Tag Archives: Leftover yarn

VHS And Christmas Knitting!

October 18, 2015 Pixie Leave a comment

I’m a bit of a nerd and a bit of a dork, anyone who knows me knows this fact. For years now I’ve combined my two favorite things, knitting and movie/TV watching. My collection of watchables is an ongoing, every-growing organism, which takes up a bit of space (I’ll admit that). For a couple of years now I’ve had my VHS collection stored at an aunt’s house, and a few weeks back a cousin of mine drove my collection up to me. It took me about a day to get over the excitement after my VHS’s had arrive (I kept snuggling with them, true story!), and the next day I started on the mission of watching EVERY SINGLE VHS I have, to check the quality of the tapes. Sure, I’m fully aware that my VHS’s won’t have great quality on the 48″ digital Smart-TV in my living room, but I couldn’t care less. Now this is just the first boxes unpacked, VHS’s takes up quite a bit of space, so I’ll have to do my mission little by little =). The stack to the far left are those who can’t be watch, ever again. They have passed away, and moved on to a better place.

I’ve had a great time these last few weeks, with my movies and my Christmas knitting. These are the things I’ve made since my last post:

Bunny Ears Hat, knitted with Kitten Mohair (the white yarn), and Funny Pelsgarn (the pink yarn). I didn’t use any pattern for this, it’s very easy to make. You can take any kind of hat/beanie pattern, and just add the ears. And yes, I’m still thinking about making a Dead Bunny Hat for myself =).

A long cowl knitted with double thread Sandnes Silk Mohair (purple and beige). Again I didn’t use any pattern, I just cast on a bunch of stitches, and knitted *1knit, 2purl* until I was out of yarn =). It is super soft, and my Zombie Head is feeling nice and warm =P.

This is a Lovers Mitten, for those lovely lvoers who like taking hikes with each other. The pattern is from a magazine called Familiens Småstrikk. Now the lovers can hold hands while walking down Lovers Lane.

These adorable pink hats are knitted with this pattern, and they are made for some adorable children. Since the pattern is for adults, I used 2 needle sizes smaller, and I used Topp’t Tå yarn.

I have a huge pile of yarn, like this, just laying around. So I figured that I would knit as many pairs of socks as I can before Christmas, and that’s how many people with get socks this year. I found a bunch of sock patterns on Garnstudio, focusing on patterns where I can change color many times etc. The first batch looks like this, and is knitted with this pattern.

Remember to stay warm, Winter is coming 😉

Knitted Gifts, Leftovers

Knitting Frenzy!

October 2, 2015 Pixie 2 Comments

The Christmas gift knitting continues, and as a result I don’t spend much time online writing every time I finish a project. Instead I’ve decided to show a handful of finished project, whenever I take the time to write something down, up until Christmas. I hope my 3 fans don’t mind ;).

I have a bunch of kids I knit to every year, which I really enjoy. I get to tap into my juvenile and childish fantasies, and knit all kinds of silly and colorful things. Most adults don’t really care about these childish things, and they’re certainly not interested in wearing any of it (unlike me…). So knitting for kids is awesome. At the moment I’m knitting a bunny rabbit hat for a little girl, and all I can think is “I need to make one for myself…” (though mine would probably be a bit more scary and bloody).

These last few weeks I’ve knitted a dress, a sweater and a handful of slipper socks. When I’m in full-on-Christmas-knitting, I don’t spend a lot of time creating my own designs from scratch. I’ll usually use a design from a website or magazine, and just make a few changes. I do this so I’m close to a good size for whomever I’m knitting to (did I use “whomever” right? I never know when it’s “whoever” and “whomever”).

This dress is knitted with this pattern . It’s the same needle size as in the pattern, so I got the same stitch numbers as in the pattern. The yarn I used was Pingouin Yarn (from the vast collection of leftover yarn I got this Summer from my aunt). I’ve named this dress The Candy Lollipop.

This sweater is knitted with this pattern , and is knitted with soft wool yarn. There’s a whole bunch of different yarns in this sweater, Idena Juvel/Smart Superwash/Labbetuss Raggegarn and some other tagless skeins of yarn. Like the dress, I used the required needle size in the pattern, so I got the right size.

This sweet bunch of slipper socks was knitted with this pattern . They are super easy to knit, and a great gift to give people who like their feet warm and cozy during the Norwegian Winters =). They are knitted with Fritidsgarn, and range from size 37 to 44 (European size of course).

And so it’s back to my knitting corner, I have some bunny ears to make =).

All Things Nerdy, Knitted Gifts

More Minions!

August 18, 2015 Pixie Leave a comment

I really can’t seem to get enough of Minions, they are just so adorable. Princess Fisefia loves them too, especially King Bob. It’s her birthday in less than 2 weeks, and she asked if I would make her some Minions for her birthday gift. She wanted a King Bob hat and a pair of socks with one eye on each, she was very specific in her request =).

King Bob is the wonderful little goofball in The Minions – The Movie, he’s kinda the baby of the group. He has different colored eyes, one brown and one blue. Or maybe it’s green instead of blue, I chose blue because that’s what Princess Fisefia said.

So here’s what I ended up making, a hat and a pair
of slippers. The hat is knitted back and forth, and sewn together in the back. The eyes, both on the hat and slippers are crocheted and sewn on. They will be sent in the mail today, so she’ll get them before it’s too late =).

Here’s the trailer for The Minion movie, if you haven’t seen it yet =).

Knit Related

Christmas Has Come Early This Year!

August 8, 2015 Pixie Leave a comment

I think I’ve mentioned before that I come from a creative family, where a lot of them like to work with their hands in some way (specially the women, there’s a lot of women in my family!). My grandmother learned to sew and embroider when she was just a little girl, she would sew her own clothes. Not only did she sew, she also knitted. She always favored sewing and embroidering, she was so good you couldn’t tell which side was the inside and which was the outside of whatever she was making. Unfortunately her hands aren’t fit for sewing any more, but she is always available for help and advice when it comes to embroidery and knitting.
My mother was at one point just as good, and I remember she made these beautiful embroidered pictures of flowers in 3D (yes 3D). I would always run my fingers over those portraits (I loved how they felt), and of course I was always told to keep my hands off them. She also knitted amazing pieces, my favorite was a skirt and sweater she made for me in black and white, and leopard print pattern. When I was 15, mother made me a National dress (bunad in Norwegian) for my “coming-of-age” confirmation thing. My dress looks something like this, it’s a Hardanger bunad. I don’t have my dress at hand, so this picture I found on the interwebs will have to do. A few of my aunts are knit fiends, some of them like to sew, it really does run in the family.

The 2 aunts who knit are so sweet, not only do they bother to read this little blog of mine, they also keep me stocked up on yarn. About a year ago (maybe a year and a half)I got a big bag of yarn from one of them, and this year the other one had gone through her stack of leftovers to see if she had any for me. And lo and behold the mountain of yarn she gave me. This black plastic bag is a big garbage bag, completely full of delightful surprises. There were so much, I couldn’t fit it all in my luggage, and about half of it was sent in the mail. It arrived this week, and I’ve spent 9 glorious hours sorting and organizing it all. Some of the skeins didn’t have their tag on anymore, so I played the guessing game so that they ended up in the right piles. Here’s a “short” list of some of the yarn I got, and to my sweet aunt: THANK YOU!!!

Mandarin Petit, Classic, Soft.
Drops Alpaca, Cotton Viscose, Muskat, Kid-Silk, Karisma, Paris, Fabel, Bomull/Lin.
Dalegarn Falk, Freestyle, Magnolia.
Idena Juvel, Sport, Bambino Ull.
Sandnes Silk Mohair, Fritidsgarn.
Peer Gynt, Camomille, Gjestdal Orkid Luxuspels, Sisu, Labbetuss Raggegarn (Trysil Garn), Pingouin Pingorex Baby, PT2, PT4, PT5, Smart Superwash, PT Sumatra, Kitten Mohair, Monark Superwash, Silja Strømpegarn, Baby Superwash, Lanett Superwash, Topp ´t Tå.

Leftovers, Personal Knits

Just A Few More Socks!

August 6, 2015 Pixie 2 Comments

4-5 weeks ago I started on a very complicated knitting project, but because of lack of confidence and a sudden appearance of Summer heat, I decided to put it aside and knit some easy and “ordinary” things. Like socks. You can never go wrong with socks. When I have nothing better to do, I knit socks (I wonder how many times I can say socks in this post =P).
At some point, when my confidence is back on track, I’ll get back to my secret project.

A while back I got 3 skeins of Verdi, a purple/green, blue/light blue/beige and red/black. With these 3 skeins, I’ve knitted a pair of slipper boots, slipper socks, 3 short sweaters, a red/black beanie and cowl (which you can read all about in this post), a dragon scarf, purple/green legwarmers (which are in this post), and now a pair of socks for myself using the red/black. You can really go crazy with just one of these skeins, there seems to be no end to the skein =).

I used this pattern (which is free, like all Garnstudio patterns) for my socks, and I added a red glitter thread to make it sparkle a little =P. This pattern is really easy, and it’s a fun way to knit socks. I made mine a little bit shorter, and these socks are very soft and cozy =)

I also found this pattern, which is basically the same as the sock pattern above. You knit it the same way, back and forth and then sew them together in the back. I used leftover yarn, and knitted 2 pairs of socks.
The purple and white socks might be a gift for someone special who has come back into my life, and it’s knitted with leftover yarn (the purple is the same I used for this cowl). So are the very colorful socks on the right, and I’m keeping them for myself. I wear wool socks pretty much all year long, so from time to time I need to make new ones for myself. There’s only so many times I can mend holes in my socks, before they have to go in the trash. I like my socks colorful, it matches my dark heart =).

I’ve also knitted a new beanie and matching wrist warmers, I haven’t decided if I’m keeping them for myself or giving them away. No pattern was used to knit these items, it was done freehand. No socks were knitted with this yarn either, I just thought I could show them off in this post =P.

My 18th mention of socks, will be (the 19th) my last post, where I showed the lovely socks (20) I made for a beautiful little princess =)

Knitted Gifts, Leftovers

Fun Socks For A Princess!

August 3, 2015 Pixie Leave a comment

Once upon a time in a land far far away, lived a little princess called Fisefia. Princess Fisefia was not the ordinary 8 year old princess sitting on a throne next to her parents, wearing beautiful dresses. She was the kind of princess in beautiful dresses driving around on daddy’s tractor, milking cows and playing with her lovely dog Mick.

Not only was she a sweet princess in beautiful dresses, she was also a talented princess. She could spend hours and hours drawing amazing pictures, and making birthday cards and Christmas cards.
With a pretty smile and a cheerful laughter, she charmed everyone who was lucky enough to meet her.She was a fish in water and a monkey on land, climbing everything and everywhere.
Sometimes Princess Fisefia would dress up in common clothes, and disguise herself wearing wigs. That way she could walk among the ordinary people, and no one would know who she really was.

Princess Fisefia is everyone’s favorite princess, and one day she will rule the island of cows and sheep. Until then I hope these socks I will keep her feet warm =).

I used leftover yarn, and this pattern to make these socks (the pattern is free). Originally they were meant for someone else, but there is no way anyone can resist her puppy eyes =). Socks are very easy to knit, when you have knitted countless pairs in the past. The only “problem” I had knitting these socks, was how the 4 different threads of yarn always tangled. You’ll need to factor in a little more time knitting these, just because you’ll need time to untangle every now and then =). Other than that, this was an easy pattern to follow, and the result was pretty awesome.

It’s her birthday at the end of this month, and Princess Fisefia has of course requested a knitted gift. Which she will get, she is my princess after all =).

Knitted Gifts

Handbags, tablet- and cellphone covers!

June 5, 2015 Pixie 2 Comments

I haven’t been too active on the knitting front this last week or so. Sometimes life gets in the way, and you have to priorities. That’s what I’m doing these days. So when it comes to knitting, I don’t have anything new to show you. Instead I’ll show you a few bags and purses I’ve given to people as Christmas gifts.

I have made a few handbags, Ipad/tablet covers and cellphone covers as Christmas gift these last couple of years. I do like to give handmade gifts, and for some reason it seems like people like getting them =). In the past I haven’t remembered to take pictures of all the things I’ve made. Here are some of the bags I’ve made and remembered to photograph =P.

Tablet/Ipad covers:

This purple shirt and yellow tie is a tablet cover. It’s knitted with a wool/acrylic yarn, so it can be machine washed. It was a gift to a very busy and important man (he really is, working at the University and reviewing books for one of the big newspapers here), so I thought he needed something business like =)

This Ipad cover is also in the post Minions. It was a Christmas gift to a very dear friend of mine. Funny story is that he had just replaced his Ipad, so he had my permission to give it to someone else for Christmas =).

Handbags:

This handbag was a Christmas gift for a lovely lady, in 2012. It’s knitted with Eskimo yarn, and then felted. Like me she has a very colorful and unique style, which I absolutely love. So I thought she would like a colorful handbag. The pattern I used is this, with a few changes. I used a different type of yarn (Eskimo), and of course different colors. Eskimo felts a bit different than Alaska, which is why it looks so different.

This handbag was a Christmas gift for the oldest daughter of my best friend. I used this pattern , which is free on Ravelry. The blue yarn is a cotton blend, while the green is Eskimo yarn. I also added some “bling”, just for kicks =)

These two messenger bags was a Christmas gift last year (2014), for my best friend’s daughters. The blue one is knitted with a cotton yarn, the pattern is moss stitching and a simple cable running along the sides and up the strap.The “rainbow” handbag is knitted with leftover yarn (so a mix of everything). I knitted rows and sewed them together. Both bags have inner linings and pockets.

Mobile covers:

This cute little number is of course a cellphone cover. Also a gift to a very important guy (he invents life saving medical doodads).

And then there was the Hulk! Of all the superheroes I know of, Hulk is one of the few I like, I love me some green anger. This was a Christmas gift to a friend I’ve known for 23 years now, and he is not at all big, green and angry. He’s a cuddly goofy man with a big heart, so I gave him a superhero to look after him =)

I’ve also made an Ironman cover, but as I’ve mentioned I don’t always remember to take pictures of the things I make. If I get a picture, I’ll be sure to edit it in here =).

All Things Nerdy, Leftovers, Personal Knits

An Assortment of Hats!

May 4, 2015 Pixie Leave a comment

I’m not really a girly girl, I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy. Most of my friends are of the male gender, and a lot of times I’m referred to as “one of the boys”. Don’t get me wrong, I have a closet filled with dresses, and when the occasion calls for it, I’ll even throw in some jewelry. And for gods sake, do not touch my chocolate! I just don’t spend hours in front of the mirror putting on make-up and other really girly stuff. That’s not my thing, it never really was. I’m also the kind of person who would rather throw on a beanie than do my hair (it’s just so much easier!), and I’ve always been told at dinner tables “it’s bad manners to wear hats at the table”. In my head I’ll do rude gestures to the person talking to me, on the outside I’ll just blame it on a bad hair day =).

So here’s a selection of the hats currently in my possession. Mr. Bob-Igor Fluffy does not exist any more, so my new model is my zombie cookie jar (he can be used for so many things, I LOVE it!).

The piranha beanie I mentioned in my last post, and I’m very aware that a piranha is not striped. It’s called artistic freedom! For those of you too lazy to find the pattern in my other post, here it is one more time =).

A simple beanie knitted with alpaca wool (the green), and boulcé yarn from this company. The yarn was a gift from one of my aunts a few years back.

This little number says “Latescape”, and it’s just a very dorky way of saying “laziness”. Some of us Norwegian mortals do this thing where we mix the literal translation with the English word (and a little dorkiness), “laziness” in Norwegian is “latskap”. You do the math ;). Who would have thonked dorky translations could be so much fun!

This beanie is actually a gift from my grandmother, so I did not knit this one. It’s still part of my collection, and it would have felt left out if I didn’t show it.

These 2 beanies were knitted with leftover Lerke yarn I had laying around, and they are even comfortable during the Summer.

This beanie is knitted with Verdi yarn, and I used this pattern. It comes with a cowl as well. This has been my favorite beanie for some time now. I got three skeins of Verdi, and those skeins are BIG. You can almost knit an entire wardrobe with one of those. At least that’s what it feels like =).

If you’ve been here before, you’ve seen my 30 Rock hats. For those of you (that one 1 person) who’s here for the first time, here they are one more time. Oh, and here’s a link to the post they’re in =).

And for good measure, just because it’s my favorite hat in the whole wide world. I bought this years ago, and my grandmother wondered why on earth I would buy such a hat. Because it’s a moose! King of the forest! And it’s just plain fun, and deadly warm!

All Things Nerdy, Leftovers, Personal Knits

30 Rock!

April 17, 2015 Pixie 2 Comments

I’m a big tv show and movie fan, as is my boyfriend. Our movie collection are in the thousands, our tv show collection is huge! It might make us seem like boring people, spending most evenings catching up on our episodes and ever growing pile of movies we still haven’t seen. But we don’t care, we like being “boring”. My boyfriend also works for a cinematic company, so we get 2 free movie tickets for every movie we see at the movie theatre =D. True story, I asked my boyfriend to marry me weeks before we even started dating, when he told me he gets 2 free tickets for every movie through his workplace!

Horror is not the only thing that occupies my time, I like to be entertained, so I watch all kinds of things. I’m one of those who follow too many TV shows, so much so that I’ve even made a spreadsheet to keep track of everything!

I have a “thing” for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, specially their shows 30 Rock and Parks & Rec. I’ve also loved watching them hosting The Golden Globe awards!
30 Rock is by far one of my favorite comedy shows this last decade, there’s just something really nerdy about it =P I’m not going go into any details why I think this is such a great show, tv reviewers can do that. What I’d like to show are my two 30 Rock hats, based on Liz Lemon’s range of curse words.

For those of you unfamiliar with some of Liz’s phrases and words, here’s a little clip from YouTube:

Meet my head model Bob-Igor Fluffy (very long inside joke I have with my boyfriend’s oldest son =P). Mr. Fluffy will be my hat model until he passes gas, and dies!

This hat says “Blërg”, and it’s based on Liz Lemon’s curse word “blerg”. Blërg is also the name of her home office furniture from IKEA. I knitted it back and forth since the letters only go on the front side, and then sewed it together in the back. It’s knitted on needle size 6 (US size 10), with a mix of Fritidsgarn and Iglo (both are wool).

Here we have Mr. Fluffy in a stylish grey, green and purple beanie that says “jagweed”, one of the many things Liz calls her nerdy co-workers when she’s angry and stressed =) Knitted with a wool/acrylic blend on needle size 4 (US size 6), like the other one knitted back and forth, and then sewn together in the back.

Both of these are of course knitted with leftover yarn from my stash, it’s what I do ;P. For the letters I used Times New Roman and Fancy Alphabet from this site. If you can’t be bothered to draw up a chart of letters, you should check out the link =)

All Things Nerdy, Leftovers, Personal Knits

Scary plants!

April 9, 2015 Pixie 2 Comments

Although Halloween is still months away, there’s no reason not to knit a flesh eating plant =D. For some reason I can never keep live plants for long. There’s this thing where I think a plant is going to die, and so I water them too much and I kill them…! I am a plant killer! I don’t mean to, I would love to have a small jungle in my home. I just seem to want to kill them all! =P I do however do a good job when I water other people’s plants, go figure… I have one plant, which I’m desperately trying to revive. It has start to bloom again, on one side. I doubt it’ll get through it though, but I haven’t given up yet!

So since I’m so good at killing plants, I’ve started to knit them instead. That way I can’t kill them, it is impossible to kill a fake plant (unless you find a pair of scissors and go crazy, which I won’t do!). I made this plant for Halloween a few years back, and my boyfriend and I liked it so much, it gets to see the light of day all year long. It’s no longer a Halloween plant, it’s our everyday plant =). I borrowed the idea from this lovely lady; Cyclops pot plant, when I one day googled knitted horror plants. I made a couple of changes, I wanted teeth on my plant, so I have two eyes and two mouths on mine.

A little hot tip for the soil part, is to use really old towels you’re going to throw out anyway. Those old towels that no one would ever use again, which have been taking up space at the bottom of your stack of hand towels =).

Here are some links to other fun knitted and crocheted plants (click on the images to go to the patterns):

Mario Bros. Piranha Plant by Janet Carrillo