Sunday, February 28, 2010

Finally done - my sleeveless jacket now only needs some buttons



This is the nightmare project. I started it a year ago when we lived in Lagos, Nigeria. The plan was to have something nice and warm for when I returned to cold Norway. It went well, until I startet with the sleeves.

No matter how I made them, it just would nor fit! It looked bulky, it looked wrong. I tried and retried, but there were no nice fix.

So my solution was, yesterday, to give up the sleeves and make it sleeveless.

So this is my sleeveless version of Drops design number 107-1, made with Bris yarn from Gjesdal.

As you can see, I used a lot of purple shaded yarn, and added on some blue-green-ish shaded to brighten it up a bit. I was happy with that result. Now I need 6 big buttons tha matches the purple colours. And knitting Mosaic knitting does not leave a lot of loose ends to fasten afterwards.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

All the little things for decorating Sofies hat.

As a tassel she wanted a Michaelmas Daisy. That was not to hard. Flower number 47 in the book.
The Bumble bee were not to difficult either, but I felt my fingers were a bit to large for the job. But she was happy with it.
The Meconopsis were picked because now I could see that I could manage without beeing glued to the computer in order to make it.

This is a failed periwincle. (It doesn't know, and neither does Sofie!) But it looks like a flower at least. May be it exist in the floral world to?
After this little project failure I needed something very simple to gain some confidence again. And I looked for something were the diagram made sence.
So I wanted to make the Forget -me-not, but I did not want to mix blue inte the already colourful mix for the hat. So I made a not correctly coloured forget-me-not. That helped. The courage needed to try the challenge was there.
And then I went for the flower Sofie really really wanted.
So here it is.
My pride!
I made it!
An Auricula. Recognisable and everything.
It is in the middle of the winter olympics, so yesterday evening I was watching womens speed skating to cheer for the Norwegian ladies, and particularly Maren Haugli. (I think she became number 5 in the end.) It is not so much to watch, round and round. So I decided to be brave and try the butterfly as well. So this is my version of Orange tip butterfly.
I used a yarn that is called Silja, and it has a lot of nice colours yo choose from, and was easy to crochet with.

Sofie hat - new version



This hat seems to be very popular. It is so easy to knit. Purl 2, knit two for a rib. Then knit two stiches together, and continue with purl 2 knit two and you get this diagonal pattern.




Sofie is very found of flowers, butterflies and everything remotely connected with summer. So when this hat was done, with only one colour, she decided that to like it, it needed some decorations.


Since I bought the book 100 flowers to knit and crochet, I have just flipped through it and decided it woyuld be a nice gift for someone better at crocheting than me. But Sofie flipped through it and begged me to make some flowers, a bumble bee and a buttefly. I love YouTube, there are lessons in doing different crocheting stitches there. So I managed. I also made a red hat for Marte, same pattern, no flowers. And a black one for me. The trick is to use smaller knitting needles for the rib, the switch to large knitting needles. (I started with 4, and ended with 7 mm).


Hat for Sofie



Sofie needed a new hat, nice and warm for when the other nice, warm feltet hat my mother in law gave her, was wet. I bought some red, pink and white nice warm alpakka and made her a hat. The day after it was gone, dissapeared at school. So i Then did the same thing again. This time with some pure wool Eskimo from Drops. The hat was just a bit to big, and kept sliding around her head and falling off. So I planned to felt it just a little bit. Well, 40 degrees was to much, and it came out probably best fitting a baby. Sofie was not happy at all, so I promised to start all over again on a new hat, this time in new wool, no felting.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Fingerless gloves for my cousine







I went to a nice birthday party last weekend. My cousine turned 50 and she had invited all the family, and many turned up. Nice to get reunited with those we had not seen for years! Well, I decided to make her something she could use. She runs a restaurant very close to the water, in one of the Norwegian fjords. We both grew up spending childhood years in a fishing community off Bergen, on Askøy. So I decided to make har fingerless gloves with fish, in green and white. Again, thin pure wool, thin needles. As those with an eye for details might have noticed, I inversed the colours of the upside and underneath the gloves. So depending on her preferences she can have green with white fish and stripes, or white with green fish and stripes.

Mittens with moose - for Sofie











I was surfing internet to find some inspiration for what to knit. Then Sofie suddenly got interested. "I would love a pair of mittens like these!" she said. Again, it was a pattern from Jorid Lindvik. I bought the pattern and knitted a pair of mittens for young Sofie. Since trhe pattern were sized for a grown up mans hand, I bought thin yarn (Sisu wool), and knitted with needles number 2,5 mm. She loves the gloves, even if some classmates think they are childish.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Sofie´s knitted dress

At the local knitting shop, Garnkilden, Sofie noticed a knitted dress in white, blue and black. She liked it, and asked if I could knit her one in wool, nice and warm for the winter. But she wanted different colors. She picked red, pink, white.

Well it was easy to knit, and a rather quick project. She has used it to school a lot, but now when the snow is covering the ground, it is back to jeans and warm sweathers.