Yarn dyeing with kool aid & knitting for a baby

I´ve been knitting quite a lot for a baby that will soon be born

I started by knitting a baby-hat, using this pattern - it´s in Icelandic but there are so many similar patterns out there for free - but if you read Icelandic I really do recommend this one: it´s so simple, extremely quick and you get a beautiful, really practical hat for your little one. 

I loved this kind of hats when I had my two sons and think you just can´t have to many of those. 

For all those projects I used the same yarn: Trysil baby-yarn from my stash. I really liked working with it - it´s sooooo soft, light and wonderful - perfect for baby-clothing... so sad that we can´t buy this yarn in Iceland anymore :-(

For this one I used needles nr. 2,5 - that makes it a newborn-size

For those hats I used Trysil-baby-yarn I dyed with Kool-aid (keypt í Megastore), 

using this tutorial by Xandy.

Blue: red/blue/white Kool-aid (needles nr. 3,5)

green: lemon-lime Kool-aid (needles nr. 3,5)

red: cherry Kool-aid (in the small packets/bréf í Megastore - I didn´t get the same deep-red color from the one in a tub/dunkur í Kosti), needles nr. 2,5 (newborn size)

 I really had fun dyeing yarn with kool-aid and I really loved the way it turned out - I´ll definitely be using this dye-material more in the future. 

... just can´t wait to see those hats on the baby´s head :-) 

I also made a sweater - I really don´t like knitting cables, 

but I decided to try to get rid of my cable-phobia for this project. 

I used a pattern from the book "Fleiri Prjónaperlur"

about the pattern:

I really had fun knitting this sweater - I even enjoyed knitting the cables for the first time ever.

It´s a quick and simple knit - the only thing is, that I didn´t like the way the pattern is written and a beginner could have some serious problems getting through the second part of the instructions (lack of information and not very clear).

But I DO LOVE he outcome - and more importantly: the mother to-be did too :-) 

(even my husband said: can´t you make one for me, using the same yarn and pattern - only bigger?)

Yarn: Trysil baby-yarn from my stash

buttons: from my button-stash... got those from my mother and they where so perfect for this project  - it´s almost like they where just sitting there, waiting to get on this sweater!

I love knitting baby-things... so quick, cute and soft - instant gratification!

Gifts

This year, almost every Christmas-gift we gave, was handmade by me :-) 

My goal was only/mainly to use things I had at home  (yarn, wax, paper...)

What I like about handmade gifts is, that you put so much thought into it - you can choose the perfect yarn, perfect color, perfect picture, perfect words, perfect button, perfect beads, perfect pattern, perfect herb-combination (salve) - depending on the recipient.

Unfortunately I didn´t make pictures of everything - but here are some of the things I made: 

This Pan-collar (my own pattern) was made for a little girl in Sweden 

yarn: acryl-yarn from Trysil (soft&shiny)

button: vintage button from my collection (yes, I actually have a button-collection)

I made this hat up for the same little girl

yarn: soft wool from Trysil

butterfly-pearls from Tiger (you could use them as buttons too)

 I made 3 of those in different colors. Once I started knitting this pattern, I just couldn´t stop making those hats :-) it was so much fun - easy, quick and so cute! It´s a really good project if you want to use up some yarn from your stash

yarn: Álafosslopi

pattern: Capucine by Adela, a free pattern found here

 I also made those candles - I bought big, white candles (ódýrust í Bónus), 

found some pretty pictures on the internet

found the perfect font on dafonts.com

used Illustrator for the rest (took some colors from the pictures for the letters and surrounding outside of the picture)

 The words on the other side of the candle mean:

friður = peace

kærleikur = love

styrkur = strength

sæla = happiness 

... and this is my wish for the recipient...

I also made some candles in a cup, slippers, another collar and more...
Did you make any Christmas-gifts this year???

Kindergarten-kit by Pickles

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")

my new hat

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

Lace hat - from "Fleiri Prjónaperlur"

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:

Many things

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".

charity-knitting

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

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!!

upcycled boy-hat

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!