Etsy market

This weekend I am exposing at the Etsy Made in NL market in the "kas" in Utrecht, so please come by if you want to buy something. Particularly the big objects will only be on sale on the market because they are too big to ship.

My exhibition on the market is actually a discussion-piece, I want to talk to people about "true prices", therefore I have developed a pricing label that first shows the material and labor (front side) and then shows the price on the back side. I hope that by presenting this way, people in the split second when they turn the label will think about the material and labor that went into the object, before they turn the label to see the price and conclude that that is very expensive. Actually these "true prices" is the real price of objects if we want to be good to the planet and people, they are made locally often with recycled materials.

(c) Knitbitch

(c) Knitbitch, table seen from the top

(c) Knitbitch, QR-code

(c) Knitbitch, pricing label

(c) Knitbitch, Broomstitch lace bag

(c) knitbitch, shopping net

(c) Knitbitch, kitchencloth

(c)Knitbitch, Lila and Agnes

(c) Knitbitch, christmassbaubles / Julekugler

Black mega flower crochet rug

This black flower-bed rug is made of t-shirt yarn and crocheted on needle size 12.

This project started out with a pile of old t-shirts and a vague idea of turning that into yarn and making something out of it. The original idea was a supersize ninja-rabbit (no photo) but that didn't work out so well partly because the yarn was too heavy and it was hard to figure out what to fill the rabbit with. Also I had second thoughts about having a supersize ninja-rabbit in my living room.

So I thought about it for some years, perhaps 3. I have always wanted to make unusual rugs. I had looked a lot at these doilies for inspiration but it sort of just didn't seem inspiring at all. Suddenly one day it occurred to me to just make these rosettes with leaves and attach them to each-other. In the first instance I had imagined the rosettes to turn out much bigger and there would have been less of them, but in the end it became this rug with multiple rosettes.

It is really easy to make, you just take (or make) t-shirt yarn and crochet rosettes. I used a classic rosette pattern, but then making 5 petals. Whenever the amount of yarn I allowed I attached a leave to the rosette. There are many different kind of leaves, I settled on the simplest possible leave. So I crocheted several supersize rosettes and leaves and then assembled them together.  According to my husband I should make the rug 2-3 times bigger, but the yarn is all used now.

The material: the rug is made of t-shirt yarn, appx half of it is made of my old t-shirts that i have literally cut into strip with a scissor. For appx the other half I have used one cone zpaghetti, one cone of unbranded t-shirt yarn. Due to this mix of materials the rug has a natural uneven black color.

The rug is oval measures appx 100x120 cm and weighs around 3 kilos.

It is now for sale in my Etsy shop.

Supersize wool ball

I decided to unravel my big grey pouf and to knit the I-cord a little longer as I still had some yarn left. This is what the ball of supersize yarn looks like. So heavy I could hardly hold it must be 3+ kilos.

giant yarn ball made with i-cord

first trying to knit on size 12mm which I had, but that made the fabric way too hard and dense

bought these beautiful size 35mm wooden needles at the Phildar shop in Saint Die des vosges, but unfortunately they made a too loose fabric

Broomstitch lace tote bag

Here is the latest from the broom stitch lace tote bag series.
The material I'm using is a Industrial leftover material from Verosol. It's a curtain cord, quite hard spun, so it also twists a bit. We are a little group of crafters that got this Verosol donation and we have been exploring what products could be made with this. You can read more about that here.
This time I have done an unusual color combo. Out of necessity actually. Beige was finished and the only other colour I had available was the yellow, as I have moved all of the Verosol stash to a storage.
I like the beige, because it looks a bit like straw but it has a much nicer shine, and it turns out to work really nice with the sunny yellow.

This bag is now for sale in my Etsy shop.

Goodbye Ally mini-mi

Unfortunately Ally has decided to leave us. As a goodbye gift I crafted a mini-me in her "tenue du travail" wearing some important bling brand assets such as the shield and a golden mean necklace.

Goodiebag

i crocheted this bag  to use for a birthday gift of delicacies, instead of the traditional basket. It could just about hide a bottle of wine. It was a quick weekend project. I used the thickest cord out of the "leftovers from Industry" curtain cord. That calls for hook size 8mm.

Goodiebag by The Knitbitch

chunky upcycled pouf

This was a small weekend project. I came across 2 ugly poufs in the thrift store, I unraveled the 5 kg of rope and turned it into a chill "pebble" pouf. Stuffed with an old duvet. Hubby is saying we now have enough poufs in da house :-)

Artswap

I did an art-swap!! :-) not my first swap, but this was my first artistic swap. Sometime ago I crocheted a tote bag in broomstick lace out of Leftovers from Industry curtain cord from Verosol. read the post here. I send this bag off on a whim with a friend and colleague who was going to visit Shannon from LittleDrawings.com in California. I thought it was nice to send her the bag, as she's always so enthousiastic about my crafting, my biggest supporter so to say.
Fortunately she was really happy to receive the bag, she responded by uploading this picture to Instagram.

she was so happy that she asked what she could ever do to thank me. Easy question, because I LOVE Shannons illustration, so I asked if perhaps one day she could make a little drawing for me.
and she did! Here it is it just arrived one week ago

It's so funny :-) because she made an illustration of a knitted sweater. From what I make up of the text it might have been knitted by bees (not sheep) that are now sleeping.
I'm now thinking about how I'm going to frame it, it came in such a nice "little drawings" packaging with cute cello-tape, I might just re-use some of that for the frame.

Amalie's mini-me

made this crochet copy of Amalie on her big day of communion. This gift item is turning out to be one of the favorites for young girls in my family.

Getting the dress and shoes right was a real challenge

To the left, Amalie on the day, to the right the amigurumi mini-me. By the Knitbitch

In the making

hedwig the snowowl

i made this snowowl for a girl who's doing communion. On FB she calls herself professor at Hoogwarts, so I thought this would be suiting. Took some trying and testing to arrive at this. Dropped my usual Kawaai head (slightly squeshed) for a round one, and embroidered on all the stitches to give the black rim to the feathers. The wings was a challenge in itself, but really happy with how they turned out. And the feet, my favorite part, a project on its own, including the embroidery. But really happy with how they turned out. Real cute.

Hedwig the Snow owl. by the Knitbitch

This is the sketch that I made for the gift-card for the actual day

Totebags from my flax stash

I recently discovered this box of flax stash that I have probably been carrying around for at least 20 years. Time to use it!! for tunesian knit tote bags, as I'm so sick (not life threatening) that I the only thing that keeps me sane is to knit really simple projects. and this beautiful tote bag by Purl Soho. so I made some different versions which I gave away to different people.
as I just work with the material I have I ended up with a design with a contrast stripe, as I needed something to seperate the 2 different flax yarns that I was using.

this bag was for Ellen, who has been so kind to me in this difficult time.

It could be a man-bag

selection of somewhat similar flax, I still have some of it left

my long forgotten flax stash in a cardboard box