Light

Light, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

Brown, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

Red, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

It´s still very fine weather here in the village but the colours of the late summer are starting to show. Not fall - not yet, but the soft brown of the mushrooms, the red of the straws and the silver white parachutes of the dandelions are among the many shades that remind us that the turning of the seasons is near.

Some progress

I know what this wants to be now - can you see it?

I'm making good progress on the baby sweater. I'm up the the arms now and will be starting the sleeves today.

My cardigan is once more on hold and will be so for some tome I think. Not only have I a magazine project I must start soon, but yesterday I got a bag of the softest wool I have ever felt. And it came from a dog!




Now dogs don't have wool you say, but this one has I tell you and I would like to do something with it. I don't know what yet - but that will come to me.

Today's rock picture

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

Not knitting related - just the morning light on "my" beach.

Reborn - a sweaters tale

Some twenty three years ago a very good friend received this beautiful baby sweater for her first born. When the little girl outgrew it, the mother carefully packed it in a plastic bag for safe keeping. When she unpacked it some eight years later, she was in for a nasty surprise. Instead of protecting the wool, the plastic had not only severely discoloured it, but also eaten a hole in it. The sweater is beyond repair I'm afraid. It was much worse when first unpacked, these are the stains that just don't come out no matter what. And then there is the hole, the great big hole just below the neckline.

My friend has just had her fourth baby, her first baby boy and I am now recreating this beauty for them. I couldn't find the exact same yarn, but the lovely Italian baby yarn (Ornaghi Filati Pisolo) I found is close enough I think.

It takes a little time to knit it on 1.5mm pins ( a half size smaller than US 0) but it's fun to pick up the pattern from a finished piece. I have not tried that before.

Undecided

I have not yet found out what this wants to be, but I like where it's heading. The wool is dyed with the flowers of the Nootka lupin (Lupin nootkatensis) and the embroidery is done with pure linen floss. The colour in the picture is not quite accurate, the green is warmer and prettier in real life.

One more

For my friends tiny little baby.
For those who might find the socks a bit girly for the young man I have these two quotations :

An American newspaper in 1914 advised mothers, "If
you like the color note on the little one's garments, use pink for the
boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention." [The
Sunday Sentinal, March 29, 1914.]

"There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the
generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The
reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more
suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty,
is prettier for the girl." [Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918]


So there!

I used the Basic Opal Baby sock pattern and 2mm pins (US 0) for the socks.
The hats were based on Carissa Knit's pattern, Preemie Hats for Charity

Húsgagnahosur - ókeypis uppskrift

Húsgagnahosurnar eru hér.

Recycling: Jeans to vest in 50 minutes

Many years ago I inherited these from a relative of mine. I thought they were pretty cool at the time (and so did many of my friends surprisingly enough) but they never really fit and I only wore them a couple of times.
I always kept them though, planning to to something with them, and last Friday I finally did. The transformation from jeans to vest took 50 minutes in all, and a good part of that was spent in threading and re threading the overlook machine that tends to be a little difficult madame sometimes.

So if you have some adorned jeans hidden away somewhere, a pair you will never wear again - and a clothes mad girl; you can make a vest like this with minimum effort for no money at all. Given you have a sewing machine and some thread that is. Yes, and some kind of closure. I used the simplest kind, hook-and-eye.

Sadly I was in a hurry and forgot to take pictures during the process. But perhaps my very bad drawings can help a bit.

What you do is you cut off the legs at the crotch and rip the inner seems. Then you open up the ,,legs" and straighten the upper part of each back "leg" like this:

Then you fold the "legs" back together and cut armholes and a v-neck. You also make a little rounding for the neck in the back:


You can use and t- shirt or something like that for a guide. If you do, remember that you want the arm- and neck hole in the vest to be a bit bigger, as you want the vest to fit comfortably over t-shirts and such.

Now you sew the back seam and the shoulder seams. Then you either overlook or zickzack the neck- and armhole edges, fold them in and stitch them in place.

Last but not least, you place two figure seams one each side of the back seam - at the natural waist height. And let's not forget the closure, I used only one set on hook-and-eye, placed just at the end of the v- neck(as seen in he picture below).

























Added : KathieB reminded me of something I forgot. There is no reason to let the top section of the jeans go to waist. You can make something like this for example:
The pictures are printed out on canvas and zickzacked on. The top is hand sewn together. You can skip the pictures and just use beads, scraps of lace or anything that takes your fancy.

Furniture feet - a free pattern

Perhaps you remember the furniture socks I did the other day? They are still in use and they work very well. The only drawback is that they tend to fall off when the chairs are lifted. Therefore I give you the new and improved version, and this time with a pattern!

Furniture feet

Materials: Ístex plötulopi (Icelandic unspun wool). The yarn is used triple in this project. You can also use Álafoss lopi og other bulky feltable wool.

6 mm (US 10) dpns
A darning needle

Gauge: An exact gauge is not important as the "socks" are heavily felted. But it's recommended to knit the rather loosely to facilitate the felting. So if you know yourself to be a tight knitter you might consider to go up a needle size.

Size: These "socks" fit chairs that are appropriately 3.5cm a side, that is 14 cm a round. That means that each cm (0.4in) on the chair leg equals one stitch cast on. So you can very easily calculate how many stitches you need for just your chairs.

Tips on plötulopi

The plötulopi is used triple in this project. That is you knit with three strands of the yarn. You can knit directly from the plates or you can gently wind three strands together by taking the end from the centre and the end from the outside of the plates. Plötulopi is rather fragile. If the yarn breaks you simply overlap the ends a bit and continue as nothing had happened.

Cast on 14 stitches loosely with three strands of plötulopi and distribute them on dpn's. Join, be careful to to twist. Knit 20 rounds.
*k2tog* all the next round = 8 stitches
*k2tog* all the next round = 4 stitches

Break the yarn and thread through the remaining loops. Pull it tight and secure it ends.



Now the "sock" should look something like this :

When you have made three more (or as many as you want), it's time for the really interesting part: the felting.

The felting

There are two schools on this. Those who hand felt and those who machine felt. Machine felting is much faster and easier, but it requires some care as each machine felts differently. So if you haven't felted before, it can be a good idea to start with a short programme and a low heat (40°C - 32 F) and increase if that is not enough. It's a good idea to use a washing bag or something similar and two old towels or so to increase agitation. You want the "socks" to be really tight, so tight in fact that you have to use considerable force to put them on. That way they stay put.
They probably look like a mess when they are felted enough,

but don't worry, you can form them when wet and all creases even out when you force them on the chair leg.

It's best to form them on the chair leg and then remove them carefully to dry.
Don't be afraid to use a little violence, the felted fabric can stand a lot of pulling and tugging.
Let the socks dry completely before you put them in use.

To hand felt you need a basin or a sink filled with hot water. Add a few drops of dish-washing liquid and use your hands to swish the wool around and rub it together. You need a lot of agitation so rubber gloves are a good idea. Felting by hand can take a long time so patience is the key. When done, rinse the socks well, squeeze out the water and let dry.

My long cardigan

My cardigan has been on the back burner for a while, but now it's back in the front row. It's in single ply plötulopi on 2.5mm pins (US 1.5) so it has quite a lot of stitches for a lopi sweater.
It's also going to be a long cardigan so this is not a quick project. I'm designing the pattern as I go along and I've just started the yoke pattern. Yes, you read this one correctly, I'm just above the waist as you can see, and the yoke pattern starts there! How can this be?
Keep watching this space...

Preemie set

It was raining cats and dogs yesterday so I had to photograph this inside. The socks are just like the ones I forgot to photograph the other day and the size - well, tiny.

Happy

Happy, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

The little one was visiting over the weekend. So I did not knit much, but I did go swimming, play in the sand box, read about a little princess, tell stories about tiny little mice and many other entertaining things.

Vík

Vík, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

Here it is at last; the rock hat: Vík.

It is my most time consuming hat by far. It's big, really big in fact. I think of it as a man's hat but a woman with a big head (and thick hair) could also use it.

Fog

Fog, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

Not knitting related - just pretty.

Socks

Last night I made some tiny socks to go with the hat and I mailed them on my way to the doctors office this morning. Can you detect what is missing there? Yes the photo - I forgot to photograph them. Yet they were very cute - you just have to take my word for it.

A package

This arrived in the mail yesterday, a lovely water bottle holder, and citrus lip smacker. Thank you so much Alyce!

On hold

The rock hat and everything else is on hold. A very dear friend had a baby yesterday, several weeks early and he needs hats and socks for his time in the hospital. This is the first one, finished in record time (to have time to wash and dry it before the post office closed). It is a test piece of sorts to figure out the right size for the little one.

Almost

I'm almost finished with the rock hat. Not quite but I think I might finish it today. I really hope so actually, I'm getting a little tired of it, it's by far my most time consuming hat yet. But I do like the results so far and I think its going to pretty good.

Finished

Soft, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

Yellow, originally uploaded by Harpa J.

All done!
The yellow ones are gone to a new little owner, the beige ones are soon going in the mail.

Sweets for my sweet...

...sugar for my honey...
All this can be yours - if you are lucky enough. All details can be found here.

Can you spot the difference?

It's still not done, but I'm getting there.

Pattern

I have had some questions about the baby shoes below.

First - I colured the rhubarb ones with just the stalks, not the leaves.

And no - there is not a pattern yet - but these well become a free pattern when I get around to it.

Rhubarb

These are dyed with rhubarb. Rhubarb smells lovely and I really like the delicate pinkish beige colour. I'm definitely going to use rhubarb again. As before - these are not done - all the embroidery and the ribbons is left.

Baby shoes

I dyed these with Gulmaðra - Lady's Bedstraw in English or Galium verum. The colour came out really well, but I won't be using this plant any time soon. It really stinks when boiled- but I could cope with that, but not the allergic reaction I got, even though it was relatively mild.

The shoes are not finished though - you know me, I have to embellish them a bit so there is some embroidery to be done.