Two hats / Some WIPs / Winter is here! / Cozy weekend.

It has been quite a while since my last post here. These last couple of weeks have been somehow very strange. I guess it is always like that when the end of the year starts to approach.

December is always a busy month: Reunions with friends, family and coworkers, Christmas (of course), several birthdays (including mine! Which I personally find really boring because everybody is thinking about something else!

Anyways! Knitting-wise I have been drowning in a sea of unfinished projects later! Suddenly I had a lot of knitting going on because of friends asking me to knit something for them...

What I have managed to finish this far is two hats.

Mesi again. 

This one is for a friend who lives in Germany. He saw the pics of the hat I made for J.B. and asked me if I could make one for him as well.

This one is for the daughter of a friend. I wanted to play it safe in this one and let the girl choose the colors. I think that the colors she chose are really interesting considering that she is around 10 years old. It is not very clear in the picture but the darker color is not just gray it is a blue-greyish color. Very pretty.

Details:

* They are basically the same as the hat for J.B. Except for the the fact that I used smaller needles to knit the gray hat. I used 2.5mm for the ribbing and 3.0mm for the rest of the hat (instead of 3.0 and 3.75mm).

Notes:

* I used the german cast on again in both hats. I think I am becoming a HUGE fan of german cast on. It looks very nice and most importantly it is VERY elastic and durable. I HIGHLY recommend it. And the best of all is that it is not difficult to make!

* I must say it again: I love this pattern! Knitting it is really fun and quick and the result is always pretty. Besides it is really cool to play with color combinations.

So, talking about my queue... I still have two unfinished shawls: leaves and nupps (in the picture) and an Echo flower (that I have barely began... I think I have just made 4 repeats of the first chart this far and no pics yet).

I also have two more WIPs that I haven't photographed yet: 

* Ermar. It is for a friend (actually the mother of the blue-gray hat girl). This is a pattern that I have already knitted before. It is very simple and quick to knit.

I made this one about two years ago for my friend Dyah.

* A scarf. Yes! A boring scarf! I have never knitted one before because I have always been afraid that I won't manage to finish it! These are the boring things that one make for his friends, uh? I still haven't decided the pattern but my friend already gave the yarn for it :)

Now, talking about something else... WINTER IS HERE!! Finally! After a rather warm winter at the end of last week the weather completely changed and it started to snow! It has been really cold since last friday and everything is just beautifully covered by snow!

This was just perfect because we spent the weekend in a summer house in a place that is about one and a half hour away from Reykjavík. It was very cozy!! So all we did was to knit, do some cross stitch, eat good, spend a lot of time in the hot tub while the snow was falling on our heads and took some cool walks. 

So, some pictures? :)

The "summer house"

Just walking around... trying to find the river.

The river: Hrútá

It was really cold and light was just wonderful.

We found an invisible (and apparently naked) man!

Icelandic horses

 And to finish: A picture of Valgarð knitting... so you can see we were all in the knitting mood during the weekend!

Knitting a scarf :)

Getting ready for winter.

It is starting to get colder and colder here and I realized that I don't have many "winter accessories" in my closet.

I have only one short scarf with buttons that I made a long time ago... it was a real odyssey. I made it using brioche stitch and I think I started it abut five times! I found that brioche stitch was not so difficult to make but as soon as I made a mistake it was a huge disaster! I got completely lost and took me a long time to fix it! Now, all the effort was totally worthwhile.

Brioche stitch is really nice, it makes a reversible fabric that is squishy and warm.

I made this one with Bulky lopi on 9mm needles. 

Hats, holy hats! I have made quite a few of them but I am NEVER satisfied with them! I am just not a hat person. It has to be really, really cold so I get to wear one.

There are two of them that I have used the most:

Cabled hat

Made with Eskimo by drops.

And Haka:

Also made with bulky lopi. 

So, now it was time to make a new scarf and hat.

Two years ago I made a cabled neck warmer using some Noro kureyon that I had after having frogged a shawl I made with it.



I never wore it...  I guess I didn't really like the colors (and to be honest, I really don't like Noro at all. I don't understand why it is so expensive!). The good thing is that when my sister came to visit me liked it a lot! So she went back home with a new cowl :)

Since I liked the pattern so much I decided to make another one. This time with a yarn and colors that I really liked. I began to knit it about a year ago and then the project fell asleep in the stash basket (along with a couple of other things!) until a few weeks ago when I decided to finish it once and for all!

The pattern looks MUCH better in one color.

Details: 

* Pattern: Cabled cowl by Lion Brand

* Yarn: Cascade 220.

* Needles: 5.0mm

Notes:

* I made a much shorter version. The pattern called to make it 50cm long and then lightly felt it. I made it just 30cm long and no felting.

* I like cables a lot. They make the fabric look look warm and cozy. And well, they don't only have the looks... they are REALLY fun to knit!

I also decided to look for a hat. Searching here and there I found this wonderful fair isle hat:

I like the simplicity of the pattern.

Details:

* Pattern: Peacock by Karen Borrel.

* Yarn: Cascade 220. Less than one skein of the main color.

* Needles: 4.5mm

Notes:

* I didn't make any changes to the pattern. I followed it just as it is.

* When I saw this hat the first thing that cought my attention were these two bicolor bands at the beginning and at the end of the fair isle section. I had absolutely no clue about how to make them but it was really easy! And they look very nice! Knitting always surprises me. It is so nice to discover new things that are made with the same simple elements of basic knitting. In this case purling. Yes, the bands are made just using purl stitch and some twisting!

* I decided to use cascade 220 to match it with the cowl. Besides this yarn is simply amazing. It is so soft and nice to work with! And it is incredibly warm! I totally recommend it.

* I love pompons, so even though if the pattern wouldn't have called for one I would have made one anyways :)

Now, to finish with accessories, I am knitting a pair of mittens. I think I have said before that I am not a big fan of knitting anything that comes in pairs... but I really need a new pair of mittens. It is really silly that i have only ONE pair that I made almost three years ago! This far, I am done with the first mitten... one more to go!

And to finish, a few pics. These one were taken in a place called Arnastapi in Snæfellsnes. It is a little village next to sea. The most amazing thing about this place are the cliffs and lava formations.

Cliffs and Eva.

When walking close to the cliffs it is possible to find a couple of holes. It is not possible to see it in this picture but the sea is on the bottom of this hole.

There are also a couple of lava bridges... they are pretty cool.