Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Finished lopapeysa and some more bobbin lace

I finally managed to finish the lopapeysa for my friend!!

Martyna's lopapeysa
Martyna's lopapeysa.
I am very pleased with the result. I don't know why I always have so little faith in using just grays. It happened to me also when I knitted another lopapeysa for the friend of a friend. I met with the girl at the woolshop so she could take a look at the magazines and choose the pattern she liked and then I let her check all the colors that were available in plötulopi. For my surprise she chose grays... three shades of gray plus white. I wasn't so sure about it first. I thought it was a boring color combination. I always need a hint of colour (especially brown or green). I made the lopapeysa and the result was pretty cool! The same happened this time since my friend didn't want any brown or anything that too difficult to combine. I went for darker shades of gray and the result is very, very nice.

About the pattern, Órói, I had made it once before (it was actually the first icelandic pullover that I ever made) but then I followed the instructions step by step including the kind of lopi that I used (which was Álafoss lopi, not my favourite thing really because it is too bulky). This time, I used plötulopi (as I have said probably many times before one of my favourites!) and my friend decided to have it wthout the opening on the side: wise decision. I think it look MUCH better that way!

JC: Terminado
JC's lopapeysa: blockedþ


About the size: I didn't really follow the instruction in this. I just calculated my gauge and used the measurments my friend gave me. At least it looks ok, I mean well proportioned. I hope it will fit him well. I think it must be something between sizes M and L. Anyway, something I really like about wool is that is can adapt very well to the body shapes so most probably it will be just fine.

JC: Folded
JC's lopapeysa: folded and ready to travel.


Now I just have to send it to travel all the way down to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Long trip (that I wished I could make together with the pullover...)

During the weekend I decided to finish my "home made bobbin lace pillow device". The pillow itself was ready since the beginning. I just had to embellish a little bit the box that holds it in place.

To make the embellishment I used the leftovers of the black linen fabric that I used to cover the pillow to cover inside of the box.

To cover the outeside of the box I used a new fabric: black with red dots. Pretty cool. I am really bad at sewing so Gummi helped me a lot here. He made a case that fitted perfectly the box so I had only to glue the inner borders of it.

Bolillera 2.0
Bobbin lace pillow, case and wedge: Ready to be used!
Once the box was done I came up with the idea of adding a little piece to it: a wedge in the front side so that the bobbins wouldn't be just hanging from the pillow. For that I bought polystyrene. I cut it with the shape of a  right angle triangle, covered it with foam and then with fabric. To keep in place I used velcro.

I think that the box looks much better now and it is actually pretty comfortable now with the wedge.

Finished pillow in action
The wedge prevents the bobbins to ge hanging. It is very comfortable.

Now that I had my "bolillera" ready I started with the second exercise from the book.

The exercise consists of the same stitch as the first one (half stitch) but with the addition of half stitch diamonds. It took a me a little while to figure out how to make the holy diamonds... but once I got the first the second was very easy!!

Exercise n°2: Ready to start the diamond.
Ready to begin the first diamond.

Exercise n°2: Finished
2nd exercise: Finished.

Detail of the diamond.
Detail of the diamond: It is really cool to see how the thread travels to shape it!

Until now, bobbin lace goes very well. But I think I will do this exercise one more time just to make sure that I got it right :)

Remember the new camera I got? The multilens called Supersampler? Well, I finished one roll and the camera it really cool. It is very fun to see what came on the negatives. Here I will show you some of them:

KP


Spring

Stopping in the red light
There are a few more in my Flickr gallery if you are interested :)

12 comments:

  1. Hola! Estoy realmente maravillada con los jerseis que tejes!!! Yo aun no me he atrevido con un proyecto tan ambicioso... Los bolillos son mi asignatura pendiente... Para después del crochet!
    Un saludo desde Madrid!

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  2. la verdad cada día me maravillo más con tus tejidos!yo, amo los grises así que seguramente también hubiera elegido grises...que al fin y al cabo quedan super bonitos no??seguro que a tu amiga le gusta mucho el jersey/pulover (no sé como le llamaras tu jeje)...

    Lo del encaje de bolillos, me parece realmente admirable...y dificil! :S..pero tu parece que vas progresando rápido, rápido!!...y tu "almohada" armatoste para trabajarlo es di-vi-no!

    Las fotos simplemente geniales!...aunque solo de verlas me dan frio...y eso que aquí es otoño..pero no acostumbra a hacer mucho frio

    En fin un saludo!

    Lau

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  3. Hola Lau :)
    MI amigo está encantado con el jersey... esta semana vuela hasta Argentina!

    Has probado hacer encaje de bolillos alguna vez? La verdad es que sí, es un pelín complicado pero supongo (y espero) que será un tema de práctica :)

    Ha hecho mucho frío por estos lados, especialmente para ser junio.... el verano no quiere asomarse por aquí, jeje.

    Saludos!

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  4. congratulations to the very nice pullover and the box is a treasure itself, I also like your pictures very much..
    ciao ciao Christa from Switzerland

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  5. they are both beautiful sweater very nice work
    lace charcoal work very closely.
    good day here in France the temperature is dropped one can quickly get used ala heat
    Beatrice wind

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  6. Christa: Thank you for your comment :) I am veery happy with the box and pillow... it turned out much cuter than I expected!

    Bea: Thank you!

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  7. Rodrigo el pullover está genial!!! muy lindo los colores y el diseño muy bello tambien, tu amigo estará más que feliz, yo lo estaría jijiji
    Y los bolillos, mmmm creo no tener la paciencia suficiente, pero a ti te estan quedando los ejercicios muy prolijos, felicitaciones!
    Que tengas un lindo fin de semana!
    Un abrazo
    PAtty

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  8. Hola!(that's it for a foreign language from me
    :-) I really like the lopapeysas (I can actually spell it now without looking!)Both are great, but I do like the darker gray colors, the smaller neck opening,and the design on the sleeves and bottom of the second one better. What a fortunate friend to receive such a wonderful gift. Wondering: can it be called a lopapeysa only if it has the typical design(s) and is knit with a certain kind of yarn? Was looking for something else the other day and came across this www.etsy.com/listing/72610680/kids-children-icelandic-sweater-bluebell?ref=pr_faveitems
    The green is OK, but ooooo,that blue one, really do like that!
    You are amazingly creative! That box is a work of art with the different shapes and mixture of patterns. I love the colors! Had you seen a wedge used like that before, or was it totally your idea? That certainly is not something to be put away in a closet! Does the wedge help with maintaining proper tension on the bobbin threads and/or ease pressure on your wrists and hands? (By the way, I like the pillows on the couch, especially the brown ones with the embroidered centers. More of your work?)Those pins are bright and colorful, but do look like they could be dangerous. Do you draw that dot and curves design or does the pattern come printed on something to use directly? Love how your "holy diamonds" turned out. I couldn't even find any mistakes.:-)Are you placing these samples in a notebook or something for future reference, or isn't that necessary? Is that a shark on the coin? Is it close to size of a US quarter or 50 cent piece? Value?
    I'm still not sure what I think of those multi-lens pictures. Is the main object of that camera's use to catch things in motion, like a runner? I looked at the ones on Flickr and like the clouds the best. The one titled "humm"....hmmmm.:-) Guess I'll have to see more before making a definite opinion.

    Questions re. a previous comment: Did you attend med school in Chile? Are you now an M.D? D.O? If so, are you in a private practice, hospital, or..? Just curious. :-)

    I wrote a similar comment to this yesterday and when I went to put in the anti-spam letters, I accidently clicked on the comment area and - POOF!- everything was gone! :-( Couldn't face recreating it all right then, so here I am today. I shall be more careful this time, or you may never hear from me again! Hope You have a fun, relaxing weekend.........Judi :-)

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  9. The box turned out so adorable. The lace also looks excellent; Torchon and half stitches are always so pretty together. Yours looks very neat and uniform, you must have paid special attention to pulling on threads to straighten the stitches - great job, really! But what is truly BRILLIANT is the wedge. What an awesome idea! Absolutely perfect. The wedge is essential to comfortable work, and even I had no idea how much. Thanks for both inspiring and teaching me.

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  10. ¡Hola Judi! I think I also like more the darker pullover... the other one is a little bit strange, especially the shape because the girl that ordered it wanted it to be tight and short... very girly I guess!

    Lopapeysa is the way icelandic pullovers or cardigans are called and it is a word that is made up of two words: lopi which refers to icelandic wool and peysa that means sweater or cardigan. So, for example, a pullover made of any other kind of wool would be called ullarpeysa (from ull that means wool and peysa that is sweater).

    The fun about knitting lopapeysur (that is the plural of lopapeysa :) is playing with colors. The same pattern can look ABSOLUTELY different if it is knitted with a different color combination!

    Thank you about the box :) I am still thinking about adding some more things to it, jeje. The wedge thing was a idea that I had to make it more comfortable to work. It helps to keep the bobbins in order and avoids that they just hang from the box so it is easier to work with them. Besides it also possible to put pins in it to hold the bobbins and organize your work better. Until now I haven't done anytthing with more than 24 bobbins at a time but still that is a lot!

    The patterns I am using come from a book I bough. So just photocopied the pattern and then put it on the pillow. I am sure that it ispossible to make your own patterns but I think that right now I am really far from that :)

    All this samples I am making are just beginner's exerises. I loved the diamonds also!

    The 1 króna coin is 3/4 inch in diameter. The fish is called þorskur (cod in english). The value... almost nothing (0,009 USD [1USD=115ISK]). This is the smallest one.

    The multilens camera... I liked the results but I think of it more like a toy. It is just a piece of plastic that weights nothing. Actually, when I use it I dont even feel like I am taking pictures :)

    Sorry to hear that it happened again! I think that blogger has been really strange lately... there some things that seem not to be working properly sometimes.

    I hope you had a nice weekend also! I am still having it since it is a holiday today here in Iceland!

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  11. hola Rodri
    por fin puedo venir, bueno ademas que he estado super ocupada, mi nueva vida de gasfiter, creo que no me gusta mucho ( uff cambiando tuberias y demas en la casa ) al final llamamos al tecnico , en fin ,
    aqui el clima esta bastante feo , lluve mucho y hace frio , esta muy raro de verdad
    bueno a ver , sus tejidos , van en buen caminos, yo espero ver el cha de la novia
    y eso de los bolillos pero que lindo , de verdad, me parece tan bonito y mas que seguro te va a quedar de lujo el encaje
    yo le sigo con el fair isle , estoy con una boina, oh oh, a ver como sale, la tecnica va mejorando poco a poco y me encanta, porque quiero tejer rapido y ver el dibujo aparecer ;)
    bueno Rodri , cuidese mucho, siga haciendo cositas lindas y sea mas que feliz
    Besitos parisinos vuelan para su casita .....

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  12. Hola, quería decirte que me encanta tu blog y tus trabajos de lana, es que estoy todavía con la boca abierta. Te felicito por tus trabajos, quisiera algún día llegar a tejer como tú. Voy a intentar hacer un jersey como ese de tú amiga, haber si soy capaz. Gracias por la inspiración. Besos desde Andalucía.
    Sonia.

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