My Favorite Sweater Ever 5 Finished Knits Latvian Mitten WIP Knitting Podcast EP02.

Hi there! Welcome or welcome back to my channel. My name is Rena. I am a knitter based in Norway. Today I would like to share a regular knitting podcast with you. I have five finished objects including one new all-time favorite sweater of mine and I also have two works in progress including one latvian stranded colorwork mittens which taught me a lot about floats and mistakes. So grab your knitting, a hot cup of tea or coffee. Let's get into this knitting podcast. If I miss any details you can check my Ravelry in the description box down below. It's all updated there. So my first finished object is what I am wearing today. This is the heart's desire sweater. Let's first give this sweater a moment. I think this is officially my favorite sweater I've ever knitted. First let's talk about the pattern. This is a test knit that I made for Knits by Wilma. It's a top-down drop shoulder sweater with all-over cable design. Regarding the sweater constructions, you knit the back panel first, then you pick up stitches on the shoulder for the front panels, left and right side. Then you join them in the round. Afterwards the sleeves are knitted top down as well. You pick up stitches around the armhole. The pattern is very easy to memorize but still super engaging to knit because of the cables. Regarding the yarn that I used, I held two strands of yarn together. One is a petergint from Sandersgarn, a colorway 1012 natural off-white color and another one is Izagir silk mohair colorway E0. It's also a natural off-white color. This yarn combination creates a very heavy and cozy fabric. The stitch definition is fantastic and the mohair gives it this really lovely soft haze on top. Some people might find petergint a bit itchy on its own but when it's paired with Izagir silk mohair, it actually softens the whole sweater quite a lot. Right now I'm just wearing it with a t-shirt underneath and I don't feel any itchiness at all, not around the neck and not on my arms. So for me this combination works really really well. Honestly this sweater feels like one of those pieces that I will keep in my wardrobe for many many years. It's just a kind of a cozy classic sweater that makes all the knitting time feels completely worth it. About the needles, the pattern recommended 4 millimeter needle but as I'm a tight knitter, I knit this with 4.5 millimeter needle and then I hit the gauge perfectly. For myself, I knitted the size 2. Even though this is a test knit, I still managed to make a couple of modifications to make the sweater fit myself better. The first modification is I made the collar with a half twisted rib and I still keep the regular rib with the cuff and also the hem. Because I'm not always happy with how my ribbon looks when the collar stretches a lot. So this works better for me. The second modification is I made the body and the sleeves three centimeters shorter than the pattern recommended because I have a shorter torso. I also wanted to share just a few challenges or the mistakes that I made while knitting the sweater. So if you're going to make this one as well, it might help you a little. The first one is not really a mistake, it's just a little bit of a challenge. So when I pick up the stitches on the shoulder, I actually pick up several times to make the cable aligned perfectly. My trick was to check if the last three knit stitches were perfectly aligned. So from there you pick up one stitch from every stitch. That worked really well for me. Then talking about some minor mistakes. The first mistake is when you join the front and the back in the round. I forgot that we are not knitting on the wrong side anymore. So for some sections like garter stitches, I forgot to purl every other round and I also made the slip stitches incorrectly for a few rounds. The second mistake is I forgot to do the cables a few times or twisted them in the wrong directions. Luckily I learned from a youtube tutorial how to lather down to fix the specific cables instead of ripping all the rows back. That was really a lifesaver. I think that's a super important technique to know while knitting cable sweaters. So if you're interested, I will link that video down below in the description as well. The third and the last mistake that I made is I forgot to do the sleeve decreases on my first sleeve. So when I almost finished the first one, I realized that I didn't read far enough in the pattern to know that there was actually sleeve decreases in this pattern. I wasn't the only one who made this mistake and it has been already optimized in the pattern. But it wasn't a mistake in the pattern itself. I think this is all I have to share for my first finished object. Hearts design sweater by Knits by Wilma. As you may tell I am super happy, super proud about this sweater. Let's move into my second finished object. It's a cute little pants for my daughter right here. The pattern is called Cozy and Cute Pants and this is a free pattern available on Drops Design website. I made the size two year old for my daughter. This is basically a simple stockinette pants for children. Regarding the yarn, I use Drops Baby Merino color 52 Chocolate. I use around three skeins for this size. This was actually my first time using a superwash yarn. It definitely grew a lot compared to a non superwash yarn. After blocking, it became very flowy and drapey, almost feels like a viscose fabric. Regarding the needle size, I use 2.5 millimeter needle for the waistband and then three millimeter for the rest. I also use 2.5 millimeter for the ribbing as well. Talking about the waistband actually, this is a modification that I made to the pattern. In the original pattern, it was a one by one simple rip for the waist but I already made one of Drops Design's pants pattern before which is called Cutie Pie Pants. They have featured this folded waistband so that you can insert an elastic band in it. While this is a very simple pattern, I still managed to make a couple of mistakes but they turned out actually really great. I would say they're like happy mistakes. The first one is after finishing the waistband, you actually have to decrease quite a lot to knit the rest of the pants. I completely overlooked and didn't do any decreases but I quite like the result this way because pants didn't turn out oversized at all. Instead, they have a really nice comfortable ease which I actually prefer for a child instead of tight fitting legging style pants. Second mistake that I made is I actually misread the pattern and then started the decreases on the leg and then the first six decreases were way too fast. When I realized that mistake, I just simply finished the rest of the decreases with a very slow rate so it still turned out really great. So I think that is all I want to share about these pants. Even though the weather is getting a little bit warm here, I hope that my daughter can still make some use out of these pants. My third finished object is a reversible neck by my woolen closet. This is a simple neck warmer that I made for my husband. It's perfect for wearing with a big puffy winter jackets because sometimes I found it a little bit difficult to wear scarves with those type of coats. Regarding the pattern, it's a free pattern available on Ravelry. You basically knit in a round a long tube. It's a two by one ribbing so the wrong side actually also looks nice. The pattern comes in one size but actually you can easily modify it to make it larger or smaller by simply changing the stitch counts. For this version I used up exactly one skein of Drops Air. The colorway is pearl gray. I knit this up with four millimeter needles. This is actually my third time making this neck warmer. First time I followed the pattern exactly. Second time I actually made a tiny one, a much smaller one for my daughter. So let's see the difference here. So for this one it's actually 108 stitches and this one is 129 stitches and in the pattern it was recommended to knit with 132 stitches. My husband actually already have worn this a few times so there's updates that I would like to share. For example this Drops Air yarn actually it struts quite a lot and then it doesn't bounce back to its original size. So maybe this wasn't the perfect yarn for this type of project. More elastic yarn would be better but I still have some Drops Air left that I wanted to make another of these. So for the next version I would probably cast on even less stitches. So that's all I have to share about this reversible neck by Woolen Closet. I actually think this pattern is a quite good idea to make a last minute gift for others. So my next finished object, a pair of simple vanilla socks. It's I'm So Basic Socks by Summerly Design. I made this for myself to wear around the house. So actually why they're called a vanilla socks I have absolutely no idea. So if you know the answers please tell me in the comments below. Regarding the pattern, this is a free pattern available on Ravelry. It has super detailed instructions also with the video tutorial so I think it's perfect for absolute beginners. Talking about absolute beginners knit a pair of socks, I have a story to share. When I first started knitting socks I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I went to the supermarket, I bought 2.5 millimeter needles, I grabbed some random yarn. It turns out that they were Aran weight yarn. I followed the video tutorial by the crazy sock lady and then knit up the socks with 2.5 millimeter needles. So the results, those pair of socks were absolute knitted armors. They were so stiff, there are no elasticity at all but I still managed to make one pair for myself, for my husband, for my sister and also her husband. And I wore them around the house for almost two years before the heels died. So yes, that was my introduction to the sock knitting. I can't believe that that was my first time and then this is my second time knitting socks but luckily now I know what sock yarn is, I know what does a fingering weight yarn mean as well. Looking back I still find it pretty funny. So do you have any knitting fail story like this to share? Please let us know in the comments below. Let's get back to this project. So regarding the yarn, this is Drops Fabel yarn. It's a fingering weight sock yarn from Drops Design. I think I still have one skein left to show you. It looks like this. The colorway is a 930, I believe it's called Fairy Dust. Regarding the needles in the pattern, it's actually recommended to knit with 2.25 millimeter needles but I don't have them, I just use the ones that I have which were 2.5 millimeter needle. As I'm a tight knitter, I knit the size M with just a little bit larger needle size. I thought it should turn out fine. I actually have made a couple of modifications to this pair of socks. To start with, in the pattern you cast on 63 stitches for the size M and you do two by one ribbing. Instead, I just cast on 64 stitches and did one by one ribbing. I think just for no specific reason actually and then I thought now I'm a very experienced knitter, I can make modification to improve this even be better. As I'm not always super happy with the my ribbing, I thought okay like inside of my ribbing always looks just slightly better. Maybe I can just after finishing the ribbing, I can turn this inside out and then knit the rest of the sock from there. So basically after finishing the ribbing, I turned it inside out and then I started the row with like kind of German short row stitch and then finish the leg and then rest of the socks. But for the second one, just for the sake of comparison, I knit it like normally one by one ribbing and then I just continue with the stockinette stitch. The final result, actually I prefer the let's say the original way of making instead of turning this inside out because it doesn't look nicer. Also for some reason my one sock turns out slightly larger than the second one. It's exactly the same stitch count, same size of needles. I don't know why it happens to me. I honestly don't know where my different gauges come from. Do your socks ever turned out different size too? Anyways, that is all about this I'm so basic socks by Summer Lee and my next finished object are actually a matching socks that I made for my daughter. So this is a very basic rib socks for children. Regarding the pattern, it's also a free pattern available on the Drops Design website. I actually noticed that I go to the Drops Design website quite often because sometimes I have their yarn and then it's just easier for me to pick a project that use the exact yarn that I bought. So regarding the yarn, so it's the exact same yarn as my socks. It's Drops Fabel Colorway 930. For my daughter I knit the size 2 years old and I used up exactly 33 grams of yarn. So now I'm excited to have a matching socks moment with my daughter around the house. So these were all of my finished objects, so now let's get into my works in progress. Actually pretty much all of my ribs are in this purple bag. I sewed this bag a few years ago myself and then now I use it as a project bag. It actually has a really nice volume, small pockets inside and several pockets outside. I even fitted my heart's desire sweater in here while I was knitting it. If you're interested, it's a free pattern available as a pdf download. The instructions are in French actually, but I have filmed a step-by-step sewing tutorial for this pattern back in my sewing podcast era. I will make that video public on my channel, so check it out if you're interested. Anyways, enough about the bag, let's get into my ribs. My first work in progress is a pair of Latvian mittens by Ieva Ozolina, the pattern called Pink Crocus Mittens. These are traditional Latvian mittens that I tried to make myself and the key word here is a try. I will explain why in a moment. Both the pattern and the yarn are available on designer's Etsy shop called Hobby Wool. I will link it down below as well if you're interested. You can buy also the full kits for mittens or the socks there. Regarding the pattern, these are all over stranded colorwork mittens with notches on the cuff. You can see that there are three colors in this mitten, but there are only one round in the repeat that you'll actually have three strands of yarn. When I was working on that round, I basically placed the pink yarn on the bottom of the float, the green one in the and then white one on top of the float. If you have done stranded colorwork before, you know probably what I'm talking about. The mittens are knitted bottom up. When you reach the thumb area, thumb stitches are knitted with a contrast color yarn. Then after finishing the hat, you're going to pick up stitches and then knit the thumb at the end. I didn't need the gauge swatch for this pattern. Actually, it recommends that you knit up a first wrist warmer, basically around five centimeters in a round, because if you make a gauge swatch flat, it's going to be very different from knitting a mitten in a round actually. But I was a little bit lazy for that, so I didn't make any gauge swatch. I just thought if it turned out too small, my daughter can wear it one day. Then regarding the yarn, the yarn is actually super nice to work with. It's a bit rustic, it doesn't slip at all on the needles, which helps a lot to keep the colorwork tension even. But when I tried on the mittens, it felt a little bit itchy, so let's see if it will soften up with wear. Here is the second mitten that I casted on not so long ago. Now regarding the needle size, in the pattern it's not super clear which needle size to use, but most of her patterns seem to be knitted with either 1.5 or 2 millimeter needles. I actually started with a 2 millimeter needles. After finishing the notches, it looks quite large. I put it aside and then I knitted another one with a 1.5 millimeter needle. It looked kind of right, so I only knitted the notches, this cuff part, with the 1.5 millimeter needle and then I knitted the rest of the hand with the 2 millimeter needles. I also remember that it says in the pattern or in her pattern book that you cannot use magic loop for this kind of stranded colorwork latvian mittens. I didn't understand quite why. I think I have also heard from other people that they don't understand why they cannot use a magic loop. I thought is it because it will be more difficult to catch the floats? But anyways, I didn't want to risk or have problems, so I just used double pointed needles and I quite liked using double pointed needles as well actually. So now let's talk about the challenges that I have faced. So in the pattern there are actually quite low floats. Five, six stitches are like the normal ones. I think I even have at some point nine stitches maybe, but I didn't catch float anywhere at all because I didn't like how sometimes the contrast color could poke through the main color. Instead, I just focused on paying a lot of attention to my tension and then just fix anything afterwards by hand if needed. Right now, I can actually still wear it if I hide my ring stone in between my fingers so I didn't have any problem with the floats. And now the next challenge. So I'm wearing the mittens right now and then it's actually a little bit small. It's quite good fitted mittens on the rest of the hand like only this thumb area a bit squeezed here. After knitting this mitten, I followed the instruction to steam blocked it. It seemed to relax the mitten just a little bit but not too much. I think I will still finish the second mitten the exact same way even though it's a bit small for me. My daughter probably will wear it someday. I actually already have yarn for two more pairs of latvian mittens. So for the next one, I will try to figure out the add thumb increases without making the chart looks too messy or I can just maybe use a 2.5 millimeter needles instead. Another thing to note is that this pattern has 64 stitches. I noticed that some of our other patterns have a 70 or more than 70 stitches. So if you use the same needle size for all, I guess you will have a different mitten sizes. So this is all I have to share so far about this pair of mitten. I will share a little bit more update when I finish the whole pair. My next work in progress is a sofie scarf by Petit Knit. I am knitting two of them as gift knits right now. I don't think this pattern needs much introduction. Let's maybe talk more about the yarn. So I am using Sanderskarn cashmere. The colorway is 1002. It's a natural white color. It's 110 meters for 25 grams. I bought two skeins from the local yarn shop. Originally, I wanted the light beige color but it wasn't available there and I am knitting this sofie scarf by using four millimeter needles. Again, that's because I'm a tight knitter. In the pattern, it's recommended 3.5 millimeter needles. Actually, when I started this sofie scarf, I made a really silly mistake. In the pattern, several cashmere yarns are recommended. The final recommended yarn is Knitting for Olive compatible cashmere and the pattern says it's held double. I wasn't sure if that meant all the yarn options are held double. Since I'm using four millimeter needle, that kind of makes sense to me. So I knitted 15 to 20 centimeters by holding this cashmere yarn double. At some point, it became very stiff and thick, which didn't feel right. After doing a little bit more research on Ravelry and a YouTube podcast, I realized my mistakes. So of course, I frogged the whole thing and then restarted with the single strand. The modifications that I'm trying to make here, I guess like a lot of people who made this sofie scarf, I wanted to use up exactly one skein of yarn. So I'm weighing my yarn along the way to use up exactly half of it after finishing the increases, then knit the rest with the decreases. And I'm hoping that it will be a successful mission. So that's all my progress so far about my sofie scarf. Next, I would like to share about my acquisitions. The first acquisition is I bought 10 skeins of Knitting for Olive Heavy Merino Colorway Plum. It actually took some time to arrive because the shop didn't have enough skeins from the same dye lot. That's actually why I finished so many small projects, because I was waiting for this yarn to arrive. With this yarn, I plan to knit a champagne cardigan by Petit Knit for my mom. If you watched my 2026 knitting plan, I mentioned that originally for this pattern, I wanted to use piergant held together with Izagir silk mohair. As I just knitted this sweater, I realized that this is a super warm and heavy sweater with this yarn combination. And I asked myself when my mom actually likes wearing this kind of knitted garments. Actually, she wears a lot just around the house to stay cozy, not to go outside only with this kind of cardigans. So I am a little bit worried that the piergant with the silk mohair will be too warm and too heavy around the house. So I just swapped the yarn with Knitting for Olive Heavy Merino. I also already made a gauge swatch for this one. I use a 5 mm needle and then the gauge looks right. So I'm probably going to cast on this very soon. My next acquisitions are some sock yarn. It's Drops Fabel. So I still have one skein left from the sock yarn that I use for myself and my daughter. And I actually bought two more skeins like this. The colorway is 926. I plan to knit socks for my husband by using the same pattern I'm So Basic Socks. These are classic sock yarn with 75% wool, 25% polyamide, 225 meters for 50 grams. Finally, I bought some blocking pins. When I block my knits, I usually just lay them flat on the floor. And actually, while blocking this sweater, I realized that it actually would be really nice to have some blocking pins to have straight edge, especially on the hem. So I bought this kind of classic blocking pin. It's from Knit Pro. And people also recommended that it would be useful to have some T-pins as well, especially for some round edges. That is everything I have to share in this knitting podcast. If you're still watching, thank you so much. If you have any advice, any recommendations regarding my finished objects or works in progress, I would really appreciate it if you can leave it in the comments section down below. So thank you so much, and I'll see you in my next knitting podcast. Bye!