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Archive for the ‘Craft’ Category

My clever husband spent quite a few of our summery evenings whittling by the outdoor fireplace.  As well as making our garden markers, he’s been working on his first ever spoon.

This is made from a piece of hawthorne, which is apparently a very hard wood.  I think it’s come up quite lovely – so much so that I’m hesitatant to want to dirty it by actually using it.

It’s been quite a while since I blogged.  Anneli had a cold for the most part of the last 2 weeks, so was kept out of daycare.  Luckily she has a grandmother close by who really enjoys her company, so we got lots of baby sitting.   We also spent a weekend up in Falun, which was a great way to switch off for a couple of days.

On the way home from Falun, we stopped at a beekeeping store in Töreboda.  We are both keen to get a beehive, but it won’t be this year because we don’t really have the spare cash to get all the equipment.  Instead we bought some bees wax, and I had a go at making some hand cream.

Home made hand cream

I followed this recipe, and added a drop of lavender essential oil.  It feels quite oily for a few minutes after using it, but otherwise I love it.  Most of all I love that it has a really simple ingredient list and I know what all the ingredients are – no mysterious chemicals at all.

Linus then had a go at making a lip balm:

Home made lip balm

with bees wax and honey, and this is similarly lovely.  He’s also rolled some candles from the wax sheets.

In other crafty news, I finished a pair of socks last month, the “regurgitated parrot socks”.  I called them that because I think that if you chewed on a parrot for a while, and then spat it out, it would look at least a little bit like this yarn.

Regurgitated parrot socks

I really enjoyed the entrelac knitting though, which was something I hadn’t tried before.  These socks have a project page here.  I recently went through my archive of sewing and knitting projects, and started creating a project page for each one – you can see these pages by clicking on the “Craft” tab above.

Finally, things are coming along in the gardening department.  We are often spending our evenings digging up rocks in order to make the vegetable patches larger, and we have an army of baby plants gathering their strength inside in preparation for moving outdoors soon.

Plant babies

There are tomatoes, pumpkins, broccolli, peas, cabbages, green kale, and more tomatoes.

We’re on a definite plastic avoidance strategy nowadays.  We’ve been doing the easy stuff, like taking our own bags to the supermarket.  Then we got some lovely stainless drink bottles – two big ones for us to take to the gym, and one little one for Anneli.  We prefer our wooden chopping boards over plastic, and glass jars for storing food over plastic containers.

But this is a new level of plastic avoidance: fabric vege bags.  I didn’t like all the plastic bags that we collected our fruit & veges into at the supermarket.  So I thought, why not take fabric bags for that purpose too?  We use self-scanning at the supermarket, and almost always checkout without staff involvement, so I wasn’t worried about any raised eyebrows at the checkout.  I used some old sheet material, from some delightful floral sheets scavenged at Mum’s new bach, and made four simple little drawstring bags.

Here are the new bags, being modelled by some oranges, mushrooms and baking potatoes.

Happy plastic-free fruit and veges

I have plonked the mushrooms straight into the fridge in their cloth bag, and I’m hoping they will keep better than they usually do in plastic.

I did a bit of baby sewing in the last couple of weeks.  Firstly a couple of simple singlets.  The one in front is from a very light jersey I picked up at Rotorua Spotlight while in NZ.  The one in back is from a cotton lycra that I bought at last year’s Symässa in Borås, from MG-Tyger.

Secondly I whipped up a pair of baby pants.  These are made from the legs of a pair of pinstripe pants that I picked up for free at a Freecycle meetup in Göteborg last month.  I made them in the 18-months size, and added a cute purple floral along the cuffs since they are way too long at the moment.  The pockets are also floral on the inside.

We’re back home in Sweden, in our own winter wonderland. I have taken a few pictures of the snow, but while I get those sorted out I will continue with summing up 2009.

Obviously, there was a lot going on this year, so I didn’t do as much knitting or sewing as I would have liked. But I did manage to throw together a few things.

On the sewing front, I put together an outfit for Anneli to wear to big cousin George’s wedding in Spain:

Plus a sun hat for the same trip.

I also made about a million cloth nappies (well, at least 24 I think).

And, I finished my very first quilt – a cot quilt for Anneli made from the remnants of her nappies!

Then I whipped up another quilt and matching pillow for the upcoming Baby Clarkville:

And as you can see I knitted a cotton cardigan for Baby Clarkville as well. We had a lovely time staying at the cottage while in NZ, which I will write more about at a later date.

I churned out more knitted items than sewn items this year. Anneli got a fair isle cardigan:

And quite a few pairs of socks, none of which stayed on her feet:

I made myself a chunky neck cosy:

And armwarmers:

And I finished a spring cardigan in the summer. I really did finish it, I just don’t have any pictures of the completed item:

The kitchen was a new recipient of knitted goods this year, with a tea cosy, coffee cosy, and cotton dishcloths:

And mum was lucky enough to get a pair of socks for her birthday:

Just for variety, I turned my hand to a little bit of embroidery this year as well. I completed this cross stitch kit that had been lurking in the craft room for a couple of years:

And then I whacked together a couple of freestyle projects based on floral designs from books. Here is the first one:

I really enjoyed all my craft projects this year, especially the quilting and embroidery, and I hope I’ll be able to find time this year to play some more!

I’ve finished a few small knitting projects recently. Firstly my very autumnal arm warmers:

Yarn: Schoppel “Admiral R Druck” Intarsia sock yarn
Pattern: Improvised

Then there was a fair-isle cardigan for Anneli:

Yarn: Garnstudio Drops Karisma
Pattern: Drops B16-10

After finishing the cardigan, I wasn’t quite sure what to knit next. So I whipped up a neck snuggly:

Yarn: The very delicious Manos Del Uruguay Wool Classica
Pattern: Improvised

And then, inspired by our beautiful pumpkin harvest, I knitted my first ever tea cosy:

You can browse my other knitting projects here.

OhMyGosh! I finished a quilt:

When I ordered flannel for making cloth nappies, I somewhat overcatered … so I used the many leftovers for this quilt. The circles were great for using up the small pieces left over from cutting out nappies. Here is the back:

I was inspired and guided by this tutorial. Sewing the circles was kinda tedious, kinda fun. I think it would have been much more fun with more different fabrics – working with just two colours made the piecing a bit boring. I was a bit concerned about being able to quilt it in my little Brother PX-100, but it actually wasn’t too difficult. I don’t know how well she would cope with a grownup-sized quilt though.

Finally, here it is with the blurry little recipient:

I still haven’t sorted out the aerial pictures of the house that Dad & I took during our scenic flight around Onsala. But while you’re waiting, here’s a pair of baby socks that I recently finished:

Oh goodie … look what I’ve got:

Yes, that’s an armchair full of new yarn. Garnstudio are having a sale of 40% off on almost all of their Drops yarn. Since my darling husband appreciates a bargain, he didn’t complain too much when I went slightly spastic in our local yarn store.

I have 20 balls of dark blue Eskimo to make myself a sweater of some kind (possibly this hoodie), 7 balls of Karisma to make a cardigan for squirt (probably this one, adjusted for the different yarn), and a whole swag of Karisma in various colours that can eventually become socks & mittens. There are lots of lacy sock patterns I’d like to try out, but all the sock yarn in my stash is self-striping, which I think doesn’t work so well with lace.

Some of you may be surprised to see flashes of pink in that pile. It’s true that I have a well publicised dislike of pink. However, I’m now mother to a little girl who has a very gender-neutral wardrobe. This, in combination with the general lack of other girly features (long hair, boobs, makeup) means that she often gets mistaken for a boy. So I recognise the need for a little bit of pink in her world.

Just don’t start expecting me to wear pink myself. Ick!

I’ve been managing to do some sewing, the priority being on something nice for Anneli to wear for George & Eli’s wedding next weekend. I’ve made a dress & bloomers combination:

And since the wedding is in Spain, I’ve made a sun hat to keep her precious skin safe:

We also bought the little one a pair of sunnies:

More cuteness here.