Wristwarmers & Magic Yarn Ball

The lacy circular cardigan is finished and totally wearable. Pictures will be posted as soon as I can get some decent photos of it.

I made a bunch of wristwarmers this summer:


I'm thinking of making the yellow/grey one in a red version as Christmas gift for my mother in law. She gave me an inspirational book with tons of different patterns for wristwarmers last Christmas, and has been hinting that she would like a pair for herself. The pattern on these specific wristwarmer's are a sunwheel from Gotland, where some of her ancestors are from.

I recieved two lovely Magic Yarn Balls from Greenapples. Instead of just unravelling the yarny goodness all at once, I really wanted to knit them both out and gradually discover all the little hidden surprises. It's so much more fun that way. My knitting time, however, is very limited at the moment so I made a little compromise with myself. I decided to knit the green scarf yarn ball out and then unravel the purple one before knitting the hat. I even started on the scarf. And then I brought the MYBs with me to class and showed them to a friend who was very excited and convinced me to unwind both of them there, immediately. Ok, so it didn't really take a lot of convincing ;). Here they are, unraveled and awesome:


The purple yarn is for the Shedir cap from Knitty and the green yarn is for another Knitty pattern, Branching Out, which is by now finished and very much loved!

Swaps Galore

(For my Matrioshka Doll Swap partner koi, if you by any chance read this and haven't recieved your package yet, it will spoil the surprise!)

Here are the photos of the swap items I've been making that I promised to post.

First some wallets for the Sweat Shop Swap:

I made a bunch to try some different ideas. I'm going to make more of the orange one, the one with green chairs and the retro flower print one and put up for sale on my etsy.
I chose five of them to use for the swap:




And now over to the Matrioshka Doll Swap! I decided to make a stenciled t-shirt, which was on my partners wishlist, and some other useful trinkets.

T-shirt sizes can be trucky when you don't have the right measurements. I had a men's size small baggy white t-shirt to start with and needed to transform it to a size small womens t-shirt... I looked up clothing patterns for measurements, and did my best, hopefully it fits. At least I'm certain it won't be to small! Then I got to the fun part stenciling! I made the stencils from adhesive plastic. The black lines are done with a fabric marker.

I loved the result and I'll have to make one of these for myself. It was really sad to part with it! Hopefully koi will like it as much as I do!

The notecards below are made from magazines that I surprisingly, but also very conveniently, found in one of Chris's stock magazines a week after starting the swap.


I also wanted to use one of the cross-stitch diagrams I designed, so I made a cross stitch keyring to go with the rest.

The grass is greener on the other side

I am blogging from my brother Adam's student's room in a Stockholm suburb. It's my last night here and I thought I'd give a brief account of my visit. I've done the necessary walk in the city, but this time I had Adam as a guide, which was far more enjoyable than getting lost on my own as I did last time I was here. He took us out to eat at one of his favorite restaurants, Same Same But Different, a thai place on Södermalm. Getting used to the dim rooms, lit only by fluorescent UV-lights and a candle or two took some time. The food was all right, very spicy indeed. Definitely a fun place to have lunch, and probably an awesome bar in the evenings, but beware of the washrooms! People washing their hands only need to turn their heads slightly to get a view straight into one of the booths. I learned the hard way. I won't tell if I was the one washing or weeing, though. ;)

We spent day two in the archipelago on the quaint island Grinda. It takes a good two hours by boat to get out there, but it's a nice boat trip. Out there I saw this:

Apparently in Stockholm, like everywhere else, the grass is greener on the other side...

Today, on our third day, dad and I went to Sigtuna, a small town with a with ancient church ruins and rune stones everywhere. Interesting, indeed.

Before I end this for the night, I have some crafting content. I've been working on the theme matrioshka dolls, because of a swap I am organizing on craftster. I've been trying different techniques on the theme, and here is one of my favourites, cross stitch on a thrifted remodelled giant tee:



I'm very proud of the fact that I designed the cross stitch diagram myself! I'll see if I can post a template here if anyone is interested.



I will be back soon with more matrioshka doll stuff, and also some pictures of the wallets I made for the Sweat Shop Swap.

Cheers!

Onsala Weekend

We spent the weekend at Chris' parents' place and I got a lot of knitting done. (:

I'm working on a cabled cardigan and I almost got one of the sleeves done. After that there'll only be one sleeve, picot edgings and seams left, and then I'm done, joy! Although, I am a bit worried as the front and back look quite wide, especially around the chest. Probably I'll be able to adjust the shape when blocking, but it still bothers me. I'm knitting from an old pattern from 1983 and I'm not sure my choice of yarn is compatible with the pattern... But I'll find out, I suppose. :P

The lovely pattern:

I almost finished the wrist warmers for Chris' mother, I just have to sew the last one together. Knowing that she won't read this, I'll post pictures when I'm done. I'm going to have big problems to keep myself from giving them to her right away. But it's summer now, warm and fuzzy wool wrist warmers are not in season!

I'm thinking of making myself a pair, just to use up some acrylic yarn I have stashed. I'm not a big fan of acrylic yarn, but I bought it, so I have to use it for something. I'd like to make them in a zigzag pattern but I can't decide whether I should use one, two or three colors. I made a swatch to see what white and grey looks like, but I didn't really like it. Maybe I should stick to one color? This is what I have to play with:



Even though I have a ton of projects going on, I keep finding new things that I really, really want to make. I've been browsing loads of knitting blogs and the knitting forum on Craftster and have added some new things to my constantly growing to-do-list:

• First there's Flicca, have a look at it and you'll understand why I want it!
• Second, the beautiful Nora Gaughan "Capecho" from Vogue Knitting. It's from the winter(?) issue, which I didn't buy, because that was the only piece I wanted to make from that magazine, and I didn't think it would turn out well. But after having a look at a knitalong for it I changed my mind. With some modifications it should be possible to make something nicely fitting from the pattern. So now I need to get my hands on that pattern!

And finally, this weekend I recieved partners for the Hand Made Bead Swap, so now I can really start working on the beads!