A new dress

Last night I started a lopi dress for my younger daughter. We are designing it together, she is quite talented as a fashion designer, perhaps I will show you some of her drawings someday.

But back to the dress : she wants it to be white, short sleeved, hooded with pink, purple, lime and yellow in the yoke pattern. The pattern is mainly hearts and a looped line ( her idea).
Yesterday I drew up the pattern and charted it in Excel and last night I cast on and finished the lace edge.
The dress is in double plötulopi - my favorite yarn these days.

Close-ups

Sóley

Sóley, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

My lovely Sóley is finally done. I have been working on this since the 29th of October, believe it or not! But now it is finally done and I'm very happy with it.
It's quite different from my other work, more chaotic and less structured, but I wanted it to be that way. The chaos was planned as a contrast to the sweet colours. I'll upload some close-ups later so you can see what I mean.

In action

peysa, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

The pattern, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

In action, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

The sweater was taken for a "test run" today. My son is very happy with it, and I agree with him, it looks good on him and the loose fit suits him.

Done!

Sorry about the terrible photo, I was reaching as high as I could and I could not see what I was doing. But that does not really matter, because soon (when the sweater is nice and dry and the weather calms down a bit) you will get a much better modelled photo.

The zipper

The knitting is done and all the ends are woven in. There is nothing too it - I'm going in. Wish me luck!

YF

An electronic edition of Yarn Forward is now available. I have just bought a copy and I really like it. Of course I was very curious to see how my article, pattern and pictures turned out but I also liked the rest of the magazine. I might be self centred, but I'm not that bad...

Labour of love

Labour of love, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

These colourful beauties are my mothers work. She has done at least 40 soaker's and 12 blankets, since she joined the Red Cross charity program last winter. The clothes are sent to Malavi as a part of the Icelandic aid program for mothers and babies there.

Almost

I bought the zipper for the lopi cardigan yesterday and the hood is well on they way.
Steeking and putting in zippers in not my favourite occupation - but it has to be done and I'm going to do it!

Puddles

Puddles, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

We had a lovely visitor this weekend!

Lopi

I'm still knitting the lopi cardigan for my son and I'm now officially slow.
I had trouble placing the yoke pattern correctly (strange really as it's really easy and I have done similar things often enough) and made mistake after mistake.

Now it's finally in place and I have chosen the rows I'm going to skip. I'm knitting a létt lopi pattern with plötulopi you see and therfore some adjustments are required. It should be plain sailing from now on. Apart from the hood that is. I haven´t given that any thought yet.

Parla Italiano?

Do you understand Italian?
I don't understand all of it, but I'm very flattered and thankful all the same.

Fast?!

I'm knitting as fast as I can - on a traditional Lopi cardigan for my son that is. He wants is ASAP and that is not a problem. It has got me thinking though. Earlier this winter I met a woman who claims she can knit a Lopi sweater in six hours. I can't get my head around that. I mean I believe her - but I for my life I can not understand it. I knit fast but the cardigan is taking me much more than that. Way more I can tell you.

The yoke lace

A close up of the yoke pattern.

Another one

3, originally uploaded by kristinnjn.

My daughter really wanted to be in the picture - and of course she got what she wanted!

Steinunn

Steinunn, originally uploaded by kristinnjn.

We finally managed to have a photo shoot today - in between hail storms, that is.
I'm very pleased with this dress, it' s comfortable and it fits perfectly.
It was also fun to make. I particularly liked making the bust darts - my first - and the shaping in the skirt and body.

Steinunn

Lady Gray has a new name : Steinunn. I felt the dress needed an Icelandic name and since it it grey like the rocks around me and ladylike, Steinunn sprang immediately to mind. It is an old name with associations to stone, love and the sea.
It is my mothers name and my younger daughters middle name and they are both great ladies in their own right.

The dress fits perfectly and hopefully I can get my husband to take a picture of me wearing it today or tomorrow. Actually tomorrow is more likely since the weather is not very nice today.

The magazine

This is the cover :
Inside is the pattern for my belt (and a lot of other beautiful things of course)
There are also articles, among them one by yours truly, on "Yarn shopping in Iceland" and some pictures by me too.
The only drawback is that I don't think it's available here in Iceland...

Waistlines

Waistlines, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

My belt is published! (Just scroll down a bit) Well, almost at least, the magazine is due in shops the 16th.

Iceland - an exhibition

For those of you in the Miami area I can warmly recommend this :

ICELAND, an exhibition of artists from Iceland and others who make work about Iceland.

On display will be works by:
Einar Orn Jonsson
Ingolfur Juliusson
Fred Karrenberg
Tomas Ponzi
Daniel Portnoy
Raffaella Brizuela Sigurdardottir
Jakob Sigurdsson

On display from:
March 21 – April 10, 2009

Pyramid Studios is located at:
8890 SW 129 Terrace
Miami, FL 33176

www.pyramidstudiosmiami.com

Almost ready

The lady is almost ready. I just have to weave in the ends and block her. The picture is from a try on earlier today. She fits perfectly - as becomes a lady of course.

Baggu Grosgrain Guest GIVEAWAY!!!!

I would sure like to win one of these :

Baggu Grosgrain Guest GIVEAWAY!!!!

On can alway try at least.

Hope

Hope - the pattern is now for sale on Ravelry too.

UFOs

I have too many UFOs. My knitting basket is brimming over and the floor around it is littered with cloth bags of yarn, plastic bags of yarn, loose skeins of yarn, floss etc. ... But on the plus side, some of the UFOs are nearly finished. Sóley the belt is looking very good, I have just the yoke left on Lady Grey the dress, I'm about two thirds on a very dreary kitchen towel - but then it gets worse. A pair of colourful leg warmers are only 1/4 done and bead work wrist warmers are just started. These are from the knitting course I went to recently. A bowl and a hat are also just started - that is they are knitted and felted but all the embroidery is left. So I should have enough to do the next few weeks right?

Light

Light, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

Paranoia

I was wrong and I'm glad I was. Etsy is not rejecting Icelandic cards - I was just being paranoid. I guess we Icelanders are a little burned because of the bank crash and all that.
The problem was my name - I could not write Jónsdóttir - it had to be Jonsdottir. Usually it has to be exactly as it is written on the card - but not in this case!

So now it is all solved and I am an official Etsy seller. With only one item right enough - but I'm still very happy about it!

Tutorials

I know some of you are interested in embroidery. Here is an excellent French knot tutorial and here is an entire Video Library of embroidery stitches! Enjoy.

Ready

The pattern is ready. Now I just have to wait for the go ahead from ravelry - and to figure out the price.

I'm also waiting for a reply from Etsy. I was trying to sign up there as a seller but the site kept rejecting my card. I contacted the card provider and there is absolutely nothing wrong with my card (as I knew) so I'm afraid they are rejecting all Icelandic cards. I hope I'm wrong.

Another glorious day

Today´s rock picture, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

Today was another sunny day here in Vík. Blue sky and not too much wind. Glorious.

Almost ready

The pattern for Hope is ready I think. I´m just waiting for the proofreading (my sister is going to do that for me I´m sure (I sent it to her and forgot to ask her first).
The pattern contains 13 photographs and 6 drawings and it´s 19 pages long!
But that includes the embroidery tutorial and the felting guide and the embroidery drawings take up a lot of space too.
But it´s still kind of long.

The pictures are process photos I took for the pattern.

Vík

Vík, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

A part of my village in today´s wonderful weather.

Pattern writing

I´m writing up the pattern for Hope. It´s taking me some time, putting in all the pictures, the embroidery drawings, the stitch tutorial, the felting section etc.
I´m also constantly thinking how exact it should be - I´m going with very actually - but there are degrees...

But it´s nearly finished, I just have to finish the second test knit, knit an extra base to be photographed and that should be it. It´s not going to be free this time I´m afraid, I think I´m going to sell it on Ravelry and perhaps on Etsy too.
Any experiences or advise you would like to share would be greatly appreciated.

The small dress

This is one of the dresses I made for Christmas. The bigger one is going to be developed further for a magazine but not this one I think. Sorry for the bad quality photo, the little lady had not time for a photo shoot.