07.08.2005 | 16:19

In blue and white feelings

The 10th IIAF World Championships in Athletics officially started yesterday, so of course the knitting needs to be in blue and white.

This is how far I got yesterday while watching the games and the opening ceremony:

Today I have made some progress, too, but can you really see it?

The games are in Helsinki and the athletes live in Espoo (hooray for Espoo!). In fact their local training field is just down the hill from where we live. Also yesterday when the opening ceremony ended and they started the fireworks, we heard the thunder-like sound here! We didn't see the fireworks, though, because our windows and balcony are on the wrong side of the house. (If you watched the opening, I can tell you that even though it poured down in Helsinki, it did not rain here.)

Anyway, this will be a traditional Finnish sweater (from the 19th century) for me. It's called the Vöyri sweater and originally it was knitted in white and black, but the most known version is white and blue. Traditionally, the sweater is also knitted from cotton because the white is more bright then. I have no connections to Vöyri whatsoever, I just like the sweater and I happened to have some blue and white yarn in my stash.

I am making my own version again. I'm knitting the sweater from Pirtin kehräämö's silk and wool blend (50% wool, 50% silk) on 3,5 mm needles. I decided to do something more time-consuming after three projects on 6 mm needles.

The yarn is quite interesting. It looks like wool but it has the silk scent. I'm really having a hard time trying to figure out the words that could describe the yarn -- the silk used in it is clearly raw silk because the yarn is not silky, slippery and shiny. If I just touched the yarn I couldn't tell what it is but now that I know, it really feels like 50% wool, 50% silk. It does not feel scratchy or itchy but it is not smooth either... The blue yarn does seem a bit smoother than the white yarn (could it be the dye?).

The yarn is nice to knit and I'm surprised how fast the progress is on 3,5 needles. I think I get addicted to the pattern and want to finish a sequence or a row as fast as possible.

Mini also likes the yarn. He slept on it all night last night but he did not drag the sweater in progress!

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