RodPrjónar

The Bride!!!

2012-03-14T14:46:00.000Z

A few weeks ago I posted about a shawl that I knitted for my dearest friend Laura who was getting married by then.

Well, she shared with me a couple of pictures of the great day!

It is so great to see how well the shawl matches her dress! (as if I had seen it before choosing the pattern for the shawl!) and how beautifully she wore it :)

The fact that she used the shawl in her wedding day is the best present I could ever get from her, seriously.

She is the most beautiful bride that I have ever seen!!

No more words... you better see it yourself!

In the church.

Arriving.

This post will be entirely devoted to my friend, the bride :)

So, more news to come very soon!

A very late birthday present: Echo Flower

2012-02-28T14:16:00.000Z

For a long time I wanted to knit something for my friend Anna María but for some reason or another I never got to do it until now!

At the beginning this shawl was conceived as a KAL with Kristín Hrund and Gummi (we have knitted together already two shawls: Aeolian and Hyrna Herborgar). But the original plan was to knit a Laminaria. We began together and after knitting a few rows we all realized that we didn't like the way it looked so we aborted the mission and took the Echo Flower instead.

The problem was that December came on our way and our KAL fell asleep for a good while. In my case not only because December was terribly busy but also because I had to finish some other projects urgently!

Now, it is finally finished! And most importantly, I finally gave it to Anna... whose birthday was at the beginning of January but anyways!

So, here it is:

Echo Flower Shawlette

Details:

* Pattern: Echo Flower.

* Yarn: Einband.

* Needles: 4.0mm and 5.0 to cast-off

* Flower chart: 9 repeats.

* Nupps: 9 stitches.

* Cast-off: with double thread using the K2Tog method.

Notes:

* This is the second Echo Flower that I knit. The first one was made with Malabrigo lace, which I think was too expensive and nothing extraordinary (except for the color that was really nice, you can see it here).

* I think that Einband is much more nice (and MUCH, MUCH, MUCH cheaper and when it comes to blocking... it blocks BEAUTIFULLY and it holds the shape for a long time (unlike my experience with Malabrigo).

The Border.

* This pattern looks very complicated on paper, especially those 2-into-9 and 3-into-9, which aren't so complicated at all. Those are actually, in my opinion, the most fun part of the whole shawl!.

* For the body I decided to make 9 repeats. Since the beginning I knew I didn't want to make a shawl but a shawlette that would be worn around the neck. I thought that that would suit Anna María's style BEST.

The Body: 9 repeats.

* The nupps. I LOVE nupps. I could knit nupps ALL DAY, EVERYDAY! I made them of 9 stitches because I really like my nupps to stand out and be very visible. Besides, nupps are a great sign of handmade :)

The nupps: 9 stitches. And the bind-off: K2Tog with a double thread.

* The cast-off: I used a double thread, as indicated in the pattern, but I used the K2tog method instead of the P2Tog. I really don't understand why the latter one is proposed as a cast-off for this shawl. For me, K2Tog seems to work perfectly done with a needle one size bigger and very loosely.

* Blocking: I think this is one of the easiest shawls to block that I have made! It took me 10 minutes! I used blocking wires only for the upper section and then pins for every point.

Folded ad ready!

* And finally about the color: Anna María LOVES yellow. I think she is one of the very few persons that I know who loves it, and wears it a lot and what is best: It looks great on her. Actually, the day I went to visit her to give her the shalw she was wearing yellow! As you can see in the picture below! hehe.

Anna María wearing her Echo Flower :)

I have not been taking to many pictures lately... I still have a roll of film at home that I haven't developed and another one in the camera since December! It will be fun to see those pics that I barely remember!

These are some pics I took at the beginning of January. It is at an old cementery that is down town in Reykjavík. It is a really cool place to go for a walk...

I guess that now I will begin to take more pics again... now that days are starting to get longer and longer everyday!!

Yet Another Lopapeysa, Some Pics and a Little Secret

2012-02-17T13:21:00.000Z

At the beginning of January a good friend of mine asked me if I could knit a lopapeysa for her mother who was visiting her from Poland... and as maybe many of you know I can't say no to my friends! So, I took the new task and began from the beginning... as it should be: choosing pattern and colors.

There is a pattern that is hugely popular in Iceland. There is a company of designers that is called Farmer's Market that took a very classical lopapeysa pattern (Lopi 120) and made some little changes to it (mostly in the way colors are used... because I think that the pattern itself is unaltered) and it became a huge success, mostly I think because the company has a very smart way of showing their products with great photography and style (as you can see in their website).

Taken from Ístex.is

Well... It was no surprise for me that she chose THAT pattern. I almost even expected that, hehe. And when it came to having to choose colors... uuh surprise again!... she chose a color combo that is very similar to the one I have used to knit other three lopapeysas. It is a very nice color combo... it looks really good and classy.

Kristina

Laura

Lærke

So... the colors she chose were moss green as main color, pink (a darker pink compared to the three above) and off-white.

So Marlena's lopapeysa looks like this:

Folded and ready.

Materials:

* Yarn: Double folded plötulopi.

* Needles: 4.5 and 5.5 mm

Anna María trying her mom's jersey. She liked it so much that she also wants one! So there might be yet another one like this in the future :)

Detail on the ribbing (see the notes).

Notes:

* This time I did some things different. This lopapeysa is not exactly as the others:

I used my new favorite cast-on: The Twisted German Cast-on. I really like it a lot and I highly recommend it. It is very similar to the normal long tail cast on but it adds a twist to the yarn which makes it be stronger and much more elastic.

I used a different kind of ribbing. For the other three I used just moss stitch. What I did now was to knit one row in 1x1 ribbing and then one knitted row ( *[row1: K1P1; row2: K all] repeat from the *). It is very flat, it has a great texture and I find it somehow to be very feminine but strong at the same time. Does anybody know if this kind of ribbing has any special name?

The neck line is not as wide in this one. I made it using the same ribbing I described before and it is double (it is folded and sewn inside). For the other ones I just finished the pattern and did the cast-off with no ribbing.

For the cast-off I used one of my favorite ones: The knit two together through the back loop (is it also called the decrease cast-off??) using a needle 1mm bigger. The result is stretchy enough to do the sewing of the folded neckline.

* When I finished this lopapeysa, while I was putting it on Ravelry I started to count how many icelandic jerseys and vests I have made this far: This is number 20!! And the funny thing is that of those 6 have the same pattern and of those 4 are moss green+pink+off-white and the other 2 are black-gray-white. You see? This is a very popular pattern!

Well, now this pullover must be flying to Poland! I hope that Marlena will use it a lot!

Now, I finally got some pictures of the happy owners of the honeycomb hats (Mesi) I knitted at the end of last year!

Kristín Gaia... she chose this colors, aren't they great together?

Kristín Gaia.

Nicolás.

And finally... a little secret. I think I have never shared this openly and yesterday I realized that there are even friends who don't know about it (I was actually at a café with Sif yesterday when she saw it... she had no idea I had it!!)... Well, here it is: I have a tattoo :p

I got it about a year and half ago... so you can see how important knitting is for me :)

Ok... that is all for now. Have a great weekend!!

Today is a Great Day!!!!

2012-02-11T12:15:00.000Z

Today, exactly right now, as I am writing this post my DEAREST friend Laura is getting married in Asturias, Spain!!

Today I woke up with this nervous feeling as if it was me who was going to get married! My stomach is full of butterflies for them both! I would have loved to be able to come to their wedding but they decided to have this just with their families and throw a party later this year... which of course I am not going to miss!!

So, because of this GREAT occasionI I HAD TO knit something for the bride! I must say that the decision of what to make wasn't difficult at all. It had to be something delicate and beautiful. Anything better than lace?

The pattern choice was also very easy... it had to be a Hyrna Herborgar for several reasons: it is my favorite pattern, it is the most beautiful shawl that I know (yes, I know, I am a bit obsessed with it!) and last but not least it is an icelandic design.

So, here it is:

Blocking

Details:

* Pattern: Hyrna Herborgar (from the book Þríhyrnur og langsjöl).

* Yarn: Cascade Heritage Silk (a mix of silk and merino).

* Needles: 4.0mm and a 4.5mm hook to cast off.

Notes:

* As you many of you know this is not the first Hyrna Herborgar that I knit (if you want to see the other: one and two and three) This is actually the fourth one! So, knitting it was pretty smooth since I already know all the tricks of this pattern... and that helped me a lot because I was knitting against time!

* This was the fist time I was using Cascade Heritage Silk. The yarn is amazing. It is a real pleasure to knit. The only boring thing was that I had to buy a WHOLE new skein just to make the crochet bind off row! And this yarn is not exactly one of the cheapest. Now I have a whole skein that I guess will become something for the baby of a friend that will be born in a few months.

* Blocking this shawl is becoming easier and easier everytime! I was a little worried after blocking it because I found that the yarn had a little bit of "memory" ad it was shrinking a little bit on the borders. I had to use some steam to correct that.

* Finally, I wanted to thank my friend Sif, who gently went out with me in a very cold (but amazingly beautiful) day to have some cool pics of the shawl.

Fortunately the package arrived on time so Laura received her present! This morning, she sent me an SMS telling me that she was on the way to the church and that she was wearing the most beautiful shawl in the world!!

I am so happy she liked it and most importantly that she is wearing it on this so very special day! Even though I am not physically there my thoughts are with them!

All the best wished of happiness and prosperity for the newly married couple! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Woolly Presents for One Lucky Guy :)

2012-02-06T15:35:00.002Z

During December and January I was so lucky to get some really precious presents from dear friends, most of them knitting-related (plus some amazing candies and other sweet, sweet details).

I would like to share with you what I got... all of them are very special and I need to find something that as special to make with them. I already have some ideas floating around inside of my head...

Sunsunteje surprised me with a beautiful skein of wool that she spun herself. It is a mixture of merino and silk.. it is amazingly soft and has a very nice shine. The colors are AMAZING as well... it is pretty difficult to describe them! There is some purple, beige and white in it... all beautifully combined.

Hiro, who I had the luck to meet last year on my trip to Asturias (and we managed not to take a SINGLE good picture of us together!) sent me some beautiful wool along with LOTS of candies (and I mean LOTS, so much that I still even have some!) and some other sweet details. She surprised me with a wonderful skein of Lace Silk in a very bright red-fuchsia color (I am really bad naming colors... but it must be something near those two) and one skein of Lace Merino in natural color (light gray). Both from Greta and The Fibers.

My dear friend Svanhvít Lilja, who moved to Sweden with her boyfriend last Autumn, came on Christmas Holidays to visit Iceland. She gave me as a birthday present two skeins of wool that she got in Umeå, the town where she is living. The skeins have no tags so I don't know what the composition is but it feels great to touch, it is both firm and soft at the same time. I think I have knitted anything with red wool... actually I think I don't even own anything to wear that is red... so this is the perfect opportunity to get some red into my wardrobe. I was thinking about a pair of mittens and a neckwarmer, maybe? :)

Paolo, my italian colleague that was working with me last year surprised me with a very unexpected birthday present. I thought it was so thoughtful of him! He came with this really beautiful icelandic design "roll-case" made out of a woollen tweed fabric with a really pretty cross stitch design on one of its borders. It is REALLY pretty but unfortunately I haven't found a good use for it yet. The pockets seem to be too big and too deep (and they are definitely not enough to put all my needles).

I have been trying to find something to use it for but nothing has been clicking in my brain! Ideas? They are ALL MORE THAN WELCOME! :)

Mike, my friend from California, that I finally got to know in person last October after having been Flickr friends for quite a while when he came to Iceland (along with Franklin and Stephen).

He really did surprise me!! He gave me my first Elizabeth Zimmermann's book! "Knit One Knit All". A book devoted to the most simple of all stitches: Garter Stitch. There are some really cool designs that I want to try! And I must admit that this book was somehow and eye-opener for me. I think I had always somehow underestimated garter stitch... now I see it definitely with other eyes.

In the box there was also a DVD called "A Knitting Glossary" by E. Zimmermann and M. Swansen. This is truly a BIBLE! It is a DVD full of techniques that are taught by Elizabeth and Meg in a very comfortable format sitting on the sofa of their home. It is a perfect reference to refresh and learn some techniques.

And last but not least... In one of our last trips to the Álafoss Factory Gummi found a new yarn that has been recently put for sale in the shop. It is called Bolivia, 100% wool (from Bolivia, I guess?). When he saw it he thought he could make THE PERFECT scarf for me! And HE DID! How sweet is that?

He made this HUGELY LONG (I think it must be over 3 meters long!) scarf that I can wrap around several times around the neck. The colors are definitely MY KIND OF COLORS. It is EXTREMELY cozy and warm!

What else can I say? Except that I am an INCREDIBLY LUCKY GUY!

Thank you all so much!

And to finish... Yesterday the weather was wonderful... Not a little bit of wind and even not so cloudy. From my home it is possible to see a glacier that is at the very end of a peninsula. The glacier is called Snæfellsjökull (for many of you that will sound familiar because of Jules Verne's novel "Journey to the Center of the Earth"in which an entrance to a passage that leads to the center of the earth is found in this mountain).

It had been AGES since the last time the glacier was visible mostly because it had been mostly cloudy and not clear enough to let it be seen. Yesterday... I saw this from home:

Hello everybody!! I am back! :) Now, a little bit about December

2012-01-27T14:26:00.002Z

Ufff! After some time off I am finally slowly coming back, hehe. I don't really know know what is it about December that has ALWAYS dragged all of my energy! It always takes me a while to recover from it!

But, here I am again!

I would have to say that my life has been rather quite knitting-wise. December was an ALMOST-NO-KNITTING-AT-ALL-MONTH! All I managed to knit was a shrug that under normal conditions would have been done in less than a week! But no! It took almost a month (and I actually really did most of the knitting after New Year!).

This is the second one I knit. It is a very, very simple project but the result is always very nice. I think that women look kind of good in these kind of shrugs but I have always wondered how comfortable they really are?

So, here it is:

Details:

* Pattern: Ermar (available for free at Ístex)

* Yarn: Létt lopi. The colors were chosen by the owner of the shrug. Black and three shades of gray.

* Needles: 4.5mm

Notes:

* As I said before this is a perfect quick knitting project. It gives almost instant satisfaction, I would say to both the knitter and the recipient :)

* The only change I made to the pattern was to make extra long sleeves.

* Picking up the stitches all around (every other stitch) was a piece of cake but the problem began when it came to make the bind off. I had my friend try the shrug three times! And it was always a bit too tight around the shoulders (because the cast off edge was too tight, even though I used needles a lot bigger and the knit 2 together cast off with usually works pretty well). So I had to unravel the moss stitch ring three times until I discovered something AMAZING!!!

Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind off!!!

Everything about is amazing! Starting with the name! And it is indeed SURPRISINGLY stretchy and most importantly VERY EASY to make!

I saw this video of Cat Bordhi to learn how to make it. If you ever need a super stretchy cast off... don't hesitate and give it a try!

Now, after having finished this shrug I began a new shawl... of which I will be talking about on my next post :)

Among other things, in the middle of Demember my friend Juan from Argentina came to visit me! He stayed in Iceland for five days and it was just pure fun! Even though we couldn't travel as much as I wanted because of the weather we did some nice day trips (including a failed attempt to go to a place called Krýsuvík in the middle of a heavy snow and wind storm that led us to fall of the road and be stuck in the snow in the middle of nowhere for a good while until a guy driving a monster truck drove by and helped us!).

These are some pictures of our little trips:

Grótta in Seltjarnanes

Bláa lonið - The Blue Lagoon

Strokkur

Icelandic horses are so friendly! They all come to you so you can pet them for a while :)

Strokkur in Haukadalur

Þingvellir

Þingvellir - Öxaráfoss. The waterfall was almost completely frozen. There was just a little stream of water running under all the ice. Here, Juan is actually standing on where the river is supposed to be running.

Me looking at the frozen waterfall.

Reykjanesviti - Reykjanes' Lighthouse

Valahnúkur. For those who like Sigur Rós, the final scene of this video was made on this cliff (and all the video was made in this area in Reykjanes)

Valahnúkur.

Video taken from the top of the cliff. It was very windy! And then it began to snow like there is no tomorrow!

Well. I think this is it for now :) I am very happy to be finally back!! Have a great weekend!!

Two hats / Some WIPs / Winter is here! / Cozy weekend.

2011-11-30T15:20:00.001Z

It has been quite a while since my last post here. These last couple of weeks have been somehow very strange. I guess it is always like that when the end of the year starts to approach.

December is always a busy month: Reunions with friends, family and coworkers, Christmas (of course), several birthdays (including mine! Which I personally find really boring because everybody is thinking about something else!

Anyways! Knitting-wise I have been drowning in a sea of unfinished projects later! Suddenly I had a lot of knitting going on because of friends asking me to knit something for them...

What I have managed to finish this far is two hats.

Mesi again.

This one is for a friend who lives in Germany. He saw the pics of the hat I made for J.B. and asked me if I could make one for him as well.

This one is for the daughter of a friend. I wanted to play it safe in this one and let the girl choose the colors. I think that the colors she chose are really interesting considering that she is around 10 years old. It is not very clear in the picture but the darker color is not just gray it is a blue-greyish color. Very pretty.

Details:

* They are basically the same as the hat for J.B. Except for the the fact that I used smaller needles to knit the gray hat. I used 2.5mm for the ribbing and 3.0mm for the rest of the hat (instead of 3.0 and 3.75mm).

Notes:

* I used the german cast on again in both hats. I think I am becoming a HUGE fan of german cast on. It looks very nice and most importantly it is VERY elastic and durable. I HIGHLY recommend it. And the best of all is that it is not difficult to make!

* I must say it again: I love this pattern! Knitting it is really fun and quick and the result is always pretty. Besides it is really cool to play with color combinations.

So, talking about my queue... I still have two unfinished shawls: leaves and nupps (in the picture) and an Echo flower (that I have barely began... I think I have just made 4 repeats of the first chart this far and no pics yet).

I also have two more WIPs that I haven't photographed yet:

* Ermar. It is for a friend (actually the mother of the blue-gray hat girl). This is a pattern that I have already knitted before. It is very simple and quick to knit.

I made this one about two years ago for my friend Dyah.

* A scarf. Yes! A boring scarf! I have never knitted one before because I have always been afraid that I won't manage to finish it! These are the boring things that one make for his friends, uh? I still haven't decided the pattern but my friend already gave the yarn for it :)

Now, talking about something else... WINTER IS HERE!! Finally! After a rather warm winter at the end of last week the weather completely changed and it started to snow! It has been really cold since last friday and everything is just beautifully covered by snow!

This was just perfect because we spent the weekend in a summer house in a place that is about one and a half hour away from Reykjavík. It was very cozy!! So all we did was to knit, do some cross stitch, eat good, spend a lot of time in the hot tub while the snow was falling on our heads and took some cool walks.

So, some pictures? :)

The "summer house"

Just walking around... trying to find the river.

The river: Hrútá

It was really cold and light was just wonderful.

We found an invisible (and apparently naked) man!

Icelandic horses

And to finish: A picture of Valgarð knitting... so you can see we were all in the knitting mood during the weekend!

Knitting a scarf :)

Birthday present / Þröstur and me / Álafoss

2011-11-14T10:03:00.001Z

Two Fridays ago I was invited to a birthday party. My superdear friend Sif was going to celebrate her birthday. Last year I gave her a shoulderette that she really liked (luckily because I didn't know which were her favorite colors so I just chose one that I thought she could like... and that I really liked myself when I saw it hanging in my LYS).

Echo Flower. Yarn: Malabrigo lace.

This year, I didn't have enough time to prepare a present like a shawl or anything bigger so I had to think fast and come up with something quick because I think that hand made presents are always the best thing that one can receive. I had only two days to make something. So I went for a hand made pin (or brooch).

This time I didn't knit it. I used cross stitch and my favorite pattern: Houndstooth. It is a very quick, easy and good looking thing to make.

Then I attached it to a card and put it in an envelope.

Along with the brooch I gave her a book. I went to the University Bookstore where they have a little collection of books in spanish (yes, Sif speaks spanish BEAUTIFULLY!) and among those there were a few books from Chilean authors. I gave her one my favorite books: La amortajada, written by María Luisa Bombal.(I also found another of my favorites: Rimas y leyendas by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, I HAVE to get it for myself!).

During the weekend I finally got some pictures taken of me wearing Þröstur. The days are getting shorter and shorter around here and one thing I like about that is that everytime that is not cloudy the short hours of light we have are beautiful. There is a certain softness in it that lightens everything up in the most beautiful way. Saturday was like that.

So we took a walk to the pond that is right behind our neighborhood (for those who don't know the place where I live is completely built on lava, there are not many trees but it is really pretty to walk around). It was so quite, almost no wind at all.

I also want to share a few pictures I took with the film camera that Judi generously sent me (along with other treasures). These pictures are from Álafoss, the place where Lopi is produced and sold.

It is a really nice place. Even though it is possible to buy lopi everywhere, even in the supermarket, I always choose to drive to Álafoss. And it is not only that the place is cool but the people working there is just adorable!

So, for all of you who have bought lopi... this is where it comes from :)

This is the building where the shop is.

There are several old buildings: the wool shop, some workshops, a café and the recording studio of Sigur Rós.

Detail of the bridge over the little river. Everything is "stitch-related". Cute, isn't it?

Álafoss or Eel's waterfall

I have been going to buy lopi to Álafoss for almost three years and I had NEVER seen the waterfall until now!! How silly is that!

Have a great week!

Finished... and it has a name: ÞRÖSTUR

2011-11-05T23:34:00.000Z

I have finally finished the lopapeysa I was working on for the KAL of the Spanish Swap (group on Ravelry).

And here it is:

Þröstur

Details:

* Pattern: I made it myself! Yes, my first one!

* Yarn: Plötulopi (double strand).

* Needles: 4.5mm for the ribbing ad 5.5 for the rest.

Notes:

* When I started to knit this lopapeysa I wasn't sure about how it was going to end... at all. The first thing I did was to work the waist pattern which I decided not to use in the arms because it was a little bit to big... so I designed a second pattern for the sleeves.

* The whole thing was turning very "flowery". My first idea for the yoke was to make a pattern using the traditional eight points star (or rose) and then some more flowers... but changed my mind and I went for birds (instead of even more flowers).

* I thought that birds and flowers could be a very nice (and somehow logical) combination. So, the birds gave the name to the pattern: ÞRÖSTUR, which means thrush or tordo in spanish. I have always thought that I have ever had to take an icelandic name for myself it would be Þröstur!

The yoke.

* While I was knitting the yoke I wasn't sure wether I was liking it or not (in terms of the colors, especially the lime green, and the pattern itself). I had a lot of doubts about how the whole thing was going to turn out. The yoke was pretty much designed on the run... while knitting.

* I am very satisfied with the whole thing. I am really looking forward to trying to design again!

Tadaaaa!

** Pictures of me wearing it soon!!

A new hat for JB / Advances on the lopapeysa

2011-10-31T12:10:00.002Z

Again, I will start by going a little back in time... I have already knitted a few hats for JB, so let's see:

This fair isle hat was actually the first hat I ever knitted. It is dead simple. I made it using Álafoss lopi (which is one of the bulky forms of lopi but not the bulkiest one). Of course he loved it... it has skulls, hehe. I think he used it a lot and the coolest thing about it is that afterwards JB knitted himself two of this! One for his little cousin and another as a birthday present for his best friend. Cool isn't it?

Then I made a hat designed by Stephen West, which is I think the only West pattern that I have used. The result was really nice and what he liked the most about it was the fact that it is reversible. Besides it was extremely soft. I made using a double thread of Drops Alpaca which is a really nice yarn and I totally recommend it :)

The, I made a Leethal's Wavy hat. This was a very interesting knit. This was the first hat (and only this far) that I have knitted flat. As every design of Leethal the result is always brilliant! The only thing I regret about this hat is the yarn that I used. I was made with Aslan Trends Bariloche. When I bought it it was amazing to touch... soft and light and the colors were very intersting (a mix of viotet, green and some beige) but after wearing it for a while it became really (and I mean REALLY) ugly. So, I don't think I will use this blend again.

So, now the time to knit a new hat for JB had arrived!

Quite a while ago I added to my favorites on Ravelry a super cool hat. As soon as I saw it I thought it would be perfect for JB. I even thought about the perfect colors for it: the colors of his football team (black and white).

So, here it is:

Details:

* Pattern: Mesi by Suvi Simola (Free Ravelry download).

* Yarn: Falk Dalegarn (2 skeins, one of each color).

* Needles: 3.0mm for the ribbing and 3.75mm for the rest.

Notes:

* This is a brilliant pattern. It perfectly written and what I liked the most was the fact that it looks MUCH MORE complicated than it really is. The charts are very easy to memorize.

* I wanted to try the German cast on to see how it was made and how it worked. It was very simple to make and according to what I read it is supposed to be a stronger and more elastic cast on. I am not sure if it is either of those... but it looks good :)

* It is a really quick knit... and that is always a plus!

* This was my first time using Falk (Dalegarn). It is a really nice yarn to work with. It is soft and smooth, the colors are fantastic as well as the price. According to the label it is superwash but I didn't dare to put it in the washing machine. So I just soaked it in water with soap, rinsed it and blocked it.

This is my favorite part of the hat. I live the geometry in it. It reminds me of Icelandic runes or even some Mapuche symbols. There is something kind of tribal about it. (This is not JB in the picture, by the way.)

What I like the most about knitting hats for JB is that he always wears them A LOT! And that is just enough to make me really happy.

Now, I am planning to make another one like this. A friend that lives in Germany mentioned that he really liked this hat... so there will be a hat flying to Berlin soon!

I already bought the yarn. It will be Falk again in these colors:

About the lopapeysa I am designing... I am already done with the sleeves. Actually I am now working on the yoke pattern. It has turned out totally different from what I had in mind at the beginning. I am not 100% sure if I like it.

For now, this is the design I made for the sleeves:

I didn't use the same pattern as in the body because I thought it was too big to be used in the sleeves.

Now, to finish... some pictures of the little trip we took with WonderMike, Franklin Habit and HisKNITS to Reykjanes where we went up to the cliff where this video of Sigur Rós was made:

A pin button and an experiment.

2011-10-24T12:41:00.000Z

Two Sundays ago I was invited to a birthday party and there I saw a friend who had a really cute knitted pin button. I thought it was a brilliant idea.

The pin button she had a very simple. It was just a little piece of knitted fabric attached to a pin-back button.

I decided to try to do one and see how it worked.

So, the odyssey of finding the right elements began! Which in real was only one thing: blank pin-back buttons.

I went to four handcraft shops and didn't find any pin-back buttons. The most similar thing I found were there some kind of wooden buttons and pins that. But the problem was... how to attach the pin to the wooden buttons in order to have a nice and durable result. The answer was NAILS. I bought the smallest nails I found (10mm).

Wooden buttons, pins and nails.

In addition to these material I needed of course some scraps of yarn (from the stash) and needles.

The first thing I did was to nail the pins to the back of the buttons. Even though these were the smallest nails I found they were still too long so I cut them to make them just long enough to hold the pin firmly in place.

Then I knitted a piece in stockinette stitch to fit the button leaving a tail long enough to thread it all around the knitted piece and tug it to stretch the fabric on the button... and voilà!

The knitted piece stretched on the button.

Some details:

* Yarn: Araucanía Ranco Multi (It is so funny that I had never heard of these yarns in Chile. They are supposed to be chilean. In fact all the names (starting with Araucanía) are places in Chile!)

* Needles: 2.5mm

* I casted on 10 stitches. Purled all odd number rows and increased using kfb at the beginning and end of each knitting row (even numbers) until I had 16 st. Then began decreasing on every knitting row til I had 10 stitches again and casted off.

* I threaded the tail all around the border and tugged it.

The not-so-pretty back side of the button.

And now I have this on my bag, along with two other pins I really like:

My bag.

A little closer.

I am thinking about making a smaller one. My bag is not very big and the buttons is maybe way to big for it!

Last friday we went to visit Kristín Hrund, who is a master in dyeing wool, to get some help to have our own very first dyeing experience. We took some white einband, álsalt and vinsteinn (I don't know what they are called in english) and turmenic. Yes. We wanted to see how turmenic would work. It was such an amazing color... this kind of very earthy yellow.

So, the result was this:

We're still VERY thrilled about the result! It is a wonderful yellow tone! And it smells really nice as well!

Thank you JC! / ¡Gracias JC!

2011-10-22T15:48:00.000Z

A few months ago I knitted a lopapeysa for my friend JC that lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Maybe you remember this picture of him:

Well, last week I got this package from the post office:

Yes! A package from JC! He chose a picture from my Flickr gallery (which is the same I have as avatar for my blog :) and made this:

Rodrigo en Þingvallavatn

When I took it out of the box I couldn't believe how wonderful the painting was! It is just perfect! This is the first time that someone makes a painting of me... it is weird (but a good kind of weird, of course) to see one's self painted! Isn't it beautiful!?

This isn't a very good picture. There was something strange going on with the light today... I don´t know. This is just so you can have an idea of the size of the painting.

Now I have to find someone who can frame it nicely to hang it :)

Thank you so much JC for such a wonderful piece of art and friendship!

My mittens history. Ready for winter now? + Hyrna Herborgar KAL: Pictures.

2011-10-13T20:26:00.002Z

As I advanced in my last post I have been working on a pair of mittens to have a full set of new "winter accessories".

I haven't knitted to many mittens since I began knitting at the end of 2008. I have made only three pairs plus a pair of wristwarmers (that I made to learn how to make a gusset for the thumb).

So going back a little bit on time, my mittens history would look like this:

My first finished project almost three years ago was actually a pair of mittens!

I made them with Álafoss lopi on 6mm needles. I made the design... well, if this can be called a design. It is just a few stripes :)

They came out quite ok. It wasn't so bad to be my first real project. I struggled a little bit making the decreases on top of the mittens. I think that by then I didn't even understand well how decreases slant.

I have worn them A LOT. And they are still in very good conditions. In this picture it is possible to see better the decreases mess I made on top of the mittens :)

Then I made the wrist warmers as an exercise to learn how to make a gusset. I used pretty much the same stripe idea that I used on my first mittens.

I made these ones with létt lopi on 4mm needles.

When my sister saw them she waned them... so they flew all the way to Chile :)

The gusset was no problem, it was much easier that I thought and the result was quite OK :)

The third pair I made was a Christmas present for my dear friend Kristina who really likes to take pictures. To make this ones I followed the pattern that Bea Aarebrot shares for free in her blog and added the colorwork to it.

Made with Aslan Trends Del Cerro, 100% Merino on needles 3.5mm for the ribbing and 4.5 for the rest.

And the third pair: I used stripes, many colors and made them with a thumb gusset. The idea was to make the mittens different from each other by using different colors and different stripes pattern.

Made with Hjertegarn vital using needles 3.5 and 4.5mm. These were a present for my niece when she came to visit me.

As you can probably see, I have only knitted one pair of mittens for myself. So it was already time to get a new pair.

Searching on Ravelry I found a very nice pattern. I liked it so much that I casted my stitches on immediately!

The result:

Details:

* Pattern: Houndstooth Check Mittens by Sarah H. Arnold.

* Yarn: Létt lopi. One skein of each color.

* Needles: 3.5mm for the ribbing and 4.5mm for the rest.

Notes:

* The pattern is very well written and the charts are easy to follow.

* I made some changes to the pattern because I used a yarn that is bulkier than the one than the pattern calls for.

* Casted on 36 stitches (instead of 40) for the ribbing and then increased 8 stitches evenly to knit the body of the mitten.So, I worked with 42 stitches (instead of 50 as the pattern calls for).

* I didn't knit the thumb gusset all the way to row 26, instead I made it shorter. I knitted it to row 21 and then put the 18 stitches in a scrap or yarn.

* I began the decreases earlier that the pattern calls for because of the yarn I used.

* I LOVED knitting these mittens. It was absolutely FUN. I am actually thinking about making another pair but this time using white as a contrasting color, instead of very light brown (oatmeal?).

* I have always liked this kind of patterned fabric but I had NO IDEA it was called Houndstooth! It looks so classy and elegant!

* Lopi works amazingly well for mittens. It is sturdy, somehow "all-terrain", durable and warm.

* I strongly recommend this pattern. The result is very nice and SUPER warn since it is knitted using two strands of yarn all the way!

Remember the KAL with Kristín Hrund, Gummi, Jóhanna and me?

We met Kristín a couple of weeks ago to take the pictures. Unfortunately the light was not very good. It was very cloudy and pretty late as well.

Here they are:

Getting ready for winter.

2011-10-09T00:11:00.001Z

It is starting to get colder and colder here and I realized that I don't have many "winter accessories" in my closet.

I have only one short scarf with buttons that I made a long time ago... it was a real odyssey. I made it using brioche stitch and I think I started it abut five times! I found that brioche stitch was not so difficult to make but as soon as I made a mistake it was a huge disaster! I got completely lost and took me a long time to fix it! Now, all the effort was totally worthwhile.

Brioche stitch is really nice, it makes a reversible fabric that is squishy and warm.

I made this one with Bulky lopi on 9mm needles.

Hats, holy hats! I have made quite a few of them but I am NEVER satisfied with them! I am just not a hat person. It has to be really, really cold so I get to wear one.

There are two of them that I have used the most:

Cabled hat

Made with Eskimo by drops.

And Haka:

Also made with bulky lopi.

So, now it was time to make a new scarf and hat.

Two years ago I made a cabled neck warmer using some Noro kureyon that I had after having frogged a shawl I made with it.

I never wore it... I guess I didn't really like the colors (and to be honest, I really don't like Noro at all. I don't understand why it is so expensive!). The good thing is that when my sister came to visit me liked it a lot! So she went back home with a new cowl :)

Since I liked the pattern so much I decided to make another one. This time with a yarn and colors that I really liked. I began to knit it about a year ago and then the project fell asleep in the stash basket (along with a couple of other things!) until a few weeks ago when I decided to finish it once and for all!

The pattern looks MUCH better in one color.

Details:

* Pattern: Cabled cowl by Lion Brand

* Yarn: Cascade 220.

* Needles: 5.0mm

Notes:

* I made a much shorter version. The pattern called to make it 50cm long and then lightly felt it. I made it just 30cm long and no felting.

* I like cables a lot. They make the fabric look look warm and cozy. And well, they don't only have the looks... they are REALLY fun to knit!

I also decided to look for a hat. Searching here and there I found this wonderful fair isle hat:

I like the simplicity of the pattern.

Details:

* Pattern: Peacock by Karen Borrel.

* Yarn: Cascade 220. Less than one skein of the main color.

* Needles: 4.5mm

Notes:

* I didn't make any changes to the pattern. I followed it just as it is.

* When I saw this hat the first thing that cought my attention were these two bicolor bands at the beginning and at the end of the fair isle section. I had absolutely no clue about how to make them but it was really easy! And they look very nice! Knitting always surprises me. It is so nice to discover new things that are made with the same simple elements of basic knitting. In this case purling. Yes, the bands are made just using purl stitch and some twisting!

* I decided to use cascade 220 to match it with the cowl. Besides this yarn is simply amazing. It is so soft and nice to work with! And it is incredibly warm! I totally recommend it.

* I love pompons, so even though if the pattern wouldn't have called for one I would have made one anyways :)

Now, to finish with accessories, I am knitting a pair of mittens. I think I have said before that I am not a big fan of knitting anything that comes in pairs... but I really need a new pair of mittens. It is really silly that i have only ONE pair that I made almost three years ago! This far, I am done with the first mitten... one more to go!

And to finish, a few pics. These one were taken in a place called Arnastapi in Snæfellsnes. It is a little village next to sea. The most amazing thing about this place are the cliffs and lava formations.

Cliffs and Eva.

When walking close to the cliffs it is possible to find a couple of holes. It is not possible to see it in this picture but the sea is on the bottom of this hole.

There are also a couple of lava bridges... they are pretty cool.

Hyrna Herborgar III: Done!

2011-09-29T11:24:00.001Z

I think I mentioned in my previous post that Hyrna Herborgar is one of my favourite shawls ever. The pattern is pretty, the transitions are perfect, the border is absolutely wonderful and it has so much air in it which makes it be delicate and elegant.

So, no more talking. Here are the pictures:

Unfortunetely when I took the picture I didn't have the best light so the color doesn't look as it really is. It is a brighter shade of pink.

Details:

* Pattern: Hyrna Herborgar.

* Yarn: Evilla 50%wool 50%linen.

* Weight: 90g.

* Neddles: 4.0m and crochet 3.0mm to cast off.

The edge fans are so pretty and in addition to it the cast-off techniche is so smart that it only adds more beauty to the shawl.

Notes:

* Began with a garter stitch tab (I love this method. The result is always very neat).

* This is the fisrt Hyrna that I knit using a yarn that was no Evilla Artyarn 8/2. While I was knitting it I was a little bit worried about the final size of it. I kept thinking that it was going to be too small ad that i should have used bigger needles. As usual, blocking made the miracle. The final size was surprinsingly bigger that what I expected. I blocked it fiercely to get the most out of the shawl.

* Blocking this shawl is rather simple. I just used two blocking wires and lots of pins. The secret is to bend the corners just enough to allow the edge pattern blossom.

* The cast of is pretty simple and there is no need to worry about the tension of it. It is made with a crochet hook by crochting 3 or 5 stitches together following the pattern to shape the tips and making a chain in between, which I think looks terrific!

* One thing that all of us (the ones taking part of the KAL) agreed on was that the charts can be improved. It is sometimes a little tricky to follow it (especually regarding to the center stitch). Other than that the pattern is very smooth.

* It is possible make a bigger version of it by adding enough repeats of the spiderweb pattern and having in the end two extra edge fans (one on each side of the middle one). To do so we calculated that it is necessary to knit 24 extra rows (or 6 repeats) of the spiderweb. Gummi made it like that (pictures will come soon).

This shawls just confirms the fact that I really like this shawl a lot. This will be FOR SURE not the last one!

To finish, a few pictures of my last trip to Snæfellsnes when Eva was still here visiting. I took these pictures with an oldhalf frame camera (canon demi s):

Svörtuloftaviti.

Skarðvík.

Djúpalón. Girls chatting (By looking at Eva's facial expression I wonder what they were talking about!) and Gummi picking up blueberries.

Lava by Djúpalónið.

Thank you / Merci MademoiselleAlex!!

2011-09-23T21:35:00.000Z

A few weeks ago I was visiting Alex's blog (mademoisellealex). She is a chilean girl that lives in Paris and has this wonderful blog about handcrafts, especially knitting and crochet, and her devotion to her supercute dog, Ruckiette, who models most of her creations (and she is a great model!).

Please take yourself a little time to check it out... you won't be disappointed!!

ICELAND - IRELAND (and well, it also happens sometimes
with Finland!)

In one of her posts she was showing some of wook she had in her stash and I commented about this beautiful, BEAUTIFUL green yarn made of merino and silk. After I wrote the comment I got a message from her telling me that she was not going to use it because it was not going to be enough for what she wanted to knit so if I wanted it she offered me to send it to me... OF COURSE I coulnd't say no! (You will see a picture of the yarn if you keep reading and will totally understand me!, hehe).

Well, she sent me a package and she warned me that there were a few other things in the package aling with the wool... some things that would remind me of my childhood... uhhh... mystery!

The package had a small detour from its way from France... yes. Something really silly happened. Silly but not uncommon, at all.

We were starting to get ready a little worried because it had been almost three weeks since Alex sent the package and I was not getting anything! She checked online to trace the package and according to it the package had arrived. I called to the post office here and nothing! She finally called to the post office in Paris and guess what!?

The package was sent to IRELAND instead of ICELAND! Even though Alex wrote CLEARLY in the package that the destination was Iceland!

This is the evidence that the package was sent to Ireland! Poor package... it was all wrinkled and broken but fortunetely all the contents were in perfect conditions!

Fortunetely the package was sent straight to Iceland from Ireland... so after two or three days the postman was ringing the bell to bring mee this!

Milo... it has been YEARS since the last time I drank milk with Milo! I think that all kids in Chile had breakfast either with Milo or Colacao! Jelly... nam nam and hand cream.

This is the wonderful yarn that I commented on. Posh Yarn 50%merino 50%silk. A total luxury!!

The color is just from out of this world!! In the picture it looks a little bit flat but it has some different shades of green and tiny bit of blue. I will have to find a super special thing to knit with it!! It is beautiful, isn´t it?!

The green yarn didn't come alone... it had very good company. One skein of Holstgarn in a beautiful brown (honey) color.

I also feel like eating it!!

And even more yarn! Opal sock yarn.

Also eatable and "petable" hehe.

I had seen these yarns only in Ravelry. I haven't seen any of them in Iceland until now... that makes them even MORE special! I think I will look at them everyday and pet them until I find something that will make these yarns look amazing!

Now, it wasn't only yarn what I found in the package... there was more! Some beautiful threads to make lace!!

Wonderful linen!

Silk!

Purple and gray silk. So shiny and soft!

Egyptian cotton.

And this beautiful mysterious box (from top)

And bottom.

And... this is what I found inside of the box!!!!!!! These are the most beautiful threads I have ever seen!! Look at those colors!! What a treasure! Super-extremely cute!!

Well... after all this I think that all I have left to say is THANK YOU SO MUCH ALEX!

ERES UN SOL: CÁLIDA Y GENEROSA!

KAL: Hyrna Herborgar... one more time.

2011-09-22T13:00:00.001Z

It has been quite a while since my last post!

As I said in the last post I am taking part of a new KAL. We are the same again: Kristín Hrund, Gummi, me and a little later Jóhanna joined us.

After having knitted the Aeolian the three of us together we definetely wanted to repeat the experience. The original idea was to knit a shawl called Laminaria but under my request we changed plans and started with the beautiful Hyrna Herborgar.

I have already made two of those (but neither Gummi, Kristín nor Jóhanna have knitted it before). I just love, love, love, love this shawl. It is incredibly fun to knit, it is not as complicated as it looks and the result is always WONDERFULLY beautiful.

For those who don't know this shawl, these are the two previous one that I have already made:

Hyrna Herborgar I

Hyrna Herborgar II

To make the new one I am using a mix of wool and linen from Evilla. I have used this yarn only once before. It is really nice and it comes in very pretty colors.

My only criticism to this yarn is the fact that since it is made of one thread of wool and two threads of linen it is very insert the needle between the threads and slip the linen and knit only the wool thread. It has happened to me a couple of times.

I remember when I was knitting Maikell and I had to cross stitches I promised to myself never to use this mix again... and here I am, hehe, using it again! It is just that the colors are so cool that I couldn't resist it!!

Maikell: blocking (and very serious me)

Yes, it is the pattern I put as a background for the blog :)

So, the yarn and new Hyrna look like this:

In this picture is easy to see the threads: pink is wool and white is linen.

Looking good :) I think that the colors is very nice. It is a very soft and soothing pink.

I chose pink because, I think I have mentioned this before, I don't know what is happening in my brain that everytime I go to the wool store PINK is the first color that catches my attention. I wasn't like this before! hehe. So here I am... using pink again.

The other two projects I have already began are in stand-by:

The lopapeysa that I am designing: I am waiting for the people of the Spanish Swap group to get the lopi they bought online so we can begin all together to knit our lopapeysa (even though I have already begun, hehe.)

And the green shawl, Leaves and Nupps, is waiting until I finish this one.

The other thing I promised was to show was pictures of the Aeolians that Gummi, Kristín and I knitted. It was a little bit difficult to take a good picture because the shawls were so big! (especially Kirstín's and Gummi's!) and because of the light... we met in the evening so no natural light now.

Anyways, here they go:

Three together.

The knitters with their shawls (I hate being in front of the camera!!!)
Gummi used wool+linen Evilla. I used Artyarn Evilla. Kristín used einband that she dyed herself!

And to finish, I wanted to share a couple of funny pictures of some funny sheeps we found on our way when we were driving in a remote corner of the island:

Most of the bridges in Iceland are very narrow and have only one lace... we wanted to cross this one but three girls were standing there... It is not uncommon to see LOTS of sheep everywhere (and I mean everywhere!) around. They are free in the mountains during the summer, eating grass and mountain herbs... and that is why they say the the icelandic lamb tastes so good :)

A little closer... It seems that they are thinking "well, we were here first and we are NOT moving". Well, it took just one honk on the horn to make them run scared! ha!

Oh, and now this is the last, last picture. This is bird that in icelandic is called Rjúpa (Rock ptarmigan in english). I took the first picture at the end of winter and the second one in summer... as you can see the change their feathers... cute, isn't it?

Winter and summer clothes.

Needles in a frame and trying to make a pattern.

2011-09-15T13:17:00.001Z

Remember all the things that Judi sent to me?

Among all the things there was a pair of needles that belonged to her grandmother. A pair of double pointed needles size 3 (3.25mm) and 11" (27cm) in lenght.

Well, I think it is such a nice piece (almost like a museum piece) that I was thinking that it would be nice to have them framed. To do so I needed to find a nice frame that would honour the beauty of this needles.

Last weekend we went to a farmer's market very close to Reykjavík (in Mosfellsbær) to buy some fresh and locally produced vegetables.

Tiny market in Mosfellsdalur

When we were coming to the market and just before entering into the farm I saw a couple of women that were taking things out of their car and putting them on a table. They were probably getting rid of some old things by selling them outside of the market. One of them was very familiar... I actually recognized her almost immediately: it was Hafdís Huld, an icelandic singer (know fro having been part of a band called Gusgus and now for her solo career).

After having bought some vegetables I stopped by to take a look at what they were selling. And yes! They had a perfect frame for my needles! So, I bought an old frame for only 250 ISK (about 2USD)!!

This is how it looks :)

For those who don't know her, this is one my favourite songs and video of her:

A little bit about knitting.

On Ravelry, in the Spanish swap group, a few weeks ago was proposed to make a new KAL and this time it would be to knit a lopapeysa. The KAL was suposed to begin in September but there is a little bit of delay because some of the people who is taking part of it are waiting for the wool (lopi) to arrive (since they made the order on the internet).

In the mean time I have been thinking about what pattern to use for the yoke, sleeves and waist. I really didn't feel like using any from the magazines. I think I have alreadt knitted all myt favourite ones so that meant only one thing: It was time to try to make my own pattern.

With the help of the book Íslensk sjónabók I have been trying to make the charts using paper and color.

Messy charts!

It is not as simple as I thought. It is kind of complicated to find the right spots to put the decreases but with some patience I guess I will work this out. I still haven't finished the yoke pattern... I guess i will decide how to finish on the go. I don't know. I will see.

I already chose the colors and decided to begin just to see how the waist pattern would look like. I think it doesn't look so bad at all!

What do you think? :)

Besides this I am knitting a shawl based on an Estonian pattern and recently me, Gummi and Kristín have started a new KAL. We are now knitting a Hyrna Herborgar (which will my my 3rd!). Which reminds me that I still have to post the pictures of our first KAL (the Aeolian!).

Next time I will be talking abut the new shawl, the new KAL and the old KAL pictures!

Now, I want to hand a few pictures from the southeast... pictures of Vatnajökull, the largest glaciar in Iceland as seen from the road : )

This is in Skaftafell, a national park.

More Northern Lights tonight!

2011-09-11T02:51:00.000Z

I am just coming back home after having been lying on the moss-covered-lava field that is just behind where I live watching the northern lights (second night in a row). It was a little bit cold but it didn't really matter.

Tonight there was a real symphony of color in the sky! The northern lights were dancing just above our heads. The spectacle was simply priceless.

I am so excited that couldn't wait until tomorrow to post this!

No more words... here come the pictures. Enjoy! :þ

Straumur

Can you see me? I am in the picture looking at the sky :)

When we were driving from Straumur to the road that goes to Krísuvík the lights were so intense that a lot of people was just stopping on the road to take a look at this magnificent spectacle.

The lights were moving so much! It is a pity I don't have a good video camera!

When the light are dancing and get really strong they eve turn pink!

The lights can adopt really cool shapes.

Everytime I see the aurora borealis I cannot stop thinking about how lucky I am to be able to see them. It is so overwhelming that is very easy to get emotional to the point that some (happiness) tears roll down...

Eva's lopapeysa: Details and pictures. Mini lopapeysa TUTORIAL CORRECTION. Northern lights!!

2011-09-10T14:57:00.001Z

Even though Eva's lopapeysa is already finished and with her in Berlin I have neither shown pictures of it since the steeking neither talked about the details!

So here it is:

Folded and ready to go!

Details:

* Yoke pattern: Taken from Héla, changing the colors and their distribution. (available for free at www.istex.is).

* Yarn: Plötulopi (double thread).

* Needles: 4.5 for ribbing and 5.5 for the rest. Crochet hook 4.5mm.

* Size: To fit Eva.

Notes:

* This lopapeysa was knitted just like any other from bottom up.

* I made a 2x2 ribbing.

* Knitted the body and the both sleeves and joined them to knit the yoke.

* Since this was going to be a cardigan I added two purl stitches in the middle to be able to sew and steek.

* This was the first time I was knitting a cardigan with a hood. The hood is knitted flat, shaping it with a few increases.

* The pattern on the hood was also knitted flat. This was the most challenging part of the hole lopapeysa. I had never knitted fair isle flat before.I must admit that I hated it (a little bit), especially the purled rows!

* To make the pattern on the hood is was also necessary to apply intarsia. Also my first time. It wasn't difficult at all! The important thing is to twist the yarns in order to avoid holes where the colors change.

* Finally, the hood was grafted using kitchener stitch.

* After steeking I made a crocheted border using black double folded lopi with a hook one size smaller that the needles I used to knit the cardigan. I made single crochet (sc) every other stitch along the edge.

Now, a couple of pictures of Eva wearing her new lopapeysa!! [Pictures taken by Kristina, you can check her gallery here]

Eva

The hood.

I made a new minilopapeysa keyring to check if the tutorial I made before was OK.

Trying new colors and checking the tutorial.

Well, I had to fix a couple of things, nothing terrible.

Two changes:

* The decreases of the yoke: The second row if decreases should be [k1, k2tog] instead of [k2, k2tog].

* And the 1x1 ribbing of the seck should be just 1 row and cast off tightly instead of 2 rows.

I already edited the tutorial so now it is alright :) Sorry about this silly mistake!!

And finally, last night I saw the northern lights for the first time this season! They were not as strong (and also the moon was WAY too bright!) and they were not dancing so much but they were easily spotted.

This is the first time I see them so early in September... now this is just the beginning of the northern lights season! There will be plenty of time to spot them again... at least until april!

Here are some of the pics I took last night:

Taken from Álftanes.

Aurora borealis over Reykjavík.

Over Reykjavík.

From Álftanes looking to the west.

From Álftanes. I really like it when it is possible to see the reflection of the light on the water.

Thank you Judi!!

2011-09-08T13:29:00.000Z

On monday I was at home having tea with my dear friend Svanhvít (who, by the way, today moved to Sweden for two years. I will really, really miss her a lot!) when the bell rang: It was from the post office!

Judi, dear Judi, sent me a message on Ravelry on day telling me that something had come to her possession that she thought I might enjoy so she wanted to send it to me along with other small things. No more information was given to me... besides a teaser while the mysterious things were flying to Iceland: "Lizbeth"that comes in very nice colors including variegated. Humm.

Well, as I said before monday was the BIG DAY! I received a box at the door of my place. My first impression was: Wow! This box is huge! Judi kept on asking me not to have too high expectations about what she was sending me... how could have I possibly done that! Impossible! I was sure that what ever was inside the box I was going to love it!

So, I don't let you wait more... These are the treasures I found inside this lovely box:

When I was opening the box Gummi and Svanhvít were there. It must have been so funny to take a picture of us then as the three of us were open-mouthed (¿boquiabiertos?) while I was taking all things out of the box. So many things!

Now, the details:

A wonderful book about lace. I didn't know this one. It is really cool because it gives an overview of different lace traditions around the world with examples. It also contains a lot of technical points. Love it!

This little box just killed me! It is so cute!! And the contents... Uuh La la!

Cotton threads! Different kinds, different colors, things that I would have never found here! Come on! Egyptian Cotton?! Highlighter take... brilliant! To follow the lace charts... simply wonderful!

Stitch markers. These are the cutest stitch markers I have ever had! Love the colors and the fact that they are monkey knots! And please notice the case to keep them!

The monkey knot stitch markers neatly kept in its beautiful case : )

Some more cotton and a beautiful ball of baby alpaca in different tones of green.

This is one of the things that make me (us really) drool. This is a pair circular needles with a 11" (28cm) cable (something I had NEVER seen) that belonged to Judi's grandmother! I love the package and the fact that it still even has the price on it: 23 cents!! This is a JEWEL. I think that I will most probably frame it and hand it in a nice corner of my place. This is very, very, very special.

A film camera! Yes! From the beginning of the 90s. It looks brand new and it even comes with the manual and warranty and the remote control! I have been using it this week... soon we will see how it works when I finish the roll! :)

Pecans! Amazing nuts! (They will probably not last too long, hehe)

A n article about bobbin lace and sweet winter card.

What can I say? I think that the images tell it all.

I think I just can say THANK YOU SO MUCH Judi for this beautiful surprise that you have given me! Thank you for being such a KIND and GENEROUS person! And thank you somuch for your wonderful comments on my posts here... I always enjoy them a lot and it is always a pleasure to reply them to you!

Oh, oh, oh! And All my best wishes for you in this very special day...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

For now, I can to share these pictures of a very special little corner of Iceland (one of my favourite spots for sure!) with you to celebrate your birthday.:

Jökulsárlón. A glacier lagoon that is next to the biggest glacier in Iceland (Vatnajökull) from where all the icebergs come from.

Breiðamerkursandur. The lagoon runs to the sea and big pieces of ice end up stranded in a black sand beach.

It is amazing to see the waves break on these ice pieces.

Millenary ice.

Making a matching greeting card and the next shawl

2011-09-04T21:00:00.000Z

I was thinking about how to make a nice greeting card that would go together with the Harebell Fichu.

The first thing I knew was that the card HAD to have some knitting. Until now I had made cards using cross stitch and bobbin lace but never with a knitted piece.

I made the cross stitch motif based on a traditional Mapuche (native culture from the south of Chile) pattern called Pichikemenküe and külpe ñimin.

I have talked about this one before but I never mentioned it was meat to be a wedding greeting card :)

The color choice was really easy, I used the leftovers of the einband I had from the Fichu. So, the only thing left to think about was the pattern.

I went for a very simple Lilly of the Valley pattern. I really like the simplicity and beauty of the Lilly of the Valley. The amount of yarn and time I used to make this was minimum. In a blink of an eye I had a cute greeting card that matched perfectly the Fichu.

So, first is first: knit the piece. Then cut the paper and use some glue.

The card is very simple.

The final result is far from being perfect but I guess that is part of the charm of handmade things.

Now that the Aeolian is done it is time make a new shawl. I must admit that after knitting the Aeolian (which turned out to be much more beautiful than what I was expecting) and making Eva's lopapeysa I was a little bit uninspired... It took me a while to find what to do next. I started to look at my books and Ravelry and nothing seemed to catch my attention!

Until I found the problem. I needed to have someone to knit for! Things are so much easy when you have someone to knit for... then it is possible to think about patterns and colors that the person you're knitting for might like.

So, I began thinking about what could be the best for her.

First I thought that blue would have been a good color option for her so I got some Einband in a very nice light blue. The color looked great on the ball but once I knitted a swatch my opinion changed completely!! I really didn't like it for a shawl. I thought it would look great for ababy blanket or so.

The pattern didn't convinced me either. I even made some mistakes on the swatch... shame on me!

I needed to find a better color. I went to the wool store again and this time I found the perfect color! It is a very, very nice light green. It looks very organic and natural.

The pattern I am making is taken from The Haapsalu Shawl book. It is leaves and nupps. What I like abput this pattern is the asymmetric position of the leaves and the movement it has bewteen each pattern repeat. I also think that the color looks great in this pattern.

Leaves and nupps

I am planning to make an edge at the end that will be sewn to the body.

Now I am also starting to think about the next lopapeysa. On Ravelry there is a group called the Spanish Swap and we've been talking about making a Lopi KAL in September. I have already chosen the colors and today I was working on designing a pattern for the yoke using some ideas from the book Íslensk sjónabók.

More details about the lopapeysa soon!

I already have developed the films from my trip to the east. I will be sharing with you some of my favorite shots :)

This was one of my favourite spot. This is Mjóifjörður (The narrow fjord). The road was terrible but the place is a paradise.

One of MANY waterfalls everywhere.

In Mjóifjörður there used to be a whale station. At the beginning of the 20th century there were up to 200 people living there. Today there is not whale station and only 30 people live there.

Mjóifjörður. It was so quite. No wind and fog.

A very decorated front yard in a cute little house in Eskifjörður.

On the way to Vopnafjörður there is a gravel road that is the highest road in Iceland. This is the view from that road of Héraðssandur.

The cutest house in Borgarfjörður eystri.

Well, that is all for now!

Steeking and pictures from the trip!!

2011-08-26T14:37:00.000Z

Well, well. This week was devoted to steeking. This was the first time a did it myself (with lots of help from Gummi, whose first time was also this!).

Before steeking the lopapeysa, I made a little exercise.

Harebell Fichu

Remember the Harebell fichu that I knitted a few weeks ago? As soon as I finished it and bloked it I had the impression that it had turned put to be TOO big to be held around any woman's shoulders. I actually tried it on several friends and yes... it is too big to tie it in front. So, I decided to cut the bands so it can be used wrapped around the neck and shoulders and maybe held with a brooch if desired.

This was the perfect moment to try to cut a knitted piece as a practice before cutting the big project: Eva's hoodie lopapeysa.

The first step: Using a sewing machine back and forth:

After that the place to cut is secured and ready for the action:

Now... scissors:

And voilà, the band is gone!:

After cutting I made a single crochet edge to make it look better:

And now it is REALLY ready to be used!!

So, after the little training we were ready to take the big task: Cutting the lopapeysa.

The steps are the same:

Sewing to secure the edges.

Back and forth on each purling.

Let the action begin!

Be careful with the blade of the scissor that you don't see... I almost cut the back of the cardigan!

Getting to the yoke.

Almost there!

And done!

Then the crochet edge:

Now it is ready to get the zipper!

I must admit that the idea of cutting the knitting sounds TERRIBLE and SCARY but it is not! The important thing, in the case of a cardigan, is to make the "path" where the sewing will go. In this case I made a colums made up of two purled stitches. Then the sewing machine dies it all! In this case I also made a double sewing on both edges so I could cut between them.

So, don't be scared of doing this! I think it is very difficult to mess it all.

Today I am going to visit my friend (who is a seamstress) to put the zipper... I think that dointg that goes a lot over my sewing skills... that are very little in fact :)

Finally, as I promised here are some pictures of my last trip to the East Fjords!

Alex gave the idea of making a clip... which was brilliant! Other wise I would have had to upload TONS of pictures! The only problem with the clip is that the resolution of pictures is lost a little bit... but I guess it looks alright :)

I hope you enjoy it!

Back from the East with a new lopapeysa in my bag.

2011-08-22T23:34:00.001Z

I am back home after nine amazing days lost in the island. Why time goes so fast when having fun?!

We started our trip heading north making a few of stops (Blönduós, Akureyri, Húsavík. Mývatn) til our final destination in the east fjords: Eiðar, where we arrived after eleven hours on the road.

We started at A. Drove north all the way to B then around the East Fjords and went back home through the beautiful south coast. Total: 2.200 Km.

Eiðar is a small community with about 40 inhabitants. It is located 10km north of Egilstaðir (which is the biggest town of the east of Iceland with 2.200 inhabitants) next to Eiðarvatn lake.

Aerial veiw of Eiðar (taken from http://www.ismennt.is/not/jonasg/eidar/). It is possible to see Eiðarvatn lake (blue) and Lagarfljót river (gray-greenish).

We stayed in a very, very cozy house next to the lake.

Cozy, cute little house.

With a nice view.

I have been taking a look at all the pictures that I took (and I still have to develop six rolls of film!) trying to organize them and choosing the better one to share here. It is going to be a hard task! We visited so many wonderful places!!

This map shows in more detail the East Fjords. We managed to see most of the fjords... all of them WONDERFUL! You will see soon :)

We saw almost every fjord from Vopnafjörður to Berufjörður (where Djúpivogur is).

I promise to share lots of pictures of this trip as soon as I get the films developed so I can get to choose the best shots from both the digital and analog pictures :þ

During the time we spent in the summerhouse I managed to finish a lopapeysa that will be a gift for my friend Eva. This is actually some kind of debt that I had with her since last year when I wanted to make a lopapeysa for her as a birthday present but for some strange reason I never got to make it. Now, she is visiting Iceland after having left a little over a year ago to go back home in Austria. So this was the perfect chance to finish this unfinished business. So:

- I took her measurements.

- We went together to the wool store to choose the colors: main color is light gray and the pattern colors are two different kinds of green (a light green and a kind of blueish green) and black.

- Asked a little bit about what she wanted and we came put with:

   * Big lopapeysa that could be worn over a regular sweater.
   * Open with a zipper.
   * With a hood.

- She gave me the freedom to choose the yoke pattern myself.

Having gotten all the information and materials required I was ready to go on vacation with a new project to work on!

Ready to be sewn and cut (steek).

Seen from the back.

I tend to forget how quickly a lopapeysa can be knitted! After having been knitting lace and lace and more lace a good lopapeysa comes perfectly as a holiday project: easy, quick and pretty.

I really like the way the colors blend together. It is a very unusual combination of colors. While I was knitting the yoke I was a little bit worried about the colors because I thought it was turning to be TOO dark. The solution was simple: add some light gray to the pattern. It is amazing what a huge difference a few rows of a light color can make in the whole pattern.

Pattern detail.

I still need to cut it where the purled column is. Then I am planning to crochet the border and put the zipper (that I haven't even bought yet!).

Next time I will post about the steeking process and hopefully pictures of the final, final, final lopapeysa along with all the details about it : )

Driving in Iceland and new keyring

2011-08-10T14:37:00.003Z

This week I have finally changed my car! I had a little car before, a Citroën C3 which is a really nice car especially because it doesn't spend too much gas but the biggest problem was that it is good only to be used in the city where the roads are paved... and that limited a lot where I could go because here in Iceland there are still A LOT of gravel (or simply stone) roads. The is even a section of the main highway (the one that goes all around the island) that is still unfinished!

This is an example of a gravel road... this one is pretty good though :p

I remember that two summers ago we went to travel to the West Fjords and most of the roads were just TERRIBLE and we were driving a Ford Fiesta... the result was that we managed to break a wheel! Not fun!

The access to many beautiful spots is usually horrible. Like for example:

Látrabjarg

Svörtuloftaviti.

Háifoss.

Öndverðarnes.

Dettifoss (Let's see if you find me in the picture!)

This is one of my favourite waterfalls in Iceland. I guess that the video says it all.

Somewhere in the West Fjords.

... so after thinking about it for a while... the decision was made and we got a 4x4 jeep! Now it will be so much easier to travel without the fear of breaking the car!

Ok... now all this blah blah is just to show you my new keyring!

I needed a new keyring for the new key of the car. I didn't feel like buying one so I remembered that about two years ago I made on to give as a present to a friend of mine. The result was extremely cute!

2009

So now I made another one but this time for myself:

2011

Aeolian: Pictures and details.

2011-08-07T18:43:00.000Z

This weekend I have finished the Aeolian shawl!!

It was a really fun knitting, especially because it was a KAL between Kristín Hrund, Gummi and me. I don't know how far Kristín has gone already, the last time we met (three days ago she was already knitting the chart edge set up and Gummi is now began the same chart last night.

So, now some pics and details:

Just coming out of the needles... not so cute

Details:

* Pattern: Aeolian shoulderette size.

* Yarn: Evilla Artyarn 8/2. In the same color I used to knit this shawl.

* Weight: 140g

* Needles: 4.5mm (5.5 for casting off).

* 6 repeats of the Yucca chart (leaves pattern of the body). I made it a little bigger than what the pattern calls for a shoulderette by adding 2 more reapeats to this section (knitting 6 instead of 4)

* 1 final Agave chart.

* Wide edge.

Blocking on the bed. You can have an idea of how big it is.

Pretty, pretty.

Notes:

* Began knitting with a three stitches garter stitch tab on a provisional crochet cast on.

* Seven loops nupps (Yes, I like nupps to be big and noticeable).

* K2tog through the back loop cast off (with needles one size bigger).

* Bocking: CHALLENGING. This shawl is not a triangle. It has actually an almost rounded base that allows the edge to blossom. For blocking I used two wires that I put on the base of the shawl drawing almost a circle and fixed them with pins. Then I pinned the edge shaping the scallops.

* The shawl has a pretty strange shape (at least that is what I think...). It is very long and rather narrow. I still have to find a girl to try it on and see how it looks like.

* Even though I made the shoulderette the resulting shawl was HUGE. I am just wondering how big Gummi's and Kristín's shawls will be! The decided to go for the shawl size which calls for:

- 12 repeats of the Yucca chart (I made 6).
- 2 repeats of the Agave chart (I made none).
- 1 repeat of the final Agave chart (I made 1).
- 1 repeat of the edge chart (I made 1).

* The pattern is very well written. The only section I would "rewrite" is the description given to begin working the all the edge charts. I wrote a little explanation of it in a previous post.

Against the light.

Agave chart.

Edge: Leaves, nupps and scallops.

Transitions.

Folded.

Over all:

This is a beautiful shawl. The transitions between section look amazingly pretty and in harmony and the edge is breathtaking!!

Now, I can't wait to see the shawls of Gummi and Kristín to put them all together and check how different they all look! Pics of the three shawls together will come hopefully soon!

I also wanted to thank Kristín Hrund for a wonderful gift that she gave me on our last knitting meeting. When we met in my place we prepared some cakes and scones and I let them try one of my favourite things in the world: Manjar (o dulce de leche) which is very, very popular in Chile but impossible to find here in Iceland. I still had some that my sister brought me when she came to visit me last winter.

So, going back to our last meeting... Kristín came with a jar of HOMEMADE manjar made by her!!! How wonderful is that!! Especially because it takes a lot of time to make it! Thank you so much Kristín!!

Homemade manjar.

Scones me manjar. The testure and flavor are perfect!

The other present that I want to show is what Ana (Hiro) gave me when I visited Asturias in May. I already showed the beautiful presents she gave me but until last week I hadn't put in use the needle cases. They are just AMAZING!! It is so easy now to find anything!! She makes them herself and it is possible to find them in her online shop! : )

The case holds everything: double pointed needles, the tips, cables, stitch holders.

Gleðigangan í Reykjavík 2011

2011-08-07T01:14:00.002Z

Gleðigangan that means literally The Parade of Happiness is the way the Gay Pride Parade is called in Iceland. This parade is held every year the second saturday of August. It is one of the biggest celebrations in Iceland (along with the 17th of June, which is the Independance Day, and Menningarnótt (A night of culture) that is held the 4th saturday of August) gathering a huge amount of people downtown in Reykjavík. This year it was estimated that 100,000 people took part of this party (imagine that!! Considering that the total population of Iceland is just a little bit over 300,000!!).

The weather was just PERFECT: blue sky, no wind (and I mean NO WIND AT ALL) and warm (YES! warm!).

The spirit was really amazing: families everywhere, lots of kids, lots of color and music. It is really a celebration of happiness and tolerance.

These are a few of pictures so you can see what I am talking about :þ

It all begins with policemen on motorcycles.

Then proud lesbians -on motorcycles.

The flags.

The Major of Reykjavík dressed as a drag and throwing roses to the crowd.

Stolt fjölskylda: Proud family.

Balloons.

Pole dancing on wheels.

One big drag queen :)

More balloons and happy people.

Straight from Egypt :p

Everybody taking part of the celebration.

One cool gal.

Páll Óskar of course. He is a super popular singer in Iceland. Everybody looooves him! (This is my favourite song... if you want to know how he sounds :)

At the end all following the parade!

Here there are some pics last year's parade also : )

Til hamingju með daginn fyrir alla!

New book, Aolian progress and my lace super-pupil!

2011-07-30T21:57:00.001Z

Tomorrow is Gummi's birthday and I was thiking about giving him an amazing icelandic book called Íslensk sjónabók (Ornaments and Patterns found in Iceland). I actually already bought it and gave it to him... I know! I couldn't wait until the actual birthday day! I am terrible!

Even the hard cover of the book is BEAUTIFUL!

This book is a compilation of patterns found in 17th to 19th century icelandic manuscripts. There are actually ten sjónabók manuscripts that have been preserved. The book contains all the patterns found in those manuscripts which have been redrawn digitally. It is a source of ideas with strong ties to Icelandic national heritage.

The book has 783 pages FULL of wonderful patterns that can be used for knitting, embroidery, cross stitch or whatever comes to your mind : ) It also comes with a CD!

The book is a little bit pricey but it is worth every crown (króna). It is just WONDERFUL and the best of all... Gummi LOVED it!!

These are a few pages so you can see what I am talking about:

All the pages are arranged like this: to the left there are diagrams and to the right the drawings with color of the diagrams.

Some patterns could make beautiful wallpapers!

The Aeolian shawl is growing and growing. I have already started with the edge which is the main part of the whole shawl. At first I had decided to make the narrow edge version but finally I changed my mind and I am going for the full size version. I think it is going to look very, very good. I am very curious to see how it turns out!

This colors look so nice together! Don't you think?

The whole process of knitting this shawl has been pretty smooth. Except for a couple of SILLY mistakes I have made that have made me frog a couple of long eternal rows. The instructions are quite clear except for the set-up edge section which is made out of four charts:

- Right edge chart.
- Edge set-up chart.
- Center edge chart.
-Left edge chart.

The construction is as simple as:

* Knit the 2 or 3 stitched of the garter stitch tab.
* Begin with the right edge chart.
* Continue with the edge set-up chart repeating it as many times as necessary to get to the center stitch.
* Make the center edge chart once (between the stitch markers that are before and after the central stitch).
* Knit the edge set-up chart again as many times as necessary to get to the end of the row.
* Knit the right edge chart.
* Knit the 2 or 3 stitched of the garter stitch tab.

There IS something strange in the way this section is written in the pattern (at least I found it weird)... so I had to make up my own little instruction to get it right.

Today we were just at home, chilling out and Jóhann Birnir asked me, out of the blue, to teach him how to make bobbin lace. He is twelve years old and loves, loves, loooves handcrafts (and sports!). He is a great knitter himself! Now, how could I possibly say no?! IMPOSSIBLE!

Very concentrated.

Looking so PRO!

So, we started by loading the bobbins with some yellow, rather thick thread of linen. The first lesson: how to make a half stitch torchon ground. It was amazing how quicky he picked it up!! And how even the ground ended up! He made just a little piece because even though the thread looks really good it was kind of difficult to keep in the bobbins... somehow the knot that keeps the thread from running off the bobbins kept on running making it a little difficult to keep the bobbins in order. Anyways... Jóhann made a beautiful little first work!

Even and perfectly done!

I am so proud!!

Aeolian: A shawl that made me think about my first steps in knitting lace.

2011-07-24T21:53:00.001Z

My journey on knitting lace began in June 2009, six months after I began to learn how to knit. Lace had alway cought my eye because of how complicated it looked and it was definitely a challenge!

Noro Kureyon

I started to look for patterns on Ravelry until the Springtime Bandit came my way. It looked nice and not so complicated. By then I really wanted to try something that wans't lopi. Since I had started to knit back in December 2008 I had only used lopi, mainly because of its price and how easy it is to knit with it. Among the yarns that I wanted to try it was Noro in its wonderful colors! I began to look for Noro in Reykjavík until I found it in a shop called Storkurinn. Even though it was HUGELY expensive I bought 5 skeins to give a try.

The result was ok. I made a Springbandit that looked fairly well:

Springtime Bandit

In Skógafoss

By knitting this I learned a couple of things:

* Crochet provisional cast on.

* Read charts.

* That decreases slant! Yes... that was a huge discovery! And that slanting thing meant that I had to switch all the decreases of the pattern in order to get the lace well made because I am left handed!

* Blocking. This was the first project that I had to block and stretch for real. I remember that I had to block it twice because the first time I was so afraid of breaking the shawl that I didn't get it to blossom and show the pattern nicely!

About Noro... I think that it is totally over rated and over priced. It was really nothing special about it. It even had lots of knots! (I gave Noro a second chance but this time with Silk garden... it was much nicer and softer (and more expensive as well) I made a baby surprise jacket).

The shawl ended up frogged and later on became a cowl that my sister owns now.

Cabled cowl.

After I finished my first shawl I saw the Aeolian for the first time on Ravelry and I fell in love with it. I liked it so much that I decided to try to knit it. The furthest I got with it was the swatch which was a loooong and painful process. I think that I was definitely aiming to high with the little experience that I had by then in terms of knitting. I found it hard to handle the thread (einband, the thinest band I had tried that far) and the beads were a headache.

Aeolian: Swatch July 2009

I put the Aeolian to sleep but a few weeks ago Kristín Hrund, Gummi and me were talking about how much we wanted to try to knit the Aeolian so we decided to make our own knit along (KAL). It will be really fun to see how similar or different out shawls turn out!

Now, I guess that after having knitted a few shawls the Aeolian will be much more simple than it did back in 2009!!

I am using on skein of Evilla 8/2 that I had left from knitting last Hyrna Herborgar that I made. The colors are so nice and go so strangely well together. For now I am done with the set up chart and 6 repeats of the Yucca chart. The pattern calls for 4 repeats of the Yucca chart for a shoulderette and 12 for a shawl. So I am making something in between.

Aeolian: July 2011.

I decided not to use beads this time. I think that it would be too much added to the color changes. But it will definetely have the nupps in the edge (I love nupps! Both to make them and the way they look!).

I have also finished the little bobbin lace sample that I was making with the new cotton thread that I found in Reykjavík. I am very, very happy with it! This is the first somehow more complicated pattern that I make using the bobbins. It is a combination of the exercises I made at the beginning.

I am very pleased with this little piece!!

In this little sample it is possible to see:

* A foot (which is the base of the piece).
* A torchon ground (made using half stitch).
* Spiders.
* A fan (the orange section).

It is so nice and relaxing to work on bobbin lace! And it is above all very rewarding to see the results even though it is a small piece.

Now I am thinking about the next piece to try!

Harebell Fichu: Finished!!

2011-07-20T19:24:00.001Z

The Fichu is finally finished and blocked!!

After blocking laying flat.

Against the light.

When I started it I thought it was going to be an easy project. Well, I was wrong. It took me a while to get it but once I did... everything went just smooth and fine.

Details:

* Pattern: Harebell Fichu.

* Book: Victorian Lace Today.

* Yarn: Einband (Icelandic lace).

* Weight: 62g (So it was one ball and a little more)

* Needles: 3.5mm

Pattern detail: I would say that these are flowers, aren't they?

Things I learned:

* How to make a picot edge.

Picot edge.

Picot edge detail against the light.

* Attatching the lace section to the band making joins along live stitches that lay perpendicularly to the direction of knitting (wow this sounds weird!). Look at this diagram I draw to (maybe) understand the idea a little bit better. The joins look actually really good. They are very even and somehow invisible.

Section. It is possible to see the joins that are right below the band (where the inverted V is)

Difficulties:

* First of all, to understand the pattern and the construction of the Fichu (Diagram).

* In terms of knitting I HATED making the S1K4togPSSO (Slip one stitch was ok. Knit 4 stitches together was TERRIBLE! And passing the slipped stitched over was a piece of cake :p)

* Blocking: This is the first rounded lace project that I knit and blocking it was a real challenge. The challenge was to have it even and nicely rounded and well proportioned. It took me over an hour to get it done (and a lot of sweating and pain in the knees and back!). I started by pinning the inner circle trying to have as rounded as possible.Then I put one pin in each picot trying to stretch it evenly. After having the outer circumference all pinned I just removed the inner pins... they were no longer necessary.

I think that the time, sweat and pain definetely paid off!

Blocking

Against the light.

Final thoughts: It was really nice to knit this piece even though all the difficulties (from which I learned a few new things :) The Fichu is very light and airy and the lace pattern is just beautiful. If you have the book... definetely give it a try!

Odyssey

2011-07-18T21:58:00.002Z

I love living in Iceland and everything that comes with that but I am not sure if I have said before that sometimes it can be pretty difficult to find some things here in here... so everytime that I am thinking about making something I have to cross my fingers and hope for the best to find all the materials I might eventually need.

Taken from Wikipedia

Sometimes (or most of the times) it is an odyssey that requires going to many stores spread all over the city with the hope of finding at least something similar to what is needed. Well, actually, most of the times I end up getting something that is not exactly what I wanted and somehow I have to manage to make it work as I want.

I can get very disappointed and grumpy sometimes because of this. I REALLY need to learn to control that... but it is so hard! I think that living in Iceland has made me become a more patient person... even though in the eyes of other (and especially Gummi) I am still very impatient!

Let's see. The last odyssey was finding thread for bobbin lace. I already mentioned little bit about this last time. When I was visiting Asturiasm where I bought my set of bobbins, I bought just one 500m skein of cotton n°20: big mistake... I should have bought A LOT more. I didn't think it would be so difficult and expensive to get some good thread here.

I began searching for threads and managed to go to four shops with very little success. In most of them they had only polyester thread or very, very fine cotton thread. Most of the people I talked with looked at me as I was speaking chinese when I was telling them that I wanted some cotton thread, something from n°20 to 70 to make lace.

Taken from the website of Heimilisiðnaðarfélag Íslands.

I checked the website of Heimilisiðnaðarfélag Ísland (The Society of hand and homecrafts of Iceland) and according to it they had all the materials for making bobbin lace, as I mentioned in the previous post, I went there and they actually had linen thread but the woman working there didn't know much about what I was talking about... strange because I thought they were supposed to know what they have to offer. They really don't have a big variety of materials so I ended up buying just one skein of linen (with no number... ) and some more "un-numbered" thread for a terribly huge price.

Linen.

More Linen

Last week I went to take a look at Storkurinn, a shop downtown in Reykjavík that sells mainly wool and also has a section with quilting materials. For my surprise they also had a lot of cotton thread in wonderful colors! But only n°30! Anyways... I bought a couple (and for a very nice price: only 560 ISK or 3.5 € each). As soon as I came home I tried them!

Cotton 30.

This is what it is looking like so far:

The beginning.

Slowly growing :)

I really like how the half stitch torchon looks like with the spiders in it. The first time I made cloth stitch I didn't like it at all but now I think it looks pretty cool (it is also maybe because I know how to make it better now :)

Have I ever said how much I love lopi? One of the many reasons why I love it so much is exactly what I have been writing about now: It is possible to find it EVERYWHERE. And I mean EVERYWHERE and at an amazing price!

And talking about lopi... I finished the Harebell Fichu! Well, it is almost, almost done! It is now blocking and I still have to seam the ends. It looks like this now:

Harebell Fichu: Blocking.

More pictures soon!

Now I need to think about what to knit now! I am little clueless... I will have to dive into the books and Ravelry to find some inspiration!

Fichu: A learning experience.

2011-07-12T00:11:00.001Z

After finishing the wedding shawl I felt that I needed to knit something small, not so complicated and especially quick to get some instant satisfaction. A few months ago i bought the book Victorian Lace Today and I still hadn't try to knit anything from it. So this was the perfect opportunity to do so!

After checking the book several times I decided to go for the Harebell Fichu.

Taken from Victorian Lace Today

It seemed to be the perfect project for the pink einband that I had in the stash. So, I read the pattern, the beginning seemed ok even though I had no idea how to make the picot border that the pattern calls for. In the end it wasn't anything so terrible, at least nothing that reading some forums in Ravelry and a good video in Youtube could't solve.

So, for those who don't know how to make a picot the things is a simple as casting on two stitches (at the beginning of the wrong side) using the knitted on cast on method and then casting those two stitches off using the basic knit bind off. This video is very clear.

The real problem began after completing the garter stitch band. Now I had to knit the lace section and attach it to the band on the go following a set of instructions that tell what kind of join has to be made. This was a bit challenging. The way the edges are made in the patterns of this book are totally different from everything I had made before: picking up stitches and knitting or knitting separetely and sewing or grafting to the body.

Before starting it was even hard to see or imagine the structure of the Fichu. I made this simple drawing to show how it is worked:

Fichu schematics

In this technique the edge is knitted perpendicular to the border where it will be attached instead of parallel as I had always made it. So, in this case I am knitting the lace section which is only ca.30 stitches wide and every 2 or 4 pattern rows I am joining the lace to the garter stitch band following the pattern which tells what kind of join to make in order to avoid holes.

This is the way the joins look like. Pretty neat, isn't it?

At first I wasn't very sure about how this would work but now that I have already made almost half of it I must say that this works perfectly well and the joins look great! I am really enjoying the process of making this fichu. And one funny thing: I wanted to make a simple and quick project, ha! I was reading about this Fichu and it is apparently one of the most complicated patterns in the hole book, hehe.

This is what it looks like while knitting it.

A couple of weeks ago I received a message/surprise on Ravelry from Asun. She wanted to give me a couple of skeins of silk that she had left after finishing a project! How generous is that?! I felt really flattered about becoming the owner of those two skeins especially because I have never knitted anything with silk!

Well, the envelope arrived at the end of last week. I got this cute blue box with a little card, two skeins of black silk and two pens! I still don't have enough words to thank Asunción for this!

Now I already know that my next project will be made with silk... the question now is what. I still have some time to think about it since I am quite busy with the Fichu :)

About bobbin lace. I am almost done with all the excercises. So I decided to begin with the patterns section. I started with pattern number 1. I didn't do much of it because I thought I was doing something wrong and also because I think that the thread I am using was too thick for it. Anyways, I want to show you what it looks like:

Then I made the pattern number 2. For the color section I used embroidery thread. It was the only color thread that I had at home. I think it looks really cute:

Details: Cotton thread n°20, blue embroidery thread, 16 bobbins

And I also made number 3. But I think that this one was a total DISASTER. The thread is definitely too thick. It is cotton n°20. I think I should have used n°30 or 40 for this. Too bad I realized so late that tt was getting to chunky. For this pattern I got some help from Eva (thank you so much again!) because I was clueless about how to hand the bobbins to begin. Well, this is the chunky result:

Details: Cotton n°20, 30 bobbins.

I also got a new toy! Yes, another camera. This time a Zenit E which is very special because this is a version that celebrates the Olympic Games in Moscow 1980. The camera is beautiful: leather body and perfectly working, even the selenium cells for the lightmeter work like new!

These are some pics of the first roll I used with it:

Grótta

Hveragerði

And one last thing: Yesterday I went to Heimilisiðnaðarfélagið Íslands (Society of handcrafts of Iceland) to check some threads for bobbin lace because according to their website they had materials to make lace there. Well, they had some threads but only linen and just one number (and the price was not very nice: 17€ (2.800 ISK) for 500mt). They were also selling a pack of 50 bobbins and a bobbin lace pillow for 485€ (80.000 ISK). TOTALLY out of reality! I got my 50 bobbins for 25€ (4.000 ISK) in Spain and I made my own pillow with an Ikea table for only 30€ (5.000 ISK). So I saved 430 € (71.000 ISK)!! Unbelievable! I will DEFINETELY have to buy threads online!! What is it with prices here! That is something I really cannot get used to!

Good news in my e-mail.

2011-07-05T18:58:00.000Z

Yesterday when I came back home from work I checked my e-mail and I found a message with this picture:

JC, the happy owner of a lopapeysa that has travelled from one pole to the other.

Yea! JC, my friend in Buenos Aires, Argentina, already got his lopapeysa!!! It arrived much sooner than I expected!!

It is amazing to see him wearing it and think that this pullover has travelled more that 11,000km! And it is even more amazing to see how good he looks! It fits him so well! (well, except for the arms that are little bit too long). He said that it came just in the perfect moment. It has been pretty cold in Buenos Aires lately so, according to him, we will wear it ALL winter!

I was a little worried about the size... I have this problem with sizes that I have mentioned before but it seems that I am finally starting to get it right... well... after having made already 16 lopapeysur I guess that I have gotten enough practice to get things right : )

I am very, very, very happy and not only because the pullover is ok but also, and especially, because my friend is happy.

Lupines: During summer they are EVERYWHERE (This is just on my way home). They make even the most cloudy summer days (which are very often here) feel good!

The Liliac Leaf Shawl: Finally finished!!!

2011-06-30T19:46:00.000Z

The Liliac Leaf Shawl is FINALLY finished!!

I love to see the pattern blossom after blocking. It looks so pretty!!

To had to put a little bit of thinking on how to block the stole. I usually use the bed which is normally big enough to hold shawls but this time this stole was way to long. I had to add a little piece to the bed. To do so I used a foam matress and my new Ikea bobbin lace pillow. It worked pretty well.

Blocking: wires and pins make miracles!

Grafting is like magic. It is barely possible to say where the grafting is. Isn't it?

The liliac leaf pattern. The pattern has so much movement and that is thanks to the garter stitch frame around each leave.

Blocking has become so much easier since I got the blocking wires. Holy blocking wires. They don't only make the hole process easier but also the result is a lot better. The straight borders become really straight and the scallops look a lot more beautiful!

Notes about the shawl:

* Body pattern: Liliac Leaf Pattern 1 from the book The Haapsalu Shawl.

* Edge pattern: Taken from Madli Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia.

* 3 1/2 balls of Loðband (icelandic lace yarn) Each ball is 50g.

* Needles: 5.0 for casting on and off and 4.0 for knitting.

* Casted on 100 stitches using the knitted on cast on technique (my favourite for shawls).

* Made 34 repeats of the 16 rows leaf pattern slipping the first stitch with the yarn in front of every row.

* Made two edges that I grafted to the each end of the body. When grafting watch the tension, it is ver easy to have an extremely tense graft with will be a problem when it comes to blocking.

*Final measurements: 62 x 230cm

The hole thing :)

It is too bright outside but I guess that it is still possible to see the pattern.

Folded, ready to be packed and given :)

I am very, very, very, very happy with the result. It exceeded all my expectations :)

Almost finished shawl! New bobbin lace pillow! and new camera!

2011-06-28T20:21:00.003Z

Since the last time I posted nothing much has really happened. I am still knitting the Liliac Shawl. It has been a long long process, especially because I haven't been 100% focused in it. While I was knitting it I finished a lopapeysa and also started to play with bobbin lace... so my time was divided between these three and some other things.

Edge: Soon to be finished and ready to be grafted.

The shawl is ALMOST done. I ended up knitting 34 repeats of the pattern instead of the 30 that I had in mind at first. I don't know what I was thinking when I thought that 30 would be enough! Anyways, I stopped at 34 because I changed my mind about the lace edge. My original idea was to make the lace edge in two long pieces and then sew it all around the body of the shawl. The edge was going to be really simple, with some nupps and no more than 4-5 cm wide. On the way I realized that it would be so much better to make two lace edges for each end of the shawl only and keep the long sides of the body straight with no edge and no scallops.

34 leaf repeats. 1 edge already grafted.

Since I decided to change the edges in the very last moment that meant a little bit of an extra work for me. Normally, when a shawl has a lace edge at each end, one must start knitting one edge, then continue with the body and leave live stitched on the other side. Then, the second edge is knitted on a new pair of needles and finally grafted to the body of the shawl.

Grafting is always a challenge, especially when there are 100 stitches to graft. I remember the first time I used Kitchener stitch and I had to turn everything off: no TV, no music, nothing that could distract me and all that for grafting 8 stitches! Now I am much more relaxed about it but I always have to be checking the tension. It is really easy to get the grafted stitches TOO tense and then when it comes to blocking it is possible to break the thread and end up with a TERRIBLE disaster!

Grafted edge. (Kitchener stitch)

The thing is that I casted on, knitted the body of the shawl and casted off, thinking that I was going to sew the edge all around. I knitted one lace edge and had to undo the cast off border in order to graft. It wasn't so difficult. The difficult part was to undo the cast on border to get the live stitches there. Uff. Everytime I knit stoles I use the knitted cast on technique (I think it is the best cast on for this kind of projects... it VERY elastic). Undoing it was a long process. It must have taken me about an hour to undo 100 stitches.

Live stitches waiting to be grafted.

Now, I have the live stitches and I have already began the secong lace edge. I am very excited about blocking this!! Can hardly wait to see it finished! And begin a new, fresh project!

About bobbin lace, I am still making exercises. I am done with seven so far (out of 10).

These are the last exercises:

This one was especially tricky because there is a huge mistake in the book! And I mean HUGE. It is amazing how a mistake in a book can make your life miserable for a couple of hours because the first automatic thought is always "I am not getting it, the book must be right, not me". Well, the book was wrong... it actually made NO SENSE at all. If any of you has a book by Bridget M. Cook called "Encaje de bolillos. Curso completo de encaje de bolillos: Explicación de las técnicas básicas, con picados y diagramas de 28 motivos" in spanish (I don't know if it is also wrong in the original english version)and is going to make this exercise do not read the instructions, instead, look at the diagram (or ask me how to do it :)

The Virgin ground (I guess it is called like that because of the cross)

Filigree stitch (punto de filigrana). This one is pretty simple and fun to make. It is a combination of half stitch and cloth stitch torchon.

Punto de filigrana

This is the Spirit stitch (punto de espíritu). It is very tricky to make the spirits (the squares suspended in the net are called spirits). It is a bit difficult to have perfectly square. To get the right shape it is necessary to keep the bobbins of the sides very tense all the time, if not the result is an inverted triangle. In the book there is a funny line at the end of the exercise that says that getting a perfectly square spirit is a reason to feel proud for a FEMALE bobbin lace maker (encajera in spanish). The book is clearly written for women :p I guess I should be proud... my spirits are not so bad to be the first time, aren't they?

I also made a new pillow. I was looking around in the internet searching for bobbin lace blogs and an amazing blog from Asturias came my way! There I found a great idea: An Ikea table converted in a bobbin lace pillow. Brilliant!

So, I made one for myself. I used:

* Dave (Ikea cheap laptop table)
* Polyetilene
* Foam
* Old lopapeysa (well, actually brand new, never finished because I didn't like it) that I felted in the washing machine (40°C). The result is an incredibly thick and dense fabric.
* Fabric
* Glue
* Stapler

Several layers of foam and polyetilene

Cut the sleeves of the felted lopapysa, ready to sew the holes.

Holes are sewed and fabric is stretched.

Cotton fabric on top: Ready to be used!

With the leftovers I made a pin cushion.

It works really well but I am thinking about shaping the foam a little more to make the border more rounded, I think that it is too flat and square as it is. I still have to try it some more and see.

A few weeks ago I got a new toy. I bought an old half frame camera (that means that it is possible to take two pictures per frame of film, so it is possible to make 72 pictures out of a 36 pictures film, neat!).

The camera is a Canon Demi S. It was made in 1964 and it is working amazingly well! The selenium photosensor still works well so the lightmeter is pretty reliable. Beautiful piece!

These are some pics I took with it:

I was walking and I saw a little piece of fur next to the road. At first I thought it was a pouch or something like that until this little thing decided to show the face. It is not a mouse... it didn't have a long tail. Is it a wild hamster!?

Ýmislegt or various things

2011-06-15T12:52:00.000Z

I have not been knitting much lately, at least not as much I normally do. The bobbin lace has me too excited and it is taking a lot of time to achieve every exercise (which are getting more complicated, of course).

I still have a few things to finish but for now, priority number ONE is to finish the Liliac Leaves Shawl. It is going pretty well. I am done with 20 repetitions of the pattern and I am planning to make 30 and see how long it gets. The idea of Irene is to wear to over the shoulders and tie it on the back so it has to be long enough to cover shoulders, back and be tied.

Liliac Leaf Shawl: Progress

After I finish the body of the shawl I have to calculate the number of stitches that I have to cast on (it will be a HUGE amount of stitches!!) to knit the edges. I will make it in the Estonian traditional way: Edges are knitted in stitch stitch always (WS and RS) so it knits really fast and the edge is made in two parts that are I sewed on the body of the shawl. I have done that once before and the result is pretty neat.

Maikell: Detail of sewed on edge.

Maikell: Body and edge. It is not so easy to tell where the sewing was made.

Svanhvít Lilja with her Christmas present on Christmas day :)

For now, my goal is to have the body done hopefully on saturday. I still have a little more than three weeks to finish it. Irene will be going back to Italy at the end of the second week of July and I want her to take the shawl with her.

I really want to finish this shawl soon. I need to start something new!! I am already thinking about the next project and it will be from a book called Victorian Lace Today. I found the perfect, cute shawl for a friend! I will let you know which one is it when the time to begin with it comes!

Mirage (Taken from Rowan 49)

Last week, my dear friend Laura from Asturias, asked me for some help to understand a pattern from the last Rowan magazine. I had never read a pattern from Rowan before and I must say that it was pretty complicated to understand exactly what had to be done! It kept me thinking and reading the pattern (it was actually a paragraph only) over and over again for almost one hour! I thought I understood it but to be sure I contacted the people from Rowan and to my surprise I got a reply REALLY quickly and very detailed!! I also got some help from a forum in Ravelry (Ravelry people NEVER fails! It is so cool to know that there is always someone there ready to help!) and after all I wasn't so lost on terms of what I understood from the pattern at first.

One thing that I learned (and that I hadn't noticed before): British terminology is SO different!! I think that until now I hadn't come close to any british patterns... things like a simple YO (yarn over) is a YFWD (yarn forward?!!) among others.

Tomorrow people will be meeting in Reykjavík (in a place called Austurvöllur) for knitting in public on the World Wide Knit in Public Day. I am thinking about going. Since I began to knit I have never taken part of it but this year will be different. The only concern I have is the weather. According to the metereological office it will be raining... if so I don't think I will go. But you never know! The weather prediction changes constantly here in Iceland... it is actually fun to look at the website of the office regularly and check how they change the reports many times... even during the same day!

About bobbin lace (aka the new obssession). I am already done with exercises n°3 and 4.

Exercise n°3 was about cloth stitch. I am not very happy with it. The net section look good but the solid parts (cloth stitch) don't. I was checking pictures on the net and it wasn't that I was making it terribly wrong (though I made some mistakes... some turns with there shouldn't be). It always looks kind of messy. So, cloth stitch: Definetely not one of my favourites.

Exercise n°3: This kept me busy for several hours!!

Detail: The net looks ok but the solid parts... not so convinced.

Exercise n°4: This was a wonrderful exercise! It was about spiders! I made a sampler with three different kinds of spiders: a diamond spider (not very pretty I think). A crossed spider (my favourite one) and a group of little croessed spiders. I still have to work the tension better. As you probably can see in the pictures the some legs of the spiders are a little bit too loose. I have to practice more!

Spiders sampler.

Not my favourite one. I really need to watch the tension much better.

I really lked this one. The same again: Some legs are too loose.

Four spiders.

Yesterday I developed a couple of films that I took two weekends ago, when Sjómannadagur (Sailor's day) was celebrated in Reykjavík's harbour. I still have to scan the negatives so the pictures will come on the next post :)

For now I will just hang a picture I took when we were coming home from Spain. Landscape in Reykjanes (the area where Keflavík airport is) is so nice... lava fields, moss fields. geothermal fields and amazing cliffs. In this picture if you look carefully you will find a lighthouse (Reykjanessviti) :)

Coming home.

Finished lopapeysa and some more bobbin lace

2011-06-07T17:56:00.000Z

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

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'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'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.

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.

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!!

Ready to begin the first diamond.

2nd exercise: Finished.

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:

There are a few more in my Flickr gallery if you are interested :)

Trying something new.

2011-06-02T20:14:00.000Z

On our visit to the town of Avilés my friend Laura took us the shop of a friend of hers. The shop is called La dentelle (you can check the website but it is still under construction: www.ladentelle.es). The shop owner, Bea, showed us the place and all the stuff that sells: patchwork, embroidery, felt, beads, books and many other things to make handcrafts.

Among all these things one cought my eye especially: bobbins. I remember that I saw or read some time ago bobbin lace somewhere and I thought how difficult that must be! But now, while I was in the shop, I thought that I had the same idea about knitting, that it was something almost impossible and so difficult that I would never ever be able to learn it. Well, here I am now... knitting almost anything I want. Then, why not try some bobbin lace? The worst that can happen is that it won't work so I bought a set of 50 bobbins, some thread, big pins and two books. I didn't but the pillow to work on because I she didn't have the one that I wanted to get so I decided to wait until she gets it to order it on the net.

In the meantime, I started to read about bobbin lace on the internet, blogs, websites, videos in Youtube, etc. While investigating I found a really nice blog that had a little step by step tutorial to make a pillow at home. It is very simple: just some fabric, foam, sand and shoe box. Mine is almost done... I just have to make the show box look a little better but oter than that the pillow works perfectly!

Bag full of sand, foam and all covered with linen.

It doesn't look very "elegant" but it works :)

One of the books a got comes with excercises in increasing level of complexity. I got ready to begin with the first excercise, so:

1st step: Prepare the bobbins. Load them with thread:

2nd step: Prepare the pillow. Pin the pattern on it.

3rd step: Put the bobbins on the pillow and let the fun begin!

This first excercise aimed to learn how to make the half stitch. It was so hard but again... this is just a very basic stitch. I can't stop looking at it and see how the thred shapes so perfectly... this really MAGIC!

If you look very carefully your will find two mistakes I made... but I guess it is alright since it is my first time doing anything with bobbins :)

Excercise n°1 finished :þ

Close up

I am very happy with the result and now I am looking forward to starting with the second excercise!!

About the lopapeysa: It is done!! I just have to graft the underarms, sew the neck to make it double folded and block it! Pictures will come after it is blocked :)

Last week I also bought a new toy: A multilens camera. It is a funny camera. It takes four panoramic pictures per frame so it is possible to catch "movement" with it. I am finishing the first film roll during the weekend... next week I'll show how it worked!

This has been a week full of experiments! We made sushi for the first time! I love sushi but never eat it because I refuse to pay the RIDICULOUS price they ask for it here in Iceland. It is unbelievable. So, we decided better to try to make it ourselves and it worked!! Here are some pics of the process:

And to end, summer doesn't seem to want to come to Iceland. The last couple of weeks have been pretty cold. The only sign of summer is the light. Days are getting REALLY long. It barely gets dim for a couple of hours which is GREAT! This is a pic I took from home a few days ago around 23.30h... it is just wonderful :)