I've been knitting a bit...

So many people complemented the red top and I decided to knit another. Red is made more than a year ago (I suspect even more than 2 years ago, but I'm not sure) and I wanted to be sure I still remember how it goes.
And guess what... Blue looks even better! Now I have a mannequin for trying things on while knitting and it sure helps a lot. It's much much easier to understand how long the top should be, where to increase and decrease and so on.

Now I would like to write down the pattern for this top, but I'm a bit afraid that it's too much for me. I just finished my first pattern-writing (Holly Berry fingerless gloves, will make a new blog post about it), but the top is more complicated- if I create a pattern, I should do it for different sizes.

At the moment I'm stuck with custom orders and all plans have to wait. I'm knitting some shrugs.

Basque hat finally ready

I have knitted this DROPS Basque hat I showed in last post for 4 times now.

I used different yarn (Hjertegarn Merino Silk) and needles (3.25mm) and when I cast on 120 stitches as pattern said, it came enough big for putting two heads into it.
Second time I tried with 96 stitches and it was still a little bit big.
After that I knitted this red hat with 84 stitches and now it looks perfect.

Hjertegarn Merino Silk is my new favorite yarn. It is a mix of merino (60%), silk (20%) and bamboo (29%). Very soft and easy to knit.
I have wondered for a long time about yarn preferences. When I started knitting, I used mostly acrylic yarns, because they are cheaper. Now I knit more natural yarns and the quality is more important than the price. But I think it's normal, because if you don't have much experience and the knitted things end often in the garbage pin (it happened to me more than once), then it's easier to throw away or ravel when the yarn didn't cost that much.


And some words about Slovenian yarn shops also....
I visited only one in Ljubljana, right next to the Prešeren square. It was small and the assortment was not very impressive. They sold mostly acrylic yarns and the prices were almost double than in Estonia. So I bought nothing.
Unfortunately I didn't have time to search the other 3 shops in the city.