New year, new mittens

Happy New Year! A little late maybe, that's a habit of mine. Yep, I've been knitting mittens. I wanted a pair to go with my red coat, now I've been using the grey and purple made for another coat. Moving them from coat to coat made me worry that I would forget them and end up with cold fingers. :)

I bought grey, red and orange wool and intended to make a pair just like the old ones.



Didn't happen. I got the idea that I would knit with all three colors in every row, making a warm inside on the mittens, with all the strands carried behind. It took a while to find a pattern. And it was made in stripes. So I made up a pattern of my own, making it striped diagonaly (however you spell that).



I like them, but I wish I had done a few things differently. They are a bit tight, even though I thought I had more than enough stitches. I should have made them even wider.

Making the second mitten, I decided to let the stripes turn the other way. I also changed the order in which I held the three strands. Misstake. Now the grey pops out on one, and red on the other. Also the thumbs could have used an extra round. No big things. I just worry they will be cold due to the tight fit, and the whole idea using three colours was making them warm. But still, they're fine. And they reminded me that I really like knitting mittens. :)

Done playing

Yes, I'm done. For now, at least. This was fun, and I'm sure I'll make more. I love these, and I've wanted to try this for a long time.



Do you like them? I sure do. A few plates, a candle holder or something else as a foot and some good glue. Love it! I bought the pieces secondhand, so the cost is almost nothing.

I promised to show you the crochet too. (Actually, the buns are knitted.) My husband played around too, staging this.



I have been working on these sweets for a little girl who is opening a bakery shop in her garden play house this summer. Her mum asked if I wanted to make some cookies and of course I did. They are delivered now, and I hope they will be played with a lot! And as a surprise, I gave her the two small cookie plates. Thought she needed something pretty to keep some of the baked stuff on.



So, now I am free to play with something else! :)

Yarn therapy

I am bored. After a period with lots of energy, I have been tired this last week. And it's getting boring. Haven't knitted in ages, and I would love to get started on a new project with the new yarn I won and never showed you. Sorry. But I want to make something special from it, and I have no ideas. Do you? It's pretty thin ( I am terrible at wpi and such) and I have 300 meters ofnit. Beautiful, handspun yarn from nitsirk.

I winded it today, to get to know the yarn better and to get some inspiration. Pure therapy! I have been thinking about stripes with some other yarn. Maybe I should bring it to the yarn shop and have a look around.

I guess part of the problem is that with spring approaching, all I really want todo is crochetin bright colours. :) Make bags. But I do want to knit something soft to wear with thisyarn. I'll probably end up making yet another shawl. But what I really should do is finish all the projects I have in my baskets. I just don't feel like it. And a hobby is supposed to be fun, right? ;)

Well time will tell. And maybe a new project could inspire me to finish the old ones? (Please, agree!)

Glitter and tatting

I am tired, oh so tired, most of the time. Due to the new medication. I have so many projects to work with, but in one way or another they feel too heavy to work with right now. But at least I managed to make a pair of mitts for a pretty little girl. 

It happens all the time that I forget to take a picture of things I make for others. This time I remembered it in the last minute, in the car! :) So behold, red glittering mitts! I know, I really am a great photographer...

I spend a lot of time on internet right now, finding a lot of inspiration. Too tired for most of it for the moment, but this seemed easy enough to try. May I introduce to you my very first tatted thingy!

It's a flower pendant. I followed a great tutorial on youtube, since I haven't figured out how to follow patterns yet. But I think I will, since this was great fun. I didn't have any tatting equipment, so I used a tapestry needle and thin crochet yarn. I thought it would be complicated when I first saw tatting, but at least this flower was a piece of cake. Try it! I will continue tatting, that's for sure!

Glittering mitts?

I am thinking. Can you hear the wheels turning? I don't know about you, but I love to use what is already in my stack when I create. Mostly because I want to get started right away, I mean who has the patience to wait until you've had a chance to go shopping? Not me! And also, using scraps is both better for the economy and the environment, I think.

I know this charming little girl with a newly discovered syndrome, that makes her hands hurt (among other things). So I was asked to make her a pair of fingerless mitts for some warmth and hopefully some pain relief. And she would like the mitts to glisten, I was told. Of course! :)

Now, I have this yarn with the sequins, from the sparkling hat. The problem is really that it would be very uncomfortable to use it for the entire mitt. The sequins can be a little sharp, and to have them in the palm when you grip something... nah... So, I would love to use it forthe back of the hand only. How to do that when you knit in the round? I have no idea. So my current plan is to knit it in plain yarn, and then add the sequin yarn afterwards. Stitching it onto the mitt to make it look like it was knitted there from the beginning.

Does it sound like a good plan to you? Well, I guess I am about to find out. I was hoping to get started tonight, but it will have to wait. My hands are freezing cold for some reason, and that is not optimal when knitting.

Sparkling hat, pattern

Oh my, I really didn't plan to be quiet this long... Time flies, it seems. Well, now that I am here, I thought I would write down a little pattern of mine. It is nothing special, honestly, but this seems to be the best place to keep patterns I might want to use again. I never seem to find the right paper or notebook in my creative mess off-line. :)

This is the latest hat I've made for my sweet girl. A friend of hers had a pink hat with sequins, and she wanted me to buy her one too. But crocheting and knitting people don't like to buy hats, right? We like to make hats. So when we found this sparkling yarn with sequins in our fav yarn shop, the kid got to choose colors and mum got her needles and off we went.

The yarn wasn't great to work with, because of the sequins. It was meant to be knitted with 8 mm needles, and I used 3,5 mm... A bit tight sometimes, and many sequins are hidden inside the hat. But if you use the right size, I bet it is great to work with. Soft and with a luxurious feeling to it. I mostly knitted stripes, but also tried a little zig-zag. It didn't work at all... :) You can't even tell what it is supposed to look like, it just looks blurry. Well, well...

I wanted generous earflaps to keep soft cheeks warm, and she wanted a ballon top. Of course, since the frind's hat has a ball... :) I made braids on the earflaps, to weigh them down. Both the ball and the braids are partly made from a bulkier wool yarn. I decided at an early stage that I would line the hat. The original plan was to knit with two threads, the sequin yarn and this bulky wool. But the sequins and the sparkles got lost in the wool so I had to think again. And so I decided to go with only sparkles and then line. I simply used an old t-shirt for lining.

The lining was easy to make. I put the hat on a piece of paper, folded double in front and back, and drew around it. Cut it out and transferred it to the shirt. Sewed a zig-zag seam all around the two identical parts, and attached the parts with a straight seam over the head.

I actually made a staight seam around the remaining edges too, to make the mounting easier. As I would fold the edges of the t-shirt a little, to hide them inside the hat, there was a high risk that it would all turn out crooked. So I made a straight seam around the edge, right where I was meaning to fold it. This way I could keep a track of where I should be whipping it together with the hat, not folding too much or to little away. One of my brighter moments, if I may say so! ;)

Well then, it's about time I write down the actual pattern now...

I used a yarn called Paljett from Svarta Fåret (www.svartafaret.se). I had two balls of 50 g (=132m), and I didn't even use half of it. I used 3,5 mm circular needles, and my gauge was approx. 17 st and 25 rows for 10 cm. The size I aimed at was to fit an 8 year-old with a big head, she is 56 cm around the head.

I started with the earflaps.

Right earflap:
Cast on 8 st. Start knitting, stockinette. Increase 1 st on each side, every second row until you have 22 st. Increase only on the right side (the side closest to the face) on every second row, 4 times. Now you have 26 st. Cut thread. You can leave it on the needles if you like.

Left earflap:
Like the right earflap, but keep increasing only on the left side when you reach 22 st. Cut thread when you have 26 st.

Neck:
Cast on 20 st, knit the left earflap. Cut thread.

Forehead:
Cast on 24 st, knit the right earflap. Knit the neck and keep knitting in the round. Each round now begins after the right earflap, you could place a marker if you like. Each round now has 96 st. Keep knitting until the work is about 10 cm from neck and forehead. Now, start decreasing.

Decrease:
Dec 1: Decrease every 8th st (= knit 6, knit 2 together). You now have 84 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 2: Dec every 7th st (=knit 5, knit 2 together). 72 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 3: Dec every 6th st. 60 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 4: Dec every 5th st. 48 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 5: Dec every 4th st. 36 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 6: Dec every 3rd st. 24 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 7: Dec every 2nd st. 12 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Cut yarn, and thread it through the remaining stitches. Fasten all ends.

Cut pieces of yarn and braid them around the lowest part of each earflap. Make the ball. I attached it after the lining, and secured the top of the lining to the hat as I fastened the ball. Finished!

I have no pictures of the knitting process, since I wasn't planning to make any kind of tutorial. As I said, this is mostly for me and my lousy nemory. :) But if you are giving it a try, feel free to ask. There are no stupid questions!

I did not make any kind of ribbing, since I thought the lining would keep the edges from rolling up. It seems to be working. You get a lot of ends to fasten, casting on each part separately as I did. If you know a better way, or a way to cast on nicely from right to left, please tell me!

Lazy days

Hi there! How are you? Me? Well, I am having happy, lazy days. Really not doing much at all, and loving it. I love having my family around me at home. Especially these days, when the house is decorated and cosy, when we have a lot of good things to eat, and the kids are in a state of joy and harmony over new toys and stuff. My body has been giving me a pretty hard time lately, so it has been perfect to be able to just cuddle up somewhere. 

In spite of hurting limbs, I have managed a little knitting and crochet. This blue mohair scarf has been lying in the basket for a while, blocked and ready for an edging. The pattern had a suggested edging, but it looked weird in the yarn I used so I went through my books and found one I liked better. I was surprised that it turned out so cuddly, I had expected it to be at least a little itchy.

I was also able to finish this owl hat. It's for a baby girl, and I was asked to do it. No pattern, so I tried to keep it simple. A square hat with ear flaps (that I picked up stitches to make when the hat was done). I hope it will fit the girl... That is the hardest part when you improvise a design, that it has to fit too... :)

Now, I have a crying daughter on the floor, who wants my help to make earrings. So I better go! :)

Another project, and another, and...

Time is just flying by... I am constantly starting new projects. And also finish a few... :) This first one was very quickly done. My first dishcloth. I was a bit sceptic when I first heard about making your own, but my husband's cousine's wife (!) convinced me that it was something really worth trying. So here it is, and it is already in use. I made it in linen, crochet with a very simple pattern that I found suiting for the yarn. Two sc's in the same stitch, skip one stitch, repeat.

And also finished is this, my latest knit work. A pair of fingerless mitts. I think I will keep making fingerless mitts forever. They are easily made, and I love wearing them. I have very cold hands... I am not sure they will all be striped though.... I am not the best when it comes to hanling more than one color!

This last one is only started. It is a hat, and these are the earflaps. My girl wanted a sparkling hat, and when I stumbled over this yarn, it was a done deal! Yes, I have been yarn shopping. These two balls, and some alpacka yarn for making wrist warmers. Yay! :) I have also blocked my mohair scarf, but I will write more about that some other time. 'Cause someone needs to make dinner, and I think that one is me! Talk to you all later!

Mother's joy

Dear friends, I am proud to present to you a new little knitter. My sweet daughter Elsa, almost eight. She asked me the other day how one knits, and I showed hee. She then declared that we would have a knitting lesson for her the next day (as in yesterday). So we did, and it didn't take many tries for her to get it right. So proud of her!

She is really committed to it, this is her this morning before school. She usually takes her time in the morning, but today she rushed things to get time to knit. :)

She had not knitted many stitches before she declared that she needed a knitting basker. Now, where on earth could she be getting such ideas from? Luckily, she found a little basket in her room that suited her work perfectly.

This might bexome an expensive story, though. I got her the kiddy needles to start with. I think they actually belong to her brother (who is more into crochet by the way). But as soon as she had her basket, she told me she needed to ger her own needles. She just couldn't borrow someone else's all the time! :) Maybe I should bring her on my next yarn hunt. Or maybe not... Either way, she is already more interested in using circular needles than regulars. She is her mother's girl! 

Never satisfied

If you knit or crochet, this won't be news to you. No matter how much yarn I have at home, I never seem to have the right kind for the next thing I want to make. I needed to cheer myself up yesterday, and decided to start a new project or two. Or five... But I just couldn't find the right yarn!

Above all, I wanted to make mitts or wrist warmers. And I want to use them at work. For that very reason, I want them in "dull" colors, like black, grey or brown. And I want them to be neat, with cables or in a lace pattern. So I would need a pretty thin yarn. I have thin yarn. But it is either striped or in some really strong colors. I have those dull colors, but only in bulky yarn... :) So I need to go yarn shopping. Poor me! :)

At least I found one project I could get started on right away. It is a scarf from a free e-book pattern I got from Knitting Daily. It's a lace pattern, but their mohair was obviously a lot thinner than the skein I found in my stash... It looked as delicate as a spider web, and mine does not. But different doesn't have to be bad, right? So I keep knitting. Although I did almost rip it up to make wrist warmers of it instead, but I think my husband lost his patience with my inabilityto make up my mind at that point (should I make this, or that, and is it really pretty, or should I...) and simply told me to keep knitting what I started. :)  So I am about half way done already. Do you like it? Or should I make wrist warmers instead? ;) 

A new favourite

I have finished the red sweater, and I love it dearly allready. It is soft, cosy, fits me really good, and it is red! :)

(I know, there has been a lot of pictures of me lately. I just find it hard to show the new garments any other way. )

It was an easy pattern to follow, and I will probably use it again with a few changes. I love how open it is around the neck, with a round of crochet in a bulky yarn to keep the shape. I don't know how good you can see the colours, but it goes from dark red through red to a mix of orange and red. Warm and beautiful colours, if you ask me. Wonderful yarn!

Speaking of yarn, I did tell you I was a little worried that I didn't have enough. After all, five balls are not a lot when we are talking about knitting a sweater. When the front and back were finished, I had used up about half. I thought I was on the safe side there, but the arms ate yarn! This is all I had left after making all the stitching... Enough, but not much more! Feel like playing it safe next time. :)

Lovely red

Oh yes, I am already knitting something new. I am using this lovely yarn again, Baya from Creation Cheval Blanc, the same brand as the cardigan. But this is red with a touch of orange. And how I love this yarn! The colours in it lifts my heart. Now, let's hope this sweater will fit me better than the cardigan. And I dearly hope I have enough yarn! :) Yes, I only have five skeins... I guess a cheap person like me always will try to make the most out of nothing... The first skein took me to the decrease for the arms. I think three skeins will beenough for front and back, but will it be enough with one skein per arm? I dearly hope so. Ormaybe it will become a t-shirt? :D I only know one thing. I am not ripping this baby up! Love her way too much!

Some bad pictures

Look, there it is! My brand new cardigan, in a pretty lousy picture... My tablet is good for much, but it doesn't take the best pictures obviously. :) But I was too lazy to get the mobile or the camera. Anyway. I used the cardigan already on Wednesday, using a pin since I had no button yet. 

But it was a bit too wide, especially over the shoulders. Compare the two pictures with me, and you can see what I mean. I made a size medium, based on the given numbers in the pattern, but an extra small would have been enough this time. Not my regular size anymore! Well, since I had to finish it before I could see its actual size, remaking it does not feel like an option.

So I came up with an idea. I grabbed some of the left over yarn (yes, I had a little less than half a ball left!) Aand a hook, and made two rows of sc's around the neck. And that made a huge difference! So now I am one happy lady with a new and very snuggly cardigan!

Enough!

This is the moment. The very moment when I felt sure that I do have enough yarn. It has been a few anxious hours, since the arms needed much more yarn than I thought. After the back and front halves were finished I thought it was a safe trip, but these  arms... 

I'm on the very last part now, the shoulders in garter stitch, binding it all together. I hope it will look good when it is done. It's not perfect. Home made with love. :) And I hope it will fit me! I can see that it is wide... So hard to choose the right size to make when the pattern only gives you one measurement... I hope I can tell you all about it soon. I can hardly put it down, so excited about getting it done. The pattern tells me to block, but I am not sure about that. I want to wear it soon!!!

Casting on

Sitting with lit candles, soft music, the husband nearby and a brand new knitting on the needles. Not much that beats that! And it's a historical moment too - I am starting a cardigan for myself. Biggest garment I have ever tried to make. Wish me luck! Especially since I am not sure that I have enough yarn. But then again, do I ever have enough yarn? :)

A few thoughts

No pictures today, I'm afraid, just me and my thoughts. Hope you're fine with that.

I've been thinking a lot about this blog lately. I haven't been updating a lot lately, and it has a million reasons I guess. But the most obvious reason is that this has turned into a knit and crochet blog, and I don't knit and crochet that much anymore. Not that I don't want to, I am simply busy or too tired to get on with it. I don't work that much, but it makes me tired. And my spare time goes to tending to my family and the house. So I don't have much to show or talk about here, really. I've even thought about closing this down. But I don't really want to. So either you will see less of me around here, or I could go back to blogging about anything that comes across my mind. Or a mix of both. I know some of you will be fine with that, but I also think that a lot of (all of?) my newer followers are here mainly because of my African Flower Bag, hoping for more of the kind. Maybe some day, but I don't want to get your hopes up.

Another thing that I have been thinking about is... are you really reading what I write? I don't get a lot of comments, and I know that some friends and relatives are giving up because of me writing in English. If you are reading, please let me know! I get a feeling most people in the statistics simply browse by in search for nice patterns, not staying or reading much.

Anyway, I have been searching for patterns today. My mum was kind enough to buy me seven lovely skeins of yarn on a trip to a local yarn store. And I would love to make myself a cardigan, or something like that. But as always, it's hard to find a pattern that I like since most of them require soooo much yarn. But I think I have find a few alternatives now. I'll let you know.

Now, I have some laundry to take care of, a pair of fingerless gloves to finish and a shawl. to enlarge. It's made in lovers knots, so it will be dead simple to just pick up where I stopped and make it larger. Hopefully I'll remember to bring the hooks and the extra yarn upstairs this time. Too lazy (and somewhat tired) to hit the stairs again, once I'm up there and in the mood for some crochet.

See you later!

Never ending scarf

Wow, it's been a week already? Time flies...

I wanted to show you the scarf I made for my daughter's friend. The one in the basket a few posts ago. Well, it was finished last weekend and handed over to its new owner on the school bus on Monday. Didn't get too many chances to snap a picture of it, since my girl put it in her school bag as soon as all the ends were fastened, but she did agree to pose a little for me. :)

I made it very simple. Three stripes, blue, yellow and green. First I thought I would knit it in the round, but since I don't like purling I decided to knit rows instead, but still on my circular needles. I was a good girl this time, knitting a little sample to see how many stitches I would need. I like making these scarfs about 140 cm wide (or long, you know what I mean). Since this was made in garter stitch, it didn't curl up at all. Yay! :D When it was all done, I stitched the two ends together. Done in just about three TV nights.

The new owner loved it, and when I picked my girl up in school the other day, I was met by the third friend with a shy smile on her face. :) My girl asked me kindly if I could make a scarf for her too... Lol! Of course I can, and I will as soon as I have finished a few other projects I have to get out of my hands first. Black and purple this time. I wonder if this will be the last one, or if I will end up knitting scarfs for the entire school? :-S Then this never ending scarf will be a never ending story... But I do love how my girl is so willing to share with her friends, and not just try to keep everything I make for her self. Love her!

A sunshiny day!

 A beautiful day, today. The sun has been shining, and I was not late to take advantage of that. And I just have to stop when I pass by my wild rose. I love rose-hips. Love the color, the red against the green. Lovely! There is so much to enjoy in the nature. I had a little break, sitting down on the porch. I watched a robin jumping around this very bush, showing off his beautiful colors too. And the sparrows, taking a splashing bath in a puddle. :)

But this is what I've been up to mostly. Planting my flowers in the new flower bed. I won't show you more than this, since it looks rather messy right now. :-S They are not all very green anymore, and all the leaves falling off the trees doesn't make the impression much better... Hopefully the result will be stunning (or at least green and filled with happy flowers) next year, and I'll show it then.

I thought the weather would be rainy and dull, so I was planning to sit in my armchair, knitting all day. I made one row, before I went outside... And do you know? I have already too few project bags... :-/ How long did I manage to keep things tidy?

This project warms my heart. My girl started using her scarf, the never-ending one. :) Her friend at school liked and wanted one. "Mum, can you knit one for her?" Yesterday she gave me a note where this little girl had written what colors she wanted. :) So I just had to start knitting. I was really planning to make a hat or mittens, but I'm not that surprised I ended up doing something else.

I got a few questions about my apples in my last post. No, they are not good for much. :) They are not the kind you just pick and eat. But as jam, in a pie or as juice they are delicious! You just have to pick them when they're ready and not wait too long (which is what I did this year). Last time I harvested (it only gives fruit every other year now for some reason) I made jam and put in the freezer. Then I gave it all to my mum, since nobody here was very keen on eating it all. I might have made just a little too much... :) And, as I did this year, I cut some into pieces ready for a pie or whatever. Wish I could have saved more apples, but it hurts so bad in my shoulders when I sit peeling and cutting them. So I am happy I got at least a few bags done. You don't see this kind very often, since they get overripe so fast the stores tend to avoid them. But when people around here were more into making jam, all the women from our little village came to this house and picked those apples. Because there was no tastier jam!

Now, my friends, I'll pull myself in the hair to get upstairs and maybe knit a few rows. Think I might have used my poor muscles a little too much today...  But I love being able to! Enjoy all the things you are able to do, and don't take life and health for granted. It's a precious gift!

Comfy poncho

 I have been longing to show you the result of my efforts to make the yarn last for a poncho in this super bulky, chunky yarn. The original plan was to knit it in garter stitch only, but that ate up too much yarn. So I decided to try out dropped stitches, that I imagined would make the yarn last longer. (You don't really drop them, just make the stitches longer by wrapping the yarn around the needle one row, and dropping the extra wraps the next row.) And it did. But not more than enough, I used up all of my four balls of  yarn. Luckily, I had the tassel already, a left-over from a hat I made two years ago.

The poncho is knitted in one piece, a long rectangle. I haven't checked, but I think it's about 100 cm long. And 25 stitches wide... :) When it was all done, I simple stitched one of the short sides onto the long side, from the corner and in. Do you get the idea? Didn't really get a good picture of it. The stitching is right on my shoulder. The poncho is straight on my back, the only corner is this one with the tassel. Wish I had taken a picture of the back too. But I think you understand. Right? :)

I am really in love with this poncho, it's very cuddly and comfy. I was wearing it at work, and was a little worried that it would feel tight, or that the corner would get in my way as I have a desk job. But it really didn't. At all. So I've been wearing it for two days already, with joy!

True optimist

 It's not always true, but when it comes to yarn I apparently am a true optimist. I reckon any small skein or ball of yarn will take me to the moon and back. At least! :) I have four balls of this super bulky yarn, Dream from Svarta Fåret. Each ball contains 33 m (36 yards) of yarn. It's not much. I feel embarrassed when I remember that I actually thought it would last for a small poncho and a pair of simple mitts. :) Haha! After knitting up the first ball, I was afraid I would only get half a poncho... 

 I really should learn from my mistakes. But also, I love the challenge of making the yarn last in some way. Like this time. I really, really wanted that poncho. Warm and cuddly. I think the color will go so well with my jeans. :) The original plan was garter stitch on big needles. That wouldn't do. So I thought I might prolong it some by making dropped stitches. And it worked! Yippee! It made the knitted piece 25% longer, which I think will be enough.


I also went up one number in needles, from 9 mm circular to 10 mm straight. I love using circulars, but all those yo's made it really hard to get the stitches back up on the needle once they had slipped down on the cable. And the yarn really calls for 10 mm anyway... I wish I had even bigger ones, need to buy me a pair. 12 mm perhaps.

Do you see the blue rubber band on the needle? I use it to remember when to start wrapping that yarn. The pattern is so simple, just knit 4 rows, then *k1, 2 yo* for one row, and knit the stitches and drop the yo's on the 6th row. But you see, 4 rows of knitting is enough to make me confused. Now I only have to think half as much. When the rubber needle is free, I can immediately see if it's time for yo's yet or not. :) That's me.

This is a quick knit. I would have finished it today, if I hadn't ripped it all up last night. I had used up two balls, and then realized the work looked all wonky on one side. The pattern said "k1, 2 yo the entire row", so I did. Even the last stitch was followed by yo's, which apparently was a mistake. Too much yarn that did not make a straight, good looking edge. So I put the needle through the stitches before the first row of dropping and ripped it up.

I also want to remind you, do you remember that post I wrote about felting ends together? It came in very handy in this project too. No ends to weave in, how lovely is that!