Knits I luuuuve

The pictures says it all, I dream of having these in my closet... Hey just realized that they're all yellow!

Just beautiful knits

Ian Mosh

unknown

Yumiko ISa

Great gifts for kids, knit a doll

Knitting toys is a great idea for gifts since you don't have to care about fitting or what season it is. There are tons of knitting patterns out there for dolls but Barbara Prime's are one of my favorite because of their classical look. See the all at www.fuzzymitten.com.

Pug!

Cat!

Lamb!

Art displaying art

Ok, so I know that most wouldn't agree that knitting is art. But it can be! Anyway, the sculpture behind this piece is truly skillful.

Art by Emlyn Budds.

Princess shoulder wrap

Sometimes things don't turn out like you expect - they get better! I struggled with making a hat for Isola in a yarn I hadn't knit with before. Should be quite an easy task since I've knitted and designed quite a few hats for her. But I realized that it was becoming way too big at the same time I was running out of yarn. Annoyed I started ripping it all up but suddenly it occured to me that it looked almost like a small cape. A little alterations here and there and voilà, a shoulder wrap was born! And not just any shoulder wrap, it is sooooo soft you wouldn't believe it.

I think that a white one would look drop-dead-cute for Christmas...

Available for custom orders in my Etsy shop!

Available for custom orders in my Etsy shop!

Viewer discretion is advised: Yarn porn

I had the rare opportunity yesterday of having a couple of hours all to myself when J was still at work and Isola with her grandmother. How did I spend it? Shopping with girlfriends? Sweating at the gym? Cleaning out the closets? No, I sat in front of my laptop browsing for yarn. And boy did I find some.

Don't ask me how I did it but in some way I ended up at a blog called "the Yarnista", run by the founder of Three Irish Girls, a company that specializes in hand dyeing yarn. I think I spent over an hour reading posts about how her business started, and the challenges she met as both an entrepreneur, a working mother of two (with a third on the way) and with a husband that worked a lot. She literally got up in the middle of the night (2 am!) and spent the night dyeing yarn in her basement before she got her kids to school and then attended her ordinary job as a teacher. In the afternoon she continued working with her business, answering emails, shipping orders at the same time as she took care of the kids and house. Imagine doing that every night and day of every week! (Ok, she got to sleep until 5 am at the weekends.) How on earth did she survive? I think that it must have been pure obsession that kept her going. She must have caught a serious case of the yarn flu. Or got bitten by the yarn bug.

But when you see the yarn she makes, you'll understand why it was all worth it. This is the most beautiful yarn I have ever seen. And I haven't even seen it live. What a dream to work with a yarn like this! It's too beautiful to knit with. I would keep it in the skein, admire it, and maybe cuddle with it once in while! I just let these pictures speak for themselves, they are all from her blog, the Yarnista. If you like colorful yarn at all, you need to visit this blog.

Nora

Bayfield Apple

Skyline Parkway

Observation Hill

Pansy

Lovestruck

 Feel like knitting now??

Too many socks lying around the house?

You can make art of anything. Even old socks. This portrait of Chinese film director Zhang Yimou by Red Hong proves it. She made it by arranging 750 (probably new) socks using pins and bamboo sticks. A pretty good work, don't you think?

 More pics here.

Sleepy monkeys

It's already April and I realize that I didn't have any "Interview of the month" in March. Sorry about that but it has just been too busy! .But there is certainly no shortage of inspiring designers, knitters or fibre artists out there. Here is one that I would like to share with you right away: Mary Ann Stephens has been knitting since she was five and sort of specialize in Norweigan and Fair Isle designs and seems to always knit in multiple colours. She runs kidsknit.com and have had designs published in Twist Collective and Vogue Knitting.

Just look at that beautiful Rosalia Kimono! You can buy her patterns on her website and on Ravelry and she also shares her inspiration sources for her designs on her blog Two Strands.

Another of her designs that I really love is the Sleepy Monkey Blanket. It's a reversible stranded baby blanket that you can make in several colourways. On her blog she even have listed several charts with alternate colourways for you to choose from, most of them unisex. Every baby should have a blanket like this! And it seems so fun to knit... Alas, if I only had the time.

Cute - and some not-so-cute - knitted bags

I want an orange handbag for spring. I have had a sort of love/hate relationship with the colour orange all my life. We're on speaking terms at the moment and it seems to be one of the trend colours for spring as I feel like I see it "everywhere". I've spotted orange shoes, sweaters and pants that I like - but no handbag. Well the hunt continues. I made a Ravelry search for bags just for fun and here's a handful of what I found.

Will start with this felted one, a favorite I've had in my queue for years. I first spotted it on a blog and then spent many hours trying to make up the pattern myself. That was before I found Ravelry and voilà, suddenly the pattern was just THERE and hundreds of people had posted pictures of their bag. But I STILL haven't finished it.
By Ishi-knit.  Bag in picture by Jillyolly on Ravelry.

Formal Boot Bag, free pattern by Laura Irwin here. This is a gem! It's partially felted and looks great with a metal chain like the original but I also like it the way raveler rbharper made it, with snap closure. And in orange!

Bag with cable pattern from Drops, free pattern here.

















And then I found some that were eh.. not so cute.

Tentacle bag from Yarn Visions, pattern here.

 Uterus Drawstring Bag by Just Stitched. Eh, what? I guess the name says it all! No lack of imagination here...

Knit the sky!

I think the concept of this scarf is truly beautiful. Everyday you look out of the window and knit a stripe that matches the colour of the sky. What a great idea to document all the sky's colourchanges in something that you can wear! The idea is from www.leafcutterdesigns.com where you can also buy a kit containing skeins of beautiful blues and greys. I would really like to do this as a gift for someone but I'm afraid that the scarf will turn out to be in only different shades of grey. Maybe with a thin blue section in the middle... Wouldn't that be depressing? And if you don't know about the concept behind the scarf it isn't much of an eye candy, is it? Maybe it would be nicer to knit in some kind of pattern instead of plain garter stitch.

And maybe it would be cool to transfer this "observe-and-knit" approach to other things as well, like knitting the colours of your garden for example, as a way to eternalize the four seasons. Anyhow, I really like the idea. If you have made a scarf like this, I would love to see it!

Sky scarf from www.leafcutterdesigns.com

Knit and the City

Wonderful yoke in perfect color combo by Raveler Crypto. Pattern by Laura Chau here.

 I love yokes. A well-designed yoke will make your outfit! And good news for knitters is that there are so many different styles and patterns to choose from. Maybe I should start a yoke-of-month-post? Anyway, I came across this pattern, Cityscape, by Laura Chau on Ravelry and just had to share. LOVE. IT. Have to put this on my knit-list. The most urgent one. Which is also the longest list, strange huh?

Looking ahead

2012 is just around the corner. I think more and more about my hopes and goals for the next year. I also think about what patterns I want to make. I always feel immensely inspired by "Tim-Burtonesque"-clothing and the wardrobe by the talented and award-winning costume designer Collen Atwood. For instance, the wardrobe of the movie Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. I ask myself, what kind of knitwear would these kids wear?

Yarn bombing

I suppose most of you are familiar with the term yarn bombing or yarn graffiti. And if you're not, this is what wiki says: Yarn bombing, yarnbombing, yarnstorming, guerrilla knitting, or graffiti knitting is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted cloth rather than paint or chalk. I think there should be some yarn bombing in every town! It's a fun way to add some softness and colour to the depressing concrete cities that a lot of us live in. Here are some of pictures to inspire you!

Not your grandma's knitting

I came across Sandra Backlund years ago by chance when I was browsing the net and my heart literally stopped. Talk about designing outside the box! Years later I still never get tired of looking at her creations. They are amazing, amazing AMAZING! She is truly my knit designer goddess and a never ending source of inspiration. Maybe "knit designer" is too small a word for her. She's a true artist. Yes, there are many very skillful designers out there but, hand on your heart, how often is it that you see a design that really blow your socks off? Love.

Fall dresses - inspiration

I just love the kids wear from Zara. Especially the dresses, they are gorgeous. And way too pretty for wild days at kindergarten but still... I want all of them! And I can totally see some of them translated into knitted dresses. Especially this one;

I even have the yarn for it! I would make it the softest sport weight alpaca from Drops.

This one is definately going to be cast on.

Suffer the needle chill...

Lindex, one of Swedens fashion chains have had great knits the last couple of falls. And this year their line is modeled by no other than Reese Witherspoon! Besides their colourful collection with comfy polo sweaters and cable knits, their storefronts have been displaying all kinds of fun knitting-props. Last year their mannequins had giant skeins of yarn instead of heads. This fall they had giant knitting needles in the window. And I mean giant, about two meters long! I can almost see them as curtain rods at my home but I'm not sure the rest of family would approve...