9773 Nervei

Look what I came across! My mother and I (and Elina) went to a local craft-store today, where some women from Mehamn and surronding areas are selling their crafts. We admired knitwear in all shapes, quilts, jewelry (to die for!) and at the end, in the corner, I came across this beautiful yarn!
It's a 2-ply, 75% mohair and 25% merino. There's about 350 meters per 100 grams. I got two, and someday they'll be turned into a gorgeous shawl. It's really shiny, I had no idea mohair looks like this.. I guess mohair to me means 80's and the huge, brushed, fluffy sweaters in tacky colors like peach and hot pink. It's about time to stop being so prejudiced!
I've actually read about the yarn once before, when my mother gave me the link to their site.
I thought about asking them for some mohair to spin, but forgot all about it. I have to say I regret not doing it, the yarn is amazing! The mohair goat herd is grazing in arctic nature, actually there is no other flock of mohair goats living further north than this stock.
Nervei is a small place with only 30 inhabitants. In Norwegian vei means road, and funny enough, there is no road to Nervei! Commuting is done by boat, but I guess they have snowmobiles to get around in the winter as well.
I would love to go there sometime, but it's not that easy to get there.. or is it?

treasure hunting

Ever since I was a little girl, I've loved the seaside. The smell, the sound, the sand..
I grew up in a fjord in Lofoten, and the seaside was always nearby, so that's where we went to play. We collected shells and polished pieces of broken glass, turned the stones looking for crabs and small fish.. I even remember once a friend of mine and I cought a herring with a cooking pot someone threw away!
Today I'm visiting my parents, who moved to Mehamn, a small town in the far north of Norway. I lived here for a couple of years, and was often down by the seaside. I even found some furniture for my apartment there! I cound some old wooden shelves from a boat (I guess), which could be used as storage for shoes and a nightstand. I really miss that now that I'm living in a larger town. I don't think my boyfriend would consider the seaside as a proper place to "shop" for furniture eiter!

The fascination is still there, and today I went down to look what I could find. It's always the same; the first minutes I can't find anything, but later I can't get to pick up everything I want before I lose the sight of it!
I could just sit here forever...
After a while I got an idea. A new idea, in fact. Why can't broken pieces of polished shell be turned into something to put on jewelry? I could make a hole in them, and maybe make a hemlock bracelet? Maybe something like this? It's made by this Etsy seller
The dog was very helpful, looking for shells as well. Or maybe just digging a hole because she got bored..

After a while I started collecting bigger pieces, maybe they'll be great buttons for knitwear? I can't wait to get home and make some holes in them!

getting older is a good thing

Back in 2002, I got this amazing book from a book club I'm a member of, just because I forgot to tell them I didn't want it, and even forgot to send it back. I didn't like it that much, but the pictures were ok. Maybe the patterns was a bit over my level as a knitter (they're still), but over the last 6 years while my mother have had the book I've somehow learned the noble art of biting off more than I can chew, which is a fantastic skill to have if you ever plan to make something from this book.

I'm not exactly planning anything (I've just checked the bank to see if I have money for the yarn, picked out a color combination and almost queued it at Ravelry), but I am dreaming. This wedding cardigan, for example. It's so out of the ordinary, and I love it! I would have guessed that a book from 1997 are not that up to date on modern knitting, but this really is. Or am I lost in the 90's?

I will bring the book home with me and drool over it a couple of weeks, and then maybe get some yarn if the jacket is still as amazing as I think it is right now..

Speaking of getting older, a couple of days ago my baby girl celebrated her very first birthday! I made some cakes, a pink heartshaped cake filled with strawberries and banana (very baby friendly) and a oreo dream cake (YUM!) for the grown ups. I'm not much of a cook when it comes to cakes, but these turned out great.

I think Elina likes cake... If she only could be like this when we feed her porridge!

She did look cute in her birthday dress! The day before she's got vaccinated and wasn't feeling to good with a high temperature and stomach trouble. She got several gifts; clothes, toys and even a bicycle baby stroller

strawberry fields forever

The dress for Elina's first birthday! I shouldn't have blogget before Thursday, when she's actually celebrating.. But I'm too excited about the dress and how it turned out. Childs dresses are really instant gratification, they're so easy to make!

I've used a strawberry babycord and a flowery cotton purchased at ebay for this. The buttons are vintage, I actually bought them at a tiny second hand store somewhere in Finnmark.(far north in Norway)

They wanted 1 NOK (about 20 cents) for each button.. I bought the 3 jars they had, ending up with thousands of old buttons! Got them a little cheaper ;)

The pattern is from Ottobre, they make really simple patterns even I can manage. I'm afraid Elina will be "that weird kid" who's always wearing something homemade. Or maybe it isn't weird anymore, but cool?

Mr. Trosteskjegg, I presume?

What should I call this? A imagination-along, I could do whatever I wanted, as long as I got inspiration from a given fairytale.
The fairytale is about a picky princess, who thinks the bachelors wanting to marry her is to long, short or fat, and she ends up in poverty, doing tasks her fragile body can't handle. Poor thing... Don't you just hate fairytale princesses? Whining little spoilt bitches.. ;)

After she'd become poor, she saw the fat, short and tall bachelors in another light, they had money. So she wanted one of them after all, so she didn't have to work, poor thing.

I felt mostly like kicking the princess' ass, and calling her a golddigger, but after calming a little down I decided to spin.

I started by dying some BFL rovings in grey, purple and black. After they had dried, I mixed them up with some light green angelina, some grey/green merino and natural grey alpaca.

It's a 4-ply, 2 threads of wool and 2 thin metallic threads.

The idea behind this was to make something dull, but when you take a closer look, it might actually shine...

oh. my. god.

I joined a "secret enemy" swap at Hobbyboden, an idea some mean knitters came up with at a stitch n' bitch meeting in Oslo (I think)
I loved the idea, and as soon as I got the information about my enemy, I sent a couple of acrylic skeins as fast as I could, feeling very happy!

I didn't think much about what I would get back... And to be honest; it's the ugliest yarn I've ever seen!! I had to get it out of the plastic bag to take pictures, and it actually feels worse than it looks!
I had to do something nice after touching and photographing the yarn, strange as it might sound; I didn't feel like vomit once I'd put it away...

So I made some granola muffins! Yum! It's the roustique and empty fridge-kind. They actually taste good too.

the perfect fit

For the past months I've been knitting some hats, and they've always turned out to small, to big or just to.. UFO. This turned out perfect! It was really fast, I made it in 2-3 hours, watching a lame movie with lots of commercial breaks.

It's made of handspun yarn, actually the one I blogged about here

It's pure merino and as soft as little baby ducks! It smells great too, as I used a ylang-ylang soap to wash it ;)

The pattern is from the book I blogged about the last time; Strikk til nøstebarn.

afternoon sun

The mailman has been sweet to me the last days. Yesterday he even brought the book I've been waiting so long (like a week....) to get, since I was so eager to start knitting some of the projects. Rumor (Ravelry) says it's some great patterns for hats and mittens in it too, which is mainly what I'm supposed to knit, besides the fantastic jumpsuit I'm planning on making, or might trick my mom into doing.. (hør du, mamma?)
Less than an hour after getting the book I started the ribbed sweater I'm currently working on, using Kauni yarn purchased at Villepinner last week.
This is what the mailman brought me today, besides a couple of skeins of Silk Garden for the Five Fruits sweater. 10 balls of Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply. Aren't they cute? Each ball is only 25 grams, they're like tiny baby skeins! The color is called Barely. Rowan give their colors the prettiest names..
I got them cheap, so I'm planning another project from the book mentioned above for this yummy yarn.

I've also got two blocks for the friendship quilt, from Krikri and EveB
Aren't they cute? Thanks so much! The quilt is beginning to take shape now, curious to see how it turns out..

everybody loves a quickie

It would be a lie to say I've put a lot of work into this little quilt.. The strips are cut in an hour, and it didn't take long to stitch them up either.

I'm not completely satisfied with the photos, it's really more green than the photos show. The fabrics are mostly Amy Butler with some others to (mis)match.

The thought behind the quilt was to have something for Elina's stroller and to sit on during summer, if we're having a picnic or going to a festival or just relaxing in the park.

Because of the way we're hoping to use this quilt, I chose a heavy cotton with a messy pattern for the back. Filth won't show as easy on this as if I used a solid. Or at least I think so. I've quilted it in panels, because the batting was so stiff that it was pretty difficult to quilt on a rather small table. I would experiment more if I had a more suitable batting. But after all, I'm quite satisfied with the panels.

the dress

It's completed. The little dress I started last week! This pattern is (as the blouse) from an Ottobre magazine, and was an easy project to stitch together. However, I made some modifications. A LOT, to be honest.

It's made out of 3 different fabrics, the pink/brown is by Amy Butler (the fabric goddess!), the purple is from the Echino collection by Kokka, and the green polka dots are unknown. I will get some more of the Echino collection pretty soon, even if it's pretty expensive, and maybe to heavy for childrens clothing.

I also had a couple of extra wooden apple buttons I've bought for the sweater I'm currently knitting, which I used for this dress.

The size? I don't know.. I haven't tried it on the owner yet, but I know it's to big. It's pretty wide, so it might fit her as a dress for a while, and later as a tunic with pants. We'll just have to see ;)
The birds are just too cute!

the bonnet

Here it is, the Domino Baby Bonnet I mentioned last Sunday. Is this patterns impossible to get to fit? This is the second time I try to knit this, and it's still too big. Maybe it will fit during autumn? I hope so, the shape and flexibility of this hat is amazing!

It's made of Rauma Finull, one of my favourite yarns. Easy and fun to knit, on needle 3 mm.

It's almost impossible to photograph as the model had some serious problems sitting still ;)

I'm thinking about making another, using bright pink and red.. and make it even smaller.