Once upon a time – long before I moved to Berlin, before I met the man and had the son – I lived in an apartment in Germany’s former capital. Back then, I would rent out a room to female students of the Goethe-Institute. Every two months a young woman moved out and another moved in with me. They all wanted to learn German, were away from home for the first time, were homesick sooner or later and (almost) all of them fell in love.
One of them was from Finland. When she returned home after two months, she left John (an Irishman from Dublin) and a green Moomin mug behind. John didn’t get along all that well with the French student who rented the room afterwards. He stayed nonetheless (in my living room) for a while but finally moved out.
I still have the Moomin mug.
Many years later the (at that time still very young) son discovered his love for audio books. He loved three in particular and heard them again and again: Peter and the Wolf (spoken by Loriot), Noah’s Ark (by Stanley Weiner) and “The story of the little animal that is always so scared” – at least that was the title the son had given to the story. However, we had bought it as ‘Moomin’s Long Journey’ and a small, anxious animal had actually part of the plot.
We still have that CD too. (However, we don’t listen to it anymore).
Third time’s a charm: Now, Moomins came into my life again. This time with yarn. And what can I say? Again, they have enchanted me. Anyone who follows me on Instagram has seen it already.
Novita, the family owned company, that was founded in Finland in 1928 and (according to their homepage) is proud to be the largest hand-knitting yarn spinner in the Nordic countries, has included Moomin yarns in their program: Muumilaakso, Muumitalo and Muumit. Three different yarns, the colors inspired by Tove Jansson’s Moomin books. All three come with beautiful patterns for socks, hats and scarves.
Novita, whom I have met at h+h Cologne, sent me some yarn balls after the fair for testing purposes. And because I like to “test meaningfully” (i.e. knit things that go beyond gauge), I knitted a child’s sweater using Muumitalo. Of course, with a big Moomin on its front.
Being a sock yarn devotee, I enjoyed working with Muumitalo. Yes, it does have 25% polyamide (as most sock yarns do), but that didn’t matter to me. The finished sweater can be washed in the washing machine, it keeps its shape, is somehow robust and hopefully it will live a long time. Plus, stitch definition and colors are very nice – even though it is hard (harder than I thought it would be) to take a decent picture of the pink.
The yardage is fine too: The three balls I had were plenty enough for a sweater in US-size 7-8.
There is no pattern for the raglan sweater. I made it up as I went. The Moomin is a Novita design (it’s on a scarf in the above booklet). I used intarsia for the Moomin body and embroidered details like mouth, eye and hand afterwards. It worked out perfectly.
The Muumit yarn, made of 55% merino and 45% cotton, is still sitting here. I would like to use it for something baby, but have not decided yet what to make out of it. Whatever it will be in the end – pictures to follow. Here and on Instagram. And – eventually – when temperature goes down, I might take some more pictures of the Moomin sweater worn by its new owner 💙.
By the way, retailers for Novita yarns are here and here – in case, you’d like to knit moomins made of Moomin yarn yourself …