2011 is here!

I didn't keep up with this blog last year, in part because I really did do more painting.  I also kept knitting and spent more time outdoors as long as the weather was nice.  Now that it is in the single digits outside (-15 to -20C for those not in the US) it's just too cold to be out more than I have to.

 

Here are two pictures of my living room decorated for Christmas.  I tried to come up with something different this year for the mantel.

Here's a close-up.  I made some of those paper trees for my dining room table and then decided to do some more for the mantel, because I really liked how they turned out and they were so easy!

For the first time, I knitted some Christmas gifts - 4 hats and some fingerless gloves. And I did some rosemaled plates for Christmas too.

Here are a few of the items I painted last fall.

 

 

 

And here is the sweater I finished last fall.  It is made from Bergere de France yarn that I bought in Falaise, Normandy, when we were there in May. Pictures from that trip are on my website.

There, that wasn't so hard and didn't take too long.  Maybe I'll try to keep this up better this year.  (This would be more likely if I got comments from those reading it.)

I did do a better job of keeping up my travel blog last year, which is linked at the top of this one.

 

Happy New Year to all who are reading this! 

I hope 2011 is an exceptionally wonderful year for you!

Some more rosemaling

Here are a few sketches I did last spring in class.

These two are basically the same design, but with different colors.

And then the mangletre that I painted in the class I took last week.

 

 

I really had no idea that I was painting in the same colors as the sketch I had done in class 3 months ago.  I have a place to hang this at home next to the cupboard where I keep my iron.  Do you know what a mangletre is?  It's Norwegian.

 

 

 

Summer update

 

While I didn't resolve to blog more often this year, I had planned to try to write a new entry every month, but that hasn't happened.  It's been an unusual year with my mother passing away in February and lots of travel.

I have been knitting, though and did finish the Knit Picks kit that is pictured above.  It is one of Knit Picks "historical" sweaters. The inspiration for the design comes from traditional Norwegian sweaters, but my Setesdal below is actually much more like the traditional sweater.  Still I think it's a nice-looking sweater.  I made a few changes, but nothing major. I've worn it once or twice, but it is a pretty heavy wool, so I don't expect to wear it again until next fall.

There's more information about this one on my Ravelry project page if you want to know more.

I have been to Taiwan and Normandy, France in the past two months. There are pictures from Taiwan on my travel blog, (link above on right) and the Normandy pictures can be found here.

I'm currently working on a lace shawl, but did buy some yarn in Falaise, Normandy, France for another Norwegian-style sweater.

That's my June update.

The Setesdal is finished.

I have had a lot of stuff happen in my family this past two months.  But things are settling down again and I'm knitting again.  I finished the black and white Setesdal-style sweater.

It was warm enough out on our deck to sit out here yesterday. This is where I did the picking up of stitches for the placket. The light here was great.  Then I knitted the placket and started on the collar. I finished up weaving in the ends and tacking down the inner facings today and wore the sweater to my yarn shop.  I prefer taking pictures outside, so took this when I got home again.

And I have started a new one.  This one is a kit by KnitPicks. I bought it because the price was right and I liked the sweater. So far I have one cuff and half the sleeve done.  Doing these one after another is helping me hone my skills and remember the things I did wrong the last time. 

Here is the cuff and sleeve so far. Well, actually it's a little longer than this, as I took this yesterday morning.

That's it for this time.

Setesdal pullover and some doodling with paint

I'm going to try to update this blog once a month.  So here goes for February.

KNITTING

I started a Norwegian style pullover early in January.   My knitting group at my local yarn store decided to all do Norwegian sweaters starting in January.  Since this fits right in with my resolution for 2010, I thought this was a good time to start a Setesdal style sweater.  I've wanted to do one of these for a long time, but was waiting until I felt my 2-color knitting was up to the task.

Here is what I have of it so far. It's going pretty quickly.  I'm sticking to the very simple, basic Norwegian shaping, which is very little.  More modern Norwegian and Dale designed sweaters are much more complicated than this, but I decided to see how this would go with very little structure. I'm not adding steek stitches, but will cut at the sides for the armholes and at the neck for the neck opening. It will have a placket.

This is the body and lower part of the sleeve.  I'm ready to start the patterning at the top of the sleeve.  I pulled designs from Setesdal Sweaters, by Annemor Sundbo, and made up my own pattern from there.  The traditional Setesdal sweaters, which are named after the valley of Setes in Norway, were worn by men and had embroidered wool fabric cuffs and plackets.  I'm not going to do the wool fabric.  I want this to be a comfortable everyday sweater to wear in the Duluth winters.  There is some more information on my Ravelry page.

 

ROSEMALING

I signed up for another class in Rosemaling. It meets one day a week for 8 weeks. It started yesterday.  I didn't have a project to work on, so spent the time doodling on paper.  Here is what I did.

And here:

I was just trying to get back into the feel of handling the brushes and thinking about my designs.  I practiced with a round brush, a filbert and a liner.

New Year's Resolutions

I actually made some New Year's Resolutions this year.  I don't do this every year, but when I have done it I've been pretty good about accomplishing those resolutions.  So in 2010 I resolve to:

1.)        Become more proficient at two-color/Fair Isle /Nordic knitting.  This means that I will continue to practice these techniques. When I finish one project I'll start another 2-color project.  Always before when I finish one, I decide to do something different like cables and then much later go back to two-color knitting. I think by doing it this way I'm not getting much better.  I also think one way to improve my stitches is to stop and rest my fingers frequently.

 

2.)        Complete some rosemaling project every month.  If I can't get a plate or bowl or something done I'll try to finish 4 ornaments or small things.  This way by next Christmas I'll have some ornaments to give away.

 

3.)        Get more exercise--hopefully some every day.  I haven't come up with a specific goal for this one, so I don't know how well this will work out. I got lots of exercise yesterday in the house going up and down the stairs. I was cleaning, doing wash, working on the computer and doing the stairs a lot. I was exhausted by dinner time.  This is why I need to get more exercise every day--so I don't get exhausted. 

 

I'm not going to resolve to be a better blogger, because if I do the other things something might have to go and it might end up being the blogging.  But on the other hand I might have more to blog about, so maybe I'll keep it up better than before.

 

I have started my first Nordic sweater of the year, but there's very little to show so far.

 

Instead I'm going to post some belated Christmas pictures.  I put the tree in a new location this year and my two nieces Nina and Laura were here to help decorate it and I think it is one of the prettiest trees I've had, so here are a few pictures of Christmas at my house this year.

 

And here's my dining room table.

Alpaca raglan sweater and a new plate

I've been both knitting and rosemaling this month.  Someone asked me to paint a plate for his wife for Christmas.  I agreed with some reservations, but the plate is finished and I'm glad I did it. It didn't take as long as I thought it would and it got me back into rosemaling again, before I put the paints away for the holidays.  It was good to get that table cleared off finally this morning.

So first, here is the current state of the Alpaca sweater. 

I bought several skeins of Alpaca in April 2008. The seller had a lovely scarf done in grey, tan and natural.  I wanted to use those colors, but for some reason I bought black, two shades of grey, 2 shades of brown and the tan and natural. Then the next year I bought some more, because I didn't think I had enough to do a complete sweater and it was too much for a scarf and hat.  (These are undyed. They are the color of the animal.)

I did a gauge swatch last year thinking I might use it for the Ivy League vest, but decided not to. When I started again this fall, I did another gauge swatch, and this time tried a color pattern I found in a book by Alice Starmore.  I liked that, so started the sweater out that way.  The part that is below the armholes is the pattern from her book with a wider area of natural.  But at that point I realized I didn't have enough of those colors to finish the sweater and would have to incorporate at least one more color. So I added in the brownish-grey. At this point I used the construction method of the Dale of Norway Sapporo raglan sweater that I did a few years ago. I liked how easily that one went together and it is comfortable.  It's a bit tricky getting the first rows and the decreases going right, so it's easier if the pattern is simple-thus the plain stripes. Now I am hoping I'll have enough of the light tan/beige to finish the yoke. If I do it will be just plain from here on. If I have to add in another color--well I'll cross that bridge when I get there-if I have to.

And second, here is the plate I just painted.  It's 18", so one of the biggest I've done.  I needed to talk to my teacher about pricing and discovered Friday that she was teaching that day, so I went in to the class. I've missed several classes over the years I've taken from her and she has always said I could make them up any time, so I knew it would be okay to show up for the last class of the year. 

It was helpful to have her advice for finishing the plate and she also helped with some of the outer linework. I really need to practice that more, so I can do it myself.  I'm going to make a New Year's resolution to paint more next year.  The design in this plate is inspired by one by Marlys Hammer, from whom I took a class last year.

This is probably my last post here before the holidays.

 

So Happy Holidays to all!! 

 

See you in 2010!  We are going to have to think when we write the date next year and stop before we put 2 zeros down.  I'll bet most people will be writing 200 and then squeezing a 1 in between the 00's.