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!

650 stitches

Nobody is more macho than Börje Salming! At least not in Sweden. After a long career as Hockeyplayer in Canada he came home, started a underwear company and appeared himself in the first commerseal scanning his body only wearing the underwear and reporting how many stitches he had and adding the underwear. This year he published a cookbook on bbq and look at his hand! He´s wearing SAMIBRACELETS!

I´m a spinner!

I´ve been thinking about it for a while and then we did the Öresund tour I bought some fiber and my friend Anna-Karin (she´s akastuff on ravelry)gave me a lesson and I did this on her Loët. It´s shetlandic wool.

This weekend I´m gonna take a beginner class at "Den gamla skolan" close to Malmö ( Den gamla skolan means "the old schoolhouse") We are going to wash and preper the fiber for spinning all the way and I´m looking forward devoting the entire weekend for fiber purpuses.
The sell Kromski spinners and I´m interested in this Symphony model:

Kromski´s are made in Poland are supposed to be really good!
To add to the discussion of spinster and female jails...in sweden when a cat purrs we say he "spinner" spinns.

Party dress

I´m attending a wedding later this summer. The cermony will be at the beach and the reception at the grooms parents house, that are close to the beach. I wanted a summery flowery dress and seached the fabric stores for a suitable fabric. We don´t have that many fabric stores and I found this fabric at one of my favourites. It´s a italian cotton fabric with some structure, a little crincle, and I like the colors

I´m going to use this Onion pattern, the same as the girl is wearing in the drawing but a little longer and I will have add a lining.

The lime green of the flowers coordinates with my lime "Citron" and if my foot doesn´t improve my Scholl sandals are lime green too!

Fabrics

I´ve been buying fabrics in Paris a lot of times, but never was there so much that appealed to me as this time, one fabric is missing on the photo, a geometric kind of black bottom fabric in cotton. The black retrolike fabric was marked polyester, then I found one that was marked viscose. Then I decided that there where a lot of nice dressed in the latest Burda and I needed a fabric under anyway so I bought it...the viscose of course!
From the left: Brown wool in a very tiny herringbone weave, shirtfabric with pink and tan stripes, have some lycra in it, print in Odd Molly kind of shade and a structured fabric bought in a fabricstore in another area, just passing by... the retro viscose--polyester fabric and a stripe purple with structure.

Le comptoir

I searched yarn stores on Ravelry before going to Paris and one that I actually visited vas Le Comptoir.
The interior was from ca 1861 and this is what I want my dreamkitchen to look like


It´s cituated on 26 Rue Cadet that is very much in centrum of town. I walked from Lafayette with a broken toe....

She had a lot of cute sewing notions too!


I also went to Sweatshop Paris but on a monday so it was closed but looked like a very inspirational sewingroom ( with a lot of machines ) from outside

Love me love my car

Meet my new baby. But my baby is in the color "champagne" more of o golden shade. Picking her up next friday.

PR weekend Europe 2010

We had a discussion about meeting for sewing but I had second thoughts about it and suggest a PR weekend in Stockholm instead. I started a tread on PR, please go there for discussion

Daytrip to Denmark

Malmo is situated in the south of Sweden and we have a bridge that connects us to Copenhagen and you can also reach Denmark by ferries between Helsingborg and Helsingör. There is a ticket called "Öresund runt" that allowes you to go by train and bus this trip, once on the ferry and once on the bridge and there are trains on both side of the water. A loot of people who do this trip stops by Lousiana, a famous artcentre between Helsingör and Copenhagen. We where six and we did the yarnstores.
We started at Helsingborg at "Tant Thea" who opened an hour early becourse of us

This shop opened recently and it was my first visit there. A really nice selection of various yarn, I bought a lace yarn from Wales called Fyberspates in a very nice green shade.
After that we took the ferry and had some coffea and danish, newbaked, still warm...
In Helsingör we visited two yarn shops first "Tot og tråd"
Eva looks this happy when she buys yarn:


There we all liked this poncho and had a discussion on why you can´t buy just the pattern, but you have to buy yarn too. We would all accept to pay a larger amount if omitting the yarn. Compare this with sewingpattern there we can collect as many as we like...
Then we went to "Spinneriet" She imitiately offered us coffea and as swedes we never say no to that. "Spinneriet" means "The Spinnery" and part from yarn she sells wools and rowings and in a lot of different breads and colors and combos of fiber

And yes there where som spinningwheels too

I´ve been thinking for a long time to start spinning and one of my knitting friends who was on this trip has offered to teach me so I bought some wool to try on.
The old word for female prison in swedish is "Spinnhuset" meaning "the spinning house" probably a way to keep the inmates occupied...
After Helsingör we went to Copenhagen, we ate on the train due to time pressure and knitted.
In Copenhaguen we visited 3 shops, Wilferts, Garniture and Joruns. Joruns was my favourite and if it wasn´t for the fact that they only accepted "DAN cards" I would have bought some of here shatlandic wool.
Dan cards is a local danish creditcard and it´s more common than one will think that shops only accept it.
It was the first really hot day and we where really tired so I did not take any photos at the last shops.
It seams like all the ladies went to IKEA for the expedit shelves

Yves Saint Laurent

YSL has always been my favourite designer and I had to se the retrospective exibition at Petit Palais that will close at august 29.
You are not allowed to take pictures in there and there´s no way you can sneake to do so.
There´s 307 models and some videoclips that are playing both from fashionshows and from films with Catherine Deneuve that he made clothes for. The clothes are displayed in themes that could be from the same collection or famous people, or other themes. One entire wall is covered with black manequins on a black background and showing all ( about 40) variations on the smoking for women. It´s in the same room with the theme "the last ball" that are showing spectacular eveningfashion in all kinds of colors. There are also a room with his swatches. He swatched fabrics and nailed them to papers and kept them in boxes by color for inspiration and boy did this guy know how to swatch!
There are also 14 different pictures of him from that famous nude shot displayed.
All signs are in french, english and one more language that I don´t recall.
When visiting the show I can see influenses of what I sewed as a teenager but not so spectacular. I would love to see it again! and if you are in Paris you should go and see it and it´s actually worth a trip...

Some advise if you are going. A lot of people want to see this and the lines are long!

I was there on saturday and there was an estimated waiting time for 2 hours. I took a chance and went back on sunday 30 minutes before opening and I was number 8 in line for people without tickets. A lot of people was reading my minds and there where long lines when they opened and the people with tickets was sent in first about 70 of them before my line had a chance so I came in 10 minutes after 10 so my advise is to buy tickets in advance and be there early!
The photo is of the line when I came out and some of these people will have to wait for three hours.

Twinkle sews

I´m crazy about the clothes in this book I can even live with that the patterns are on a CD and need to be put together before being cut out

Yesterday I went to Stof and Stil and bought these fabrics for one project from the book, the front piece is actually more purple than this photo showes

Books and Paris

Let´s talk books first.
I bought some nice knittingbooks. Knitting 24/7 by Veronik Avery, I´m not sure if I should pronounse it in french or english, either way her designs are great, a lot of different things to knit and there are one or two that I actually not want to knit.
Twinkle sews is a great book too, I borrowed it from the library to be bought later. It´s 25 patterns for skirts, blouses and dresses in hot, fun, funky looks and I love most of them, actually I love all of them but some dresses are not for me...
The best thing is that there´s a cd with the book with all the patterns in size 0, 4, 8, 12 and 16 and that´s her sizing, I compared with a Ottobre and 16 is a smallish 46.
So you print out the pattern, glue it together, cut and sew.
I so like the consept of including the full size patterns like this ( Of course I copied them to my computer...)
Then let´s talk Paris. PR weekend last year was short for me so I´m going on friday for three nights, I was planning Versaille, lot of walks etc ( Yes! fabricshopping ) and since my broken toe is almost fit for fight again things where looking good until I accidentally put my other pinkietoe under the horse foot two days ago. Well it´s better today and Paris has subway and a lot of nice parks so enjoy knitting and reading.
One thing that I´m going to do is visiting Petite Palais. There´s an YSL exibition there. He was my fashion icon growing up and still is...and they are showing clothes from his different collection and as I understood it a second part of the exibit is clothes of Catherine Deneuve who always was sitting in the front row on his shows and I think was a personal friend of his.
If you envy me...it´s OK

Jazz, le grande finale!

Even if I knit a lot I don´t have that many sweathers and cardigans but now I have one more. I sewed the ties on today

Jazz!

I almost finished my Jazz cardigan. I had to reknit the sleevecuffs, they where way to big! Instead of the 38 stitches I did 20 and now I´m sewing, I hope to finish it by tomorrow, have to knit some I-cord for ties.
Jazz is soaking in the cats waterbowl...or was it the other way around...
I´m always amazed what soaking and in some cases blocking does to a knit!

Here we SWAP again!

Patternreview is having a SWAP contest and of course I have to join! I´m good at joining! Last time; the mini wardrobe I actually finished the pants, a Burda drawstringpants from 2004 that looks like the Marakesch (marocko ) pants from Hot Pattern. Since I trust Burda for pants ( raise the waist 1 inch mid back ) I used this pattern again and I absolutely hate the color!!!
Anyway this swap is a new page and you should make 4 tops, 4 bottoms, 1 topper and 1 free of choise. All tops must go with all bottoms and the topper etc etc. This time my plan was to make denim jeans and a denim skirt that I should try to distress, then I´ll add a petticoat, not to cupcake like and a drawstring pant, the one as above in an off white color, maybee mid calf lenght.
For the tops I will make tunic dresses in different fabrics a little mix and match, including some embroidery etc ( read Odd Molly ) and going through my stash I will have to buy a lot of fabrics for this. I´m going to Paris last weekend of May so that´s something to look for
The topper will be a shrug from Onion and the optional garment the cardiwrap "everyone" is doing these days.
Contest starts June first and last until end of August. 10 garments in three months. I can do that! maybee

Please summer please come!

My balcony was not the cosiest place after this winter, everything but an Ivy had died.

The floor had to be done and plants needed to be bought and planted


Still not finished but improving

This vase is Mine

I´m trying to be more domestic and since I love to have plants and flowers in my appartment but was lacking vases I bought this one. "Mine" started out with plates and glasses that I never liked, to thick, but the bowls and this one I like.

The designer is Ulrika Hydman-Vallien, who is more famous for her tulips painted on glass. If you payed attension when watching "Friends" Monica had one in her livingroom. Mine usually contains tulips; my favourite flower!

Madli´s shawl

Madli´s shawl is blocked and finished



I really like these estonian lace shawls, but the tradition say that you knit the borders seperately and sew them on using kitheners stitch. Things like that has a tendancy to not be finished in my home so I pick up stitches and turn the chart upside down instead.
The shawls originate from Haapsalu in Estonia and was like Bohus knitting invented and knitted to provide an income. Haapsalu was a famous spa resort for the rich and famous southwest of Tallin. It´s also where I´m going on my summer vacation! ( After Paris last weekend of may...)
Then I might pack the "Triangulas summer shawl" that I´m working on the border right now. Beautiful lily of the valley pattern in white