KIP Knit cafe

To hot for puppy's, the weekends heat wave has made Rasmus sad

Karin's returned(Hooray) and here is her gift for me!
Gorgeous, funky 1980 colours, remind me of the George Michael Wham era
"wake me up before you go go!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hksil-KkebQ
Old friends

What a gloriously sunny day to sit and have an informal knit cafe on.
This was the place http://www.pastan.nu/cafe-chokladbollen-1.13676
Sunday 12 and 2 for me, but I'm sure it went on long into the afternoon.

Karin back, with chat of Raverly abroad, showing her tan and share memory's of Ecuador.

Margaret(Swedish spelling I'm unsure), her commission knit lady(friend) arrived to try on the finished cardigan, perfect fit.

Public, the word of the day
Kip
Knit in public
Try on in public (commission knit)
A very public knit cafe
Even a gift given in public (say that fast;-)

Home Sweet Home, Stockholm!

Home sweet........home (finished!)
Stockholm
I guess is the word I never wrote,
because like it or not Stockholm, is my home;-).

And strangely I feel more at home in Stockholm, I guess now(3years) than I do in England, that's a fact but its hard to face that feeling.

my nomadic wondering qualities.
Where will they take me!

Today we (hubby and I) walked and walked the sun shone and the pretty city is made to walk and soak up the sun and the sights.

Project Blythe

Today I began making these cute little pink and red combination of yarn for my
Blythe, matching little dresses.

This was today's (KIP) knit in public, tram, train and sat in the
Rosendals Tradgard having lunch.
http://www.rosendalstradgard.se/section.php?id=0000000051

We ended the day in one of my favourite places in Stockholm Solstugan
(summer cottage, I think is the translation)

I was remiss in my last post - HERE's a link to the complete Longfellow poem. It is really beautiful. I will get the pattern written up for the Lulu store soon - I only hope Knitpicks' doesn't discontinue any of the Palette colors by then.

Speaking of Christmas, last year DH didn't get me a gift as I instead asked for him to take me to Gallup, NM to buy me a piece of Indian jewelry. The trip finally happened and here's the bracelet I chose. It is Zuni and the artist's name is Quinton Quam. It features a blue jay, hummingbirds, and cardinals.




Here's downtown Gallup - it is the destination for people looking to buy Navajo, Hopi, or Zuni jewelry. Years ago I ordered from Virtual Yarns and I received a nice email from Alice Starmore recounting how she once purchased a bolo in Gallup. I've always wondered if that is the bolo she is wearing in her photo for her Fair Isle knitting book.



On the side of one of the buildings is a mural devoted to the Navajo code talkers - one guy is even holding a bunny!




We met up with my brother-in-law Dave from Phoenix and his partner Matt. Matt's family owns a cattle ranch in the Cibola National Forest where they camp in the Ponderosa pines. There is even a lake in the distance.

Here's a mama with her brand new baby hiding behind her.

flea market finds

When I was at the flea market on Memorial Day I picked up a couple old wooden hangers to add to my collection. I used to cut them shorter for clothespin bags, but as my supply dwindles I can't bear to do that any more. Anyway, later after I got home and pulled them out of my bag, what I thought was a plain green hanger had this sweet painted pattern on the other side...

...it makes me happy every time I see it hanging in the laundry room.

Today is a beautiful day with the most blue skies, so I washed and hung out the coffee sacks also found at the flea market...After seeing all the great totes, pillows, and bulletin boards made from these, I grabbed up a bunch for 50 cents a piece.

And these are a few of the fabrics I found...

...a vintage green print, some quilting florals, barkcloth, a linen calendar towel, and this vintage floral on the top--my favorite...


Meanwhile, work is slowly progressing on the drawstring bags...

Maybe a shop update next week {?}...

Monet's memory blankie

Day's go by...........
Months
Years!

Not a whole lot of crochet happening this week. It's been busy, as you know I was in the progress of getting ready to leave Sweden.

Things didn't go to plan!, The economy,life,etc etc

So I've been busy getting back on track,
had my life on hold
(Stuck in limbo land)
Its a good place to be!
But we all need plans.
Should I stay or should I go now!
Song lyrics I can't remember the artist;-(

That's how it's been really, for the last 6 months readying the family and myself,
Set for the big storm. That being our return to UK.

I had a week to get my act together and I have just been doing little things here and there, thing always fall in to place it's good positive thinking that helps.

And a little knit inspiration from my fellow bloggers knitter and good friends.

I'm feeling like I'm bouncing back with a bang.
No more what if's,
Just the what now's!

Blog promoting

http://crochetliberationfront.blogspot.com/2009/05/creating-opportunity.htm

Creating opportunity(title)
I read her blog article and thought that it would be good to share/she is promoting the crochet craft.
Blog-Crochet liberation Front
Written by Laurie wheeler

Chicken Family

Great news! "Mama Chicken" has a found a rather plump, polka dotted "Daddy Chicken" to share her life with! They met and fell in love while spending some time together in the knitting bag. Before I knew it 2 little babies flew off the needles.

Finally the chicken family is complete!

I was really attempting to differentiate between the hen and the rooster with this pattern. As I mentioned before, the Mama Chicken has eyelashes and no tail feathers. The Daddy Chicken has the white tail feathers and I knit one extra in orange and sewed in to the top of his head to make his comb more prominent and rooster-ish. And of course I knit the small size for the Mom and the medium size for the Dad. I think it works.

I think they make a fine couple.

I used the Spring Chick pattern to make the baby chicks. Now this was a fun pattern! So fast! It was great. It took like an hour to make both of the babies. Also I felt good using up some of the yellow I had. I had only taken a little bit from the skein to make the chicken beaks and had nearly an entire ball left over!!! So it was nice being able to use some of that up. I had planned on making more babies but then got kind of sick of chicken knitting. I'm really feeling excited about my next knitting project so I was eager to just be done with these.

But who knows? Maybe they will expand their family in the future?

I shot these photos at one of my favorite locations. Avila Valley Barn. Its a little farm you can visit to buy fresh produce, feed farm animals and eat corn on the cob. I put the Watermelon sweater on my daughter because I felt that it was quite festive for the occasion.

It also was a great place to photograph the new chicken family. All that hay and stuff. But we unfortunately went on Memorial Day and it was packed! So many people. So you can imagine how insane I looked taking pictures of knitted chickens in front of tons of onlookers.

It was kind of normal feeling when my daughter was there, but she soon tired of the chicken pictures idea and left to go get a snack with my husband. So there I was, now alone. Just me and the chickens. I seriously looked like such the "crazy chicken lady" rearranging and posing my little chicken friends for all to see.

So weird.

Oh the things I endure for the sake of this knitting blog... :)

Here's my latest project. I charted out the first stanza of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Christmas Bells" poem on a mitten. Longfellow had endured a tragic couple of years - first his wife died from a freak accident then his son was severely wounded in the Civil War. He wrote the poem on Christmas Day 1864 - here's the first stanza:

"I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old familar carols play

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, goodwill to men."

I'm using three colors of Knitpick's Palette - white, ivy and pimento (a really lovely red). This project is going pretty fast - I just love knitting letters.

some finished sewing

Hope your Memorial Day weekend was a good one. Last week Mike was home on vacation and all my normal routines went by the wayside. It was his springtime work vacation, which is all about getting things done on his 'to do' list. Luckily there were some fun things on the list like a trip to Ikea in Canada and the first flea market of the season. Since I don't have any pictures ready of my finds, I will share a couple of somewhat blurry pictures of finished sewing projects--this top was actually finished last summer...

Simplicity 4111 - Built by Wendy
I used the cap sleeve tutorial found here.

And here's a picture of my finished Favorite Things Prairie Girl dress...

I found this pattern simple to follow, but I did have to alter it a bit as it seems to run large--I made a size smaller than I normally would and then I also nipped the waist seam in by an additional 1/2 inch. I decided not to use the ties and gathered the back with some elastic instead.

Now I'm off to clear my sewing table which is buried under a mountain of unfinished projects...Deb

The importance of knit cafes

Love the name!
Ladies having fun........
Vintage knit Lab, I found this image on Google Images and it was attached to a blog click below to read her knit cafe visit, defiantly worth a read;-)
http://www.ihanna.nu/blog/?p=679

Below
Katrina and Jenny regulars knit cafe Buddie's, I'm not sure if this is Gino's or Hurtigs, we moved the knit cafe but what's funny is it's my daughter in the back ground.
Image taken from flicka/google Image

Diary entries from my most recent knit cafes
Venue
Hurtigs konditori
Drottinggatan 90A
Thats, Stockholm Sweden
Day Tuesday
Time from 530 until 8/9

my knit cafe visiting
I'm usually every few weeks and around 5;30 till 7;00 not long but enough time to stay in contact with regular group members,and usually always a new face to say hello.(Hey hey)

Between four and 10 (at most!) sometimes only your alone,

Weather depending if the sun is shining, theirs no sitting inside for my Swedish friends. And I completely understand the sun is not for long, so those batteries need to be charged. The snow and dark, is lets just say... a difficult time.

What to you get up to?
keep an up date, on the knit world...........in other words, Raverly!.
We Share new magazines or books that one or another member has purchased.

Coffee and a cake or dinner,you choose.
Most recent topic's
Rock god's Iron Maiden verses Metalica?
Whats the best chick flick/ever Love Actually came out on top, we didn't actually poll, just chit chat.

Lenah's, knit cafe in the garden
Good to see old knit buddies.
Book's flicked through, mostly vintage
General chit chat/mostly missing Ecuador karin

To stitch and bitch is such a fun community idea, people of all walks sharing there projects and ideas with like minded people.

Knitted by me, My own Youtube, All me!.

Knit lab/Lenah;-)



Vintage Youtube
End of 2007
Stockholm's happy memory's

Click here and you will see a very,very nervous me and a good friend Lenah
The owner of which has now sadly closed, Knitlab.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUS4Foqr0gU&NR=1

Dearly missed my knit cafe family and favourite place to hang out. But if any one would like a glimpse of knitlab in it's glory and prime, Or just a peek and a very camera shy me or my knits.

It made me smile watching it over again, how time fly's.

This is the TV appearance, that led to the Swedish knit book authors
(A Trio of lovely ladies)
They gave me a two page spread in their book,
Knitted by me
http://www.knittedbyme.se/
Good times;-)

Something Red Sweater

Well. Here is it. My new favorite. I love the style. I love the color. And I love that I finally chose the right size for a sweater project.

The 34 fits perfect. Not too loose and not to tight. Just fitted the appropriate amount. Love that.

Just like any sweater project though there is one thing I wish I would have done differently. Well two things if I'm being completely honest.

The pattern for this sweater is a little off in the raglan shaping department. It says for the size 34 to keep working the raglan until it measures 10.5 inches. Ok. That is a deep armhole. Really deep. It makes me wonder what kind of arms the designer has.

So fortunately I realized the huge armhole situation in time and only knit mine to about 8.5 inches before I divided for the sleeves. So that was a good choice on my part, I mean I shudder to think of how bat-wing-esque it would have looked without this adjustment, but frankly I didn't adjust enough. There still is a bit of puckering around the armhole area and the sleeves are a tad too big around for me. This sweater is supposed to have a nice fitted sleeve. So if I were to knit it again, I would stop at 8 inches definitely!!

OK, another thing. I could have made it a smidgen longer. But that's not as big of a deal.



The good news is, with making these pattern adjustments, I saved yarn and have an entire skein plus some left over. So that's always nice.

This is such a versatile piece. I know I will get a lot of use out of it! The yarn is spectacular as well. Blue Sky Organic Dyed Cotton. So soft and squishy. I feel the need to make a sweater out of every color.

Memory Blanket

These are my daughters Monet's, she is chip of the old block as they say in the UK.

She is very into free-form. I guess she has to be, as I cant teach her any different;-).

She is very clever with crochet, as she is a left hander. But I had to teach her right handed as we just got to confused when we tried to reverse it.

Maybe now a different story, as we both are a little bit more experienced but you know how it goes.

Cont
The way you where shown/taught 1st, is the way that sticks whether right or wrong.
She was around 8!, when she got to basics. She made a few scarf's but little sample blankets for small things
(little TY or littlest pet shops is all she liked to do!)

Currently she is too pre teen to knit/crochet
"Designer every thing is her plan, oj oj oj she come back to the hand makes, it's a fad".

But together we tided her room this weekend (Mission) and I found her box of neatly stash squares and she asked what could we do with them?

This is where the memory blanket part come in! why not attach them and then edge them, Blankie Mania Ravelry http://theknittingforartexhibition.blogspot.com/2008/09/blankie-mania-turns-tracey-emin.html But not ON such a disciplined scale;-).
Home Sweet, still working on my racing green acrylic egding, as it hangs here in my garden I can see that I will have to unpick the bumpy mixed yarn thats in the centre as making it all in one peice defianlty has not worked.

The final thing I will do before I flog that middle is iron/press with the heat and see if that makes the yarn sit flatter.

Tesuque

Today's blog road trip highlights the beauty of Tesuque, NM which is a few miles north of Santa Fe. We were there last week and it was incredibly green.

The first 3 photos were taken at Shidoni Sculpture Gallery. Way back when I started the mitten booklet I had the idea to use Shidoni as the backdrop for some mitten photos but life intervened.










Shidoni has a foundry where you can watch metal being cast. All the sculptures are for sale if you happen to have an extra $20K or so in your pocket.









We ended up in a national forest area (Upper Pacheco Canyon??) and although I was too far to get a great photo, you could see the Santa Fe Opera house in the distance.








Someone was growing a garden at the bottom of this valley.






I have a new Christmas project (It is never too early to start!) to show you next.

This weekend I have been mostly crocheting.......

Camera holder for Gray

This is for my Canadian mate Gray, he has a sorry little excuse of a camera case, a cut up sock! (clean I must add) for protecting his camera, not so good.

So I saw the perfect opportunity for a knit gift or Crochet in this case.
(Case Ha,pardon the pun!)

A tiny little stitch for a tiny little bag, tie string optional.
Made on a 3.5 hook using yellow cotton.

Home Sweet

I filled out the centre, but I'm not sure sure its working as it seems to have really pulled the letters out of shape.

So today I have begun the dark green that will be the surround(frame) Then once I have edged the letters with a green band and can see how it sits. Flat hopefully and if not I'll have a re-think.

I may flog the centre and start again;-(
Watch this space.
Mabel Blythe with her up do! (Too cute)
http://www.thisisblythe.com/shop/cart.php?target=category&category_id=125

I took this a while back and forgot to post it!OJ OJ OJ
So today I thought would be a good day, as im all doll inspired after seeing the Coraline film.

I found this on you tube and and its the model maker, hair fixer! I guess that's the best way to describe her. Have a look at the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCDOs5DxJPY&feature=related

Coraline

A knitter must see, plenty of mini knits and little knitting needles and even a mini crochet hook to look out for.
Miniature knitting you tube artist link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VTE9MZzIw
Plot
A young girl walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life. On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life - only much better.

But when her adventure turns dangerous, and her counterfeit
parents (including Other Mother/robot dad) try to keep her forever and ever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination, and bravery to get back home. To save her real family.

DON'T READ BELOW IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM YET

Charm
The character the out fits, all hand made. I love love loved it. The hands of the the Terry Hatcher bad mother character made from pins and almost female terminator body made spindly pins all joined as if a skeleton structure.

Favourite parts
Fake garden
The buttons
The crocheting of new wings for the dog that is not dead yet!

Magic
The fact that its all in three d!
Trailer for movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8EeoMLivA8