Christmas decoration

just in time! On the 22nd of December just before leaving I finally got that Christmas decoration up and hanging. This time a modest amount of 7 knitted Christmas baubles hung on a string. All I could muster this year.

My street-facing window

and seen from the right side

There are some new patterns there, all of them using the new fair isle tam technique top and bottom. I'm a bit behind with my posts and knitting patterns.... hope to be able to share these patterns soon, then you should have plenty of time to prepare for next christmas :-)

Utrecht fiber fest spinning

“Spinning is a post apocalyptic survival skill”. At least that’s what Lili van Wattum from Sticks and Cups said on Sunday when I went to the first Utrecht Fiber Fest together with me friend @hakenenogen on Ravelry (who prefers to not be named on the internet with her real name).
We got to learn different spinning techniques using a spindle stick that she had made for the purpose. Spinning some carded fleece for us to try with.

the prepped fleece and the spinning wheel

Me to the left in 1974 on a scouting camp where we got to spin viking style. I look very concentrated, heh? :-)

Snow covered fir tree yulekugle

I knitted this yulekugle whilst we where on a delayed autumn holiday in the Vosges Mountains in France. In fact we where so late that we experienced some of the seasons first snow, which was beautiful.
I had seen these beautiful fair isle mittens by Ysolha where the top had been finished using the technique from a fair isle tam. I thought it would be nice to try that on the top and bottom of the yulekugle because I always find it difficult to make a nice top and bottom.
Also partly because I forgot to bring my sock needles I decided to knit using a magic loop, which I have never done before. I must say it really works fantastic, much less hassle especially with this fair isle tam finishing.

snow covered fir trees yulekugle with fair isle tam top and bottom

so whilst you are here, why don't you take a look at my amazing (saying it myself) numbered advent calendar yulekugler that I knitted for my mum a couple of years back.

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.

More mini-towels

Some more mini-towels, I'm a bit obsessed with the mosaic knitting, it's such a great stitch, minimum effort, maximum effect. That's what i like. I'm using the towel pattern by Purlsoho, but filling it in a bit myself as well, using different mosaic knit patterns. I love the U-cord edging detail.
This time I have again dived into my humongous heap of donated stash and digger out this turquoise bamboo yarn, which is originally from the Aldi. I got this batch from my cousin, who in tun got it I think from a distant kind of relative. To make it work I bought some supplementary navy and white from Schoeller+Stahl Bahia. Looks quite nice like this, even if I'm just saying it myself.
It has been a while since I made these, but can now publish as they have now finally been been given away.

world-wide knitting in public day

Anonymously knitting-in-public, so a bit of an antonym or contradiction in terminis but we both feel more comfortable not posting a selfie. We where sitting outside sticks-and-cups in Utrecht which has an excellent bench on the street, with my friend @hakenenogen on Revelry, unfortunately everybody else had other things to do. We had a great afternoon, and lots of public passing by asking many questions about what it was we where doing. Knitting is a forgotten craft, knitting-in-public is a rarity.

Swapping with Jacq

Closed another swap deal with my colleague Jacqueline. Swapping is working so much better for me than Etsy, I seem unable to draw any traffic to my Etsy shop, some day soon I must install a badge pointing to the Etsy shop here on this page.
Jacqueline got two mosaic mini-towels for her brand new kitchen in her new house and I got a pair of Fred de La Bretonniere boots which she had too many. We are two happy people.

Swap deal

My lovely colleague Emma makes gorgeous ceramic. We decided to do a swap. I'm so happy with this swapping, I'm knitting way too many kitchen-towels way beyond what I can use myself. It's a great way to get other crafty items into the house
I got these lovely bowls with green glazing:

She got 2 of these blue kitchen towels

Grand Kingsday earbells

For kindsday this year I decided to wear the kings balls as ear-rings. why not?
got lots of positive responses.

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi

Finally when I saw a picture the Art Walk Cardi by Hannah FettigI knew what to make with the yarn from my half unraveled synthetic green sweater from the 80's. I had come a long way of endless swatching in search of a nice stitch that would work with this yarn and colour. Seed stitch variations turned out either too vintage, old-fashioned or boring to work with the colour. More textured swatching made the fabric look like a forest or lawn. Now here was something (the Art Walk Cardi) in a super simple texture stitch which just worked perfect.

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi by Knitbitch

I admit I totally copy catted it. To buy the pattern on Ravelry I had to buy an e-book with a total of 13 patterns, so I simply looked at the pictures and played it by "ear" or in this case rather eye. Also I decided to just finish all the yarn, so the Cardi became a bit longer. The cropped version looks younger and fresher, but this longer version probably fits my figure better.

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi by Knitbitch

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi by Knitbitch

this is my sweater from the 80's that I unravelled

Mosaic knit mini towels

The one small trip to the home country and I come back home with 3 bags of donations. Which really is just yarn stash that somebody else doesn't know what to do with. You can check my Ravelry there is some of this stash that I'm happy to swap or even just give away.

So figured some of this stash could be gifted back to the giver in the form of mini-towels, so I knitted some using mosaic knitting technique. Always wanted to try mosaic knitting by hand. Once in a previous life I did do slip stitching on the knitting machine.

It's really a wonderful way of knitting, so much more easy than real intarsia or fair-isle. The Bible of mosaic knitting is of course by Barbara G. walker. For these towels I used the free pattern and instructions by Purlsoho. I added a couple of variations myself inspired by a Danish kitchen cloth FB group. Particularly nice I think is the detail of the attached i-cord edging and the strap that I made using Purlsoho instructions. Not so easy. Honest is honest I have to watch the instruction video every time.

The Christmas swap deal

Did this great swap with an old class mate; I got 3 sets of counterfeit royal Copenhagen Christmas decoration, which he produces under the radar together with an old friend. He got 8 knitted Christmas balls.