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!

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