Something for my iPad

Nahkaa. Tämän ompelin käsin, kun ompelukoneeni ei suostutteluista huolimatta suostu upottamaan hampaitaan nahkaan. Nahan löysin aikoinaan Ikean löytöpisteestä, oli joku sohvanahkojen mallipala.

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Leather. Handsewn. Simple and practical. Leather is from Ikea, probably a sample of some sorts.

Loveable mittens

Ohje: Peruslapasten ohje, omani on 70-luvun Me Naiset-lehdestä

Lanka: Novita 7 veljestä, sydämet Naturwolle "Peru"

Puikot: 3,5

Kun aikoinaan tein Emmalle Naturwollen ihanasta Peru-langasta myssyn ja kaulahuivin, jäi lankaa ikävän kokoinen kerä jäljelle. Ikävä siksi, että lanka oli tyyristä ja halusin keksiä jotain hyödyllistä käyttöä sille. Emma käytti osan virkkausharjoituksiinsa, mutta lopulta pyysin kerän takaisin,kun halusin kokeilla näitä sydänlapasia. Yleensä nämä kai tehdään huovutusvillasta, mutta kai tämäkin lanka huopua osaa! Kuljetin siis lankaa mukana ja tein sillä muistaakseni joka viidennen silmukan. Söpöt tuli, ja tyttären mielestä ihanan pehmoiset sisältä.No varmasti ja ovat kyllä lämpöisetkin. Lankaa jäi kyllä vielä toisiinkin lapasiin, mutta nyt ei tuo kaunis kerä enää häiritse lankalaatikossa. Tiedän, että lopullekin löytyy varmasti käyttöä, vaikka sitten uusiin lapasiin.

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I made Emma a hat and a scarf a few years ago from this lovely yarn by Naturwolle and had a lot of leftovers. The yarn was a bit expensive, so I really wanted to use all of it. Emma confiscated the leftovers to practise crocheting but in the end I reclaimed it to try to make these heart mittens. The mittens are very soft inside, and very warm. They are also very cute and Emma loves them! I did not manage to use all of the yarn, though - I still have enough yarn to make another pair, or something else.

 

Friendship bracelets

Kaapista löytyi pussillinen kirjontalankoja. Pakkohan se oli kokeilla onnistuuko rannekorujen teko vielä näin vuosien tauon jälkeen. Alussa pientä haparointia (huomaako kuvasta minkä näistä tein ensimmäisenä? :D) mutta sitten alkoi sujua. Piti vielä tehdä Emmalle nimiranneke, mutta innostus meni jo. Kai nämäkin kelpaavat!

Erilaisia ohjeita näiden tekoon löytyy netistä pilvin pimein, mutta tämä sivusto oli mielestäni hyvä: http://friendship-bracelets.net/index.php

Siellä pystyi myös suunnittelemaan omia rannekoruja!

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I found a bag full of embroidery threads in my stash so I just had to try whther I still remember how to make friendship bracelets. Turns out I didn't but luckily there are excellent instructions all over the internet. Guess which one of these I made first? It kind of shows... I was also planning to make a bracelet with Emma's name on it but then I lost my inspiration and just couldn't be bothered. Perhaps later?

You can find instructions for friendship bracelets from all over the internet bit I really liked this one site:

http://friendship-bracelets.net/index.php

You could even plan your own designs there!

Last minute gift wrap

Meiltä ei löytynytkään sopivaa lahjapaperia, joten kääräistiin synttärilahja jumppapussiin :) Valehtelematta tämän tekemiseen meni viisi minuuttia - sakset vaan suhisi ja ompelukone kehräsi. Ei ollut enempää aikaa, joten se käytettiin mitä oli. Ja Emma ehti synttäreille ajoissa, kerrankin!

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We didn't have suitable gift wrap, so I decided to make a pouch for the present. This really was a last minute project - I only had  five minutes to cut and sew! But we managed to get Emma to the birthday party on time, which must be a record in itself (we are always late...)!

Crowns!

I have been thinking about making some crocheted crowns for a while now, ever since I saw some ideas in Pinterest. I've pinned a lot of crowns to my crochet board so I had to make my own version.

I used clear plastic headbands that were extras from Emma's birthday last year. They used to have cardboard princess crowns attached but I removed those. I knew it was worth while to save them! These are so simple to crochet, just pick any lace trim pattern you like and crochet around the headband. 

My model is a bit tired in these pictures, she has been quite ill with influenza. Now she is again full of energy, just in time for the weekend :)

Rebecca, again

Just wanted to show you this hat again, I finally persuaded (read: bribed) Emma to model it for me. I'm sorry to say but this hat, or the colours I used, is not my favourite. Perhaps in different colours, solids, not stripes? Oh, and the buttons, they are not perfectly aligned, even though I thought so before...

Rebecca

Pattern: Rebecca by Drops Design

Yarn: Drops Fabel in Candy (901p), Drops Baby Merino in Cherise (08)

Needles: 3 dpns (could have used 3.5 dpns...)

This was an easy knit. I made this for myself but it is a bit small, or actually it is not as loose as I would like it to be, so I added this to Emma's hat stash. The buttons are aligned ok IRL, despite the evidence in the picture...

Gloves

I made these ages ago. I think I showed you a glimpse of these before they were finished but then something happened and I never remembered to show the end result. The yarn in 7 veljestä by Novita but the pattern I have lost. Might have been Novita pattern, cannot remember. I like these! No holes between the fingers! Next time I need to use some nicer yarn for these, 7 veljestä itches so much. If there is a next time, I need to find the pattern first...

Baby blue for my baby

I had an old cashmere sweater that unfortunately did not fit me anymore. I decided to chop it in pieces and make a hat and a cowl. After I had made those, I still had enough leftovers for fingerless gloves but then I got lazy and got rid of the sweater remnants.

 

The pattern for the hat is taken from an old Me&I hat my daughter has. It has the perfect shape and fits both me and my girl. Emma loves this set, but I think this super soft kit is for me - everyday luxury, free of charge!

Waiting for the real winter...

Pattern: Knitted accessories by Novita (in Finnish)
Yarn: Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran by Debbie Bliss
Needles: 3,5 dpns (should have used smaller needles...)

Wow. It has been a while since I posted anything here. Sorry about that. I have been too busy to photograph anything even though I have made all sorts of crafts. And then when I finally managed to photograph something (over a month ago...) it took me quite a while to blog about it. Sorry again :)

Enough apologies, I hope! It is over midnight and I am exhausted, so I'll just let these pictures show off my work. One thing I have to mention, though: The whole set is a bit big for Emma, but that does not matter. I am planning to add a lining to the hat, it would make the hat warmer and tighter.

A month ago, there was at least some promise of a white Christmas, since the ground was frozen in these pics. Now, it's just hopelessly wet everywhere. I'll try to post once more before Christmas and after the holidays are over I can hopefully start posting about all the Christmas presents I knitted.

One more picture of my darling girl!

 

More prettiness

I've been sewing pouches and small bags like crazy lately. It seems that we did not have any and that we desperately needed them. I just emptied Ikea's fabric section and started sewing. Quite boring stuff and I will not be showing you all of those, even though I've promised to! 

This pouch is really cute but not at all useful. So far I have been using it to store my bras and knickers during our recent weekend trips but it is a bit too big for those. Nevermind, I really like the fabric. It is "Penger" from Finlayson (designed by Anu Kanervo), and I bought 2,5 meters of it. Love it. I guess I need to continue sewing...

Pretty pochette

I found a Japanese crochet pattern site and printed out a few instructions, this pouch or pochette or clutch (cannot decide!) was one of them. There were many really cute patterns, but I cannot find the site anymore -  so frustrating! Anyway, this is not my own crochet pattern but the idea is something that I am going to use with different doilies as well, might even take a few from my doily stash... This doily pattern brought starfish to my mind, I like it a lot.

Edit. Found the Japanese site, this pochette pattern is here.

Birthday gifts

This hat is the very same I made for Emma last year. This time I used a bit lighter pink and different colours for the flowers. The lining is made from my old pale pink tee shirt and is exactly the same colour as one of the petal layers in the flower. Coincidence, but a good one!

I made the hat for Emma's cousin and I also crocheted the same collar I made last year to go with the hat. This time I crocheted the ribbon instead of using silk since I noticed that the silk ribbon does not stay put and tying Emma's collar again and again (and she does not like to be disturbed all the time while running around and consequently did not help me very much...) every time she was wearing it made me realize that the original instruction to use crocheted ribbon was quite ok anyway, LOL.

Oh, these blurry pictures annoy me so much!

Something for the ballerina

Emma loves ballet. And I love it too, since apparently she learns languages there as well :) She can now count to ten in Swedish, English, German, French and Russian. Surprised me quite a bit! Except she does not like English words "nine" and "ten" but changes those always to French equivalents "neuf" and "dix". Funny girl.

One day she came from ballet and was very upset. ALL the other girls have leg warmers, she needed to have a pair as well. The girls had all the same pale pink polyester leg warmers and since I did not like those, (natural fibres are better) I decided to knit her some nicer ones. Luckily Emma loves colours so she was happy with these. Pattern is my own - or actually I did not use any pattern just knitted away through trial and error. I managed to use up the leftover yarns from my knee-high socks which was an added bonus :)

Now some ballet moves, courtesy of Emma.

Quick fix

Nothing special but Emma wanted to wear her red cowboy boots and she did not have any red accessories to go with them. Well, she had a pretty scarf with flowers but it was a bit too light for this time of year, so clearly she needed a new one. The hat is an old one but had an ugly logo in the front so I covered that with a Hello Kitty picture. The scarf is very basic, made from knit fabric remnant. Quite long because I wanted it to be warm and now she can wrap it around the neck for several times (although she prefers to wear it the way you see in the picture...). That's it :)

My new hat

 Pattern:  Kaitaliina's pattern (in Finnish)

Yarn: Gedifra Diandra (colour:02605)

Needles:6 and 8

I am stuck with this pattern, sorry for the repetition! This time I made an improved version with slightly bigger needles and it worked! Now I have a hat that is not too tight. I knit the cables with size 8 needles. I still have enough yarn for another hat - or perhaps I should knit a scarf or wrist warmers or something else? Remains to be seen...

Edit. Wow. Completely forgot that today is Valentine's Day. I guess you cannot call me exactly a hopeless romantic :)

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Sewing leather

I saw these very simple linen bags with leather handles somewhere in blogosphere but I just cannot find the place anymore! So if you have stumbled upon the same blog I did, please let me know so that I can cite the source. Anyway, I think the idea is simple yet stylish and I just had to try.

I bought some leather from a factory outlet of Isku in Lahti. I bought quite a few strips of leather and it cost me only 40 cents! So cheap and after this bag I still have enough of it to make at least two more bags - or something else. I would have wanted to use tan-coloured leather but this ivory that I found worked just as well with linen.

The fact is that I have never even tried sewing leather so this was a learning experience also. After careful Googling I came to the conclusion that even though most people recommended using a leather needle, some suggested that a heavy duty needle meant for sewing jeans might also work. I had one of those, so I decided to at least try with that first. I also bought some durable polyester sewing thread for my sewing machine, since cotton thread is not strong enough to be used when sewing leather. Some sites tell you that you should also buy leather presser foot for the sewing machine but I didn't and it seems that I managed quite well without one. I had to adjust the bobbin tension in my sewing machine quite a lot but otherwise I had no problems sewing the leather handles to the bag.

 I loved the selvege of the linen I bought, so that pretty much dictated the size of the bag - I wanted it to show nicely at the top. One more picture (pretend that you cannot see my arm and fingers at the top).

Another pompom hat

 Pattern:  Kaitaliina's pattern (in Finnish)

Yarn: 7 veljestä (colour 553)

Needles: 4

In case you were wondering where I have been, the answer is that I have just been too busy with work to make anything. Well, actually I have made something but I have had no time to take pictures and blog about them. Besides, the weather has been amazing: not too cold and not too wet either, lots of snow and sun, so we have been out a lot. Yep, sun has returned, yay! Evidence is in the picture :)

The hat looks like it's neon pink but in reality it is a lovely shade of fuchsia. Loved the colour but unfortunately the colour does not love my pale complexion. Luckily this hat is not for me! This time I followed the pattern faithfully and the end result is much better than the first one I made.

Pompom hat

Pattern: Adapted from Kaitaliina's pattern (in Finnish)

Yarn: Gedifra Diandra (colour:02605)

Needles: 6

Isn't she lovely? She is Emma's godmother Paula and I made her a hat as a Christmas present. I had a lot of problems at first adjusting the needle sizes, needed stitches and what not,  and I ended up using too small needles anyway. The hat required 150gr of yarn (because of the needle size, right?) and is really thick  and warm, and a bit tight. I am hoping that it loosens a bit, though. But I like the hat and I am going to make another one with the same pattern and yarn. This time I am adjusting the needle size a bit...

Hello Kitty hat

Pattern: My own, inspiration from this book.

Yarn: Some old pink wool yarn (Novita Nalle?) from my mother's stash, Novita Nalle white, other colours random yarns from my stash

Needles: 2.5

I am still struggling with fair isle knitting, most probably I should have used intarsia technique. I just learned those terms and had to google the differences - so many things to learn! Oh well, perhaps the next time my technique is better, this time the end result is nice enough. Emma likes it even though I need to sew a lining to the hat since it itches a bit too much. 

I got inspiration from my Hello Kitty Pompom Mascot & Knit Goods. There were quite many Hello Kitty knitting motifs and I combined a few to get a suitable Kitty face. I crocheted the red bow.