THREE KNITTED BEANIES: GUTTEBASSLUE

I mentioned in a previous post that I was planning on sharing a couple of knitting projects I completed last year, and this is one (three?) of those. Graeme surprised me one day with a knitting book from Klompelompe (he's lovely like that), and this pattern for the guttebasslue was the first one I tried out. I enjoyed the pattern so much, I ended up making three!

First, of course, I made one for Oscar. Then I ended up making a smaller baby-sized one for my friend who had a little kiddo in July, and then an adult-sized one in blue for another friend (to match her eyes :). All three are knitted in Sandnes Garn's merino wool.

The pattern doesn't actually call for a big oversized fur bobble, but I'm kinda loving that look right now so decided to go with it. They just look so cozy! They actually come with litle snap buttons too, so you can easily take the fur bobble off if you need to wash the hat (something I forgot to tell my friend, who ended up sending me a pretty distressed text as she had accidentally popped off her bobble and thought she'd ruined the whole hat).

I've been very tempted to make more of these, perhaps one for me and one for Graeme so we can match Oscar?

OSCAR'S BABY BOOK

Here's something I've been working on on and off for over a year and half now: Oscar's baby book. If you're not familiar with the concept, a baby book is a memory book filled with journal prompt type pages where you can record your child's first year (or first few years). The way this book is set up is that it's about 90% from the first year, and then a couple pages to fill in between the ages 1-6, so this is obviously still a work in progress, but as I'm done with most of it I thought I'd share a couple of pages from it.

I actually spent a long time looking for the "right" book, because there were so many out there that I was pretty disappointed by. I eventually ended up with this one, and while there's definitely nicer looking books out there, I felt a lot of them really lacked in substance compared to this one. And either way, I planned to make my own cover for it and fill the pages with as many photos as I could, so the design wasn't really that important to me.

One of the things I really like about this project is that I've used so many photos from my phone, which I normally don't do when I make albums. Quite often I tend to only use SLR photos as they tend to turn out nicer, but I just had too many photos of my phone that weren't necessarily of the best quality but still too good not to include. Like the one of his first smile (above photo, bottom right), or the photo of that time he had a giant blow out and pooped all over his chair (above photo, middle), or the one where he's lying in his crib with the cheekiest smile, and he's thrown all of his dummies on the floor (below, middle). You can't always have your SLR ready to capture moments like that!

As for the cover, I made a simple slip cover in navy cotton embroidered with white embroidery floss. I basically expanded on this project I made for a friend years ago, and embroidered his name and birth date along with the constellation of his zodiac sign, and I love how it turned out, as I basically just eyeballed it. I also added this little detail on the back of the book:

Another cool detail is that I added a QR code to one of the first pages. It's not the prettiest, but it links up with a video Graeme and I made of one second long clips from every day of his first year. Graeme got the idea while I was working on my other 1SE project, and I think it's one of my favorite projects ever! It's a bit long, but I love it so much and it melts my heart every time I watch it. I can't believe how much he grew in that first year!

And if you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen the monthly portraits I've been taking of Oscar with one of his teddies. I decided to put them all in order and cover a page with them.

I'll be the first to admit that these books can be kinda cheesy, but I also love stuff like this and I love flipping through my own baby book that my mother made for me. Can't wait to look through it with Oscar when he's older, and I hope he loves it as much as I do!

WOOL ROVING WALL HANGING

So somewhere along the line, life got a bit busy and I stopped finding time for creative projects. Don't get me wrong, I've still had a couple of knitting projects on the go and I've completed three photo books too (I'll share these later), but it feels like it's been a long time since I sat down and focused 100% on making something new.

And last weekend, after a bit of a hard week, I sat down, brewed myself a cup of tea, put on a favorite podcast, got some materials out and started making a wool roving wall hanging. I've never made anything like this before (though I do remember doing some basic weaving back in school when I was about six—does that count?), but I googled a couple of tutorials and looked at Pinterest for some inspiration, and it was just so wonderful to just sit down and try something new, something just for fun. I need to do this more often. Making stuff is my zen.

So one of my goals for 2018 is to complete 12 projects. I'm counting this wall hanging as my first. And then I thought maybe if I share my projects here on this blog, that might make me a bit more accountable and likely to finish them all, so here I am, writing away. I haven't made a set-in-stone plan for what the next 11 projects will be, but I've had a good brainstorm and just really looking forward to trying new things in general and being creative.

For this wall hanging, I used the lid of a pizza box to make the loom, some old weaving threads that I inherited from my grandmother (she was an avid weaver and did huge, complicated tapestries), and three packs of wool roving that I bought for 20 kroner each. So in total, this project cost me 60 kroner. The little wooden beam I just had lying around, leftover from an orchid I managed to kill a while ago.

I went for a pretty abstract look, where my only plan was to try to make some thick braids that faded into thinner braids, and then do some basic weaving in between to even it out. The wall hanging is far from perfect (and I'm not actually sure it fits the space it was originally intended for), but I had such a good time making it and would love to make something similar again.

So here's to a creative 2018 and hopefully 11 more creative projects!

KNITTED RAGLAN SWEATER

Some friends and I have recently started meeting up for "strikk & drikk" evenings, where we basically meet up and sit around and chat and knit while having a couple of drinks ("strikk & drikk" is Norwegian for "knit & drink"). It's been really fun, and it's also put me on a bit of a knitting kick!

And while on this knitting kick, I went ahead and knitted my first sweater! Actually, I knitted two, this is the second one (I was going to do a post on the first one but never got around to it, cause, you know, life!). I've always been a bit put off by knitting sweaters as they seemed like such big projects, and I have a tendency to get distracted and bored if a knitting project is too time consuming. Admittedly, this project is still lying there unfinished in my knitting basket. But I was encouraged by one of the girls from my knitting group who has only been knitting for a couple of months now and she's already finished three sweaters (and several headbands made out of the leftover yarn). Besides, I needed a break from all the knitted baby blankets! (Although I also knitted another one of those for a friend who's expecting haha)

For the first sweater, I used this pattern, but I used Drops Brushed Alpaca Silk which meant I had to adjust the pattern a little to make up for the tension difference. I knitted the whole sweater in about two weeks, and was so happy with the result that I decided to knit another one and got started straight away.

For the second sweater though, I wanted to make a couple of adjustments. I wanted a bit of a tighter knit, so I decided to use 4mm needles (as opposed to 6mm as the original pattern called for). I made some adjustments to the length of the sweater, inverted the sleeves for a subtle contrast, and did a slight adjustment to the raglan construction.

And overall, I'm so happy with the result. I loved the first sweater and I've worn it a ton, but I think I like the second one even more! But while the first sweater took me about two weeks to knit, the second one took me over two months! This was partly because of the smaller needles that obviously take a longer time to work with, but I also got really demotivated halfway through because I was convinced I wasn't actually going to like the fit and that I was spending all this time knitting a sweater I'd have no use for. I even wrote down a shortlist of potential people I could gift it to in case it didn't fit me. So when I finally finished it and tried it on, imagine my relief that it not only fit, but fit exactly how I wanted it! And with the soft and cozy alpaca silk yarn mix, it makes for such a comfy sweater. Think I'm gonna have to knit about a dozen more of these!

Before I knit myself another sweater though, I'm planning on knitting one for Oscar. I'm thinking either this pattern or this one. What do you guys think?

MY 1SE VIDEO

If you've been reading for a while, you might remember that I started a SE1 video project on my 29th birthday last year. And guess what: today I am 30 and the SE1 video of the last year of my twenties is complete. It was definitely a challenge to remember to take a video every day (hence why quite a few of the videos ended up getting taken at night, right before bedtime haha), and the project ended up taking so much space on my phone that by the end of it I had to delete pretty much all my photos and hardly have any apps left, ha! I was holding my breath when I was mashing all the videos together, hoping my phone would make it! But it's been such a fun project, and I would definitely do it again. Not this year, but maybe in a few years to see how my life compares then?

Anyway, here it is:

PS. Graeme and I are also working on a 1SE project for Oscar's first year, which will be done in May. It's so cool seeing his development and watching the little clips makes my heart sing. :)