2-in-1 Discovery

This morning the beautiful birds designed by Louise Weaver found me. (It would be lying if I said that I found them. All of a sudden they were there. Serendipity?!) Since then, there are still no signs of spring outside but definitly inside my head. Those extravagant birds, so playful and luminous, just brightened my day.

The Jealous Curator makes this a “two-in-one” discovery. Not only because she enunciates my inner thoughts (Yes, I am jealous when looking at those birds) but because her blog is beautifully done, very well written and presents awesome pieces of art (jealousy again, I guess). Great way to start the day 🙂

Nexus Sleeve

Sometimes I feel jealous that people are out there coming up with awesome stuff like this!

Neesha posted her pattern for a beautiful, no fuss, unostentatious crochet tablet sleeve.  Very easy to follow, uncomplicated to adapt (depending on tablet size), and a success without fail. So I decided to make this my birthday present for M. What can I say – it turned out great! Hard to show on a picture though.

Tablet Sleeve 1

Tablet Sleeve 2

But then I happened to find the knitted sleeve Dona made … To quote her  – I almost “died in jealousy and envy” and of course I had to make this one too. Here it is:

Tablet Sleeve 4

Tablet Sleeve 3

It’s a streamlined version without pom-poms but with a tweedy button and it fits as smooth and sleek as the crochet one. M unpacked both of them this morning (it’s his birthday today – ta daa!!) and I could tell he had no clue what it was. Fortunately, J and I could help 🙂 He then seemed to like both of them, took the knitted one to work and I am really, really pleased.

African Flowers

When starting this project in January, I would crochet 5 flowers the day and the boy would arrange them on our living room table. The idea was to make a blanket from stash (of the same brand) but within a short time I ran out of white. As a matter of fact – the store is not around the corner, life keeps me busy, other projects were tempting – I still haven’t bought adequate supply … However, we needed the living room table and fortunately the boy agreed to remove the flowers if I would take a picture of his composition. (Supposedly, there is a system to it. I don’t see it though). Here is the picture:

Now, all the flowers are nicely piled in a shoebox (probably forever) and my only excuse is that even if I bought a skein of white I still don’t know which color to use to join them. Green? Brown?

Real Wool

The other day, J took part in a (school) outing. They would go see “some garden, or nature, or stuff” he said and that he would bring back a present. Back home in the afternoon he would carefully open the zipper of his anorak, while making a funny little face, to finally confide this small strand of wool to me. (You don’t want to know what his hands looked like …) Apparently, they had been to a farm, where the children (among other things) could try spinning. J confessed that he hadn’t been too interested in the “sheep-clipping the woollen fleece-shorn sheep-spinning”-process but he clearly loved the idea of bringing back “real wool” that he had made for me.

“What are you going to make out of it?” he asked me again this morning. Well, I guess I have to give it some thought.

sheep wool

Sock Yarn Blanket

A friend’s mother gave me her sock yarn left overs as she had no use for it any more and I decided to make a blanket out of it. Starting with one stitch, increasing by knitting into front and back of each last stitch of row (until each side measured 2 m / 6.5 ft., then decreasing), while using needles size 5 (US 8) it would soon become bigger and bigger. J would decide on the order of skeins and each stripe would be as big as a skein would go. It finally became a very light but very warm blanket that J loves to use. No wonder! I wish I had the words to describe how it feels like to be wrapped into it.

sock wool stash blanket

Häkeldecke

Sock Yarn Blanket