Paper craft

As a sewer, knitter and a lot of other things I collect a lot of stuff that will be good for something sometime. Years ago I bought a tall chest of drawers size of a paper. Half of it; size wise is very shallow about 1,5 inch and the others about 4 inches, I´ve been keeping some order here like buttons in two of the drawers. The other week I decided to do something about it so I garthered all heavy paper from corn flakes boxes etc and started making little custum boxes


It´s a lot of work but I like the result. Of course I got some help from a friend at the beginning, a friend that´s not with me any more. Gorbatjov died two weeks ago,almost 18 years old. Found this picture when loading my camera and smiled becourse it was so typical him...

Finally internet

After beeing out of ínternet at home I´m finally connected again and will be able to load all the pictures from my camera and start blogging again. I finished a beatiful an warm shawl in fair Isle that I partically proud of since fair isle has been not really my thing...I also finished my bohus sweater and it´s gorgeous! More to come in a couple of days

Fiber Vacation ends

My fiber vacation ends today.
This is what have happened:
There´s a hole in my finger due to to much knitting, resting
The mermaid yarn is ready, keeping it single and are going to knit a shawl ( as if I lack of them...)
One skirt is finished and one more that I will hemmed tonight
A jacket i half finished, need to find that purple lining and finish it
2 blouses ready
I bought an Elnapress, for the first time in a long time I have no interest in learning to master sew in interfacings.
Baby owl sweater finished
2 bras finished ( one was only the eye and hook band...)
I passed a lot of things to the garbage, things that I cut out, sometimes started or never started to sew.
I worked out a god basic T-shirt pattern that fits me
I spend a lot of time on the internet...

There´s a lot less things laying around in my sewing/bedroom and it will be so much easier to start on my pants tomorrow.
And I really enjoy going back to work so I can apply for next vacation
and when "real" computer is back there will be pictures!

Computer crash

My computer crashed and when getting the bag to put it in for trip to doctor aka brother I found my old computer and it´s very low on memeory and keep remainding me of that every 10 minutes or so. It´s also very laod, you can actually hear it work and I think watching episodes of Power sewing is out of the question so when I´m not sewing, knittin, spinning I browse old issues of Threads and are finding old memories an real treasures.
I made myself one more blouse, almost done, using a Patrones pattern that I had to change due to lack of fabric, some ruffles hade to go and since I´m really entusiastic about piping I added some piping as a contrast but now I´m having second thoughts if it makes it looks like a pyjama...
I also have a skirt cut out, a lovely striped cotton in purple with pink and some other colors in the stripes and some texture too, really a favourite, bought in Paris.
Now I planned to line it and I wanted a pink lining and that´s no problem...the problem is that I want a rayon/ viscose lining. I really wish there where a store in my town with a large selection of this type of fabric. So I´ll probably not line it.
I talked about my love for Odd Molly before and they have some really nice details in collection that are not the first thing you see due to all the colors and stuff, I´ve seed underskirts that are buttoned to the side of the outer skirt and also can be worn seperate and that´s my intension. Is underskirt a proper word or should it be slip??

Mermaid yarn

Wool from Spinderiet in Helsingor ( Denmark )

Black jeans skirt

I was importing pictures from my camera and I have no pics of the shirt ( all buttoned ) so here´s one of the jeans skirt instead:

It´s nailed to the dummy and I used a basic 8 gore skirt from an old Burda Plus, very basic and made pockets in the side panels using quilters cotton to line them.
All the seams are flatfelled using a jeanstread in a color that I think is the proper color for that purpuse ( stof och stil ) The rivets are from Prym and reversible so there´s one side that´s silver also.

Had a little accident doing the topstitching

Is now repared by handstitchin a new piece of fabric to cover it up.
For the waist treatment I used Petersham band. After Sandra Betzina´s article in Threads years ago I found a small fabricstore in the basement of an optimistic womans house that was closing down and they had curved Petersham so I bought 20 meters and still have some left.
The denim is from Stof och stil, theire 10 oz black unwashed that I washed myself but I really prefer the prewashed they sell.

Notion shopping

I bought my buttons today and after seeing a lot of Sandra and Ron I was curious about wondertape and using wooly nylon on the bobbin when hemming knits with twin needle ( They have a lot of great tips in those shows). My local dealer Greger had it all! and some more things. The store is small, crowded but boy do they have things in there...Now I want to find the steam a seam light narrow thing that they use and the gauge to measure placement of buttons and buttonholes with.
I started a jeans skirt using 10oz black denim and doing flatfelled seams and everything. In David Page Coffins book on trousers he has a great way to install a zipper with a fly. I been using it a couple of times and the step by step instructions makes it easy.
the flatfelling of the seams are glued using my regular craft glue. I sew the seam using 2 cm seam allowance, press it open. the one that will be folded over are pressed down to half and the other one is cut of leaving about 5 mm fabric, then I add some glue to the overlapping part and press it over and press using my finger. Easy to sew and stays in place.
I bought a flatfeller for jeans, I think it´s a 9 mm that´s available for my Viking machine but I think that I have more control doing it without it.

Buttons wanted

I finished everything but the buttonholes and the buttons yesterday. Will take a walk later to get some.
The shirt ( there will be pictures later) is a mens skirt style and quite roomy. I will probably wear it over a dress or skirt and top. I´m really proud of my sewing that I put into this one. I used David Page Coffins book as referens and the Burda plus pattern from the spring-summer issue with the bib. I omittet the bib and did a FBA that turned out to be to small so I kind of draped it on me and pinched the new dart that I later ripped and made shorter.
Everything is made properly on this shirt, the yoke is turned, the seams are flatfelled and the collar is made using DPC´s method of sewing the collar band to the skirt and adding the collar last so the last seam will be on the "underside" of the collar, not as I did before the wrong side of the collar band to the body.
I joined Powersewing this weekend and in one of the lessons they show a cool way to do the collar that I think is better so now I´ll have to do a new shirt...
I finished a jeans skirt the other week, same as the beige one in the review gadget but it much to big so yesterday I traced a new skirt pattern and are going down to the basement to cut it out now.

And I did the macig touch on the iron...I turned it of, let it cool and yurned it on again and voila!

Blouse delayed...

I used to sew all the time, really ALL the time, I probably spend as much time with fiber today but in some way that does not count.
A nice way about blogging is that I have documented all, or almost all of my projects so I can see that I have made some things and some nice things too, but still, since it´s been a while since I felt that I challenged myself and I getting more spare time with my new job I want to start sewing for "real" again so yesterday I cut a blouse from a really nice stripe, white with pink and tan in the pattern, After interfacing the plackets for the cuffs today...my iron probably broke... so here I´m sitting all dressed up and no place to go...
I bought David Page Coffin´s book on shirt making earlier and I´m using it and are going to make flat felled seams and everything.

First home spun home knitted item

I´m making progress on my first homespun sweather this is the yarn 2 ply

I started knitting a KAL on Ravelry but all the installments where so chatty that I got tired reading them so I switched to EZ knitting without tears that usually all these kind of patterns are based at and recalculated it from the top. I think the percentage works really well and I´m planning to use it more in the near future.
Anyway to make the increases as a design feature I did yarn overs to get the holes

This is the sweather so far, need to spin some more ( and buy some more wool ) to be able to continue and eventually finish it.

For my birthday a friend gave me this:

Cute right? well I thought it was something more to it and I felt a button in the middle of the back and thought it would sound like a sheep if I pressed it...it did not! Well maybee it´s a magnet so I can put it on my fridgedoor...it was not!
After 2 weeks I found out what it was:

Fast, fun skirt

I was at my local fabric-yarn store for a visit from Hedmankvist, a new yarn manufactor with interesting yarns that are mixed in most of their designs. I bought two skeins to try out but on my way out I saw this light teal-aqua crincled hemp and bough some, my first intension was to make a wide straight skirt with some kind of elastic fabric over the hips so I went to my not favourite fabricstore and found a piece that was almost the samt shade. But then I changed my mind.
I used Burda 2010/07/138 what is really a slightly flaired skirt with elastic waist and hem, made it shorter and made the hemp fabric wider. pulled it tigether to fit the lining, sewed them together and then moved the lining 1/4 to the side before attaching them at waistline.So now I have fabric for a matching top.
My plan is to enter the PR accessoires contest of september and making, bags, shawls and maybee a belt to turn it into 4 outfits. That´s a plan...

It can happen to you too!

We have a local fleamarket here in Malmö during the warmer part of the year; every sunday on one of the squares people can rent a spot and sell whatever they don´t want any more, and other might find things they never thougt they would need. Today I spotted this:

How much do you want for the rock? I asked with a calm voice.
50 said the man ( that´s 5 euro!)
Can I look at it?
Sure!
Do you have any more spools for it?
No, it´s just that, people usually want them to decorate their homes, I don´t know if it´s working
I know and it does. I take it!

Closeup on the flyer and orifice.
It needs an handyman or a couple of plugs and some oil

And now I´m going away to a sewing meeting arranged by a woman on a swedish sewingsite. It´s outside Klippan, so I´m gonna go early and visit the spinnery´s outlet

New Onion

I must admit that I have a small collection of Onion Patterns and they have some new out right now and I´m getting two
The first one is this coat:

and Stof and stil, my local fabric store chain has two fabrics that I like this season, one, a cotton kind of quilted beige will be excellent with this pattern. The other a fake fur will be useful as accent for this anorak:

and I might even get this "old" jacket pattern too:

and since I´m actually starting to see the table surfice of my sewing area right now, I might get sewing again soon. Looking forward to it!

Lacemaking in Tönder

Tönder is full of little cute houses and famous for it´s doors

I have pics of one or two of them too but here´s more cute houses

Tönder is also famous for it´s lacemaking and there´s a lacemaking featival every three years and sorr it was in june, but you can attend the museum on the main street

They sold pins for winding up thread on and I never seen such a variaty of styles

Goodibag

Spinderiet in Helsingör

I spent a couple of days on Jyttland, I think that is the English word for it. I went to Fanö, rented a bike and visited a very nice yarnshop and I also went to Christel Seyfarth´s shop and was amazed over her knitting, she sells kits and my favourite shawl had 21 colors in it but was a 8 row repete I think. I went over the border to do some bordershopping ( that´s swedish for stocking up on alcohol!) But I also bought Burda, september issue not out in Sweden yet and there on page 17 is MY shawl!
On the way back I went to Helsingör to buy some fiber for spinning...and did I shop:

The little lilac, aqua and other colors was a blend she had made herself

and today I spun singels from it, and my plan is to Navajo ply them

I also started to spin singels from the big thing, it´s 600 grams

and I made my first try on Navajo ply. This is not it!
I found a tutural on youtube a while ago and searched for it again since I forgot how to start, it did not go to well until I figuered out where to put the finger and it did not go to well then either and that´s when I hear her say, " not suitable for mohair...and I was plying mohai and Leister.
Then I decided that I will practice the Navajo and I really don´t need a homespun single for that so I found a ball tha looked good on the skein but did not knit up well, but it made me realice how to do the technique.

Najvajo ply is a three tread ply from the same single there you kind of crochet the singles to get 3 treads. A really nice thing to do since you can use all yarn and you only need two bobbins instead of three. ( I really need to buy more bobbins!
Tomorrow I will ply the lilacy yarn and will be back with more photos

Ekelund, master weavers

For a long time I wanted to go to Bohusläns museum to take a look at the bohus sweathers and the other day I was having breakfast and said to myself; you can drive there and back in one day, but on the way home I went by Borås. Borås is the mercantile area in Sweden and there are a lot of outlets here. It was the sign that said Coffea 5 kr that made me stop at Ekelund´s Go take a look, you can choose a lot of languages there!

The most common of there line are probably there towels. I think almost every swede has one of them or given them away as agift. They also made art with this tecnique

They call it the rainbow collection and all the colors are in the warp and you can change pattern in a couple of minutes, you can also get your custom towel! Apparently it´s cheaper than printing a pattern. I´m sure they describe this better on their webpage than I would ever be able to do...
Anyway part from the outlet they also had a little museum showing two looms

This one was for the jacuard weaving

that can look this beautiful!


I bought two towels with cats on them and no, I did not get any coffea, they where closing down...
Ekelund is located in Horred on the way from Borås to Varberg

Green Meadow

I found this Bohus replica of Green Meadow in thrift store the other week. The yarn in this one is shetlandic wool, not the merino angora like in the most common yoke sweathers.
It´s probably knitted from a kit in recent years and very small and I might rip it and use the yarn to make tam, mittens and maybe a scarf

The cats belong to my spinning teachers, but I couldn´t resist showing it

Last picture of the dress

The dress made it all the way to the wedding and after weeks and weeks of sunshine the clouds sprung open and it rained, was windy and cold on this day that was supposed to be sunny!
This is probably the only picture on this blog with me in it, here with mum, dad and my brother

Onion 2023

Dress is finished, the picture looks the same but the bed isn´t made up yet... The wedding is today and we are hoping for nice weather.
Now I´m planning on making one more dress or tunik with the other sleeve variation.

Dress progress

I did some sewing today and as always Onion patterns are so good! I love the shape of the neckline!

The sleeves are not attached and the lower part of the yoke has to be attached and I need some more fabric over the "B" area have un extra 2 cm in the sides.
I like the sleeve shape too but they need a fabric that does not need ironing.
If I could change one thing it should be a one piece totaly flat back, this one looks the same as the front omitting the plunge...

Teal clapotis scarf

I probably woun´t be needing it for a while but at least it´s ready. Avery easy and fast project even if large size needles not are my no 1 option.

Dress report

Didn´t buy enough lining, have to wait to monday...to hot to do anything anyway.....

"wedding" dress

I started on the dress today, did the FBA to the pattern, bought the lining and washed it. I´m a little short on the flowery fabric so I will have to use another fabric for the inside of the yoke.
I cut the outer fabric and added silk organza to the back of the yoke pieces, this is a rather new tecnique to me but one that I favour a lot since it´s nice and soft yet gives the fabric some stability. I have light green and dark gray organza at home and the first one worked this time. I handstitched it to the outer fabric and treat them as one piece from now on.
It´s so hot here, but I will try to do some sewing early tomorrow.
Today is my birthday and I´m salubrating drinking Cava ( saving the money for fabric and fiber...)

"Babsan" * two

I got this wool with my wheel, it´s of unknown breed, probably a cross between two, but her name is "Babsan". "Babsan" is a very popular dragqueen with astrong sence of personality and her name is really Lars-Åke Wilhelmsson. Not only does he do "Babsan" He also makes her clothes ( and clothes for other theatre productions )

Her she is with the swedish prime minister ( to the left) in her usual hairdo. She/ he has a homepage I stole the picture from it. Go there to her her sing and look at cool outfits!
I´ve washed the wool and have started carding it and no, I will not dye it pink!

Spinning around

This is how I spent my weekend!