Beautiful wedding lace

I don't think I've ever been as nervous about a knitting project as I was with this one. The reason? It was a wedding present for a good friend of mine. And what could be more nerve-wracking than knitting something for someone else to be worn on one of the most important days of her life?

The bride chose the model herself, I took her measurements, found the yarn (70% baby alpaca and 30% silk, so incredibly soft!) and started knitting. But it wasn't as easy as I thought. It's hard to know if the size is really right before you've blocked the piece. So I was really, really nervous about  if it would fit or not right until the end.

It did fit, but was a little bit on the smaller side, especially around the neck. After some thinking, I decided to make an additional crochet border around the neck and the sleeves. Although, the fact that I finished the crochet borders the night before the wedding really didn't help my nervousness! But I have to say I think they kind of made the bolero better. The crochet lace gave it a vintage kind of look that I like. It seemed the bride liked it too, or at least I hope so!

Pattern: Matrimonio bolero (free pattern)
Yarn: DROPS Lace
Needles: 3,5 mm

The pattern is written for 3/4 sleeves, so here's the modifications I made: I CO 43 st, then increased 2 st on both sides every 18th row (after one repeat of the entire lace pattern) until the sleeve was of desired lenght. Then I increased 13 st on both sides for the back. Now that I think about it, I should have increased more at this point, probably as much as one repeat of the lace leaf on both sides.

Adjusting the seam :) The wedding itself was really beautiful. The weather was perfect and the surroundings wonderful. Well picked by the bride and groom!

All photos by Mari Lehtisalo.

Giraffe meets sheep!

I don't know why, but I seem to be hopelessly late with posting smaller projects here on the blog. First it usually takes me ages to have the pictures taken. Then I just can't seem to find the time to do something about them. But here, finally, the only knitted Christmas present I made last year!

Pattern: my own
Yarn: Novita Wool
Needles: 2,5 mm

You know I've been dyeing quite a lot of yarn at work, so now I just have to figure out what to do with them all. I've already knitted a pair of baby socks, and this cowl was the next stash-eating project. Both yarns are dyed with onions, the darker one obviously the first dyeing lot, and the lighter one was from the third one.

The diamond-pattern is made of slipped stitches. Super easy! And very soon after starting the project I realized that both the colours and the pattern actually reminds me of a giraffe. And when you think about it, a cowl is in fact very suitable for being inspired by giraffes since they have a really long neck! Right?

The cork buttons is from the ever so lovely Karnaluks in Tallinn. You can really find almost everything in there!

And in case the cowl wouldn't be enough for the cold winter, he also go this simple, striped beanie (with slipped sticthes too!) to warm the head.

Pattern: Farm beanie
Yarn: Novita 7 Veljestä
Needles: 3 mm

Candy tea-time!

Last summer I asked my dad to make me a weaving frame as a birthday present for me. And once I got it, I immediately had to try it out by by doing some very simple tapestry weaving. 

Three things guided me towards the final idea:

1) I had some birght red yarn in my stash that I wanted to get rid of.
2) Our kitchen, spiced up with all kinds of small, red things. Especially these old candy-like tin jars:

3) We drink a lot of tea. And sometimes we make a whole pot of tea. And to keep that warm, I've been thinking about bying a tea cosy already for a while.

And here's the result: a set of textiles for the kitchen, inspired by the Marianne-candy.

I made the sewing part for a school project last winter. The potholder and half of the tea cosy has one layer of flannel inside it for isolation. And especially the tea cosy really works. We ended up testing it just for fun, by boiling some water and checked out how long it took for it to cool down under the tea cosy. Without the tea cosy the water cooled down from 90° to 70° in just 20 minutes, but with the cosy on top, it took more than an hour. So there you go! Not just a old, useless relic from the 70's!

Since I still had some polka dot fabric left, I also made some new covers (and much softer than the old ones) for our kitchen stools.

Now our kitchen is much closer to being a perfect little candy land!