crochet stool cover

Since I first saw pictures of wood&wool stool I´ve been dreaming of making my own crochet-stool-cover. I searched a long, long time for the perfect stool for this project... and last summer in july I finally found it in my favorite thrifstore (I blogged about it here - it took me 2 attempts to get it :-)!!

After painting the stool with some white wall-paint, the next problem was that I simply could not decide what pattern and colors to use for the squares  - that´s why I haven´t finished the cover until now.... crazy, I know... but when I realized that I could simply make another one if I didn´t like the first one anymore I could finally get myself to finish this project.

Details:
yarn: cotton from Söstrene Grene (2 shades of grey and mustard yellow)
hook: 2,5
Patterns:
grey squares: Sarafia by Handóð
yellow squares: chart found here

We use this practical and pretty chair as a side table, play-table, a seat, a chair for the feet, we put our food-plaits on it, our laptops, toys, our cups of coffee... we just love it - and since it got covered even more! :-) Now I just have to find 3 more so that everyone in the family has it´s own stool with it´s own unique cover!

photoshop magic

I´ve been taking classes in photoshop, illustrator and indesign this winter and discovering the magic of those wonderful programs... and look what I created, using this cool tutorial...

... I took this one...  

... and this one (found on google)...

... and turned them into this... 

I just love photoshop...

Christmas is coming...

I´ve been busy creating different things lately.

The first thing I want to tell you about is our new advent-candle-holder. I really love driftwood and I found this beautiful piece in the north of Iceland about 2 years ago. I took it with me because I loved it, without knowing what I was going to do with it. Right now, I´m so glad I did! 

Using my pretty piece of driftwood, old candle-holders with a needle at the bottom - the ones you would normally use for candle-wreaths (like those) & tiny wooden stars I bought at Laugarvegur (púkó og smart) I made this really simple and natural-looking advent-candle-holder. :-)   

Ooooohhhh how I love it...

Kría

The second thing I want to tell you about is my second Kria-shawl - what a wonderful project... you can work on it everywhere and in almost every situation (except maby while driving or sleeping)... 

you can take a look at my first one in this post and on Raverly. 

yarn: my own, handdyed einband (icelandic wool), dyed with different kind of plants

made for: my lovely friend Rodrigo for his birthday

Button: from my "button-stash"

And now to my nr. 3: my candle-decorating. 

How I did it: 

1. I found some lovely pictures on pinterest (you can find them over there in my "jól" board), printed them out (normal paper, landscape layout, with black ink only) 

2. Cut the picture out in the right size, depending on your candle

3. Finally, I mod-podged my candle about 3 times, glued the picture on the candle and mod-podged it from the outside. 

It has been burning for a few days now, the paper has still not gone up in flames and we really love the way it looks... 

I´m thinking about making some special designs, using Illustrator as Christmas-gifts...

word of the week

My sister chose last weeks "word of the week" for our photochallenge (me and the super talented knitwear designer Johanna at knittingmydayaway) : "collective memory".
This word is not an easy one but so very interesting and challenging in a wonderful way. I really loved working with it. You can find a good explanation of the word at Wikipedia.

I thought about this word for days, waited for the right lighting and the right subject - and yesterday it finally happened... the perfect light and the most perfect subject ever!

In the beginning of 1900 my great great grandfather and my great great grandmother moved with their daughter to Reykjvík. They bought a house in the city center, that was quite high (2-3 floors) for a wooden house in Reykjavík at that time. Later my grandmother Kristín - and later my father and his sister where born and raised in that house. Through the years I´ve heard so much about that house and the life my family lived there - on almost every Sunday-walk in the city center we walked passed that house and my father told us fascinating stories about the house, the inhabitants, him self and some funny pranks he and his friends did there, the food, the neighborhood, the rooms...
Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I actually got the chance to visit the house together with some family members. My father and his sister walked with us through the house - and memory lane - from the basement to the top and once again I was fascinated. The perfect photo-subject for collective memory - in this case: the memory of my family and everyone else that has ever lived there or heard the stories since it was built at the end of 19th century.

Entrance and tree 

in the past  -  my great grandmother planted this tree

(on this picture: my grandmother and my father)

today 

 

my fathers hand and the tree

 

 

 

 Playroom 

today:

past

staircase

I thought the staircase was really fascinating - they still have the original stairs and handrails in the house, so that all my ancestors have walked up those steps and touched the handrail

  

notice all those layers of paint?

in my ancestors steps

remains of the past

 the owners of the house kept this old wallpaper and newspaper on the walls when renovating

balcony

another self-portrait

Stone

my fathers wall 

not just a crack in the wall - my father made this one on purpose as a child to make it easier to pass that wall

the unexpected

Life is full of the unexpected, you never really know what´s happening next 

- therefore I say: learn to enjoy every moment 

Crochet snowflakes and christmas in my heart

These little crochet decorations simply make me happy - I´m so glad I learned how to crochet this year! :-)

Snowflake from the book "Þóra"

Crochet hearts, the one in the front is from the book "Þóra" and the one in the back is a free tutorial, found here

I really loved making Lucy´s (attic24) snowflakes - they are so easy to make, quick and really really pretty! I just couldn´t stop making them and had to try out other materials than cotton... bulky lopi, léttlopi and einband (jurtalitað), which I dyed myself with dandelions and Rumex longifolius (njóli)

Since the light was so poor last week (it´s dark most of the time at the moment) I wasn´t able to take any pictures (word of the week). This shot is in a way a little something to compensate for that. Last weeks task was to choose a little spot (a room, a corner of your garden, balcony... ) and look for something interesting to take pictures of.
I went right outside my front door and tried to find something interesting there - not an easy task - but since I love moss, this little spot, covered with green moss is really interesting in my eyes...