This year's christmas gifts

These three scarves are the only christmas gifts I made this year, though I've had a lot of commissions all through the autumn which might end up as gifts, but these scarves specifically I made for my grandparents.

Each scarf is made with one ball of Novita Kajo and 6mm needles. They are made in seed stitch with one stitch slipped at the beginning of each row to make the edges neater.

I did some very light steaming to smooth them out a little bit.

These were quick to make and the colours are beautiful. I hope they end up being useful and warm.

My recent stuff

It feels like I haven't posted in ages, but thankfully it's "only" been one month. I'm making something all the time, but I just wasn't inspired to take pictures, mainly because it's wintertime here in Finland and we only have about five hours of daylight a day, and all the lights I have, have this yellow tint so pics don't look great. But here are some things I have finished recently!

These first two are commissions, here is a pair of mittens made with a kit that included the yarn and the pattern. This pattern is called Kenkävero and it's part of the Roosa Nauha- campaign here in Finland, where they donate part of the sales to a breast cancer foundation. 

The wrong side looked pretty to me. These are made with 3mm needles, and for some reason the dark red yarn included in the kit was not enough to make the thumbs so I had to improvise and use the light pink. It looks a bit weird but not too bad,

The second commission was a shawl, made with Novita Nalle Taika and a 4mm crochet hook. The pattern is this one which is one that I wrote, but I'm pretty sure the original was the Virus shawl. I didn't have time to take better pictures.

Then there's these two pairs of socks for myself. 

This pair is made with Gründl Hot Socks Evergreen and 2,75mm needles. It's a toe-up pattern, and the colours are so pretty, they remind me of spring and summer!

These are made with Katia Olé Socks Komfort Tweed and 3mm needles. The pattern is basically just 2x2 ribbing with a cable on the front.

And finally is this set for my mom, also made with Gründ Hot Socks Evergreen and 2,75mm needles. The socks are the same toe-up pattern that I used in my socks, except the heel flap is longer and fits better. The mittens are also a "toe-up", or I guess top-down pattern, but what I mean is that I started at the fingertips and knit down, I've wanted to try that for a while now and it turned out to be pretty easy and also fun to knit! The hat is quite simple too, the main pattern is boxes of knit and purl stitches, each box is 10 stitches wide and 8 rounds tall. 

My first post on this blog was exactly one year ago today! Here's to another year of handmade goodness!

Warm things

Even more socks and one pair of mittens!

These are a size 38 again with 2x2 ribbing so they'll fit better. The yarn is Eisblume from Opal with 3,5mm needles.

These are bigger, a size 43. A pretty simple pattern that was fun to make. This yarn is Novita 7 Veljestä Polaris and again with 3,5mm needles. (these two pics look kinda blurry to me, sorry about that)

These I made for my brother, they are made with two colours of Novita 7 Veljestä Jenkka and also with 3,5mm needles, thicker yarn and bigger needles mean that the socks are very quick to make.

And finally the mittens, first pair I've made since last winter I think. This is just a basic pattern with what was called an "indian thumb" in the pattern, from Novita Lapaslehti.

Made also with 3,5mm needles and Novita 7 Veljestä Polaris, just a different colour. Just some very basic mittens that are great for the wintertime.

Pink things

Lace doilies and a pillow cover, all of which happened to be pink unintentionally.

Here is the pillow, I'm super happy with this, it's just perfect! 

The other side. This pillow is made with eight shades of Drops Paris and the all-pink squares are in Novita Kaisla, all of the yarns were from my stash.

I didn't use a pattern, I just had something in mind involving the ripple pattern, but after it was done I realized that the yarn wouldn't be enough to cover the whole pillow. So I went through my stash and thankfully found some pink that matched the colours!

These two doilies are both made with the same yarn, that I can't name right now, and with a 1,5mm hook. Both patterns are from various crochet magazines that only have patterns for lace doilies. 

This one is a real beauty. Made with the same yarn and hook again. It's hanging high up on the wall so sorry about the reflection. The black background really highlights all the details.

This pattern is Eastern Fantasies and I truly enjoyed making it. Lots of different stitches and the result is stunning.

Three new pairs

Some socks I've made recently.

A size 38 made with Regia Pairfect and 2,5mm needles. The pattern was pretty basic and it was fun to knit Pairfect again.

This pair is a size 43, bigger than what I'm used to making so I googled some of the measurements and stitch counts of a sock of that size, and I think they turned out pretty okay. This one is also a very basic pattern, just with ribbing to give flexibility. The yarn is Regia Desing Line with 3,5mm needles.

The last pair is crocheted, and I made these for myself since I haven't really made any crochet socks before. I have tried some patterns in the past but they always turned out to be a wrong size or weirdly shaped and just not fitting at all (it's my fault, not the patterns'), so I decided to just try something that I felt would work. And they turned out fine. I really want to make more crochet socks to practice and hopefully come up with a good and versatile pattern.

Spring flowers

A cute shawl that I'm very happy with! It's my own pattern, I wanted something with flowers and came up with the pattern for the hexagon and then I got the idea to join them to make a triangle shawl.

It's not very big and it has more of a lace kind of look to it, so I'm thinking this would be lovely to wear over my shoulders in the summertime.

Here it is on the blocking board. This yarn is Zauberball, I had two balls and they were enough for 28 hexagons and the edge, and I have a little bit of left overs from both balls. I used a 3,5mm crochet hook for the hexagons and a 4mm one for the edge.

Blocking really made a difference for me, before it I wasn't completely happy with how the pattern looked, but now I'm in love with how beautiful it turned out to be.

I also love how the long colour changes in the yarn make it so each hexagon is different from the other, and that there are both multi-coloured ones and ones that are the same colour all the way. I love the fact that winter is coming soon, but now that I made this shawl I can't wait for summer so I can wear it!

A cable jacket

This is a jacket that I made for my mom, and I'm very happy with. It was fairly quick to make, now that I think back, and the size is just right.

Front and back (these photos are super bright, sorry about that). There's many different cable patterns which were quite easy to memorize so I didn't have to look at the chart all the time. 

This pattern is from Novita Kesä 2016 and the yarn is 7 Veljestä. I used 5,5mm needles, half a size bigger that what the pattern said, and the knit fabric is nice and soft and not too tight which sometimes happens when there is a lot of cables.

This jacket is not 100% finished, because it doesn't have buttons yet, but when my mom picks the right ones it won't take me too long to sew them on. And I wanted to make a post because I'm really happy with this jacket and it was a nice project.

I started making a beanie with the leftover yarn, it has the same type of cables that the jacket has. I'm going to make it very long so you can fold the edge when wearing the beanie, which gives extra warmth to the ears and the forehead. This picture also has horrible light, it's dark outside and I don't have any special lamps for taking photos, which is why I try to take most of my photos in the daylight, but I don't think it's really that important.

I can't stop

Second pair is done! Well, technically this is the first pair because the last thing was a pair of legwarmers, not socks. 

So this pattern is also from Puikkomaisterin Sukkakirja by Tiina Kaarela

Lovely colourful fair isle and interesting patterns, a good combination for practicing and updating my skills.

These were made with 2mm and 2,5mm needles and the yarns I used are Hot Socks Neon by Gründl (orange, green and red) 4-fädig by Regia (yellow and brown) Fabel by Drops (blue and the darker red in the foot part), Fine Wool by Regia (white) and Pikkusisko by Novita (light pink), all are leftovers from other things.

This part with the bugs is really pretty, possibly my favourite.

Sorry about the bad picture, I just wanted to include the next thing I started right after this pair was finished, this pattern is also from the same book. I'm really enjoying making these but I feel like this pair might bring an end to my short obsession with colourful fair isle. But then again, there's this very lovely pattern for some knee-high socks which looks very tempting, so I can't be completely sure about that.

Gingerbread

The colour and shape of this shawl remind me of gingerbread, the traditional shape of the cookies. 

This pattern is from a booklet that came with Simply Crochet issue 47 and it's designed by Cécile Balladino. When I first saw the pattern I thought the lace looked really interesting and pretty and I wanted to make it.

The yarn is Scrumptious Lace by Fyberspates and I used a 3,5mm crochet hook.

I also made a yet another pair of baby socks, this time with Regia 4-fädig and 2,25mm needles. The yarn is a bright pink colour but not as bright as the picture makes it look like.

I'm addicted

So last year I bought a book called Puikkomaisterin sukkakirja by Tiina Kaarela (on Ravelry here), that has many gorgeous designs for socks that at first seemed to be too difficult for me to make. I decided to start by making a pair of legwarmers that had lots of fair isle but simple enough, so I started making the first one at the end of last year and I finished it sometime early this year. Then I just forgot about making the second one, until last week, and now the pair is finished.

I had so much fun making the second one and now I'm absolutely addicted to colourful fair isle, I can't wait to finish the project I'm currently making so that I can start a new one right away.

This pattern is called Pirkko and the yarn I used is Hot Socks Neon by Gründl, except for the brown and dark green which are both 4-fädig by Regia. I used 2mm needles to knit these.

Immediately after the legwarmers I started making a pair of knee-high socks from the same book. This design caught my eye right after buying the book and I thought it would be too difficult, but I proved myself wrong! This is only the first sock but I'm already thinking about which pair to start after this one.

A new blanket

A project that I'm very much in love with because I love making blankets and because this one is made entirely with leftovers from another blankets!

It's full of different crochet stitches and techniques that I just felt like making, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. 

All of these yarns are either Special DK or Life DK from Stylecraft and I used a 4,5mm crochet hook.

This felt like a really quick project because of the constant changes in colours and techniques, and also because I weaved in all the ends as I went on (just crocheted over them) so there wasn't much finishing to do. Right now the blanket is a bit bulky and I'm thinking about doing some steaming to smooth and stretch it, but that can be done another day.

This blanket is now officially corgi-approved. 

This is what I had left after the blanket was done. I'm probably going to make a scarf with these, with stripes or some simple fair isle.

A simple top

Another thing I made for myself! I saw this yarn on sale and loved the bright green colour, and since it was a bamboo yarn, an idea of a simple summer time top popped into my head.

Not the best picture, but it turned out pretty nice. It fits well and is not too tight. It's made with treble and double crochet stitches. 

The yarn is Bamboo & co by Teetee and I used a 3,5mm hook.

I made the front and back, and after joining the shoulders I did some very light blocking because I didn't want too much drape.

The weather is getting warmer again after a couple days of rain, so I might just be able to wear this outside.