Norwegian Knits-Along: Week 4

I'm in the process of setting up a gallery, now that some of us have finished our projects. It'll be up by next week!

Thanks to the commenters on Wendy's blog, I've found a few other online source for Norwegian-style knits. Woo-hoo! There's Arnhild's Knitting Studio with hats, mittens, and hats and mittens sets. There's Helylle.se which unfortunately is in Swedish, but boy are the patterns beautiful.

Sweaters & Vests
◊ Liz of The Dalai Mama is making Nykvarn from the new Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton book, Araucanian Moments. Here's a great picture of the body.
◊ Jen had to rip the body of Norma a couple of times but she's done with it (whew!) and has moved on to the diamond pattern.
◊ Rebekkah has finished her vest! Take a look at her last steps. She's also posted an entry on Ingeborg advice and tidbits, for those of you looking for a reference.
◊ Jill has the yarn and the pattern for her sweater. Don't sweat on the start date, Jill. This KAL will be around for a while!
◊ All Sydney has to do for Danger is the sleeves, since the body has been put together. Then she's ready for Ingeborg!
◊ Julia says she'll never be able to blog about another sweater after this! More delicious pictures of the Insomnia Sweater here and here.

Socks
◊ Jessica has turned the heel and finished the gusset on the first of her Norwegian stockings.
◊ Jess, also a Norwegian stocking knitter, has finished her stocking leg. She thinks the ankles will be loose so she's going to try switching to a smaller-sized needle. Stay tuned.
◊ Liz, knitting you-know-what, is having some tension issues, but she's carrying on. The navy blue and gold look good, Liz!

Headbands
◊ Jillian received her headband kits recently. Check out her classic colors!

Mittens
◊ Wendy has finished her beautiful Frostrosen mittens! Two posts, and she's all done. Just like that. Click on over and drool over them.
◊ Carie is in mitten love. She's got a book, and she's also posted about her solution regarding the thumb gore on her Selbu mittens. Are you knitting those? You may want to go read her notes.
◊ Katie is having gauge issues with her mittens. Drop by and give her some suggestions, will you?
◊ Veronique managed to squeeze in some knitting while writing her thesis! She's already finished one mitten. Yay, Veronique!

Hats
◊ Nancy of Bird's Nest Knits succumbed to the call of the hats! (He he) She's starting on a Traditional this week!
◊ Adrian, she of the orange and green Ufserud, designed and knit a second hat in less than a week! Lucky hubby! She'll be offering her pattern on her blog; stay tuned!
◊ Andrea just answered the knitting meme (you know which one) and as to what her favorite pattern was, she replied that it was the Bea Ellis hat kit! You know what? I'm starting to feel the same way about stranded knitting in general...
◊ Your host managed to finish Traditional Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. I mean, early.

Full disclosure on my lovely floats. I am so proud of them! For sequences of 6 or more stitches, I twisted the unused yarn with the used yarn. Can't have my niece playing with those long floats!

Here is my jogless jog, not so jogless, but I wanted to try the technique once. There's also a mistake near the jog, a cream stitch where a grey stitch should have been. Waahhh! But hey, it's 5a Thursday morning, I'm not redoing the thing.

How about a full head of lice? He he. Lighting courtesy of Ikea. (Tungsten lighting makes for awful yellow pictures. Ugh.)

The inside, showing the tassel end. Oh boy, the tassel. Took me an hour and a half to do. For the cord I cut off a length of yarn 5 times the length I wanted and folded it in half. I made the tassel by wrapping the leftover yarn around the short side of a credit card. I slipped the cord under the yarn, then I slipped the wrapped yarn off the card. I took another length of yarn and tied it around the wrapped yarn, making sure to enclose the cord in the loop. I made 3 ties and then tucked the ends into the gathered knob of yarn.

Then I twisted the cord, knotting the whole thing at the end to lock the twist. I knotted the cord at the base of the tassel as well. I threaded the cord through the hole at the top of the hat and made another knot inside the hat. *Then* I made another knot on the outside of the hat close to the hole, in effect locking the cord to the hat. For insurance, I stitched the knots together with matching yarn. Ta-da! Little Hailey can pull on the cord to her heart's content.

The finished hat. Oh look! The sun's risen!

Pattern: Bea Ellis Knitwear Traditional hat
Yarn: Hat: Dale of Norway Heilo in #0007 Grey and #0020 Natural. Lining: Sandnes Mandarin Classic in #1099 Black.
Needles: US4 16" circular and dpns, US2 dpns; bamboo

Hailey examines her Traditional. And proceeds to smear birthday cake all over the tassel. Ah, the bundle of joy that is a two year old!