Baby blue for my baby

I had an old cashmere sweater that unfortunately did not fit me anymore. I decided to chop it in pieces and make a hat and a cowl. After I had made those, I still had enough leftovers for fingerless gloves but then I got lazy and got rid of the sweater remnants.

 

The pattern for the hat is taken from an old Me&I hat my daughter has. It has the perfect shape and fits both me and my girl. Emma loves this set, but I think this super soft kit is for me - everyday luxury, free of charge!

Merry Christmas!

Last year I made this Finnish flag garland and almost finished another one with all the Nordic flags. I vowed to finish it by this Christmas but did not even remember it before Christmas Eve and then it was too late. Nevermind, our Christmas was lovely even without it! The Santa came by and brought me a brand new sewing machine - quite a surprise! I'll show you the details later, it is quite lovely :)

Waiting for the real winter...

Pattern: Knitted accessories by Novita (in Finnish)
Yarn: Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran by Debbie Bliss
Needles: 3,5 dpns (should have used smaller needles...)

Wow. It has been a while since I posted anything here. Sorry about that. I have been too busy to photograph anything even though I have made all sorts of crafts. And then when I finally managed to photograph something (over a month ago...) it took me quite a while to blog about it. Sorry again :)

Enough apologies, I hope! It is over midnight and I am exhausted, so I'll just let these pictures show off my work. One thing I have to mention, though: The whole set is a bit big for Emma, but that does not matter. I am planning to add a lining to the hat, it would make the hat warmer and tighter.

A month ago, there was at least some promise of a white Christmas, since the ground was frozen in these pics. Now, it's just hopelessly wet everywhere. I'll try to post once more before Christmas and after the holidays are over I can hopefully start posting about all the Christmas presents I knitted.

One more picture of my darling girl!

 

Summer sewing

Remember the linens I bought this summer? I actually used some of them to make a tunic for Emma and she liked it a lot. It has been worn a lot already and I am hoping it will still fit her next summer! The pattern is from this Japanese sewing book, it is a very popular pattern in the blogosphere. 

Originally there was a casing in the waist with same pale blue silk ribbon as the sleeves have but I got tired of re-attaching the ribbon (my girl likes to climb a lot and the bow just kept getting stuck to tree branches and such. Now there is elastic in the casing and I am considering adding just a small pale blue bow to the side. Chances are that it will get ripped off just as easily as the whole ribbon did but it would be pretty...

Black!

Pattern: Mario beret
Yarn: Peru Wool by Grønhøj Garn
Needles: 5 dpns

Last year I made my mum this Mario beret and thought the pattern was excellent. I wanted one for myself as well and bought black wool to make it. I finally made it this week and to my disappointment, it is too small for me! Or it does fit, but it is not as slouchy as I would want it to be. Perhaps it will stretch when used. Also, I do not think black hats suit me! Perhaps I need to buy some grey yarn and try again. Also, I do not recommend this yarn, it is quite coarse and the surface of the finished hat is not nice and smooth. Serves me right, it was very very cheap...

My lovely girl promised to model for me so I could get at least a few decent outdoor pictures of it. As you can see, the hat fits her perfectly. Just guess whether she likes it or not? Yep, she hates it (and she's playing tigers, LOL).

Fall socks

Basic socks, cannot even remember the yarn. Like the colours separately but the combination of these yarns is not working IRL for some reason. And the ribbing is not long enough, I like longer sock cuffs.

Sorry for these long absences from my blog, somehow this year it seems that I am just too busy. Or actually, I don't have time to take photos of my creations, since I am never home when there would be enough light! Don't go away, I'll figure something out and start posting more regularly sometime soon(ish).

Cat bag

I made this bag already in June but I've had no time to blog about it before. I got the idea from a Korean website (I guess it is Korean, not sure), webshop to be exact. The original bag is not crocheted but I really wanted to make one and let Emma choose the yarn. Naturally her choice was purple! 

Source: http://www.goroke.co.kr/shop/shopdetail.html?branduid=32502&xcode=017&mcode=000&scode=&type=O&search=&sort=order

This bag is a bit smaller than the original and the handles are longer, just to make it more practical for Emma to carry. I lined it with the same flower fabric that I used for this ruffle skirt.

By the way, I have collected all kinds of inspiring crochet pictures and instructions to my Pinterest crochet board. I hope you'll like them!

More unfinished knits

More blurry pictures of unfinished knits, LOL. Can you guess what this is?

Time flies...

Sorry for the long absense! It was not planned but somehow life got in the way of blogging which is not so bad, I guess. I have been making all kinds of crafts but I have not touched my camera for ages, and now it seems so dark and gloomy all the time that it is impossible to take nice photos. Never mind, Ill try my best to take pictures of my crafts some day soon, when I have time and light.

As you can probably see from the blurry picture above, I have winter in my mind already. The linens are folded back to closet, waiting for next summer... I did manage to sew something from the pastel linens, I'll show you later.

More prettiness

I've been sewing pouches and small bags like crazy lately. It seems that we did not have any and that we desperately needed them. I just emptied Ikea's fabric section and started sewing. Quite boring stuff and I will not be showing you all of those, even though I've promised to! 

This pouch is really cute but not at all useful. So far I have been using it to store my bras and knickers during our recent weekend trips but it is a bit too big for those. Nevermind, I really like the fabric. It is "Penger" from Finlayson (designed by Anu Kanervo), and I bought 2,5 meters of it. Love it. I guess I need to continue sewing...

Pretty pochette

I found a Japanese crochet pattern site and printed out a few instructions, this pouch or pochette or clutch (cannot decide!) was one of them. There were many really cute patterns, but I cannot find the site anymore -  so frustrating! Anyway, this is not my own crochet pattern but the idea is something that I am going to use with different doilies as well, might even take a few from my doily stash... This doily pattern brought starfish to my mind, I like it a lot.

Edit. Found the Japanese site, this pochette pattern is here.

Baskets

I used some leftover fabric strips that I got from my mother (her closets seem to be bottomless) to make a few baskets. We were at the summer cottage and I had lots of time during a thunder storm - crocheting kept my fears under control, LOL. I like the subtle sheen of the fabric strips, some polyester blend most likely.

Pastels

I have been inspired by pastel colours lately. I don't know why, since usually I like my colours bright. Perhaps the heat has something to do with it. I bought these underwear elactics from a yard sale for 40 cents and I am still kicking myself for not buying all other colours as well. I took only the pretty ones that went well together. There would have been a very nice yellow and a few different blues as well. Sigh. And if you are interested, I have no idea what I will do with these!

I also bought over 10 meters of pastel coloured linen fabric from Eurokangas. I don't know what I was thinking but I love these fabrics a lot. Just need to use them quickly before my mood changes back to brights!

Last night I made this skirt for Emma. The stripe fabric is actually a man's shirt, the purple fabric is linen. More pictures coming after the weekend. I might even write a tutorial, since there's a trick to this skirt which makes it a really simple and quick project.

Linking this again to Tea Rose Home, go and check it out!

Jeans bag

My mom gave me her old jeans (from the 90's! Horrible. Elastic waistband, can you imagine...) and I got to work. There is plenty of material to use, and I have been making skirts from it. One I already made using the said elastic waistband but the other one is still work in progress. I doubt Emma will ever get it, it is so boring to make. Anyway, I used the rest of the fabric for this bag, the middle of this bag is the side seam of the jeans leg. The inside fabric is from Ikea, remnants of the Christmas dress project.

I have a hard time deciding which side I like the best! I'm so happy this bag is reversible!

Daisies and roses - finished

Yes, the squares were made to a bag - I am so predictable! No, actually I was a bit lazy and did not feel like crocheting more squares, so bag was the natural solution. I did not use any pattern, just crocheted the squares together, added straps and a lining and called it a bag. The patterns for the daisy and the rose square came from ET magazine (09/11), Finnish pensioners' magazine that I borrowed from my mom. 

I added a pocket inside the bag and used some ricrac to decorate it.

Emma has not seen it yet, I hope she likes it!

Oh, this weekend we are celebrating midsummer, have a nice weekend everyone!

Tree bag

I don't think these require any explanations. I am still obsessed with making these bags. I have at least one more coming up, just need to get some decent pictures of it. Yep, my camera still isn't my new best friend, but we are slowly getting there. Very slowly.

Ruffle skirt

I had one elastic waist band from my mom's old jeans (from the 90's...) and yellow and lavender coloured flower curtains donated by my mother-in-law. It was destiny - those two needed to be paired. I did not use any pattern but I did take a look at Emma's another ruffle skirt, store-bought, so that I would get the proportions of the ruffles correctly. This became Emma's favourite instantly and she has been twirling and dancing in this skirt the whole day.

 

 Almost forgot, linking this to Tea Rose Home!

Marigold dress

I've been wanting to make this dress for Emma for ages now but I haven't found any fabrics that would inspire me. Then yesterday I was going through my favourite blogs and found this. Amazing. Perfect. Actually all the dresses from that blog are amazing, I'll might just try to copy them all. Too bad the blog is not being updated anymore. 

I had fabrics for that dress in my stash so I started cutting and sewing immediately. Result: Amazing, perfect. Oh, and Emma approves as well, LOL. The pattern is from Good Girls Cute Clothes (ISBN 978-4-579-11194-7), the pattern book where I also took the leggings pattern.

White fabric is some polyester blend from the 80s (mom gave it to me) which I thought to be nice, light-weight 100% cotton but found out otherwise when I tried to iron it with hot steam. It melted. Luckily the melted bit is not shown, it is in the lining. The yellow fabric is just some basic cotton from my stash, I had barely enough to make this dress.

 

Oh, in case you are wondering why I named it the Marigold dress: I shamelessly copied the name from Katie Did. Could not help it, it describes the dress perfectly!

Three bags

I made three bags for Emma's kindergarten teachers - today is her last day in kindergarten. I used once again the pattern from verypurpleperson and this time I let Emma help me in sewing them. Emma has never before been allowed to touch my sewing machine so she was very excited. She sewed the bottom seams (under my very watchful eye) and did a very good job! She was very proud of her work, so we will continue these sewing exercises, perhaps she could make herself a gym sack or something simple as that.

A warning: My photos are really bad and almost all are blurry. I took them this morning, in a hurry and didn't check my camera settings.

The paisley fabric above is actually an old shirt that my husband has never worn. It seemed like a good idea to get some use of it, and it looks quite nice as a bag. The red bird fabric is from Almedahls, stripes and blue fabric from Ikea.The lining of the first bag is orange cotton.

The green lining fabric is an old table cloth and the tree fabric is, once again, from Ikea. I love Ikea fabrics!