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!

Yarn for days!

Hello everybody! I am back! I've been without a laptop for a week and a half now so it's good to be back and now able to watch my videos on a bigger screen with better speakers and a actual working keyboard! I serriously have no idea how people can go on with tables and smartphones only... They're handy and easy to carry around, sure, but they are so danged limited! I'd go nuts without my laptop for a longer period of time!

Anyways... I'm finally back after a very hectic and active week and a half. From monday to thursday, I've been in Oslo, the capitol of Norway with my mom and aunt and we've been walking around in blazing heat for four days! On tuesday we walked for 18km (11 miles)! We were all over the place...more or less. We did a lot of shopping of course and I managed to get me a good bunch of yarn...and other small things but they aren't really important for this blog.

First yarn purchase was five skeins of Alpaca from Drops. I love this yarn and I'm using it for another pair of leggings for my niece. I'll tell you guys more about that at a later time.

Next up is 10 skeins of this amazingly fluffy mohair yarn. Marks & Kattens Kid Mohair, 76% kid mohair and 24% polyamid. This is some old brand that I found a bunch of at a hobby store at a very low price. I just couldn't pass it up! I bought it all with the intention of working up another hoodie like the blue baked bean one. Just need to wait for another yarn sale so I can get some cheap alpaca or maybe even merino to go with it! This one will most likely be a huge Creeper reference so I will have to get black buttons! BTW, the yarn is bright green apple-ish in colour.

Lastly, we went to this store that has just about everything you'll ever and never need called Søstrene Grene. I did purchase some other things that I'll never need too (like paper napkins with the UK flag on it), but I was originally stopping by to pick up some cotton yarn. Søstrene Grene has so many interesting and unique colours compared to my regular cotton brands, and I've never tried these before, so of course I had to get some fresh ones! Just look at these! Ain't they beautiful?

And of course I've done some knitting too, not as much as I've liked to, but during the evenings and the train rides, there was enough time to get enough work done. I managed to finish up three dishcloths, all from new patterns made by Bittami. I'll probably get better pictures of them sometime later after I've weaved in the ends and whatnot.

I also brought my watermelon shawl with me and maneged to finish it up. I've yet to block it so new updates with better pictures to come, but I'm very pleased with the shape and size of it! Will most likely end up using my remaining Delano yarn for two more shawls.

 

BUT IT DOESN'T STOP THERE!!! Last sunday, I walked the "Dovrefjellsmarsjen" which is a path going up the mountains in Dovrefjell from Grønbakken to Hjerkinn. It's tiresome, expecially for me being the least active person on earth, but I managed to finish it, making it my fifth time ever to walk that path. One more time and I get the silver pin! But enough about that...when my mom and I reached the other side, we went to the cafeteria/resturant thingy for food, and they had a tiny section for souvenirs, which included this knitting kit for the Dovrevotten/Dovre mittens. It has the Pilgrimsleden symbol on it as well and my mom just had to buy it. Once we got home, she handed me the kit and told me to work them up for her. I love fair-isle, but I have little to no experience working fair-isle on DPN's, and it always turns out way worse than it usually does on circular. But I am a bit pleased with the result of this first mitten! It needs a good bunch of blocking to get the stitches cleaner, but it is not half bad. Will have to work up a bunch of these just to practice!

 And one last yarn related thing while I'm at it... My mom's boss gave this huge bag full of yarn to my mother some time ago. It was all a huge UFO of a jacket she had been working on at some point in the 90's if I were to guess. Apparently, she was so tired of it all and never wanted to see it again. My mom then handed the bag to me and told me to frog it and maybe work something else up with it all. Here's a picture of the back of the jacket. I was almost a shame frogging it all...

And frogging it was a total nightmare! Just look at all this! All these skeins had been worked on at the same time! That's a lot of work...

I hardly know anything about the yarn itself either. It's called St. Germain and looks really old. It's fluffy, kinda chunky and fairly thick. The label reads 96% Schurwolle, 4% Polyester and my guess is wool. If there's any german speaking people reading my blog, please, let me know if you know anything about this yarn, or can tell me what Schurwolle actually means...or confirm that it's actually just normal wool.
There's tons of skeins in these four colours as you can see in the pictures above. Several of the scrap skeins are really small, so I'm pondering the idea of making a granny square blanket of it all.

Phew! That's a lot of yarn speak! But that's what happends when you go so long without updating! See you guys later!

Two patterns up for sale!

The other day, right after my last blogentry, I finished up the pattern and got the PDF file ready and uploaded it all to Ravelry. Last night, I made my first sale and I'm super pleased! The pattern is called Ripley, you'll get the cookie if you get the reference. You can find and buy the pattern on Ravelry, here.

If that wasn't enough, I worked up the second dishcloth even before the DPF for the first was done! And today, I'm pleased to announce that my second pattern are live and kicking up on Ravelry. This one is named Aran, and again, cookie if you get the reference! You can find and buy the second pattern, here.

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...

New patterns, old projects

I recently (recently as in just this very evening) discovered that I got a love/hate relationship with new patterns, expecially when it's new patterns for things I'm so used to making. Example: I'm so used to making the same fair-isle socks over and over again, so if I try a different pattern, expecially a non-Scandinavian one, I have way too much problems with that project.

Right now, I'm working up a dishcloth with the newest pattern from Bittami. After making not one, but six dishcloths with a different pattern from her that I know by heart and back again, working up this new one give me way more problems than I signed up for.

Let's take a look, shall we? I started this one this morning. The first thing that threw me off was the fact that the edges are done in basket weave, where I'm used to garter stitch. Then I managed to count wrong and divide up the hearts all wrong. If you look at the picture underneath, they are off centered by quite a few stitches.

 

As if that weren't enough, I managed to skip the whole last row of the heart pattern! They look cut off and sloppy like this...and I didn't realise it until I was finished with the second row of hears, ove half way finished with the cloth!

Another thing is that I decided to drop the colored stripes on it. The pattern ask you to knit two rows before and after the hearts. After being half done with this cloth, I noticed that people in Bittami's Facebook group had done the stipes in basket weave stitch to fill up the empty spaces between the heart rows, which is genious!

So, it took me way too long to realise that I just had to redo the whole thing... And now, I just finished the first row of hearts, and it looks SO much better!

The yarn is the same in both pictures, just with and without flash and daylight. BTW, this is one of the mixed fabric cotton skeins I bleached some time ago. Sorry for not posting the results on those, but I had them lying in bleach for a whole day or so and they didn't show too much more result than what you can see in these pictures. Still looks good though!

Dishcloths and more bleaching!

Over the weekend, while I was at my brother's place, I decided to work up some dishcloths. It's easy, it's practical, it's fast and you can never have enough dishcloths! Also, I decided to start working up the cottons I've been bleaching. I love how they turned out!

I'll get better pictures of them later when the ends have been weaved in. These are so much better looking than the others I've made. The pattern is from Bittami, if you were wondering. It's my favorite dishcloth pattern of all time! Or...so far atleast... Turns out that Bittami is having another dishcloth knitalong this summer, starting in the beginning of june. I just can't wait! I joined the dishcloth knitalong she had last summer and I got 7 wonderful patterns out of that event!
She just released a pre-knitalong pattern yesterday and I'm dying to try it out...after I'm done working up this last one I got on my needles right now.

So, since this knitalong are closing in, I need more cotton! That is, I allready got cotton, but I need to bleach it all! Pretty cloths need to be pretty, bro! So I've just put six new skeins of my favorite dishcloth material in bleach... I dunked an extra blue and cream colored one in the leftover bleach sullotion...

...and they look amazing! I can't WAIT for new patterns!!!

The colors will get better when the skeins dry up...and the two red ones ARE different... For some reason, red colors take a lot longer time to bleach than other colors...but only with this brand, from my experience atleast.

Simple crochet dishclohts

During the past couple of days, I've been working on dishcloths, crochet this time actually. I usually prefer the thinner, more quality type cotton, but I had a total of four skeins of this thick, icky cotton I've got from my friends in North America. Three of these skeins was a brand called Bernat that I've gotten from Star. I've allready talked a bit about these since I had bleached one of the skeins and got a fancy camo effect with it. But as I started working with this yarn, I realised that I just don't like it. It's thick so I had to use 4,5mm hook on it, knitting with it was kinda out of the question.
The last skein was Sugar and Cream that I've recieved ages ago from Tiffany, and it is exactly the same as Bernat. The same thickness and the same icky feeling so I decided to use them all up at the same time.

 

The one with red is Sugar and Cream and the other three is Bernat. The one that appears blue in the picture was actually different shades of green. The lighting screwed me over whenI took the pictures...

In retrospect, I should maybe have used these skeins for pot holders rather than dishcloths, since they're so thick it would be good to handle warm things, but they work good for dishcloths too... Maybe a little too thick, but they wash well, I started using the lime green one earlier today!

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!!!

Dyed and bleached yarn!

I am finally awake and I've gotten around to wind up and photograph all the yarn I've been dyeing over the last week or so! So much fun new yarn and so many fun few colors!

First off, we have the Gloss DK yarn from  Knit Picks that Brooke sent me. It's so pretty and soft, I was scared to dye it, in case I messed it up, but I love the outcome! With two packs of Kool-Aid Lemonade and half a pack Lemon Lime, I got these fantastic colors, variating from minty green to neon green! Fits my life so perfectly!

Right after I finished up dyeing this skein, I dipped two skeins of Bomull Sport cotton in bleach and got these amazing colors! A much better result than my first bleaching cause these don't go to white.

So I then decided to try and bleach a different cotton brand that has a totally different feel to it. This was a skein of Bernat Handicrafter Cotton that I recieved from Star during Secret Santa. It turned into these amazing camo colors which I really love.

And at last, we got the tea dyed yarn. I've wanted to try this ever since I started dyeing, the result was better than expected, tough, I wish that the herb one would turn out better. Bottom left is green tea on Safirgarn, 100% new pure wool yarn. Bottom right is black tea, also on Sarfirgarn. The one on top is herbal tea on Karisma from Drops, 100% wool, superwash treated.

So, maybe I should start using some of the stuff I've dyed and bleached now before I do more? Yeah... My shelf behind me is getting stuffed...

Yarn dyeing in the making!

I am currently, right now, dyeing and bleaching some yarn! Since I was late with St. Patties, I decided to make up for it by doing some green dyeing!

So I recently got around to try the Lemon Lime Kool-Aid, and at first it tasted like a knock-off 7up, but as I kept drinking, it got worse and worse and I couldn't even drink half of the bottle I made (for your information, I make half the package at the time, I just don't have a big enough container). So I put the rest of it aside for some yarn dyeing!

 

And tonight I started it! The yarn I decided to torture today was the Knit Picks Closs DK skein I recieved from Brooke. It's a merino/silk blend and super soft and I kinda want to make myself some fingerless mittens or something like that with it.
I used only half a package + two packages of Lemonade. I wanted a more difuse and spotty greenish tone, so I mixed a little Lemon Lime into the Lemonade and poured it over, then I went over again with the rest of the Lemon Lime and finished it up with the second Lemonade package. Lemonade is super light yellow color and hardly did much to the yarn by itself, so that's why I used double.

Fun times! I'm currently just waiting for it to cool down...and in the mean time, I started bleaching some cotton! I dug through my bag of cotton yarn and pulled out two more Bomull Sport, this time in orange and deep magenta color.

I let them sit for about 20 minutes this time, and the result is much better. It took a while before it started to change the magenta one, but the orange showed some result pretty quickly. In the end, the magenta got a very subtle gradient over to a lighter hot pink while the orange got all firey!

And I decided to do a little experiment at the end. I got three skeins of some cotton yarn I've never used before from Star during LAC's Secret Santa exchange. They're called Bernat Handicrafter Cotton and is alot thicker and more corse than the type of cotton I'm used too. Kinda want to try and make crochet dishcloths with them...

Two shades of green and one variegated. The darkest green seemed a little boring on its own, so why not try and bleach that too? I squeesed out as much of the leftover bleaching liquids from the two Bomull Sport skeins and dipped it in, not expecting the best of results since it was second use bleach. But any result at all would be noteworthy for me, and it would brighten up the color anyway.

It didn't show much promise at first, but when I got to wet the whole skein and rinsing it off, it gave me a kinda camo result. I love it!

I'll probably blog about these to show of the final result when they're all dry and purrty, so stick around! In the mean time, you can read more in detail about Kool-Aid dyeing and cotton bleaching earlier in my blog from the last time I did it!