If you want Leila´s kitchen, right here is where you start creating. In crochet!

This is Leila Lindholm. She´s probably swedens most popular TV chef. Right now she bakes! She´s cute as a button and her kitchens are full of colourful things in pastell. look at the picture! Of course she does the styling herself and she uses a lot of second hand things too. This picture is from the baking series and the kitchen is from a B&B in Mariefred This is from her kitchen:
This is my latest attempt to get the look.
They are croched in double what we call 8/4 cottonyarn or regular crochet yarn. The pink is from Stoff och stil and the off-white is an organic cotton yarn
This drink might work in the kitchen...

I believe that these double crochet panholders ( what are they called in english? ) are the best and I´m working on red with black edge for my parents

Becourse I´m worth it!

There´s been a flower festival this weekend and I got this

Blue cardigan

Things do get finished here! The blue cardigan in superwash wool bought at PR weekend in Kiel is finished. I tried out two new skills; I-cord for the belt carriers, fun and so easy and then I attached the arms using backstitches or what we called stemstitches. I always use a kind of ladder stitch and did so for the rest of the cardigan. The dress is an old favourite. It´s un OOP Burda. It was a white dress with a kind of balloon skirt and it only lasted one season. The fabric is silk and it was an UFO for maybee two years until my cousin was getting married. Then I decided it was time to hem it

Onion double wrap skirt

So this is my second item to the PR stash reduction contest. I think both fabrics are rayon ( that´s how stash works...) It´s my second skirt from this fabulous pattern! 5 yards of fabric

New kitchen curtains

I finally made new curtains for my kitchen! I used to have red curtains but after beeing curtainfree since easter I decided that I wanted something lighter and recalled the linenfabric in my stash. The curtains are my first items in the PR reviews stash contest.
The linen was not the heavy linen I recalled and I actually think it´s a blend of cotton and linen. I have some plans on making a blouse of the remaining fabric. Linen is such a nice fabric to wear, but you have to like ironing!

Wooltime

This is my leftover wool project. Got inspiration from a Vogue knitting. Take what you have and knit random. All my yarns has to be wool becourse I´m going to felt it a little and then make a wrap out of it....or something else.....someday or the next

Onion goes Odd Molly again

I added som lace, organza for the drawstring with pearls in the ends and used the iron a little.
Next time I will make the bodice a little longer, the sleeves narrower and I think I will add buttons in the front on the bodice. I have a plaid I bought at PR Kiel that I´m going to use. The fabric is a little heavier so it will be great for fall. This one will work this summer.

Farmers market

Kinder egg week

Do you know what a kinder egg is? It´s a hollow egg made of milkchocolate and then there´s a plastic toy inside. 3 wishes in one as the commercals tells us; something good, something fun and something else...??
Anyway, I finished 3 items this week; first the plaid blouse, then this knitted wrap used the same yarn ( my salary ) as in the shawl I showed earlier. I like it a lot and will now put it away until lets say hopefully october.
The third item is this top. It´s a BWF pattern plus size section that got a too long neckband
I took the easy way and inserted some plastic elastic like you use for lingerie
I think it was done in white with black seams in the magazine. The top is very nice. It has a nice hemline that lookes like it´s curved but is straight once you get the top on. 3/4 sleeve feels nice!

Onion goes Odd Molly

The other night I felt for sewing and was thinking of what fabric I should put the scissors into. When my inner voice said:"- you better finish something Karin! Since Odd Molly been such a huge brand here in Sweden we all urge for plaid little blouses and all the stores carry them in variations that differ a little from the original brand. I think it was in November that on of our chains called Lindex had to redraw one blouse becourse it was just copied into the embrodery and the little bow.
Well this is an Onion pattern, number 5018 in a quilters cotton, Debbie Mumm I think and with an FBA and no gathering at the end of the sleeves. Very easy to sew and is now waiting for me to iron it and put some lace perhaps in the drawstring necklace and I might add one or two embroiderys such as roses. A bow? No I don´t think so

Pineapple shawl

In the middle of this month I havn´t been buying any yarn or fabric for 6 months and I have plenty left to use...I allowed myself to start as many project as I likes and this is the latest addition. It´s a pineapple shawl croched in a weawers cotton- linen yarn. The result is so great! It´s soft and since Noa Noa charge you 500 crowns for a simular shawl it´s a real bargain and I´m having fun while doing it The pattern is from "Family Circle easy Crochet" All things are not so nice in that book but some are really great!

Queen Mudd shawl

I knitted this shawl for "Sticka" the swedish knitting guild. It´s designed by Queen_mudd and the pattern are sold by Sticka ( Sticka means "to knit") The pattern calles for Kauni but I used a really beatiful yarn from Ullcentrum on Öland ( the second largest island in Sweden ) I used 2 hanks of 100 grams and the salary was 2 hanks of the same yarn så now I have to think of something to do with MY yarn

Meet Anna Elisabeth

She´s my alter ego, my new fitting assistent ( I never had an old ) and she´s all dressed up but can´t go anywhere I bought her on Ebay for less than 1/3 of the original price

Paris Paris

June 19 here I come again. 3 nights a lot of walking and a good time. This time it has to be warm enoght to sit´on cafées and knit!

Spring cleaning

I saw that Annika has cleaned out her bookshelves and put her fabric stash there instead. I had two rather large built in closets from 1955 in my bedroom and the problem is that it´s hard to fill them up in a good way so I bought 3 closets ( Pax ) from IKEA and I have 2 guys who are doing the work for me ( they did a good job in my bathroom...) so these closets and sewingtable are in my livingroom: They will finish the work tomorrow, until then I can play with all the fun tools they left here....
I have an extra closet that I will put into my walk- in- closet and replace the old one in there that really doesn´t hold anything.

Fashionista

Fashionista is the book on everybody´s lips in Sweden right now. It´s written by Martina Bonnier who is senior fashion editor ( modechef ) at Sweden´s largest fashion magazine, there Susanne Ljung used to work too. The book will be published on thursday but the hounting has started. Martina likes clothes, she buy designer clothes and has 8 closets with these. She never buy copies of clothes and she looks at clothes as investments. She talks about basics and designer signature garments. She writes in the book that her family used to own Stilmönster that later has emerged with Neue Mode and together with Burda are our largerst patternmakers today. The Bonnier family owns a lot of things, it´s a well known name in this country. She is one of few who has access to all the fashionhouses and visit all the fashion shows. This girl knows fashion, she talkes about learning to appriciate the workmanship in these clothes and the importance of maintaining your clothes AND your shoes. She´s also beautiful and wears a size 34 that should be 8 maybe, so of course it´s OK to dislike her and be grateful that at least she´s not tall....
I´m gonna read this book! If you click on the link above you will go to a on-line- book store and there you will find a link so you can read the first chapter, or at least look at the photos.

Stil

Stil is the swedish word for Style. It´s also a radioprogram that airs on fridays and saturdays and if you miss it you can listen to it whenever or where ever you want if you click here. Stil is hosted by Susanne Ljung who is a journalist and has written books on fashion, beauty and Greece. I always envied everybody talking about project Runway, Sandra Betzina etc but not any more. This radio show is so good. Last show was about the color Blue. From fashion blues to blue and white china. The show is about every angle in style and design and there´s only one hint; It´s in swedish...

Karin-went-to-Kiel-wristlets

On PR-weekend in Kiel I dyed this yarn. Now I´ve knitted AND finished these wristlets. I used a pattern from drops for the picot edge and made some shortrows for making them bigger to fit my arms. They are a little longer than usual and looks good with a lot of colors not only turquoise.

You got mail!

It´s not often you got nice things in the mail. It´s usually bills and adds from stores on things I don´t want to buy or need.But last week I got a beautiful envelope with my name in Calligraphy. It was from Annika and included some seeds and two bracelets, one turquise and this lime green that I love!
Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

I´m gonna take better pictures, I just learned that I should use what the camera is calling "shooting portraits in low light with flash" I´m a slow learner I almost have had the camera for two ( 2 ) years

Teal lace scarf

Something´s soaking in my new zink under inspektion of the all mighty
WOW it´s a new scarf!
The lace pattern was easy to knit from an incorrect chart and the shading of the yarn makes this scarf beautiful. The only problem is that scarfdays should be over by now...OK I whore it last night!

La Drougerie

I had a couple of hours between train and plain on my way home in Paris so I walked to Les Halles and Rue de jour that´s close. La Drougerie is a famous yarn, pearls and embellishment store in Paris. They have a second location at Au bon Marche that also sells other brands of yarns like Rowan. Photo from outside with th "no photo sign" in th center. They sell yarns in hanks in different fibercontents as cotton, wool, cashmere and mohair, you can see some of it in the picture
What is so fantasitiqe about this store is the way they knit rather simply garments and embellish them so fantastic in a rather simple way!
They have also "kits" for jewellery and it works this way:
You see something you like in one of their books and you tell the sales lady ( and there´s plenty of them) and instead of taking down a kit from a shelf she startes putting it together by picking pearls and whatever else from the jars on the shelfs.
Then you go to the "man in the booth" and pay for it. I always get a biblical feeling about him like he is there to decide over the dead and the living but he seams to be a nice man.
Even if you dont buy anything this is a store to druil over!
Just around the corner there´s a ribbon store, a famous japanese brand that is not called Macluba ( that´s an arabian dish) but something simular

Bathroom update

The guy who is going to install the toilett, zink and shower is coming tomorrow morning so it´s almost done now.

New scarf

I had 200 grams of a beautiful variagated teal wool yarn from Helylle. I was supposted to knit a scarf with buttonholes in it and then felt it. After trying 3 times and not liking it I decided that that scarf and me was not gonna happen!
So when leaving for Reims I decided to knit the scarf from last Knitty but after a while I decided that I wanted that scarf but not in that yarn, so now the scarf is almost knitted in another very easy lacepattern from a french knitting magazine.
For this pattern I have a red sock yarn from PR weekend in Kiel.

More snoop shopping in Reims

I saw a lot of layered skirts. This one is not layered but I liked it!

and I bought 4 t-shirts

Snoop shopping in Reims

It´s cute, It´s 75 euro, It´s for kids, It´s Kenzo, It can be easily adapted...
and I have a yarn to do it in...

Mikaela´s scarf

This scarf was hanging next to Mikaela´s jacket at the stable today. Cute!

Advent calender

In Sweden we are obsessed with advent calenders! If you unfamiliar with it it´s about open a windowbox on a piece of paper and find a picture behind. We have calenders on TV. Rather short episods made for children, could be X-masy but don´t have to. After each episode, you open the windowbox and find a picture of someting that occured in the episode. There´s always a debate on how good this years calender is and is it better than "teskedsgumman" the teaspoonlady, It´s a book about a lady who shrunk to the size of a teaspoon when she got stressed. I think this was the calender of 1968 or something.
Today you can buy calenders with chocolate ( they usually contains some nuts without it beeing said so, so there´s always some allergic kid that has to go to the ER.) Every newspaper has one as do every team of soccer, hockey, tennis, ski and you name ... and you can win very nice prices becource there´s a number in each windowbox. Lately every parent ( who want to be a good parent ) have to make one for there kid that contain small gifts like rubber, pen and other small items, you can even buy these small rubbish in packs of 24.
Why am I writing about this in mars?
My friend Anna found this knitted scarf advent calender at a swedish yarnsite and it was publishes daily during december, Anna knitted the entire scarf. I had 100 g of a single ply wool and started going on as long as the yarn lasted. It lasted half way through dec 15...
I have som nice pics of it while blocking but blogger is not cooperative tonight so that will be a later post

Rhiannons cardigan

Rhiannon´s cardigan is ready and with Rhiannon.
I feel like I start a lot of project and sometimes I finish some of them.
I decided that I can start as many as I like as long as I don´t buy yarn or fabric.
Currently I´m working on my blue hoodie ( maybee 5 inches left on the second arm), my spede ( I´m actually bringing that with me to France) I started and finished an advent calender scarf, the yarn lasted to the 15th. I might block that one today.
I also started to produce wristlets or cuffs ( muddar ) from single balls of alpacka and sockyarn.
I also decided that I should try to locate my two-ball mohair sweater that I knitted like 8 rows on before putting it away.
Today I´m gonna volonter at a local horse jumping event so knittingtime will be limited and tomorrow someone is coming to move the drain ( ??) in my soon to be beautiful bathroom!
A lot of dust! ( as if someone should notice a difference...)

Embroidery workshop/café

At Helylle in Kristianstad, Eva has started embroidery workshops on sundays, it´s 4 sundays during spring and this was the second. For 3 hours we sewed, talked, drank coffe and ate candy.
My parents live outside Kristianstad and we had salubrated my brothers birthday on saturday so I spent time here before going home.
This shop is so nice, a lot of nice yarn, house designs with kits, a lot of things to show.
I was sewing on my wool embroidery from Scania ( Skånskt yllebroderi) We have a trdition here in sweden that we have typical embroidery in different areas of the country. I grew up in Blekinge and they do oriental flowers and birds inspired from imported china in pastels in cotton and linen on linen fabric. Skåne where I live now have these folkart patterns made in wool. These two tecniques are actually the same, when you make satin stitches you do it in a way that you don´t fill the back of the fabric. A way to save thread!
There are other samples of these local traditions and I will take some pictures to show you later. Actually if you are familiar with these traditional patterns you can find some of them at IKEA. Katarina Brieditis who has made a lot of stuff for IKEA ( as well as other ) are very inspired by old swedish craft traditions

Shabby chic

before....

...during.....

Bath room redecoration

No! I did not do this I´m only paining it
but I will have to find a darker hue. The cupboard is from a shop called "Byggfabriken" that sells old fashioned thing like victorian tiles, bathtubs, switchboards and doorknobs from different eras and a lot of other things

Stash knitting 2

The purple mohair scarf is knitted!
The green one is almost done, I need a little more yarn and I lent it to a fellow knitter and hopefully get some back on Tuesday.
It´s been interested to knit I never started with the small border, picked up stitches from it knitted the scarf and ended it knitting the second smallborder at the same time as closing off the knitted scarf.
I also weaved in yarn on 4 ( four ) socks yesterday!!!!!!! more to go!

Frost cardigan

I like this book, It´s danish from birth but translated into swedish I made this skirt in purple before, of course it´s not quite finished...I need to buy additional teal yarn for the picots and have not decided if I´m allowed to do that yet
I´ve been looking for this hoodie cardigan for a long time and now it´s a WIP
Closeup at the lace pattern called frost. It´s a little difficult to begin with but after a few rippings I now got the hang of it...
...as you can see!
It looks like I´m using the original yarn but mine is called "Extra" and is a superwash from Schachenmayr bought at PR weekend Kiel.

Finished ( it does happened )

Wristlet warmer or cuff

Remnant of teal opal sockyarn and a pattern from yll och tyll a yarnshop in Uppsala. Finished and need to be sewed together ( as do a lot of other things too!)