The yarn made it into a lovely cardigan

Here a detail of the decreases of the sleeve.

And this is one of the pockets. Very simple and looks good too.
I'm very happy with my cardigan, it fits nicely and I really like wearing it. It keeps me warm when it is cold.

A new cardigan in progress

When I lay eyes on this yarn at Zeeman, I just had to buy it. The colours are gorgeous. According to the ball band, I would need 500 grams for a sweater. So I bought 8 balls (800 grams), to be sure I had enough for a cardigan.

OK, it isn't wool, it's acrylic, but I like the colours and it is soft enough for me.


I choose to make a top-down raglan, mostly in garter stitch to ensure speedy knitting. The sleeves are knit in the round and will therefore be in stockinette stitch. For a nice flow I started with stockinette already at the yoke-part of the shoulders and made some ridges that are a little wider apart to liven up the transition from garter to stockinette.

Bayerische Socks

Somewhere at the end of last year I started the Bayerische Socks from the site of Eunny Jang. In the meantime I worked on other things and these were left in the "to be finished some day" pile.

During our summer holiday I took the socks with me (and some other things too, just to make sure I would not be without knitting) and made some progress on them. I made the heels and decreased the extra gusset stitches.

The pattern does not really stand out in this yarn, but I like the colour.

Freehand Parrot

This parrot was made from scratch. I only had a sketch I made beforehand, from which I worked. I made it for a pirate activity. I thought this would be a nice accessory for an outfit.


I started at the tip of the beak, made a short-row head and belly. The beak, head, neck, body and tail together are one piece. The wings and feet were made seperately and later sewn on.

The feet were the most fiddly parts. There are pipe cleaners/chenille wire inside for some sturdiness.

Finished a bag

I've finished a bag for my youngest, in which he can carry his clothes for gymnastics. First I started with a seed stitch base, 40 stitches wide, 30 rows high. Then I picked up stitches around the edges, 15 on each side and another 40 on the bottom, and knit upwards in the round in stockinette stitch until I thought it would be high enough.
Eight eyelets evenly devided around the bag, some more stockinette rounds and some seed stitch round before I bound of.
An I-cord draw string of 3 stitches to close it. Simple and very fast.

Squares all over

This is the shawl I knit in the Secret of the Shawl Knit-A-Long hosted by Vicky Mikulak from Simple Knits. This Shawl now has a name: crystal garden.
Every week part of the pattern was released and it was real fun to knit. The pattern flows nicely. Once the lines were set out, the pattern works quite logical with a bit of surprise in the weekly released part of the pattern.
I followed the pattern until row 195. I wanted the diamond shapes along the edge of the shawl to be complete. It took me some thinking before I figured out how I could make it work. It took a lot of short rows to comlete the squares on the edge and then I ended with four rows of garter stitch.


It was the first time I blocked such a big shawl and it is a very laborious process pinning it out as best as I could. I did not have T-pins and used the pins I had.
The result is a very beautiful shawl. Further details on my project page on Ravelry.

A round felt bag

This bag is started at the middle of the round base and worked upwards. After the increases were finished, I worked stockinette stitch in the round over 96 stitches. That was enough for 3 pattern repeats of the damask pattern.

The bag was felted in the washing machine at 40 degrees Celcius. While drying, I put felt tip markers in the holes, so they would stay open nicely. The holes are very circular now!
I also felted a piece of I-cord in blue, which will serve as a closure.


I am very pleased with how this bag turned out.