Inspiration (and a pattern!) from this:

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An old sweater that’s too tight, felted a little:

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Some embroidery thread and a couple of cheap plastic buttons

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Very cute slippers sized for my two-year-old. I like, and, more importantly, so does my daughter.

I’ve knit myself a couple of berets recently. They took about a day each, and I love, love, love them. You may remember that I had a hat disaster which ended with me deciding to knit a lace beret? Here they are:

I call the pattern “Sorbonne”, because my husband told me I look like a student of French literature at the Sorbonne when I put it on.

I used a little over one 50 gram ball of Rauma Vamsegarn for each of them, and I’ve threaded some hat elastic through the ribbing on both to get that snug fit around the forehead.

If you want, you can knit Sorbonne, too. This pattern is provided completely free, but with the clear proviso that I’m not a professional designer, and I have not test knit this pattern beyond the two hats I’ve knit for myself.

They’re pretty fun both to knit and to wear, though. Especially if you pretend to be a student of French literature at the Sorbonne.

In the last few months I’ve been really enjoying a relatively new British knitting magazine called The Knitter. Contrary to most British knitting mags, it’s usually packed with stylish, up-to-date knitting fashions and usually has some nice technique articles or designer profiles. They also have a regular column by the Mason-Dixon knitting bloggers. But my favourite bit is the strong thematic profile of every issue. Every issue opens with a mood board illustrating the theme. Here are a couple of examples:

Issue #9, Modern Bohemian:

Issue #5, Natural Selection:

ETA: And if you want it, too (why wouldn’t you? It’s THAT good!) you can subscribe here.

I love tiny little knits. I love knits that are quick and simple, in both execution and styling. Here are two I recently finished:

Pattern: Heartbreakingly cute baby kimono from Mason-Dixon Knitting. It’s not the first time I’ve knit this pattern, and I doubt it will be the last.

Yarn: Mirasol Hacho in shade 300, practically all of two balls.

Needles: 4 mm Addis.

Modifications/notes: No mods except for stepped decreases on the sleeves to diminish the bulkiness of the seams. I love the little yellow ladybug buttons! The lucky recipient of this kimono jacket is three days old now, and I hope to buy a onesie or a pair of trousers in a matching yellow to give her along with the jacket.

Pattern: Baktus – I’m not ashamed of my bandwagon jumping. There’s a reason popular patterns become popular. In many things I aspire to originality, but my knitting is not one of them – especially since I wear my FLS several times a week and have NEVER seen anyone else wearing an FLS or giving the slightest indication of having recognised mine…

Yarn: The last 75 grams of my handspun BFL top, handdyed by Jeni of Fyberspates.

Needles: 4 mm for drape and to get the most out of my remaining yarn.

I love this little scarflet. It’s just long enough to go twice around my neck and tie in a single knot. It’s perfect for work as we have rather overactive A/C. Handspun and garter stitch is such a perfect combination.

I have a couple of FOs to show off, but no pictures as yet, unfortunately. So right now I’d like to share two new books that have inspired me in the last few weeks

Kathrine Gregersen (Samlaget 2008): Brukt på nytt

This Norwegian book is filled with projects to reuse and recycle materials you have in your home. There are knitting, sewing, paper, wood and metal projects. The projects are very simple and charming, and I find the redesign ideas very useful. This book has me looking at our pile of old bed sheets with a calculating eye. In the top picture is the book, two dishcloths inspired by the book and two balls of rags cut from old t-shirts. I’m currently making this:

A bathmat from t-shirt rags. Actually, this project reminds me a lot of the rag knitting in the first Mason-Dixon book, but the idea is probably not original to either book. The styling in this book, however, makes the projects very appealing.

This book should probably be considered a gateway drug. After I bought it for the knitting projects, I borrowed my mother’s sewing machine to try the sewing patterns. This inexorably, and with a few days, led me to buy this:

Heather Ross (STC Craft 2009) Weekend Sewing

A couple of projects from this book that I would like to make once my sewing improves a little:

Kimono dress with an obi-inspired sash

A bag to hold my whole life

Cotton shirt dress – ideal for work!

And last under the heading of “inspiration”: After realising that I’m about to develop a serious sewing habit, I had to start budgeting. So I visited the home textiles shops and took advantage of the late summer sales. The below fabrics are (on left) two 100 % cotton tablecloths, 150 cm * 220 (i. e. a LOT of fabric), which were discounted down to $4 each, and (on right) two 150cm * 1m pieces of thicker curtain fabrics, also 100 % cotton, which were 70 % off. I’m considering the two curtain fabrics for the bag above.

In the last few years, I’ve noticed that knitting blogs have developed in many new directions. Some have been closed down or just ignored, some knit bloggers have started spinning, some have started weaving and some have been sewing. I, of course, have dabbled in spinning, have been drooling over some lovely weaving, but sewing has mostly left me cold. Until now.

I asked my mother if I could borrow her sewing machine (a Husqvarna from the 80s), visited the fabric shop and just started:

Pattern: Two Kates project bag

Fabrics: Outer is Kaffe Fassett quilting cotton, lining is a relatively generic quilter’s cotton, both fat quarters.

Modifications: The bag is slightly narrower than the pattern suggests. The strap is around two inches narrower, as the pattern strap seemed too broad to carry the bag by.

I sewed this bag without sewing even one test seam! This is a charming little pattern, and extremely easy to follow. I really liked that the pattern contained directions to draw my own template.

I also tried my hand at a smaller sock knitting bag. This wasn’t as successful, unfortunately, but the less fortunate parts are easily hidden:

Pattern: Yarnmonster’s drawstring bag tutorial

Fabric: One fat quarter of quilter’s cotton, designer unfortunately forgotten

Modifications: None intentionally, but the bottom turned out too big for the sides, so the bottom is a little scrunched. Also, the topstitching created some unintentional creases.

I really like this bag. It’s small enough to fit comfortably in my handbag and keep my knitting from getting tangled in keys, my mobile phone or my mp3-player headset. At the same time, it comfortably holds a full skein of sock yarn and my project. And because it has a separately-sewn-on bottom, it sits open rather than flopping over uselessly. I’ll make more of these, I think.

We’ve been reorganizing our house a little lately, as a result of the baby moving out of our room. There was an old set of drawers in the kids’ room that I wanted to redo to make it suitable for our bedroom to store some of my yarn stash. I don’t often do DIY, but I do think sanding and refinishing a set of drawers is the kind of thing everyone should be able to manage, so off I went to the hardware store.

Before:

Worn old varnish, chipped and broken drawer pulls, some stains. Not so nice.

Supplies:

Single-use gloves, brush, screwdriver, sandpaper, matte oak-stain varnish (the hardware store assistant told me to buy a darker varnish to hide old stains), new drawer pulls (can you see in the picture that I bought two different size drawer pulls? I couldn’t until I put them on, which annoys me but not enough to have the big ones replaced). I use gloves for all DIY jobs, I hate getting sticky paint or varnish on my hands. I managed to get a little on them while removing the gloves, and discovered that nail varnish remover works really well even with furniture varnish

Step 1:
Remove old drawer pulls

Step 2:
Sand all surface areas. I sanded the top very carefully to remove all the old, chipped varnish, but I was less careful with the rest of the surfaces, as the hardware store assistant had said that I only needed to roughen the surface of the old varnish. As you can see on the drawer fronts below, that wasn’t strictly true and they became quite mottled-looking after the first coat of varnish. They improved slightly with the second coat, though.

Step 3:
Apply two coats of varnish.

Drawer fronts after one coat of varnish:

Top of the set of drawers after two coats of varnish:

Step 4:
Attach new drawer pulls and (optional) cut out and insert paper liners for the drawers. I wanted liners because the interior was quite worn and to avoid snagging the stash yarns.

ALL DONE!

These last few glorious days of summer holidays have been absolutely wonderful for my crafting. I have been knitting a lot, spinning a little and even branched out into other crafts. In the next few days I’ll be blogging it all.

Contrary to all conventions of suspenseful story-telling, I’ll start with the best, simply because I’m dying to share it. I give you…. my new knitted jacket:

Pattern: Babydoll cardigan from Alt om Håndarbeide April 2009

Yarn: Lerke from Dale Garn (50 % merino wool, 50 % cotton). The pattern calls for a cotton/acrylic blend, but I wanted a warmer and all natural yarn. Even with the wool content, it is perfect for the cool summer weather we’ve been having recently. 7.6 balls used.

Needles: 3, 3.5 and 2.5 mm needles in Addi and Knitpicks.

Modifications: Lowered the underbust cinching by two centimetres, otherwise knit exactly as the pattern says.

Started: 20 April 2009.

Finished: 28 July 2009.

I’m so happy with this cardigan! I decided to knit it almost the moment I saw it in the magazine, but I immediately knew from past, bitter experience that I would have to lower the empire line underneath the bust. I was quite nervous about making such a visible change, but I measured myself and several empire line sweaters and shirts I already own before I started the work and it turned out exactly right. It’s a very comfortable garment and has already been used several times both at work and at home.

I finished my hemmed wonder, just in time to wear it to our first proper trip to the beach this year!

Stats:

Pattern: Top-down raglan of my own devising, with hems and a yo row for a ribbon.

Yarn: Vlnap Samanta (Cotton, rayon, acrylic), ca 280 grams.

Needle: 3.5 mm for hems, 4 mm for the body of the sweater.

Thoughts: I’m reasonably happy with this sweater. I wanted it slightly a-line, with a ribbon or cord to cinch it in a litte below the bust. The front neckline is a little loose, and I’m not quite sure about the ribbon, but overall I like the relaxed fit. It’s very comfortable to wear and the yarn is very soft. I love the tweediness of thea yarn.

I may be done with the sweater, but I’m not emptyhanded. My new WIP came along to the beach:

It’s a swingy “babydoll” cardigan from a Scandinavian knitting and sewing magazine. It’s been slow going so far, I’m hoping it will speed up without the raglan competition.

Last year I failed, by an ignominious week-and-a-half, to finish my father’s birthday gift of national costume stockings in time for the national day celebrations. Then, when I DID finish them, they turned out to be about five centimetres too short. Utterly defeated by my failure, I purchased another ball of yarn, then stuffed the stockings and the yarn into a ziplock bag and tried to forget about them. A few weeks ago I happened upon them and realised that, were my father to wear them for the 17th May celebrations this year, I’d have to hop to it. When I finally got started, the addition of five centimetres of ribbing at the top of each stocking took me exactly three leisurely afternoons. As you can tell from this picture, the addition was a truly minute amount of knitting:

I’m beginning to realise that my “lessons learnt” category really should have a question mark, because hope as I might that these stockings have taught me a thing or two about the perils of procrastination, I really have my doubts.