For sporty Nordic dandies

I saw a picture of a crocheted men’s scarf in a magazine about nordic folk costumes (Magasinet Bunad, Nr. 4 - desember 2010, page 37) . It had a flower pattern in tapestry crochet technique, worked lengthwise, but with double crochet stitches instead of single. Made my own version by throwing together some antique cross stitch patterns.

Notes that might be handy in case you would like to make your own version:


Use lace or light fingering weight yarn and a 1.75 mm crochet hook.


First row: chain about 500 (depending on the pattern repeats; I chained 512).

Work about 45 rows in a pattern of your choice. One “cross” in the cross stitch or filet pattern becomes two double crochet stitches in the crochet version. Work the double crochet stitches only in the back post of the stitch from the last row (this gives more "crispness" to the colour pattern). If you have no experience with tapestry crochet technique, there are lots of resources and tutorials to be found on the Internet.

Start every row with new yarn, and cut it off at the end, leaving about 15 cm of yarn at both ends. Don’t weave the ends in, but tie them together and use them as fringes.

(my scarf is 160 cm long and 29 cm wide)

Finished in November

Knitted "Cladonia" Shawl and crocheted heartwarmer from Nås, Sweden

Handspun merino/alpacca/silk blend

Chanterelle mushroom feast after a long search in the forest,

and fresh homespun Blue-faced Leicester (2-ply) from handpainted roving by UrbanGypz (sells on Etsy!). Spun with my wonderful new Golding spindle (forgot to take a picture of it...).

A new handwoven belt in red tones, with another antique pattern I found.The clear red threads on the edges is handspun (with a lot of twist) on a spindle.

I sold a number of these belts, which was good for motivation...
Nowadays, most people weave the rose and single cross pattern (4th, 5th and 6th one from the right) but it's a shame to let the other varieties die out!

Forkleband

Spinning for real

Greensleeves drop spindles; a "Lady Barbara" (27 g) and a "Maureen's Mjolinor" (14 g).

Now I'm spinning my own weaving yarn! I got different kinds of spindles, ordered a new one almost every week this summer... It was raining a lot. I learnt the basics from YouTube videos and Abby Franquemont's book "Respect The Spindle".

I spun thin singles and plied them together with a lot of twist,
resulting in strong, thin and "not-so-hairy" yarn. 
The natural white yarn is spun from corriedale wool (Spinnvilt webshop), the coloured yarn from dyed merino tops (Hifa Ull webshop).

Plying the singles together on a Jenkins Standard Turkish spindle (Osage Orange, 50 g)

A Russian style Tornado and a little Twister from Houndesign; both support spindles. Great for TV spinning!

Setting the twist.

Weaving with my first handspun yarn, a pretty Finnish pattern.

Spinning yarn on a mixer beater

No wonder there are hairs in my omelettes!

Any day now, the fancy Turkish spindle I ordered will drop in my mailbox. But I really couldn't wait any longer to start spinning, I just had to try it out on something... anything. And I'm proudly presenting my first mini-ball of 2-ply fingering wool, knitted into a practical fingertip warmer/hamster blanket. And again a photo of a new hand woven band in red tones and black.Tomorrow morning I'll be stalking the mailperson again!

A red belt and a llama shawl

I finished a handwoven belt for a bunad with raudsaum (embroidery with different red shades) and a knitted shawl with local bred and spun llama yarn (thanks to Odin, a white llama/alpaca and Ella, a light brown llama, from the farm Øvre Haugane in Fyresdal. I hope they didn't catch a cold last winter). Shawl pattern: Cladonia by Kirsten Kapur.

Potluck post

Some of my recent finished projects thrown together: A knitted blanket in a cotton/wool blend,  a woven ribbon, knitted wool mittens and a crocheted wool/silk shawl.

Red Hot

The same patterns as before, but now woven with wool yarn from Vinjebue in Vinje, Norway, in combination with cotton thread from DMC.