Happy knitting: Short row shawl

Yes, I'm knitting on a new project again - when I saw this gorgeous short row pattern by Veera Välimäki at Ravelry; I just couldn't resist!

It's a simple, still nifty pattern, teaching you the basics of the short row technique in an easily understandable way - and although there are hundreds of stitches on the needle by now, it does neither bore me nor give me the feeling of endlessness ...

With the beautiful, handpainted sock yarn from Susa and another couple of sunny hours outside in the garden, I think this shawl will be finished in no time!

(German summary: Jawohl, ich stricke schon wieder an einem neuen Projekt - ein geniales Sockenwolle-Tuch mit verkürzten Reihen! Hört sich kompliziert an, ist es aber wirklich nicht!)

Watching the birds - playing around

When I saw what my hands had played with while exercising free motion machine embroidery, I had to laugh: somehow it made me think of the early morning arguments with my teenage son ;-)!



Using very simple outlines, a bit like childrens' drawings, makes it possible to transfer the forms into almost every material.

I liked the look of these birds and pondered upon how to make a brooch with the motif - while experimenting, I came up with this:



The bodies are cut out of discarded plastic cards (same stiffness as credit or club cards), covered with patterned washi tape. In good old malfatto manner, I just attached the broche needle and other metal wire components with duct tape.

Bits of wire - sometimes combined with scoubidou strings - and some beads for embellishments made the rest.

(German summary: Zwei Variationen von Vögel, einmal genäht/maschinengestickt, einmal als Broschen mit Recylingmaterial.)

Autumn flowers

Some autumn flowers for you for still hanging around, although I'm late again!



We have had - and occasionally still have - warm and sunny Indian summer days here in the south-east of Austria, the mornings and evenings can be chilly, though.

So I decided to crochet a flowery cape shawl, big colourful stars, using three different balls of 6-ply variegated sock yarn and a 6 mm hook, attaching the stars on the go.



I added a couple of rows for a 'neckband' and some flower buttons too, so it stays put while my hands are busy doing other things :-)!



(German summary: Diesmal habe ich einen Schalumhang gehäkelt, denn trotz der wunderbar sonnigen Spätsommertage sind die Abende doch schon ein bißchen kühl. 6-fädiges Sockengarn und eine dicke Häkelnadel (nr 6) - und mit ein paar Blumenknöpfen bleibt der Schal auch fest auf den Schultern!)

Rock carvings: A second glimpse ...

... of the rock carving 'comic strip', this picture showing Regin's horse, holding the treasure of the dragon Fafne on its back.

It takes quite a bit of concentration embroidering these small motifs on the sewing machine - this horse, for example, is only about 8 x 5 cm/3 x 2 ", and Sigurd himself (in my latest posting), was even smaller than that.



So I'm regarding this first approach as a kind of sketch, to get more acquainted with the motifs - I'm thinking of enlarging it further later on, maybe embroidering it by hand next time or even painting it on a wall ...

But I'm very happy to finally having started exercising the free motion machine embroidery - there are so many possibilites in that technique - and it's great fun!

(German summary: Hier kommt das zweite Motiv der Felsenritzung, und die Bilderchen erfordern schon einiges an Konzentration beim Nähen, weil sie so klein sind, dieses etwa 8 x 5 cm. Vielleicht werde ich die Vorlage später weiter vergrößern - ich denke da an einen handgestickten Wandbehang oder vielleicht an eine Wandmalerei ...)

Rock carvings: A small glimpse ...

... of a new project: The story of Sigurd Fafnesbane, carved about 1000 years ago - sometimes disrespectfully called 'the world's oldest comic strip' - this is a rock carving I've been wanting to translate into textile for about 30 years.

And now I've begun, with a small free-motion machine sketch - here's a first glimpse:



... and regarding the background, you can read more here at Wikipedia.

(German summary: Seit 30 Jahren liebäugele ich schon mit dem Gedanken, diese herrliche, tausendjährige Felsritzung ins Textile umzuwandeln ... und fange jetzt mit einer kleinen, frei maschinengestickten Skizze an. Zum Hintergrund gibt es hier in Wikipedia mehr darüber zu lesen.)

Joint venture: Cell phone cover

A little while ago, my friend Gabi was visiting me for the weekend - and while sitting out in the garden talking, we made a colourful cover for her new cell phone together.



First, she knitted a double overlapping strip in garter stitch, with some red crochet cotton and some variegated sock yarn, decreasing the number of stitches in the end - and then I showed her how to punch the knitting with the embellisher to densify the wool and make the cover stiffer.

At this point, we both saw the face of the snake taking form - Gabi embroidered the eyes, I punched the tongue and added a strip of punched glitzy neon fabric to the back, decorating it with a black zig-zag free-motion embroidery - she sew the cover together with the sockwool and added the glasses, which she made out of a piece of wire and some button hole stitches. Finally, we found a bit of red Velcro-tape in my stash and sew it on for closure.

It was ready in no time and we had quite some fun with this joint-venture!

(German summary: Ein kleines, buntes Handytascherl, daß meine Freundin Gabi und ich beim Plaudern im Garten eigentlich so nebenbei gemeinsam gemacht haben - witzig, oder?)

Rock carvings: The tattooed deer

And what if I was to use the pattern program on my sewing machine to do the filling up on these Wiking symbols? Although I've chosen a rather simple Bernina model, there is still quite a selection of automatic patterns available on it -

I tried out three of them on this deer, along with some free-motion sewing - and the drawing was delightfully filled in no time! (Argh! Why is there such a thing as preparing dinner and cleaning up and all those other chores - I'd rather be playing all day long!)



When tracing my drawing with the parchment paper and pencil method, I always get a reverse version as well - this time I used it on the backside of an ice-cream paper box, to get a cardboard template to use for another project -

and look, how funny it happened to turn out from the printed side - maybe you can call this some sort of 'tattoo' as well!



(German summary: Und was wäre wenn ich eines der vorgegebenen Muster der Nähmaschine zum Ausfüllen verwenden würde - auch bei meinem einfacheren Bernina-Modell gibt es da so einige zur Auswahl ...

Und als 'Nebenprodukt' habe ich beim Durchpausen auf einem Eiscreme-Karton noch ein buntes 'Tattoo' dazubekommen!)