Saturday, 17th of May…

…was very nice day. First we went to Latvian school. My child being half Latvian should keep up the language. There all children got piece of wood (with magnet) to make it as ladybird. This is what we made.After school through the rain we slowly went to knitting café, organized by Maria, Marias Garn (Marias Yarn) owner. It was my first time to participate in such an event. But definitely not last. I liked it a lot to be among many other knitters, most of them more experienced than me. Before I went there I had some questions about techniques or finishing but in there I got answers. One such a question was about my just started socks from Garnstudios home page. I bought yarn Fabel and wanted finally to make some more advanced socks. Those in so called modular or domino or patchwork I thought would be very interesting to make. Partly because yarn makes them so un-proportional and special, partly cause that would be my first project and challenge with modular knitting. I have read some books and magazines about that, but as long as you don’t do it yourself it is rather difficult to understand. Especially if I just read two sources and both of them says controversial things about some of the knitting part. Yes, so I just made first row of socks but then I didn’t know how to continue. Perfect that in this knitting café were some people who could help me with advise for making next row. And what a beutifull things other people do!!!

We even get on the picture by Maria- look here!

After being there for a while my child got tired and I decided to leave.

Next stop was vegetarian restaurant Seyhmus. Just delicious food and nice company- friend, who came to drink some tea together with us. After some while even my boyfriend joined for late lunch.
At the evening I continued to knit socks but but ;( …. they showed to be too large for me. I hate to pull out things so I tried to think for another application of my first modular knitting project and decided to make hat for the doll. After all it turned out not so bad!!!

What about socks? To be continued…..

The snowman at May?

Yes, such an incredible thing! This guy was enjoying the spring flowers when we met him. He was not at all sad that the winter has gone (as the real winter this season never came to Stockholm). Just one thing he asked us: pick him up, bring to home and put in the freezer. But on one condition- that we let him out every day, to look at all beautiful flowers!

Cutwork lace embroidery

I grew up with the Soviet school system, with ready programs what should one pupil learn in what order and do it on exactly one way. But finally when I was at higher grade, the new teacher of handicrafts got work at our school. She was very democratic and let us to choose projects, which we were interested by ourselves. I saw this work in attachment of Women magazine (very good monthly attachments on different crafts, I am using them still) and was so ambitious to do it. Somehow I managed. Now, when I look at this work, I hardly believe that I made it. Should I say that it is never practical used? It feels somehow so precious that I am afraid to take it out from shelf and bag. What if it will get dirty?
So I let it be. So far ;)

Socks

For a quite long time all my knitting were to knit socks and gloves for my parents. Not for beauty, but for work. As they have a small farm and almost everything is on manpower there, they wore out 4 till 5 pairs of socks or gloves per season. So, at autumn I started to knit and at spring finished. Then I even hadn’t time for something else, as I also hadn’t explore knitting or crocheting as my passion. Now I sort of stopped to deliver hypes of socks for them, due to many reasons. One is that I live far away, second, that I have been taking more time for myself.

Here is a pair of socks for my mother and a pair for father. Yarn Fabel from Garnstudio and Lanett from Sandnes Garn.
As you can see they are very simple. Just now, when I am looking at other blogers pages or knitting community pages, I see and am amazed how beautiful socks some people makes. Soon me too will try some so called monkey (have no idea why it is called like that) or cabled or…. pattern of socks.

Crocheted shawl

I saw this pattern for shawl from Garnstudio and liked it a lot. Winter 2006/2007 we spent far away from home. I was without near friends and possibilities to go around, so I had nothing else to do as to buy yarn and make one shawl. I chose not to make it in mohair, but wanted to have it thicker. Yarn Rosita Veslon 100% acryl, colors 51, 9, 29. One makes square by square, then works it together. After all I overdid the crocheting (difficult to stop) and shawl was too big. Later on I pulled out two lines of squares and now I am making some kind of coat/jersey for my child out of those.

Crocheted poncho for baby

When our friends were expecting the baby, I wanted to make the present for little one. I decided to crochet the poncho, as we have good experience with poncho for our child. Namely, it suits for longer time as other clothing. Pattern for poncho is very easy, one crochet just around and around, without need to sew pieces together (which I actually hate). Yarn Pingouin Sedificada rom Paramount Fios 70% akryl and 30 % wool.

Scarves a la boa

At the beginning of every month I try to go to the magazine shop and look for new interesting craft journals. Once I put an eye on magazines Simply Knitting attachment- some kind of plastic thing with which consumer were promised to make utmost beautiful scarves. Should I say, that I bought the magazine? ;)

At the same evening I started to make scarf for me. I used those yarns: Järbo garn Tindra 100% polyester, color 210, Idéna Happy, 100% polyester, color 800 and Järbo garn Big Verona 100% acryl, color 021. This is the clothing which had given me the most compliments…. so far. I like that scarf very much and it is also very warm.

After some time I made one more scarf for Andrea. She was friend and baby sitter for my child at Uruguay for almost 4 month, for two hours, three times per week, while I went to train karate. There I used following yarns: Veslon Malaga 100% polyester, color 298C; Pingouin Sedificada from Paramount Fios 70% acryl and 30 % wool; and Pingouin Família 100% acryl. I hope that Andrea likes the scarf.

So far I’ve made one more scarf. But unfortunately, I didn’t make picture before to give that away as present for my very good friend Daina. Maybe, Dainīt, some day we can do something about it?!

Where do I keep my crochet hooks?

When all knitting needles finally got place, question was where should I keep all the crochet hooks? As I had knitted, had crocheted other cases, I wanted to see if I can do something else. I bought the orange felted sheet and some felted yellow flowers at the Panduro shop and sew together this beautiful masterpiece with some yellow embroidery thread. Flowers are buttons. Material is perfect for hooks; otherwise they would slip out from knitted or crocheted cloth.

Case for circular and double pointed needles

Guess if all knitting needles got space in previous two cases. Of course, not! For circular and double pointed needles I got inspiration from one small kind o pencil-case, which I received a long time ago from my friend. For this I used yarn Härvan 8/4.

Crocheted needle case

Even if knitted needle case was meant to hold all my needles, unexpectedly I got more and then I was forced to find or make more cases. For this one I used leftover yarn again and crocheted around and around the cardboard case.