Pearls on a string

Vest pattern from Pickles, originally a jacket, but didn't bother to knit the sleeves... Knitted in Du store alpakka Fin, a mix of 50% alpaca and 50% silk.

Wild wild vest

Spinnvill flettevest from Pickles in Pickles extra fine merino. The pattern has a great fit, the yarn is airy, elastic and feels like cotton, but with 100% wool, mmmm....

how many socks must a boy walk down...

Item: Socks and mittens for toddlers
Yarn: Sandnes Tove
Grams 93 g, approx 20 g a pair of socks/mittens

... before you can call him a man? A toddler going to kindergarten in Norway need a lot of woollies, socks, mittens, hats, sweaters, pants, you name it. With two skeins of Sandnes Tove, how many socks and mittens can you make? As it turns out, 4 pairs of socks, and 1 pair of mittens, sized for a 1- and 2-year-old.

Merete at MonsterMønster has a great tip for knitting socks for small children, always knit the same size in the same colour! That way, when the green pair of socks is too small, you will know that you can pack up all the green socks. Easy peasy!

Petunia has a nice pattern for knitted socks, showing the process in great detail. She also provides a handy table (although perhaps a teeny tiny bit difficult to interpret at times) for the number of stitches, rounds, increases and decreases for all the different sizes.

The mittens are my own creation.

Autumnal vest

Item: Toddler T-shirt baby vest by Sam LambYarn: 1 strand Sandnes Duo in white, and 1 strand Du Store Alpakka Tynn Alpakka in soft green.
Grams: 110 g

A great vest pattern for toddlers, easy to knit, easy to enlarge if you have to.  The Sandnes Duo is a great yarn, a mix of merino and cotton, making it very soft and light, warm and airy at the same time. The alpaca adds extra warmth, suitable for the Norwegian fall. Knits up in a hurry, a nice project for last-minute gifts.

International yarn bombing day

Today, June 9th, is the international yarn bombing day! What is your contribution?

As a baby's bottom...

Item: One strand booties and lettstrikka babylue from Nøstebarn
Yarn: Drops silkealpakka
Grams: 44 g

The one strand baby booties are simply brilliant. Easy to knit, excellent for small scraps, easy to make larger or smaller by using different yarns and needles. The trickiest part is to sew together the bottom of the bootie with kitchener stitch, but you'll get the hang of it in the end. I always use the Purl Bee Kitchener Stitch tutorial, it's great!

The hat is also a good pattern, nice and easy. Next time I'll probably knit the last half of it in the round, I prefer to minimize the required sewing in the end.

The yarn is a silk alpaca blend, 70% alpaca and 30% mulberry silk, soft and silky as a baby's bottom.

My prize is here!

My Etimo Rose crochet set from Pickles arrived today. I won it when I was awarded second place in the inspiration contest at Pickles last week with my Oslo-in-my-heart anorak!

Now I can't wait to crochet the gorgeous dress seen on the cover of the booklet Blødt til babyen, shown in the picture!

How to knit calories

I once read that knitting requires more calories than just sitting, a big hurrah for those of us who can't sit in front of a tv without some knitting in our laps :)

Now, here's another idea for how to knit calories, inspired by my pilates class; do it on a gym ball!

Great for making skeins as well :)

CPH shopping spree

In Copenhagen for the weekend, lovely city! Going hopping with my baby stroller is a bit difficult, as many of the oh-so-desirable shops are a few steps out of reach :( But still, had an altogether lovely shopping experience
I spent some surfing time ahead of the trip, looking for the best knitting shops, and decided to pay Sommerfuglen a visit. With no regrets, it's a wonderful shop! I bought several knitting books, and couldn't resist some balls of yarn either, so now my yarn stash has grown some more...
I also discovered a cute porcelain shop, Liebe, with lots of cute porcelain earrings, doorknobs, cups and platters, highly recommend it! They also have a shop online.

Oslo-in-my-heart-anorak

Item: Oslo anorak from Pickles

Yarn: Fritidsgarn

Grams: 301 g

Again, I have cast on for the creativity contests at Pickles. Last time, I didn't finish my "Girls Gone Duplicate" in time for the deadline, mothering is a time-consuming business... But this time I just about had time enough to finish, lucky me! Because I made it through to the final, yippie! Here's some more snapshots of my anorak.

I've used a single thread of white Fritidsgarn as the main colour, and a triple thread of coloured Fritidsgarn for the tiny hearts. The hearts are knitted, not embroidered on afterwards. This makes a very thick and warm anorak, and the hearts that pop out are just adorable. The coloured edging along the rim of the hood is actually not crocheted or knitted, but embroidered with chain stitches. The pompom is made with a Clover pompom maker, a clever little thing.


Good luck to all you other finalists! 


Lykke til, alle sammen!

Grow your own onesie

Item: Benjamin's growing onesie and Little Coffe Bean Cardigan from Ravelry
Yarn: Lanett from Sandes Uldvare in turquoise and white
Grams: Onesie 75 g, Cardigan 113 g

The growing onesie from Fragaria Bergin is a great pattern, it really grows with the baby. Soon outgrown by this little fellow, but it has certainly lasted a long time. Supercool buttons from Snella og Petronella!

A matching Little Coffee Bean Cardigan in stripes, this one will not be outgrown for a while, I think. A little twist on the edges, no ribbing here, just garter stitches for a couple of rows. White buttons in different sizes, a favourite of mine.

Spring delight

Item: Rullegenser from Nøstebarn
Yarn: 2-ply merino wool from Nøstebarn
Grams: 88 g

I'm invited to a spring birthday party, celebrating a 1 year old baby girl. There's nothing better than Nøstebarn's thin merino wool for those in-between-seasons garments. I like it even in the summer, especially the chilled Norwegian summer. This sweater is knitted on 2.5 mm needles, making a light, airy garment, sized for a 2-year-old. I always knit a big bitter than the intended recipient where children are concerned. Most of them grow, fast too.

Have to wrap up a present, but no paper? Use a scrap of yarn as a ribbon! 

Going for a drive

Item: Travel romper suit from the book "Myk start" with matching One-strand booties
Yarn: Alpaca "STERK" in turquoise, a loose, unspun alpaca in grey, both from "Du store alpakka"
Grams: 229 g


This romper suit is for those chilly days when a baby still have to go out for a drive. Something warm and snuggly to wear in the car seat is important, but as the car seat itself is very bad at ventilation, I find that most things make my baby too warm, making him very frustrated. This in turn makes for a very nerve-wrecking driving experience, a howling baby and hormonal mum is not the best way to ensure traffic safety...

So I am using an alpaca blend, warm enough to keep him snug, cool enough to ventilate. The loose unspun alpaca is quite furry/hairy, so I gave the whole outfit a nice spa experience in the sink with hot water and "grønnsåpe" (soap) when finished, allowing it to felt a little bit. The result is a bit less furry. 

 Tiny duckling buttons make the outfit complete :) 

Men in tights

Item: Ullbukser fra Drops
Yarn: Katia Merino Sport
Grams: 145 g

A nice thick pair of tights, the kind Robin Hood and his companions would be proud of. Not itchy at all, thanks to extra fine merino. Knitted on needles size 5 mm, slightly larger than the pattern. Good pattern, with the additional ribbing along the sides of the legs, but I do find this sort of waistline quite slouchy when used for a while (almost even before being put to use). I am going to experiment with doubling my yarn with some thin elastic thread on my next project with a similar waist, using much smaller needles just for the waist as well.

Girls gone duplicate

Item: Girl's reversible frock
Yarn: Baby merino from Gjestal in a painted pink&red&peach, and Kitten Mohair from Gjestal in hot pink
Grams: 123 g



This is Pickles' reversible frock. A while back, they hosted an creativity contest with this pattern, and I eagerly cast on this frock with a combination of mohair and baby merino. The pattern creates a reversible frock, which allows the wearer to choose to show off the fancy mohair version or the ever-changing painted version. 


However, I never got to participate in the contest, as I didn't finish on time. This mummy business sure takes a lot of time ;) 

I did the yoke in simple ribbing with a reversed purl, which I always find creates a nice twisted finish. The hot pink mohair makes a nice touch to the inside (or outside) of the reversible dress. I love Pickles' idea of patent knitting with two different colours!

Mobile baby, Mobile

Item: Baby mobile
Yarn: Drops Safran, various colours
Grams: 50 g Yellow, 60 g other colours, 110 g in total

We're expecting our first baby, a little baby boy will join us in January. For his nursery, I have made this delicious mobile, using the frame of an old lampshade to suspend it from. The placeholder for the lightbulb now holds a cute little yellow sun, shining down upon the clouds, birds, trees and my little baby boy. 




I've crocheted the various elements, and the yellow trees are inspired from this Ferm Living bedding. They have tiny bells inside them, so that they make a tingling noise when disturbed.  A little birdie is perched on top of the lampshade, looking down on the (hopefully) sleeping baby. 

We all live in a Yellow Cushmarine

Item: Yellow crocheted cushion

Yarn: Heilo from Dale

Grams: 70 g


A cushion for the nursery, as yellow as can be. Is it a New York taxi? Or is it a submarine? Or perhaps a solar explosion? 

Crocheted on a needle size 4 mm, it is made entirely out of single crochets, starting with simple chain stitches, as many as you need to cover one length of the cushion (not the circumference, just one length). Then you start with the single crochet stitches, one stitch in each chain stitch. When you reach the end of the chain stitches, you continue stitching a single crochet in each chain stitch from the other side, adding some extra stitches in each of the two corners. Doing this means you can crochet round and round rather than back and forth, and still not have to sew together the bottom of the cushion, only the top. You'll actually make something that looks a bit like a bag, which you'll sew together at the top. 


The nice thing about crocheting cushions is that you don't have to fasten any loose threads, I simply just tie a knot when joining two threads, hiding the knot on what will be the inside of the cushion. It will never show! So I only have to fasten the final thread used to sew together the opening on the top of the cushion :)

Pram goes retro

Item: Pram afghan

Yarn: Loads of different ones, all from the 70s, corduroy backing

When I was a baby, my mother made this small afghan for me, intended as a cover for my pram, on top of the baby duvet. Isn't it gorgeous? Truly inspired, I think. It is primarily knitted, from loads of different yarns, some of them coloured with plant dyes by my mother herself. And the colours just pop, mostly reds and browns and oranges. And the backing is a brick red corduroy, matching perfectly! 


And now it is passed on to my baby boy, when he decides to join us in January some time. His pram will be the hottest pram in town! 

Stars in mummy's eyes

Item: Baby jacket with accessories
Yarn: Baby merino from DROPS in buttery yellow and creamy white
Grams: 87 g

 A new baby means a new mum, and new mum usually has stars in her eyes whenever she is gazing at her new offspring.


This baby jacket will make sure that those stars are always there, using daisy stitches to create lovely borders for the bottom of the jacket, the sleeves and the hat.

The creamy white and the buttery yellow is a perfect gender-neutral combination, and the yellow buttons match the yellow yarn perfectly, as though they were made for each other (lucky purchase, as I did not have a yarn sample with me to the button store).

The pattern is from Pickles, the Lazy Daisy baby jacket, with a few minor alterations to the amount of daisy stitches. I made the border at the bottom of the jacket thinner, and added borders at the bottom of the sleeves. The jacket, hat and booties are all knitted with circular needles (40cm), size 4.5 mm.

The hat was made without a pattern, just casting on a suitable amount of stitches. With daisy stitches, it is important that the amount of stitches can be divided by 3 + 2. For instance, you can cast on 77 stitches = (3 * 25) + 2.

Knit in the round until you have a suitable amount of rounds, enough to cover the baby's head from the baby's forehead to where flat top of the head starts. Then you are ready to start decreasing. For a baby's hat, I decrease quite rapidly compared to an adult's hat.


Now, yet another baby is soon ready to put stars in the new mother's eyes!

Warm-a-wrist

Item: Hand wrist warmers with alternative ribbing
Yarn: Extra fine merino wool in "Mørk reinlav" from Pickles
Grams: 40 g

 Working with computers a lot can be quite hard on the hands. Particularly in the winter time, when the office gets chilly, a pair of hand wrist warmers is a treat, making it easy to use the keyboard and the mouse even though it's below freezing outside the window.

These hand warmers are made from non-scratchy merino wool, and are knitted in an alternative ribbing pattern, inspired by the Women's Hand Wrist Warmers pattern. Using a yarn that doesn't scratch too much is essential when making hand wrist warmers, as the wrists itch easily.


1 skein of Pickles extra fine merino was required to make the pair of hand wrist warmers, leaving a little. Each piece covers the hand from the knuckles some length passed the wrist, approximately 20 cm long in total.