Tuesday 30 September 2014

Little Bear

...or perhaps a big bear?


Pattern: my own
Yarn: Sofil Carina
Needles: 3 mm

My colleague at work had a bear-hat just like this but unfortunately she lost it. So of course she had to get a new one.

After scanning Ravelry for a really long time, I gave up on trying to find a pattern for a bear-hat like this for adults. So I decided to improvise it instead. This is a simple, basic beanie with just a few details. I knitted it from the garter stitch edge up to the top, then picked up the stitches for the garter stitch earflaps and finally finished them off with i-cord straps. The ears are also knitted separately, stuffed with wool and sewed on to the finished hat.


Now I'm almost done using up all this black, furry yarn! I think I had around 8 skeins of it, since my mom had intended to make a sweater out of it back in the 80's. But instead of becoming a sweater, it's been transformed into a lot of smaller projects instead. But then again, it took me about 5 years to get to this point... Perhaps the sweater would have been faster after all...

Wednesday 24 September 2014

Mrs Granny


Finally, something for ME! It feels like I've only been knitting projects after projects for other people, so it felt really, really good to finish something that was meant for myself.

Remember when I went through my stash last summer and said you'd probably see a lot of stash-eating project from now on? Well, you haven't really seen that many, have you? But here's at least one! (That consumed both all of the white yarn and all of the lighter gray)


Pattern/Idea: Isoäidinneliö kauluri by Novita
Hook: 4 mm
Yarn: Novita 7 Veljestä, Gjestal Janne, Novita Princess Baby and some random white yarn from my stash.

Well, you don't really need a pattern for this one, but I got the idea from the pattern listed above. All you need is the amount of squares you want and then just crochet them together! I made 40 smaller ones to make a loooong cowl. This one is so long you can wrap it once, twice or even three times around your neck - depending on how wrapped up you want to be!




It kind of looks small now that it's finished, but while I worked on it, it seemed like just another never-ending project. The main reason for why I actually managed to finish this was all thanks to school. As the brainless project this was, it was absolutely perfect for having with you during lessons! Whithout all the lessons at the uni last spring, I think I'd still be crocheting those squares...

But do you really think I learnt my lesson? Oh no. After finishing one patchwork project, I started even a bigger one! But that, my friends, I don't think I'll be able to show you here for yet a very, very long time... But here's a little hint and a sneakpeak: natural dyes and...


Tuesday 16 September 2014

Drip drop

I think the summer of 2014 was officially the Summer of Love. I attended three weddings, and they were all beautiful. And along with the weddings, also comes wedding presents, of course. This time the bride asked for a small contribtion to their upcoming renovation of the kitchen, something nice for the interior decoration of the house OR anything homemade. After some thinking, I came up with an idea that combined all three of those wishes.



This is a set of handmade textiles for the kitchen. Two kitchen towels, one double sided pot holder and one crochet table mat.










The white fabric is 100% linen. The details and the initials are embroidered by hand. And inside of the pot holder is two layers of flanell and four layers of white cotton fabric to give it enough isolation.

Last spring I had a course in screen printing at the university, and designed some figures for that. This drop was one of them, and the only one that I actually didn't use during the course itself. But I had all kinds of plans for how to use it in the future. And here I've used a few examples.



Although it - once again - felt quite stressful to make something as a wedding present it was really a lot of fun printing and embroidering! And I didn't even have to do all the "boring" sewing myself. That's where my better half hopped in. For some reason he's decided he wants to learn how to sew. And I don't mind at all - quite the opposite. I think it's absolutely great that someone else is willing to do stuff I usually find quite boring :)

Saturday 6 September 2014

Tribute to Marianne candy

Let's hope the summer is not yet entirely over so that I can use my new summerdress still for a while longer!

Yup, me, who used to refer to myself as someone who's afraid of sewing machines, has actually made something by sewing! And it was quite fun. I actually liked it! And this is what I created: a dress with a low neckline both in the front and back and short set-in sleeves. There's also a seam at the waist and a few folds on the skirt-part to make it wider.





 But I have to admit I didn't make it entirely from scratch. In the beginnig it looked like this:



It's a pyjamas by Ristomatti Ratia that I got as a Christmas present about ten years ago (I think). I've never used it, because as you can see, it's quite big. I had just decided to give up on it, when I looked at the fabric and thought "Hey, that could actually make a nice summer dress". So I decided to try to remake it into something else. And I'm glad I did. I absolutely love my new dress! Yay!



...although the fabric is so soft that it actually feels a bit like walking around in a pyjamas. But that's not necessarily such a bad thing!