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Another music video by Recon91

Our Christmas Tree

I've made some "other" ornaments this year: more felted ornaments with mostly hearts on them and old red glass ornaments that were given a new look with velvet and gold sic-sac ribbons. The instructions for the cones included decoupage but at that time I was to much into textile printing, hence the mushroomes and raindeers. The idea of gluing red ribbon and beads to oyster shells was given to be by a magazine (most probably Kreativa Kvinnor).

Christmas Calender from Drops with time to vote

One small projects from Drops design every day until Christmas Eve can be found here (English) or here (Swedish)

It is also time to vote for their spring/summer 2009 collection including patterns for both women and girls. Vote here.

Savin Me - a different kind of creativity

You may call it scrapcomputering maybe? Music by Nickelback. I'm a bit tired of this song by now, but the video is great!

Science of knitting proudly present


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eBcpbSd5Fw



By Recon91

Soft data

For treasurus papers, or treasurus moments, or for worn out folders, knit a special cover. I made this cover for P that was in need of a soft environment for her soft data. I measured the cover and made a test knit with the yarn and pattern. Then it is simple mathematics to figure out how many stitches that are needed to cover the folder, with the addition of a fold to keep it in place. I decided to make a rib stitch cover and to do the fold in gather stitch. After working in ribs for a while, I couldn't help but to make some cables... The cables made the piece a bit smaller than with only ribs, so I had to glue the cover in place. My original idea was to make the cover removable. The last touch was a P in linnen with a lace edge that I sew in place with some pretty leftover yarn.

Craft speed 1.3 per hour

Time to think of the invitations to the wedding and I figured last Saturday's scrapping marathon was the time to start. Many thanks to L who let me use her chinese love sign and invitation ("inbjudan" in Swedish) stamps and 3 different types of glue. First time scrapping, I managed to make 16 cards in 12 hours. The idea is that the invitation card will reflect the spirit of the wedding and that all will be different. Just like my dress. ;)

I've done some recycling. The threads are fixed by old mother-of-pearl buttons on the inside and some have buttons on front. The copper thread is actually copper wire from our worn out kettle. The music notes are copies that didn't turn out well, I brought them to the marathon since I think that notes are beautiful and figured that I would find use for them one way or another.

Crafter at Sci Fi exhibition Stockholm

This is maybe not the most vital part of the artoo of a much loved one, but it is the part that I've contributed to. Artoo made a great success at the SciFi exhibition, check it out here (part 1) and here (part II)!

My last obsession has been textile printing using stenciles which suddenly became useful when making the R2D2 t-shirt. The next one I will print will probably say "mine" our "occupied"!

My last contribution to artoo's health has been a recreation kit with a wheel formed pillow for the dome and a tube shaped blanked for the "barrel" part.

I also got a patch at the exhibition for my jacket-that-is-still-not-ready that will go perfect with the captain style "united federation of planets - starfleet marines". Aye!

By the way, have you ever tried knitting backwards? I have to try it out!

Simple Sewing

Still haven't found the charger for my camera... But I've been to Salvations Army's shop "myrorna" on book sale and found a real treasure: Lotta Jansdotter's "Simple Sewing" (the Swedish version "enkelt att sy"). The patterns were not even open!!

The patterns are really simple, the thing is though that I've been thinking of making some of the things in the book. Now I don't even have to make the patterns! The book is highly recommended for anyone who is new to sewing. Otherwise I think that the greatest strengths of the author is the textile prints. I'm thinking of getting her book "How to print with anything", since my new crush is textile prints. When I find the charger I will show you! :)

Painting on glass will probably be my next focus. The reason I went to Salvations Army/Myrorna in the first place was to find different glass items that will suit as holders for tea candels. I found more than I ever expected to.

Knitted wedding dress

I won't knit my wedding dress, but for you who will - this might be something for you! Free pattern from Järbo yarn. The thing on her head is optional (the largest wedding crown I've ever seen!)




The children pullowers decorated with the five elements from Järbo is closer of being made by me. I like the synergistic effects between Scandinaivian yarn and the Chinese signs of the elements.

/a golden ape

Keep the chill out (or boots boost)

This new, nice and free pattern from Berocco will add detail and isolation to your boots. I need to check my closet for any suitable boots that I can boost. Or if I need to get a pair. ;)

Have your own debate

Just got an email from Lion Brands, with finger puppets of Obama and McCain for anybody that wants to have their own debate at home. Check it out! Obama and McCain. You need to register if you don't have a Lion Brand login. (It's worth it.)

Time to vote

Not thinking of Obama vs McCain this time, but of the Drops design baby collection. And here can anybody vote independently of home contry. Vote here (Swedish) or here (English).

I can see pretty much "Debbie Bliss-like" designs in this new collection that frequently use simple stockinette, "moss-stickning" (whatever that is in english) and simple knit. But don't worry, there are cables too.

One thing I really like is the use of multicolored jaquard printed yarn in baby clothes. It workes for so much more than just socks... and it is beautiful in plain designs.

Thoughts from a fabric consumer

I cannot find the charger for my camera, so I have some felt projects waiting to be posted... Before I go and begin my search for it (...) i just have to write a few words about a book I'm reading. The book is in Swedish by a Swedish author and is called "Don't by this book!" ("Köp inte den här boken!"). Guess I had to buy it bc of reveresed psychology? The book is a print of a blog written by a woman who decides to have a shopping free year. It is a very interesting book, not bc it is going to win the Nobel Prize, but bc it is personal reflections about consumption. There are many aspects of her project that would be great to build a qualitative study around. I can identify a few: housholding with the natures resources, our own money and our own time. Most of the time, they go hand in hand. Less consumption means less energy consumption for growing, making and transporting stuff, less money spent for buying the stuff and less time spent for making money, finding the stuff and eventually get rid of it.

I had to do some thinking about what a shopping free year would mean to me. I have identified some of my weaknesses:
- Fabric and yarn and other stuff for crafting. Crafting magazines.
- Books, mostly about crafting but also criminal books and psychology and cooking.
- Bargains. Concerning craftig and clothes mainly.
- Eating out. I love Indian and Libyan food, when other people make it. :)

I could probably skip to buy stuff for crafting for a whole year and still have things to do. I actually try to do that every now and then, but maybe not for a whole year, and check what I have and what I can do with it. It is good for creativity. I have two subscriptions of magazines "interweave knitting" and "kreativa kvinnor" but still buy magazines now and then when there is something special. Whatever that can be. The nice thing about crafting magazines is that you get pleanty for the money most of the time. I believe my old (and new) magazines is a great resource of inspiration for me. One thing that I could do is to try harder to find ecological fabric and yarn.

At my work a friend came up with the excellent idea with a bookshelf where everybody at work can leave "books that I liked but that I won't read again" and pick up another one. I have left two books there already. Not a place for my crafting books of course (I'm going to keep them!!) but criminal stories are often not as exciting when they are read once... A thing that I'm quite bad at is using the library for the books that I would like to read but probably not keep. I will work on that.

My waredrobe consists of clothes that I've made myself, that I have inhereted, and bargains. Sometimes I think that I would try to make all my clothes myself except underwear. On the other hand, I could definitely go a year without getting enything else than socks and maybe shoes. A much loved one would not agree that I would need more shoes, but I think I need a pair of boots that can do with this rainy fall.

Eating dinner out can't really be bad for the environment, even though it may be bad for my wallet. I had my favorite dish "palak panir" yesterday and I couldn't eat it all. I realized that i should have asked to bring the rest with me and put it in the freezer as lucnh the week to come. Bad for the wallet and bad for the environment is to throw away food! When I was younger my mom had hens as a hobby. It was great with homemade eggs from happy hens (or at least as happy as they can be :) and I simply can't buy anothing else than ecological eggs. We almost always buy ecological milk and I try to get hold of ecological potatoes. My idea is that an ecological animal product needs an animal that has been fed ecological food so that focusing on them being ecological is an easy first step to make as much impact on food production as possible with the easiest means.

A lot of thoughts even though I just read the first 6 months of the book! :) Time to go and find the camera charger!

R2's first steps

R2 on all his three legs can be seen here.

Golden monkeys and chocolate diamonds

I found the monkey cliché at Panduro and figured that textile print would be a nice way to cheere up some plain cotton or linen fabric.




My chocolate diamond cardigan is finished, but is hard to get on a picture.

Language difficulties

I've made some progress on my jacket. Could be because I identified the instruction language as Swedish, not English... Anyway, I have cut the lacking pieces of fabric, picked the buttons and started with the pockets. The buttons are from my granddads captain uniform, which means I have to make some button adjustment. I only have 4 large buttons to the front, instead of 6. On the other hand, I have plenty of small ones for the pockets and the sleves.

A new pile

Since the summer is no more, I have changed my priorities for the fabric pile, and put the yellow dresses back on the shelf. The pile now contains a jacket, a skirt, a dress (wedding dress rehearsal) and a petrol jersey dress (left from the previous pile). I still haven't solved the issue with the headless dragons but I've actually finished the red silk belt and made a trillion more tetraeds. 5 more to go, then I will be completely out of zippers. Then it is time to convert the leftovers to a qilted blanked for the bed. But that is another story.

Let's start with the jacket. I cut the pieces for the jacket quite a while ago (close to the time when I cut the fabric for the headless dragons). Fortunately, there are fabric left for the other collar pieces I need to cut as well. The hardest part is that the instructions are written in Greek. No, it is actually English, but it will still take me a while to figure it out. In the meanwhile, I can play Ferdinand and smell all the pretty flowers. I gave my pelargoniums some fertilizer a week ago you see... :)

My biggest project ever...

... will be the making of my wedding gown. Yesterday I went out with a friend to see what the world had to offer. Before that I was convinced that I would make a draped version with beads in cream dupion silk. I'm not so sure anymore. I'm not even sure that I will make my dress. I've fallen in love with Ginnis G156! That was in the end of the trying-on-dresses-that-weights-a-ton-odyssée (this is not a joke - if you want to know how it is like to be overweight - try on a wedding cake dress) that Therese in the store found me a light version of a draped dress (Ginnis 162, sorry but I can't find it on their site). At that moment, P and I lost all words. Then she suggested that I'll try this on, I my head turned into a monkey brain. I couldn't finish a sentence for several hours. Poor P. :)

Our tea cup window

One of the pictures that got lost at my computer crash was the photo of the tea cupboard for the progress report. Luckily, we haven't progressed that much, så you haven't missed a thing. The frames are in place, painted in a light blue-grey colour named "amelie" (since I consider the movie 'Le fabeleux destin d'Amelie Poulain' to be a positive mood inductor, I took that as a sign for a good colour to be for the frames). I've bought some lovely knobs in white porceline with sublime flowers from Indiska. The only problem now is that the frames aren't really flat which is quite a challenge for the addition of the plexiglass (leftovers from R2D2). On the other hand, doors without glass is practical, since the doors never have to be open - just grab your favorite cup! :)

Geometric sewing

My recycling tendensies has found a peak in the tetraeds. It is a good way of cleaning the craft closet too. All old zippers that I have collected and pieces of ribbon, lace and fabric turn into something quite useful. Bathroom stuff, knitting projects, keys, you name it - anything that needs a home gets a home in a tetraed. The leftover fabrics from making the tetraeds go into the patch work box.

When you cut out the fabric for a tetraed, don't forget that the edge between to sides is 8/7 times the lengt of the zipper. Cut 2 times the length of the zipper as the long side, and 8/7 times the zipper length as the short side (2*zipper X 8/7*zipper) - otherwise the length of the side wont be the same. In the model I make, the zipper goes from the top down to a middle of the base on one side. It is actually very easy to make a tetraed, the trickiest part is to add the zipper, and if you want to do lining you need to do some abstract thinking.

Meet Mr Target Audience

This is our kitchen table covered by 3 headless dragons and 2 dinosaurs. And my room mates doctoral thesis! :) One of the dinosaurs are finished, he is working for our editor now as target audience.

The dots are thought to be sewn in place by machine, byt i used langette stitches and contrasting thread.

Lost (X)-files

Before the compelete ghosting of my brake down computer I copied all the files I had onto a portable harddrive. Or at least so I thought. All pictures taken with my own camera were lost in the process. It is not that I haven't been crafting, it is simply that all the proof of it is gone... :) I've been making a trillion of tetraeds, a dinosaur and a belt. My plan was to make 3 dragons as well, but I suddenly realised that the head pieces were missing for all of them. And I have run out of fabric. I'm still waiting for the solution for that issue. :)

Anyway, I now have a new computer. Hopefully that is a promise of good blog times to come!

A growing pile

I guess I'm not too bad at organizing. The good thing about working on my pile of fabric for planned project is that I accidentially cleaned the pattern drawer, the place where all my self-made paper copies of patterns go. It is generally a bad place, not only because it is hard to find all the peices for a pattern, but also because the pieces tend to slide back and get stuck behind the drawer. Ugg.

What to do to prevent this is not a secret to anyone. Not even to me. All you need is 3 liter transparent plastic bags, paper clips, a piece of paper, a nice pen and a pair of scissors. Put the pieces from one pattern in a plastic bag, cut out a piece of paper and write the name of the pattern (e.g. red wrap dress Burda issue/year). Fold the edge of the plastic bag and close it with a paper clip with the tag under the clip.

My pile has grown a bit since yesterday, it now contains two dinosaurs, a belt, three dresses and a jacket. (If you wonder who's in the back it is the helmet of Master Chief and the feet of R2D2).

My first craft collaboration with a much loved one is a "window shelf" for our cup-collection. No, there are no windows there yet. They are painted but waiting for the door hinges. A much loved one did all the building while I was satisfied with doing the painting. Don't worry, we have more cups than that! :)

After "Sheng Fui"

Long time since last post - not because I haven't been doing anything creative, but rather because of my computer (aka Butthead).

Since last post I've made a trillion tetraeds - another perfect way of using left over fabric. I'm working on my last diamond chocolate sleeve and soon finished the first of a pair cabled alpaca wristwarmers (free Drops Design pattern nr 98-3).

And I've been cleaning. There are few things that evokes creativity such as a clean and well organized hobby stash and area. The consequence is a pile of fabric, all red and yellow (!); or two dresses, a belt and a dragon to be precise.

Why I have been cleaning? Well, during our vacation at my grandmothers house on the west coast I found a feng shui inspired book about cleaning out and organizing. Not impressed by it at all, but it had a great effect on me - several bags have left this home for the YMCA/frälsningsarmén's Myrorna. It should be said that my grandmother read the part about cleaning the fridge which didn't add anything to her life, her fridge cannot possible be cleaner. Not a book for her. She is allergic to the negative energy released from mess, unfortunately it seems I didn't get her organizing genes. :)

On the edge

I've been looking for the perfect embellishment for this baby cardigan from Erika Knight's Simple Knits for quite a while when I came up with the idea of an Indean- inspired needle work edge.




I "wrapped" the cardigan with paper ribbon and sealed with gold heart stickers.

Approaching Avalon

I have now finished my after-treat-skirt from Kreativa kvinnor and my swing cardigan from Vogue Knitting Spring 2007 (the one I began during my conference trip to the state.


The skirt is really simple - the most complicated part is making the fit for the hip part. The rest is a simple rectangular peice of fabric.



The original design of the cardigan included a sewed on button band that I replaced with hooked and eye closure.

Science and knitting

There is something about science and knitting. I just read the post from Knitting Daily featuring the physicist/knit designer Connie Chang Chinchio (her blog is here). Knitting design is a lot of math and logic, shape and creativity, and knitting in itself keeps your mind going without keeping it occupied (I keep my own focus on the last part). I actually once got an email from my supervisor that said: "don't forget to knit". That was his way of saying, "don't forget to think". Thinking about it, I should knit some more before my vacation starts! :)

To be honest I mainly knit others' designs, with some modifications, even though I have some creations in my drawers originating in my own head (as the sum of my perception of the environment, of course). I need to finish a few of my projects (3 cardigans, 1 skirt and a few "tetraeds" to be exact), then I will look forward to begin the Riding to Avalon hoodie (picture) designed by a physicist (guess who) from Knitscene Fall 2008.

My precious is back

My sewing machine came home today after a successfull health examination with only minor issues that now are fixed. First project out will be to turn this fabric into this skirt!