Mousie

My little niece had birthday earlier this month. I decided she should have a cute little mousie of her own and that this would be the perfect opportunity to finally knit Ysolda Teague´s Mousie from the book Whimsical Little Knits (you can also buy the pattern online here).  

This was the first time I knit a toy and it was surprisingly fun. The pattern starts with the tail/Icord and is knitted in the round, ending with the tip of his nose. I used léttlopi for this one and the pink yarn used for the tail, ears and nose is dyed with madder root.  This irresistible little mousie is not only really really cute, but also an extremely quick knit...

  

  

And just because I was having so much fun with my new lens... 

Done!

Remember this post  and this one about my crochet-blanket I started 2011?? Well... I finally managed to finish it! 

I used icelandic léttlopi and hook nr. 5

It started up as a scrap-afghan, but of course I ended up buying a lot of extra yarn - especially since I´ve been adding more and more rounds to the about 105 squares. 

I added 3 extra rows in 2 colors to  each square for two reasons: 

1. To  keep it a bit more calm and organized - all those colors made it look so crazy and unorganized

2. To make the squares bigger so I wouldn´t have to make&join over 200 to reach the right size:-)

I joined them with my favorite color: mustard-yellow and it´s huge

Me and my older one love this blanket so much & we will be using it a lot! 

bottle cap crochet-flowers

I improvised those flower-brooches for my girls 

during a girls-weekend in a cottage on the countryside

I used icelandic lace (loðband,einband) and bottle caps for the center 

and léttlopi for the flower pedals

one more thing: I´m starting to miss "the word of the week" photo-challenge so I'm starting with that one again next week...  next weeks word "outlines" is chosen by my sister Guðrún

Have a wonderful weekend ya´ll!

Crochet snowflakes and christmas in my heart

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

Snowflake from the book "Þóra"

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

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

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

Elves at home...

A few years ago I found an interesting slipper pattern on Ravelry (felted) - I really wanted to knit them for myself but at that time, I was overchallenged by this pattern beeing written in english and filled with short rows, so I ended up just dreaming about those slippers... until now! On a relaxing cottage-trip at the countryside with my boys the other day, I finally had the time&the right skills to make them!

This pattern, "Elf Shoes" really is a piece of cake if you know how to knit short rows (I recommend using youtube if you don´t), it´s interesting, fun, goes really fast and I learned a lot about sock-knitting while working on this project. 

Details:

Yarn: léttlopi (aran) for the shoes and my plant-dyed einband (laceweight) for the freehand embroidery 

Needles: 6 mm

Modifications: I made my slippers longer than it says in the pattern, since I´ve felted léttlopi several times and know how intensely it feltes.

I really, really love those shoes and I´m sure the elves do too!

Freehand-embroidery with plant dyed einband (onionpeel, lichen, lupina and calluna vulgaris)

 I used some iron-on-patches to make them last longer...

ohhh how I love those colours of nature... 

I also wanted to show off my new button - a very dear friend of the family gave it to me, knowing that I have a thing for buttons :-)  

It´s probably one of the most beautiful buttons I´ve ever seen...

Bus Yarnstorming in Reykjavík

Remember my Granny-a-day-for-2weeks-challenge? Well, I actually made about 17 different crochet-grannys for the bus-yarnstorming-project. Our bus turned out to be so beautiful&perfect and you can read all about it on the Reykjavík Underground Yarnstormes blog and thanks to Litla Skvís, you see some pictures here. ! :-)

I found some pictures of my work in the bus here:

1. heart granny
2. huge Granny (the seat)
3. 9 different grannys together (the seat)
4. 3 big ones (the wall)

But here you have the last grannys I made: 

I can´t figure out, where I got the tutorials/patterns for those two.. but they where so much fun to make so I guess I'll have to have to find the patterns eventually... I used léttlopi for both of them:

Granny Flower Square (yarn: léttlopi): you can find a pattern and a good tutorial here

This one is just the classic granny square, you can find a pattern/tutorial here - what makes it unusual is the fact, that it is made with my giant, homemade crochet hook, with 8-stranded léttlopi... 

that makes it HUGE! :-)

More Granny´s...

Here you have a update on my 2 weeks Granny-project...

Those cuties are my favorite at the moment - I´d love to make them out of different kind of materials (not just yarn...)! They are so much fun to make! You can find the pattern on the Royal sisters blog, they have a really good pattern/tutorial with pictures 

This one is from the Royal sisters blog too - I learned a lot by doing it...

I found the next 4 Granny´s on my favorite "Granny-site"... 

this one was quite fast and easy - you can find it here

... and the next 2 really need to be blocked, but they are really pretty... here

 Have a wonderful week!

Granny´s nr. 3-6

 Update on my "2 weeks Granny program": 

I decided to show you at least 4 Granny´s in one post - and here you go... my Granny´s nr. 3, 4, 5 and 6...           

(please click on the name to get to the pattern)

nr. 3 (huge): squaring the big sircle

 

Nr. 4 (huge): Dúllur Veru (from the book Prjónaperlur)

Nr. 5 (smaller than nr. 3&4): Sunburst Granny heart

Nr. 6 (small and cute, so much fun to make!): Daisy Granny

And here you have a small taste of wonderful, sunny summerday in Reykjavík...

 

Granny nr. 2 and 2b

You can read all about my challenge: "A Granny a day for 2 weeks" here. 

Granny´s nr. 2 and 2b are ready but not blocked... 

Pattern: crochet square tutorial, found here

yarn: kambgarn and léttlopi

Pattern: square - a chart found here

yarn: einband

Yarn bombing in Reykjavík

Since I´m extremely busy working on a certain knitting project I haven´t got much time for any other knitting or crochet-related things. But when I was invited to take part in a yarn bombing-thing in Reykjavík I was really tempted - especially when I looked into the big box of yarn (sponsored by Istex for the yarn bombing) filled with different kind of icelandic wool in every colour of the rainbow! You can read all about it in icelandic here.

After thinking a lot about what I could knit or crochet, that didn´t take to much time and was in some way interesting and challenging, I decided to make a 2 weeks program: I´m going use this as an opportunity to learn how to make different kind of crochet squares and make a square a day for at least 2 weeks.

There are two rules:
1. Never make the same square more than once
2. Every square has to be one, that I´ve never made before

It only takes about 5-30 min to learn how to make a new square and I really can spare those few minutes of my time for this fun project.

I´m really excited about this challenge - I'm going to learn how to make at least 14 different kind of crochet squares and it will only take about 10 minutes a day! :-)The fun thing is, the squares don´t have to look perfect, so even if I make a mistake it doesn´t matter at all  - and I also get to use colours I would normally never choose for granny squares (at the moment: dalia hot pink, bright yellow, turquoise... )


If you want to participate in my challenge and make a granny a day for 2 weeks, please leave a link to your blog, photosite or ravelry-page...

Details on square 1:

Yarn: léttlopi, einband and kambgarn

hook: 4,5

Pattern: French Nannie Granny Flower Square, found here on Ravelry (tutorial and pattern with pictures)

The very cute front: 

I´ve always wanted to know how to make a flower in a square - and now I do! 

The back:

The lopapeysa

Have I ever told you how much I love lopi? Here you have some lopipeysa/Islandpullis/lopisweaters I have made in the last 5 years...

1. Green one on the left: yarn: léttlopi, horses: I got them on the Istex-homepage; shaping: I made it up... 

On the right: unspun, one strand (really thin) - the pattern: "Bokki" from the book Prjónaperlur

2. yarn: léttlopi from Istex; pattern: "Fjör" from Lopi 25

3. on the left: sweater for my dad, yarn: álafosslopi; Pattern: from Lopi 12; shaping: myself

on the right: Sweater for Bidenam; yarn: léttlopi; Pattern: Lopi 12, adapted for a child; shaping: myself

4: this one is one of my favorite child-lopisweater-pattern, so pretty and classic; yarn: Álafosslopi; pattern: from Lopi 2

5. Yarn: Álafosslopi; Pattern: The stars/roses/snowflakes from "Fjör" (Lopi 2) adapted for a child;     shaping: myself

 6. in the front: also one of my favorites... classic and so pretty! Yarn: léttlopi: Pattern: "Barnahettupeysa",    a free pattern on the Istex-homepage found here;

And here you have something else I love: driftwood... so beautiful... this one was taken in the south of Iceland, near Höfn in Hornafjordur

Landmannalaugar, what a magical place and a wonderful, adventurous drive... you can bath in natural, hot springs there...