There have been a lot of people (at least those with blogs!) lately knitting stuff with Noro yarns. They tend to be very striking as the colors are deep and beautiful, and the yarn has a long repeat so it stripes. Not to be a joiner, but I’ve definately been inspired by all the pictures of completed sweaters.

Originally I was thinking about Butterfly, but Hudson is really more my style:

I don’t really like the wide collar with butterfly, and would maybe modify that if I made it. I do like the one button closure style of butterfly more.

All of this is dependent on me being able to 1) Locate said pattern book and buy it (not so hard if I just buy it off the internet, but I’m trying to find it locally first) and 2) have a touch-n-feel session with the Noro yarns. I detest scratchy yarns and even if it’s beautiful I won’t wear it if it’s really scratchy. Not to mention the fact that Noro yarn is hideously expensive and I better be damn sure I’m going to wear the sweater after I make it :)

No updates on Hardangervidda, I was too tired to take a picture. I am getting to the point where I need to measure & calculate to make sure the sleeve won’t be too huge. It’s looking good so far.

I found this free pattern in my blog-wanderings today: Bright Striped Sweater. It’s for a toddler or larger. You could have fun doing different colored stripes and use up some of your stash!

Oh and since I’m just posting links instead of anything really useful or interesting - Check out this Sheep Game (found on the string or nothing blog)

Speaking of stash… gotta get back to knitting!

More non-knitting links: Cool Picture
Check out this picture of Hurricane Ivan.

I have been having fun searching the internet for interesting patterns that aren’t in english since I saw the bunch earlier here.

Alison, over at The Blue Blog has made some really adorable items for her twin sons from Phildar patterns. Some of the patterns she has used are from the Tricotez Calin books. (I have no idea how to get the special characters to show up, but there’s supposed to be a ^ thingy over the a). You can get a really good idea of what’s in these books/magazines by going to the Phildar web site. For instance, the latest one is here.

I wanted to get my grubby little hands on a copy in person, but that’s apparently easier said than done from here in the English-speaking United States since the local distributor went out of business or away or something. Phildar just recently started putting out English translations with them, but you still have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get one. Luckily enough, the awesome guys over at Threadbear Fiber Arts have done the hoop jumping for us! I called them up, placed an order and less than a week later, behold:

The big clump of papers are the English translations. They seem decent enough (although I haven’t read them in detail) and so far the only thing that drives me nuts is that whoever put them together didn’t put them in any sort of discernable order. Here’s a peek at what the non-English insides look like. First, a totally adorable pattern.

It only goes up to 24 months in size (and I haven’t figured out how big that really is because my Americanized brain doesn’t understand centimeters), but resizing probably wouldn’t be that hard for a toddler size.

Here’s how the layout of the patterns looks:

Now, I can’t read French to save my life, but a lot of the words are obvious. Just looking at how they have laid out the pattern on the page makes me like it. They use different colors for each of the different sizes, making it very easy to follow along and see which size is for what. There is a good amount of white space in the pattern, so you aren’t re-reading the same damn paragraph 10 times to find your place (*cough cough* dale *cough cough).

Overall, the patterns have a fresh feel to them. I like the different colors too - I may have to get some Phildar yarn to play with.

Katie’s new sweater
I started Katie’s Debbie Bliss sweater. First I used the needles suggested in the pattern. After about an inch or so, it looked 2-3" wider than the pattern stated for that size. Since Debbie Bliss pattern sizing tends to be HUGE anyway, and my fabric looked a little bit loosey-goosey (technical term) I decided I would go down a needle size and get closer to the real meaurements. As it is Katie will be able to wear the sweater for quite a while.

Rip Rip Rip.

Now I’m back to where I was and a bit further on the back:

(horrible picture, but you get the idea. The camera used the flash and washed all the texture out)
The knitting goes pretty fast. I made myself a cheat card with the three different patterns on it. I’ve almost got it memorized, but having to actually knit on the wrong side (where it’s not so obvious where you are) is messing me up a bit. This is also my first project with cables in it. It’s a relief to have no color changes and something more interesting than stockinette too.

Seems like I’m stumbling all over the internet lately.

I found this link to a bunch of free knitting patterns:

http://www.garnstudio.com/design/index.html

Not quite as fun as Tron-guy, but maybe a bit more useful to the knitting reader here. Be careful, the patterns are not in English. There is hope, as there are some dictionaries supplied as well. With a small bit of work, you can have some great free patterns.