My rug is all done!

I have been working on a side project for some time - making a nice rug to be on the rather cold floor in our guest room in the attic. The room is green, and I wanted some nice fresh colours.

The dog is absolutely grateful for the rug - I have tried telling her it is not for her - but she does not seem to believe me. Whenever I tried to take a picture of it - she appeared in the view....

I finalized it yesterday by crotheting a thin edge all around the rug.

Left over yarn and Domino knitting

I had some leftover yarn from some mittens, and decided to experiment a bit with the principles for Domino knitting.

First square - 29 stitches in yellow.
Knit one row.
2. row knit 13 masks, slip one mask, knit 2 masks together. Pass slipped stich over the "two masks", knit 13 masks.

Then I have used the Three center masks to reduce the number of masks with two.

Change to red.
3 row. Knit 27 masks.
4.th row - knit 12 masks, reduce the centre three masks to one as described in row 2. knit the next 12.

Continue till you have finished a square.
Make 4 more squares and join to one big square.
Make an extra square to make this wrest warmers.

Warm feet for Christmas

My sister bought an older house in the eatern part of Norway. The climate there is colder than here...and our floors are always cold in December - february... so a useful and environmental X-mas present for her and her closest should be home made slippers.

The grey/purple - three treads of thin wool.

The Red - one thread tick wool, one thread thin and then feltet.

The same with the pink pair.

Cortina + a thin wool yarn.

Mittens from Stjørdal

I have made christmas present for someone - so I can not say whom...

But these are definitely warm. Made from a recipe from Husfliden and yarn from Rauma. Extra fine woollen yarn.

Carpet for the guest room floor

I have just started a project making a nice warm carpet for the guestroom. Woollen yarn made into 6 sided pieces and joint together.

Sofie's scarf

Sofie loves all kinds of accessories, including scarfs. So she wanted med to make her one from some multicoloured yarn she had.

And as seen on the photo - she is happy with the result.

Some details:

Scarf - crotheting

For a long time now I have wanted to make myself a nice warm scarf for the winter. A collegue looked at the recipe and friday she showed me how to do it. Now its done. It was not difficult at all! And the project moved real fast forward (the weather has been bad this weekend...)

Slippers made of squares

Jeg fant en oppskrift på tovete strikkete firkant tøfler, og prøvde ut min egen versjon. Jeg hakket firkanter i Cortina med 18 masker i opplegget. Da de var ferdig monterte nble de litt større enn jeg hadde tenkt...ca 42. Min mor var på besøk, trengte nye tøfler - og da var den saken grei. I etter kant har jeg laget flere...men det har ikke vært helt enkelt å finne frem til "rett" størrelse til meg selv - til slutt fant jeg den. Men før det har jeg laget noen røde og svarte - ca 34? ett par trefargede som ble for små til Sofie - heldigvis kjenner vi folk med mindre føtter som kan se frem til varme tøfler til jul.

I had noticed a method to make slippers based on knitted squares. So I experienced making slippers from Squares made in basic Tunisian crotheting. Then felting them. One pair became to big - so my mother got them. The next to small. But now I seem to have gotten it worked out so I have made myself a nice pair of warm slippers, and in the process created a few slippers to give away.

Princess outfit....

Sofie likes accessories. She likes to combine them with her differet outfits, but sometimes she just can't find what she is looking for in the shop. In Denmark this summer she baught a scarf and two long loose arms in dark purple. She also wanted this in pink....

But - this was nowhere to be found. So I used some leftover yarn from my blanket project and made her this in pink and grey. Easy to make - and she was a happy receiver.

Slippers for the winter

I have been travelling a lot one week in August. So to spend the time avoiding the complete boredome, I made some slippers for the winter.

I tried different yarns and combinations to make then soft, make them warm and make them steady.

The green slippers are made of two relatively thick wollen yarns, steady and warm. The read is made of one thread tick wollen yarn, soft and warm.

A blanket for the dog

I wanted to try out a couple of different techniques but not having to make a big project out of it. So I had some leftover yarn of the same quality - and decided to make a blanket for the dog to sleep on.

A nice and simple technique is to use three threads, and change color at the end of the needle for every row.

This time a pair of black mittens

I modified the recipe so this pair of mittens fitted me.

Still warm, wollen, but a bit longer.

I think this is for me in the winter.

Next week my mother-in-law will be here. I think she would love to learn this technique.

My extra warm gloves.

I have been trying out different techniques lately. I needed a break from knitting, and looked in to tunisian crotheting, and now "pjoning".

I work round and round using a crotheting needle. By variating a little (using the backmost stich like on the illustration) or the foremost stich I get to different patterns. I made a pair of thick warm mittens for the winter. I then used the left over yarn to make ekstension for them so they would warm the wrist as well.

My aunt Lizzie in Denmark told me that this would be perfect for her as a Christmas gift. They were a bit short for me, so may be she will get them...or may be one of my nieces.

A blue hat

We went to the mountains for a hike. Two friends of mine, and our daughters and one of my nieces. 7 "girls" together for 5 days. Hiking, enjoying the Norwegian summer in the mountains. Bringing waterproof, windproof clothes and swimsuits. We know by heart how fast the weather changes.

Two of the days were perfectly sunny and our hikes were perfect. Two of the days were rainy but warm enough. But one of the days had a cold cold and pretty strong wind blowing. Sofie were lucky and borrowed a hat form one of the others. I did not bring a woollen hat to the mountains in July - I should have - together with gloves. But I had brought along the needle and some blue yarn in case there would be need to entertain myself. So I made her a hat, and one for my friend Berit.




This time I used only the one hook method, and alternated between the two blue colours I had to make a nice effect.

She is happy with the hat, I am planning to make one for me as well.

On the last photo you can see more details.

The jacket is finished

I was lucky and found some pretty flower buttons for Sofies jacket. Pink against grey. When the jacket was presented to the young lady she did thank me, but also made me aware htat she has been looking at so many fashion magazines that she would have loved the jacket even more if I had payd attention and been aware that this year it was supposed to be pink and brown...and may be something white.

Tunisian crocheting with two hooks

I got two crocheting needles with hooks in both ends for my birthdaypresent from my mum. I looked up a couple of tutorials on the Internet on how to do this two hook tunisian crocheting and the fundamental principles are easy! But finding interesting recipes was more difficult. So I made my own - in order to get familiar with the technique and get a product as a result.

I have made a jacket for my daughter - in the colors she loves. And I have now gotten to know two of the methods very well, and how to increase and decrease the number of masks. I just need to finish up the edge around the jacket and buy some buttons.

The blanket is all done!

The blanket ended up 6x7 squares with the colours inverse in a diagonal pattern. It is framed by a darker grey colour. It is big enough to snuggle under on a cold day.

My next project is another sweather with loose neck - this time size 4 for a small friend of the family.

Knitted sweather with loose neck

This is Sofie in her sweather. She saw the model exhibited at Gjesdal spinnerier and went and picked the correct yarn her self. I helped her getting the amount correct. Then she started to ask me if I was not going to knit soon.

When it was done she picked buttons to decorate the sleeves and the neck.

The sweather is 100% wool and knitted so it is extra warm ("patent strikk" in Norwegian). And she is using it outside a lot.

When I am done with the blanket - my next project is to knit a smaller version of this sweather to a young friend of the family.

Earlier this winter Lene flipped through a magazine with several patterns for children - and picked this sweather.

So that is the next thing.

Still working on the knitted blanket.

And it is growing at the average rate of 1/2 a square per evening when I am at home. 16 squares so far. I have decided to make half the squares inverse in colour to avoid the blanket of becoming to boring.

Knitted patchwork blanket

From time to time, when travelling, I scan the shelves in the magazine stores.
Most of the time it is gossip, cars, sex, photo, music or game magazine that dominate the content. Once I ran into this little airport shop with 4 different knitting magazines. Obviously, I ended up buying all of them, it is so rare I find that kind of magazines.

While flipping through the "Knit simply" winter edition 2006 I saw a patchwork log cabin blanket.


I got inspired from the simplicity of it, combined with the fact that it was quit nice. The pattern had 3x4 squares. Off course, competitive that I am, I am aiming for 6X8.

And I am going to felt it when it is all done. Sure. I'll run the risk of all the work either being worth wile or end up as a catastrophe. Risk taking for sure...

The technique in each square is quit simple. I start with 10 stitches, knit a square (20 rows). Changes colour and continue. Then put the stitches on a thread or spare needle while turning the work side wise and pick up 20 stitches and knit in colour 2.

Hat and mittens, scarf and socks

Sofie found this yarn in a shop and asked me to knit a set of baby clothes for her new cousin that are due any moment now. She found this yarn childish so it fitted a baby. I liked the colours, and the fact that they were gender neutral.

So we decided on this little hat and a pair of gloves. The we expanded the set with a scarf and a pair of socks. She looks forward to see the outfit on the baby.

Tone's hat

My niece Tone was visiting this weekend together with her sister Marita and Didrik a younger brother. It is not a long time til Maritas birthday is up, and thereafter Tone's. So I offered the girls that they could pick some ear rings from a collection I bought. Marita founs some, but none of them were Tone's style. So I asked what else I could give her - money would not be an option. We agreed that I should make her a hat.

So Tone decided how it was going to be, the colours, and shape, and I made her the hat.

Dragon scarf

I once saw a photo og a dragon scarf on internet. When I wanted to knit something for my young nephews they find that most patterns are "girly" and most of the stuff in books and magazines are for girls. So I decided to make my own dragon scarf for them. To take a picture I hade to persuade Sofie, my youngest daughter to pose. No need to say - she found the scarf to boyish and were not happy at all.

I hope the boys will like a scarf like this. I will wait for a responce.

Preparing to become an aunt again

I am going to become an aunt again. my younger brother Jimmy got married this summer and any day now they will have a baby boy arriving. So I decided to knit an outfir for a real little man.

I made a jacket that are traditionally knitted in one piece and in one colour. Instead of traditionally baby colours I choose light and dark grey and brightened it up with some stripes in red.

The outfit has now been shipped off to the mother to be so she can decide whether she likes it or not. There isa possibility that the bright red baby hat missed the target, but I liked it.