Celebrating with baby socks

Finland is 100 years old in 2017 and there are lots of ways to celebrate, one being all kinds of hand crafts. There's many different patterns available for knitting and crochet, and I didn't think I'd make anything special, but I was asked to make some baby socks to give to babies born/christened this year and just as gifts too. All with white and blue colour scheme of course.

First pair in white. All of the socks are made with the Junasukka pattern, with some changes in the stitch count and length for each pair. Also they all have the same text at the bottom of the foot "Suomi 100 vuotta" = "Finland 100 years". My needlework skills are definitely not great, because I haven't done much at all, but this was very good practice. 

This pair is made with Novita Nalle and 2,75mm needles and the blue used for the text is Regia 4ply.

Second pair has the colours switched, the yarns and needles are the same. Here the text already looks much better than in the first pair, because I used smaller stitching to "write".

Third pair was also made with the same yarn and needles.

And again, the same yarn and needles. This pair was made for an almost 2-year-old child so I had a few more stitches and made the foot longer.

Not baby socks but the theme remains. These mittens are for a 6-year-old. Here both colours are Novita Nalle and I made these with 3mm needles. I really had no idea what size they should be, so I just made them slightly smaller than what I would make for myself, and from what I've heard, they were good. They might be too big for a 6-year-old, but that's better than being too small, and kids grow up fast.

There will be more baby socks coming, at least 4-5 pairs I think. They are really nice and quick to make and I'm starting to enjoy the embroidery part now that I got the hang of it, it was difficult at first.

Finally finished

These are all things for myself that I started making last year but took some time to finish, mainly because I'm still not the biggest fan of weaving in ends. But now that it's done I'm very happy!

A pair of toe-up socks, made with Regia Colormania Color and 2,75mm needles. I absolutely fell in love with this yarn, it has multiple thin strands held together and the colour reminds me of tv static.

This pattern is by Tiina Kaarela, from her book Puikkomaisterin sukkakirja. I started this pair in august last year and then just didn't feel like making it until around december. I just like to have many projects going on at the time, and I can't really focus on just one at a time, unless it's a commission of course. 

I used 2,5mm needles and the yarn is Hot Socks Neon by Gründl, except the dark green which is 4ply from Regia.

This pattern is also by Tiina Kaarela, from Puikkomaisterin lapaskirja. The pattern is made with increases and decreases with very simple fair isle. I used Drops Alpaca with 2,5mm needles. I love these bright colours and the alpaca makes these mittens very light but warm.

I'm making a new blanket

I love blankets so much I couldn't resist ordering some yarn after deciding the colours and having a rough idea of what I wanted to make.

Here is what I got. 15 shades of Stylecraft Special DK and grey for joining and the edge. 

First I made 14 little circles with each colour, so 210 in total.

Then I started the second round.

I've been taking a lot of pictures because we now have more daylight each day.

Time to start the third round.

And this is where I am now. I need to finish the third round for all motifs, and then the fourth and fifth rounds will turn them into squares and after that it's time to join them.

My Pick 'n' Mix CAL

The Simply Crochet magazine is running a CAL and of course I had to take part in it. It started last year and there have been five parts as of now, though my issue hasn't arrived yet so I only have four parts done. I ordered the yarn pack from Wool Warehouse, the yarn is Cascade 220. So far I'm really enjoying it, each part has had different techniques and I love all the colour combinations. There's going to be 12 squares in total, if I remember correctly.

Part 1. Each part is two squares in the same pattern but with different colours.

Part 2. I need to weave in the ends sometime soon so I don't have a million of them in the finished blanket.

Part 3.

And part 4. 

Also my Impromptu cardigan is 90% finished, I just need to sew the pockets in place, weave in the ends and buy some buttons. I did some light blocking and also steamed the cardigan to smooth out everything. 

The colour is very washed out in the picture, it's much more green in real life.

Last projects of the year

My new years resolution for 2017 is to have less WIPs and to finish most, if not all of the WIPs I currently have. I don't know if I'm able to actually do that though, I'm already thinking of many things I want to make and I want to start right away!

Here are two projects that were finished last year:

A pair of random socks, I just suddenly wanted to make some socks so I did, with no real plan or anything and they were done in two or three days. 

The yarn is Novita 7 Veljestä in different colours, all leftovers, with 3,5mm needles. I gave these socks to my mom.

I need to take better pictures of these gloves because they are gorgeous and I love wearing them! This yarn is Crazy Zauberball with 2,75mm needles and the pattern is something that I just made up as I was knitting.

Then there's two projects that I'm currently working on:

This will be the Impromptu-cardigan, made with Hedgehog Fibres sock yarn. I fell in love with this colour, called Fly, and really wanted to make a jacket of some sort for myself, and after looking for patterns I ended up choosing this one. I'm super excited to see how it comes out and I can't wait to start wearing it!

And finally, here is again my leftover-sockyarn blanket, I have been adding new colours every now and then, and around christmas I spent a couple of days in a row working on it. It's absolutely lovely but not done yet, I want it to be a giant blanket you can wrap around yourself and be buried and warm.

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!