Oolong knits

I love stripes! So I couldn't resist another stripy sweater for eye candy. This is Elfe by Astrid Schramm . A real beauty.

The photo above used to be a great photo from Knitting Daily which has since been deleted. Damn! They offer some pretty nice free sock knitting patterns. You have to give them your email address and they'll probably spam you afterwards (just hit unsubscribe), but I think it is worth it. When I started knitting I was sure I'd never bother to knit socks. Being someone who's always favoured 100% cotton, black, man's socks (although more recently I've discovered that navy to light stonewashed jeans blue shades are my new favourites, even if I almost never wear matching jeans), I hardly have any use for knitted socks. Thus my previous prejudice against the idea. However, one day I remembered that when I was a kid I loved these big thick-wool slippers that I wore in bed. They were so large that they slipped off my feet during sleep and that was what made them perfect, because I only needed them in the early night while my bed was still cold. By the time the bed got...

It is hard not to love a beautiful Icelandic yoke sweater. Afmæli by Védís Jónsdóttir is a classic. And the pattern is free! Just don't ask me how to pronounce it.

Brioche stitch is the big trend of Winter 2016 in knitting. There were a lot of new patterns coming out this season that use this beautiful and deceptively easy to knit stitch. I highly recommend learning it. It seems hard at first, but once you get the hang of it, it is actually quite easy to do, and fast too. I've found this really good page for all things brioche that I highly recommend. Check out their stitch variations , with explanations of several stitches that are similar to the standard brioche stitch, including three-coloured ones.

This the first of my series of eye candy goodness, which is going to be all about highlighting beautiful work I find elsewhere. I know my blog promises free stuff, but I'm going to cheat and start with a paid pattern. Sorry guys, I just could not resist. Even though I'll try to keep the free-as-in-beer philosophy going in the future, I still think there are a lot of wonderfully creative people out there doing amazing work that is well worth a few coins. Today is about one of my favourite patterns the Aumangea Pullover by Françoise Danoy . Check it out!

This is a confession. I've started two series on this blog, both of them are total bummers (or maybe just partial ones). The first one is called A sweater in the making and I'd promised to follow my progress on knitting a sweater. Instead, in the process of reminiscing about other sweaters I've knitted , I ended up (wisely I must add) going back to knitting the first sweater I've started. Which being close to conclusion is not good material for a post, much less a series. And that first series was left in the freezer after only two relatively boring posts. Bummer! A lot of time as passed since then and you make ask, why haven't I gone back to that sweater? Well, I actually haven't even finished the "first sweater", although I did make some progress on it. There are several reasons for my slow progress: (1) the "first sweater" is beautiful but boring to knit, which leads to (2) I've knitted a few other small projects in the meantime,...

Dear reader, I have a confession to make. I'm addicted to yarn. Like so many knitters before me (and many more will come after me, I'm sure), I've fallen victim of substance abuse and, as I confront this problem, I cannot but wonder at how my yarn habit as spiralled out of control without I every taking proper notice. The first symptom of just how serious my addiction had become was that I started running out of places to hide my stash. Yes, I'm using the word hide instead of keep , because, as I look back, I'm forced to admit that, as my stash grew into unseemly proportions, I unwittingly started making sure I kept its size unknown to everyone (including myself) by keeping it in appropriately discreet places. The second symptom was that every time I went through my stash looking for more yarn for my current project, I always found yarn that I'd completely forgotten I'd bought, usually in large amounts, because my drug of choice happens to be enough-y...