Monat: Februar 2014

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owl pillow cases

i sewed 6 pillow cases for the cuddle/reading corner in lukas room which i’m setting up at the moment. i’m planning to do it all in bright green and blue colors and browsed dawanda for suitable fabric. and i found lovely owl fabrics on turquoise and green, green fabric with white stars and light blue fabric with small stars. since i’m not a huge fan of zippers, i used this tutorial for zipper less pillow cases which really was easy to follow and worked out really well!

sewing 6 pillow cases from the same pattern gets boring easily though. you have to sew round all the single parts with zigzag first and then assemble everything. so 18 parts in total. sometimes i wish i had an overlock machine 🙁

i have to say the pattern is very forgiving. i made some mistakes, produced some crooked seams and once i had the needle positioned differently (to the very left) and didn’t notice until 2 seams were finished – so the pillow case turned out slightly smaller than the rest. but you don’t see any of the mistakes in the finished pillow cases. 😛

that’s the fabric after i cut it:

and this is the result. 6 lovely pillow cases. the fillings are cheap ikea pillows:

don’t you just love those owls? i sure do!

the back of the pillows is made of two colors. otherwise it wouldn’t have worked out. i just had 1m of each fabric and that was just enough to cut 2 fronts and 3 back parts… so i mixed it all up and love the result:

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knitting bags aka „will sew for sushi“

well, this is the proof: i will sew for sushi 😛

my friend reingard saw what i had been sewing for lukas and asked if i could make her a bag for her knitting projects. i said „sure, if you invite me over for some yummy self-made sushi“. well, the bags are finished – we just need to set a date for the dinner i guess 😉

i had a look at free patterns online and found this one from machwerk. i was a little nervous about the zipper because i had hardly used any so far. apart from that it looked pretty streight forward. and i thought if i do the work anyway, i could make a bag for me too. there are never enought knitting bags because there are never enough knitting projects. 😉

the fabric is 100% ikea which i already had in my stash. on the outside a sturdier one, grey with white leave pattern. on the inside fabric with a plant pattern on light green and in the other bag on turquoise.

the pattern was really easy to follow. i think i’ll do this again…

but the next sewing projects are pillow cases for lukas‘ new „cuddle corner“ 🙂 a prototype is already finished and since it worked well, more are coming. i’ll keep you posted!

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follow your arrow mystery kal shawl

this shawl project was crazy! my first kal (for all the muggles out there, this means knit along) and even a mystery kal. that means there were 5 clues, one released every week and you didn’t know how it would go on. and even more: in every clue there were 2 options you could follow. this means there were 32 possible shawls from one pattern! the clues all were totally different. some easy, and some challenging.

i followed the clues aabab. so 1a, 2a, 3b, 4a, 5b. there was no special plan in this, i just followed whichever pattern sounded the most interesting, challenging or that i thought would match the rest of the shawl.

clue 5 was really, really hard for me. because it was totally different from what i knit before.

i’m not really sure if i like the result. maybe i’m just too narrow minded and can’t handle an asymetric shawl 😉 maybe i should have done 1b which sets determins that the shawl will turn out a lot more semicircular. 5b is asymetric as well. i also find it a little strange that 1a (the piece with garter stitch and stockinette stitch stripes) doesn’t seem to go too well with all the lace that follows… hm…

what i really liked is the community feeling, sneaking a peak at other knitters‘ shawls and being able to ask questions if anything isn’t working out. it won’t be my last (m)kal. 🙂

pattern: follow your arrow mystery kal by ysolda teague

yarn: about 1.5 skeins of old maiden aunt merino superwash. colorway bluebelles.

needles: 4.0 mm

here is the result:

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the danish forests cowl

this was a really fun project. my christmas knitting project 2013. started 20th december and finished 7th january. normally i don’t have much time to knit on a normal day. just a few hours max after lukas is in bed. but over christmas there were grandparents to entertain the little bugger so i had a little more knitting time.

the yarn of this cowl is so LUSH! i can’t get over it. it’s cosy and warm and just aaaaawwww! i bought this yarn on our trip to new zealand and it contains 60% merino and 40% possum. i guess that’s what makes it so soft and cosy. i can also highly recommend the pattern. it’s easy to knit and memorize without ever getting boring. perfect for knitting in front of the tv.

i did 25 repeats of the leaf pattern. the wavy pattern has 10 rows, the leaf pattern has 16 rows. –> so the least common multiple is 80 rows. –> this equals 5 repeats of the leaf pattern. –> so any multiple of 5 leaf repeats works fine!

i never blocked this project because i liked the texture the way it was. and i didn’t want it to become longer. it is just perfect for wrapping it round the neck twice.

pattern: the danish forests by marte eldøy

yarn: touch yarns possum merino naturals in beige

needles: 4.5mm

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slouchy mum hat

after some sewing for lukas the next posts are going to be about knitting again 🙂 i always have something on the needles. oh, let’s be honest, i always have several things on the needles 😉 but it’s just not as fast as sewing… knitting projects may easily take days, weeks or even months…

this was a very easy and quick project. finished in two days over christmas.

my mum desperately wanted a hat to go with her grey/olive jacket. so i took her to the local yarn store and she picket her favourite yarn herself. and i browsed ravelry for the perfect pattern and did the knitting.

pattern: slouchy copy cat hat by terra jamieson

yarn: lang yarns mille colori in berry and grey shades

needles: 4.5 mm and 5.0 mm