Rippling? Who? Me???

As you can see, the cosiness of The Oriental Garden Hexagon Blanket is endless - and inspiring! I still have quite a stash of yarn after finishing the hexagons. Like 14 balls of Merino baby´s wool... 4 of the pale yellow balls was a Secret Pal gift and the others are left overs from various projects. After a (too) quick estimation I decided that the wool would make up a blanket the size of a single bed. I even made a swatch to figure out exactely how many chain stitches this width required. Annoyingly sagacious, I know. But don´t worry, it didn´t help me much. The zigzags came out so pretty, and the rows were sooo lang... 360 double crochets to be exact. Which does not make a 90 cm (35,5 ") wide blanket. Oh no. It makes a 150 cm (59 ") wide blanket!!! Which in turn will requre WAY more wool than my baby´s Merino stash holds. Rip the ripple, you say? That is NOT an option. The solution is very simple: A stash busting project is turned into a stash adding project :oD New (and more accurate) calculations decided I will need a total of 31 balls of wool to finish a 150 x 200 cm blanket, suitable for the guest bed (120 cm wide). This means buying 17 more balls - but then again I will use the 14 I had in my stash too. So all in all, the Ripple Blanket will NOT add a single skein to the stash, and it will still reduce it by 14 balls ;o) The rippling started last Friday, and 7 days later about 25% of the blanket was done. Not bad! I don´t expect myself to keep up the pace, though... The pale yellow will work as a backgrund colour, but I soon decided that a variation in hues will be necessary to make it more interesting. I am a big fan of randomness in design - and I hope my blanket will turn out looking "scrappy random" even if it will consist less than 50% real scraps ;o)

Tougher than the rest!

The title of this post was not intended to describe myself, but as I actually recieved this award from Umulie, I guess it can apply for more than one subject ;o) Thank you very much, Umulie, I am honoured! Blogland is a wonderful land of opportunities and inspiration, fun and philosophy in so many different categories. I subscribe to 174 blog feeds at the moment, so I will have to leave out most of them when I forward the award... What is left is one single blog whose owner never fail to make my day, online or live :o)

Vridd Rett

Fairy Frida has got a big little pirate prince-brother, and of course he needed a cool hat too! The pattern is a mix of rib and stockinette panels. The hat is knitted partly in the round because og the single scull motif. Pattern: my own; scull more or less copied from "We call them Pirates". Yarn: 100% superwash wool. Needles: 3,5 mm

For Little Fairy Frida

Remember the "booties-for-Frida-and-a-hat-to-match"-post? Well, the little princess is still a tiny baby, but she has actually outgrown both the booties and the hat. The most perfect reason for knitting some more (slightly bigger though) cute garments! The pink yarn is Alpaca, the off white is Merino. I used 3 mm needles for the entire set, which created a very soft fabric very suitable for delicate baby skin

A new hat, garter stitch this time, a little scarf and a pair of socks - all for Little Fairy Frida to keep warm and comfortable Little pearly beads on the brim in a more or less random pattern Beads embellishing teh scarf as well

The long 2 x 2 rib can be worn like this, or be pulled up and hopefully keep the socks from fallig off

Medieval Cuff

First of all - thank you so much for the nice comments on the Hexagon Blanket! It is in daily use now, and even though I haven´t had the chance to wrap myself in an Oriental Garden yet, trustworthy sources keep telling me how nice it is. Sources being Princess, Darling and Dog... the latter refuses to keep off the blanket even though she is repeatedly told so, and I choose to take it as a proof of good crochet quality ;o)

This is a small project inspired by the aesthetics of the Medieval. The reason I even started it was that I am teaching a group of 1st year Design and Textiles college students. I wanted them to design an arm piece using decorative elements found in architechture and fashion in the middle ages. So I started a piece myself, just for fun - and to keep as an example for later students. I used thin coloured felt and coloured linen embroideri yarn. I started by cutting the pieces and pinned them together before I applied them to the background with tiny stitches (using a very thin needle and sawing thread to prevent the felt from fringing). The different embroidery stitches was then added. Finally I made a backing piece and the button loops + added two "emaralds" for buttons. The result was surprisingly nice - I think I am actually going to wear this one!

Grande finale - ta da!

The Oriental Garden in our Snowy Garden

Finally, in the VERY early hours of January 3rd the Hexagon Blanket was finished! A great relief in many ways - I haven´t dared started many new projects during the months I´ve been working on the hexagons as I was worried I would just lay the hexagons aside and loose the courage to go on. So I stayed faithful and it paid off! I still love the spicey colours and if I should name the blanket it would be Oriental Garden. A heavy load has now been lifted off my shoulders/lap and is now ready to weigh somebody else down (well, I won´t mind snuggeling up under this one myself!)- just check the weight in the statistics below... Project Hexagon started May 15th 2007, finished January 3rd 2008 The blanket measures 125 x 200 cm The total number of hexagons is 313 (Donald Ducks number plate is 313!!!) The total number of double (UK/treble (US) crochets is 56 340 Efficient work time (croheting, weaving in ends and sewing up the whole thing) spent on the project is 110 hours and 25 minutes + unknown amount of time spent sorting, counting and organizing the hexagons The blanket weighs 3,5 kg 3 150 g was taken from my stash/scraps 350 g of wool was bought to complete the blanket ...which means the Hexagon Blanket is a 90% stash reducing product, but this must not be confused with "has reduced my stash by 90%" - because THAT would make one stranglingly heavy blanket ;o)

A close up with snow shining through, revealing different coloured scraps of yarn used for joining the hexagons. This was done with simple stitches sewn through both loops of the edge stitches, to create a flat surface without any ridges.

There has been several rounds of sorting, counting, calculating and lining up the hexagons systematically...

...and then disorganizing the system to make the random look I wanted

Unlike George Costanza, who drapes himself in velvet, I am now ready to drape myself in an Oriental Garden Blanket! Hooray!!!

Don´t you forget about me

Happy New Blog Year! I believe in New Years wishes more than resolutions, and my most blog-related wish is simple: time to blog and even more important: time to make stuff to blog about! I am surprised if people still stop by to read my news as they are so rare... Well, I did actually get a comment or two during my absence which I truly appreciate - thank you :o) This is a colourful scarf for Princess made of one skein of Inka on 8 mm meedles. A perfect tv-knit for a quiet Holiday afternoon, finished in just a few hours. The pattern is simple: Cast on 15 (or another uneven number of) stitches. 1. row: *k1, p1*. Repeat from * to * and knit last stitch 2. row: *p1, k1 in previous rows stitch*. Repeat from * to * and purl last stitch 3. row: Slip first stitch as if to knit, *p1, k1*. Repeat from * to * Repeat 2. and 3. row until desired length or until you run out of yarn. NB! Save a few inches of yarn to cast off! PS At 2 o´clock this morning I FINALLY finished the Hexagon Blanket. The next post will most probably contain photos, facts and statistics about this (almost) everlasting project, so stay tuned! I just need some daylight to take named photos.