A little spring post

The weather has been odd in Iceland, the vegetation is at least three weeks ahead of schedule and so are the migration birds such as the plover, oystercatcher, reds and, well the list is long. This is sadly due to the disastrous global warming. Secretly and selfishly I welcome the warmth but mostly for my garden. But it really doesn’t feel right. And it’s truly worrying. I will however put pictures here of my garden. I built loads of free standing raised vegetable/flower boxes because the soil in my garden is pore, nothing but gravel and stones, and where there is a little bit of earth to be found it is just clay and so my solution for growing veggies are boxes 🙂

All in all I have 8 raised beds, which I built myself. I have taken some measures in order to improve the soil in the garden, but it will take time. But being impatient when it comes to growing my own lettuce I made boxes. In addition to that I have planted loads of bulbs all over the garden cause I love flowers. Daffodils and tulips they are hardy and can handle my rough garden 🙂

But plenty of other plans are brewing, in my head, well I talk like I do all the work. I don’t. My partner and I do it together of course, but I still built the raised beds all by myself 😀

There is pea-bed, strawberry-bed, lettuce and herbs-bed and then few mixed beds…

From aran to bag

I knitted an aran some years ago and wore it to pieces and since I had put so much work in to all the cable work I found it hard to just put it in the bin. There fore I made a bag with it. And so, it went from this:

…to this:

…and ended in this:

Yeah not the best picture… (…and horrible looking flooring at work :)) but I was quite happy with the result, I am not very good with the sewing machine and therefore I felt a bit proud of myself, having never done anything like it before 🙂

That’s it for today, have good one everyone!

My take on Elizabeth Zimmerman’s sweater

After a long blog brake, which seems to be my habit I wanted show of my Elisabeth Zimmerman’s desember last minute sweater ( as I remember it was called). I couldn’t find a recipe for it anywhere and I also had trouble getting her book on Amazon so I gave up and decided I would have to take matters into my own hands. So I studied pictures I could find of it and began. This is the result:

I am quite happy with it, but when I’ll do next I think I would have it a bit smaller, that is, not as wide, it turned out to be just a tad to wide 🙂

I used three threads, one thread single plötulopi, second silk mohair and the third was a fine thread from the Faroese brand Navia, on knitting needles nr. 9. It turned out to be super soft and cozy!  If any one would like the recipe I could email it to them, no charge 🙂

Okey that’s it for now, have good one everyone! 🙂

Happy new year!

Here is the first project I finish in the new year, my new year blanket 🙂 I started it just before Christmas and finished it yesterday, I am quite happy with the result. I used double plötulopi and Álafosslopi, most of it was some leftover yarn I had stashed all over the house, but I had to buy some to finish it and get the colors I wanted but most of I had. The needle size I used was 8mm. I crochet it with the “corner to corner” method. The method can be found on http://www.youtube.com, just put in “corner to corner” and you’ll find several good videos. This method is farely simple and offers so many possibilities. The size is ca. 1.20 meters x 2 meters.I hope you’ll all have a great new year! 🙂

Almost there

As most people know Christmas is coming and since I work in the retail business your personal time is scarce and pressious around this time. Longer hours means less time you have to knit, bake, clean the house, make Christmas presents and do all the things you think are important to do inorder to feel ok about the fact that Christmas is about to knock on the door of your unsually unprepared home. This Christmas I am pretty unprepared, I haven’t managed to do half of the things I wanted… but what the heck I am working like crazy and there is just no time…and so in stead of getting cross and grumpy over all the things I didn’t manage to finish I am going to relish in the things I did and put my trust in my lovely boyfriend to get me through this and the fact that my parents are coming over for Chrismas, that is my ultimate Christmaspresent and joy, I just can’t wait!

Well here are the things I finished:

An Old English fruitcake, sorry its difficult to see with the clingfilm…

Home made chocolate ummm…stuff 🙂 It has marshmallows, nuts, caramells and crystalizes ginger in it, pretty yummy and some beewax cloths to use instead of clingfilm (pretend thad my cake above is not wrapped in that stuff, we are very careful about recycling and so all the plastic we use goes the right way, all though no plastic is ofcourse the best! :))

I used jars that I owned and have collected to put the chocolates in and the beewax cloths are made from an old curtain I once made for my daughter’s room and just drew little pictures on them, the blue flowers in the back I painted when I made the curtains. It’s just plaine white cotton fabric.

wool jumper for a little three year old

I haven’t blocked it yet and sorry but there is no recipe for it. I used Álafosslopi for the white and double plötulopi fo pink mainly because I wanted the sleaves to be softer and a just tad thinner and easer to move in, I did intarsia to be able to put the sleaves in like that. I bought very cute wooden teddybear buttons, that I will put in when I have washed it. I made it a bit long so that she can whear it for few years as she grows, the sleaves will just become quarter sleaves, I made sure that they where not knitted to thightly.

And here is a boxfull of knitted things on its way to Texas USA 🙂

And to get you in to the holliday spitits a Christmastree and decorations

Sunday afternoon

What do you after been outside walking the dog when it -8 degrees celcius? If you are lucky enough to have a woodburning stove, well, you get some fire burning, sit down with with a hot cup of tea and some kitting project and focus on getting some heat into your body…

…and that is just what I did. Now working on my daughters winter coat, I put a picture of it in here last weekend. Knitting the edges that are then sewn on after opening it up by cutting it with scissors. But first you sew where the pattern meets in a sewing machine. I struggled a bit with that, never been very good on the sewing machine. However I intend to mend that since my grandmother gave me hers. She celebrated her ninety-eth (I appologise for my spelling) birthday this spring, her mind is clear although her body just isn’t what it used to be, naturally, and therefore she gave me her sewing machine, takk amma mín! 🙂

I truly hope that your weekend has been as lovely as mine has been!

I don’t now if you can see it clearly but I will put in a photo when it is done.

Saturday afternoon

Yebb me, the cat (cat in my lap) and the dog are all up on the sofa toghether on this cold and windy saturday afternoon. The black thing there on the table is a scarf that I am working on in seed stich, double plötulopi and einband. Hoping to finish it this weekend. I did finish the mittens that I mentioned last weekend, just very plain and simple. Haven’t taken a picture yet and now that I think I should do so I find myself trapped under a cat and a dog, and since they are so cozy there I dare not even to stir, so the picture will have to wait 🙂 And since I can’t move my boyfriend brought me a whole tin of Quality Street chocolates that I am now eating vigorously…

Happy times! 🙂

First snow of the year

The winter has come here in Iceland. It was – 13 degrees celcius this morning and that is just perferct to stay indoors and knit and eat chocolate and drink it too hahaha, but here are pictures of the view out of my windows and as you can see its pretty chilly…

And here you see my cup of hot cocoa and empty chocolate wrappings and very plain grey mittens on the needleds, knitted with léttlopi. I am knitting them for my boyfriend who needs them by the look of it 🙂 So I best continue and see if I can’t have them ready by the end of day… happy winter everyone! 😀

Oh just goes by so fast…

…and its been five months, I have totally neglected my blog. But same as ever still knitting, always knitting, something 🙂 And now Christmas is getting closer and I need to start to think about making some presents. I always try to make my presents myself, that is just so much more fun.

But here is what I have been dooing. The first picture is a woolcoat for my daughter, she is tall and slender so it will suit her very well, I am short and… well let’s just say I am short hahaha… and would not pull something like this off as well as she would 🙂

It is from an Ístex.is book a traditional Icelandic jumper with a twist by Védís Hermannsdóttir will post another picture once it’s complete, it still needs the lists on the front and a neckline and pockets: http://istex.is/islenska/uppskriftir/vara/20484

Well of course the cat had to make himself comfortable and ask for some attention 😀

And then I just finished a scarf that will be going with all the other things I have knitted and posted in my last blog to the States:

The recipie for tiny mittens

Right, I wrote last time that I was going to put in the recipies for both the tiny mittens they would fit a three year old, and the scarf. Well first we’ll do to mittens, so here goes:

I used Kambgarn on knitting needles nr. 3 (3mm). Cast on 44 stiches on stocking needles. Knit one, purl one to make the cuffs for the mittens. Knit twelve rows like that. After the twelfth round you start the upperpart and pattern. Knit regularly but add three stiches somewhere along the way on the the first round. Knit two rounds after that. Then you start knitting the pattern, only knit two stiches before and after the pattern. In the main or background color in my case it was the white color. On the otherside I just did one white and one blue one white one blue and so on and then on the next round you do one blue one white one blue one white and so on, so it forms a sort of a chessboard kind of look :):

 

I got this patten from this book:

When you’ve knitted the pattern you start decreasing by knitting one then knit two together, knit the remaining nine stiches on that needle, knit the next nine on the next needle take two together and knit one. Repeat next two needles. Knit one round without decreasing. Knit one, knit two together knit the remaining eight stiches on the needele, knit eight stiches on next needle knit two together knit one. Repeat on the next two needles knit one row with out decreasing. Do this until you have six stiches left on each needle then decrease in every row untill you have two stiches on each needle. Then cast off. I hope its clear enough for you to follow otherwise I am open for any question 🙂

These haven’t been blocked as you can tell, yet I wanted to but them up while I remembered how I made them.