Happy Noro Socks

Here in Croatia is so awfully hot, 35+ Celsius in the shade, but I'm not giving up on knitting, hoping that the autumn will start soon and that the winter will come eventually. I'm working on a warm sweater and I made myself this socks from the fancy and pretty expensive Noro yarn. I've heard about this yarn and decided to try it out myself, to find out what's so special about it. Well, colors are really beautiful and so cheerful. And although not so fluffy under the fingers, socks feel very nice on the skin (but I'm from those people who like feel of the pure wool on the skin). One disadvantage is that, while knitting, a thread tends to tangle, and that was a bit annoying. Also, I wonder how they'll stood the test of time-washing and wearing. I'm not too happy about the fact that they are not washable in the washing machine, but one must suffer to be beautiful :).

Medvednica - Winter 2011/2012

Medvednica - Spring 2012

One thing Croatia certainly has is a beautiful nature. And not just beautiful, but biologically very valuable. Hence, there are many protected areas. Here are some pictures from one of 11 Croatia's Nature parks - Medvednica. I took them while hiking through the park.

Felted Necklace

I have perchance found some felting yarn in my local yarn store and finally tried to make felted balls for a necklace. All in all, the final result turned out pretty decent. But I have to improve my skill further, because I cannot keep small cracks from appearing sometimes on the balls' surface. I got some advice on how to avoid them from a few different tutorials. Still, I am obviously doing something wrong. But as they say, practice makes perfect, so I hope my technique will become better in the next project or two.

Baby Hat and Booties

My dear friend gave birth to a boy named Jakov :). Finally, I have somebody for whom I can make all those super cute little projects I saw on Ravelry. I've started with Saartje's Bootees by Saartje de Bruijn (it can be found on Ravelry)...



...and then I improvised a hat to match the booties.



Now I'm just waiting for Jakov to turn a month so I can visit him. I really hope that the booties and the hat will fit properly.

Tux Scarf for my better half

I saw this pattern some time ago on Ravelry and knew immediately it will be a perfect gift for my boyfriend. Also, the project is based on an illusion knitting- something I never tried before. Since I always strive that the project I'm working on uses a technique I didn't learn yet (it keeps knitting interesting for me), this one ranks very high on the list "what to knit next?".

One of Ravelry's excellent features is that each pattern has links on to all projects people made using that pattern. I find that extremely useful because I can see how something looks in different colors, on different body constitutions, with modifications etc. And while browsing through other people's Tux scarves, I stumbled upon stitchystitchy's modifications. Since my boyfriend is a huge Gentoo fan, I asked stitchystitchy if it was all right to use her idea to switch the original "linux" part with "gentoo" version, as she did. She agreed and I started working on my "gentoo" chart. It was a pretty tedious job, but worthwhile in the end :). Chart looks like this...



...and when knitted like this...



Beside that alternation I followed instructions exactly as written in the pattern. The scarf turned out big and very long, but that shouldn't be a problem because my darling is a pretty big guy.

The idea of the illusion knitting is, as pattern says.." based on repeating throughout a set of stripes alternating 2 stockinette stitch rows in the foreground colour with 2 garter stich rows in the background colour. On RS, this will create a flat fabric for 3 rows followed by a bumpy one (the bumps caused by K on WS). When you get to knit the foreground pattern, you reverse this order: the background colour will be knit flat so that the bumps knit in the foreground colour can emerge. As a result, on RS, a slanted view will reveal the full illusion since you only get to see the bumps. From a frontal view, however, you will only see stripes, albeit slightly irregular in some places."

All in all, it's an easy technique and with a bit of effort you can make your own chart for whatever motive you like.



Yes, I wasn't thinking and I knitted the Tux chart from right to left, so my Tux looks on the right instead on the left. As my boyfriend said that is not a problem I left him the way he is. Luckily me, because the idea of ripping half of the scarf and starting all over again would give me a big headache.


And the technical details of the project:

pattern: Linux scarf by Heidi Antila, can be found at www.Ravelry.com

Tux image © 1997 Larry Ewing (1997) / GIMP (lewing@isc.tamu.edu), Permission to use and/or modify this image is granted provided you acknowledge him and The GIMP.

Gentoo "g" logo is a trademark of Gentoo Foundation, Inc.and Gentoo artwork s copyright Gentoo Foundation, Inc.

This is not an official product of the Gentoo Foundation, Inc.

Some more crocheted necklaces