Yarns and chocolate

Some years ago I inherit pile of yarns. Now the bottom of the box can finally be seen. This means I have started to plan to buy more. This box full of all kind of yarns has been super. Every time knitting or crocheting bug arrived to tease me I just needed to open the box and see what to do. I think arranging such a great storage of yarns would be wonderful. I do have a lot embroidery threads on storage but before I inherit someone elses's yarn collection I always had the problem I never had yarn to knit. So that's why it feels just reasonable to fill to box again with basic yarns.

I just hope it won't be like with the squirrels. You collect great storage of stuff and then forget where you put it! But on the other hand it is always a great surprise when you find some. Oh, I didn't know I had this.

See, my sister once forgot she had (like we all have) chocolate on storage. She had hidden it so well that she had lost it and forgot. Once she bought more and hide it to the same place. It was a happy surprise when she notice she already had it storaged for a bad day. So, of course she had now permit to eat the old ones. My advice is that if you remember where your chocolate storage is you can always pretend you don't! :)

Santa Claus factory

Today I received a letter from a friend. She wrote that she guesses I have almost all presents ready already. She knows me so well. What else can I say? Christmas arrives every year. I know it. I love it. And want to relax and enjoy about it. There's pictured only few gifts I have made. But I can tell you, none of them is for you. I updated only the gifts whose owners won't be reading my blog! :)

This bench cover is made of Norwegian Gjestal's Cortina soft 100% wool yarn. It is my own design. I sew woollen fabric lining to the other side to make it feel even more warmer and softer.

This pot holder is also made of Norwegian Gjestal's Cortina soft 100% wool yarn. The design is my own and I used loose end yarn. I crocheted it first and then washed in washing machine to get it felted up. When you felt something it always gets shrinken so it's important to make it big enough.

This pair of woollen sock I knit again from loose end threads of the same trade mark. The colours are Lapland themed. You get easily arctic themed colours by using just basic shades of white, red, green, yellow and blue. I used only white, red and green because I had only them and I didn't want to or need to buy more yarn to get these socks finished. If you look very carefully you can notice I used two shades of white: "natural white" and "blanc" and that seems to work fine.

When I knit socks or mittens I never have design on the paper to follow. It's always my own design in my head. If you use loose end threads, the ones that are left over from some other project, it is easy when you knit both sock at the same time.

So many months

There's so many months since I updated my blog for the last time. Unfortunately there's things you need to do to earn your living and always it can't be the craft. On the other hand the time you need to spend away from your desires more delicate it tastes when you can get back on to it. :)

In July I gave the 40th wedding anniversary gift to special people. Finally here's the picture of loved gift. It stands on the place of the honour in their living room. If you take a look at it very careful you notice it is not just converted by a designing programm. It took hours of work to pick up the shades. I didn't want it to look black and white as the original picture. They have big black and white photos on the walls from old times. I wanted the design look naturally old but I wanted it to differ from the original black and white photography. That's why I did also some other changes to the picture.

The frame is great and I was so happy to have it. That's because they have also almost similar framed very old colour picture on the wall.

 This is my own photo stitch design. I used a designing programm to convert the original picture behind 40 years. I did a lot of changes to get better outfit to this cross stitch project. I rejected almost all the shades the computer suggested. I did also many other changes. Coverting a picture to a cross stitch chart by a computer is easy but programms offer you also possibilities to make it better than the computer suggests. Computer has no brains so always its suggestions are not brilliant. It takes some time to do it all by hands but usually it's needable to do so to get best possible outlook. If I use converting programms in designing I use the computer's result just as a base on which I start to create.

St.Lucia (free chart)

I finally got a picture of finished St.Lucia chart. The one of my own designs that is also a free chart on this website. I plan to sew a new hot water bottle cover and want this picure of St.Lucia to warm it. But it's a summer and my intention to sew such a warmer is not working at the moment. :)

Arctic summer

You would not believe but I have start a knitting project for the comming winter. No, there's not any sings of comming winter yet and we are living on the best time of the summer. But still I picked up the knitting project so that I'll have enough time to finish it.

I popped in my favourite yarn shop and found excellent material from a  discount basket. It's SandnesGarn kitten Mohair yarn in apple green shade. (30% mohair, 20% wool, 50% courtelle.) Retail price was 4,95€/50g but it was on sale for 2,50€/50g. I could not say no. I bought every nine balls of it that was. I planned to knit a pullover for a horse girl but I ended up to knit a vest/sipover. I use two strands so it's going to be thicker and even more warmer. It's not going to have sleeves because it will be so thick so there will be more space for arms to move on under it all in winter clothing.

The vest won't need all of the yarn so we'll see what else I will knit from it. It depends on it how much will be left at the end.