Seascape

As you know, I sometimes knit things. For the last two months it’s been Seascape. You see, four months ago, for my grandmother’s birthday, I gave her a little bag with yummy alpaca, a pattern and a pair of circs. She took one look at the pattern and went: “that is too hard, I can’t do this”.

The pattern was a translated version of Kiri, the first lace shawl I ever managed. It’s really not that hard, but she has less patience and is more of a product knitter than I am. Like, she’s knitted the exact same baby cardigan for every single grandchild and great-grandchild. Easy and quick is her model.

So I took the yarn back and promised her a shawl. Only I have a rule of only knitting things once so I had to go digging for something else, and since I looooove symmetry Seascape was the answer. And here it is.

Pattern: Seascape.

Ravelry: link.

Yarn: Indiecita (100% alpaca, 50 grams, some mysterious unknown yardage), 3.5 skeins lavender/pink.

Pre-blocking it was 127 x 35 cm. After it was this enormous size, a total of 169 x 50-ish cm. And I say 50-ish because I couldn’t be bothered to make both sides perfectly even, so it ranges from 48 or so to 55. The perfectionist in me is screaming, but the “oh my God it’s 35 degrees outside”-part of me won.

It’s wider than my arms!

A inside pic for a close-up of the pattern. Here you can see that it’s not even. Boo. Grandma loved it though, and that’s all that counts.

Posted: July 15th, 2010 under all my posts - 1 Comment. Tags: finished objects, knitting

Twenty-bloody-three!

Now there is twenty-three (!) pads in my shop. At the same time! I don’t think that’s ever happened before. And now, that I’ve gotten that done I can (maybe) get some cleaning done, because I’ve totally let my apartment fall apart while I was a busybusybusy bee.

I did realise as I put them up on Etsy that I apparently have a butterfly theme, which was completely unintentional, but there you go.

My favourite this time is this one, which, yes, is made from a fabric I actually haven’t put up on the website yet. I will, one of these days, really. I also have to remove a few favourites that I sadly ran out of…

Before I can do that, however, I have to paint a chest of drawers that is hanging out in my parents garage and carry it up three flights of stairs and into my bedroom/sewing room. To have all my fabrics in lidded plastic boxes that are stacked on top of one other really isn’t all that practical. I do however have to wait for my dad’s glorious Swedish holiday (six weeks, paid, each summer, or in his case five because he saves one for Christmas), when he can help me with all of the above. Which is next week, so shouldn’t be too long.

I’m also painting a mirror frame, a table and four chairs. Not for the sewing room, though, that’s for the balcony! Maybe when it’s all sorted I’ll take pictures, but I can’t promise anything. That’s pretty much a guarantee for a disaster.

Posted: June 24th, 2010 under all my posts - No Comments. Tags: new fabrics, new pads

All Things Red

One of my pads was included in a treasury on Etsy called “all things red”! I have no idea what that actually means, but I love red and there’s lots of shiny red things in there, so I’m happy!

New pads will be listed later today or tomorrow.

Edit: Trosskyddet har blivit köpt och är inte längre med i listan. Bra att jag tog screencap!

Posted: June 22nd, 2010 under all my posts - No Comments. Tags: Etsy

Dear diary

Craft related things I did today…

- Ironed 24 pieces of fabric.
- Cut out 24 pad templates from said 24 fabrics.
- Pinned 24 soakers to 24 pad templates.
- Decided to change said templates just a tiny bit. Only not today.
- Put the rest of the hair on the doll I promised to make six months ago.
- Knitted two rows.

So, yes. Expect new shiny pads to be added in about a week. That’s how long all the steps usually take, at least when I make this many pads at once!

I quite like my new half bedroom/half sewing studio set-up. Maybe one day there will be pictures. Just not yet.

Posted: June 11th, 2010 under all my posts - 2 Comments. Tags: in progress, knitting, pads

Update!

I finally updated my shop! My favourite this time is this one:

I’ve also edited some old prices to reflect the currency change, as I always try to set them at the equivalent of the price in SEK, but in dollars. Um. Anyone following that? The important bit is that they’re cheaper! Although the same. No, it doesn’t make sense to me either.

Also, follow me on Twitter, @procraftination for sewing related things, and @jumbledwords for the random babble. I’m sad to report the latter is much more frequently updated, often with rants about writing, soccer, random musings and (when I remember) links to my HAES blog. Which is in Swedish. Sorry about that.

And the two messed pads of this batch? I am totally bringing to cousinly adventures, hoping to convert a couple of them. Hey, one can try, right?

Posted: May 14th, 2010 under all my posts - 1 Comment. Tags: business info, new pads, Twitter

The Rug of Awesome Rip-Rip-Rip

It’s been a while now. I’ve been busy with writing, sewing, knitting and WEAVING. Soon I will update with new shiny pads, but first I must blog this, because I’ve been working on this rug for something like six months. I did an update in December, when I had only just started weaving, and this is the end product of all that cutting, ripping, weaving, swearing and you know, all that fun pre-weaving stuff (there’s seriously, like seven steps before you even get to sit down).

This is the whole thing. And yes, it’s too long to even FIT in my kitchen, at 354 centimetres. That’s over three and a half metres or 11.5 feet. Yes. Seriously.

I got the inspiration for this rug when I read in the Swedish weaving magazine Vävmagasinet about this man who, after his partner died, cut every single piece of clothing he’d worn into rags, and wove a rug from it. He didn’t stop until they were all gone and the result was the most amazing rug, so big that he actually had to roll it out on the grass outside his house so they could photograph it. It was breath taking and totally made me well up in class.

So, a few months later I cleaned my closet out of all clothes I could no longer wear (think sizes 38-42, that is a UK 10-14), and stuffed them in the attic, thought no more about it until I had to move. Then I took them out, thought about throwing them out and went “hmmm”.

So, here it is. A rug woven from all the clothes I’ve worn in the last five or so years, sorted by colour and interspaced by dark blue (not originally clothing) to give it a bit of stability. Each of the blue blocks are ten centimetres, but the actual clothes have been used until I ran out. The thin ones were tank top, the medium ones short sleeved tops and the big long sleeved.

And for a bit more detail, I’ve taken it in three shots:

The red and yellow. I recognise the shirt I wore when I met my ex (the big red-white one) , a few shirts my sister gave me when I returned from Florida (most of the reds), a shirt she did the print for; it said “More trees, less Bush” (a yellow), and my Sweden shirt. It’s the other yellow, and I found it in the men’s section at Target when I lived abroad. It had a boxer and SWEDEN printed on it and I bought it simply because I missed home so much. I wore it even after I accidentally got hair dye on it.

Obviously Ash has good taste. The green is my favourite section too. Here’s some more shirts Ania gave me, a couple that I bought when those became too small (and then THOSE became too small) and one that was a present. (My grandmother thought it was rude to cut that one up, even though I’d never use it again.) The thinnest one is the shirt I bought upon my return to Sweden, to celebrate a) that my weight gain meant more cleavage, and b) my first real spring of five years.

The light is doing weird things here, sorry about that. It’s blues and purples, some which were gifted to me, and some which I bought because I can’t walk past a purple top without trying it on. One of the blue is my Beskyddaren-tee, a leftover from my first music obsession, the Swedish band Kent. Another one is for my second music obsession, Ani DiFranco. One was a Beatles shirt, although I rarely listen to them. And the last, stripey one I had a damn fine cleavage in. Just saying.

And yes, that is about it. Though I could talk about this all day if you let me!

Posted: April 12th, 2010 under all my posts - 4 Comments. Tags: knitting, weaving

Weaving project

Okay, so, I meant to blog something months ago about how I have a serious leaning towards cutesy pads, but I am afraid that I have sold most of those pads already, so those pics are kind of old news by now. Such is life.

I will however post a few pictures of my first finished weaving project. It’s a soft, fuzzy blanket, and I thank my grandmother for doing the tricky parts, such as winding up the lengthwise yarn (varpen), making the stripes. I just put in the red (inslagen), and they showed up by itself. One of the magic things about weaving, I suppose.

Posted: March 20th, 2010 under all my posts - No Comments. Tags: finished objects, weaving

Backyard-y Things

I’m currently working away on my first custom order since my big break of awesome, and it’s nice to be sewing again! I am, of course, also being creative in other ways, or I would surely go nuts. Mostly this consists of weaving, knitting and writing.

My latest adventure in knitting was looking at a mitten I knitted three years ago and try to figure out the pattern, because I forgot to save it and I’ve used those until they pretty much pilled themselves to bits. It was a bit of a challenge, and I think the finished mitten turned out slightly bigger, but in all I am happy with them.

That is the old one to the right, knitted in Malabrigo Worsted (colourway: Violetas), and the new one to the left, knitted in Manos Silk Blend (colourway: 4635).

I almost never indulge myself in really exclusive yarns, so I think these two are the fanciest yarns I’ve ever knitted with. So worth every last krona too (even though I bought the former in the U.S. and the latter in the U.K.!). They are simply amazing, and £11.99 for 300 yards is so worth it when the yarn in question is as gorgeous and soft as this one. It really is.

Pattern: Backyard (Semi-Convertible) Mittens

Ravelry: link.

Yarn: Manos Silk Blend (30% silk, 70% merino, 270 m or 300 yards); green aka 4635, 1 skein.

I’ve looked at a lot of convertible mittens in my days, and it seems like most of them require you to button the flap down, as they have a rather big hole to allow for flipping back the top.

A few years ago I saw one that simply had a hole in the palm, though I can’t remember where (the now defunct MagKnits, maybe?), and thought the idea was great, but that they would be even better if they had a bit of overlapping fabric, so the hole wasn’t there all the time. Because Sweden is cold. Seriously.

So I knitted the first version of this mitten (my first mitten ever, actually), with a cable down the back, to go with the scarf (which I lost) and the hat (which came out too small), a simple afterthought thumb, because it seemed like the least scary option, a hole backed by an extra flap behind it, sewn down only on the sides, and used them every single day for two winters and actually half of a third.
…

So, when I came across this yarn and figured out it was enough for a Backyard Leaves Scarf and then some, I decided to do a repeat. Since it came out so awesome the last time.

I kept them plain this time, because the yarn was more variegated than I’d expected, and also, because there’s plenty of lace and patterned knitting in the scarf. I quite like mittens that doesn’t have a rounded top. The last pair didn’t end in a point, but I decided to do that part just a bit differently (possibly cos I knitted for too long before realising that I was supposed to be grafting…

As for the whole reason I made these mittens:

Pattern: Backyard Leaves Scarf (Ravelry link)

Ravelry: link (to my version).

Yarn: Manos Silk Blend (30% silk, 70% merino, 270 m or 300 yards); green aka 4635, 2 skeins. Or more like 1.5.

It came out wicked long; it was the prescribed 200 cm before blocking, and then each half grew with about 25 cm, so it totals 250 cm. That is 98.5 inches. I’m only 173 cm long, so it’s… long. Even on me. I can wrap it twice around my neck and there’s still some over.

This post is far too long already, so I will not post a close up. Click on the pic and it will zoom in for you. If you want.

For something else altogether: Do consider going to Ravelry.com (if you have an account) and filter patterns through the “Help for Haiti” tag, and buy something! I wanted to offer my patterns for sale like that and give the proceeds to that, but realised that I really don’t write out instructions well enough for that (my patterns have a lot of “gauge – erm, what was on the ball band. probably.” and “size – big. ish.” in them), and besides, what does it help if everyone offers their patterns for free if nobody buys anything?

So I’m going to.

Posted: January 17th, 2010 under all my posts - No Comments. Tags: knitting, patterns

Needle Case and Zippered Bag

I always forget how hard it is to photograph black fabric until I try. This was the best I could do, under the circumstances (which was crazy snow storm, no sun in sight outside and thus lots of flash washing out the details). The background to this Christmas present is that my mother’s knitting corner is a disaster area consisting of two baskets, four paper bags, a lot of tangled yarn and no measuring tape or yarn needles. She has about seven crooked knitting needles of each size, none which match. At all. So I decided to make her this needle case with a small zippered bag for the small stuff, to help with the organisation of it all. I used this tutorial for the needle case and this one for the bag. I followed the latter to the last detail, but freestyled my little heart out with the former, as usual.

Here it is with the lid folded down. The lid piece was juuuust an inch too short, so I improvised a contrasting edge with the fabric I used for the inside. You want a lid that goes down over the lower edge of the pockets, or the needles WILL fall out every time you pick the damn thing up. Trust me on that one.

Slightly open. Should’ve opened it more for a better effect, shouldn’t I? Yeah. I should have. I didn’t, though, so you have to trust me on that there is in fact two rows of pockets – short ones for double pointed needles and tall ones for straight needles. I hate them, personally, but my mother uses nothing else.

All rolled up and ready to go. And yes, blurry. Sorry about that.

I love the birds on this fabric. It’s Ikea, by the way, and rather thick for this project, but it worked okay, since the lining fabric was super thin to make up for it.

I like this bag even more than the needle case – definitely easier to make all professional looking.

Posted: January 1st, 2010 under all my posts - 1 Comment. Tags: finished objects, sewing

Coming Back From the Dead

I think I have made things confusing again. See, when I revamped my website I didn’t know how easy it was to get a static page for my main URL, and then a different one for my blog (you simply make a page and name it “blog” and that’s it), so I installed Wordpress twice, once for my pages and once for my blog. The reason I haven’t been blogging much was the whole logging in and out when I switched from one to another. And then I realised how ridiculously easy it was, and changed things around, but of course that means that my feed URL is now different. It used to be http://procraftination.se/blog/feed/ and is now http://procraftination.se/feed/. And I can of course not alert people about the switch, since I removed the files installed under the “blog” folder.

Erm. Does this make your head spin too? Good. Then it’s not just me. Anyway, I hope that people will still find their way here, despite my sneakiness! We shall see about that.

During the last few months I’ve been spending most of my times playing with new medications and writing a lot, and in all trying to take care of myself. There hasn’t been a lot of pads for sale during this time, but I do have news! I feel better and will from here on out accept custom orders again. It will be a bit different than before, a middle way if you will, but you can visit this page (if you’re Swedish) or this page (if you’re not) for more details on the matter.

And as a Christmas presents to all the knitters reading this (which may not be many, but hey…) I have put up a felted bag pattern, which you can find here.

It is fairly small, 9.5 x 8.25 inches after felting, and I made it for a friend as an utterly impractical gift to receive after just having given birth (as it doesn’t fit any baby things whatsoever). Each side consists of four mitered squares and it’s exactly half of two colours, as you switch it around from one side to another. Follow the link for more pictures and all that, and if you knit one, let me know!

I have so much more stuff to blog, from the slippers I made my grandmother, by way of my present to my mum to two dolls I’ve done up for two little Australian girls that I love to bits despite never having met them. That is a story for another day, though, as I am halfway out the door.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Posted: December 29th, 2009 under all my posts - 1 Comment. Tags: knitting, patterns