17.mai

Today is 17.mai, or May 17th, which is Constitution Day in Norway. This is when school children all over the country parade in celebration of the Norwegian Constitution from 1814. If you own a national costume, called bunad, this would be the obvious day to wear it. 60% of Norwegian women own a bunad. There are a lot fewer men in bunad, but there are more of them every year. See more bunad pics here.

I inherited my national costume, it comes from Sør-Trøndelag. When I was little I had a Hardanger bunad (almost like this one) which was a family heirloom. Sadly it has gone to pieces.

I've been meaning to make myself a big oldfashioned shawl for my bunad, and a pair of wristlets from the Håndplagg book, but I haven't yet. Btw here's a free pattern for beaded wristlets from that book. The description is in Norwegian, but there's a nice little chart too.

Melt beads and more Muskat

Yesterday Princess and I enjoyed a little melt bead (Hama) crafts. I've done this with her from time to time, and I quite like the pixel-like quality of the beaded images. It reminds me of knitting and cross stitch, and it works with the same kinds of patterns.

I prefer the simpler, graphic designs, but the possibilities are limitless. I think I'll put a pin on the back of this red-pink-orange one here and use it on a t-shirt. I'd like to try some smaller ones for earrings, too.

Some people iron the beads on both sides, and that of course makes a more sturdy product. But I like the unironed side so much, I think I'll try and see if it can stand some use witout that.
We have both the jumbo size beads and the normal ones. The jumbo beads need a higher temperature to melt (hot iron), and a firm hand, but it works fine. The normal beads are ironed with a medium hot iron. I just put the bead plate on the ironing board, cover with some parchment paper and iron away. Note: make sure you have good ventilation if you try this. The plastic fumes aren't very good for you.
More pics.

If you're fascinated like me, you might like the archive at Swedish group blog Pärlplatteklubben.

Now some fibre content: I started another hat in the sale yarn I used for Princess' slouchy spring hat. This one is for Junior. (Improvised in Muskat, 100% cotton, 4mm hook).

I've been on a little trip, unblogged at the moment, where I got to see some Malabrigo in RL. I kind of bought it. Then I started and ripped the beginning of a shawl several times. I'll tell you more later.

And for once I was online at the right time to order some Hello Yarn Sock. Yay! Man, that stuff gets sold out fast. The colourway is called blush. Can't wait to see it in RL.

Two library books and some links

These are two fairly new Norwegian books that I borrowed from the library.

This first one, 'Myk design' ('Soft design') by Gerd Fjellanger, has different projects in sewing, crochet, felting, fulling, and so on. Quite varied and the items are for men and women and kids.

The style is classic Norwegian/contemporary/vintage. See a couple of more pictures on the author's site.

I liked quite a few of the projects.
This is a good idea, embroidering a little flower on the side of a sock.




Tine Solheim's 'Maskeball'* has knitting and crochet projects like dresses, cardis, tights and accessories, and also things like afghans. She uses alpaca, cotton, novelty yarns, beads, ribbon, and other materials. The style is very feminine, a sort of boho chic, with a lot of ornamentation.
See more at the author's site.

This is definitely not my style. There's too much going on with holes, see-through effect, frills and other embellishments.
But if you like this style, there is a lot of different challenges in here for the adventorous knitter and crocheter.

Both of these designers' patterns are sometimes found in Norwegian women's magazines.
Tine Solheim also designs a lot of different clothing like wedding gowns and costumes.

* 'Maskeball' = 'Masked ball', 'maske' in Norwegian also means (knitting or crochet) stitch.


Some links:
Two of my favourites, Karin Eriksson and Camilla Engman, are doing a show together. Lots of peeks on both their blogs.

Kim Kight of Dioramarama has a new blog all about fabric, True Up. It's fantastic. And via this I found out that

...Designer Heather Ross has a new site. I love her beetle bus fabric and the gnomes. And I just bought some of her new Rabbits and Race-Cars fabric that Junior chose for himself. Looking forward to the new 'mer theme' that's coming soon.

Check out these gorgeous mittens. Don't you think she should make a pattern and sell it?

Pencil cases

I've wanted to make a huge pencil case for the kids for a long time. They share a ton of pencils, and lately the pencils have been kept in a plastic bag in a drawer. Ugly and not very practical.

I wanted to make something big enough to carry all the pencils and some small accessories like erasers and paper scissors.
I guess this is three times as big as an ordinary pencil case. Also I wanted it to open widely so that the little artists could see and choose their colours easily.


I have so many novelty prints that would work for this project, but I ended up deciding that numbers and letters are particularly appropriate.

I just cut the fabrics with scissors, checking loosely that the pieces were approximately the same size. Then I toyed around with the colours a little before I came up with the design. I sewed together all the pieces for the outer fabric, and then fastened outer fabric, lining and zipper with two seams.
The end seams are made by folding in the sides so that the ends become sort of pleated.



The mushrom fabric came from Atelier Jade, I think. I've had it for ages.

I meant to use this one myself for small notions in my knitting bag, but someone came home and thought it was for them. ('Oh, Mummy, that's nice! I can use that when I bring pencils and stuff on holiday!') How could I say no.

More pics.

Slouchy spring hat

I went to the Sn'B the other night (hi, girls!), and I got going on this. My daughter needed a new spring hat, and I wanted to crochet some cotton.

Princess has tried it on during the process, so I know the edging fits. But she hasn't seen the finished thing. Hope she likes it. She chose the colours herself. She would have wanted even more orange, but I didn't have any. I bought the yarn on sale last summer, and I've used up every little bit of orange now.
The whole thing is totally improvised. I crocheted the edging first, then picked up knitting stitches. There's 2 knitting stitches per crochet stitch. I started off thinking I might crochet the whole thing, but the yarn is too thick. The cotton makes it too heavy. But I decided the crochet edging would probably add some sturdiness to the otherwise dead cotton. We'll see.

Yarn: Muskat from Garnstudio, 100% cotton.
Needles: 3,5 mm rosewood circular from Susannes.
4 mm crochet hook, really old Inox one from my stash.
More pics on Flickr.
Ravelry project page.

As you may have noticed, I've added Twitter to the sidebar. I'm checking this out, haven't explored it much yet. It is supposedly the big thing in Norway at the moment. I quit Facebook months ago, but I kind of miss the little updates from people (I think that is the only thing about the 'book that I am missing at all). So I thought I might find this charming.

Matter over mind

I can't seem to get the time to do all the things I want to right now. We're working like crazy on our home, making it ready for sale, and at the same time we're looking for a new place. And there are so many things I'd like to sew, knit and crochet now that spring is coming.
I guess there won't be very much crafting here these next few weeks.
In the meantime I would like to point you towards my most favourited design on Ravelry and my most popular photo on Flickr; my pattern for a knitted flower. I discovered today that 100 people call this a favourite on Flickr. That's kind of wild. Click on the photo to go to the pattern.

I got a note in the mail today, saying that Amanda's new book is waiting for me at the post office. I love it when my favourite bloggers come out on paper. Congratulations on the new book, SouleMama! That will be a great diversion in between all the house mess. I've also borrowed a couple of new knitting books at the library, which I'll show you later.

I love Knitting Iris' Easter critters which she made with wooden beads and pipe cleaners. I have a bunch of those beads somewhere, so I'm saving that idea for next year!
Knitting Iris also made me aware of this great blog earlier, Liivian Talossa. Most of the time I don't understand a word of the text, but I love the photos.

And, by the way, thank you for your nice comments. I haven't been very good at responding to those lately, either.