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"

Delfts Blue Amigurumi (madam Blå)

Another "rumi" based on the pattern for the basic amigurumi pattern link. I prepared for this amigurumi a long time ago when I bought the blue colour-run/tie-dye blue cotton yarn. I also had another swatch of thin sewing yarn that also had a blue colour-run, bought even longer ago, perhaps almost 20 years ago. Anyways always thought they were the perfect match but what to make? So suddenly as I was preparing for the exhibition and workshop I thought, hey I will make a rabbit. and I was somewhat inspired because I had seen this Dutch porcelain clog with Delfts Blue pattern on it.

Delfts Blue Amigurumi Rabbit, the Delfts Blue flower pattern turned into a flower shawl, still wondering if I should embroider them onto the shirt...

the initial yarn selection and colour-card I made for the rabbit. again; I don't recommend to use those eyes, it didn't work well in the end.

As I was doing the works and also in parallel preparing for the exhibition; meaning cleaning up my image archive to create some posters, I suddenly came across the picture with which this had all started. it's a rather old baby-picture, an image a colleague send, and I remember I thought back then ah, I will crochet a Delfts Blue Singaporean Merlion ( this colleague lives is a Dutch living in Singapore) but as things went I never got to make the Merlion, and had also completely forgotten about the idea, until I encountered the image again.

Mik, 2007

Pyke glitch

what happend? Truth is I don't really know, but last night I was working a bit on Pyke's amigurumi, putting him into a Judith green background. The kind of green that his mum uses on all her pictures. and as I was photoshopping, I wasrecoloring the background using an old trick of simply deleting all surrounding colour. and I was a bit irritated that it took soooooooo looooooong. and then vupti, there was a very strange, but also very nice Pyke on a patchwork background of himself. Love it.

Pyke's amigurumi rabbit

Christmas holiday has begun, which means I have some time to finally update the blog with a little story about Pyke's rabbit. I made it over the summer following the basic amigurumi pattern.

Pyke is the son of our friends, in this case what inspired me was the particular taste of colour of his mum and the embroidered name-card that his parents send to us when he was born.

by choosing the colours of the yarn, I choose and set the general mood of Pyke

Pykes head - work-in-progress - I really regretted putting on the plastic eyes, and later I crochetted new ones as usual. Those plastic ones don't look that good and are dangerous for babies, they may choke on them.

the name-card send when Pyke was born.

here's Pyke with Pyke (and his dad) he really likes to chew on the ears.

Street inspiration from Hong Kong

I was lucky to be able to visit Hong Kong in the beginning of December. Here are some inspiring street shots that I made along the way.

christmas Knitting graffiti in Patterson Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Swatch shop front

Exhibition by local HK artist Prudence Mak in the mall in front of the office.

Japanese knitting books galore at Tomato Books. There was even Arne & Carlos translated to Japanese.
 Thx Jur for the tip. But I couldn't choose. #hk

Chinese knitting magazine galore at Shenzhen Central station.
Again surprised by how many Scandinavian and English original titles there were

crochet a basic Amigurumi rabbit, hækle en basis Amigurumi kanin

(Dansk oversættelse nedenunder)
Finally it's here the basic Amigurumi crochet pattern. I'm sorry it took so long for me to get the pattern written-up and put online, but my day-job has been very demanding ever since the workshop and exhibition. And besides from that also had a bad back and a cold to fight. But now I'm feeling good again and have the energy and time to get this shared.
Both during the workshop and in the aftermath, mistakes were found in the first pattern, I have corrected those in this version. The worst mistake was that the arm was missing. I'm terribly sorry about that. Besides from that mistakes were small, such as not giving the right row for the placement of eyes and mouth.
As you have probably already noticed the pattern is drawn in the Japanese way. In principle it's super-logic, if you read the legend first and then follow the signs it speaks for itself. You start with the head, the top of the head, and basically crochet in circles, increasing and decreasing to make the shape. The head, body and legs are all made out of one piece. The eyes, ears and nose are made as loose decorative pieces that you stitch on. The underside of the foots are like lids that you stitch on to close off, and the arms are crochetted seperately and stitched on. Amigutumi is crochetted tightly and you need to stuff the amigurumi as you go, particularly the head needs to be well stuffed.
wrt further colouring, patterning and styling, the only limit is your imagination. You can make stripes, dots, little characters exactly as you please. I usually use left-over yarns, as I find it interesting how the limited choice of materials can lead to new creative ideas.

I have a little advise, amigurumi needs to be crochetted tight, but don't let that lead to tight and tense shoulders. You should take regular breaks and move shoulders, arms and hands to get the blood circulated. F.x. you can stand up and gently swing your arms back and forwards that's a very good exercise.

I wish you all good luck with crocheting, if you have questions, have remarks or find more mistakes you are most welcome to shoot an email to hannepanne@theknitbitch.com. I cannot primise that I will always answer straight away, as my day-job is quite demanding and will keep me very occupied until end of this year.

I'm pondering on a christmas-doll (nisse in Danish) but unfortunately not sure if I will manage this year. But keep watching this space.

Så er den der endelig, Amigurumi hækle kaninen. I må meget undeskylde at det har taget så længe inden jeg har fået lavet opskriften færdig og sat den online. Men som god undskyldning må jeg sige at mit day-job lige har været lidt krævende siden udstillingen, og så har jeg lige været nede og ligge med ondt i ryggen og forkølse. Men nu er jeg ovenpå igen, og her er så opskriften.
Både i løbet af workshoppen og også bagefter har der været en del fejlmeldninger, så dem har jeg alle sammen rettet. En af de mere dramatiske fejl var at jeg havde glemt at give opskriften til armen. Det må I altså meget undskylde allesammen. Ellers var fejlene små, det drejede sig fx om i hvilken række man skulle placere øjnene.
Som du nok allerede har set er mønstret tegnet på rigtig Japansk vis. I princippet er det super-logisk eller som at bruge Margit's ord "logik for perlehøns". Du begynder i toppen af hovedet, og hækler så simpelthen cirkler og tager ud og ind, sådan opstår formen. Hovedet, kroppen og benene er hæklet ud i et stykke. Al dekoration; snude, øjne og ører, er hæklet som løse dele og broderes på. Ligeså med armene. Og bunden af fødderne er ligesom nogen låg, man bruger til at lukke med. Amigurumi skal hækles stramt og fyldes mens man hækler, så altså fyld hovedet når du er kommet til halsen osv.
mht videre modellering, farvebrug og typologi, er det kun din fantasi der er begrænsningen :-) du kan gøre ligesom du vil, bruge de farver du gerne vil, lave striber, prikker ligesom det passer dig. Jeg bruger altid garn-rester, så tvinger begrænsningen af materiale en til at være kreativ og lave noget skørt.

Jeg har også lige et godt råd; amigurumi skal hækles meget stramt, men husk at tænke på ikke at spænde skuldrene for meget, og tag godt med pauser hvor du bevæger både arme, skuldre og hænderne for at faa godt gang i blod-cirkulationen. fx kan man stå op og let svinge med armene det har en god effekt.

Jeg ønsker jer allesammen held og lykke med hæklningen, hvis I har spørgsmaal, bemærkninger eller finder flere fejl, er I mere end velkomne til at maile til hannepanne@theknitbitch.com. Jeg kan ikke love at jeg altid svarer sådan lige vupti, for som sagt er mit day-job krævende, indtil årets slutning har jeg meget travlt.

jeg pønser lidt på en jule-nisse, men tror desværre ikke jeg når det i år. Men keep watching this space.