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!

Colour splash

Knitting something together is fun!

I just got the news that one of our colleagues at work gave birth to a baby boy a few days ago. And this is the present we gave her already when she left on maternity leave:

Everyone helped out by knitting or crocheting at least a few patches, and then I volunteered to crochet them all together. I have to admit that when I first got all the patches in all the different colours, it was quite hard to picture a nice, harmonious baby blanket. All the patches were just so different! But I think it turned out absolutely lovely in the end! It's got some special kind of charm about it. Sweet and colourful, but yet quite peaceful.

Spring flowers

Long time, no see. But  now I'm back. And I actually have quite a lot to show you. The only thing that is missing is the time to write about them and the time to take pictures of everything. But one step at a time!

I was really busy with my studies this spring. I took some time off from work and finished my last studies at the handicraft teaching program, so now I'm officially a teacher of history and handicrafts! Yay! I must say I absolutely loved this spring, even though it was quite stressfull. I just learned so much and made a lot of things I'm really pleased with.

Already a few summers ago, I made a new "painting" for our living room. All you needed was a frame (thanks, dad!), some nice fabric and a staple gun.

I chose a green fabric by Marimekko named Valmuska. After that, our living room has seen more and more green details. First I made this small lace doily, and then a bigger one. The latest addition to our living room is this one:

A new cover for my grandmother's old rocking chair. I made this during a weaving course at the University and I call it "Spring flowers". The best part is the fact that the cover is reversable. Both sides look nice, even though they are slightly different.

Meow!

How do you know there's a cat in the house?

1) If there's a basket somewhere, the cat is most likely to be inside it.

2) If you forget that you have a ball of yarn hanging around somewhere, your appartment will sure enough look like this when you wake up in the morning:

But even so, it's still quite nice to have a fellow yarn-lover ready to help you with every knit or crochet you try to get finished. Too bad this little furry friend only came for a visit over the weekend.

Let's keep the children happy!

Phew, only a few weeks of school left this year! I'm so looking forward to going back to work. Then, at least, I'll have time for knitting in the evenings again. Yay!

A while ago, I happened to hear that a 2-year-old boy needed some new socks and I have to admit I find it almost impossible to resist such an offer to knit something that small and quick.

Pattern: my own
Yarn: Kotikulta Villainen
Needles: 2mm

As he is a boy on the very lively side, already walking and running about, I thought just a pair of woolen socks might be a little bit too slippery for him. So to remedy that, I also sewed on some pawprints in leather. Hope he won't slip and fall with these on, anymore!

I'm actually quite happy with these, although the leather was a pain in the ass to sew on... Not going to do that again very soon.

Just basic socks

Sometimes it's quite therapeutic to knit just simple, basic socks. And sometimes it's so booooring that you really don't know how you'll ever going to finish them. Here's a pair of both:

Pattern: basic socks
Yarn: Austermann Step
Needles: 2 mm

My parents asked for new pairs of socks, and as we happened to be in Porvoo that day, they got to choose their own yarn in the teetee shop. The first pair (for my dad) felt so incredibly slow to knit even though I tried a different kind of triangular heel on them. But I did finish them after all and decided to have a small pause before casting on for the next ones. And I don't know if it was the pause or maybe I had just gotten used to knitting basic socks with a thin yarn or perhaps it was just my mood, but the socks for my mom felt like a really quick knit. It's funny how the same kind of knit can sometimes be so hard and so easy another time. But I guess it's something every knitter experiences sometimes?

 

Who's that teddybear?

Yet another baby found it's way to this world. Last Saturday one of my closest friends gave birth to a boy, and naturally I thought that boy should have a small welcoming gift.

Pattern: my own
Yarn: Novita 7 Veljestä
Needles: 3 mm

This was a really quick knit. Took me only 2,5 hours. I guess an upcoming deadline really makes you faster. I practically finished these 15 min before I had to rush out of the door and hand over them to the new owners. Talk about making use of every single minute...

(By the way, the other teddybear just happens to look really sad in this picture, didn't look that sad for real!)

Already earlier this spring I also made this little baby coverlet out of leftover fabric for the same little boy. 

Last autumn I had to sew a bedcover corner during a course in interior textiles and just happened to stumble over this cute wadded fabric. The leftovers has ever since been lying around, waiting for someone who might need it.

 And yes, this is the kind of stuff we do at the university. We practise a lot of small details of things :) I guess it's important to learn stuff like this, but when the course if finished these small exercises become really useless. I mean, what do you do with just a corner?

Little Miss Ladybug

Well, my knittings aren't really progressing at the moment. There's just way too much work to do at the university. I'm there during the day, and when I come home I either continue with some homework or then I'm just too tired to even think about starting a project that's not compulsory. But only 2 months left and then I'm freeeee. Yay! :)

But, now I may say: Hurray for babies! They're just so small and knitting for them is just so fast and nice. Like knitting this little dress:

Pattern: Super Simple Baby Tunic
Yarn: Rico Design: Cotton Soft
Needles: 2 mm

This dress turned out wonderful and it's just so cute, isn't it?! And it fits the little babygirl perfectly (thank you so much for the cute picture!).

The dress itself is knitted in the round. I casted on for the bigger size, but since I wanted to use rather small needles, the finished size is actually quite perfect for a newborn baby. I didn't, however, find any nice pattern for a crochet ladybug, so I kind of had to come up with it myself. Never thought I'd manage that, since I'm so NOT a crocheter. But surprise, surprise! I'm actually very pleased with the result!

My parents also brought me a bunch of some wonderful buttons when they were in Paris last summer and now some of the buttons found their match in heaven.

Pretty good stuff!