Almost 100% made by me

Huhtikuu oli täällä blogissa hyvin hiljainen kuukausi. Potesin ensin pitkää flunssa ja sen jälkeen vielä vatsatautia, joten sekä blogi että käsityöt saivat jäädä odottelemaan parempia aikoja. Toivottavasti selvitään tästä loppukeväästä nyt paremmin! :)

Näidin viimepäivien ihanien helteiden kunniaksi voisinkin esitellä sopivasti viimeisille pakkasille valmistuneen villahameen:

Malli on hyvin yksinkertainen mutta erityisen tästä sekee se, että kudoin tämän kankaan ihan itse. Kävin ihan käistyöopettajaopintojeni loppuvaiheessa vaatetuskangas-kurssin, ja päätin siellä kutoa itselleni lämpimän villakankaan talvimekkoa varten. Tämä keltainen raitakangas on vain pieni osa tätä kangasta. Samasta loimesta kudoin myös noin 1,5m tällaista ruutukangasta syksyn väreissä:

Siitä tullee joskus mielettömän lämpöinen mekko, kunhan ensin uskallan upottaa siihen sakseni. Tätäkin pientä hametta oli jo kuumottava tehdä. Tämä kangas on kova purkautumaan, joten ommellessa piti olla todella varovainen ja tarkka.

Kankaaseen olen käyttänyt Kamenaa ja Ohutta Pirkkalankaa eri sävyissä. Keltaisen langan olen itse värjännyt värjäyskurssilla. Eli toisin sanoen tämä hame on lähestulkoon 100% minun tekemäni. Alusta loppuun. Hurjan hauskaa!! :)

This is a skirt made almost 100% by me. I've woven the fabric myself and dyed the yellow yarn myself. All during my wonderful craft studies at the university. This skirt was only for practise, though. I made another fabric too (in the loom-picture above), a much bigger one using more red and orange colours. That fabric will hopefully turn into a nice and wonderfully warm winter dress sometime in the future. The fabric is really tricky to sew as it's so slipery and so delicate. Therefor I started with this simple skirt and will move on to the dress another time. Wish me luck! :)

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!

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.

Light spring breeze

This spring has been incredibly hectic, both at work, at home and in school. Sorry this blog almost died out because of that :) And since I haven't had time to update, most of my upcoming updates won't be of new finished projects but of older ones, photographed already during the winter... or autumn, as this one.

Last autumn I took an introduction course in weaving at the univeristy. And I have to say it was awesome! I've never tried weaving before (at least not since high school) but I LOVE IT! Too bad a loom is just a "little" bit too big for my living room ;)

This was my main project for the course:

My original plan was to make a small and light carpet for my living room. This finished carpet is 46 cm wide and 115 cm long. The yarn in the warp is Gianni Versace: Lane Profilia, 100% linnen. I got a box of this yarn from my aunt a few years ago. Haven't found any information about it, but the labels look quite old. So maybe my carpet is actually half-antique. Yay, suits an historian well ;) Anyway, I didn't know what to do with all of the yarn until this project came along, but it turned out to be perfect for it!

For the fill I used Drops Lin that's also 100% linnen. The green details are woven with Järbogarn: Lovikka, 100% wool. And even though the woolen yarn was very rough and nothing I would use for knitting, it actually turned out pretty nice with the linnen. It feels kind of soft now, which is pretty amazing, if you ask me!

Funny thing is that I actually didn't use this as a carpet after all. Everyone told me it was too beautiful to step on, so in stead I sometimes use it as a runner/tablecloth on my dining table. I'll show you pictures of it in use another time! :)

Here's a small detail of the braids in both ends of the carpet. Although now that it's a runner in stead, I think I might actually redo the loose warp ends... Just have to decide how...