Etsy FrontPage - Twice!

This is absolutely fabolous!! Wonderfully talented EST-Member JKphotography sure has an eye for beautiful things. This time she made a Treasury that hit the Etsy FrontPage on the 9:th of November in the middle of the night (02:00-03:00 CET) here in Sweden, but absolutely evening primetime on the American EastCoast. I was of course thrilled!
Then two days later, the SAME treasury hit the FrontPage again! The first time the Etsy admin had changed the order and used some of the altnerates. But this second time the original treasury hit the frontpage. This time at 15:00-16:00 CET, which is during the morning.

It is actually a bit funny. There are a lot of Treasury's created every day and the admin still uses the same ones over and over again. Not that I am complaining. At least not this time!

What item?? Well. Is the beautiful dress from the tablecloth collection.

Monday Moodboard - Hot pink!

I know that there are a lot of people that get depressed during the winter month. Especially those that live in Sweden. No wonder, really. It is dark when you get to work and it is dark when you get home from work. Today the sun rised at 7:35 and set at 16:11 in Gothenburg. And its getting worse every day. And if you go further north, to Kiruna, the sun don't even bother to rise between the 14:th of December until the 28:th December. Talk about living in the dark ages!

Why we even bother to live in this country?? Well. During the summer months we get the opposite, the sun never sets. You can be out in the middle of the night and the sun is still shining from the skies. The kids don't understand why mummy is forcing them to go to bed, the sun is still up!! Well, the sun will be up until August, so you better get some sleep because you can't be awake for two months!!

Luckily I am not the kind of person that get depressed during winter. I get EXTRA energy! Hence my choice of pictures today!!

1. Babushkas apple by Swiedebie
2. Sleevy mini by Sleevy
3. Lyris Necklace by LeelaBijou
4. Bubble pink ring by Nanouke

Crocheted mittens with ruffle edge

My daughter is not a big fan of mittens. Especially not the ones that you can buy. Really fancy (and expensive ones) made of goretex that are warm and will keep your fingers dry. I think it they are to bulky to her, she can't use her hands the way that she wants to, so she takes them off instead.

Last year a made her brother a couple of crocheted mittens, and she loved them. So, I made her a couple of pairs of her own, and she wore them throughout the winter. As long as you got a pair or two to use when the first pair gets wet it is really a good option. And the wool makes them warm even if they are wet.

So. For this season I asked her what she wanted. And she wanted pink mittens (surprise!), so I decided to use my tushie mat technique and make them striped in a pale pink and a hot pink yarn. Since I never use any pattern it is always tricky to get the right size and get both mittens exactly the same, but actually the stripes made it easier for me to follow what I had done on the first mitten. It took forever to finish them, but if my princess wants woolen mittens she will have woolen mittens!!

When I was about done with them I decided to add this lettuce edge to them. She loved this ruffle, but the next time I make it I will use a few less stitches to make it a little softer. But all in all, it is not bad for being an experiment!

Coloring yarn

I have seen a lot of people lately that have been coloring yarn with food colors. And when I found this lovely unwashed and undyed yarn I decided that it could be a fun crafting time for the kids. We got plenty of paste colors that I have used for making cake toppings, and a splash of vinegar, water and a micro wave oven was also within reach.

First. I gave the yarn a good rinse and popped it into a big bowl with some vinegar in it, and let it rest for a couple of hours (I did it in the morning before work, and we colored the yarn at 2pm.

Then I mixed my food colors with water and vinegar. No exact measures here, but more water than vinegar at least. At this point the kids were jumping up and down, so afterwards I realized that I could have used more water in the mixes. The colors got much darker than I had expected them to be. I cut up a sponge in four pieces, one for each color. I forced the kids to wear plastic aprons and rubber gloves. I wore my gloves in the beginning, but after trying to figure out the yarn, opening little containers and things I gave them up, and got a REALLY bad manniqure. It got better after a day or two, but I still had a lot of colour around the nails after three days.I set up clingfilm on the table, gave each kid a skein and showed them that they should try to use different colors in different sections. They missed out on this part, an added color as they wanted, but the yarn turned out nice any way. There was a lot of swamping going on and a lot of colors moving around on the table, so I didn't dare to bring out the camera for the first skein. After that first skein, my son gave up. But my daughter really dug into it with love and energy. She really found her best crafting method. And I think she colored at least 300 grams of yarn herself. Then we ran out of color and organized skeins, otherwise she would have continued. As one skein was ready I folded them into the clingfilm and put them into a ceramic or glass bowl. And I put them in the microwave oven to heat on maximum for about 5 minutes. Then I let them cool down and put it in the oven once more. This is for fixating the colors. When I rinsed one of the bowls ther was still enough color in one of them to color of a couple of skeins that I was not able to sort out, since they were so tangled. These I put in a bowl with clingfilm on top and had them in the microwave oven until the plastic started to raise above the bowl. This method is probably better if you want solid colored yarn.Afterwards we rinsed the yarn thoroughly and hanged them over the bath tub.At this point they looked pretty dark. It might have to do with that it was completely dark outside (although the time was 5pm, it gets dark early here in Sweden this time of the year). The day after I took the skeins outside to look at them properly, and they got much brighter and more vivid colors. My grade for this craft: GREAT! This was superfun, but a bit messy. Lessons learned: Put plastic on everything that you want to be able to wipe off. The hard wood floor I was able to just wipe off, as well as the oil cloth. My hands still had color on them, as did my daughters face, so she had Pippi Longstocking freckles (from too intense swamping) for a couple of days. And if you use paste colors you will probably need much less paint than you think. Also, try to prepare as much as possible before even inviting the kids to the kitchen. When they got into the kitchen things were happening VERY fast. Craft for kids aged: Well my daughter is 3 1/2 and it was perfect for her. The 5 1/2-year-old boy got bored. Mum thought it was great fun. As long as you can find any plastic glove that fit, I think that most kids would be able to do this.
What I will do with the yarn?? I haven't decided yet....

Organic velour tunic for a star!

Yes. I am having a really productive period right now. It is partially because of the Christmas fair on Gunnebo Slott which will take place in two week (jeeeeez!). And as always my kids get the first pick from the new items. Usually I finish off a few items and then they get to pick, but this one was the first item that I finished and that one was "stolen" before it got accompanied by any other garments...

Since it is getting colder by the day now I wanted to make a couple of long sleeved tunics and tops of warmer material. This lovely organic cotton velour was on top of my list. So comfortable, cozy and warm. And pretty! The sleeves are hot pink with brown stars, and I have enlarged the star and cut it from the hot pink fabric and attatched it to the body section of rich chocolate brown. I have used brown ribbing around the arms and the neck. And as you can see, my daughter is very happy with her first pick from the new collection. She rapidly established that the model was good for dancing.

I have cut one or two items from the same fabric and I hope at least one of them will be able to make it to my Etsy shop, but please email me if you are interrested in something special. Oh, btw, I got the star-fabric in turquoise too, which could be cool for a boy perhaps??

Sales fairy

To be a sewing blog there has been an awful lot of yarn in this lately. Well here is some more yarn. This time it is a sales fairy. We have been playing the "sales fairy game" in the EuropeanStreetTeam and the sales fairy has been flying around in Europe. I caught mine from Evihan this Sunday, and then it was my turn to make something on the same theme.

The rules were simple. A sales fairy at an affordable price and reserved listing to the European Street Team. I did this on free hand. No pattern really. She got got a green dress, and little pink wings. Blue eyes and long blonde hair (of course she has to, she's from Sweden! Well, I got green eyes and brown hair, so not ALL Swedes looks like this... but anyway).
Perhaps she could have gotten a little less lipstick, but I had already spent 36 hours before I listed it, and the team was getting increasingly impatient... I smashed my hands between the car door and the garage this Monday morning, and I was convinced that I had broken every bone in my hand, since it looked very flat... and bruised. This was certainly not increasing the speed.

If you want to see where the sales fairy is right now, go to the EST Blog.

Warm and cozy shawl

I saw this wonderful shawl at Garnstudio, but I decided that I would want some other colors on it. It is the Eskimo wool yarn that I have used, along with crochet needle number 8, It is probably a bit smaller than the original shawl, since the pattern suggested needle no 10. Anyway. It turned out to be a really cozy and warm shawl. I usually wear it in front, as a large oversized necklace, but my son took the photo on a Sunday and I would need to put on at least a few strokes of make up (otherwise you would think I was still celebrating Halloween), so I decided to take the photo from the back instead… Booo!
The last picture is a bit blurry and I had to cut it pretty much to get it descent. It is hard for a five year old to handle a complicated camera...