Mellow Yellow Skappel sweater

Just checking in to share with  you a bit of yellow happiness ❤️❤️

I just realized that I had completly forgotten to show you the finished result of the  "Mellow Yellow Skappel Sweater" I made for Little Missy during the Easter Holiday. 

It has been cherished and worn for weeks now -  she really  loves it!❤️

So soft and comfortable - and warm! The yarn is a mix of silk-mohair and merino wool. 

The pattern is a slightly altered version of the Skappel sweater (link to pattern in Norwegian and English at the end of this post) 

I used moss stich insted of garter stich, and adjusted the size to fit my daughter. Otherwise I pretty much followed the pattern. 

Below are some photos of Little Missy wearing her favourite sweater. She was a very willing model, I must say - posing like a pro! 

Strike a pose! 

Link to the original pattern in Norwegian

Link to an English translation of the pattern.

                                                              ❤️  Live - Love - Laugh ❤️

Rosy-Cozy Survival Kit for cold summernights...

Happy Birthday Sister Love ❤

My little sister just celebrated her birthday, and since we'd had a particularly cold and rainy summer so far, I decided to make her a "Rosy-Cozy Survivalkit for Cold Summernights" .
(Since then the weather has improved a little, but rest asure; the cold and the rain will be back soon enough...!)

Inspired by the lovely Coco Rose and her amazing photos and tutorial of her hotwater bottle cover, I made this Cath Kidston inspired version. The "Provence-rose" (from Cath Kidstons book "Stich" ), and my sisters initials,  are embroidered in cross-stiches on the crochet cover. I like the vintage look and the colourcombo so much!

This will be so ovely to snuggle up with when the long and light Scandinavian summernights gets a bit nippy....

                    

 

 

A little ( blurry photo- sorry!) close-up of the Provence-rose:

 

 

                    

 

.... and a lovely rose for the backside as well!

                    

 

                    

 

This lovely rose is made from this great tutorial from the amazing Lucy in Attic24. These roses are so pretty and so easy to make - and they turned out to be quite addictive....I have lost count of how many I've made so far in all types of yarn. Perfect for my huge stach of scrap yarn.

 

My little Heart-signature, of course...❤

 

                    

 

 

 

I also made a jar-cosy in the same pattern, and filled the jar with pink marshmallows. So sweet and soft! Some wonderful Kusmi teas are also included in the kit!

 

                    

A proper rosy-cozy survivalkit is not complete without a rose-cake....

Under the rosy cover there is a lovely, classic Oreo-cake.....(  Note to self: remeber to write a separate post about this cake- it is rather lovely and my daughters absolute favourite cake! )

 

                    

 

 

So, here it is! The Rosy-Cozy Survivalkit, complete with a beautiful rosebush and a good book to read, while snuggling the hot-water bottle, chewing on marshmallows and sipping tea! 

I'm very happy with the result, and have now  stacked up my little "studio" with hotwater bottles (found some lovely, big ones on sale!!) to make for my whole family. I have so many colours and patterns all ready in my head, so I'm really eager to try them out!
(So something tells me this will not be my last post about hotwater bottles.....the story will continue...! )
 

                    

                                                           ❤ Live - Laugh - Love ❤

The Blue Meadow Cushion

A tribute to a very dear person ❤❤

My lovely mother-in-law has turned 70! Incredible, but true!
She is such a warm and caring person with a wonderful, bubbly personality. Her (extremely) high energy-level takes our breath away from time to time, and after she retired from her job as a teacher, she is involved in more projects than ever. And she is not one to fiddle about with minor details....Grand and important causes like World Peace and Preserving the Environment are at the top of her list, and I admire her immensely for her strong commitment and tireless work to make important changes in the world.

I wanted to make her something special and personal for her big day. Something that would tell her how much I appreciate her, but also something to remind her to slow down a bit from time to time....
After  a long and busy life working fulltime as a teacher, and raising 3 children as a single mum, she now deserves to enjoy a slower and calmer life (although I don't know if a calm life actually would make her happy.....)

Anyway, I figured that a big, soft and cosy cushion would be the perfect symbol of relaxation and "slow living", and since her favourite colours are all shades of blue, green and purple, this would have to be the colourscheme I'd go for. Bright blues and greens are not colours I use very often myself, but for my mother-in-law there's just no other option. These are her colours! Bright and strong just like her lovely self ❤
I had a picture in my mind of a big cushion bursting with flowers in all shades of blue, reminding her to take the time to "stop and smell the roses"...

So off I went "flowerscouting" for just the right ones for this joyous project. Google is a good and effecient friend when it comes to finding inspiration, so after a few searches online, I found the perfect flower for this lovely person. What could be better for mye bubbly mother-in-law than Popcorn flowers? Both the name and the look of these lovelies are perfect for her!  The best part is that these flowers are so fun and easy to make, and I found a great tutorial right here.

The flowers literally pop out of the pillow like a vibrant meadow of blue flowers. So from now on this cushion is known as "The Blue Meadow Cushion". Sounds like a lovely, relaxing dream does'nt it?
It was so much fun picking the colours and making all these lovely flowers, and the excitement and love you feel when working on a unique design dedicated to a special person make the whole creative prosess even better!  I love making gifts especially made for the receiver - it's just so much better and personal when you have a special person in mind for your creation ❤

 

So, enough talk! This is how the Popcorn-flowers turned out. Rather lovely and cheerful, aren't they ?

                    

                        

   

The stack of squares increased day by day, and for a 60 x 60 cm cushion I figured I would have to make 25 happy flower squares.

                      

   It is starting to come together nicely:

                         

All 25 finished and laid out to be admired in the sun ❤

                          

Joining the squares

This is the best part of the whole making! Joining the sqares and see how all the colours and forms come together is always exciting, and in this case the result came out exactly as I had pictured it in my mind. Yeah!!

I chose the Flat Braid joining method for this pillow, and you can watch a great tutorial right here if this is unfamiliar territory for you. This is ( at the time...) by far my most preferred method of joining squares, whether it is for afghans/blankets or pillows. The result is very elegant and seamless, and the lovely braided pattern is a nice detail to the finished product.
 

Here is a (blurry!) close up of the joining. So much fun to see "the meadow" come together joined by this deep blue/green colour. I love it ❤

                        

 Hm, what to do with the back?

I had originally decided to go for a solid coloured backside, but after having worked with all these beautiful shades of blue and green for days, using just one colour seemed to dull...
So I ended up using all the colours from the flowers in one big granny square...(I did regret it a bit after finishing, and if this pillow were for myself I would have gone for the one colour, or at least I would have have left out the light blue colour. This single light stripe seems a bit out of place in this calm and toned down pattern.
But, this little, bright stripe certainly makes a lot of itself standing out in this muted tone-in-tone colourcombo,  so I decided to keep it. The symbolism here suits my mother-in-law perfectly: a bright, shining ray of light standing out from the crowd making a stand ❤

                       

  

 

Ta-dah!

Finally, The Blue Meadow Pillow in all its blue glory! I'm VERY happy with it, and might start on a version for myself as well....
(But that would have to be in something soft pink and beige, maybe with some sparkling silver added to it for a a little "bling"...? Hmm, must put this on my "must-make" list for later....and make it soner rather than later....)

❤ Live - Laugh - Love ❤

 

 

 

 

Sweet as Strawberry Cheesekake...

It is summer in Norway, and even though the temperature is not quite as comfortable as I would prefer, I just LOVE to spend most of my time outside.

Early, crisp mornings welcoming a new day, or long, light Scandinavian summernights are all spent outside- most of the time under a comfortable blanket or wrapped up in a cosy shawl.

I am now almost halfway in my summer vacation, and thus have lots of lovely time to endulge in my crafting. I've had this wonderful, thick and oh so warm Alpacca yarn laying about for a while, wondering what to make of it. It would have to be something special with such beautiful, exclusive yarn. 

I had earlier admired this amazing triangle shawl with lovely, romantic lace edging in my favourite boutiqe. Far too expensive for me, but it did spark an idea in my head....

Now, with vacation and "slow-living" coming up, the time was right to make this idea come to life, and I started experimenting with a pattern to make a shawl of my lovely Alpacca. The perfect accessory for cool summernights on the porch.
 

I added some amazingly soft and delicate slik/ mohair yarn to the Alpacca to make it more fluffy, and the combination of the two are just perfect! It makes the yarn more difficult and fiddlesome to work with, but the fluffy effect from the mohair makes it all worth it. Just so soft and lovely to touch.

The thickness of the yarn made it necessary to go for an airy and simple design, otherwise it would be too thick and heavy to bring along. So after some fiddling back and forth with various stiches, I ended up with a simple pattern consisting of trebles and chain stiches ( I might post a pattern og tutorial for this later...)

It has the most wonderful, soft pink colour - my favourite colour ever since I was a child! It reminds me of yummy Strawberry Cheesekake ❤

                     

I wanted to add some more lace to the edging, and had this lovely lime coloured lace in my stash. 

In my opinion a perfect contrast to the soft pink, and it gave the shawl that little extra spark to make it stand out a bit...

                   

Mmmm, Strawberry- Lime Cheesekake..❤❤.I just love these colours together. So fresh and full of summer ❤

                 

                       

Very happy with my colourcombo, but still feeling the need to add a little extra "bling"....

Some nice plum-coloured beads were digged out from my stash and sewn one by one on to the lace with invisible thread. Fiddling and tidious work, but  oh so happy with the result! 

                     

                     

The finishing touch: my little signature hearts attached to the ends ❤

                    

One more with the hearts.... Just Sweet❤

                     

.... and there you have it: my lovely Strawberry - Lime Cheesecake Shawl just waiting to be wrapped around  my cold shoulders. I LOVE it ❤❤

                    

                                                          ❤  Live - Laugh - Love ❤