Made in 2010!

After looking through my blogposts for the last year, it looks like all the crafty stuff I've done is making cards... but that's not the case... I guess I've just forgotten to blog about all the other things I've made. Most of my cards are made for some challenge or other, and have to be blogged right away... other things have to wait... but not anymore. Here are some of the things I made in 2010:

Some new outfits for my girls' Barbie dolls. I have made a few more skirts and blouses, but I don't have a photo of them. I found all the patterns HERE somewhere.

Back in March, I knitted some mittens for my mum and for Maja. I also made some for Susie, but they were never shown... but here they are. Susie picked the colours herself, and she has used them a lot.

I've had this white yarn in my stash for ages. I inherited three full balls and two used ones of this when my grandmother died 16 years ago. This yarn must be quite old. It's called Annie, and is made by L/L Hovland Ullvarefabrikk. The factory was dismantled in 1989, so my "guess" is that this yarn is 22 years old... probably older....

After being in my stash for that long, I thought it was about time I used it for something. I decided to knit myself a Dream Shrug. I used this quite a lot over my strappy tops last summer. I have also made one of these for Maja/Susie (they had to share one), but again, no picture.

I'm not sure these frames are worth showing, but here they are anyway. They are made of a piece of cardboard, old newspapers, glue and some acrylic paints.... Quite fun to make actually!

My cheap laundry basket from IKEA was falling apart last summer, so instead of buying a new one I decided to rip off the old plastic basket, keep the frame and sew a new fabric "basket". I love it! (before on the left, after on the right...)

I have also been digging into my stash of beads. I have mostly made knitting markers, but I sold or gave them all away before I managed to take some pictures... silly me! I managed to take some really bad photos of a couple of earrings I made though... I gave these to my hubby to use as a gift in his work's advent calendar.

I started knitting this scarf back in April, but never finished it until November... Scarves are sooo boring to knit! Love the pattern and the colours of this though. I found the pattern for this at Ravelry.

This is a project that took even longer to finish.... I'm not quite sure exactly when I started knitting it, but I know I still lived with my parents... I moved out back in 95.... so it has taken a few... ehm... years to finish. I must say to my defense that it was stuffed away in a basement with all our other stuff in Norway the 8,5 years we lived in Scotland.... but still....

I have also made a reusable, reversible Swiffer cover. I was tired of buying new ones all the time, and this is more environment friendly as well. It's made from acrylic yarn as that tends to create static that makes dust and hair cling. It was fun and easy to crochet, and it works really well. I'm definately going to make more of these! This is also a Ravelry pattern.

The last thing I'm showing is a new dishcloth for my kitchen... Nice and bright colours, 100% cotton. Pattern is HERE.

I think I've already blogged the baby blanket I made for my new niece... didn't I? *opening a new window to check*... Yes I did. (I have made another one of these blankets for a friend at work, but I'll show that later... guess I've shared enough today....).

Well.... that's all folks... as they say in the cartoons... lol...

Herringbones...

I finished my Herringbone Neck warmer yesterday. I didn't knit it as long as the pattern said to knit it, because I wanted a quite snug fit around my neck. I've got plenty of scarves and turtle neck jumpers, but they all seems too loose round my neck and therefore let the cold air in...

I'm so pleased with this one. I tried it out on my daily walk, to get Susie to sleep, today. It's nice and soft and warm... just like I wanted it.

I couldn't find any buttons to fit the neck warmer and I didn't have time to wait until I could get to a shop and buy some, so I just made two monkey fist knots in the same yarn as the neck warmer and used them as buttons instead. They are a bit soft, but... so far so good.

I really like the texture of the herring bone stitch.... and the colour of this yarn.... Let it snow!

Lazy Saturday morning

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Today we had a really lazy morning. It was cold outside, but we'd lit the fireplace, and while the girls were snuggling on the sofa watching a DVD and being quiet for once (this photo isn't from today, but this is what they looked like. Today's photo was too blurred... I was probably too tired to focus...)...
...I was trying my hand on hand piecing for the first time. Is that what it's called when you tack a piece of fabric around a piece of paper and sew it together by hand...?? This is something I've never done before, it was quite relaxing although a bit repetitive.
Here is the star I pieced, tacking on and everything. I'm quite amazed that the colours are so true in this photo ... I always have a hard time catching the colours correctly. Finished with the piecing. The tacking/basting is out and it's ironed. I'm not really impressed whit my stitching... maybe I should have matched the thread better with the colours?? Or maybe I shouldn't have watched Tintin with the girls at the same time as I was stitching...Well, this was just for fun, just to try it out and see if I liked it, so it doesn't really matter. I'm thinking maybe I would try to hand quilt this as well. That's another thing I've never done before.
The star is quite small, so I guess I'll have a (nice) coaster for my morning coffee when this is finished.

This afternoon I started a new knitting project as well. I guess this was the day for starting new things... I just totally fell for this neck warmer when I saw it. So that's what I'm knitting. I'm not using the same yarn as in the pattern... I'm going a bit cheaper with "Oda" from Trysilgarn (colour 209 if anyone is interested. The colour in the photo isn't quite right though).
The pattern seemed pretty straight forward to start with... only two rows to repeat. That was until I started knitting... It was a bit hard to wrap my head around what the pattern really said, and how to do it practically. But after a couple of (four, five) trials and errors, casting on, ripping it off, casting on... etc... I finally got it. This isn't really a quick knit... well, not for me anyway, even though I use needles 8mm... but, hopefully, I'll have a new neck warmer in a few days... that is if I don't start a new project in between...

Spiral scarf

Maja insisted that she neeeeeded a new scarf. I wasn't gonna buy her one, so I said I could knit one, and she was fine with that. She got to choose the yarn..... fuzzy.... of course. But this isn't just fuzzy... it has got small "bits" in it as well. It wasn't the best to knit with because of these "bits" but I managed. It wasn't really a problem, just a bit fiddly to get the bits through the stitches as you knitted. I made it a spiral scarf. We've got plenty of "normal" scarfs, so I thought I'd make something a bit different.