Blue mohair wrist warmers

When I stumbled upon this beautiful handpainted blue mohair roving at Etsy, I just couldn't resist it ... I had never spun mohair before, but it's so silky and long-fibered that it almost span itself into a very thin and shiny yarn.

To make the luxury complete, I plied it with a hand-dyed royal baby alpaca lace yarn (from Susa) and decided to knit myself a pair of super-soft - and very warm! - wrist warmers. Yes, I know, spring is here, but my wrists still do ache for a lot of warmth.

As this gorgeous yarn reminds me so much of water and of the sea, I crocheted a row of 'shells' with the thin alpaca as a side border. And what would be more suitable for decoration than a couple of those miniature shells, which Elizabeth/Landanna had collected on her Danish seashore and sent to me as a gift last Christmas?



I'm so happy with these, they warm up my wrists and my heart!

(German summary: Ich habe zum ersten mal wunderbar weiche, handgefärbte Mohairwolle versponnen und mir daraus sehr luxuriöse Handgelenkswärmer gestrickt. Als Krönung habe ich noch - mit Hilfe einer Drahtschlinge - einige der winzigen Muscheln draufgenäht, die mir meine Blogfreundin Elizabeth/Landanna zu Weihnachten geschickt hat.)

Reclaimed wool: Indoor boots/Haussocken aus Recyclingwolle

Another good idea for using your reclaimed wool (or leftovers), is making house boots - a crocheted mixture of socks and slippers, which my daughter and I are using constantly. They are warm, soft and don't get lost under the table - and you can even drop them in the washing-machine from time to time.

For this latest pair of boots I used a reclaimed worsted wool yarn for the base and topped it with some fancy leftovers of fringe yarn - I even decorated them with a dear head which I cut out from a piece of brown felt.



End of summer, I crocheted these two pairs the same way - reclaimed yarn and leftovers again, however in some acrylic wool blends.



As usual, I didn't really have a pattern, but if you zoom up on the pictures, I think you get the idea:

Starting circular at the toes, crocheting a flat round for a couple of rows (put a marker at the beginning, so you can see where a new row starts).

At about 5 cm diam. increase less frequently, thus allowing the flat piece to curl up to a 'bowl' - when the 'bowl' covers your toes nicely (about 32 sts), stop increasing and proceed crocheting in rounds until you reach your ankle (about 13 cm medium female size).

Now leave a gap of about 12 cm in the front and work front and back rows, turning at the gap.

Continue until you've reached your heel (about 12 cm medium female size), split the back by working a couple of short rows to produce a rounded heel. Leave a long tail of your yarn to close up the heel with a few stitches from the inside of the boot.

If you like an open shoe, you could stop here, just crocheting a last row around - but I must say I do prefer crocheting a shaft, making it more like a boot - it looks 'younger' and less Granny-like - and I find it fits better on the foot as well!

So just go on crocheting for about 6 or more rows, skipping the corner stitches on both sides in each round. In the last row, crochet 15 chain sts for a loop at the back - this is great for hanging the boots, for putting them on - and it looks cool, too!



I used a 6 mm crochet hook and either worsted weight yarn or 2-3 strands of thinner yarn - but you take whatever you have and don't feel afraid to try it out!

A good idea would be, however, to divide your yarn into two similar heaps (you can put it on a scale) before you start, and to work both boots more or less simultanously - when you work without a pattern, this is to ensure that both boots will look the same in the end :-)!

(German summary: Noch eine nette und nützliche Art, seine Rest- oder Recyclingwolle zu verwenden, ist Haussocken- oder -stiefel zu häkeln. Das geht sehr einfach: ein Käppchen für die Zehen, dann gerade aus in Runden bis zur Fessel, aufgezogene Sohle in Hin- und Rückrunden bis zur Ferse, Arbeit teilen und ein paar verkürzte Runden häkeln, zusammennähen, Öffnung umhäkeln, bis ein Schaft entstanden ist, kleinen Henkel hinten mittig arbeiten.

Ein guter Tip ist aber, wenn man frei häkelt, daß man anfänglich die Wolle in zwei gleiche Teile aufteilt und die beiden Stiefel mehr oder weniger gleichzeitig arbeitet - damit sie am Ende auch wirklich gleich werden :-)!)

Introducing 'Constantia', my slow fashion model

Hey - who is this?

Let me introduce 'Constantia' to you! A bit shy yet, she is, but I guess you will see more of her before long!



When Sara came to visit me, we talked about the possibility of using a doll for our knitting and other textile experiments, thus being able to try out patterns and ideas in a smaller scale.

We agreed on keeping the dolls quite simple, not too small, and on using the same outlines for both, hers and mine. As Sara is far more experienced than I am in doll-making, I asked her to outline it and to teach me how to sew and stuff it.

I wanted a doll looking more like a grown-up woman, with ample bosom and belly and a few grey hairs - well, more like in real life, if you see what I mean :-)!

Constantia measures about 80 cm/30 inches and is entirely made out of stash material and what I had at hand: an old cotton sheet, dyed with black tea, a red and grey tangled wool, a bag of padding and a little black acrylic paint for the boots. (For these first photos I just dressed her in one of my daughter's T-shirts - it's getting a bit chilly outside.)

Although we had almost a week together, Sara and I started making the dolls only a few hours before she had to go - so she left with only a paper pattern and I had a kind of empty fabric skeleton without a face in my hand ... So well, Constantia is not perfect - neither am I - but she's my first try-out and I would like her to serve as a model for a bit of slow fashion, for handmade and recycling wearables.



(German summary: Dies ist Constantia, eine 80 cm Stoffpuppe, die ich gerne als Model für selbstgemachte Anziehsachen verwenden möchte. Als Sara bei mir war, haben wir diese Möglichkeit des verkleinerten Ausprobierens diskutiert und zusammen ausgearbeitet - es wird also auch eine zweite Version davon geben!)

Recycling and Whatiffing a slipover ...

I'm still struggling around with this slipover, which doesn't behave as I want it to.

I started out with different pieces of knitwear (old sweaters and some UFOs), shrunk them in the washing-machine, cut them up and stitched them together, quite randomly, with bold handstitches and then punched it with the embellisher.

Unfortunately, some material flattened out more than I'd foreseen under the embellisher and I tried to shrink it once more. Some of the seems broke up after this procedure - I guess as a result of me using the thicker, coarser felting needles for this project, as these knitted and felted layers can partially be very thick and I wanted to avoid massive needle breakage. Anyway, these sturdy needles seem to kind of "chew" the thread I used for the seams.

So I'll get back to this project as soon as I've figured out how to solve the mess!