My Enchanted Mesa

I've wanted to make this for a long time, I even had the pattern ready but couldn't decide what yarn to use.

I think it was last december when I wanted to gt rid of some left over yarns and just started making this, and it ended up being lots of fun!

This is the Enchanted Mesa pattern by Stephen West. I used 4mm needles and different yarns, some were held double. I did some light blocking 

I've worn it a couple of times now and the fit is like 95% perfect, I hope it gets more and more comfortable each time I wear it.

Christmas gifts

Again there are not that many but I did make some.

A set for a man, socks are size 43 and the with the gloves I just made them a lot bigger than I would make for myself, hope they fit. 

Yarn is Katia Azteca Fine and I used 3,5mm needles and a 4mm crochet hook for the gloves.

Same yarn and needles, just a size smaller than the socks above.

Mittens for a toddler. Pattern is Maize Mitts by Tin Can Knits. I used a wool yarn and an acrylic yarn and held them together on 3,5mm needles. 

This is a decoration for a christmas tree, no pattern. It turned out kind of cute. You can put small gifts, like candy, inside.

I'm trying to keep this blog alive

I am a lazy person, and ever since joining Instagram, updating this blog has felt like too much work. And now that it's winter there is not much daylight so taking pictures has been "hard" so that has added to me just putting it off more and more.

But anyway, here is some stuff I have made recently:

First is a crochet blanket. It's made with different yarns from my stash and with no pattern, just what I felt like. I really like it.

First I made 25 log cabin-style squares and joined them, then added the hexagons to each end. On the other side is a front post/back post crochet pattern where I used my Stylecraft Special DK leftovers, and on the other is many different patterns with other random yarns. Then I made a row of crab stitch around the whole thing.

Here is a very scenic picture of my brother wrapped in the blanket.

Then there are these pillows.

This one is made of granny squares, one side has squares where I changed colour each round, and the other has squares made with multi-coloured yarn.

This one is the Bright bolster cushion from Simply Crochet issue 55. The yarn is Novita 7 Veljestä left overs. 

With this one I used the Brioche Memories pattern by Valerie Ng, which is a blanket pattern, but because it is made with one square at a time then it can be used for other thing as well. I used my sock yarn left overs and other small bits of fingering weight yarns. I really love this one.

This last one has Sweet Caroline by Helen Shrimpton as the front of the pillow, and the back is a rag rug-looking square made with very small amounts of yarn, I like the look it gives.

I want to take pics of all the things I made during the last summer and autumn to archive them, I'll have to see if I get the energy to do so.

A new blanket makes me happy

I actually finished this a couple of weeks ago, I don't know why I haven't gotten around to posting until now.

But anyway, here it is! I think it turned out wonderful and I love the colours.

This blanket was made with Stylecraft Special DK and a 5mm crochet hook. I made this pattern up, except for the joining method which is the continuous PLT join from CypressTextiles.

The blanket hasn't been blocked so it looks wonky here. It found its place on my mom's couch pretty much immediately.

The wrong side has some ends sticking out because I'm lazy. I guess I could just cut them, since they have already been partially weaved in by crocheting over them. But to me it doesn't matter that much and there's certainly no hurry with that.

Here are all 210 squares and the left overs from each colour. While joining I realized that the three balls of grey I had weren't going to be enough for the border, so I improvised and used some rainbow yarn from my stash for a simple shell pattern and then framed it with black. I didn't take a close-up photo because I'm not too happy with the border. But in the end I'm very happy with this blanket.

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.