The last couple of days

Sorry for no update people, but my internet has been gone for the last day and a half without any warning, so my planned blogging was suddently put on hold.
I got to admit that I'm addicted to internet, most of my inspiration and entertainment can be found online, so when I'm suddenly left without it for a longer period of time, it's almost claustrophobic. I haven't been the best crafter without my daily intake of Youtube, instead I've been replacing it with VHS Disney movies and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
When that's said, I can live without internet access just fine, I'd just prefer a bit of a warning/preperation time in advance. One of my favorite places on earth is my mother's mountain cabin where there's no water, no plumbing, no electricity, no phone signal or internet.

BUT! I digress... Let's do a crafting recap from the last blogentry I did!

Big Lupo got her body in one piece, I am however running out of yarn, so the hood will most likely end up being all pink and not multicoloured like the body. The body also turned out a bit loopsided, the decreasing got screwed up somehow... She's so soft and huggable though!

In the meanwhile, little Lupo has grown ears! Yeah! I ran out of grey yarn so I had to actually go and buy more. And after the hood, I ran out of white too! I do however got a few scraps of white that I'm trying to match up. The arms I did last night, but of course, I managed to do something wrong on the second one, so I had to frog it down, which then again made me lose interest in working on it.

So, I started the next sweater commission. During The Lion King and a few episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, this is what I've got to show for before I fell asleep in my chair, not bad in my opinion. Bring on 20 more Disney movies and I'm done!

I'm doing this sweater in a yarn I've never worked with before; Smart from Sandnesgarn. Now,  I tend to choose the cheaper brands because I'm a greedy bastard and my economy is pretty dang low, but really, I can't feel too much difference in this yarn from brands I usually work with, even though it costs up to 3 times as much per skein. I've seen people swear to Sandnesgarn, which is all good, I'm not the one to judge that stuff, expecially since I've never really worked much with the brands they carry. So it'll be fun to see how I feel about this yarn when I'm done with this sweater. I'm planning on doing a Marius for myself later in a brand that's pretty much the same as this (same specs, feel and everything), so we'll see how they do against each other when worked up. I am hoping that there'll be some scraps left over so I can try and stress test it against my prefered "cheap" brands.

WIP: Lupo and...Lupo?

I've been working on Lupo ONLY for the last couple of days, and really, it takes forever! Crocheting is generally extra slow with me, but with such a small hook that's all kinds of crap, it really slows everything down further... But I've got his body done now! Finished up his head in the early mornings today. I'm not 100% happy with the result, but it looks good, I guess. I still feel that his head is way too big, but then again, Fibi's head turned out way too small. I've done a little comparison in the pattern between the two of them, and there's 24 stitches more in the round of Lupo's head!

  

I am however in love with the bobble stitch! I hated it's guts to begin with and it took forever and it killed my arm during the first few rounds, but I just love the texture and the feel of it... Call it Stockholm syndrome! All he's missing right now is the arms, hood, ears and the pompoms. All of that shouldn't be a problem at all! I am a bit scared that I might run out of the grey yarn though... Haven't confirmed with my stash if I got more leftovers (cause that it actually what this is, leftovers and scraps, call it a scrap project). 

Right now, I'm taking a little break from Lupo anyway, the head was just a bit too tedious for me, and I know the arms are boring and tedious too.

So I started a new project! Lupo! Wait wuuuut?

Yes! I decided to start another Lupo! As I've said before, Lupo is the reason why I fell in love with Lalylala. It was the first amigurumi I saw and if you remember a blog entry from january, I showed off a picture of Lopu, saying how much I adored the Lalylala dolls. Shortly after, my good friend Pickle threw me the pattern for Fibi and offered to help me through it. And it didn't take long before I bought the pattern for Lupo. I love Lupo so much! I can't express it enough! And after working up little Lupo, I got the great idea of making a giant Lupo! A snuggle buddy! This idea has been in my head for several days now, and I've been so close to ordering yarn for it, but I just couldn't get myself to do it. I'm trying to save the little money I have, so when I'm buying yarn, I'd like to get bigger lots so the shipping won't be so hurtfull. In most cases, shipping is free when you reach a certain spending amount, and I am trying my best to hit that if I can...so buying yarn (even though it's on sale right now) doesn't feel right when I'll be spending the same amount on shipping...
Little did I know that the answer was right behind me...litterally! In the shelf behind me, there was two skeins of green bamboo yarn that Sarah sent me some time ago. It's thicker than what I usually work with and it's soft to the touch without feeling like icky acryllic. Patons Silk Bamboo, 70% bamboo and 30% Silk! Genious! I rushed to my yarn storage and pulled out two other skeins of bamboo... Sirdar Juicy DK, 80% bamboo, 20% cotton. They were of the same lenght and same thickness, just about the same silky texture as well.

Wow... Pepsi is photobombing me! But yeah! These skeins shall become a giant Lupo! OMG I'm so excited! The skin will be green while the wool will be striped light mint green/beige. A bit crazy, but who cares? He'll be super soft and so cuddly!

But as I pondered this giant Lupo plushie... I got the feeling that I'd most likely run out of yarn... I dug through my stash once more and pulled out one and a half skein of a weird cotton mix. These are Cotton Light from Drops,  60% cotton, 40% acryllic, the remainder of four full skeins I recieved in a giveaway two years ago. Cotton Light doesn't excist anymore from what I've come to understand, so I really don't know what to do with these skeins. Why not include them in the giant Lupo? It's body will be striped anyway, so I can plot some of this inbetween the other two colours.

GENIOUS! But I shouldn't get too caught up in all of this... I need to start another sweater commission soon! And by the look of things, another commission might pop up after that!

Two finished pullovers and a cowl!

Well...finished and finished... Two of these have been finished for a few days, but again, I've been lazy and haven't gotten around to photograph them until now. The third are still left with a bunch of ends that needs to be weaved in. ALL THE LAZY!!!

But lets take one project at the time now. First lets do the cowl. I started this, thinking I could get ridd of some scraps and at the same time make something a bit different from my usual preferences and also kind of mindless. I'm currently stuck in a yarn block (the yarnsters version of art block...totally made both those therms up myself) and need something that don't demand much brain useage.
So yeah, I started this cowl from one scrap skein of Drops <3 You #3, thinking I would use up a bunch, but ended up just using just the one. Casted on 100 stitches on a 7mm needle and alternated between doing parts in garter stitch and parts with drop stitch, simple, easy, done!

A few days ago, I finally recieved the baked bean buttons that I needed for my blue hoodie, and after sewing on 42 of them (36 of which on the hood alone). Had a lot of fun just placing them around randomly. This pullover has been nothing but fun and games and references! So refreshing! I used two strands to make it fluffy and textured, one was Bernat Mohairlaine in the colourway 7566 and the other was Drops Alpaca in the colourway 2919. Got the Mohairlaine from Brooke ages ago and the Alpaca I got on a crazy sale. Again, 7mm needles, no pattern.

The last thing is another pullover! This thing I finished up back in june but didn't give a rats ass about weaving in the ends and actually finish it up. It's still not finished really, I just wanted to photograph it and get it over with, it's been a month overdue already. Weaving in bamboo (and cotton for that matter) ends are pure nightmare fuel. The best (and kinda only) way to do it is to split the ends in half and weave in each of those ends. Example: look at a dishcloth with one end in each side. You'd think you got only two ends to weave in, right? Wrong... You actually got four if you want then to be fastened good and have durability and quality on it. Since cotton and bamboo is so slick and hard, it doesn't attach itself to...itself in the same way wool does. Hopefully I'll get enough courage to weave in these ends...some day...

And there she goes again...

This time, I'll admit that the blog hiatus has just been my lazyness and upside down day rythm that has kept me from blogging every day.

Ofcourse, there is some progress on my projects. The pullover is done! Or...done knitting... Still need to weave in all the blasted ends and sew up the holes under the arms. That'll take forever so I'll get to that at some point or another in my life... But it looks good though. I wish the body was a bit longer, and after I finished it up, the sleeves got longer too, so it's not perfect. Welcome to my dirty bathroom BTW...

Watcha think? Does it look good? Or does it look crap?

Vaporeon got his legs and arms sewn on, same with the head and even the back spikes. I did screw up a bit when I sewed on the head though. It looks like he's flaceplanting on the ground ranter than flopping around on the ground.

Kinda bummed me out so I've put it aside for now. Not sure if I'm to continue with it or make a new one.

SO! To keep my thought off that one, I started my next crochet project! Cause now that I've gotten all of these stitches in my fingers, I need to make sure I use them before they're forgotten again. I promise I'm not a crochet junkie! But with my current obsession with the Yogscast (which has been building over the last couple of months and sky rocketed the last weeks) I've started my Lalylala based, Yogscast inspired amigurumi dolls! I've been wanting to do Simon for way too long now, so I just started with him the other day. I MIGHT go through all of them, atleast the dream team (Simon, Lewis and Duncan) as well as Sjin. I NEED to do Lewis and Sjin atleast, since they're my favorites in the whole of Yogscast, but Lewis' character is very complicated and detailed so I'm not sure if I dare jump to him first.
BUT SIMON! I did start him as I've allready said! I got the head (minus the beard and hair), the helmet and I've started the body.

Woop woop! I'm so excited about starting these dolls! So much fun!

Pullover and Vaporeon!

Might be a bit early for an update on things, but whatever! I haven't really updated on my pullover for a few days so I can do with an early update today now that I've got pictures to show for it.
SO! I've been working with the raglan for the pullover for quite a few days now. It takes forever and it doesn't feel like the amount of stitches are increasing really. I am also running out of yarn so I do hope I'll manage to finish up within the next two skeins...then I would have used 17 skeins in this thing...which isn't so bad for you 'Muricans out there. Each skein weighs only 50gr, that's about 1,7oz. But bamboo and cotton yarn are pretty heavy compared to wool and other materials, so you don't get that many meters and it feels heavier automaticly.

But it's starting to look like something now! Wish is was longer in the body, but then I wouldn't have enough yarn to finish it up.

It's a bit awkward to put on right now since I still have the stitches on the needles...but it does fit kinda, and it will be a tiny bit longer in the body when it's done.

Since I've now finished Fibi the fox, I've started my next crochet project. I'm gonna try and have one running all the time along with my normal knitting. And this one's gonna be a baby Vaporeon! Aphid777 on deviantART makes fantastic crochet amigurumis and several of these she writes up the pattern for and posts along with pictures of her creations. Recently, she's been making the Eevelutions and I died when Vaporeon was submitted. Ofcourse I had to try my hand on that one, expecially now that I've managed to actually follow a crochet pattern succesfully. So far I've managed to make the head without too much problems. I've stuck the green marker there to mark the nose tip.

So far I think it looks pretty neat! I'm using Silja from Gjestal for it, 80% wool and 20% nylon and 2,5mm hook if you were wondering.

Pullover sleeves!

The sleeves for the pullover are comming along nicely! I've finished the increases and right now I just have to knit around and around until they're long enough. Haven't really decided if I'll be making them 3/4 or full lenght yet, but we'll see after I'm done working up this grey part.

 They might look short on this picture over here, but they're really poofy and fluffy that they actually reaches far above my elbow.

If I were to stop them now, I'd have short 3/4 sleeves. If I finish up the grey, I think I'd have a good 3/4 lenght going on. I am still discussing it with myself though, so only time will tell what I'll end up doing.

WIP summer pullover, body done!

So, last night I managed to finish up the body of the summer pullover I'm currently working on, took me long enough, didn't it?
Anyways, I am doing pretty much everything differently compared to the pattern right now. As I've mentioned in an earlier blogpost, the original pattern's knit in four pieces, flat. That would mean almost 75% of the rounds being all purl per pattern repeat. That's way too much purling for me when it's a sweater/pullover on 3,5mm needles. Editing the pattern and then knitting everything in the round, cuts all the purls drastically and also saves me a lot of sewing afterwards. I don't have any idea why this pattern is knit flat in pieces in the first place... But when that's said, I might not make the V neck line that the pattern asks for... We'll see...

Still get a hippie/gypsy vibe off it though, can't wait to see it finished!

And inbetween all the Minecrafting, I have started the sleeves. It's not really much to look at right now, but it's a start.  Gonna work out how the increases will go for the next round now and also how I'll be doing them on the rest of the sleeve. The exciteing part comes when I'm at the raglan.

WIP summer pullover!

Guess it's time for another WIP of the summer pullover I'm in the making of. It's quite slow, but I do try to sneak in some rounds between the Mario Kart and Minecraft gaming hours. Sadly, my computer mouse is getting worn out which makes my right arm hurt if I Minecraft too long... Need to get me a new one I think...

Anyways, summer pullover! It looks more and more hippie-ish, maybe kinda gypsy like. I do like it though. One stripe is one skein, so as you can see, these skeins are small. I try to pick the colors at random, yet trying to make it look organized and pretty. I'm also pretty limited with my colors seeing as I had only 8 skeins of green, 6 of purple and 3 of grey. I've allready used 4 green and 2 purple, and I've just started the first one in grey. After my calculations, I should knit for another 14cm (5,5") before I decrease for the sleeves. I am concidering knitting the sleeves only 3/4 long though. Hopefully I'll have enough yarn.

Can't wait to get it finished at some point in this lifetime though!

WIP summer pullover!

I'm working pretty slow these days. So good not to have deadlines on my projects after stressing with one after the other since before christmas. But I do get some work done! Like today! I finished up the dishcloth I started the other day for one...

And I also managed to work up a scarf for Fibi! It even has frills on the ends! So fancy! Now he/she is only missing the ears! Almost done!

And then we got my summer pullover! I started the other part yesterday and finished it up today, and I just put them both on the needles again now to work in the round! The stitches add up so I'm very happy with this thing so far! The yarn is soft and light so I can imagine this pullover will be just perfect for those colder summer nights...or just as a everyday wear since I don't think it'll be very warm... Still debating if I should add the hood or not though...

Ugh, the people upstairs are having a rather loud party...so I guess I'll stay up all night working on this pullover... I actually think that these people are louder than the previous people we lived with...

Summer knitting!

Summer is more or less upon us allready (which reminds me that I should look into changing my blog design soon...again), and I'm not a fan of summer. I prefer the cold, snowy and dark nights compared to the sunny, warm and all to bright nights. But summer is more of a relaxing knit season. You can't really work on too big projects, execially not wool projects. Socks, hats, mittens, scarfs and so on usually just stand in line, waiting for the autumn to get here. So what do you knit during the warmer season? Well, anything cotton basicly! That's how it goes for myself and the rest of knitting Norway it seems. And I've allready started to feel the slowness. For a week now, all I've been doing is knitting dishcloths!

I've managed to knit six of the white birch ones from Bittami. Here's the two last ones from that batch

And after some time, I managed to finish up the heart one (not sure what the english name for this one is, but it's called "hjertebarn" in norwegian and can probably be translated to "children of the heart"), also from Bittami.

And then I started a goat willow dishcloth, form Bittami ofcourse... Both this one and the heart one areworked up with the Drops <3 You 1 mixed cotton that I bleached some time ago.

But I didn't finish this one up cause all of a sudden, I decided to start a summer pullover! Yeah! I've been drooling over this pattern for quite some time, but I finally decided to start it last night. I got a bunch of bamboo/acryllic yarn lying around that I decided to start using, and a summer pullover was the perfect project for all of this.

It's a slow work, expecially since it's worked in pieces. I'll be working it in the round cause I do not want to do all the purls. But it has splits in the sides, so at the beginning, I have to work it in different pieces... Fun time! It's looking good though!

Second round of experimenting!

You may remember the experiment I did with bleaching on bamboo/acryllic yarn? And you may also remember the not so good results I got from that?

Well, now I've finished up a second round of experimenting. Over a week ago, I bought a new bottle of bleach and decided to try new yarn in a 50/50 water and bleach sollution instead of the 1/10 I did on the other experiment. I plopped in two more strands of the yarn and let it sit over night. Sad about the same result as the first round, I didn't even bother to take them out! Over the next week, I noticed small changes in the colors every day, until I took them out last night, after being soaked for one week in bleach.
It's still not white, and it takes too long for a good result, not to mention that the fibers must be very weak at this point... So I doubt I'll be able to do it with this perticular yarn.

But I still got a huge amount of this yarn lying around, so I might just knit up some kind of light sweater with it anyway.

Results?

So, after last night's experimenting with bamboo/acryllic yarn in bleach, I've now got some results...I think...

As I said, I put the strands of yarn in bleach over night. They were left there for about 12 hours or so because I forgot they were excisting when I woke up. But took them out and let them dry and just now  I remembered them again and went to get some pictures.

As you can see in this picture, there is some change, but not enough for what I got planned...

Then again, the bleach solution was maybe 1 to 10 parts water, which is alot less than what I usually bleach yarn with. I will have to try a second time with a stronger solution... So I'll keep you updated whenever I get around to buy more bleach.

Experimenting!

When the cat is away, the mouse will play...or however that saying goes in english... In norwegian, the mice dances on the table when the cat leaves! Fun fact of the day!

What I ment to say is, Bård has left me this weekend...don't worry, he's just visiting his parents! But I truly enjoy the alone time...for some reason, I turn back to college life when he's gone, which is both refreshing and dangerous, cause the appartment suffers from a hurricane! So I've just started an experiment...which I would have done if Bård was home...so all of that crazy talk was now pointless...

A week ago, I got the idea of making myself a summer sweater or pullover of some kind out of cotton...or whatever light and soft fibers I could find. Then, a few days ago, I got the wonderful idea of dipping the sweater (after I've made it) in bleach and make it awesome and retro! Like this sweater:

I just got a feeling that it would be super awesome and unique...that is...if this doesn't become a trend by then and I'll look mainstream...I hate to look mainstream...that's why I don't give a crap about fashion!

Anywho! Late spring/summer/early autumn sweater/pullover YES! It'd be awesome! But what kind of yarn should I use? Cotton is just as expencive as wool, and I'm trying not to buy too much new yarn for myself these days... Well, what about the crap load of bamboo/acryllic I got lying around in my yarn storage that I bought last summer on clearance for just about nothing that I was going to use for hand towels and washcloths but never got around to it cause I'm a lazy but that don't know how to use punctuations?

Welp, still got those lying around, still haven't made those towels not cloths, why not make a sweater? GENIOUS! So that's where the wannabe dancing mouse comes in... I managed to squeeze a few drops out of the bottle of bleach and I put two strands of this yarn into it and I'm going to let it sit over night to see the result...if there even is any... You see, bleach doesn't do a hell lot on acryllic, and this yarn is sadly 50/50 bamboo acryllig... Now, I haven't tried to bleach bamboo before either, but I can't imagine it being too much different from cotton. The question is, how much damage does the bamboo take from the bleach? Cotton takes little to none while wool takes heavily damage.

 

So the cat is gone... The mouse is out... Let's see if it can dance over night! LET THE EXPERIMENT BEGIN!!!