A secret project

This is a sneak preview of a secret project that I'm working on.

It's my first attempt at crocheting cables.

Can a girl have too much yarn?

I went to the PS Yarn store at 355 Broadway today to buy some yarn. I hadn't really decided exactly what yarn i wanted to buy, but I knew that I probably would buy some of Patons' wool, so I can felt something.

Well, this is what I bought:

... an ordely view of my new yarn:

A few of the photos I took in Spain

I went to Spain for a few days, and I actually remembered to bring my camera. These are some of the best ones I took. I love animals so it's no coincidence that the best ones are featuring animals.

This one is of Nile Crocodiles in Fuengirola Zoo:

This is a stray cat enjoying the sun at Alhambra:

This is a squirrel frolicking in the trees at Alhambra:

Sweater with cat theme

I've started a new crochet project!
I'm designing a sweater for myself. There's a big smiling cat on the front and paw prints on the back. I'm currently working on the front.
I'm using tunisian knit stitch all the way. The yarn is 100% acrylic.
If you look closely, you see my new 5mm double-ended flex hook. :o)

Miauw...!

Update on tablecloth

It turns out that my gauge has totally changed as I'm getting used to crocheting with thread. I've decided to use the 1.75 mm hook in stead of the 1.5 mm which I started out using for the first square.

It takes me just under 2 hours to crochet a square and about an hour to take in all the threads. I started to think about making some of the squares without the green - that way there is less threads to get rid of. To get an idea of how it will look I used IrfanView and Word once again to get a visual of how it could look like when finished.

It can look like this:

Or like this:

Homemade birthday present

Today is the birthday of my brother's wife! :o)
(Tillykke med fødselsdagen Sitte!!!)

I made her a set of matching hairclips and a ponytail elastic band to match. The picture isn't very good I'm afraid.
I used some size 15 crochet thread in 3 different colours to make 3 big flowers and 6 small flowers.



This is a picture of the big flowers, before I attached them to the elastic band.

My first crocheted sweater!!!

Oh wow! I finally finished my first big crochet project. :o)

The pattern is from the Danish crochetbook called 'Hæklerier' by Sys Fredens. The pattern called for baby alpaca, but I didn't want to spend alot of money on a sweater that I hardly would wear, which would be the case if I had to wash it by hand, so I ended up buying a wool and polyamid mix sock yarn. It took me a bit over 3 weeks to crochet.

Here's the finished sweater:




I'm really happy with the finished product of 3 weeks of crocheting in front of the television.

More tablecloth thoughts.

This is how the table cloth would look like if the flowers are arranged in straight lines:


And this is how the tablecloth would look like if four leaves are touching, so the flowers are arranged in squares:



I think it would fit our balcony table nicely if I make 8 x 8 squares, which would mean that I have to make 64 squares. I'm not sure about how to join the squares yet. If I use all-four-leaves-touching arrangement, then I will definitely join them by using a border, so there will be some "white" seperating the leaves.

So how long will it take me to make this tablecloth?

7 squares a week => 2.3 months

5 squares a week => 3.2 months

3 squares a week => 5.3 months

It would be nice if I could use it this summer, so I should try and make 5 squares each week at least. But for now I really should finish crocheting my blue blouse first.

Thinking about making a tablecloth.

Hmm... I've been thinking about making a tablecloth for our small table that we use out on the balcony. I've made a square using the pattern that Hellen at Crochetville used for her very nice black shawl to make a square. Then I took a picture of it, cropped it using IrfanView and pasted into Word in a table to get an idea of how it would look if I made a tablecloth using this square.


I used a size 15 thread and a 1.5 mm hook. I think the colours go very well together, but it took me almost an hour just to sew in all the loose threads.

This is the finished square. It is 8 x 8 cm.

And this is how it kind of would look like if I made a tablecloth with such squares.

My husband's birthday cake

My husband isn't very fond of cakes, but there is a few that he enjoys, so of course I wanted to bake one of those for his birthday. I chose to bake a mazarintærte and decorate it with strawberries and kiwis.


Ingredients:
150 g sugar
3 eggs
200 g marzipan
150 g soft butter
65 g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder

100 g dark chocolate
fruit to decorate with

- Whip eggs and sugar.
- Add marzipan and butter in small lumps and whip until the batter is smooth.
- Stir in flour and baking powder.
- Pour batter into greased quiche form.
- Bake at 200 deg. C. for 30 minutes.
- Let the cake cool off a bit.
- Melt chocolate and brush the cake with it.
- Rinse and cut fruit into suiting pieces.
- Decorate with fruit and/or berries.

Tastes even better when served with whipped cream!

Hat made in the same yarn as my scarf and gloves.

I had some yarn left over from when I made myself a scarf and a pair of gloves, so I thought I might as well use it to make a hat. I started out using a pattern from the Danish book 'Hæklerier' by Sys Fredens, but the yarn wasn't right for the pattern, so I improvised and did my own thing.

This is a close up of the stitches:

Second attempt at felting was a succes!

Yay!!! My bag is finished, and it even looks nice.

I made the bag inspired from the Booga Bag from Black Sheep.
My friend Lindsey let me use her toploader washing machine to felt it, so it was a lot easier to felt this than my last felting project. It is a lot of fun felting, it's just too bad that it is expensive in yarn, since it has to be wool that can shrink, and lot's of it since it does shrink.

I'm rather proud of my new finished project.

Another bag to felt

Well, the first felted "bag" turned out not to be a bag at all, so I'm quite excited about my second attempt at felting a bag. For this projects, I've used Wool of the Andes from Knit Picks. The bag is made with hdc using a 6 mm hook all the way.

I'm making the handle cord using a "knitting doll". I feel like it's taking forever, thinking I should have crocheted it, but it does look nice, and I should finish what I've started.I hope to finish the handle soon, so I can get on with felting the bag.

How my first attempt at felting turned out.

Starting with 130 stitches, and a 6 mm hook i crotheted the whole bag usin hdc.

This is how the bag looked before I tortured it with water. I didn't have enough yarn left over to make a nice cord, so I kind of improvised, as you can see.

I felted the bag in the bathroom sink, alternating between really hot and cold water. It was rather hard on the hands, so if I ever decide to felt something in a sink again, I will make sure to remember to wear rubber gloves.

This is the bag drying. I used old plastic video casette covers to blog the bag on.

This is the finished product.
It turned out not to be a bag, but a basket for yarn!