Magic Treetop Bags

This weekend is easter weekend, which means a lot of free time. And the sun is shining and I was feeling brave enough to try something new: felting!

I got this really course yarn from a co worker, I think it was spun straight from the sheep because it even had twigs in it :)
Not really suited to wear on the skin...
So bags it will be, and then of course one designed by Tiny Owl Knits. Yes I do love her whimsical designs, I admit.

When I started with this big floppy bag and the warning on the interwebs that felting is really hard to achieve when you have a front-loader washing machine. But after a few good spins on the highest temp it became this really cute bag: Kawai! (cute in japanese..) ♥

And I had enough yarn left to make TWO, yes.... two, more!

I was laughing all the way, felting is quite an artsy and organic process. You never know what will be the end product. I was quite surprised to see that the yarn became darker in the process, but it looked really good :)

So this afternoon I went to the park and made some pics of the first two bags in my fav tree. Then I had lunch on a bench in the sun with a really good fish salad: good times ♥


PS: I love my new shoes, They're from El Naturalista, a shoe company which is completely eco friendly and recycles. I love the look and walking in them. LOVE

And a random pretty flower photo taken in the park:

Vision for Maris

A few weeks back Mariska was nice enough to come with me to the yarn store. While she was there she found the most perfect shrug in one of the Rowan books. Can you make this Mariek? Sure, no problem. And I was looking forward to working with the luxurious Rowan kid Silk haze. Which is like the lovechild of a silkworm and an angora bunny :) lols

But.... boy, oh boy, I detested making the thing every step of the way! Don't get me wrong it is a great design and I am absolutely in love with finished piece...
First off the big circle was so easy it was really BORING. I had to push myself each night to do another repeat.
And then I thought when the fun was coming, meaning lace, I love lace. Nohooo the lace was written and not charted! And Rowan uses other names for certain stitches! AAAAARGH!
I kept losing my way even though I have done the exact same lace pattern on socks like a month before :( Not a happy camper on that one.
By then I wanted to finish it so bad I pushed on, but if it had been for me it would have gotten a one way trip to the frog pond pretty fast, rippit rippit..

But as I said the finished thing is gorgeous and looks fantabulously good on Maris.

For me it was a lesson: I will not knit for other people unless I love them dearly, my bff got her shrug purely out of the love I feel for her.
Imagine finishing something you detest for someone you hardly know? I wouldn't, so I learned my lesson: yay for me!

Bow peep ♥

ai haz a pwoduktiev!

Hahhaaaaa! Last week Tiny Owl Knits decided she liked all the ♥ luveedovee ♥ people on the TOK forum sooo much she gave us the Bo peep pattern so we could look like the presents that we are.





Well... wattayaknow... I wanted to make that pattern desperately!
So off to the yarn shop we went and bought some great pink alpaca bij Drops and some kidsilk in a purpelish color, also by Drops.

Done in a few days and it makes me smile (lily allen song playing in the background).

Had some yarn left over and made these Elf Clobber mittens which is a free pattern on ravelry.

All things mentioned in this posts have links in the bar on the topleft of this blog :) enjoy!

Mori girls

Just tapped into a great inspirational; the new Harajuka style called Mori girls. (Well it has been around sometime now, but it is new to me ♥ )

Mori girls look like they just had lunch with the woodland fairies. I think the style is whimsical! I love all the knitwear and crochet accessories, but I also like the "upcycle" look of it. Take something old or from the thrift store and re-do it!

Feels like looking at the world with the eyes of a child and seeing magic everywhere. Be gone flashy brightness and all, hello taking a walk in the woods and reading a good book (or doing a good knit).

Of course, some source material for you all to drool over:

♥ Cahier♥

Craftiness attack! (not knitting related, but it involved ribbon..)

You wont believe how many pieces of ribbon and string I have lying around the house! The same goes for small swatches of fabric...

Last week I had the ultimate idea: make diaries/ notebooks/ cahiers out of them :) Mariska is in on this project; we're going to start a store one day..




So this sunday morning I put everything I could find in a big container, got out the glue gun and glue spray and got me some crafting going on ♥

Decided I could do loads more and sell them: so... if you want one, contact me, they are selling for 9,95 euros each. (Please note: shipping stuff international from the Netherlands starts with 6,75 euro! I know bugger them postal services for being so darn expensive.)

Do you see the little cow? (mooohoo) I hand embroidered that when I was about twelve years old! Has been lying idly in a box all these years! And look at her now, so pretty!

PDF's

Today I actually managed to make a PDF!
I took the pattern for the Quinn hat from this blog and actually made it into a pretty fancy PDF file.

To be quite honest... I used the "pages" program from my Mac computer and simply saved it as a PDF... And Pages has some pretty darn good templates to be used.

But.... I'm still pretty pleased with myself, being all impatient with computers and all.

So, drumroll please,
Now available as a free PDF download on Ravelry: Quinns cute hat from Glee!

Teeny tiny Fairy socks

For the past weeks I have been working on a pair of socks in a very, very, very intricate lace pattern. I've been doing some bulky yarn projects in between which made the socks look and feel even harder.

Teeny tiny thin needles and teeny thin yarn, even for a sock yarn. Klaziens kreatie Arwetta on 2,5 mm needles :)

Yarn was soooooo soft, and had a good stitch definition, which I love since there is no need in knitting intricate stuff if it doesn't show right?
(Never try to do japanse stitches in a fuzzy alpaca yarn, take it from me, there is nothing to see there... move along...)

Since the lace made the socks look like origami, that is what I named them: Origami socks.
The pattern is Susanna by Stephanie vd Linden: link to pattern.
The pattern has lace EVERY round. Usually when you do lace there is a round in between with only knit stitches (when going in the round). This is relaxing and gives your brain some time to chill... In this pattern, it, well...., kept on going and going and going. Not that I didn't like it; I actually did :)



Had to modify it of course! I had some lovely vintage ribbon that I bought of Etsy, the colors matched the yarn very good, in my opinion.
So...... After twelve rounds of knitting I put in a round of yo and k2tog, that way producing eyelets for the ribbon. After two more rounds of ribbing I started the lace pattern.




In the end they were to small for me, so they were donated to my mother, who has the most lovely tiny feet.

 The leg part is kinda loose and high so I figured they would look nice under some booties almost as one would use legwarmers, more like a accessory almost :)