


I have always wanted to take a trip through the baltic countries and now I have one more reason to go there!

The first lace book that I bought was Knitted Lace of Estonia, a wonderful book that is definetely on my top list, from which I have knitted already two shawls: Maikell and Hagakiri. Then, one day I was at my favourite yarn store in Hafnarfjörður and I saw this book, The Haapsalu Shawl, I took a look at it and fell in love with it immediately... but I didn't buy it bacause I thought it was a little bit to expensive. Mistake! Because when I finally decided to get it, guess what!? It was no longer available so, the same story... I had to wait. Fortunetely the wait wasn't as long so in just a couple of weeks I became the happy owner of this book.

What I like about this book is the fact that it is more of a pattern dictionary than a book full of recipes for shawls or scarves. It has many body stitch patterns (a lot of variations of the same patterns) and some lace edge patterns. So, there is plenty of room to create something as you wish. It also has really nice illustrations with instructions, some history and explanations about the origin of the patterns (most of them based of nature).

The only think I am not really convinced about is the way the patterns are charted. The charts look too full. Maybe I am wrong and it is better. I don't know. I will only know that when I put my first project on the needles!