I might have mentioned this before now and then 😅, but I love knitting small projects, like this hat.
It’s the Firewood Cap, a design by Lindsey Fowler, and features in her fantastically beautiful book “Salt & Timber, knits from the Northern Coast”.
I used Soft Donegal, from the Irish company Donegal yarns.
Love the design, love the wool, love my new hat!
I knitted this narrow curtain for my bedroom, using wool yarn I spun myself. It has an irregular thickness, which I like a lot for this kind of application.
That narrow window kind of functions as a night light now, filtering the light that shines in from the street.
This puffin is made from 2 pompoms. The yarn I used is Jamieson and Smith Shetland wool.
I made him during an online speedcrafting session with Helen Robertson, a designer from Shetland.
These sessions (I joined three series during lockdown) were so joyful, meeting new people, learning a new craft, having a chat. I hope Helen will host more online ones in the future 😊!
Here's a force to be reckoned with : the menopausal woman, full of plans, energy and wisdom! There, I said it and that's what this piece is all about!
I knit the background from Rowan wool and felted the fabric in the washing machine. This way it feels sturdy and slighlty carpet-like.
The powerful woman and the ladder are embroidered onto the background, and I added fairy lights (off course!). It is quite a big wall hanging which I installed in our hallway: very happy with it!
Best wishes to you all for 2023!
My wishes are accompanied by this embroidered piece, which shows four seasons in one day on this planet, full of luscious greenery and delicious clear water.
The design is my own, inspired by a workshop led by Livia Papiernik. It’s a relatively small piece, 20 cm x 20 cm, but it required a lot of stitching!
I used silk thread, Jamieson & Smith wool yarn and all kinds of other thread, with various stitches and beads, mostly recycled, some of which I made myself.
Let’s hope for a lovely and inspiring new year!!
A simple wreath I decorated with needle-felted holly leaves with beads as berries. Two pompom robins are resting merrily on a branch. For the pom-poms I used wonderful Jamieson’s DK from Shetland.
The birds I made during online speedcrafting with the lovely Helen Robertson from Shetland!
Happy Christmas to everyone 😊🎄💚
Something I have wanted to try for a long time is wet felting, a process of continually rubbing wool fibers together with soap and water to form a firmly felted object.
A workshop by Jeanette Appleton was the perfect opportunity : an exploration of contrasts in colour, texture and surface by using the felting technique on a sewed piece to which running stitch is added.
I loved this technique and the surprising results, for instance how different the silk fabric and synthetic fabric reacted to the felting process. It calls for more exploration! And using wool is always a big bonus!
I added some running stitch to silk and synthetic fabric, which then became the starting piece for the wet felting:
This project was part of the speedcrafting sessions with Helen Robertson from Shetland. I joined these crafting sessions during the pandemic and they were an amazing way to tackle feeling empty and isolated.
The patchwork clock is made from an old vinyl record, covered with fabric patches.
It’s all retro vibes here!
I used the best part of a skein of soft and fluffy organic yarn (Pure,100 % wool, Creative Collection by Veritas - 50g/100m) to make this pompom snowman. I gave him a sweet colourful nightcap and his nose is made from a tiny scrap of fabric. Who doesn't love a cute snowman?
This collage piece is a stitched story about the kitchen in my childhood home. It took rather longer to plan than usual, because I first made a mind map to set free my thoughts and associations.
The technique of mind mapping is something I learned from Ali Ferguson. I found it to be very useful and insightful.
Starting from this mind map, I selected meaningful materials, words and motifs.
For the materials, I chose a piece of an actual cushion cover from that time, some jeans fabric (we wore jeans all the time back then), fabric scraps from a pair of slippers I had, some pieces of kitchen textiles and random fabrics that remind me of the atmosphere of this eighties kitchen.
As the motif I picked a whisk, which my mum often used, among many other things for making mayonnaise. This was a job that required a lot of attention and we often chatted as I watched her.
By stitching together the words and this image I’ve tried to capture a cherished memory of peaceful, secure and happy times.
This is the Plum crazy wrap, a design by Shannon Dunbabbin. It is a very easy pattern, for which I used an aran weight yarn : Rowan Fine Art Aran, so that it knits up pretty fast.
I wear this wrap with my beautiful shawl pin that I love!
In 2018 (you can read the blogpost here) I dyed some yarn with onion peel. 4 of the skeins, all of a different shade of yellow, I knit into a piece with wide stripes.
This piece I washed on a high temperature and high spin cycle, to get it felted. It worked : the fabric is firmer, smaller and thicker now.
And this week I decided to make it into a handbag of my own design.
I chose a nice fabric for the inner lining. It’s all hand-sewn, because I wanted to do some slow, meditative stitching. The wooden handles fit perfectly, in my opinion.
This project is is a good example of slow crafting: hand-spun and naturally dyed yarn, hand-knit and hand-sewn into a bag. It reminds me that the journey is so much more important than the goal. That it turned out to be a nice handbag is a bonus 😊
I have been working on this hat for quite some time. It was my travel knit and since we are not travelling at the moment, there was little progress for some time. But at last, it got finished, just in time for some cold spells this spring. It's a Purl Soho pattern which you can find here. It's a double-layered hat : you start knitting the first hat from the top down with colour 1, then continue right on with the second hat in colour 2, bottom up. You tuck one inside the other and connect them with a little tassel. It's reversible, so two hats in one!
The yarn I used is Ashford Tekapo 3ply (brown and off-white). I bought it at Wolboerderij Blij Bezuiden, a small sheep breeding farm in the South of the Netherlands. Besides their herd of merino sheep they have a wonderful, friendly shop and lots of knowledge and energy. Here I learned how to spin and I’m so happy with this skill, it’s a very relaxing thing to do!
I had some skeins of Garthenor Organic number 3 in my stash, including 10 mini skeins. I could make a fairly big project with this. Lots of different natural colours require a simple and pure pattern, I think, and so I searched for something with a lot of garter stitch (which I love!). I chose the Herb Garden Shawl pattern (very easy and free pattern on Ravelry). I could already see myself strolling around in the garden, warmed by this shawl and a cup op tea...
It was lot of knitting, but with this DK yarn things went on fairly quickly and all the different colours made the project interesting.
Garthenor is a small Welsh company that has been producing breed specific organic yarn for over 20 years. Their customer service is great and there is such a positive energetic vibe around them! I found the yarn great to work with, it is sturdy and soft at the same time. The natural colours are lovely and work well together.
I ran out of yarn and still wanted the shawl to be a bit bigger, but instead of ordering more yarn, I decided to look through my stash (However much I love to support Garthenor and other sustainable businesses, I also try to use up my stash where possible, which also contributes to sustainability) and found this skein of Bleetingbecka Derbyshire Lopi, a very rustic wool from Derbyshire Gritstone (they don't have their own website, but you can find them on Facebook). This is the white top edge of the shawl.
It turned out to be the lovely warm big shawl I imagined, so let's go for a walk!
the shawl, almost finished:
the lovely (and interesting!) card I got with my order from Garthenor:
the Bleetingbecka yarn:
Jo March has been one of my heroes since childhood. In "Literary knits, 30 patterns inspired by favorite books" by Nikol Lohr, I found a pattern for Jo mittens and really wanted to knit them. Partly because I like Jo so much, but also because of the practical boyish look of these mittens.
I struggled with the pattern, to be honest. I don’t think it 's written clearly enough for a not so experienced knitter and I had to frog more than once. I didn't seem to be able to make the pattern work, so in the end I modified it. Overall, sometimes a bit of a frustrating experience but, in the end, also very rewarding.
I like my Jo mittens a lot and am happy I persevered! I love the look of the knitted fabric, its warmth and the way the mittens fit and feel.
The yarn I used is Rauwerk 100% merino (100g - 220m), an eco-friendly and ethical yarn from Germany. this is fantastic yarn, soft and rustic at the same time, in wonderful colours, a real favourite of mine! I bought this skein at Yarnporium in 2018 (you can read my blogpost on Yarnporium here) at the booth of Wild Woolly (a super nice London yarn shop)
And a little shout-out to the knitting needles I used, Lykke driftwood double-pointed needles : simply super! The combination of the yarn and the knitting needles made this a lovely project!
the wonderful yarn and super needles :
I love that song "Les cactus" by Jacques Dutronc!
These cacti were a very fun holiday knitting project. The pattern is by Atelier Marie Paula. I used local organic plant-dyed wool (I don't think there's a brand). I love the natural green colours, they look so "real".
Standing in their little pots, they look so cute! The whole world may be a cactus, crafting and making to me are the perfect antidote!
I recently knitted my first pair of "real" socks, slippersocks not included. "Juniper Socks" is a pattern by Helen Stewart from the curious handmade podcast . You can find the pattern here. I've been listening to the podcast for years and I find it both interesting and soothing. It brings together Helen Stewart's "love of craft, travel stories, life lessons and community".
I used the suggested yarn : Blacker Yarns Tamar DK. I love this yarn: it is rustic and soft at the same time and the colours are gorgeous. It is spun from the fleeces of fine British rare breeds, including Teeswater, Wensleydale and Leicester Longwool.
I am happy with my socks and I love the texture and colours. However, I do find knitting socks rather difficult and I hope very much that I will persevere, given my love of socks. Perhaps I should learn to knit socks on circular needles with magic loop, two at a time?
