I love gnomes!

Inspired by the knitted figures and animals I keep seeing on Pinterest, I decided to knit a couple of gnomes myself. They are my own design and are a fairly straightforward knit. I gave them a hat made of an old sock with a funny charm.

It's another good way to use up those yarn scraps.

My new gnomes played their part in our Christmas decor last year 😊

 

Basket from leftovers

All crafters have leftovers. So do I, a lot. I had this ball of discoloured cord and decided to make a basket from it. I crocheted with some yarn leftovers around the cord, so the basket has a firm feel and I could give it a bit of shape by thightening or loosening the cord. It looks slightly like a piece of pottery, which I like. 

crochet around the cord:

 cord and yarn:

nice basket for my mini balls of coton yarn!

Stitches in the air

This is my take on a workshop with Jean Draper, a textile artist who makes wonderful sculpture work : a raised piece of textured work, consisting of three different layers of structured meshes.

The layers are separately stitched in frames. When they were merged I added some stitching, fabric and paper.

For now the piece is displayed on the wall, allowing the light to filter through, which creates interesting shadows.

These are the different layers, made with different yarns and cords, still on the frames. I actually also like them this way!

 

Tiny houses

In an earlier post I mentioned that I joined some speedcrafting sessions, hosted by Helen Robertson. One of the projects we did was knitting these tiny houses (or as they say on Shetland: peerie mootie hooses)

I truly fell in love with this project and ended up knitting 10 of them! 3 I filled with a match box so they can easily stand on their own and make a tiny village. The other seven I filled with some yarn scraps to give them some body and turned into broches. To the façade of each of the brooche-houses I added an embroidered flowering climbing plant.

I used the yarn Helen sent for the project and also some HotButterYarns colour mini balls DK. This is beautiful , locally sourced British wool. I bought them at Tribe Yarns in Richmond-upon-Thames, a truly lovely shop with great customer service!

This is by the way also a lovely way to use up any leftover yarn! 

Le monde entier est un cactus!

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!

The owl that didn't like flying

There was this little owl that didn't like to fly. He was more of the observing and the thinking kind, let us say. And so he found other ways to move around, which made him quite a content owl after all!

This is a tiny knitting project with fiddly bits that takes more time than you would think, but the result is fun! You can find the pattern in Mini Knitted Woodland  by Sachiyo Ishii.

He travels by hot air balloon:

Or by cable car:

or gets simply carried around by his human!

There is even some video footage of one of his travels here: https://youtu.be/McY9zydPxAA

Sleepy piglet

I crocheted this sleepy little pig some time ago and used a very colourful yarn. He looks like he has been playing in unicorn poo. and now he is tired and needs to go to sleep. So I made him some bedsocks and a nightcap. I used some old T-shirt fabric for his wardrobe.
I have been looking for information about the pattern to share, but I have no idea anymore where to find it, sorry... hope you like me sharing the pictures anyway…

Is it a shawl or a scarf, a sharf or a scawl

This is a project I solely made for the fun of experimenting with shaping and matching colours. I looked through my stash and brought together these different yarns, all DK weight :

- Alpaca Super Fine by Borgo de Pazzi (the red yarn)

- Adriafil WoCa ecoyarn (the dark grey yarn)

- Adriafil Sierra Andina Alpaca (the light purple yarn)

- The Fibre Co Acadia (the green, the blue and the dark purple yarns, some of it was leftover yarn) - one of my favourites so far!

The technique of short rows intrigued me and although it looked fairly complicated, I wanted to try it. So I looked for some intructions online and started knitting away. There were so many stitches on the needles, that I couldn't visualise exactly how the shawl (scarf?) would look like : a true mystery knit this was! In the end, it turned out quite all right, certainly not perfect, but I love the colour combination and the rainbow-shaped section. And it's a really warm scarf (or shawl?) as well!

the shortrow section:

Work In Progress:

Sideways slouch slippers

Another great and fun way of stash busting : the Sideways slouch slippers. I found the pattern in my much-used book "Knitted and crocheted slippers" by Alison Howard. This is an easy project from my early days as a knitter, but I still love the design and I'm sure I will make more of these!
As I mainly started this project in order to practise garter stitch, I used some random balls of yarn, without labels or specifications, that had been lying round the house for ages. Holding the yarn double, while guessing the yarn weight, I knitted myself a pair of fun-looking, warm slippers. I recommend this pattern for some easy-going, quick and stash-busting garter stitch knitting!

                                                                                                                                                                 

                    

Chunky tweed slippers

This is a pattern I have used twice, because I found the construction of the slippers really fun. At first it looked rather complicated, but the shaping of the slippers happens quite easily and naturally.
the pattern is from the book 'Knitted and crocheted slippers' by Alison Howard. There's lots of great, lovely, unusual footwear in this book. I'll make some more in the future!
For the pair in the photos I used Schachenmayr Boston wool and acrylic blend and acrylic leftover yarn in different colours held double for the soles, which makes them quite durable.
The slippers are really warm and cosy, lovely and fun to wear.

cosy and warm!

 with sturdy soles:

Pockets on a string

I was looking for something useful I could make from the patches I got practising crocheting and using up my yarnscraps. At the same time I found myself inspired by the dangerous pockets project, by Paula MacGregor and this poem by Sharon Owens :

Dangerous Coats

Someone clever once said
Women were not allowed pockets
In case they carried leaflets
To spread sedition
Which means unrest
To you & me
A grandiose word
For commonsense
Fairness
Kindness
Equality
So ladies, start sewing
Dangerous coats
Made of pockets & sedition

It is true, womens garments often don't have useful pockets and to carry a handbag just isn't handy all 

the time. So I thought, what about pockets on a string? Little bags for phone, keys, card, a bit of money, so you have the little things you need close at hand, but also freedom of movement!

Making these pockets, I can try out different techniques, different materials (some recycled fabric and yarn leftovers), adding haberdashery, tassels, and so on, which I think is a lot of fun!!

Make do and mend part 4

My dad's favourite sweater has holes in it, gets glue spilled on it... OK, in a situation like this my creativity is at its happiest : save the sweater! I embroidered some flowers to mend the holes and hide the stain, using some leftover yarn. I think it worked, yay!

Hamish the reversible penguin - egg

I think this is a lovely and original way to use up yarn scraps : a small egg knitted in the round which transforms into a penguin! I found the pattern in Let's Knit Christmas special 2013. And of course it's a Susan B. Anderson pattern! She designs the cutest and loveliest soft toys and clothing. Hamish is a hit here!

Happy little Jane

Here's Jane again!
Some years ago I visited Jane Austen's House Museum, what a treat! In the wonderful museumshop I bought a kit which I just couldn't resist, to make a Jane Austen out of a clothespin. So one evening I started tinkering with all the small pieces and added some of my own bits and pieces. This Jane turned out to be a happy energetic Jane, full of inspiration!

the kit:

happy Jane:

Bootcuffs-gone-wrong cowl

This is the story...

I wanted to make a pair of bootcuffs out of some leftover yarn (Rowan Lima Colour and Lang Minerva Merino). Their colours turned out too different to be acceptable though. I hadn't realized that this kind of variegated yarn doesn't have a recurring colour pattern.

What to do, what to do....??

I decided to make a cowl out of the two pieces of knitted fabric, by sewing them together. It's a nice and soft fabric and feels great around my neck.

But still, I found the seams a bit weird. Perhaps a few buttons would make it work? So I searched my button box for some buttons that would fit together and sewed them onto the seams.

I think it works, it's not haute couture off course, but nice :

Cheery flower chain

This flower chain I crocheted some months ago for a friend who could use some cheering up.
It is based on a pattern I found in "Haken in kleur" ("Crochet with color") by Kazuko Ryokai.
The pattern (on p. 84) is called "lariat" or "bloemenketting". It was a fun project, although it meant weaving in really a lot of ends...
I used all kinds of yarn leftovers, mostly cotton, some wool.
It turned out quite nice I think, and in fact, at the time, it cheered me up as well.