Warmth in July

Warmth is what I expected to have in July, but if you can't rely on the weather, you have to fix it yourself. I participated in a challenge where you have one month to finish something according to a theme. The theme of the month was WARMTH. You can find more information about the challenge in the blog Silmukan ytimessä kept by the bloggers Pipon ytimessä and Silmukan saalistus. 

This shawl is really everything about warmth. It's knitted with warm 100 % wool yarn, the colours are all of warm shades and the shawl itself is big, soft and warm thanks to the garter stitch.

Pattern: Tailwind by Clara Falk (you can find her blog here)
Yarn: teetee Kamena & Ohut Pirkkalanka
Needles: 3,5 mm
In Ravelry

I especially like the slightly asymmetrical design of the shawl. Reminds me a little bit of the wonderful shawls by Veera Välimäki.  This was also a perfect yarn-eater project. All of these yarns are leftovers from a fabric I was weaving in school last spring (yeah, a year ago!), but I'll tell you more about that later in the blog once I've finally made something out of it ;)

The pictures are taken on the small island Kuusiluoto just outside Arabia here in Helsinki. And look who came for a visit while we were taking photos! Just gotta love sheep! They're so friendly and always ready to be petted <3

Eternal sunshine

When I finished my craft studies at the university last spring, my friends gave me gift cards to two different yarnshops in Helsinki: one to Menita and one to Snurre. I have to say that this was a brilliant present for me. I've promised myself that I'll try not to buy more yarn before I've used at least half of what I aldready have. But once you have a gift card with an expiration date, you just have to use it, right? Oh, that's just too bad...

People have been talking a lot about the yarns by Louhittaren Luola (Knitlob's Lair) so I wanted to try a skein too. After fiddling around with a lot of different skeins I ended up buying Väinämöinen in colour Vilja.

Pattern: Good Day Sunshine (free pattern)
Yarn: Louhittaren Luola: Väinämöinen
Needles: 4 mm
More pictures in Ravelry

At first it seemed like the yarn was just a little bit too thick for this pattern, but I think it turned out just perfect anyway. I wanted a soft but warm shawl for the autumn, and that's exactly what this is. The yarn was soft and really easy to knit. I wish the colour had had just a little bit less orange in it, but I guess it's ok after all. The different shades of yellow and orange gives the shawl a lively and interesting look.

This wasn't exactly the easiest shawl I've knitted. Especially the textured top part required some thinking but it didn't take me too long to get the hang of it. The lace edge was easy and wonderful to knit.

The shawl eventually ended up just two rows short since I ran out of yarn, but I don't think it messed up the pattern at all. The rays of sunshine just ended up a little bit shorter than in the original version. Hope they'll still inspire the real sun to shine throughout the summer!

Dyeing

Here's some photos I've been thinking about posting already for a while. Last spring I attended a course on how to dye with different methods and here's a few of the things I tried:

Ikat and gradient dyed yarn. Haven't used them for anything yet, though.

Two different shibori methods udes on fabric. The two-coloured fabric was dyed twice. The first time I only folded the fabric to a square and dyed it yellow. The second time I folded the fabric into a triangle and then used clothespins to make the dotted pattern. The yellow fabric was wrapped around a tube, tied with string and then scrunched down.

I also used the red and yellow fabric to practise embroidery with a sewing machine. Here I've decorated the fabric with small pieces of fabric in different colours, covered them with tuile and then I used free-motion embroidery to attach everything to the fabric underneath. This machine embroidery was actually a lot of fun! You should try it sometimes, if you have the chance!

Winds of change

There's been a lot going on over the past month. Some stuff that will affect this blog. As you can see, I changed the name of the blog. It will from now on be called "ME made". I'm sure all of you agree on that this is a good change. The old name "The Comet" didn't really represent the things this blog has become. It didn't bring your minds to knitting and crafting. It had basicly just been hanging around since the beginning, when this started out as a travel blog back when I was an exchange student in Paris in 2009. And now it was time to update it.

Edit: This is the new blog. I've copied all of my handicraft-related posts here to make a nice archive. The old blog will go back to be called The Comet and will only have the posts from my spring as an exchange student in Paris back in 2009. The old blog can be found here. 

But then why ME made, you might think? Well, ME stands for my initials M.E. and since this blog is all about handmaking things... Well, it clicks kind of perfectly, don't you think? I will change the URL for this blog too, but don't worry. I'll give you a heads up before I do.

Also, I am now happy to inform you that I also registered my own firm with that very same name. Don't really know where that's heading yet, but there might be some visible changes in the blog due to that too. In the future. Right now I'm just starting out by selling some handmade things to the museum shop at the Espoo City Museum where I work at the moment.

Which brings me to my next announcement. The fact is, I won't be working there for long. You see, I've been offered a permanent job as a craft teacher at a high school here in Helsinki! I'll start in August. And that's like... I don't know. So amazing! But in the same time so scary to start a new job! And there's a lot to plan before school starts in the autumn. I'm super excited about it. I have loads of ideas of what I could do with my students but it's still quite hard to picture what it will really be like. Will it be hard? Will it be fun? Will it be awful or absolutely great? I don't know. Time will tell!

I also hope that I'll still have both time and inspiration to do my own crafts outside work and to keep up with this blog. At least I'll try my best, I promise! But please be patient with me and hang in there, ok?

Colourful cuteness

Do these projects really need any explanation anymore? :) This is the FIFTH baby blanket we've made for a colleague at work. Everyone who wanted to participate made a few knitted or crochet squares using leftover yarns from their stash. Then I offered to crochet it all together - and voilà! Another blanket is ready to warm someone small and cute!

This time some of us wanted to try something new, so especially the crochet squares are made with a little bit more complicated patterns than in the earlier blankets. Most of them are from the book I bought resently: "200 Crochet Blocks for Blankets, Throws and Afgans" by Jan Eton.
 
I still think this blanket is my all time favourite, but this newest one doesn't come far behind. I especially like the bright colours and the wonderful different textures in it. 

 

Hooting needles

I haven't actually been able to finish any of my knittings, but one piece of sewing is ready to be shown!

Have you ever been in a situation when you just can't seem to find that one neede you need, even though you know it is somewhere in that box? Well, I experienced that a lot of times. And sometimes it just felt too "hard" to fix a piece of clothing since looking for suitable needles was soooo time consuming. (Actually, it was just an excuse for being lazy...)

This is, therefor, the perfect solution for me. A needle book. And even pretty enough to have lying around in the living room.

Owls are just so my thing. I know it's srarting to be boring since everyone has owls at the moment, but when I thought about what I wanted to embroider, the owl always kept on popping into my mind. So I gave in, at last. It turned out quite nice, if I may say it myself.

A nice tutorial for a needlebook can be found here.

Reversed spring

One day the spring is here with all the warmth and sunshine. Another day it's cold, windy and dark again. I don't know if it's the weather or what, but my inspiration for knitting can't just make it's mind up either. But I did manage to finish something small, at least. My first reversable, double knitted project!

Pattern: my own
Yarn: Ohut Pirkkalanka
Needles: 2 mm

One day I just decided I wanted to try this new technique. I felt very daunted by it at first, but once I got the hang of it, I have to admit that I actually ended up liking it very much! Yes, it was super slow to knit. And yes, you have to stay focused all the time to make sure the pattern turnes out allright on both sides. But at the same time my head just flooded with ideas of things to do using this technique! I mean, why didn't I for example use this technique when knitting these double mittens?! And I'd just love to have a warm, double knitted hat like the one A-L knitted a while ago. And this technique is also kind of an easier way to do colourwork. Kind of. You can basicly knit any pattern you like without having to worry about those long strips of yarn on the back side.

So, like the spring, I can now choose what colour I want to wear on my phone according to my mood. Is it a yellow or a pink day?

Here's also another phone cover I made for a friend already a while ago. Just simple knitting with Novita Tennesee cotton yarn. Knitted from the top down, using the figure 8 cast on. Seems like I've fallen in love with yellow lately... :)

A friend's daughter in need

And since there were still some of that yarn left, I decided to make something for my friend's daughter as well. Now they can be all match-match.

Pattern: Lacy Baktus
Yarn: teetee Kamena (?)
Needles 2 mm

For a friend in need

Pattern: 48. Pashminahuivi by Novita
Yarn: teetee Kamena (?)
Needles: 3,25 mm

A good friend of my came to me with a few skeins of yarn (I'm pretty sure it's Kamena) that her mom had intended for a sweater but never gotten around finishing. Now my friend asked if I could make something for her out of it. A shawl maybe? And who am I to say no to an offer to knit?

I've used this pattern once before and I'm using that shawl a lot at work. It's warm and big and so soft. And I do like the pattern. It's very simple but I actually don't mind. It's nice to knit something simple every once in a while. ...Or that's what I thought before starting the project. After only a few repeats of the lace pattern, I suddenly remembered how utterly boring it was to knit. Nothing new ever happens! You just keep knitting the same thing over and over again. And eventually this started to feel just like a new never ending project.

But after finishing that big black shawl, I picked myself up and started working on this one on high speed. And it didn't eventually take me long to finish. Once I did finish it, I just couldn't help but wonder how on earth it had felt so difficult to get those last 50 cm done.

I do like the result, though. Perhaps even more than my own version of the shawl. I absolutely love the colour! And I think my friend will find it useful and warming in the old house they're living in.

Soft zoo

My partner has shown some interest in sewing, so we've been making some soft animal-pals for little babies to be looked at, played with or hung on the nursery door.

One stayed with us and is welcoming our guests at our front door every once in a while.