S for summer and shawls *2*

I bought this lovely red yarn at Edinburgh Yarn Festival.  It's a Swedish yarn that I hadn't seen before. Extraordinarily red, soft and woolly. The link is for the Swedish site. I bought the yarn from an English based shop run by a couple, I believe she is Swedish and he is British. I bought two skeins, planning for a shawl - every woman needs a red shawl, doesn't she?

The skein in the photo is the darker - dyed on grey yarn. There was only one skein left of that, so I got one brighter skein dyed on white too. Then I had to figure out how to combine the two.

I didn't use a pattern for this shawl. I started with one stitch and worked a triangle, as I learnt from Gudrun Johnstons Aestlight pattern.

I knitted until I almost ran out of the bright red colour, then cast off the triangle. I picked up the yarn over loops on the sides and worked a feather and fan pattern, based on Kate Davies' Northmavine Hap pattern from her book, Colours of Shetland. When I was happy with the border lenght, I cast off. 

A perfect shawl for a chilly summer evening in Norway. 

The advantage of sewing & redesign

Instant gratification!

In a couple of hours I had a new dress.

It started with a stripey pair of tights I never used. I liked the fabric, though, and thought, hmm... sleeves maybe. Then I found a t-shirt with a cute little snail at a 2nd hand shop. The rest is from my stash:

- green fabric, left over from a friend who turned a dress into a tunic


- red flowery fabric, brought to me from Tanzania a few years ago

I cut off the sleeves and the lower part of the t-shirt.

The legs of the tights became sleeves, the rest became a flower and edging.

And voilá! Ready for spring!

♥ 12 ♥ A quick knit

My new mitten pattern,

Stella polaris mittens.

A quick and thick knit,

resulting in warm, cosy and soft mittens.

 Yarn is Hubro from Dalegarn, a super bulky yarn,

but really soft.

$ 3

Buy the mitten pattern together with the hat pattern, and get 1.50 off.

Click here to get the discount.

Colourful and bright, with red

I forgot to blog the last potholder I made in the swap.

Duvi wanted her potholders to be colourful and bright, with red. I think I fulfilled that wish, at least.

Pattern: African Flower Hexagon

I made eight hexagons.

Added one round of double crochet with red

and then sewed them  together through the back loop.

 

The African Flower Hexagon has become one of my favourites now,

it't easy, and fun, with endless colour poossibilities.

And you can make all sorts of things from them, blankets, bags, balls.

Have a colourfull November thursday!

Btw, thanks for nice comments on my kithcen curtains.

It was originally meant to become a bedspread,

but I soon realised that would happen

in such a distant future that I chose to use it diffently

Knitting in Valdres

 "Fishing in Valdres" is a famous Norwegian song,
by Vazelina Bilopphøggers.

I was not fishing but knitting when I was in Valdres in September.

And here's the result, a new version of my Stella polaris hat.

It's worked in Hubro, a bulky yarn from Dale of Norway,
so it's a quick knit.

Three stars around the hat,
and then the decreases on the top results in fourth star.

The pattern is available in Norwegian, $ 3.00.

The English version is beeing test knitted.

Pot holders #2

Yesterday I sent my third potholder to Knitnetty! So it's about time to show you potholders number two:

Here's the red one I received from AnnetteK .

Nice, red and thick! Thanks a lot!

And this is the one I sent Annepålandet. She wanted blue, and it's mostly blue, isn't it?

I think she liked it.

Pattern is "Something pretty" by mille makes, a Norwegian blogger.

 Inspired by one of Dottie Angel's many thrifty finds.

Here are all the pot holders I have received and sent.

Old sweater - new cardigan

I finally have an FO to show you! My new cardigan:

I made a red cabled sweater more than twenty years ago. After some years it got some stains on the sleeves, and on the upper front, so it has stayed in my closet for many years now. So I figured it was time to do something about it, and I cut away some of the stains, and covered others with embroidery.


And I'm very happy with the result. I just read a book, The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver. The colours of this cardigan makes me think of Frida Kahlo (read the book if you haven't and you'll see what I mean!)

(More details about the making of the cardigan in a later post.)

My Maya Mittens

Am I not the luckiest swap participant?!

These mittens are just perfect, and very much me!

Thanks, Laura!

You can read more about the mittens on Laura's blog.

And there was chocolate (was...!), tea, yarn and more - as you can see. I've never joined a swap before, it was fun!

I do realise that to get this result, you need to pay attention to yarn dominance...

Aren't the colours lovely and glowing?!

Button solution!

Remember my button problem? I followed Mary Lou's advice, and got new buttons.

The beautiful, vintage, etsy buttons found a new home on my old black coat, in stead of boring black plastic mittens.

Then I needed a hat to go with the buttons - so I made this:

Well, actually I was going to make a small cowl, working in the round. But as I was trying it on, I saw it wanted to be a hat in stead. The pattern was gifted to me through Ravelry from a blog friend, Josefina Knits from Chile. She makes pretty cabled cowls and other accessories - and is looking forward to autumn..

The pompom was quickly made with a little bit of yarn, fork and scissors, learned from EskimimiKnits.

Edited to add information about the cowl/hat pattern: It's Flowers and leaves cowl, by Gabriela Ordenes. She also has an Etsy shop.

Red beauty

I'm so happy to have finished my Vine yoke cardigan in time for Christmas! The yarn is just wonderful, and I love the colour.

I had this pattern queued for a long time. In Gothenburg summer 2010 I found the perfect yarn at Strikk: Malabrigo baby merino.. Wonderfully soft, beautifully red, (and a little more expensive than the yarn I use to buy...)

Vintage buttons found on Etsy - a perfect match, I think (they're a little heavy, though, that's the only problem). I always think nice buttons are hard to find. And if I find them, they're way too expensive. I found some in my yarn shop that cost 42 N kr (almost 7 $) each! But on Etsy I found several nice vintage buttons, and a lot cheaper. And since I love parcels in my mail box, that's a perfect solution - I even had them in less than a week, from the US.


The pattern is well written. Easy to follow. It took me a few minutes to figure out how the button holes were supposed to be made, but when I just followed the instructions, they came out beautifully. Very clever (not me, Ysolda...) And I've never done provisional cast on for a real garment before, just for hats and wristwarmers, but it worked just fine (for the sleeves). I always have to take a look at this tutorial first, though.

What else to say? Yes, I lengthened the sleeves by ten stitches. And did size 36. My gauge was, for a change, perfect. It's a big size 36, really, but I'm between 36 and 38, so thats's perfect too. I'm amazed about how the pattern kept telling my on what row of the yoke pattern I was supposed to be, after several steps of short rows etc - and I was! I made the neck opening quite a lot bigger than the pattern called for, I think it would have been way too tight if I hadn't - that's my only question about this beautiful pattern. And I used less yarn than the yardage in the pattern said - I have 1 1/2 skein left. A hat, maybe?

Green and red

I obviuously like green and red! A few days ago, I made this from my Flickr favourites:



1. Whit's Knits: Three Great Baby Sweaters, 2. cham3, 3. Oh! Picasso, 4. Frogs, 5. circle yoke pullover, 6. Classic Monster Booty 2, 7. mitten on, 8. sling (spt), 9. toad hands #10

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

And today I realised, I had made another green and red mosaic a couple of years ago, that I had completely forgotten about. Similar, but different, none of the same photos.



1. i love these colors, 2. Socks-1, 3. A cardigan for Merry - front, 4. tea cosy, 5. Frog prince available!, 6. Funny Elephant Pillow, 7. age of empires sweardress over striped thrifted dress, 8. needle case, 9. manta + apolo

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Birthday tunic

A while ago a good friend complimented me on my new tunic bought from ZadOR ( see small photo). So I thought I'd make her something similar for her birthday. Like me, she likes the idea of reuse and redesign, so I'm sure she won't mind me using an old trouser, an old sweater and old fabric cut off from a dress turned into a blouse a while ago. The yarn for the edging is from my stash, left overs. The buttons are new though, from Buttonmad, Incomparable Handmade Buttons , bought in our local fabric store. On Flickr, you can see a photo with notes.

Knitting in colour - r e d -

This time Judith 's colour challenge is red. I like red, and obviuously, football teams do too - I used a lot of red making football hats last year.

I also have a red hat myself, made many years ago, still in use when I go skiing. The red garter stitch scarf is a gift from a friend.

And here's an even older sweater.

The photo is not so good, but you can see there are cables. It's nice and warm, but not very elegant. And there are som stains on it, so I don't use it anymore. But I have been thinking of doing some kind of redesign, to make it more interesting and wearable, and remove or hide the stains in some way. We'll see.

And last, but not least, End of May mittens, by Mandy Powers, zigzagstitch on Ravelry.

My Phantasy hat in the background, hanging to dry.