Blumengruss Shawl

I am writing again!!
After months not updated my page here, here I am!! Back from the corner. Lots of reasons that I could tell, from being super busy since February at work (always came home late even my mom complaint about it :p) and it give just more exhausted feeling in the night that I could only pick up my needle just during the weekend!

But then I have good news!! Already have new compie, a Dell Latitude D630 Notebook actually. After some time searching and been tempted to choose either I-Mac or regular notebook, my options fall to this one.

Wont be keep you all bored with non-knitting related (if there still reader on my page after months being neglected), why don’t I update you all with my latest finished object… BLUMENGRUSS.

Yeah, the pattern is from the in-famous Japanese Knitting Book “New Style of Heirloom Knitting” (ISBN: 4-529-03992-7). Same like other book owners, we fall in love with most or all the pattern from this book. The Aran and Fair-Isle wears such as sweater, hat and vest, also Shetland-kind of shawls. There are 3 shawls patterns in this book which are Blumengruss, Mountainash and Mondnacht, and all of 3 is being admired and put in the To-Knit-List. If you like to knot Mountainash, you can check out Grumperina’s blog. She has finished the very beautiful shawl.

Some other knitters also has finished their Blumengruss shawl which I felt I been helped a lot to understand the patterns such as Tres Chic Veronique, and I wished I found this site to help me translate or understanding Blumengruss pattern earlier! Would save lots of time with the border pattern.

For my Blumengruss, my choice of yarns is very limited here, so I picked DMC yarns, total I am using 4 colors: PINK (main color), Pale/Salem Pink, White and Maroon. This project was started since last year, then I was put it down due I have some difficulty to define the color combination I like. The started on October 07, 2007 (about a year ago!)

Even after got this colors I was felt hesitate to picked up this shawl for some reason. I was even worked on something else... like this baby wear set…a vest, a hat and pairs of shoes/boot

Pattern : Japanese Baby Knitting Book (for the vest – pattern no.23 (ISBN: 4-8347-2457-3)
Yarn: material is acrylic – don’t have the ball band since I got this from my brother stash.
Needles: Tulip Crochet Hook (3/0 and 4/0).
Finished Date: March 29, 2008 (I was worked these about 2-3 weeks).

The original pattern has some badges, but I didn’t the put those, instead I change a bit by give some colors block on the back side, where I combined color light blue and dark blue. The hat was taken from others pattern and at this time I already forgot which patterns I taken. I just remembered that the pom-pom was added to cheer give something to cheer it up.
The baby set was for my sister work-colleague which someone I knew too and the baby (as you already could guess) is a baby boy!! :-)

Now we are back to my Blumengruss, here are some of the WIP picts if you would like to see

This pattern actually is not hard, but somehow I misread the diagram. Instead of starting the border on the bottom (down side of the triangle) I was working on the shorter side (left/right side), which off course I always ended up with only ½ parts of total stitches from diagram shown. So I did tinked. And not just once, but 3 times !! Imagine the time I spent to knitted-tinked-knitted-tinked. Then I re-read the pattern again and again, and guess my mind was got it right this time.
The border is 10 rows repeat patterns. I can memorized it after the 4th time I re-knit the border on the correct side. He.. he.. I really suggest, if you are like to work with the border and knit it directly to the main part, better take time to familiarize the pattern with other yarn. I use a bigger cotton yarn to understand this border pattern.

When the 3rd side of border has been finished, I struggled with the Kitchener stitch to sew the beginning row from 1st side of border. After spent few hours learning about Kitchener stitch, I finished this shawl! Feels so great! You are the knitters with long time and some adventures already familiar with this kind of feeling.

So next day I take this beauty on the bath (after took all the safety pin off course).

So, here the beauty under the sun, after took some nice bath. I use apple shampoo and whoa.. the bath really took away the dirt (for sure after months of put it down and during I am working this).

We have very sunny day lately, and even I put this under the shadow when I dried it, took only about 2 hours.

I am not blocked this shawl properly, just gave some weight to make the center pointed nicely.

Finished Size; 200 cms x 150 cms

Pattern: Blumengruss (New Style of Heirloom Knitting ISBN: ISBN: 4-529-03992-7)
Yarn: DMC Color 53326 (Dark Pink - 1 balls is dye lot 19, the other one doesn’t have), Color B5200 (White), Color 5818 (Salem Pink, dye lot 51), Color 5813 (Maroon, dye lot 33).
Needles: INOX Circular Needle 3 cm, 3 ¼ cm and 3 ½ cm.
Time: Oct 07 2007 – Oct 01 2008.

My needles still clicking

This s the longest period of my unblogging time. Almost 3 months!! Having crazy schedules at work plus non-cooperative compie at home, I am more into working my projects instead of blogging.

Some projects that I am working now is the afghan, knitting project to de-stash my yarn. I plan to use this afghan to cover the electric massage chair. Also on my other needles, the Blumegruss from Heirloom Knitting. Goosh .. it's about half year project.. should finish this while it still hot!! ;)


In between those 2 projects, my sis was asked to make a set of baby clothes for her co-work, so I crocheted a set of baby kimono, a hat and a pair of baby booties. Will upload the picts later. I use the vintage yarn , part of the stash that my coworker gave me some time ago and combine with my bro's stash.



I am really sorry for the reader if you kept finding the non updated blog page for few months, and thank you for checking me out :-)



Tomorrow we have a day off (not May-day or labour day, we dont have that here in Indonesia), so hopefully I could working on the pict and upload those here.

FO - Purple Shawl and 3 Colors Pillow Cover

Pattern: The motif was from Skacel (discontinued website), original pattern was made for afghan.
Yarn : Self-dyed kitchen cotton thread (20/18 - if I am not mistaken) using dylon.
Needles : Japanese bamboo size 4 (about 3.25 mm). Sorry I can't read japanese so cant inform the needle brand.
Tulip Crochet hook 5/0 for the border.
Start : April 2007 Finish : 2nd week July 2007

Pattern : Japanese KnittingBook (ISBN : 4-529-04053-4 )

Modification : making this shawl become rectangular instead of umm.. not sure what is the shape called about, but the original pattern was made 2 pieces of this and sc-ch-sc all around.

Yarn : Coats & Clark Red Heart Super Saver Yarn Color 0774 (Light Raspberry) - Worsted medium - 198 gr - 364 yards/333 m - 3 skeins

Needles : Inox Circular Needle 6.5 mm & Tulip Crochet Hook 7/0 for the border.

Start : Last week of Jan 2007 - Finished May 2007 & June 2007 (for the border).

Welcome 2007 and Icarus

It's almost 2 months past that I had absent from blog world. As addition for the classic excuses (busy at work), also I was busy prepared for my trip to US at december 2006 with my mom.

Before my trip to US, I worked on Icarus Shaw by Miriam Feltonl from Interweave Summer 2006, using fingering weight yarn. I forgot the brand here, but it was from China, color chili red.

I did not know what material of this yarn first, so I did some test with bleaching. I cut small thread then put it on the bleaching liquid. The yarn slowly disappeared, that means it made from protein based, so my guess that this yarn 100% wool.

Icarus pattern really nice to work with. As far as I remembered I only 2-3 times tinking because I made few mistakes. The yarn also help too, it very light, smoothly sliding on my inox 3.5 mm circular needle.

This shawl was started in first week of December 2006, even though I knitted as much as my fingers can do the knits and purls stitches, I picked it up again after I left it for 2 weeks from my trip and finished in the January 14th 2007.

Before block the size was around 70 cms (length) x 50 cms (height)

After blocked it grown to 219 cms (length) x 113 cms (height), and I am very happy with it even though there are few uneven stitches. Total yarn I used 2 2/3 balls around 60 grams (each balls is 25 grams).

So this project was the last project in 2006 and first finished one in 2007.

I will post more about my trip and all the S.E.X (yarns and books) from my US trip, at this moment I present my Icarus shawl :

just off the neddle - before block

Drying Process - only takes like 10 minutes!

Blocking process - about 3 hours

After weave-in all ends, time to show off :)

It was like 32 degress celcius that time and I almost melted.. he.. he..

Btw, I had been tagged by Cyn .. will answer it in the next post :-)