Category: Craft projects

Most of the time when I make knitted garments, I start with a pattern, change the colors a bit, choose the right size and away I get started knitting.  But every now and then I decide to make my own pattern.

In Norway, because of the cold winters, there are still many people who use wool sweaters, often made by a loved one.  My husband made a request for a cardigan, so that he didn’t have to pull it over his head and could just slip his arms into it.

I started by looking through my patterns.  I also borrowed books from the library.  I went to one of the yarn stores and found a nice green on sale and bought all they had of a color that was being discontinued, plus a bright yellow.  I went to another yarn store just a few blocks away and found more of the same green yarn, same color number, but different lot number. I bought what they had plus a different duller yellow.  Now I had some colors to work with.  The two different dye lots of green did not seem to be different at all.

As I worked with the colors and patterns I had, my husband said that it needed another color, perhaps red.  So I went back to the store, and found a purple on sale.  Now I had bought sufficient yarn to make a cardigan, I had four colors, and just needed to decide what I wanted to do with it.  I had mostly green, two different yellows and a dark purple.  The pattern I decided on had to suit the amount of yarn I had in each color.

One of the books from the library showed lots of two color patterns for knitting.  I have always liked the star pattern that is very common here in Norway.  I found a flower pattern that was on 19 stitches, a number that as Bahá’ís we both like.  I started knitting some of the patterns I liked, trying to see what worked, how the colors fit together and how much I might use.  Some patterns I liked, and some just didn’t work at all.

Then I knit a sampler to try out the colors and the patterns.

I decided on the following motifs, each row being separated by a single bright yellow row.

• the main background color was to be green, which was the color I had the most of
• a row of purple hearts around the bottom of the sleeve and the body of the cardigan
• alternating rows of yellow stars and purple flowers
• a single row of bright yellow was used to separate each row of pattern and also used to separate the front band from the rest of the garment

As it was a cardigan that was wanted, I decided to knit back and forth, and included the front bands as I knit up the garment.  The sleeves had a cap and were sewn in afterwards.  I worked out ahead of time how many rows would be worked so that the patterns matched up between the sleeves and the body, and that I ended with a full pattern at the shoulder. The sleeves and the body of the cardigan were made the same length as this made working the pattern much easier.

I was very happy with the finished result and I had fun making the garment.  The cardigan is used a lot so the wearer seems to be happy too.

 

 

 

For a long time I have bought place mats that are a standard size, standard weave.  I have purchased several different colors over the years so that I could have a bit of variety.  Suddenly they were getting old, stains that wouldn’t come out, colors that were unappealing, or I was just tired of them after 10 to 20 years of use.  When traveling in October we were eating at a private home and there was a different type of place mat put out on the dinner table.  I began thinking out of the box and a new sewing project was born.

It was fall/autumn and the leaves were on the ground.  I was out raking them.  We have a lot trees on the lot, some are native trees, some we have planted ourselves and watched them grow.  I think well when doing routine jobs like ironing and raking.  Why not make a series of place mats, one for each season of the year?  We are usually only two at the table, but with two children or guests, I decided I should have four place mats for each season.

But the next design question was what should the picture be?  As I was raking, I gathered some of the leaves and took them inside.  Most leaves turn a dull yellow or turn brown very quickly.  I wanted ones that had a nice shape.  In the end I chose the maple leaf (dear to my heart as a Canadian), the red brown of the beech leaves (which are mostly on the tree all winter) and the yellow of the birch leaves.   I decided on two each of the maple leaves, six each of the beech leaves and many of the birch leaves. I made cardboard outlines of the tree leaves I had chosen.  Most leaves have rough edges, but mine became relatively smooth as there would be many to cut out and sew on.

Which colors?  Which materials?  What would be the background?  How realistic should it be? So I went into my boxes of scrap materials which are mostly sorted by color.  The standard colors of fall are red, orange and yellow.  I found some orange that could be the background.  I found many different yellows and it took awhile to find which ones would work.  I don’t have much brown, so the beech leaves ended up being a dark red. The maple leaves are usually yellow once they have fallen off the tree.  A bit of hunting came up with something that worked well.  The birch leaves are small in comparison to the other two and I had decided to have a lot of them, in three different materials.  I always find this the fun part of designing, but it isn’t always easy to make the decisions.  Then there was to find something for the filling and the backing. But eventually the decisions were made.

Each placemat had the same number of leaves, but they were placed differently, so that each place mat is unique.  The maple leaves were placed first, then the beech leaves and finally the birch leaves were scattered to fill up the spaces.  There was no extra quilting, except the sewing on of the leaves.

I have done quite a few applique pictures in the last year or so, and as usual, the sewing of the pictures always takes a lot longer than anticipated.  Though I was able to use only scrap materials for the place mats, I had to buy more thread of the right colors.  But in the process I also used up several old spools of thread.  I think I ended up with about eight empty spools by the end of the project.

The place mats were ready by Christmas Day, a little out of season as the first snow had already come.  But we are enjoying the bright colors during the winter months.

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Over mange år har jeg kjøpt spisebrikker i mange forskjellige farger, men etterhvert ble de utslitt.  Jeg hadde lyst til å lage noe selv.

Mens jeg var ute å rake løve om høsten, kom jeg på idéen til å lage en serie av brikker, fire for hver sesong.  Jeg begynte med høsten.  Jeg tok inn flere blad fra hagen og til slutt valgte blad fra lønn, bøk og bjørk.

Jeg har mange esker med stoff rester så da var det bare å finne frem, gul, oransje og rød. De fire brikkene ble litt forskjellige.  Ingen to er like, men de er komponert av de samme mengde blad.  Det er godt med fargerike brikker på vinterstid.