Yarn splurge,

With the excuse of  the upcoming demand for Christmas presents, my friend and I went to what, among keen knitters, weavers and crocheters, must be called yarn heaven.  I think I could have spend days there, but unfortunately...... And off course we didn't leave empty handed.

A friend in Denmark saw me experience with a skein of the very unusual "yarn collage" that I had found in a little gallery in Chester, CT. When she heard that the intention was to turn it into a pillow cover, she put one on her wish list for Christmas.

 Therefore my extravaganza in the yarn store yesterday. 

Here is what I returned home with 

 

My excuse for the next lot of yarn is seat covers, for my ancient Danish dining chairs that needs an update.

 I have already started out, simply couldn't resist, so pictures will follow soon!

 

 

Fall projects

I tend to get a little bored if the projects I am working one is a little repetitive. Therefor I found that having the opportunity to switch between projects could work for me. Currently I am working on a men's cowl. It is based on  a pattern designed by Jeanette from the fantastic danish blog: Lutter Idyl. So far it has teached me to crochet the basket weave pattern which is beautiful, looks a lot like knit and purl blocks.

I have been searching the Internet for cool and contemporary crochet projects that doesn't look too much like something that was designed back in the 60'ies. That is really hard to find.  So when I was looking through my blog list on Friday night i stumbled upon a great blog post from PurlBee for another cowl.  What caught my attention was the way the blog post started out mentioning that crocheters all over the world has felt like Cinderella at the needlecraft ball. Where "Belle Knit" dances the night away and Crochet-erella" stays home and search for a modern design so she can be a part of all the festivities. It hit home, just what I have been thinking.  ...and on top of the the cowl looked amazing.  Along with this project was also the opportunity to try out another new crochet feature, that I have read about but never tried,  the foundation stitch, where you combine the foundation chain with the first row of stitches.
I spend the rest of Friday evening trying out this foundation stitch.  Purl Bee has a tutorial, and I tried to use it, but did not have any luck.  Googled foundation stick and found this website, Crochet Spot  that in my opinion described it a little easier.  It makes the edge of your project more even.

Last but not least I am working on a pair of fingerless gloves from Ros Badgers book, that I have mentioned before. The pattern is super easy so I wanted to try it out with a left over stash of soft red alpaca and merino, that I had in my basket.

3 months till Christmas!

Today is, as hard as it is to believe, wednesday the 25th of September.  That means that there is exactly 3 months till Christmas and a little less than 3 months if you live in our family where we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve as it is tradition in our home country.

So why not get in the spirit a little early and make another Christmas Tree?

The next little tree here is a bit more colorful, than the pure black and white version shown the other day.

You start out with a single dry cleaners hanger and  bend it into the trunk of the tree with a good solid base. Wrap  pipe cleaners around the hanger and build up the amount of branches you like the tree to have.

Cut up a lot of scrap tissue paper in strips. Lesson learned. Don't  use purple tissue paper if you want to end up with a white tree!. It requires  way to much white paint to cover it up. You can either use a mix of e.g. Elmer's school glue and water in 1:2 or you can make up a paste of flour and water. I used Elmer's glue and it worked well.

In my case. Several layers of white acrylic paint was poured over the tree. It dries really quickly, so you will see quick results. 

The final "tree" with the many colors of hearts, to celebrate the holidays in a colorful way. In one of my next posts I will show you how to make the felted hearts.

First weekend of Fall

It is hard to believe, but the First weekend of Fall is here. I love the seasons so the quarterly change  of scenery is wonderful in my opinion. Each season brings something new, outdoors  as well as indoors. I love to watch the foliage change and I think I have 500 pictures of fall leaves and trees alone.

As much as I like summer and the sun, lighting the first candles inside and curl up on the coach under a blanket with a book or my current project, is very nice.

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I hope you get a chance to enjoy this first weekend of fall!

Pom pom hat

I am a little obsessed with Ros Badgers book. I am now on my second project and are ready to start the third as soon as this one is done.

It is still considered summer here, one more day to go! So maybe it is a little too early for a winter pom pom hat.  I just can't help it. I love to crochet, it gives me such peace to just sit there and see project after project grow in my hands. :) and this one was quick and easy. Started out while watching my son practice soccer and finished it the next morning.

I think she looks adorable, but she claims that this is too tight a design for her, she prefers a long poffy one. Maybe we will be working on that next.

I tried out the trim in a bright red color.  Did not work well. So ended up with a more traditional white trim and pom pom.

I still think that the little pom pom making "machines" from Clover is absolutely amazing. It takes no time to make a pom pom and they very conveniently become exactly identical every time.  So much easier than the cardboard version.

...and the final result.  I think; maybe a christmas present? Not sure for who though, yet.  Showed it to my nephew and told him that it would be for him for Christmas and his only comment was, that he was so glad that he isn't going to spend Christmas with me and have to fake to be happy for this lovely little hat. Ok maybe he is right. This doesn't scream cool 21 year old.

Christmas in September.

It sounds crazy but the holiday season is approaching quickly.  I have spend some time over the summer to think about what to do in order to get my little craft business started up properly.  That initiated a discussion with my husband about how to create a christmas tree of "something" metal as I had this idea of creating different trees to show off different color combinations, of some of the christmas ornaments that I make.  After an interesting trip to my hubby's favorite store Home Depot we started out with this:

The base was made of two metal rings on top of each other with a 12 inch large nail in the middle. My husband "glued" it together with some epoxy putty. Not my favorite, but the Home Depot specialist insisted that this was the only thing that would work.  After some drying time, Hubby started to assemble the nails with some metal wire.

Then it was my turn to have a go and we ended up with this little tree.

A bunch of ornaments in white and black

...and this is the final result.

I am working on a paper mache version made of recycled hangers from the dry cleaner, pipe cleaners and some tissue paper. Will be right back with that one :)

Basket for my ongoing project

I received one of my favorite packages In the mail on wednesday! It contained a long awaited book i had ordered from the UK as it hasn't been published here yet. It is "hook, yarn AND crochet" by Ross Badger.I have ordered several crochet books over the past couple of months and this is truly my favorite. There is 20 projects all together in the book and I imidiately was drawn to more than half of them.

Here is my attempt of making one of them. A small basket made in Zpagetti yarn. The intention was to just add a contrasting top in the same yarn, but I had recently bought the wonderful collage yarn and wanted to try that out as the trimming on the rim. I think it came out very nice.



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 ...and the final result.  I think the collage yarn adds a nice sparkle to the basket.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life and it is a happy one!

At 9.14 am this morning I finished my last radiation treatment in a row of 33! I have the doctors words for,that I now, after 31/2 months of mammograms, doctors visits, biopsy's, surgery and finally the radiation, that I am cured. I know that in other countries they never tell you, that you are cured, but my surgeon here did and I have decided, that I might as well believe in that.  What have I to lose?
So today is the first day of the rest of my life and I am very happy.

My favorite summer flower.

Why am I telling you this?  My daughter said a couple of weeks back, "Mom why don't you share some of all your "ups and downs" in relation to all the things you have experienced in your life?"  We discussed that a little and I decided, that maybe I did have something to say about living in different countries, getting to know people and their culture, experience from a health system very different to the one i originally come from, emotions that come along when you read in an e-mail from well meaning officials that you now have a very serious condition...... and then off course my creative adventures, that is very very close to my heart.

So in the year, where I stepped into a new and scary decade. Am now past the first half century! And with a new spring in my step as I and we, as my whole family and good friends, helped me through this not very exciting period of my life, I will try to send my little comments out in blog land from time to time. How often? I am not really sure. We will see.