Let´s twist again!

I did some shopping at Symässan too...
In Sweden we have an organisation called "Hemslöjden" translated it means homecrafted. They work to keep our cultural heritige alive that have roots in our old farmer societys when you had to produce everything yourself. They sell readymade things, kits for doing them yourself and also have workshops. There are Hemslöjden in all parts of Sweden and what they do is different due to different traditions in different part of the country. If you want to make a local traditional costume this is where you go too. In Skåne there I live we have a tradition on doing embroidery on wool in a very specific way, I will later write about this.
Lately whey have updated their repetoir a lot and this little bag is an exampel of it. It´s done in Twiststitches that is a variation of the crosstitch and lookes braided. Usually you find this in little embroidered patches to decorate your wall with usually small birds or little plants. At hemslöjden you´ll also find "agedynor" in twist stitch. That´s basically long pillows that you sat on in the carriage behind a hourse.
Twist stitching has never been cool until now!

Turning torso

The fair "symässan" happened last weekend so that weekend became busy for me since I was at the fair friday and saturday + working both friday and saturday nights.
The torso is 3 meters high and the I-cord is missing on the picture. It was so fun to see that it worked and people where amazed too. We even made it to Kvällsposten/ Expressen the largest eveningpaper in Sweden) who showed it and us on saturday. I guess that´s my 15 minutes...

Not-your-ordinary-self-striping-yarn

Torso knitting

This is the Turning Torso, A landmark in Malmo. Basically it´s our only skyscraper and I have together with some friends been working on a knitted verion of it!

I´ve been knitting 2 of these
Please turn your head now:

That will be put together on this wooden frame

something like this
It will be 3 meters hight and you will be able to see it live if you attend the textile fair Symässan next weekend.

Karin goes crafty again

Look what you can do from some paper and an empty corn flakes box!

Christmas lasts ´till easter

We have a X-mas song that translated tells us that and that´s good to know becourse since I finished my calender scarf I´m now entitled to some xmasfood

or at least some chocolate...

Ready too!

These cuffs are so nice to wear in the winter becourse the cold doesn´t sneak up from under the arm

Dress or tunic

My computer is finally fixed, thanks to DB but I havn´t been lazy during the absence. This dress or tunic I wore it once with a white-beige denim skirt.
It´s Onion 2021 with a variation at the front neckline that I´ve seen in RTW. I made the front piece slightly wider than the pattern piece. I also shortened the sleeves for a 3/4 length that I still think is fashionable.

The fabric is supposted to be silk- cotton and bought in Paris last summer. I liked the retro feel of it and thought it be better if I used it while border fabrics still are in...they are aren´t they?

Relief knitting

I´m working on my grey spede and the relief pattern show off much more on this photo than IRL. I´m custumizing this one so I´m making more increases in the front and are going to to some shortrows to make an FBA. I´m still not sure weather I will cut it in the front to be worn as a cardigan or not.
The relief patterns are from an old sock that I bought a pattern for 20 years ago and kept.
The knitting needles are size 1,5 mm, but I don´t mind that at all I prefer the lower range of numbers when it comes to knitting.

Spede sweather

My spede class finally happened!
The traditional peasant costume for women where a blouse or dress, skirt, bodice, skirt and apron. Variation to this is very rich in Sweden and geografi and money have made them very different from each other.

In the south there I live it was common to add a knitted sweather, spede means sticks and means "knitted" It was a tight knitted sweather that was worn under the bodice and maybee with a jacket over ( it´s cold in the winter...)

These sweathers had a vent in front or in the back and where decorated with fabrics and trims, more or less depending on how much money you had

Inger who held the class told us that the lenght varied from over the hip til under the bust. The kit that she sells ( or you can buy a ready made sweather if you just want to do the decoration are waistlenght. It´s important to get the folds even and they should be folded downward so the dandriffs wont´get stuck in them, an old lady told Inger that when telling her about how to make the sweathers.

This is Eva, the owner of "Helylle" the yarnstore where the class was held ( link to the right) She knitted a vest with som lace at the bottom , felted it and decoratet it in a spedeway.

And this is my first spede. I chosed a very untraditional color and found a beautiful fabric in Copenhagen that I´m using together with some velvet trim and who knows what...

It´s hard in the beginning to get the folds correct and neat. I had to remowe the beading of the fabric to be able to do that, will be readded later

Relief knitting was a part of the sweathers too and Inger made this little sample that you can use as a cuff/mudd. Relief knitting is when you use purlstitches to create a pattern.

I also learned to cast on with 3 treads to get this extra twist and a non roll edge

I later bought this band to make them sparkle.

If you want to get in contact with Inger and her work go to www.ibodesign.com

More on Bohus knitting

Bohus knitting was a cottage industri that started 1939 in Bohuslän, a county ( landskap) in the southwest of Sweden. It was a way to earn money amoung the women of the fishing and stone industri communities. The founder was the governer´s ( landshövding) wife named Emma Jacobsson. She employed designers to do the designs that where quite difficult to knit due to many colors and mixes between knit and purlstitches. Yarn where provided, the yoke uses an angora blend. The women knitted and where payed. The sweathers and other items where sold in fine stores in Sweden as well as in the USA and other countries. I can recall a commercial for laundry detergent with a woman wearing a bohus sweather when I was a child. I read in "Poems of color" by Wendy Keele ( Interweave press, discontinued ) that they where not fond of this.
In this book there are patterns for sweathers but with a larger gauge.
If you are interested in seeing sweathers visit www.solsilke.se she makes kits for knitting bohus sweathers and have ajusted fit and size to what we prefer today. There are right now an exibition at the Swedish American institute in Minnesota. If you are not in the neighbourhood visit there homepage.
Bohus knitting lasted until 1969 but has a revival today, a lot of credit for this has to be given to Solveig Gustavsson ( solsilke )

Karin goes crafty...

There is a trend in home dec here in Sweden both on the blogs and unfortunately in the magazines too. They are dominated by mostly women who compete in who can paint most things with white paint. This style is called french, danish or even just country. This has also led to a lot of opening of shops that sell white things and suitable things to decorate with in zinc, wire etc. I do attend one of these shops on occation and on my last visit I saw a big box of matches with a piece of wallpaper glued on with a rosy pattern on white ( of course!) background and a piece of lace tied around it. The pricetag was 99 crowns thats about 10 euro...

I bought 2 plain matchboxes from the supermarket for 25 crowns and glued pieces of som nice paper that I had in a box, intended for scrapbooking ( I will tell you my opinion on that later ) Anyway after doing the first box; to the right ( I later removed the yarn ) I recalled having this card from a restaurant in Bologna that I kept for about 10 years. I added a piece of lace made by my maternal great grandmother, two pieces of cinnamon and later a flower of staranise.

"I ate at Pietro´s"

"I went to another place"

I bought the Bohus

I was at "Myrorna" the Salvation army´s fleamarket last week and found a Bohus sweater. It´s the second time I found one and I still regret that I didn´t buy the first one. This one was highly overpriced as a lot of thing are at this shop. So I left without it but having thought about it and talked to people at the "Spede" class ( more on that later) I went back and when I looked at again the idea that I could frog the sweater and save the beautiful yoke and knit me a new sweater that will fit I bought it.

The sweater is very oddly shaped, snug at the neck but the yoke is beatiful. It has a went in the back and are buttoned with tree buttons

The angora blended yarn used for the yoke are so soft, the yarn used for the "white-ish" parts are in a strange off white gray shade.

The label is still there:

I will have to find a yarn for the bodyparts and My plan is to contact "Solsilke" who dye yarn to make kits for Bohus sweaters.

First finished project of 2009

The knitting was done last year but the blocking this year. It´s the Icarus Shawl from "The best of interweave knits" The edging is a little bit different due to not enought yarn, according to the book there should be yarn over, but wasn´t. It doesn´t really matter in this case. I like the shawl and this one´s MINE!

Now I want to make myselt a Kiri in kid silk in some kind of burgundy color...that will have to wait.'I started my second Spedes cardigan. I need something small that will last long for taxi knitting and the sleeves will do the job. I´m making it in a light natural grey wool. Time will tell what colors I will use for decorations. The spede class will finally happen this month and then I will work on my teal cardigan. My plan is to make that one with a lot och sparkels etc and making the grey one more everyday.

Did I do all that!

One thing I like about blogging is that when a year has passed and you think; what the h-l did I do last year...you can look through your posts and see all the things you did and forgot about. I´m especially fond of/ proud of that I finished the mini wardrobe contest, especially since my use of clothes and outfits are down to a minimum since working in uniform. I´m also amazed by all the shawls I knitted and there´s one Iqarus under my mattress waiting to be released. I also liked that I bought a dummy after all years wanting to.
My favourite part of the blogging is that I can keep in touch with people I see in person not often enought.
Hope to meet you all in Paris this fall. and there´s always a couch even if it´s hairy for you to use in Malmo.

I´m a calender girl

If you are interested in knitting a sampler lace scarf go to Färila http://www.kalender2008.slojdohantverk.se/index.html . They let you get a pattern each day until dec 24. and it´s in both swedish and english. I´m knitting mine in a shetlandic wool and suggest that you skip day 2. If you don´t feel that you have time to knit it right now print them out they are free until dec 26

Tagged!

I was tagged by Karina to pic out the sixth picture in my sixth folder and tell the details about it.
This folder is pics from a tour to three farms arranged by the farmers assosiation in Sweden. We later brought students to a farm to look at how food is beeing produced. This pic is from an organic apple orchard. I have to show pictures of the other farms visited; one dairyfarm and one pigfarm




So! Who is the cutest?

Moonlight sonata shawl is ready

Ready!

And now I´m knitting a Icarus shawl from the book " Best of Interweave knits" It´s favourite designs from the first ten years. I´m using the same yarn as in the circular feather and fan shawl but this one´s mine!

I bought a bag, I liked it!!

I saw this bag the other week in the window of Bitte Kai Rand, a danish designer, very nice clothes and quite expensive. I have a coat of hers bought at fleamarket. This bag was only 69 crowns about 7 euro and parts of it is donated to the danish red cross.

Moonlight sonata shawl

This is my current knitting; the shawl for my niece. I found the pattern at elann.com and even though it´s not a difficult pattern to knit I refer to it as "the shawl of many mistakes".
Knitting shawls are so amazing...there´s a lot of knitting and the "WOW" doesn´t occur until after blocking