My finished Colourscape Cowl, Knitting an Alpaca Jumper, some yarn love and tiny beads

Hello again!

Hope you are all having a good February so far? Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post!

With the colder weather here I seem to have concentrated on my knitting lately!

One of my intentions for this year is to look at old WIPs that have been put to one side and left unfinished! Here is one of them that I managed to finish last Friday morning!

My finished Colourscape Cowl

It's a large cowl, knitted in a simple Rib pattern with lovely Rowan Colourscape Chunky yarn, on 10mm needles! The finished size is 70 cm x 40 cm (140 cm circumference). This is large enough to wear as a cape!!! It could also be worn as a cowl, wrapped around twice! I decided to thread a simple knit cord through it, so I can pull it tight! I do not even know why I had left it unfinished!!! At least now I can get some wear out of it in the cold!

The yarn is pure Lambswool, designed by Kaffe Fassett. It has long been discontinued.

The finished cowl laid flat

My unfinished WIP

My finished cowl/cape with a knitted cord!

Knitting an Alpaca Jumper

On Tuesday I sat down and began casting on stitches with Drops Alpaca Boucle yarn, to start a jumper. I experimented with different stitches, I tried out adding a fine colour yarn to the light grey Alpaca, but in the end this is what became the beginning of my Jumper. I started late Tuesday afternoon, then did quite a bit of knitting in the evening with the knitting group 'T Arm Schaap in Zurenborg.

Needless to say that I'm not really following a pattern, but it is somewhat inspired by this jumper which in turn is based on this one here. I also quite like a similar version as a cardigan. It's thecombination of a simple look (Garter Stitch) and using fabulously soft yarn - the prerequisites for a favourite jumper.

This is what it looked like by Tuesday evening: the first 5-6cm!

03.02.15 Starting my new Alpaca Jumper

05.02.15 Making progress

08.02.15 Laid out on top of a favourite jumper dress

08.02.15 The first 37cm

As you can see, it will be quite a large size Jumper, almost a dress, and I am knitting with 2 balls of yarn at the same time! The result is wonderfully light and fluffy and oh so soft!

I am also knitting in the round, because it means that I can knit front and back in one go. Once I have reached the armpits, I will finish by knitting either front and back panel separately. This has the advantage that there are no side seams on the lower body.

Yesterday I had a bit of an indulgent afternoon with continuing my rewatching of 'TheKilling' (Season 1 with 20 episodes!) and lots of knitting. (No, I'm not watching all episodes in one go!) By the end of the evening I had managed to get up to 46cm!!

I always wanted a jumper just like this and I'm pleased that I found such a great yarn to knit with. It will be worth the effort. I'm using 9mm knit-Pro needles with a 100cm cable.


Some Yarn love

Here a little glimpse of my recent purchases, I am trying to be careful with buying more yarn. However, I decided to expand my knit-Pro needle tips collection by adding 6.5mm and 7mm sizes to my arsenal.

I found this wonderful rainbow yarn (by Swedish label Marks&Kattens) on the last day of the January sales! It seems to be similar to my Scheepjeswol Invicta sock yarn. In the Tiger shop I found Sockyarn (last one) for 1 Euro and round knitting needles for 3 Euros. I also got another ball of Lang Mille Colori Baby Merino wool.

My recent purchases

A charity shop find - a small coin purse - in the trend colour for 2015: Marsala

Tiny beads

On saturday I had a laptop and knitting free day - I spent the afternoon playing with my tiny seed beads. I made a necklace which can be worn double and a thing that looks like a pendant, but I think I will make it into a bead brooch instead. I also made a tassel pendant (not shown). I forgotten how fiddly it is to work with such minute beads, I used my strong magnifying Craft lamp - especially useful when you need to get the thread onto a small needle!!! I enjoyed getting caught up in doing something a bit difficult!

I'm sure most of you had quite a bit of snow by now, we had a small amount here in Belgium. This is the view from the upstairs window last Thursday morning.

05.02.15 Snow

This is all from me for now. I must do a bit of studying for a Dutch test this evening! Hope you are keeping warm and cosy, sitting somewhere nice with your crochet or knitting in hands!

Please feel free to leave me some comments, you know I enjoy reading them. I need to catch up on my own blog reading, too! There seems to be never enough time for everything!!!

A crafty corner makeover, more knitted hats, a bit of colour and an amazing find

Hello my dear blogfriends!

Thanks for your patience, it's been a bit longer between posts this time. Firstly, my daughter came to stay for a second time! So we've been out and about a fair bit and generally things have been rather busy. In addition to that, I'm still suffering from a horrible cold that refuses to go away, this morning I woke up with a nasty sore throat that feels like I swallowed a cheese grater!!!

Let me say another thanks and welcome to all my new followers, it is lovely to have you all here!
Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post!

A crafty corner makeover

This time I want to show you the result of my tidying, clearing up and re-organising my little crafty corner. Unfortunately I did not take a photo of the towering inferno that was piling up on top of my craft cabinet, so I can only show you the 'after' photos. Let me assure you that this is a huge improvement and it pleases me much more to look at it now! It took me an entire afternoon, so be warned if you start something like this! But of course, you could sort out just a small corner to start with! I know I got a lot more to do!

My craft cabinet after the makeover!

Displaying some favourite little things

My vintage Spool holder

More treasures!

I love buttons!!!

My various drawers that I painted about 2 years ago

A couple of summers ago, I was really into painting my various wooden drawers, some of which I had for years, plus I managed to find some more here in charity shops! Finally I can access these drawers better! And now they house lots of crafty bits and pieces! When ordering your materials, you can be totally creative - lots of glass jars, liquid washing tabs containers, even food containers, biscuits tins etc can all be used. I find it works best for me when I can see the contents such as the buttons in the jars, but other things are best out of sight (in drawers or trays).

The printers tray, and the children's sewing box were also charity shop finds previously!

Do you have any useful storage ideas that work well for you?


Some finished projects

The following 2 projects have been finished meanwhile the week before. Here are some in progress pictures.

This is my second Alpaca Shawl - meanwhile finished!

21.01.15 Finished this hat for a friend

More knitted hats

When my daughter came back, I knitted her a headband and another hat, plus a new hat for myself, all within 2 days!!!

The knitted headband before it was sewn together

Left hat for me, Right hat and headband for my daughter

And here once more, all my recent knits made from Rico yarn

A bit of colour

Well, by now you probably come to expect quite a bit of colour when you come to visit this blog, right? This is a little bit different! Yes, I'm doing colouring in for adults and it is great fun. I tend to buy a weekly notebook/magazine called flow weekly which I use for making notes, drawing charts and more! This is a page that was for colouring in! But I also bought a big colouring in book! Have any of you tried it? I'd be interested to find out!

An amazing find!

Look at this! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it! A handknitted tunic in Autumn colours (sorry, the colours do not come out so well in this picture which I took in the charity shop when I saw it!)

I tried it on and it fitted me fine, so I had to have it! My daughter agreed that it suits me! In fact, I am wearing it today. What is more, I totally appreciate that someone has handmade it (I can imagine how much hard work went into it, not to mention the amount of colourful yarn and how much it must have cost!) Needless to say I only paid a snip for it! Plus I found a lovely grey jumper with mohair and silk (not handmade), that also gives me a favourite comfy jumper feel!

However, all this has not put me off wanting to knit my own jumpers!

I want to wish you all a happy weekend, what are your plans? Have you scheduled in some crochet or knitting time?

As always, I love reading your comments, so feel free to leave me yours!