Sensual or punk? fingerless gloves

These gloves are based on a very old-fashioned glove pattern that I know by memory, unfortunately the real written pattern is lost somewhere in a pile or box. It's not the easiest piece of work, as I work with a single strand of Marianne Isager Tvinni on 5 sock needles 2,5mm, so it's a work of precision and patience. In this case I cast on 60 stitches, and after quite a long piece of rib, switched to an open twisted rib on the front and plain on the backside of the hand. I matched out the amounts of open twisted rib so it would exactly match up to run 2 onto each of the fingers.

a little side-note; as I almost always work from my stash of yarns and old knittings as I have a mountain!! This is a re-knitting project, this Tvinni yarn has been recycled from a project that I knitted when I was 15, which is many years ago. More about that later in the post about the 2nd pair of fingerless gloves that I was able to make from this yarn.

Anyways I memorized the couple of tricks or interventions you need to make to create a more neat and "fully fashioned" pair of gloves. First thing is to increase stitches for the thumb. increase 2 stitches every 4th round will do. I place the thumb in-between 2 purl stitches to really mark the place. second thing that makes these gloves more finished is that I actually knit the fingers, unlike many of the fingerless gloves that are being posted, were you simply close off the round. open twisted rib

what more can I say, they are really nice and warm and I just hope I won't loose them in my commute any time soon (which I did with the previous pair pretty quickly :-()

Amazing craft by May

Take a look at this amazing needle craft by our studio assistant May in Hong Kong. I recently visited the studio and was completely surprised and amazed by the incredible craftsmanship and detailing of the felted figures that she's making. I could not really decide which one was my favorite, they are all so cute

crafted by May Choi, photography by Monica Fung

crafted by May Choi, photography by Monica Fung

these are like a little family crafted by May Choi

crafted by May Choi

small figures in pearl craft by May Choi

Men's scarf

Here's the scarf I made as a last minute gift to my hubby just before Christmas. It's very simple; a chain mail like stitch made using a Tunesian sort of crochet knitting stitch. I have made endless test and trials in the past trying develop or find a stitch that I found male enough. There are surprisingly little to be found on men's knitting on the internet both in terms of inspiration of stitch, patterns and models. Let alone men that knit. But at a certain point I came across this absolutely hilarious video of an Icelandic man knitting. He is explaining how to knit the Tunesian stitch.

Used a Little yarn from my stash turned out I had 3 skeins of greys and blacks that made a perfect "ombré" gradient color scheme. And was even so lucky that the mid grey contains a little mohair which makes it nice and soft against the throat.

some advise; if you decide to try this, remember to use a way too thick needle, the stich makes the texture very thick and dense. I used 1,5-2mm too big hook.

Mixed the mohair with some acrylic/wool yarn from the Zeeman

Nice mohair mix that I got from my mom, unfortunately she doesn't remember where she bought it.

Think I might want to try out this stitch for a jacket/vest soon, so keep watching this space :-)

Repair, why not?

My beloved typical Nordic rag socks were broke. The foot part of the sock was full of holes. Holes so big that they seemed impossible to repair. But the biggest part of the sock, the shaft was perfectly fine. Seems so stupid and inconsiderate to throw the whole sock away just because a relatively small part is broke. Yes I know it's the most important part :-) But what a waste of material.

So I thought why not just knit in a new foot instead of trying to repair those unreasonably big holes. I set out on a mission trying to find yarn that would match, turned out to not be easy, but thankfully my mom had some leftover in her stash that ought to be able to the job perfectly. 

Here's a picture of the repaired socks, you of see a slight colour and texture change between shaft and foot.

In hindsight I was thinking that it could also have been really cool if I had used a contrast colour instead of trying to match the existing shaft. 

I wish I could do this more often. I wear a lot of panties, and the softer the material/wool, the faster the holes develop. I always try to mend them, but there is only south you can do. But the panties are too thin, no way I could knit in new feet. 

hysterical manga rabbit amigurumi

This sweet yet with hysterically screaming contrast colours amigurumi was originally inspired by the pink mohair that I used as hair. That is, the pink mohair I tried to make look like hair. Not really that rabbits have hair... but... in the end it ended looking more like a hat i would say. This amigurumi I prepared for the workshop and exhibition in Sønderborg, Denmark earlier this year, in order to test the pattern and have some models to show.

The crochet heart on the front of the t-shirt is made following these instructions from Skip-to-my-lou

The rest of the yarn for this "rumi" came from some recent donations from my mom; the very fresh green and light pink on the head. The pink from the skirt came from some knitted towels I had. afraid it must have been an aunt or perhaps even my granny that once knitted that for me. But I don't like pink in my home, so I decided to sacrifice it. Finished off those feet/paws with some supersoft white mohair.

colour and yarn selection for the hysterical manga rabbit "rumi"