Labor de Amor

Encontré por mucha casualidad en la revista Mollie Makes, muy recomendable también para los que no quieren hacersela enviar por correo sino bajarla en el IPad, una preciosa faldita para mi hija.  Eso me llevó ha averigüar que ese modelo es parte de un libro que se llama

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"Labor of Love" de la autora Vibe Ulrik Sondergaard.  El libro es una belleza, por una parte en lo que se refiere a realisación en sí, pero también porque los modelos son simplemente divinos.  Estos modelos representan verdaderamente una labor de amor, con sus puntos cuidadosamente arreglados, las niñas parecen como estar abrigadas en las manos amorosas de quienes han tejido para ellas.


Muy recomendable incluso si uno no habla inglés fluido.  Yo por mi parte hasta puedo leer revistas de tejido en Japonés, porque el vocabulario siempre es limitado y se encuentran muchas muy buenas traducciones de los términos de tejido en la red.

Quién se alienta?  Yo me pondré por mi parte manos a la obra.

The Winter ...

 

...is here and I finally get to knitt.   I made this cowl for myself with a wonderful cashmere tweed, handmade, that I could not resist.  It comes from the godess hands of Rita.  

I decided I need something to put on that is fast and does not bother with knots and stuff inside my jacket.  I realized that I can also use it as a very cute headband.  

The next project will be something involving this tresure of zippers I found in the thrift store.

The days are gray and cold and it seems to me that we need some color here.  So much that the book project with Karin becomes more and more colorful I guess the more the cold days get near. 

For Nina

My very good Belgian Friend living in Brussels just got a baby!  Nina...

That was certainliy the perfect oportunity to get some Babygoodies done again.  For the first, a cudly alien who has no name jet

 and

a Ms. Zimmermans classic in baby alpaca.  A little bit difficult to knit but just lovely and warm.

"Isa" the little cardigan

So finally I finished the little cardigan which I was designing using a pattern for a scarf I found in the Spinn-off Magazine.  I can't believe that I just used one single skein of Noro Sockyarn and still had quite a piece left!

I'll probably be publishing on ravelry very soon, so look for me there (Maria Paz) if you are interested on the pattern.

Back and fighting

I'm back.  Had a hard time getting used to the cold weather in Switzerland so I was like frozen for at least two weeks.  Now I'm knitting again, that means probably that I'm back to life after a dream and a time to get back from it.

At first I had to do the sorting thing with my needles, because there is lots of people who know I knit.   They keep on giving me their used needles.

Partially finished

The blue velvet dress is finished and the little lady of the house looks precious in it. Because the skirt is very wide there is place enough to move, jump and play and it is still nice and warm.  It is the first time that I sew something that comes out as I actually wanted it and it turned out to be something I would do again blindly (almost).  I just love this dress.  If anybody wants to lend the pattern well...just say so.

And the Cashmere-Tweed sweater for Noah (we actually call him the calf, because he drinks about 3 liters of milk per day, that is if I get to stop him) is finished. It came out a bit big but he will grow (with so much milk I can't be worried about that) in it I guess.  I'm lucky that he wants to put it on in the first place an even likes it!  Yes, as Mason&Dixson in "Knitting outside the lines" would say:  "Kids grow up. Somewhere in the range of 8 to 10, Johnny and Dylan get the idea that what Auntie Knitty is making for them is flat-out the fugliest stuff they have ever seen.  They dig in their heels, and their heels are not wearing handknit slipper socks."  This article and in fact the whole book is absolutely worth the money.  It is tough work to knit for teens, believe me it is!

After all the work came Eliane and friendly asked if he could help me with preparing the big trip to the south so I wished a real american apple pie for dinner and she took this very seriously.  The most delicious help I have ever had.

All things queuing up

There is lots of things I should get to finish soon, some are queuing up for a long time now.

There is the scarf I started knitting with a pattern from Spin off Magazine Number 28.  It is a nice pattern but I'm not a friend of knitting scarfs, so after about 20 cm I decided to make an other piece just like the first (everything with Noro sock-yarn) and let it be turned into the lower part of a round yoke cardi for the little lady of the house.

Then we have the cardi for Noah in Tweedlux from from Schulana, which I must say is a very nice wool but it seams to be an endless source of straw. Most expensive straw I have ever bought!  The basic Model, Bronson comes from last Rowan Magazine an its downloadable for free.  I Could not just leave it and added some little extras to get the fun in the knitting. The photos in general are not soo good, because I did them all at night.  The color is much darker.  I'll make nice photos when finished.

The little lady of the house wants a special dress for the  coming holidays and I found this blue velvet cut and also the perfect pattern as I put some order in my sewing things.  I can show you now the upper part.  I'm very proud to say that the borders in light blue are made from a shirt belonging to my husband that I could not throw away without cutting the best parts of the nice fabric.  Lucky me to have kept the trims for more than two years now.

And when talking about sewing I can say that there is one thing I actually have finished.  I found a long time ago in a flea market an overlock machine.  The name Bambinalock reminds me of the good Baby-lock series.  This must be a copy.  It is 20 years old and comes from a sewing studio.  It is extremely easy to use and very sturdy.  There is no hundreds of extras and it does not make coffee either.  But it does its job perfectly.  Only the electrician part with the cables had to be done first and it took me some time to figure out how.  Now I don't know how could I sew before without an overlock.  It makes the sewing much more fun.  OK, but I would never pay a big sum for one of these. Recycle.

At at last I have to show you what I found in a salvation army shop lately.  You must know first that I'm fascinated by fish figures, pictures, anything.  Well there was this beautiful and complete set of German porcelain to serve fish, all hand painted and just one of a kind.  Every image is different and there is also a big serving platte.  Recycle once again...

Lawyer's Heart

Do lawyers have a heart?  Yes, please, they do.  This humble lawyer here has one that does not exactly know which way to go, or... does this desk look like the desk of a lawyer?

After lots of thinking I'm convinced of being more than a lawyer, a general social sciences person.  I also found the right thing for me in the Master of Advanced Studies in Diversitiy Management from the Lucerne University.  Sounds very good to me if only the financial part was not so...say..difficult (about 25´000 USD of difficulty?).

I did not expect anything better this days.  It has been a quite difficult month.  Many things have gone wrong so I'm seeing my life at the moment through a quite disappointing lens.  And to top all of it our young kitty Nube just disapered!

We are all very sad because of this and have been looking for him everywhere with absolute no success.  We miss him a lot and I realize I miss him most.  He was my everyday companion.  And this just when I made the most beautiful housing for the little furry guy.  Stefanie theached me everything I need to know about felting a house in a very personal felting class.  Now I only need the cat to get everything right.

 And so I somehow always get people to lighten me up.  This time Elise and her big buddy Jacke (dog) came to our door to give us the first reminder of Halloween festivities.  This Dracula fingers are absolutely real.  We were actually scared to eat them, but they tasted delicious.  Elise, get me the recipie here right now!!!

And about the Knitting:  I'll be getting you some images soon of my new cardigan invention for noah and the little sweet cardi made out of sock wool (Noro please) for Isabelle.

Hope the next weeks will be getting sunnier.

Pure Love

My son Noah worked yesteday 5 hours on this washing cloth.  He was very chalenged knowing what his mom can do with thread and decided to do also a fancy colour-changeing thing. Everything was neatly sewed up so no threads show.  We used it straight away to clean the mess he made while eating nachos with avocado. 

His little piece of work remeinds me of the love we put in all things handmade and it brings me to vodoo.  Yo know the dolls used for voodoo have hairs of the person in question and so on.  The principle of vodoo is putting your thoughts into this doll as so to believe you had the person itself in front of you.  Well, I supouse that handmade things have got the same magical powers voodoo dolls have (in positive).  They are filled with love and positive thoughts from the maker.  But should the maker get to be in a hard situation, for example beacause of bad working conditions, you would also get this bad feelings into the things that are being made by the hands that are suffering. So poor working conditions would be like poisson for the consumers?  I let you think about it...

Impulsiv

Sometimes, in the middle of the night the ideas assault me and next day I suddenly have a new project going on. This time I decided that my daughter had to have an kid mohair little bolero jacket for the fall. I'm experimenting with drop stitches. Will see how it all comes out. I have been knitting by 27°, my hands warm and moist, but what should I do, this is my obsession and little cute girls just must have a fluffy bolero!


And, Noah my eldest decided to take the production of football T-Shirts in his own hands for the school championship and is doing very well without any help. I teached the basics and he is doing pretty well alone. The numbers on the back are made of an old white linen sheet. He zigzags everything. The T's have a very cool grungy look.


This week, as impulsive as I'm I wrote to Elaine Lipson from the Red Thread Studio to just tell her how I very much love her blog, and I was lucky to gain a friend. Her blog is a treasure for all who share the slow cloth passion. She explores the web and other places to find her textile treasures. Elaine is absolutely worth visiting.

Summer Knitting and Sewing

I had this old pair of trausers from my husband and made some pokets out of the sturdy fabric for the apron of my little one. After that I thought that the pockets of the trausers are actually something very difficult to do and dicided to recycle them into my wash hanging, pegs apron.

I also wanted to knit a hat from some Noro beauty I had but Iended up making a bag. Used some old piece of silk with a stitched fish I made for the insides. Yes...you can say I was very busy...

Catwalk

Today it was model day...



Isabelle showed us her cache cour or gilet or pullunder made of Araucania handdyed yarns and some rests. All cotton...

and the cute little Livio showed us his little cardi made of merino superwash with little dragonfly buttons simbols of reincarnation and of the soul itself. Both are own designs. If somebody wants the instructions I will try and write them.

Foggi fogg very grey and sad but crochetting

I promise I did not tell the guy to do this. He just decided himself it was time for taking on serious crochetting. The problem is he does not want to stop anymore, won't let me turn the lights of. Jet another yarnaddict in my home.

Better yarnaddict than depressed...and don't you ask me about the weather hier.

Kidsknitting

For the ones thinking a five year old is too young to knit! I was in the textile work class of my eight year old son and heard one or the other child saying they can’t learn knitting, it is much too difficult. To all of them and to all of us who may sometimes think something could be too difficult for us to knit, I dedicate this photo.

Knitting teaches us not to give up and to trust ourselves and what is in us. As the Buddhism says:

What is in our past and what is in our future is nothing compared to what is in us!

I found this photo in the very precious book by Marcia Lewandowski

Folk Knits

Wool works

So I did finished it!...only to be able to start the next. Does

anybody know the masses of a new born! How do I make something for someone I can not take the masses of! Please help!

EZ patterns are truly fun to knit and one actually can read to it!! Did try it. I read the history of the japanese language printed form wikipedia.

And what about spinning? Yes, the Humanus spinning wheel is wonderful! No noise an very fast if you want or slower if you prefer. You just have to turn the whorl. You can use any of both feet and lefthanded spinners are invited too. Nice, very nice... Elias has tried it already and is doing quite well on it.

The cat, the wool, and the pan

Our cat seams to love wool. This was alpaca, handspun. I bought it from chilean highland indians.

I had to wait until Nube got tired and finally went away for his nap. After that I couldn't find him anymore. Thought he might be ofended but then I found him sitting very happy in one of the kitchen cabins.

Stegosaurus Knitting

Adapted from a design from Lucinda Guy I made this Stego for my 5 year old Elias. He adores it ever since. Was not very difficult but he's got quite a big head so I had to redo the neckpart.