Knits 'n' Pieces ← by Asti ← Page 3

Gifts

Jul

2009

Although I didn’t post here for a long time, I was actually pretty busy this spring. My son is going to school this autumn, so this was the last spring in the kindergarten for him and I made some thank-you-gifts for the teachers.

Kindergarten teachers got Asti shawls.

Pattern: my own (published in Käsitöö in spring 2008, will be available in English as soon as possible)

Material: Aade lõng Artistic and Aade lõng Natural DK

Needles: 3 mm

For the music teacher I crocheted a table mat – piano.

Pattern: my own

Material: Hjertegarn Diamond Cotton 8/4

Hook: 3 mm

The chess teacher also got a table mat – chessboard, of course.

Pattern: my own

Material: Hjertegarn Diamond Cotton 8/4

Hook: 3 mm

The gym teacher got a crocheted ball. On the motifs I embroidered names of all the children in their group.

Pattern: my own

Material: different wool from my stash

Hook: 3 mm

Sunshine tote 10

Jun

2009

Oh boy, it has been quiet here for a long time, hasn’t it? Now I’m back, hopefully :)

First I would like to keep a promise given long time ago – Sunshine tote pattern. As this is my first pattern in English, I wanted it to be perfect. It probably isn’t, but I tried :)

Three years ago we had a bag project – “12 bags” – initialized by Marianne. She suggested that anyone joining this project should make 1 bag every month of the year and each month had a special theme. The theme of July was “Päike ja äike” (Sun and thunder). So, as the first tote I made was yellow like Sun, I named this bag Sunshine tote.

The first Sunshine tote was crocheted/knitted of stash yarn I had at home. It was probably acrylic. For the last version I used Aade Artistic yarn. To make the tote stronger and denser, I’m going to felt it a bit by washing and rubbing it in hot soapy water. Lining the tote is optional. As I find sewing very difficult, I will leave it without a lining.

The pattern is availalble as a free Ravelry download. Hope you like it :) If you find an error or in case of any problems or questions, please contact me.

Download Sunshine tote pattern (.pdf)

Bunny bootees

Dec

2008

I was asked to make bunny bootees for a 3-year old girl. I did similar bootees in baby sizes couple of years ago. So now I had to improvise a bigger version. As this time these bootees are more slippers, I used sock yarn, hopefully that is more durable than pure wool would have been. I made the ears of new bunnies shorter, as this time these bootees are for a bigger child and it would be bad if the ears interfered walking around. When my daughter saw these bootees, she wanted a pair for herself too, so I made the same bootees (same size too :)) for her as well.

Pattern: my own

Size: heel to toe 16 cm

Yarn: about 50 g of grey Novita 7-veljestä Kantri (75% wool, 25% polyamide; 150 g/300 m ), about 15 g of white Novita Wool (100% wool; 50 g/135 m)

Needles: 4 mm (Kantri) and 3 mm (Wool)

Ready for the winter

Dec

2008

Well, as the winter came unexpectedly, as usual, and now Christmas is right around the corner, I have not had the time to work on the instrusctions I wanted to. So hopefully I have time for that in January.

In the meantime I’ll show you what I have been working on. As my daughter didn’t have a warm winter hat and I loved the cabled design in the Novita magazine (winter 2008), I decided to knit that hat for my baby.I modified it a bit, I used short rows on the top (or as it is knitted sideways, on the left edge), otherwise it would have been too bulky. As I used finer yarn than that suggested (Gedifa Akona instead of Novita Mambo), the hat was a bit too shallow, and to make it deeper, I worked some garter stitch rows to the bottom edge.

Then I had quite a lot of yarn left over and I decided to make mittens as well. But of course I ran out of yarn in the middle of the second mitten and I bought another ball and ended up with left over again. So the neckwarmer had to be knitted too. The cables on mittens and neckwarmer are the same as on the hat, but otherwise I just improvised knitting them, I didn’t even think ahead, just knitted and tried them on to my daughter. Worked out ok, I think :) She is so cute, isn’t she? :)

Pattern: hat is a bit modified version of the pattern in Novita winter 2008, mittens and neckwarmer are improvised

Size: for a 3-year old, circumference of the hat about 50 cm

Yarn: 3 x 50 g Gedifra Akona (50% wool, 30% polyamide, 20% alpaca; 50 g/69 m)

Needles: 6 mm (hat) and 5 mm (mittens and neckwarmer)

The beginning

Nov

2008

I’ve decided to start blogging in English. Let’s see how that goes. :)

I have been knitting and crocheting for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember who taught me (I checked, my mom doesn’t remember it either), but already in kindergarten we used to crochet chains, so that all balls of yarn turned into balls of chain. It was actually more popular among boys than girls. Also, I remember knitting a ribbed scarf with white and red stripes in kindergarten, the scarf was taken to some exhibition and I never saw it again. :)

When I went to elementary school, I crocheted a lot of doilies. And I mean a lot. Later, in high school, I started knitting sweaters for myself. I didn’t really know anything about knitting a sweater (my first sweaters were basically four rectangles sewn together), but my mom had a friend living in Finland and she brought me some nice novelty yarns (as it was Soviet Union time here in Estonia, there weren’t that many yarns available, well, there was actually nothing available), so the shape of the sweater wasn’t that important, yarn took care of the effect.

During the time in university there was kind of a pause in knitting and crocheting (although I did crochet a bedspread for instance, but it took me almost a year to do it).

In 2002, when my first child was born and I stayed at home, I picked up knitting and crocheting again and haven’t stopped since. So the last 6 years have been kind of crazy and so much has happened, so much has changed. I studied to be a physics teacher, but now I translate books (about knitting and crocheting of course), publish my knitting and crocheting designs in Estonian craft magazine Käsitöö and a month ago started a part time job in a yarn shop. One more important thing happened – in the spring of 2008 Kirju Kummut (a group of friends/knitaholics I’m part of ) published a book of crocheted hats (Mütsiraamat. Kirju Kummut heegeldab…). So, my life has turned upside down. :)