SweaterHemming -tutorial

I bought this wonderful Devold 100 % wool sweater from Svalbard, Norway in 2018. That means 8 yrs ago. I also bought that Svalbard-Longyearbye -badge I sew on the sleeve. This sweater has been in "all year around" -use and very dear to me. Now the hems of its right sleeve has started to worn out. (I am right handed.) There are signs of it also in the left sleeve and trunk hem too. That's why I have been thinking how to fix it because otherwise the sweater is still in perfect fit.

Instead of patching I decided to use crocheting. I used simple crochet stitch. It is easy to make also for the beginners and it fades well into the knitting. If the hem has already broken yarns, make sure you make your crochet stitch far enough to make sure you catch everything. You get it very neat when you crochet each stitch equal distance, according to the deepest point your yarn has been broken.

At the end -like in my case- even the new yarn would be different shade, it fits in well. I could have used also white yarn, but I didn't want to. there are different shades of whites too and because the other shade is red I was afraid of the new white would not hide the red under the white so well. Make sure you choose as similar quality of yarn as possible compared to the original sweater. You can go seeking it wearing the sweater. 💕

On the tutorial video above you can see and learn how to make it. It really is FashionNOW. It also saves your personal time, energy and money... not to mention the PlanetEarth. I bet this makes your favorite sweater even dearer because now you fix it yourself and created a new memory!

UpdatedHotWaterBottleCover

Years ago (10/2017) I made HotWaterBottleCover -tutorial. Now I decided to make a new cover for the same hot water bottle. For that I machine felt one of my oldest and dearest cardigans. This is the same cardigan I show you in Lint removing -tutorial 2016! I have bought this almost 30 years ago. It finally begins to look a bit worn out. Because I have made for me PolarBear and Wolf pullovers I finally put this cardigan in the laundry washing machine, set up with 90 Celsius degrees and 1400 rounds per minute. The result was exactly what I wished for. It was a bit exciting experience because it always really is a bit surprise what pops out.

The cover is included with a birthday card made of recycled (magazines) and some new materials. This is FashionNOW gift for a very special person: the mother of my grandchild. 

AAW Sweater No1

I designed and made a sweater for me & myself. I used snag grey AAW (50% our own ethic produced arctic angora wool, 40% ethic produced FinnSheep wool, 10% nylon) (100g = 238m) for the project.

Both back and front side look similar. I wanted to make a turtle neck and slim fit design because I already made PolarBear sweater which is bigger, thicker and warmer. ThePolarBear is for wearing it over something and this WolfPawPrint sweater is meant for wearing it under something. 

I knit the shoulder part twice because I ran out of the green yarn and I wanted to make it even and match with everything. It has simple Fair Isle design of different kind of stripes and paw prints.

I could not go to a yarn shop and by more because it is FashionNOW and made of our own yarn AAW. I do have more of it but not the green. I plant dyed the snag grey AAW yarn by Surprise Webcaps (Cortinarius semisanguineus) (browns) and red onion (green). So, at the end there was just 40 cm green yarn left. Well done!!! 

PolarBears AAW

Look what I've done! It is Norwegian Linka Neumann design from her book Villmarksgensere 2. She is a very talented designer and her style touches my soul. After a long-long-long and even longer time I have knit something according to someone else than my own design. I just can't resist her style.

I have 3 books from Linka and have dreamed for a long time to have a change (=freetime) to knit some of her designs. It has taken almost 12 months to complete this; to be able to find the spare moment to knit just something only for myself. 

It has been a long-term plan to make this jumper. I have used AAW from our 1st collection for this design. It is a very special yarn (50% our own ethic produced arctic angora wool, 40% ethic produced FinnSheep wool, 10% nylon) (100g = 238m). In June 2023 I finally found some time every now and then to start to plant dye our AAW yarn.

It all is knit by Fair Isle style. Except the polar bears. The polar bears were at first knit by the basic color of AAW. After finishing the jumper I used duplicate stitching and Novita 7 veljestä yarn (blanco and nature white) to make the polar bears thicker and whiter. I could have used white yarn at first but because I wanted them to be thicker and get a bit variegated fur I first used the basic color and then duplicate stitching with another shade. At front I have 2 blanco white polar bears...

...and at back side they all 3 are nature white. I wanted to do it in this way because of the climate change and the fact that all the polar bears are not the same white shade. There are many shades in white, like in the life itself too. It is not always just black or white, but far too often we speak about the shades of grey. There are shades of white too.

This brand new jumper we can call FashionNOW design despite it is a brand new piece of cloth. I have produced 50% of the material by myself (the angora wool), 40% of the material (FinnSheep) is produced at a home hobby farm by someone I know. All the colors (except the white ones) I plant dyed at home using 90% the plants from my local area, collected by my self by respecting the nature and diversity. The white ones are left over materials from the projects years back. Instead of throwing the white ones away I saved them for the further use = this.

This jumper is my own gift for 50 yrs old me. And the brooch I am using with it is a birthday gift from my childhood friend with whom we turn to 50 yrs day after another.  It is Inarin Hopea design Solar Bear. On the jumper where it walks with me, it reminds about my Sámi culture, roots and ideology. Its shiny silver blink drives away the evil, dark and all the bad that might be hiding on the path I am walking.

Lumipallerot

I designed and made children wollen pullover Lumipallerot (=snow ball tots). It was an interesting project. 

I used blue Novita's Natural Colledction Islandic wool (100% wool) (50g = 90m) and white Novita's Isoveli (75% wool, 25% polyamidi) (100g = 130m) yarn. 

I used mixed methods to make it. It has themes from Icelandic and Norwegian pullovers, Fair Island knit and Bubble Stitch knit. It also has raglan sleeves.

There is tutorial for Bubble Stitch. I made it in 2016.

FinishedWinterProject

These are buttons. They are HomeMade. The material is reindeer antler (horn). And actually made of ones which a reindeer drop down and then found by a human and collected for the further use. My father-in-law made these CuteLittleButtons. I got six of them for MyWinterProject which I started on July.

For years the idea of it was just in my head. This year I finally picked it up and made it to be seen on a paper and touched by hands.

I love polo turtle necks, wool, cables and just a little bit of romantic country style spice.

The shoulder area was very easy to make true at the end. I was a bit afraid of it but no... it was easy.

The turtle neck is made to be multi-usable.

The buttons can be seen or hide.

Turtle neck CLOSED & DOWN...

...and CLOSED & UP.

And here it is on me. I love it. Just in the way I wanted. My own design. All in natural shade without chemicals and 100% FinnSheepWool.

First knitting challenge DONE!

Yeppee yeppee yeppee I did it I didi it I did it I did it!!!!! And guess what! I did it only once! Yes, just once!

I thought I have to knit it for several times but no -just once. I must admit I was very careful and had breaks to see how it begins to form out. I had days when I just kept it on the table to see how it looks and to understand what to do next. As I told before at my previous post it is my own design and I have the pattern of it only in my head.

I used two different kind of yarn. The details of them you can see here.

Believe me or not but I broke those bamboo knitting needles before finishing the pullover. It was the first time these needles were in use. So the lesson of the project is -rather cheaper equipment than expencive ones if the quality is the same or you can't see the difference.  I was lucky because these knitting needles were free sample so I paid nothing. I loved them but the plastic cord between them just got broken and loosed from another bamboo needle. No, I didin't pull and it was like cut off 1 cm far from the needle. And yes, it was possible to fix it by shorten the cord and take away the remaining piece from the needle -but I realized it too late.

See, it happen that the cat got very interesting and exiting toy. Finally she was allowed to touch my knitting needles. So much fun we had until I was told it can be fixed but the cord was already bitten so it all got too short at the end! But we had fun and that's the most important thing. :D