nice streight forward pattern. i love knitting complicated and playful lace patterns but i actually like wearing simple and modern things best. so this is going to be worn a lot. too warm at the moment though…
pattern: textured shawl by orlane designs
yarn: old maiden aunt, 100% superwash merino, colourway mexican wine. the colour is a dark purple mixed with red/brown. i used exactly one skein. only a few cm left in the end!
needles: 4.5mm
i wanted to try the baby surprise jacket for a long time. and it’s just the perfect pattern for handspun yarn!
no recepient-baby here yet, but i’ll just keep it until some friends have a baby or for my own ones – sooner or later. haha.
the yarn is perfect for either a girl or a boy and i’m just going to buy buttons according to the sex of the future owner. flowers for a girl, little boats for a boy or something…
i’m really happy how it turned out. and this pattern is simply amazing! it’s knit in one piece and while your knitting you’d never think it could end up as a cardigan. but – suprrise, surprise – it does 😉 i seamed the top of the arms with a crochet seam because i couldn’t think of an invisible seam to use in this case. so i thought i could as well use a very visible seam. and i also croched along the neckline.
oh, and the jacket only took me one weekend to finish! baby clothes are excellent – instant gratification!
pattern: baby surprise jacket by elizabeth zimmermann
yarn: handspun. superwash merino. snowy wood in january . shades of light blue, green, purple and white.
needles: 4.0mm circular needle and crochet hook
i admit it, i love decorating. especially for christmas. but easter’s good as well 😉 flowers and trees start to blossom, the world gets more cheerful and colourful. and i also like to have some spring spirit in our flat. with fresh flowers and decorations.
so this is what i made recently. i actually had a lot of material so i made a second one exactly the same as a present… i will hang it at the door of our flat…
pattern: the pattern is actually by the same lady that also invented the pattern for the christmas decorations i did before. remember? here some details about the book: „Bunter Oster-Bastelspaß: Ideen für Ostereier und Dekorationen“ by pia pedevilla
materials: construction paper in several colours, crayons to colour the chick, wire, plastic eggs (they should have been painted according to the pattern, but i was lucky and found eggs with exactly the right colours so i didn’t bother), feathers, wooden beads in white/purple/green. oh and i was very lucky to have a glue gun – otherwise it would have been almost impossible to attach the chicken to the wreath.
i’ve seen this variation of the kernel knit before and loved it. so i just knit the edging chart of the pattern over and over again until i ran out of yarn. it just took me a week to knit. it’s a perfect mindless tv-knitting-project. i have to admit though that i had to cheat sometimes or knit back because i had forgotton to do some yarn overs 😉
pattern: kernel by bonny sennott
yarn: bremont valentina, 60% baby suri alpaca and 40% fine merino, i used two skeins with 200m/50g each.
needles: 3.5mm
sendung mit der maus – i loved to watch this show as a kid. they explain you how things are done… today it’s all about (opal) self-striping yarn… from sheep to socks 😉
have a look!
pattern: edith the hat
yarn: handspun merino (brown) and superwash merino (turquoise)
needles: 2.5mm circular needle, knit with magic loop
that was the original fibers…
which i spun into this yarn….
which i knit into this hat……
no, don’t! 😉 i made them myself.
i had this funny pink and black jersey fabric with shoes on it in my stash for ages. and never had the right project to use it. but now i found it!
shorties!
the sewing pattern is by cinderella zwergenmode.
it wasn’t exactly a quick project as stated in the pattern, but i guess that was just due to the lack of sewing experience on my side. 😛 sewing on the rubber band was so difficult! zigzag-stitch turned out crooked and ugly and the only way i finally was able to attach it was by using a normal step stich. not very stretchy but it works! and the shorty fits. i spare you the sight of me wearing it, so here are some unmodeled photos 😉
front:
back:
details:
i will definitley make more – now that i know how its done. I like this fabric and have two more lovely, flowery, modern jersey fabrics in my stash.
oh, by the way, if you ever plan to buy fabric or haberdashery in frankfurt, germany – never try karstadt. the most stuff is just ugly and old fashioned. with some exceptions of lovely quilting fabric in „tilda style“. and the unfriendliest and crankiest saleswomen on this planet work there! „i’m sorry you have to cut some fabric for me. i’m so sorry!“
a good pattern to use my handspun alpaca. it was one of my early handspun yarns (never posted photos of it before) and is quite irregular with chunky and thin/overtwisted bits. but even tough the hat looks a little rough i like the look.
i modified the pattern a little, knit less ribbing rows and also knit only 3 repeats of section A – was going for a normal hat and not a slouchy look. it fits quite nicely 🙂
the hat was finished in only one evening yesterday (watching „the blind side“) and i already wore it when we were geocaching today. my ears stayed nice and toasty 😉
pattern: broadwalk by elizabeth pedersen
yarn: grey handspun alpaca with a yardage about 200m and 91g
needles: 3.5mm and 4mm dpns
cup of yarn anyone?! this is a shot of the alpaca yarn (rests). you can see the chunky and thin parts:
wanted to knit these for some time and it was a great possiblity to finally use the cool wool i had in my stash for ages. they are really comfy. i started off with size m but it was way too big. even tough i used thinner needles/yarn. no idea why the measurements didn’t work out at all, can’t be that i’m knitting that loosely, can it!?!
anyway, size s and needle size 3mm worked out great for me.
pattern: susies reading mitts by susie rogers and janelle masters
yarn: lana grossa cool wool 2000. it’s 100% merino wool. just a little more than one skein
needles: 3mm dpns
so far i just threw some colours on my fibers and skeins of yarn, but all that’s about to change 🙂
i found this great book on amazon, or to be more exact i read on a blog somewhere that it is highly recommendable. so i gave it a go and at the first glance i knew: great book! exactly what i need.
gabriele breuer – 1000 Farben auf Wolle und Seide (1000 colours on wool and silk). the book is in german unfortunately, but i highly recommend it to all the german dyers!
it tells you everything about dyeing with acid dyes and fixation in the microwave (plus infos about other techniques) which i haven’t done yet, but always wanted to try. it’s so much easier, faster and less of an energy waste than boiling the fibers.
the book even starts off with explanations about chemical backgrounds, colour theory… the best thing is that the author also works with ashford dyes like me. so if i do exactly as she tells, i’m quite sure to have similar results! in the end you’ll be able to mix any possible colour just using the 3 base colours (in ashford terms that’s blue, yellow and hot pink in comparison to the general base colours cyan, yellow and magenta) and black.
the book also tells you how to apply the colours, how to achieve specific effects etc….
i definitely have a huge shopping list now. i need 1l glas containers now to prepare and store my basic colour-mixes, a large flat bowl (can’t find the correct word) to spread my rovings in for dyeing, some extra spoons etc, and a big pot (does anybody have an old one they don’t need anymore?!?)… so far i dyed using our normal cooking equipment but i don’t feel too good about dying and eating from the same pots…
so my todo list is:
