Kristín Hrund Handcrafts

DIY: headband

2012-03-03T04:10:00.010-08:00

I´m going to a big, chic party with my husband and really want something pretty for my hair...

So what I did and used was this:

The most important thing: a crochet-doily. I made this one other day, using this youtube-video: I really love this doily - and the video was really good and easy to follow:

The rest: hot glue, thick paper (I used a cerial-box), a black felt sheet (mine is from the store "Tiger") , a ribbon (mine is from "Twill"), and a headband/spöng.

What I did:

1. Cut a paper-circle, big as your doily or whatever you are using...

2. Cut a felt-circle, bigger than your paper-circle:

2. Hot-glue the overlapping felt to the paper - as you can see, it doesn´t have to look pretty or perfect at this point:

3. Hot-glue another felt-circle (a bit smaller) over the ugly side... and voila... looking pretty and clean again:

4. Wrap your ribbon around the headband/spöng, and make make dot´s of hot glue on the headband as you go, to make it stick:

5. hot glue the doily to the felt/paper-circle you just made before: (I put tiny dots of hot glue on the doily and then put it on the circle)

6.The final step: hot glue the circle to the headband...

I love, love, LOVE the result - my little one was the only model available but he was willing to pose with this girly thing for me:

from the inside:

From the front:

Creative...

2012-02-29T03:57:00.009-08:00

I´ve been creating so many different things for the last few weeks:

1. I´m having a crochet-collar-mania at the moment: since I started my crochet-journey, I´ve been going crazy with my crochet-hook and making many different kind of collars - they are so much fun, quick and easy to make and really make a difference...

Really love this one - been wearing it a lot:

Yes, I DO have a thing for buttons - this one is vintage from a thrift store:

great picture, but you get the idea:

2. I´ve been really busy making something special with my mum for a week now... it involves old curtains from the thrift store, some new fabric, IKEA and 2 sewing machines... can´t wait to show you the result of this secret mission! :-)

3. After spending a lot of time (maby too much) on Pinterest, I was inspired to make a fairytale-box for my boys. You might be asking yourself, what that is? Well, since my boys are growing up with 2 different languages I´m always thinking of new methods to help them developing their language-skills - making them tell a story of their own really helps them and makes them use their imagination at the same time. This is how it looks like:

on the outside: on the inside: You put some fun things inside, and make your kids tell a story about them - you can use everything you want to, even words if the know how to read, shapes, numbers, letters, colours, toys... depending on what you want to practice and the age of your kid:

The fairytale-box helps your kids developing their language-skills, readings-skills (if you use letters or words), colours, shapes... what ever you want too... and the best thing about it is, that for them this is a game and it is so much fun to hear their stories! My boys really love this simple thing!

How I did it:

I clued pretty origami-paper-sheets on an old shoe-box (inside and outside) and something called "bókaplast" in icelandic (a plastic-thing with glue on one side, used to protect books - please tell me the word if you know it).

Me and my boys having fun:

Once upon a time there was... embroidery

2012-02-23T01:04:00.006-08:00

After realizing how many different kind of projects I´ve finished through the years I decided to share one of them with you once a week... Since I love fairytales, I´m going to call this "thing" "Once upon a time there was... ". This week I´m going to show you some cushions I made 2003 for our bedroom in Germany.

The embroidery is freestyle and I the only thing I decided before I started making them was that I wanted a bird in the center and some kind of flowers because they are so fun to make! I used some stitchguides in the wonderful french DIY-magazine "Marie Claire Idees", some fabric from my fabric-stash and small beads. I used a lot of chain-stitch...

Nr. 1:

Nr. 2:

A butterfly came my way:

My mum taught my how to make those circle-flowers:

Fantasy-flowers:

Details:

A ladybird, to bring us luck:
More details: circle-flowers and beads:

I was so happy, when my birch-twigs actually became green! Never in my dreams I would have expected that!

Flashback: a lopapeysa-chart

2012-02-17T03:59:00.010-08:00

I´m´really excited to introduce you: my first very own contribution on Ravelry: Flashback, a lopapeysa-chart. This chart is designed for an icelandic adult lopapeysa made out of single stranded unspun icelandic plötulopi. But of course, you can use it for many different things like knitted cushions, embroidery, even a lopapeysa made out of léttlopi or some other materials with the same gauge (18.0 to 24.0 sts = 4 inches; 50g =100m) - if you use einband (lace), you might have to add a few rows in the beginning... just use your imagination!

I call my chart "Flashback", because working on this chart brought me back in time, and made me think of myself, drawing patterns in my math-notebook in school, instead of working on my math-skills! :-D

I´d love to see some pictures of your work, if you are using my chart! :-)

On the following pictures you can see what the chart looks like when knitted. For this sweater, I used the pattern "Freyja" by Ragnheiður Eiríksdóttir (available in english and icelandic).

Details:
Material: Þingborg-lopi
Needles: for the body: 4,5; for the sleeves: 3,5 (will use only 3,5 next time because my gauge is quite loose)
changes: modified arms (longer and different increases)- I really love the Freyja-body, shaped with short rows, decreases and increases...

My chart: Flashback

From a distance:

Shaping:

Love this buttons... old buttons from my mum - and yes, I DO have a thing for buttons...

Steeking is a strange thing...

DIY: birthdaycards

2012-02-09T04:34:00.000-08:00

For years now, I´ve been making birthdaycards myself - why? Well:
1.: who doesn´t like personalized, homemade birthdaycards?
2. you save a lot of money
3: I love making them :-)

When I first started, I always drawed something I relate with the person, since I really love drawing. But after having 2 boys, I had to find some new, more quick methods to make them! That´s when I started using books, my boys had damaged. Now I also buy books & old magazines I find at thrift stores and no one wants to buy because there is no cover, pages are missing and they are damaged - for almost nothing! Since I hate the thought of throwing books away, giving old, torn up books a new purpose and meaning makes me really, really happy! :-)

The process is easy and what you need is:

Glue and scissors

thick paper or carton, I often use thick paper for drawing because of the nice texture:
Old, torn books no one wants anymore:

Old, torn magazines no one wants:

What you do next, is to seek some pictures you like... cut them out and glue them on the paper:

Here you have some examples you could use... a text on the card (like in cartoons) can make the card even more special and fun:

love this retro-looking-Buzz:

soooo cute and funny:

Very cool

For someone special and "yours":

For a car-fan

Girly and classic:

OR, if you have the time and skills, you can draw something:

Fairy: (love them...)

Dragon:

fish:

Have fun!

The versatile blogger award II

2012-02-09T02:08:00.000-08:00

I´m proud and happy to be able to tell you, that once again, I´ve been nominated for the Versatile blogger award - this time by "Fra arstid til arstid"! It´s so wonderful to hear, that what I´m doing on my blog is appreciated... and since I really love her blog too, it makes me even more happy!
Hilde takes wonderful pictures of nature, creates beautiful things, always has something interesting to tell us and loves nature just like me.

The Versatile blogger award rules are: that you should pass it on to 15 blogs you like to read, and let the bloggers know they have been nominated. Then you have to share 7 things about yourself. Finally you have to thank the award giver and link back to them.

Though there are many blogs I love to read - but since I already listed 15 blogs the last time I was nominated, I´m bending the rules a little here, and nominate three bloggers for the award:

1. Knittingmydayaway: Jóhanna makes wonderful things, creates beautiful knitting patterns and takes beautiful pictures... reading her blog is a joy!

2. Rodprjonar: Rodrigo is a wonderful knitter and a wonderful person who writes about his knitting and all the amazing creative things he does on his blog. Everything he creates is just perfect and he takes wonderful, inspiring pictures.

3. Na vlne: creates beautiful things with her needles and yarn (among other things: amazing shawls)... just like me she loves buttons and leaves. I really love her sense for colours and she always has something interesting to say about her knitting-experience...

And now, again, 7 new things you probably don´t know about me:

1. Ok, this you might know: my two boys are the most wonderful and perfect thing I´ve ever created! :-)
2. I really love nature, that´s where I find my peace of mind.
3. I´m a big Finland-fan - if I ever have to leave Iceland I´ll probably go there...
4. I LOVE sauna... we have the best finnish sauna in town, in the swimmingpool/gym 2 minutes away from where I live.
5. I have 2 masters degrees - M.A. in pedagogigs (Germany 2004) and the other one, M.S. in HRM, human resource management (Iceland, 2011).
6. I´d love to learn how to make my own soap and candles...
7. My mother is teaching me how to make my own sewing-patterns and helping me to advance my sewing skills these days... I've already created my dream-60´ies dress with her last week, and I´m going to tell you all about it in the next few days!

Thanks again Hilde! :-)

Lopapeysa - an icelandic sweater for kids

2012-01-31T09:02:00.001-08:00

Last week, I finished a new lopapeysa (Islandpulli) for Freyr. I´ve knitted this yoke pattern from the book Lopi 2 several times, but never in this version with buttons half way down and a hood. Freyr loves hooded sweaters and because of that, his new, thick lopapeysa had to have a hood... since I wasn´t in the mood for making a zippered sweater, I decided to give this version a try - it was a lot of fun, I learned a lot on the way and I really like the way it turned out. The best thing is the fitting of the hood- it´s tight and comfy at the same time... and the high ribbing in the neck-area is perfect for a boy like Freyr, who loves to wear lopi.

yarn: lopi
needles: 4,5 and 6
Pattern: from Lopi 2

buttons: from my mothers treasure-chest...

love, love, love the hood...

the back:

... like the colours too...

From above:

crochet candle jars

2012-01-27T01:33:00.000-08:00

Candle lights during the dark months in Iceland make me really, really happy and bring peace to my mind... maby that´s why I´ve been so busy making different kinds of candle light-jars lately?

My last one makes me "extra" happy because it´s my first crochet-light-jar I actually am able to make - maby my crochet-skills really are improving? I´m going to make more of those, using my handdyed einband... can´t wait to see how they turn out! One thing is sure, without this great tutorial by "Nature Nut Notes" I would never, ever been able to make this one...

so very cozy:

in light:

Star by nature

2012-01-23T01:28:00.000-08:00

I´ve been spending A LOT of time on Pinterest lately... a dangerous thing, this Pinterest - you can spend so much time there, without even noticing! But I really do love that site, it´s so filled with great ideas and inspiration - I´ve been asking myself, at what point your head becomes overfilled with ideas?? Anyway, last week I found this pin... and thought, those twig-stars would be a fun and a pretty thing to do! A simple thing is so often the most pretty thing!

During a saturdaywalk with my boys and husband in the frosty winter-wonderland in Mosfellsbaer (where we live) we found some perfect twigs. Sunday, I made the stars... they are so simple and fun to make... all you need is:
twigs and yarn
a hot glue gun to fix the end of the yarn, if you roll it all around the star like I did ...

How to make them? You´ll see as soon as you look at the pictures... they are so very simple that you don´t even need an explanation!

The nice thing about those stars is, that you can use them in so many different ways - you just have to use your imagination... as a decoration-item on a gift (like I did), hang them in your window, on your front door (like I did)... do you have more ideas??

the 1. step: finding the twigs!

a basic-star (yarn: dyed with rhubarb)... as a decoration-item:

... covered with rhubarb-yarn (ends: fixed with hot glue) on my front door:

This is what we did with the remaining twigs: (yes, we are a bit desperate for

green leaves after all this snow and frost)

Our saturday walk in Mosfellsbaer: frosty, snowy and beautiful colours:

Mosfellsbaer (where we live here in Iceland)

Esjan (never looks the same - depending on the light)

A knitting needle roll

2012-01-11T04:57:00.000-08:00

It always goes on my nerves how my knitting needles are all lying in a big chaotic bundle in my knitting needle-case... if I want double pointed needles nr. 3,5 I´ll have to search forever... and if I´m lucky enough I´ll find 5 of them...
Therefore I´ve been searching a good, free knitting needle roll-tutorial on the internet for a while now - and today the big day arrived: I finally made my very own knitting needle roll, mixing up those 2 tutorials: madebyloulabelle and lupinbunny.

I had to adapt the roll to my needs, since I never, ever use those 2, really long needles... this is the result and I´m really happy with it. The only thing I would do different next time is, to use thinner fabrics... maby just a thick one for the outside and thinner ones for the rest.

At last, I can find all the needles I need... I just can´t wait to make another one for my circular needles... just have to find the right fabrics...

open:

closed:

everything has it´s own, special place:

ahhh... finally some order...

all rolled up...

DIY: how to make a lace doily lantern

2012-01-06T12:40:00.001-08:00

I must admit, I have a thing for lace-doilies... when I go to thriftstores I always keep my eyes open for them and often they follow me home, even if I don´t know what I´m going to do with them. They just look too pretty to leave them there!
Last winter I went to a kind of fabric-factory-outlet and found some really pretty ones and I decided I wanted to make some lanterns with them... well... one year later I finally did it! And that´s what I did:

You need:

1. Lace doilies...

I used those:

2. Hot glue:

3. Jars:

What to do:
This is so simple everyone can do this... you should try it with your kids!!! Well, after you´ve cut the doilies to the right size, you hot glue it to the jar. It´s enough to put only 1 vertical line of glue on the jar to make the ends stick to the glass...

1 doily was so thin I had to use 2 strings of it to cover the glass... I made it stick with 2 lines of glue... a horizontal around the glass and 1 vertical line:

This is the result: we love, love, love it...

Crochet flowers

2012-01-05T03:22:00.000-08:00

I´ve been practicing crochet lately and since I don´t know how to read a crochet-pattern I´ve been using youtube... It´s amazing what you can learn from youtube! The possibilities for the use of pretty crochet-flowers are endless... as a decoration for hats, mittens, headbands, sweaters, handbags, a mobile...

I started with this very, very simple, small and cute flower by using this great tutorial. It´s so easy that even I, a total beginner can understand what´s going on...

nr. 1:

For those cute flowers I used my own, handdyed lace-yarn (einband, rhubarb and crowberries). For the hat I used kambgarn, needles nr. 2,5. The pattern is a bit modified one, from the book "prjóniprjón" and for the mittens I used this pattern by "handahlaup":

The tutorial for second flower I made was this one. It was very easy to follow as well and I learned a lot...

nr. 2:

The next flower I made was a bit advanced, but I had learned a lot, making the other 2 flowers, so I was able to do this one as well. Especially since this step-by-step tutorial, part 1and part 2 was very well done and also easy to follow. I really love, love, love this 3D Gardenia and I have about 1001 idea how to use it:

nr. 3:

At last we have my first, very own creation. Unfortunatly I don´t speak "crochet-language" and therefore can´t write a tutorial on how they are made (yet)... but I can tell you this much: if I am able to create my very own flower after making those above... you can do it too!

I used some of my own, handdyed yarn for those - left-over einband (lace), dyed with Rumex longifolius and rhubarb:

Rumex longifolius:

This is what I´m doing with them... I have about 32 to go... ;-)

Cinnamon rolls

2012-01-03T03:34:00.000-08:00

Don´t you just love cinnamon rolls? I think this is a perfect baking-project for parents to do with their kids - at least my boys love to make those... and eat them!

I got this recipe for cinnamon-rolls with apples, many years ago and I love it just the way it is - there are only 2 things I have changed... the first thing is the way I make the dough, since I have a breadmaker now which makes the whole process even more easy! The second thing is the topping... the original recipe doesen´t have any topping, but I often use a delicious toffee-topping-recipe a friend of mine gave me...

I have to admit, that I don´t know where I got this recipe... but I have it written down by hand in my recipe-book where I keep my favorites all together...

Cinnamon rolls - the dough:
3 dl milk (lukewarm)
3 tsk dry yeast
50 g butter
25 g sugar
1 tsk salt
1 tsk grounded cardamom
400 g flour

Filling:
1 grated apple
1 tsk cinnamon
25 g sugar
25 g melted butter

Toffee-topping:
50 g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp corn syrup
1 tbsp water

What to do: (if you don´t have a breadmaker)
1. Mix the yeast and the milk together. After that: add sugar, salt and cardamom.

2. Melt the butter, and add it together with 2/3 of the flour to the milk-mixture. Mix well and let this very wet mixture rest for about 40-50 minutes.

3. Add the remaining flour to the mixture and knead the dough until it feels manageable, soft and doesn´t stick to your hands anymore.

4. Roll out to a size of approximately 60x30 sm:

5. Filling: mix everything together and spread on the dough you just rolled out...

6. Cut the dough-roll into pieces and place them on your baking-pan. Let them rest for at least 30 more minutes under a dishcloth... then they should look like something this:

7. Topping: I sometimes just spread a stirred egg over the cinnamon-rolls before I put them in the oven. Or you can use the toffee-topping-recipe above... you just mix all the ingredients together in a pot and stir for a few minutes until it is thick, sticky and looks yummi like this:

You spread the topping on the cinnamon-rolls after they have been in the oven for about 5 minutes (take the rolls out of the oven - spread the toffee-topping - put them back in and bake until ready)..

8. Bake for for about 15 minutes (180-200°C) ... and enjoy!!!

A new year and changes

2012-01-02T02:37:00.000-08:00

a walk on the 1. january

I've been thinking a lot about the new year and some changes I would like to make regarding my blog. I started thinking, why do I love reading some of my favorite blogs? I came to the conclusion that the following things are among the things that keep me coming back:

1. When I read other blogs, I really like it, when creative people show us what they are doing, and how they do it... for example in step-by-step-pictures.

2. I also like challenges, for example 7 pictures in 7 days, 10 hats in 10 weeks or something that...

3. Nice pictures (like rodprjonar or knittingmydayaway) and diverse content (like "systraseiður")

4. I also like theme-days, that is... doing the same things on certain days like Cheri does on her blog "iammommahearmeroar": "wake-up-wednesday" or "sunshine sunday"... I´d love to find something similar for myself... maby something that has to do with goal-setting, food and creating things I haven´t done before... we´ll see...

Having realized this, I´d like to keep these 4 things in mind this year and start with a step-by-step-post tomorrow about something very tasty and an exciting challenge after that... ;-)

Regarding good pictures: It can be a bit hard, getting good pictures in Iceland at this time of year, since we only have about 5 hours daylight, but I´ll try to use those few hours wisely to get good pics...

I have enough ideas to keep the content of my blog diverse... I´ll just have to DO more... perform more...

I wish you all a happy new year, filled with a lot of love, peaceful moments with your beloved ones, creativity and joy!!!!!!!!!!!

Cowl-mania

2011-12-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

In the last few years, I´ve made a lot of mittens and slippers for my friends and family at chrismas. This year, I really wanted to make something totaly different AND I really wanted knit most of the christmasgifts... I ended up by making a lot of cowls/eternity-scarfs (and of course, some mittens and slippers too, for those who haven´t got that from me yet ;-)

I started by making a popular cowl I found on Ravelry called "Gap-Tastic-Cowl", using icelandic wool: lopi (hespulopi). After that I made them all up, playing around with colours and some knit/purl-patterns, using lopi (hespulopi). I was really happy with all of them - but one of them in particular... for that one I´m going to release my first pattern in january... so there are more cowls to come...

Gap-Tastic-Cowl for Lóa - the first one...

My own modified version of the Gap-Tastic-Cowl: for kids (made 3 of those)

Cowl for Hanna - my own creation
Cowl for Hanna - my own creation

Cowl for Hanna - my own creation
horrible picture of a great cowl (so sorry, but it´s the only one I have) - my own creation

Felted...

2011-12-21T05:09:00.000-08:00

Ever since I saw a post about felted balls and got some great ideas on what to do with them, on the very fun blog:
"systraseiður",
... I´ve been wanting to make my own felted balls.

I asked my very good friends Google and Youtube for advice and found this:
1. Youtube: making feltballs with Rachel Greenland

2. Martha Stewart (btw: you can find just about everything there... I just love this website): "how to felt balls"

I thought this would be a fun project to do with my boys, so I picked them up early from Kindergarten last week, and we got some wool (ullarkemba) together at the wool factory-outlet Álafoss. The two of them (and me too ;-) had so much fun all the way on this felting-journey... picking the colours and the wool, rolling the wool between our hands and dipping them in the soapwater. The whole thing had a very calming effect on the us and we listend to some nice christmasmusic while rolling and squeezing the wool... we love the result... this is such a great way to spend some quality time with your kids!

Something green...

Something red...

Experimenting...

My white ones...

Something purple...

Some more experimenting...

Creative Freyr...

Creative Bidenam...

The versatile blogger award

2011-12-19T01:25:00.000-08:00

I was happy to discover, that I´ve been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award by KnittingMyDayAway! The feeling is mutual, since I love all of Johanna´s designs and am always waiting excited for her next post! Thank you so much Johanna!

The rules for the Versatile Blog Awards are:

Nominate 15 fellow bloggers.
Inform the bloggers of their nomination.
Share 7 random things about yourself.
Thank the blogger who nominated you.
Add the Versatile Blog Award picture on your blog post.

Here´s a list of the blogs I read, some of them are in Icelandic (sorry for those who don´t read Icelandic ;-)

1.RodPrjonar: comes from Chile, but lives in Iceland. He creates beautiful things (mostly knitting) and makes wonderful pictures. Reading his blog is a joy!

2. I´m momma hear me roar: this wonder-woman must be one of the most creative bloggers of all times... this lady seems to be able to do almost everything! Love love love reading her blog and everything she does for her two little boys since I have two of those myself! You can find some really nice tutorials on her blog, I really recommend...

3. maya*made: is a creative lady who creates wonderful things, has a lot of good ideas and makes beautiful pictures...

4. Ragnhilds cubicle: lives in Norway, and her blog is mostly about crafts, restyling, cooking and life in general... she also makes wonderful pictures!

5. Skreytum hús: Dossa is a very creative, wonderful, icelandic lady. She makes wondeful things, decorates, restyles and always has some good ideas... it´s really inspiring reading her blog!

6. Handóð: comes from Iceland and she loves everything that has something to do with crochet and I really like the things she creates. Her latest post is a free pattern for a lovely blanket...

7. My Sparkle: does a lot of different things and has some really nice patterns and tutorials on her blog! My favorite one is the "how-to-rolled-flowers-tutorial"!

8. Annekata: a creative blogger, who always has something interesting to show or tell us... she has some nice patterns and tutorials on her blog... my all-time-favorite is her tutorial on super simple Paper Stars.

9. Paper Raindrops: another creative blogger on my list... she makes interesting, humorful pictures, does some nice things and what I really like about her blog is, that she likes to show us WHAT she is creating and HOW she did it!

10: Barbietec: icelandic blog... I find her blog very inspiring... she writes about nutrition, sports and cooking.... after reading her blog I always feel like running, swimming and making some changes to my diet!

11. Made By Rae: sews and crafts wonderful things... she has some wonderful patterns and tutorials on her blog! Love her big butt baby pants sewing pattern...

12. Made: this creative lady sews, cooks and crafts... she has some wonderful patterns, tutorials and recipes on her blog...

13: Strikkelisa: a knitter who creates beautiful things! This wonderful cowl is my favorite...

14: Allerhand Wundermurmeliges: lives in Germany, always has some good ideas and lovely pictures!

And now, 7 random things you might not know about me:
- I have always LOVED owls... and butterflies... since I was a young child ("butterfly" was one of the first words I learned in english)
- I have a tatoo on my back, between my shoulder blades: a black, tribal butterfly
- I lived 10 years in Freiburg, Germany
- I really love everything Astrid Lindgren has ever written
- I have a thing for organization and use my own version of SCRUM at home...
- I really love origami
- I like drawing, especially cartoon drawing.

Mittens from Egilsstaðir (Rósastrengsvettlingar)

2011-12-09T06:27:00.000-08:00

I am knitting mittens for two young women. At first, I was thinking of making something out of the wonderful and soft kambgarn but I decided not to, since that isn´t really icelandic wool, even if it´s produced by ístex - and I wanted those mittens to be very icelandic, traditional, ladylike and at the same time warm.

These kind of mittens with that lace-pattern, made out of icelandic "einband, loðband" are very traditional icelandic and festive. Of course, I used my own yarn...
the brown: lichen (skófir)
the intensive yellow: rumex longifolius (njóli)... love, love, love those colours! The light was quite good, so that the colours come out quite well on most of those pictures.

I still have to make one more pair of mittens and I´m using rhubarb-yarn (one colour) for them.
This is a very fun and rewarding knit, even if it isn´t really a quick one...

Little treasures

2011-12-07T08:48:00.000-08:00

My most precious things, are small treasures made by my two wonderful sons, age 3 and 5 in Kindergarten... when I look at those things, I think of my boys, and that just makes me happy :-)

Bidenam made this wonderful felt-heart for me - it´s hanging in the chandelier in our livingroom

My younger one, Freyr made this felted wool-thing some time ago - I just love it... it´s wooly, incredibly cute and he made it by rubbing together wool, water and soap with his small hands.
It´s hanging in the chandelier in our livingroom, along with Bidenams heart

Love this cute, red worm-like part, that´s looking out of the white egg-like wool

Bidenam made this pretty bird during his first year in Kindergarten with only 2 years... it´s so simple, creative and so very beautiful.

Bidenam made this one last week... I actually wear it because it makes me happy... it´s colourful, simple and made with a lot of love, patience. joy and hard work for me...

Bidenam painted those some time ago - on the left is a girly octopus and on the right: 2 friendly sharks... too cute and they are hanging on the wall in front of my desk - so that every time I look up from the computer I look at those friendly faces.

This one is for you Jóhanna...

Project Restyle: a DIY cake plate

2011-11-29T10:58:00.000-08:00

A while ago I posted this about some cool things I found in a thriftstore and told you that I was going to do something special with the candle holder. Today was the big day: I finally finished my special project!!

Step 1: what you need is this:

A pretty plate - I´ve had this one for many years, got it in a thriftstore in Germany

A pretty candle holder - I got mine in a thrifstore in Árbær (Reykjavík)

Epoxy glue, bought in Húsasmiðjan

Step 2:
The next thing to do is to glue the candle holder and the plate together...

... et voilá: you´ve got your new cake plate! :-)

Icelandic mittens

2011-11-28T09:15:00.000-08:00

I´ve been thinking about what makes icelandic mittens typical icelandic. After asking a lot of people and a lot of looking around on Google, I came to the conclusion that the most important thing is:

1. the material: icelandic wool (lopi, einband, léttlopi). There is something very icelandic about our wool... it has kept us warm from the start!

But there are some other elements, that are important for icelandic mittens:

2. pattern on the mittens: something that reminds you of an icelandic lopi-sweater or something out of the beautiful book: "Sjónabók" (a book filled with icelandic patterns from the 17th-19th century). Personally, I like minimalistic patterns on my thicker lopi-mittens and something a bit more complicated on my thinner ones.

3. for men: several people mentioned a two-thumbed mitten icelandic seamen used in the past. They had two thumbs for a very practical reason: if one side got worn out, they just turned the mittens around :-) Those mittens where quite thick, a bit felted and of course very warm.

4. for women: I could think of two different kind of typical icelandic mittens for women.

First there where mittens, made out of very thin, of course homespun wool with colorful embroidery (a special kind of cross stitch) called "rósavettlingar" (rosemittens). An icelandic designer, Arndís Ósk published a free pattern in this tradition, called "Beta´s mittens".

Second there where mittens made out of thin wool with a certain simple lace pattern. A pattern on Ravelry that´s very similar is called: "mittens from Egilsstaðir", from the book "Prjónaperlur"). I´ve been using this pattern to make mittens for two young ladies with my own hand dyed yarn (lichen and Rumex longifolius... eða skófir og njóli).

Here some pictures of icelandic mittens I´ve made:

mittens for my mum: rósavettlingar (léttlopi and einband)

Mittens made out of soft kambgarn

"mittens from Egilsstaðir" ("rósastrengsvettlingar" from the book "Prjónaperlur")

with my own yarn (lichen and Rumex longifolius) - I´ve just got one ready, and haven´t blocked them yet... but I really love them! ;-)

Mittens for Edda, made out of kambgarn (pattern from: "Hlýjar Hendur")

Thick lopi-mittens (pattern from the book "Vettlingar og fleira")

Love-Link

2011-11-21T07:19:00.000-08:00

I've been really busy making some christmasgifts lately - but I guess I can´t write about that until after christmas! :-) What I CAN tell you is, that I've been playing around with knit, purl, colours and some chunky, icelandic lopi - I´m quite happy with the result of this playing-around and this might even result in my first, very own pattern on Ravelry. My secret christmasproject is: a quick knit, very warm, soooo cozy, elegant if you want it to be and flexible - it´s so hard to wait until after christmas! And another thing: the more I knit with lopi, the more I love it in every way!!

About a week ago I made the cute, warm and cozy Love-Link by Knittingmydayaway. Before I started, I knew it was a cute, quick, warm, romantic and practical knit. What I didn´t know was, how incredibly much fun I would be having, making my "ástlingar" (Love-Link in icelandic)!! I was thrilled from the first moment on until the cast off! I loved to see how the heart-shape appeared, making the holes in the middle, the beautiful colour, the softness of the yarn (léttlopi) and the way it feels to put your hand inside it and meet the hand of your beloved one! :-) The pattern it self was very easy to follow. Here some pictures:

Freyr wearing his new Kindergarten-mittens - just to show you how much he loved them... ;-)

Dyeing yarn with Roiboos-tea and coffee

2011-11-10T12:38:00.000-08:00

In front: coffee grounds-yarn; in the back: roiboos tea-yarn

The perfect thing for me during wintertime, while nature is "sleeping" is to experiment a bit with things I have in my kitchen shelfs and yarn :-)
This time I tryed out some old roiboos-lemon-tea (leaves) and coffee grounds. One of the many good things about tea and coffee-yarn-dyeing is that you don´t have to use any kind of mordant - a good thing for nature! I didn´t have very much coffee grounds so I just dyed a small amount of yarn to see what happens. The yarn I dyed is icelandic, and called "einband" - it´s laceweight and the perfect for shawls or really thin clothing.

Result:
I really liked how both colours turned out. The tea-yarn became yellow-orange - but if you use black tea you get a totally different colour: surprise... brown like a cup of tea!!
The coffee-grounds-colour was a nice, soft brown - but I´d like to try using a larger amount of coffee to see if I get a darker tone.

Roiboos tea

coffee grounds

Kindergarten-kit by Pickles

2011-11-01T02:49:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I made the kindergarten-kit by Pickles for my younger one, Freyr. I used double-stranded, icelandic kambgarn because it is sooooo soft, warm and cozy! We both (Freyr and me) loved this set, it covers his head, neck, shoulders and chest perfectly and it´s one of the most quick and simple knits I´ve ever made. Love love love it!
Because of this, I had to make the same set for my older one Bidenam. He loved his new knitted things so much, that the first thing he did in Kindergarten the day after I finished, was to show everyone his new set :-) And if my boys are happy, I´m too!

Freyr

love pom-poms! :-)

well covered

we had so much taking those pics! :-)

gleðigjafinn minn (my "happymaker")

Seaweed - a dyeing-experiment

2011-10-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

Since I started thinking about dyeing wool with natural dyes I´ve been wondering if it was possible to dye with seaweed. Motivated by some articles on the internet I started my seaweed-dyeing-adventure.
My first experiment was done with some very green seaweed I picked on my daily walk along the ocean. It looks a bit like grass... but nothing happend when I cooked it and I was very disappointed.

My second try was done with two different kind of seaweed (don´t know what they are called, just look at the pics below). I found it when I was walking with my two boys and my husband on a sunday at the beach at Seltjarnarnes, Grótta (pics above). With one kind of seaweed (ég held að það hafi verið söl), nothing happend, even if the dye it self became really red. But after deying my yarn with the other (blöðruþang) the yarn became pale-yellow/orange. At first I didn´t think it was a very interesting result. So once again I was quite disappointed and about to give this whole seaweed-thing up. But after rinsing it the true colour came out and my yarn turned out to have a really beautiful yellow colour! I´m really thrilled by this result and I´m definitely going to proceed my seaweed-dyeing-experiment! The light was not very good but here you have some pictures anyway:

Success!

No colour at all with this one :-(

a "superman" cape for my boys

2011-10-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

My boys are home for a few days, since their kindergarten is closed. Today was their first day at home and they were SO bored... wondering how to occupy and help them to have fun again, I decided to make them superman capes. This is something my younger one has been asking me to make him for quite some time now - a friend of his in kindergarten has something similar... that´s why. I bought some fabric at IKEA the other day, just perfect for this project :-) Don´t you just love IKEA?

I´m really happy with the result since my boys are happy and busy playing again! This was a really easy, quick and effective project! This showed me once again, how fun things don´t have to cost a lot of money or be really complicated to make my boys happy... maby I'll make them some halloweencostumes myself this year?

Ready to take off

my cute - and of course brave and strong superman-boys

That´s how it looks - really simple

In love with drop spindle spinning

2011-10-17T03:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went to WonderMikes excellent Intro on Drop Spindle spinning at Knitting Iceland. This is something I´ve been wanting to learn for so long and that´s why I was really thrilled to have this opportunity and this was such a wonderful, inspiring class.

What I love about the spinning is the constant contact with the wool... feeling how the fibers separate... the meditational-effect... watching the fibers/wool turning into yarn and the fact, that in the end you have your own handmade yarn... just about everything! Since I had so much fun and practice is really important I´m going to practice a little bit every day for the next few weeks. And I can´t wait to dye my own handspun yarn with my herbs, plants and berries!

Here some pictures of the drop spindles (made by my grandfather) and my yarn:

both drop spindles are made by my grandfather

my grandfather carved the one in the front

my yarn - love the wool-wood-contrast
my yarn

the soft, warm and cozy wool from Thingborg

want to dig in this wool

Kyrrð

2011-10-11T11:41:00.000-07:00

On the 4th of june I started my Kyrrð, a design by Johanna Bibbins (Knittingmydayaway) and this monday, 10.th of oct. I finished!! It took me so long, because most of the time I had it "on the side" and was knitting many other things at the same time - like 4 laceshawls (Aeolian, Hyrna Herborgar and 2 vinkonusjal), an icelandic sweater, a lot of hats...

I learned a lot of new things making Kyrrð. The most exciting thing was the "8-cast-on" (or magic cast-on) which is really fascinating... it was one of those wow-moments ;-) The only problem was, that because I didn´t have any practice with the magic 8-cast-on, I had to start the project 2 times and frog it once... but I didn´t give up since I really wanted this beautiful shawl! The pattern is really well written and not hard to understand if you know this cast-on method, the lace-patterns are in such a perfect harmony and it looks so elegant! I might be tempted to make myself another one, using my own handdyed yarn... and I once again must admit: lace-knitting is addicting, so thing twice before you even start!

Here some pictures:

evening sun

Looking at the ocean

Kyrrð, the other way around

Lace-Wings
Love this pattern from each and every angle...

endless eternity-hooded-lace-scarf

love those leaves

love those owl-buttons my sister Gudrun gave me

Blueberries

2011-10-06T02:10:00.000-07:00

I´ve been reading a lot about dyeing with blueberries lately. You often read, that the colour is not light fast... but a few days ago, I read somewhere on the internet, that people here on Iceland used to get a blue dye from a special type of blueberries so I decided to try it out. I used some blueberries my mother gave me last week... they were getting quite old and I was hoping that this fact could be good for my dyeing-results. I used alum and tartar as a mordant and cooked the wool together with the blueberries for an hour and then left it to cool off over night. The result is AMAZING and I´m really hoping the colour stays this way!

I decided to conduct the following experiment with this yarn: leave it in a sunny window for a week or two and see if the colour changes... I´ll keep you posted!

The picking

The cooking

Before the rinsing

After the rinsing

Love Ysolda

2011-10-05T10:05:00.001-07:00

Ahhhh how I love Ysolda Teagues designs! :-) I first saw her on Ravelry and after looking at her designs there, over and over again I was thrilled to find her "whimsical little knits 2" in a store in Reykjavík! I love just about everything about her things... her sweaters and in fact, all her things seem fit so perfectly, she always tells you about ways to change the pieces so they will fit you better or just look somehow different, the choice of colours, the fotos of her things and somehow she has a way to turn the simplest piece of garment into something really special with little details like buttons, lace or something else...
Sooooo I decided to make an "Ysolda "Whimsical little knits 2" marathon", and knit everything out of that book starting with the "Damson" and finishing with "Cotten Reel Mittens". There are just two condition for me:
1. I only get to use yarn from my overfilled yarn-stash! :-)
2. Before I start, I finally have to finish my beautiful "Kyrrð" (Johanna Bibbins, Knitting my day away).

I just can´t wait to start... and now I´m dreaming of having her new book: "Little red in the city"...

Damson (foto from the book "Whimsical little knits 2")

Cotton Real Mittens (foto from the book "Whimsical little knits 2")

Hyrna Herborgar

2011-09-30T01:55:00.001-07:00

I finished my first "Hyrna Herborgar" this week - it was made in a second KAL RodPrjonar, Gummi and Knittingmydayaway did together. At first, we wanted to make Laminaria but then we decided to make Hyrna Herborgar first and that Laminaria would be our next project. You can see Rodprjonars result here.
I really learned some new things making this shawl and once again had to admit to myself that patience is be REALLY important when knitting lace. :-)

I love my new "Herborg" and I´m sure that I´ll make more of those - this one looks so much more complicated than it really is. I also love the colour of this yarn - I dyed it with crowberries and the colour seems to bee in "3D"... it is not only plain grey, but it also has a glimpse of purple, blue and something else I can´t really put in words... you just have to see it with your own eyes because pictures never show you the real beauty and depth of the colours.

Details:
yarn: my own einband (what else? :-), handdyed with crowberries (krækiber)
needles: 3,5
Pattern: the beautiful Hyrna Herborgar, from the book "Þríhyrnur og langsjöl"

Here some pictures...

And just for fun: an update on my process on "Kyrrð"... I´m almost done, just about 8 repeats to do...

Progress on my chili-plants

2011-09-26T02:54:00.000-07:00

I´m really excited to to tell you, that I got some chilis on my own, homegrown chili-plants... and it looks like there are a lot more to come!! :-) Here some pictures:

My walk today, 21 sept

2011-09-21T04:03:00.000-07:00

I love every season of the year - each and every one is wonderful in it´s own special way.
At the moment it´s beginning to look a lot like fall and what I love about fall are the following things

1. It´s getting darker again - that´s quite cozy after having light 24 hours a day during summertime. Sooo... we can finally light some candles in the night and actually enjoy them.

2. The colours of nature

3. The cold breeze from the ozean, getting even cooler

4. When everything outside looks like someone spread diamonds all over the place after the first nights of frost

5. You can start wearing your warm, knitted things again - that´s so cozy!

This morning I went for my walk along the coast. The last night was the first night we had some real frost so that some of the plants looked so beautiful with little frost-kristals all over. It was sunny and no wind at all so that the ocean looked like a mirror. Seven wild goose flew about 1 meter above the ocean in a straight row, a dog barked somewhere far away, I heard the sound of the water when it hit the beach, some plants where starting to get red, brown and yellow and it was really chilly. Down at the beach, there where no footsteps in the sand besides my own and two little birds flew away with a lot of noise when they noticed me.
After my wonderful walk, I went directly to the thermal-pool "Lágafellslaug" and enjoyed being the only guest in the swimmingpool, sitting in the hot tub and finnish sauna.

I found a lot of peace in my heart this morning. I also feel really lucky and thankful, having those wonderful landscapes, incredible nature and perfect thermal-pool with a real finnish sauna just 2 minutes away from where I live.

My question for you is: what do YOU feel thankful and lucky for and what do you like about fall?

Here some pictures I took this morning (please click on them, so that you can enjoy them in full size)

The beach with no footsteps

That´s my path, along the ocean - far away you can see Reykjavík

People playing golf

Ocean-mirror

Plants (crowberries)- looks like fall

Plants... so yellow- looks like fall

Nice...

2011-09-19T03:39:00.001-07:00

Last week, something really nice happend, that really made my day... Johanna B. (knittingmydayaway) sent me some magazines and a shawl-pin. The thing is, I really LOVE knitting-magazines and I haven´t seen those Johanna sent me - Vogueknitting Early Fall 2011 and Verena - in any store here in Reykjavík yet so this was very exciting! I´ve been browsing through them again and again and again...

The shawl-pin is just perfect for me: an owl-pin... like made for me!

Thank you Johanna, you really made my day - or should I say the whole week?

Lopi-sweater for Bidenam

2011-09-18T03:58:00.000-07:00

I just finished this lopi-sweater for my older one, Bidenam. It´s the second time I knit this pattern and I really like it. The fun thing about lopi-sweaters is, how different one pattern can look, depending on the colours you choose.

Details: pattern: "Barnapeysa með hettu" (click here) yarn: léttlopi; colour: my own, brown from lichen (skófir) and yellow from alchemilla vulgaris (Maríustakkur).

And of course, I just LOVE the icelandic wool, that has some really special characteristics. It consists of 2 different types of fibres:

inner fibres: insulating - fine, soft, highly insulating.
outer fibres - water-repellent: long, glossy, water-repellent.

Together, these two distinctive fibres create a wool that is lightweight - lighter than most other wools, keeps you warm and comfortable
water-repellent - repels rain and stays feeling dry.
Breathable - moisture passes through the fibres away from the skin, keeping you dry and comfortable.

But anyway, here is B´s new lopi-sweater:

my new hat

2011-09-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

I made myself a hat, using the same yarn as I did for my aeolian shawl (here). I dyed the yarn myself, using icelandic lichen. I really love this hat - it is quite festive, very light (like a feather), wide and cosy at the same time. I took me about 2 days to make it and I must say, that I was not knitting all day long. I had fun, knitting every single row of this pattern and I´m definitely knitting more from this book ("Einband")...

Details:
Pattern: "Mark" by Védís Jónsdóttir from the book "Einband".
needles: 3,0
yarn: einband (loðband), colour: my own

Something new and something from Finnland

2011-09-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

I made something for myself this weekend... guess what?

Last fall, I went to Finnland to be at a very, very dear friends wedding. We had some wonderful, perfect days together and this really was one of the highlights for me so far. One of the many things I love about Finnland are the berries. I love berries... I always have... and because of that, Finnland is something like a berry-heaven for a person like me. I ate berries every single day in many different versions. One of the things I tried out was a cake my friend baked for me. The other day she sent me the recipe so I could try it out with my freshly picked wild, blueberries. I turned out just perfect - the recipe is very simple, the cake is not too heavy, not too fat, not filled with sugar and made out of 50%/50% whole-wheat and flour... and the best thing is: it reminded me of my wonderful days in Finnland and my dear friends there.

to

red turnip

2011-09-08T02:10:00.000-07:00

What colour would you expect your yarn to get, from a red turnip? I was expecting purple or pink... but as always with natural yarn-dyeing, you don´t really know what you´re going to get. After having soaked the sliced turnip in water for about 24 hours I cooked it. I used mordant for the the wool before I dyed it.
The colour I got was a unusual shade of orange/pinkish... can´t really find words to describe it so here are some pictures:

I love rhubarb...

2011-09-07T05:33:00.000-07:00

I love rhubarb... everything about it, the taste, the colour... you can eat it, cook it, bake it and the best thing is: you can dye with every single part of it - from root to top! :-) This week I´ve been very busy cooking and dyeing with the rhubarb, my friend gave me the other day. I made jam, a cake and of course: I did some yarn-dyeing with it!!!

When you are dyeing with plants, it´s always fascinating to see, how different 2 skeins yarn can turn out, coming from the same pot. I dyed about 7 skeins of yarn, and almost none of them is exactly the same. Some of them have some brownish-red spots (skellur), some of them are much darker and others a bit lighter in colour. But exactly that´s the fascinating part of the yarndyeing, you never know what you´re going to get! And most of the time, you don´t get what you expect!

Again I must say, the pictures don´t really show the beauty of the colours - but if you click on the pictures you can see them in full size:

the wool

on my balcony, preparing for the winter:

Rhubarb-jam
cake with rhubarb (hjónabandssæla), recipe from my grandmother

A really good day

2011-09-01T09:44:00.000-07:00

I finished a new, very simple shawl yesterday called "vinkonusjal" (Fleiri Prjónaperlur). It´s the second time I knit this one and I really like the pattern - it´s so easy, quick and so very different every time, depending on the yarn and needles you use. This time I used the soft, icelandic "kambgarn" and needles 3,5. The piece is really small and cute- it´s more like a bactus or a shawl for a little girl.

I also have to tell you, that today was a really good day. It all started with a cup of coffee with a very dear friend, who sent me home with a black garbagebag filled with rhubarb for my yarn-dyeing... but I´ll probably make sume rhubarb-jam, pie and some other things with it too, since it really is a lot! She also gave me a small owl for my collection and some owl-napkins which I love:

On my way home, I stopped at a thriftstore and got a really beautiful retro-oil-lamp, a HUGE pot for my yarndyeing (my biggest one so far) and a candle-holder which I´m going to use for special project I´ll show you later... I just couldn´t believe my luck:

Not what it looks like

2011-08-19T10:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I tryed something new. If you look at this picture...

... you might think it has something to do with beans and food?? But actually it has nothing to do with food at all!! Those are green things on the picture are seed-pods of Lupina-flowers. I wanted to find out, what happens if you dye wool with them. I was not surprised at all, when the wool became yellow - it is a very mild, light but of course: natural colour. I like it and it is quite easy to get because we have so much Lupina in Iceland :-)

If you click on the pictures, you can see them bigger and you can see
the colours much better:

Another experiment I made was dyeing with the root of the Lupina-flower. It was a very time-consuming process to get colour from the roots but I wasn´t really expecting anything else. The colour is a very light brown-yellowish, it´s nice but I don´t think it´s worth the effort since it´s not always easy to dig out the roots. But it was very interesting like always. Thanks to "Hespa", who gave me some really good tips on facebook, the colour became a bit stronger.

Saffran-dyeing

2011-08-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Rodprjonar and G. gave me some Saffran they bought in Spain, because they really wanted to now if it was possible to dye yarn with it. I was really happy with this gift, and excited to see the result of the dyeing. I used mordant and then I cooked the yarn with the saffran. You wouldn´t believe how very yellow the yarn turned out :-) The colour reminds me of easter, IKEA and the swedish flag! I really like the colour and I LOVE the fact, that the wool smells like saffran!

The saffran starting to cook, not looking very impressiv

wool and mordant

wool and saffran united

Wool and saffran united - a closeup

rinsing the wool

Aeolian Knit-Along - done

2011-08-14T06:12:00.000-07:00

I finally finished our (Rodprjonar and Gummi) “little-knit-along” Aeolian-shawl. One of the practical things about our Knit-Along was that everytime one of us had a problem we could ask the other 2 people who where working on the same project for advice. It was also very exciting to see, how different one pattern can turn out, depending on the knitter and the yarn. It was so much fun doing this, and I hope we´ll repeat this with another project in the future. Rodprjonar was the first to finish his really beautiful shawl - you can see that here.

Details on mine:

Pattern: Aeolian shawl size, wide edge

Yarn: einband, colours: my own (2 different kind of lichen; brúnir tónar: skófir; guli: hreindýramosi)

Needles: 3.5 mm

- Began knitting with a 2 stitches garter stitch tab on a provisional crochet cast on.
- 7 loops nupps

Me and Gummi made:
- 12 repeats of the Yucca chart (R. made 6).
- 2 repeats of the Agave chart (R. made none).
- 1 repeat of the final Agave chart (R. made 1).
- 1 repeat of the edge chart (R. made 1).

My shawl is really HUGE – I couldn´t believe how huge it was when the blocking was done!! But I LOVE exactly that about it and everything else too – the colours, the pattern and the fact that it was made in our own little knit-along! I also couldn´t agree more with Rodprjonar when he says on his blog: "The transitions between section look amazingly pretty and in harmony and the edge is breathtaking".
I can´t wait meet G. and R. to see with my own eyes how there shawls look like!!

CafeSigrun

2011-08-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

CafeSigrun.com is a blog full of healthy and great recipes. Ever since I read this post from Barbietec I´ve been wanting to make "orkuhnullungar". For those of you, who can´t read icelandic, this is not interesting, since the recipe is in icelandic :-( Sorry about that! I didn´t have all those healthy organic things you are supposed to use, and instead I just used what I had at home. But I´m sure those cookies would taste even better if you only use everything super-healthy and organic... I only used dates (döðlur) and no raisins - but I´ll probably use both next time. I didn´t have enough sesame-seeds, so I added a bit of sunflower seeds (I roasted the seeds together with the nuts in a pan) . I also used the double amount of cinnamon. I really like the result - they have a strong, special taste of the roasted seeds and nuts, a mild taste of chocolate and the spices... I´m sure those are going to become a favorite of mine and I´m going to keep on experimenting with the recipe.

Our own little Aeolian Knit-Along

2011-07-31T04:50:00.000-07:00

The other day, when knitting with Rodprjonar and G. we were talking about how we all wanted to knit the Aeolian-shawl - and that´s when we decided to make our own little Aeolian-knit-along. The interesting thing about our knit-along is to see how different one shawl can look, depending on the yarn, implementation and knitter! I just can´t wait to see how R. and G. shawls look like! Here you can see Rodprjonars version.
So far, I´ve learned a lot by knitting this piece - for example nupps... they look really pretty but I hate making them... knitting those 7 stiches together is so hard to do!
I´m using my own hand-dyed yarn in 2 brown shades for the main-charts and 1 yellow/brownish shade for the edge-chart (dyed with 2 different types of lichen). I love the way the colours look - they are quite uneven and alive... really hard to describe and you can´t really caputure them on pictures. (If you click on the pictures, you can see them fullsize)

A new salve, saffron and rhubarb

2011-07-22T03:42:00.000-07:00

Remember THIS post about a skinproblem-salve for a dear friend? Well, I finally made the salve yesterday after waiting for almost 2 weeks for beewax (they didn´t have it at the store). Like I planned, I used lavender-ssential oil, because I didn´t really like the smell of it before. I´m happy with the result, since it makes your skin really soft and hast a really nice scent. My friend got it yesterday and was excited to try it out - I´m excited myself, to see what effect it has on her skin.

The herbs:

the salve:

Yesterday I met some really nice knitting-friends. I was so happy and really surprised when Rodprjonar and G. gave me some saffron they bought in Spain and some rhubarb to dye my wool with - what a nice thing of them to do! :-) Now I just can´t wait to try to get some colour out of those things! I love the scent of saffron and how nice would it be to make something out of wool, that might have the smell of that spice and reminds me of a really nice evening with some knitting-friends?

Growing your own chilis

2011-07-20T07:03:00.001-07:00

The other day, I found a dry chili in my fridge and decided to open it up and put the seeds in the earth, in a mini-greenhouse I bought in a "Tiger-store" for almost nothing. This was something I have really been wanting to try out, since me and B. (my husband) LOVE chili - and if his mother could do it in West-Africa, why shouldn’t I be able to do it in my kitchen-window in Iceland? ;-)

We didn’t have to wait for a long time for first green leaves to come out of the earth. The best thing is, I really didn’t have much work with it, because my mini-greenhouse did all the work for me (even the watering). When the small plants were big enough, I put them in some bigger flower-pots and then they exploded! I still can’t believe how big they have grown in such a short amount of time and the whole family is waiting impatiently for some chili’s to show up! This is so much fun - the next thing I´m going to try out in my mini-greenhouse are orange- and lemon-stones!

The first green leaves:

the first 2 leaves:

Today:

An Experiment

2011-07-15T01:57:00.001-07:00

The other day Rodprjonar asked me if it was possible to dye a knitted piece. I couldn´t stop thinking about this so I just had to try it out. I had a knitted piece, that I made some mistakes in and wasn´t going to do anything with but throw it away - the perfect object for my experiment!
I cooked it for a short amount of time in some moss along with some yarn I was dyeing and found out: of course it is possible to dye a knitted piece. It turned out really well - the colour was nice and even and the cooking did not ruin the lace. The only problem is, when the piece is very large, you would have to use a really huge pot, which I don´t have.

Before:

after:

Progress on Kyrrð

2011-07-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

I just finished the 9th (out of 22) repeat of the scarf-part of Kyrrð... and the more I knit, the more fun I have! And of course, I'm always getting quicker and quicker. I´ve never started a project until now, that I just can´t stop working on. I´d love to make another Kyrrð when I finish this one, using my own hand-dyed yarn!

A walk

2011-07-06T08:05:00.001-07:00

Here some pics of my walk along the seaside this morning. Nobody was there but me. It was just me and nature... It is such a beautiful day... sun, no wind at all, the ocean looking like a mirror, the smell of angelica, heath and seaweed in the air... some horses resting, the mountain Esjan looking so beautiful, the birds singing and the best thing is, I found more icelandic moss to dye my wool with, then I could carry this time! Can´t wait for my next walk...

Birthdaycakes

2011-07-04T01:49:00.000-07:00

Þór (Thor) Bidenam Balemasson, 5 years old

Yesterday we celebrated my older sons 5th birthday. One of the most important things on your birthday when you are 5 years old - at least for my boys - is the birthdaycake. At first, he wanted a mumin-cake, then Spiderman and at last he wanted a car-race-cake. And what my birthdayboy wants, he gets! :-)
I made a chocolate-cake (from mommur.is) with fluffy-buttercream-frosting (Martha Stewart) and fondant:

And here some birthday-cakes I´ve made in the past:

Bidenam 2 years old:

Bidenam 3 years old

Bidenam 4 years old

Freyr 2 years old: Freyr 3 years old

Lace hat - from "Fleiri Prjónaperlur"

2011-07-01T03:09:00.000-07:00

This week weather has finally been great in Iceland: sunny and warm... so I sat on my balcony doing nothing but enjoying the summer and decided to make myself a hat I´ve been wanting to knit for some time know. It´s impossible for me just to sit there, doing nothing - don´t know how to do that!

I had just got some beautiful kambgarn in a retro-yellow/brownish colour that I love - unfortunatly they are not selling this colour anymore so those two skeins where just leftovers in Álafoss where I always buy my icelandic wool. I´ve already made two more hat´s like this (Sparihúfur from Fleiri Prjónaperlur) for two cute cousins of mine and really wanted one for myself. The only thing I made different this time was to repeat the pattern one more time to make it bigger since I´ve got a lot of hair to cover up on a "bad-hair-day" ;-)
The interesting thing about this pattern is, that I never really understand what I am knitting (the process of the lace-pattern)... I just knit what I´m supposed to and all of a sudden I´ve got a lace-pattern I didn´t see coming! :-D I´m so happy with the result, it´s my favorite at the moment...

I tryed to make some pictures of me myself, wearing my new hat... not an easy thing as you can see:

candleholder makeover

2011-06-23T03:48:00.000-07:00

After reading this post from "skreytum hús" about a candleholder makeover, I got so inspired that I really wanted to do something similar. I went to the thrift store to look for a candleholder to spray, and got really lucky. I found this beautiful golden candleholder, just waiting to get a makeover. I found it a bit hard to make the colour look nice and even, but after many layers of paint, it turned out fine. This is the result - you can see that I´ve been using it a lot! Too bad I forgot to take some "before-pictures"!

Dandelions

2011-06-20T12:27:00.000-07:00

I dyed wool with Dandelions (Fíflar, bara blóm) last week. I just love how those flowers look in the pot - almost to beautiful to cook! :-)

One of the best parts of wool-dyeing with plants is the picking of the plants - it´s just you and the nature all around and in your hands.. and then you take this feeling with you home, and in a way, you put this special feeling along with the colours of nature, in your wool. This time I picked the flowers with my two sons and we had so much fun - now I´ll always think of this beautiful moment, when I see this yarn.

As always until now, I love the way the colours turned out - an earthly-yellow (can´t really see them on the pictures).

Springtime Bandit nr. 1

2011-06-16T02:30:00.000-07:00

It was quite tricky starting this shawl because I really didn´t get the first 7 rows! But after meeting RodPrjonar in a small Café in Álafosskvos, who showed me how to do this it was really simple! Thank you RodPrjonar! :-) The pattern is really nice: simple and quick but at the same time really beautiful. It took me about 2-3 days to finish it and I was not knitting all day and night.

Of course, I used my own hand-dyed yarn for this project. The 2 orange shades come from onion peel and the yellow (at the end of the shawl) from Rumex longifolius (Njóli). I really love how the colours look in a shawl and now I´m totaly hooked on knitting shawls with this yarn - I´m afraid everybody I know will be getting a shawl next christmas!

Icelandic knitspiration

2011-06-09T02:17:00.001-07:00

When choosing colours for a lopi-sweater, I normaly get inspired by the colours of icelandic nature. Since I started a 2skein-unspun-lopi-sweater (tvöfaldur plötulopi) for my son Bidenam yesterday I needed some inspiration for my colour-choice... think of a lopi-sweater when looking at those pictures:

Shawl in a day

2011-06-08T01:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I realized I had to frogg a shawl ("Kyrrð"), I´ve been knitting day and night since last week. This shawl, which I really LOVE, has a hood that was far too big for me because I had not been knitting tight enough.
This was soooo frustrating, that I had to knit something else, before I start all over again. I decided to make a birthdaygift for a friend of mine, who had birthday last month - there are three of them but I wont tell here which one will get it! I started knitting a new, really simple but beautiful shawl, called "vinkonusjal" (Book: "Fleiri Prjónaperlur").
I did expect it to be an easy and fast knit - but to my big surprise, I managed to finish this shawl (which I started at about 13:00) at 23:00 yesterday... I can´t believe I was able to finish a whole shawl in just one day... (I must say, that I really was knitting all day long). This really gives me hope, that I will finish my frogged "Kyrrð"-shawl in the next few weeks...

I used my own, icelandic, hand-dyed einband-yarn for this project. The mossgreen comes from Lupina, and the yellow from Rumex longifolius (Njóli):

Salve for a dear friend

2011-06-07T02:19:00.000-07:00

One of my best friends, has got Psoriasis. That´s why I´ve been searching information about what herbs and plants can help her with that. I found out, that birch (birki), Iceland moss (fjallagrös), Rumex longifolius (Njóli) and yellow bedstraw/Galium verum (gulmaðra) are recommended for Psoriasis.
I was really lucky to have some dry Galium verum and Iceland Moss at home, but I had to go out and get some birch and Rumex longifolius - I found both in a beautiful place called "Heiðmörk".
The plants have been lying in olive-oil since 25. mai, so I have to wait for at least one more week to make the salve out of the herb-oil.

This time, the oil has almost no smell at all. I was hoping the birch would give it a nice scent - but no. I´m thinking of using some ssential oil to "fix" that. I think lavender might be the perfect choice because:
1. It is supposed to have a calming effect and because of that, it´s recommended for skin-problems
2. Just love the smell, who doesn´t?! :-)

This is what the oil looks like at the moment:

Lupina

2011-06-06T04:03:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I dyed some yarn with Lupina-flowers. I´m getting more and more fascinated by yarn-dyeing with plants, this is like magic! The flowers looked so beautiful in the pot I just have to show you some picures of them:

After cooking the flowers, the water got purple - and because of that, I really didn´t know what to expect when I pulled the yarn out of the water, after cooking it for about an hour or so. I´ve read, that the yarn should get neon-green or really yellow - but I got some beautiful moss-green colour out of it. I´ve always wanted einband-yarn in this colour so I´m LOVING this result and really happy that it didn´t get neon-green :-) Just like I told you in the last post, it is almost impossible to see the real colours of the yarn on pictures, but here you go anyway:

The Lupina-yarn is on the left side:My dyed-yarn so far:

Wool, rumex longifolius and onion peel

2011-06-01T01:49:00.000-07:00

I´ve been dyeing wool (yarn: einband from istex) with plants for the last week or so. I started preparing some time ago: searching 2 old, big pots at fleamarkets, buying some chemicals, paddles, thermometer and some other things you need to do this. Last week, when I was coming home with my boys from kindergarten, I saw some "Rumex longifolius" and decided the big day has arrived: I´m finally ready to dye my wool with plants, starting with Rumex longifolius!

Yesterday was the second time I dyed, using onion peel I´ve been collecting for a few months now. I must say, wool-dyeing with plants is a bit messy, complicated and time-consuming BUT I LOVE IT anyway! :-) And when you have so much fun doing something, like I´ve been having doing this, negative factors like those above sort of vanish.
What I love about it:
1. It´s so fascinating, getting the colours for your wool and knitting-projects from nature.
2. You never really know, what colour you are exactly getting from the pots - every single time is an adventure and it´s a magical moment, when you pull the wool out of the pot to see the colour of it!
3. The colours you get are unlike everything you can buy from stores - much deeper, beautiful shades of the colours of nature and earth... really hard to describe and almost impossible to see on fotos.

The next thing I´m going to try out is Lupina - you can find that plant everywhere right now in Iceland. I´ve been told, you get different shades of green with Lupina - and since I´ve got 2 shades of yellow (from Rumex longifolius) and 2 shades of orange/brownish from the onionpeel I think it´s time for green now! :-) Here you have some pictures of the process:

The wool before the whole process:
Wool soaking in water over night:

Plants soaking in water over night: Cooking plants to get the colour out of them:
Cooking the wool in mordant:

Cooking the wool in the plant-colour:
And this is what I got from Rumex longifolius, 2 shades of yellow, on the right: 1. dye, on the left: 2. dye. You can´t really see the colours on those pictures:
Onion peel: on the left: 2. dye, on the right: 1. dye

Hálfskák

2011-05-30T03:33:00.000-07:00

Remember this post about me, knitting lace-shawls? Well, I reached my goal and I still can´t believe it! Rodprjonar, Jóhanna and knittingmydayaway´s beautiful Kyrrð where really motivating and helpful, thank´s to them, I managed to knit my first lace shawl, "Hálfskák" in about 4 weeks, thank you two!!! I used brown yarn from Þingborg. The amazing thing about icelandic yarn like the one I used from Þingborg, and the similar "einband" from istex is what happens when you wash it:
1. your knit suddenly looks so nice and even!
2. the yarn get´s so soft - it´s like magic!

I just loved making this shawl and I have the feeling, I won´t be able to stop knit shawls for the next few months.

I found it very hard to get good fotos of the shawl, but here you go anyway:

My boy´s loved this shawl, because they think it looks like wings!

Many things

2011-05-24T02:03:00.001-07:00

I´ve been doing so many different things lately that I just don´t know where to start! :-) So let´s begin...

1. I´ve been knitting my lace-shawl "Hálfskák" - I´m almost done... only about 5 rounds to knit and I´m finished. Can´t believe I did it and can´t wait to start "Kyrrð" (knitting my day away).

2. I baked my own birthdaycake with Dagbjört (or should I say: she baked it, I watched). She showed me how to decorate cakes with fondant. It was so much fun - I just loved it and you can do almost anything with it! Thank you so much Dagbjört! We made a very girly, pink mumin-cake. My son told me, he want´s a mumin-cake for his birthday in july too, which made me really happy since I love the mumins too! :-)

3. I made a hat and a scarf for a cousin of mine, who was graduating - out of one of my favorite yarns, the icelandic "kambgarn". The hat-pattern: "Bleik og bjúdíful" from the book "fleiri prjónaperlur. The scarf: my own design.

4. I LOVE garlic, you can´t believe how much! :-D That´s why I made some persian, pickled garlic yesterday. You heat up some vinegar with black peppercorns, put some garlic-cloves in a jar (without the skin) and then you mix the two things together. Then you have to wait as long as possible- the longer, the better. A persian friend of mine told me, her mother waits 7 years - I tasted this 7 years old, pickled garlic at her home and I can´t describe how good it was - the best thing ever. It was black, sweet, mild and sour. I don´t think I have the patience to wait so long...

5. I´ve been preparing and buying everything I need to finally start dyeing yarn with plants: flowers, trees and other things from nature. I´ll start with onion peel because that´s what I have at home - and einband because that´s what I need for "Kyrrð".

Mothersday and some knitspiration!

2011-05-12T02:58:00.000-07:00

Last sunday, on mothersday we went to a beach at "Seltjarnarnes, Grótta". It´s on the other side of town and we used to live there for a year, 2005-2006. We really like this place because you are in the nature, looking at the ocean - in the city! A special thing about Seltjarnarnes is, that they have many different species of birds.

Well, anyway... on mothersday we went there and spent some hours sitting at the beach. We built some sand- and stone-castles with the boys, threw some stones in the ocean, went for a walk, enjoyed the sun and I knitted a bit - and of course I found some "knitspiration" there. I also found some knitspiration this week, visiting a farm with my boys and their kindergarten... here you go!

Me and my boys on mothersday:

Seltjarnarnes, Grótta:

My boys and their castles:

Knitspiration:

Knitspiration at the farm:

Mittens for my dear mum

2011-05-04T02:18:00.000-07:00

I made these mittens for my mum. I really wanted to make her something special that reminds her of me and something "very icelandic" because she spends a lot of time abroad. The mitten-pattern is created by me (yarn: léttlopi) and fits perfectly for my mothers hands. I wanted to use a embroidery-chart out of a book, but ended up making up my own (yarn: einband), which makes these mittens more personal. I´m happy with the result, but next time I make mittens like that, I´ll use "kambgarn" for the knit and I´ll start with the cross-stich-pattern on the top... I can´t wait to give them to my mum!

Inspiration

2011-05-02T04:22:00.000-07:00

One of my most favorite mountains in Iceland and one of my biggest knit-spirations is "Esjan". From my flat, I have a great view over to Esjan and that was one of the things that influenced me and my husband when we got the flat! The colours of this mountain are always different, depending on the light and you always know winter is not far away when you begin to see snow on it´s top.
This morning, Esjan was beautiful as ever, but the colours where so special I decided to show you some pictures of this great inspiration of mine, even if you can´t "really"see the colours (white/blue/gray-shades), on these fotos. I must admit, I was thinking of knittingmydayaway when I got this Idea, since she seems to love "Esjan" as much as I do - I hope this brings you a bit of Iceland to NY! :-)

Chamomile-/fjallagrasa-oil turnes into salve/lotion

2011-04-29T04:21:00.000-07:00

The big day has come... no, I´m actually not talking about prince Williams and K.M´s wedding - even if it was really beautiful... I´m talking about my herb-oil that I could finally turn into a salve/lotion. I´ve been looking so much forward to doing this!

This is what I did:
1. I started by filtering out all the herbs
This step was a real mess but the smell of chamomile and oliveoil was so nice and it was such a great feeling, having those herbs in your hands and squezzing the oil out!

This is how the filtering looked like:

and some more filtering:

and some more filtering:

2. Melting the beewax in a saucepan.
The smell of the melting beewax is really special!

3. Finally I mixed the oil and the beewax together - and my curative and healing salve/lotion was ready!

I decided to call it "Seiður" (seidur) - this word was used to describe an old way of nordic magic, that people believed to be very powerful (you can read about the meaning here: http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiður)

What am I going to do with this: maby I´ll give some lucky friends a little bit on their birthday, I´m going to use it on my boys dry and sensitive skin - for my own hands that often get too dry and my husband is going to use it for his very dry hands and feet - I'm sure it will be useful for some other things too - we´ll see. One thing is sure: I´m going to make a lot more of this kind of thing, in different versions, out of different herbs, I just love doing this!

A really good blog with infos on homemade cosmetics (and a lots of other things) in icelandic is this one: http://seidkona.123.is/Blog/Cat/3683/

charity-knitting

2011-04-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

At the moment, I´m really busy, knitting hats for a "charity-event" called: "help Japan" (hjálpum Japan). If you read icelandic, you can read about it on the following link:
http://www.postur.is/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-29/26_read-1501/
It´s the first time I participate in a thing like this. I decided to knit hats for this event, because hats are a really fun and quick knit, so you hardly get bored making those. I also decided I wouldn´t knit anything but hats for this charity-event for the rest of this month! Above you can see 5 of the hats I´ve already made. I had 2 more, but I gave them away - 1 to a birthdayboy and 1 to a little german boy...

A favorite one - old and new

2011-04-18T02:35:00.000-07:00

Freyr wearing his new green hat
Freyr wearing the new green hat

Bidenam wearing the old green hat

Freyr wearing the old green hat

This hat has a history of it´s own! When Bidenam was born, somebody gave him a lot of used clothes - one of those clothes was a green hat with stripes made out of fine cotton. Bidenam really liked it and we used it a lot! When it got too small for him, Freyr Dasima started using it and it became his all time favorite hat. He even had this green hat on inside (no matter where he was) and he even slept with it on - so when it became to small, he was soooooo sad and of course I had to make my sad boy another one! But it had to look exactly the old one - so I had to make 3 different versions of it until I finally had one that looked just like the old one! I´m so happy with the result and I´m definitely going to make Bidenam one for the summer too.
The great thing about this cotton-hat:
1. you can wash it in the washing maschine
2. it´s not too hot in the icelandic summertime (sometimes cold wind)
3. it´s soft and cosy!!

Progress on chamomile-/fjallagrös-oil

2011-04-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

My chamomile/fjallagrös-oil has been standing in the kitchen window for over 2 weeks now, so I opened the jar for the first time to see what has happend in those last 2 weeks. It was really exciting to find out , that the oil has a really mild and pleasant smell of chamomile and when you rub it in, your skin becomes really, really soft! So the experiment seems to be a full succeed! I just have to wait for 1 week now to make my salve and other exciting things out of it!

Origami

2011-04-12T03:42:00.001-07:00

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There is something about Origami that I love. It looks so beautiful, graceful... and complicated to do! ;-) Therefor I´ve been wanting to know how to fold some Origami for a few years now, but I´ve never had the time and peace necessary to do it - a good thing:
nr. 1: that I´ve got plenty of time and peace at the moment
nr. 2: I´ve been rediscovering youtube in the last few days
nr. 3: stumbled over some beautiful but cheap origami-paper the other day

I just found this great Video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4L5nDDgEEk that helped me make my beautiful butterflies. My friends and family can be sure to get an origami-butterfly on every card and gift they get from me in the next months! This is soooo much fun and I just can´t wait to learn some more!!!

Progress

2011-04-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I posted this one: http://kh-handcrafts.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-project-verkefni-mitt.html
I´m still working on my "grandma-afghan" and still loving it. I often take this project with me when I go somewhere or when my other projects get boring and I need a brake! :-) I want it to be very big so I´ve got a looooong way to go - but I don´t mind because the way I see it, some project are quick ones while others are a long-term-thing. In the end, it will get finished.

homemade necklace

2011-04-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

When I was surfing around the other day, looking at all the pretty things other creative bloggers have been creating I found this interesting blog: http://paperraindrops.blogspot.com. This blogger made herself a dino-necklace out of a almost nothing, and I really wanted to try this out. Today I went on a hunt for things that I could turn into something special and found this: tiny plastic-toy-animals, acrylpaint (silver, gold etc.) and hooks in "Smáralind". At home I found some other things, like old jewellery that I have been using to decorate my knitted stuff, a jewellery chain etc. After painting a squirrel with silver paint and fixing a hook in it - and combing it with some old stuff this is what came out:

Treasures of nature

2011-04-06T03:31:00.000-07:00

I´ve always been interested in the healing-power of wild herbs, especially the icelandic ones. Since I´ve got the time to do different things now, I started some experiments with herbs, after reading a lot about the healing-power of herbs, homemade balms, creams and oils on the internet. My first thing to do was to mix up some dry chamomile with olive oil in a glass jar, which I then put in my kitchen window, since it´s the sunniest spot in the flat - now I have to be very patient (so hard!) for 2-3 weeks and after that I can mix it up with some other things to make a balm and some other things out of it! This is so exciting!

The boys room

2011-03-30T02:33:00.001-07:00

For some time now, I´ve been trying to make Bidenams and Freys room look more interesting and cozy. I decided that blue should be the theme-colour in the room, since I love blue (and my boys do too, because of Sportacus in Lazy Town :-)

I started by throwing some things out (furniture and toys), that they where not really using or they didn´t need, to make more space. Then I turned the sleeping-sofa around, bought an extra shelve and many boxes for their toys and other things. Yesterday I sew a cover out of a IKEA-blanket for the sleeping-sofa, and some covers for the cushions (also from IKEA). You can see this on the picture! I sew the Barbapapa on the sofa myself about 2 years ago for my boys- I found those you can buy in stores so expensive... and this one was really easy to make (out of fleece from Rúmfatalagerinn) We are all very happy with the result! The room is much calmer and more cozy... it´s always getting better, and better!

Needle-cushion

2011-03-28T02:41:00.001-07:00

Since I´ve started sewing again after a long break, I really needed a needle-cushion! I decided to make my own. After surfing on the internet, looking at what other people had been using as a needle-cushion, I found an old tee-cup I´ve never used and made a cushion (crocheting) out of the great icelandic yarn called "kambgarn"and did some embroidery! I´m really happy with the result...

Proper apple pie

2011-03-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

My older son is sick again - now he has the chicken pox! :-S For 2 whole days he asked me to bake him an apple pie, after seeing someone eating one in TV. I´ve often baked an applecake - but that´s not what he wanted at all... he really was craving for a PIE. Of course I had to fulfil my poor sick son this wish and went online to search for a recipe, since I´ve never baked a "real apple pie" like the one he wanted. I ended up baking this one since it looked quite simple and I had all the ingredients at home: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/maryhenryproperappl_67463 (the picture above is from that page)

We ate it with vanilla-ice cream and it was sooooooo good! And it looked almost as perfect as it does on the picture above! :-D It´s really simple and quick to make... maby I´ll show you some pictures of my first, real apple pie later...

upcycled boy-hat

2011-03-20T03:39:00.000-07:00

Þessa flottu sumarhúfu fyrir stráka fann ég á þessari dásamlegu bloggsíðu: http://iammommahearmeroar.blogspot.com/2010/08/upcycled-boy-hats.html Ég sá strax að þetta væru húfur sem ég yrði að búa til fyrir gaurana mína! Á föstudaginn fór ég því á veiðar í hinum ýmsu nytjamörkuðum í RVK í leit að bolum sem ég gæti breytt í þessar flottu húfur. Í gær klippti ég þá í sundur og saumaði, rakti upp og saumaði meira. Úr varð gauraleg húfa sem að Bidenam kallar "töffarahúfu". Ég á alveg örugglega eftir að gera fleiri svona húfur með ýmsu sniði og gera ýmsar lagfæringar. En þetta er geggjað skemmtilegt verkefni og ég mæli með því.

I found this cool summerhat for boys on the following, wonderful blog:

http://iammommahearmeroar.blogspot.com/2010/08/upcycled-boy-hats.html. I new right away this was something I just had to make for my two boys! Friday I went hunting for cool, used, T-shirts in shops, that sell used things in Reykjavík, that I could turn into cool hats. Yesterday I cut the shirts I found into pieces, sew them together, unseamed them again and sew some more and we are really happy with the result. I´m sure, I´m going to make more of those in different versions, with a few changes. This is a really fun project, which I can recomend!

Spring-hat - vor-húfa

2011-03-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

Ég er komin með þvílíka saumabakteríu að það er ekki fyndið. Í gær prófaði ég að skálda vor-húfuna sem þið sjáið hér fyrir ofan. Hægt er að snúa henni við og hafa hana græna eða brúna eftir því hvernig skapi maður er í. Hún er svolítið stór á Bidenam, en ég veit það þá bara næst og minnka hana. Svo er ég líka með smá leynisauma-prójekt í gangi sem ég set inn þegar það er tilbúið. Ég tek fram, að ég er þó alls ekki hætt að prjóna og hekla - og er t.d. að búa til uppskrift af uppáhaldshúfu fyrir Frey Dasima og afgangateppið góða er alltaf í gangi.

I just can´t stop sewing once I´ve started! Yesterday I made up the spring-hat you see above. You can wear it two ways: green or brown, depending on your mood. It´s a bit big for Bidenam, but that´s ok, I´ll just make a smaller size. I also have a secret sewing-project going on - I´ll show you when it´s ready! :-)

I must say, I haven´t stopped knitting and crocheting, even if I´m sewing a lot these days. I´ve got 2 things going on: the left-over-yarn-afghan (previous post) and a hat for Freyr Dasima.

Draumabuxur á Bidenam - dreamtrousers for Bidenam

2011-03-14T02:48:00.001-07:00

Fyrir nokkrum árum saumaði ég mér nánast öll pils sjálf og hafði gaman af. Ég saumaði líka nokkra toppa á mig og auðvitað svona einfalda hluti einsog púða, gardínur osfrv. Það skemmtilega við að sauma er að maður er svo fljótt komin með einhvað tilbúið í hendurnar - oftast bara einhverja klukkutíma kannski - á meðan maður getur verið marga daga eða vikur að klára prjónaflík. Í síðustu viku ákvað ég að rifja upp gamla saumatakta, enda hefur mig lengi, lengi lengi langað til að sauma alvöru pokabuxur á strákana mína. Ég átti frábærlega fínt efni í þetta, teygjanlegt, brúnt og retrolegt sem ég keypti á lagarsölu um daginn, með nákvæmlega svona buxur í huga.
Sniðið fékk ég úr mjög skemmtilegri bók sem að mamma gaf mér - hún heitir "Bornetoj du selv kan syv, 5-12 ar" frá árinu 1984. Mamma saumaði mikið af fötum á okkur systurnar úr þessari bók – sniðin í henni eru flest einföld og svo frábærlega skemmtilega retro að það er hrein unun að skoða hana. Mig langar að sauma næstum allt úr henni og kannski ég eigi það bara fyrst ég er komin af stað aftur með saumavélina - þökk sé mömmu! Takk elsku besta mamma mín!
Hér fyrir ofan eru myndir af Bidenam í buxunum. Við erum bæði mjög ánægð með þær og hann hefur varla farið úr þeim síðan ég kláraði þær, enda þægilegar.

A few years ago, I used to sew almost all my skirts by myself and I really enjoyed it. I also made some other things like tops and simple things like pillowcases, curtains and so on. The fun thing about sewing is, how quick you see some results and have a finished thing in your hands – generally a few hours maybe – but when you knit, it can take many days or even weeks until you have finished a piece. Last week I decided to brush up my old sewing-skills. I’ve wanted to sew a certain type of trousers for my boys for a very, very, very long time now. I was so lucky, to have the perfect material for them: elastic, brown and retro-looking. I got the pattern from a book my mother gave me – it’s Danish, called “children’s clothes you can sew yourself, 5-12 years” (1984). She used it herself to make clothes for me and my sisters when we were young. This is such a fun book; the patterns are easy, retro and just beautiful in so many ways. I really want to make almost every single piece in it and thanks to my mum, maybe I’m going to do it now, since I’ve started sewing again!

Above you can see a picture of Bidenam, wearing his new trousers. We are both really happy with the result and he has barely taken them off since I finished them because they really are very comfortable.

a sort of "yarn along"

2011-03-10T05:23:00.000-08:00

Prjónaperlur (http://prjonaperlur.midjan.is/) eru með svona "yarn-along" í gangi og eru að spyrja hvað við hin/ar erum með á prjónunum/heklunálinni. Mitt verkefni þessa dagana (fyrir utan það að hjúkra veiku sonum mínum) er að læra að hekla - og nú er ég í alvörunni byrjuð! Trúi þessu varla sjálf því að mig hefur langað til að læra þetta svo lengi! Mamma og nýja bókin mín kenndu mér að hekla dúllur sem ég ætla að festa saman og búa til svona stórt, klassískt ömmuteppi. Það er víst nóg til af léttlopa-afgöngunum í geymslunni minni til að búa til eitt eða tvö risavaxin! Þetta er svo ótrúlega skemmtilegt að ég get varla hætt og svo er líka svo auðvelt að taka þetta með, hvert sem maður fer.

Bókin sem ég er að lesa er "Hreinsun" eftir Sofi Oksanen

Prjónaperlur (http://prjonaperlur.midjan.is/), two icelandic knit-bloggers are having a sort of "yarn along" and asking other bloggers what they are knitting/crocheting at the moment. My new project at the moment (besides taking care of me two sick sons) ist to learn how to crochet - and now I´ve finally started! I can´t believe it myself - I´ve been wanting to know how to do this forever... My mum and my new book (last post) taught me how to make quadrangles - I wan´t to make a typical, big "grandma-afghan" out of them when I´ve got enough. There surently is enough léttlopi-left-over-yarn in my storeroom to make a giant one... or two. This is so much fun I almost can´t stop and it´s so pracical because you can take this project so easily everywhere you go.

The book I´m reading: "Hreinsun" (Sofi Oksanen)

ný bók - new book

2011-03-04T12:53:00.001-08:00

Mig hefur alltaf langað til að læra að hekla - en aldrei komið því í verk. Yndislega hugulsamir ættingjar gáfu mér gjafabréf í "storkinn" í útskriftargjöf. Þangað fór ég svo í dag, til að kaupa mér eitthvað frábært, sem ég hefði annars aldrei keypt mér. Fyrir valinu varð mjög flott bók sem heitir "basic crochet stiches: 250 to crochet" (sjá mynd) - þar er semsagt að finna 250 hekluaðferðir (einsog nafnið gefur til kynna). Í fyrri hluta bókarinnar eru þær í einfaldari kantinum og fullkomnar fyrir byrjanda einsog mig, en svo verður þetta flóknara þegar líður á bókina. LOKSINS get ég lært að hekla og get ekki beðið eftir að byrja!! Ég keypti mér líka dásamlega mjúkt rautt, 100% alpaca garn, sem ég ætla að prjóna mér stóran og notalegan trefil úr.

I always wanted to now how to crochet. For my graduation, considerate relatives gave me a credit note in a great yarn store in Reykjavík ("Storkurinn"), that sells all kind of things that have to do with knitting, crocheting and sewing. Today I went there to spend the money - and I got myself the perfect book, to learn how to crochet: "basic crochet stiches: 250 to crochet" (you can see the cover on the picture above). So finally I can learn how crochet!!! I just can´t wait! I also bought some beautiful red 100% alpaca yarn - I´m going to knit myself a big cozy scarf!

Útskriftar-múffur / Graduation-muffins

2011-03-01T06:13:00.000-08:00

Ég ákvað að bjóða uppá allskonar múffur í útskriftarveislunni minni um helgina. Við mamma bökum sitt samtals ca 7 sortir og alls um 240 múffur! Mjög skemmtileg klikkun. Ég mæli eindregið með að kíkja á múffuuppskriftir á heimasíðu Mörtu Stewart - þar eru margar virkilega girnilegar kökur.

I decided to have a muffin-graduation-party this weekend. We (me and my mum) baked about 7 different kind of muffins/cupcakes - in the end we had baked about 240 muffins! Totaly crazy and so much fun! I recommend the muffin-recipes on Martha Stewart homepage - there are many really nice and appetizing recipes there.

Sjöl - Shawls

2011-02-24T01:07:00.000-08:00

Mynd tekin af/Picture: from http://www.handidir.is/PageID=35

Fyrst ég hef mjög mikinn tíma þessa dagana, ætla ég ekki aðeins að leggjast yfir Excel, heldur einnig að gera nokkuð sem mig hefur mjög lengi langað til að læra: að prjóna útprjónuð sjöl. Síðasta vetur keypti ég mér hina dásamlega fallegu bók, "þríhyrnur og langsjöl" og hafði aldrei tíma til að læra á hana. Núna hef ég sett mér það markmið að læra að lesa svona uppskrift og prjóna mér svona sjal.

Since I´ve got too much time these days, I´ve set myself 2 goals. The first is to learn more about Excel. The second one is to learn how to knit lace shawls, which is something I´ve really been wanting to know how to do for a really long time. Last winter I bought myself a beautiful book about icelandic lace shawls, "þríhyrnur og langsjöl", but I never had the time to learn how to knit something in it! That´s why I´ve set myself this goal: to learn how to read a pattern like this and knit a shawl.

yummi

2011-02-22T05:10:00.000-08:00

Í gær bjó ég til mínar fyrstu frönsku súkkulaðimakkarónur (sjá mynd hér fyrir ofan). Þær bara heppnuðust mjög vel, sem er sko ekki alveg sjálfsagt mál þar sem þetta er ansi flókið ferli: eggin þurfa að vera við stofuhita, þeytt á ákveðinn hátt, ákveðið lengi - restinni bætt við en fyrst þarf að ganga úr skugga um að möndlurnar séu örugglega orðnar að dufti/möndluhveiti - hitinn á ofnunum má ekki vera hvernig sem er og breyta þarf hitastiginu á ofninum eftir að kökurnar eru komnar inní hann og setja trésleif "á ofnhurðina" því að hún má ekki lokast alveg á meðan kökurnar eru að bakast :-) En þessar kökur eru svo sannarlega alveg þess virði að stússa þetta...

Ég er að hugsa um að bjóða uppá svona kökur í útskriftinni minni á sunnudaginn og búa þær hugsanlega til í öðrum útgáfum en súkkulaði - td. bleikar og turkís-litaðar með vanillu-smjörkremi.

Yesterday, I made me first french chocolate meringue (you can see them on the picture above). Since it´s not an easy process making them, I´m really happy they turned out fine. The eggs have to be warm, whisked in a certain way, for a certain amount of time, the almonds have to be like flour, the oven has to have a certain heat and a lot of other stuff has to be in certain way too! But these meringues are well worth all this trouble because they are just soooo yummi! :-)

Jurtalitun

2011-02-21T10:01:00.000-08:00

Jurtalitun og litun á garni hefur mér lengi fundist heillandi. Núna hef ég loksins aftur tíma til að sinna þessu áhugamáli mínu og næst á dagsskrá er að lita íslenska ull með laukhýði sem ég hef verið að safna um nokkurt skeið. Einnig týndi ég nokkrar jurtir í sumar og þurrkaði - ég ætla að gera litlar litaprufur með þær að gamni mínu og skrá hjá mér niðurstöðurnar. Á myndinni hér fyrir ofan er band sem ég litaði með lauk.

For a very long time now, I´ve found yarn-dyeing with plants and other thing really fascinating. Now, I´ve finally got more time to spend on this hobby of mine. Therefor the next thing on my programme is to dye icelandic wool with onion-peeling that I´ve been collecting this winter. Last summer, I collected some flowers and other plants, dryed them and now, I´m going to make some testing of my own with those plants and wool! On the picture above, you can see some wool, I dyed with onion last summer.

Lopapeysur á börn

2011-02-21T08:47:00.000-08:00

ég elska að klæða strákana mína í lopapeysur - þær eru svo óendanlega hlýjar og eru þannig gerðar, að maður getur alltaf verið viss um að þeim sé ekki of kalt og heldur ekki of heitt. Svo stækka þær með börnunum - ég byrjaði td. að klæða strákana mína í fyrstu lopapeysurnar þegar þeir voru aðeins nokkra mánaða gamlir (3-4 mán.) og þeir notuðu þær svo næstu 2 árin eða svo. Hér má sjá Frey minn aðeins 2-3 mánaða gamlan í fyrstu peysunni sinni (og reyndar var Bidenam í þessari sömu peysu á undan honum) og svo aðra mynd af honum þar sem hann er orðinn 1,5 ára í sömu peysunni!

I just LOVE to dress my boys in icelandic wool-sweaters - they are so warm and have some really special qualities: the first thing is, one can always be sure that your kids are never cold (even if they get wet) and not too warm! The second thing is, they seem to grow with your children. I made the first sweaters for my boys when they where about 3-4 months old, and with 18-24 months they where still using those same sweaters! On the picture above (left), you can see my younger son Freyr, wearing his first sweater about 3 months old (Bidenam used the same one before him). On the other picture on the right, you can see him with 18 months still wearing the same sweater!

2009-03-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

For Sale:

Þessar handstúkur eru prjónaðar úr ljósbrúnum léttlopa og gullband prjónað með að hluta til. Ég get auðvitað prjónað þetta í hvaða útfærslu sem óskað er eftir. Sniðið er hannað af mér. Verð: 2000 kr.

Diese Armstulpen werden aus hellbrauner isländischer Wolle und zum Teil wird goldener Band mitgestrickt. Ich kann das natürlich in jeder Variante stricken, falls jemand etwas ganz bestimmtes im Sinne hat. Der Schnitt ist vom mir gemacht worden.
Preis: 2000 kr. / 20 Euro plus Versand

Those are made out of lightbrown, icelandic wool and golden Yarn. I can knit those in another version, when someone want´s something special. They are designed by me.
Price: 20 Euro plus delivery

2009-03-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

For Sale:

Þessar stúkur eru prjónaðar úr ljósbrúnum léttlopa og gullband prjónað með að hluta til. Ég get auðvitað prjónað þetta í hvaða útfærslu sem óskað er eftir. Sniðið er hannað af mér. Verð: 2000 kr.

Diese Armstulpen werden aus hellbrauner isländischer Wolle und zum Teil wird goldener Band mitgestrickt. Ich kann das natürlich in jeder Variante stricken, falls jemand etwas ganz bestimmtes im Sinne hat. Der Schnitt ist vom mir gemacht worden.
Preis: 2000 kr. / 20 Euro plus Versand

Those are made out of lightbrown, icelandic wool and golden Yarn. I can knit those in another version, when someone want´s something special. They are designed by me.
Price: 20 Euro plus delivery

2009-03-08T04:32:00.000-07:00

For Sale:

Tea Cosy, felted wool, with beautiful embroidery (flower: angelica) on both sides, kosts: 6500 krónur or 50.- Euros plus delivery

Eine Art "Mütze" um deine Teekanne warm zu halten! Auf beiden Seiten ist schöne, feine Stickerei, und zwar eine Blume die man auf Island in verschiedenen Versionen häufig sieht (Angelica). Kosten: 50 Euros plus Versandskosten

Tehetta til sölu: þæfð ull með miklum útsaumi - mynd af íslenskri jurt: hvönn. Kostar 6500.- krónur.

2009-03-08T04:20:00.000-07:00

For sale:

This hat for adults is for sale: felted and decorated with flowers made out of big wooden pearls. Kosts: 4900.- krónur or 45 Euros plus delivery

Diese Mütze für Erwachsene ist zum Verkaufen: gefilzt und dekoriert mit Blumen, die aus Holzperlen gemacht sind. Kosten: 45 Euros plus Versandskosten

Þessi húfa fyrir fullorðna er til sölu: þæfð og skreytt með blómum sem eru búin til úr tréperlum. Kostar: 4900.- krónur

2009-03-08T04:13:00.000-07:00

Hat (4800 kr. or 40 Euros from a different angle)

Hat

2009-03-08T03:55:00.000-07:00

For sale:

This hat is for sale: felted and decorated for 4800.- kr or 40.- Euros plus delivery

Þessi húfa er til sölu: þæfð og skreytt fyrir fullorðna: 4800.- krónur + sendingarkostnaður

Diese Mütze für Erwachsene, ist gefilzt und dekoriert und kostet 40.-Euros plus Versandskosten

2009-03-07T06:15:00.000-08:00

2009-03-07T06:10:00.000-08:00

2009-03-07T05:04:00.000-08:00

Á þessari síðu langar mig til að sýna ykkur hvað ég er að vinna með hverju sinni og setja inn myndir af ýmsu sem ég ætla að selja. Þessa dagana prjóna ég og hanna mikið af þæfðum húfum úr þykkri ull og grifflum úr léttlopa sem ég svo skreyti á ýmsan hátt. Mun setja inn myndir og verð á næstu dögum. Ef þið áhuga á einhverju ákveðnu, þá sendið mér endilega póst! :o)

On this site, I want to give you an example of what my handcrafts, and put some of them up for sale. At the moment, I design, knit and decorate a lot of hats and a kind of mittens. I´ll add some pictures of my sale-pieces and the prices on this site in the next few days. If you´re interested in something special, just send me a mail! :o)

2009-03-07T04:54:00.000-08:00

2009-03-07T04:50:00.000-08:00

2009-03-07T04:45:00.000-08:00

Pullover

2009-03-07T04:41:00.000-08:00