Knitted baby sliding bag finished and pictures of my latest projects.

Now I have not updated my blog in a while. I am so tired these days due to my pregnancy so I do not sit at the computer as much as before. Now it is only 2 weeks left until my due date.

Even if I have not been writing, I have been knitting a lot. I finished the secret project I started. It was a baby sliding bag (or how do you call it?), which I made as a gift for Anna-Karin's and Arni's newborn baby, Baldur Freyr. Or he is actually 2.5 months old now. It took time to knit, I must say. It came out bigger than I thought. It was supposed to be for a 6-9 months baby but it looks more like it is for a 2 year old. Here is the result anyway:



Then I am also working on the blanket as usual. It is not a easy job as I thought from the beginning. But I hope the result is good. Johan told me yesterday when I had organized all the squares on the floor in a way as I wanted them, that this will probably be the nicest blanket he has seen. But we will see how the result is when it is sewed together.
I have finally started to sew the squares together. It takes forever and becomes a bit dented. I hope it evens out in the end. What took time the latest weeks was to wash all the squares and needle them down to straighten them out.
This is how it looked like when I needled them down:



I took 7 at a time because we do not have so many flat areas in the apartment where they could lye for drying. I used the living room rug and just put a towel on it.

After that the squares where only lying there in a corner, waiting for me to sew them together. I could never really start because I knew it was going to take eternity to finish it. Anyway, yesterday I felt it was time to start sewing after I had decided how to sew them together.
This is how the squares were put together:



As I mentioned earlier I also started to knit a pullover for myself for a while ago with my own design. Of course I have been checking how to increase and decrease in a good way but otherwise I do it myself. It is almost finished. Now I only have one arm left to knit. Will probably do quite a lot in it today. It is not knitted on round needles so I have made a front and a back that needs to be sewed together. It will be a collar on it too in the end.
I really like the green color. I love green at the moment. I decorated our living room in green colors. And now we also have a green hristmas Tree (very nice). It looks so nice.
Here is a picture of the front of my on-going sweater:



In addition to this I have also made a Christmas gift for Johan. It was not a huge project but a totally new thing for me. I had never done anything like it before so it was very fun to try something new. I can not reveal anything now, since there is a small chance that Johan reads this blog. I will put out a picture and write more about it after Christmas.

Latest update of my projects!

Here comes an update what I have been working on the last weeks.

I have done 32 squares or the blanket. Now I only have three left before I finally can sew it together.

Then I am also almost finished with my secret project. It is not much left to knit there now and then it is only sewing it together end fix loose ends. Need to wash it too of course.

I actually started on another thing too. Just by coincident I found a multi-colored yarn that goes in green in Europris (a budget department store here in Iceland). It was very soft and nice so I bought quite a lot and also some black and some white balls. Then I just started to knit immediately when I came home. I made up my own design. It is going to be a pullover with collar. I will put in a picture on the progress next time I write.

By the way, I will put in pictures on all my on-going and finished projects in my next contribution. Now, knitting night is on the schedule. I am soon about to leave. I am going to knit another square tonight. I use to have time to make one square on our knitting nights.

By the way, I got a question where I find all the patterns for the Icelandic Sweaters. I usually buy special knitting books, which they sell here in Iceland. They are mostly in Icelandic but some of them are also in English or German.
But you can also find a few free patterns online. Look at my knitting links to the right. ISTEX have 4 free patterns in english. Just click on english version in the right hand side column. Here you can also find out what knitting books they have published but of course you need to buy them to see the patterns.

Icelandic knitted hat, 26 knitted squares finished for the blanket and secret project on-going!

Yes, time flies! Now I am on my 32:nd week in my pregnancy and last weekend I finally got my knitting lust back 100%. I was knitting a lot, almost the whole weekend. It was so fun again.

I just felt like doing a hat in Alafoss Lopi yarn (Icelandic thick wool) so I just started it last Saturday before lunch and was finished with it in the evening just before me and my boyfriend were going to the cinema. I gave the hat to him! But I could have taken it myself if it was not so big. Maybe I will do another one for me in another color and another pattern next weekend. We will see!

Here is the result:


And here is how it look like on Johan:


I am also trying to finish the blanket I started a while ago. So far I have done only 26 squares. I am planning to make another one today at knitting knight, which starts quite soon. Time to leave soon. The problem is that it goes very slow with these squares. But it is probably because I am so used to knit with thick Icelandic yarn and this a very thin yarn if you compare it to the Lopi. So it is getting a bit boring, I must say. It was fun in the beginning but now it is just the same over and over again. But it is only 9 squares left now.

I really want to start other thing too but I will try to finish this blanket now before I start something else. I had a principle before to only work on one project at a time but I have loosened a little bit on those rules.

I actually started a new project but it secret. I am putting out a picture anyway so you can take a wild guess what it will be:


As soon as I am finished with my secret project and the blanket I can finally start something to our litte baby in the womb :) I hope she will not come out until I have finished something nice. Maybe a cute little dress. I have about 8 weeks left now.

Grey Icelandic pullover finished plus working on two blankets.

Now I have finished a grey Icelandic pullover (lopapeysa). Or it was actually finished a while ago. But then me and my darling went on holiday for 2 weeks to Seychelles including some days in Sweden too. So I never had time to put in a picture of it before that.

Just at the moment I am washing it so it lies in the bathtub. I should have done that several weeks ago but now when I am pregnant everything goes slower and slower. I do not do anything after work. I am just exhausted and need to rest and go to bed early.

This is how it looks like:



After that I have started ti knit blankets. I bought yarn for a blanket to have in the livingroom sofa and also for a smaller one for our upcoming baby, Olivia :)

I started on our blanket, since the squares are way bigger than for the babyblanket. It goes in green colors since we have a lot of green in our living room. We will se how it ends up. The babyblanket will be in pink and lilac.

You just knit squares and then sew them together in some kind of a way. I'm just at the moment knitting on a beige-white square:



It goes very slow. I use 3mm needles and the yarn is called Smart from Sandnes yarn. But I am no knitting as often now either as I did before I got pregnant. So far I have made 9 squares, which are 22x22 cm. So there is a long way left to go. It is going to be a big blanket that you can have over yourself when it is cold.



I hope it does not take too long time to finish it. I have now just less than 3 months left in my pregnancy and I want to make something nice for the baby to. A dress or something. It is a girl by the way.

Knitted dress and lopa peysa (pullover) from May. My pregnancy took over knitting, but now I am back to business!

Now I am back here at my blog after 4,5 months or so. I stopped knitting completely in May. I got pregnant and that resulted in that I lost interest in knitting completely. I also lost interest in playing the guitar, painting, play games and stuff that I use to like. Everything was blown away like the wind. I felt sick of just looking at yarn. Maybe because I constantly felt sick there for a while. It always felt like I was going to throw up but nothing came. And this terrible acid indigestions were not nice. And I was sooo tired, totally exhausted after work. First I went to the sofa, ate some dinner and then straight to bed for a while.
But it got better. Wow, I feel so much better now. Like never before! Well, except for my back pain, which is very annoying at work. Sitting on a chair all day is not that nice for my back.
Sorry about all the complaints! At least I feel good now.

Anyhow, at the knittingclub I started to knit again. Before I was mostly just sitting and wathing the others, but now I actually do something and it is quite fun again.

3 weeks ago I started on my old lopa peysa (a grey one that I started for my self), which I basically started for 4,5 months ago. But I am moslty just knitting once or twice a week at the moment. It comes slowly!
I started the pattern now and it will go in black, blue and white.
I will put in a picture on my progress soon.

Then for about 5 months ago I finished a dress for my self, which I never put out a picture on. I saw it in a store and said to myself: I am going to do that one at home insted of bying it. It was fun just to knit from nothing, no pattern, on my own. Here is a picture of it:



After that I started on a lopa peysa (pullover) for Johan's father. He was about to turn 60 years old. And that went very fast. Johan had to stand model. It was a bit bigger than his own size but it looks really nice on him, I think. It is nice colors:



On Thursday it is knitting club as usual and I will continue on the pattern. Jamie is not longer in the knitting club (moved to Montana) and Ulrika moved back to Sweden long time ago. We are getting fewer. We have to try to recruit some new people.

Quick project: Icelandic poncho plus pictures of Viktoria in baby sweater!

The first summer day in Iceland was yesterday. It is a public holiday so I was at home. That was nice. I was just taking it easy and knitted a bit. But not too much since I got stuck with this PC game Sims 2, that I bought 2 weeks ago. It is really fun, haha!

The the day before yesterday there was a birtday party for Ulli (german friend), who works with me in Actavis. I and two other girls decided to fix a gift together. My idea was to knit a poncho, because I knew that she wanted one. So they bought the yarn and I knitted it.

But we were out late with this idea so I had to knit fast. I got the yarn last Thursday and began right away in the evening when we had knitting club. Then I knitted a bit on Friday evening, almost whole Sunday and the rest on Monday and Tuesday evening. It took some time! In the end I had 270 stictches on one round so one round took 6 minutes if I knitted fast. I had a stopwatch and timed it. I guess it takes 10 minutes per round if you watch TV and chat with someone.

The result was really nice. I tried it on myself and Johan took a picture, before I wrapped it up. I think I have to do one for myself too later. I like it a lot. It is warm and cosy to wear inside or outside when it is cold. It is just that I have planned so many other project first. For this one I used lopi yarn and needles number 6 by the way.

Here is the result:



And this is how it looks like on:



I have also finished the grey dress I started on: or almost finished it. It has been lying around for 2 weeks or something because I need to sew in buttons on the upper part and the thing is that I have not decided how I want to have it. I will try to decide this weekend. You will see what I mean when I put up the picture. It is actually nice: really thick but nice. I am going to try to do it another yarn later: A thinner yarn.

I also got some nice picture of little cute Viktoria in her little pink knitted sweater I made. Here is a nice picture:



At the moment I am making another gift, a lopapeusa, which I am not going to show until it is delivered. I started it before I got the poncho idea. So I will knit a bit during the weekend, but not so much I guess. I am hooked on Sims 2 now.

baby sweater, scarf and a dress!

Time flies. I have had a lot to do the last month. There is always to little time left. It goes so fast when you are getting older. And I don't want to accept. I get really annoyed when I have set goals and can not finish them. That often happens.

I would really like to have 6 hour workingday. That would have been so nice.

Anyway I have knitted a bit. It has not been as fun as before. It is taking so much longer time to knit with 2,5/3 mm needles. But the result is very nice. I made a baby sweater again. This time in blue. Actually I did a mistake so it took even longer time. I made the front 3 sizes too small. Haha, weird that I did not notice until I was done with it. So I just had to start over with the front.

It turned out really nice when it was finished. I gave it to James Hafsteinn (Jamie's and David's son). I thought it was about time to do something for them.
I always knitted baby stuff for all my other friends with newborn babies or kids. I thought about it even when James was younger (8 months old now), but then I had so many other things I had to knit first.

I knitted this with needles 3 mm and a Icelandic yarn called Kambgarn. And I was so used to lopi yarn beforem knitted with 6 mm needles so this took time. Here is a picture of James in his sweater. He is so cute!



During the sweater project I also started to knit a black scarf. But it is goint very slow. I have done mistakes 7 times now. It was just ripping it up and start over again. You can not watch too much TV when you doing this pattern. You have to focus more on what you are doing. It is knitted in the icelandic yarn Einband, which consists of only one thread of yarn. I'm using needles 4 mm. We will se how it turns out. It is fun to do something else than the usual.

I have actually done a bit longer than in the picture:



Then I also started to knit a dress. This is a record for me to have 3 projects ongoing at the same time. But ok, it is only 2 now when the sweater is finished.

I saw a dress in Kringlan, at Vero Moda and thought: This is nice! I want to knit this myself! So I took some picture with the cell phone and went straight to Haglaup and bought some yarn. I looked at the tag of content and they had used 50% wool and 50 % acrylic. I could not find that so I took 70 % acrylic and 30 % wool. In the evening I started. It was so fun to do something one my own. Just figuring out my self how to do it.

We will se how it turns out. It is for me. It is very thick and warm already. But that is perfect for me. I am always cold. Esspecially at work where all the Icelandic people like to open the windows all the time. Even in the Winter. I am so cold.

If it turns out bad I just have to do anohter one. I just need to find some thinner yarn. This yarn that I found now is actually for needles 9 mm (I use 7 mm). Maybe I should do it with 5 mm or even 4 mm.

What you see in the picuture is just the beginning. I am almost done with it by now. I might finish it this weekend. We will see. It is supposed to be a hood on it too. And there is a cable on one side of it, as you can see. I am going to knit a black cord and pull it through.



Now it is time to go for knitting night.

Small cute baby sweater finished plus picture of the other Lopapeysa.

It has gone slowly with the knitting the last month since I have had this back pain and neck pain ( I think I got whiplash in a car accident I was in for 4 weeks ago). Because of that I have been very tired after work and do not have the energy to do anything else than lying down in the sofa and watch some TV.
But I have finally finish one little cute sweater for a cute little baby girl. It is for Victoria (Julia’s and Boris’ daughter, only 10 weeks old).
This is how it looks like:



After that I have started a new thing, but that is secret because it is going to be a gift.

And here comes also a picture of the other lopapeysa I made last time. The difference is the rib. It pearl knitted or how you say it in English and then it is one extra color (light brown).
Here is that picture:

Two lopapeusur ready at the same time plus one scarf

Yes now it was long time ago since I wrote something. I have had my hands full. I started a new job last week and me and Johan bought a car (Suzuki Grand Vitara), a jeep, just in time before I started my new job. Now we are going to work together in the morning and are going home in the evening. And almost every day after work we have been going somewhere to do some errends. For example did we go to differnt bed stores to look at beds and finally we found one bed, which we bought. Now we can finally throw out the bad bad IKEA bed. They are really bad, the worst thing IKEA have. Absolutely too stiff for me and too small for us. It's like lying on a ballon. You can't sleep two in it because it behaves like a bouncing mat. We just roll into the middle and sleep crooked, slanted, sloped grr. Sorry, I got a bit angry.

And to knitting.. I had time to knit of course since last time. I started a lopapeysa (sweater) including the bright red colour, but I could not decide how I was going to do with the pattern, if I should go with 3 or 4 colours. So I just started two sweaters at the same time, one in white, red, dark brown and one in white, red, dark brown and light brown.
Yesterday I sewed on the zipper in one of them. Wow, that took time, the whole evening. But that is just how it is. There are a few steps involved, both with sewing machine and by hand. And in the end you always have to complete it by hand sewing.
The result was really good actually. They turned out to be really nice. I really like the red colour. This is how the first one looks like. I'm wearing it today



I was thinking about writing down what needles and how many stitches I use for my sweaters in a small book plus here at my blog. I really have to do that because it has taken me until now to find the right size for me. I can't remember the measures right now. Well, I will just put them in later.

And by the way, in the middle of my work with the sweater Johan told me that he would really need a scarf. The weater in Iceland suddenly changes. We have a lot of snow now and it's quite cold. At least when the wind is blowing. Well, I said to him that I will immediately start a scarf. I made it in 3 evening. OOh it is quite boring to do scarfs. It is just the same all the time. In the beginning it is ok but after half the scarf is done you are kind of bored. The scarf resembles the one I made as a Christmas gift for Jonas.



Today I plan to sew in the other zipper. I have also started another project. A small baby pullover. But so far I haven't done so much. It takes time when you use needles 2,5 mm. It feels so thin and small compared to the thick lopi yarn.

Forgot to mention a hat I also made before Christmas!

I forgot to put in picture of a hat I also made before Christmas. It was a Christmas gift for Emma (Johans' sister). It turned out to be really soft and confortable. I mixed one thread of mohair with one thread of wool.



And at this very moment I have just started to knit on my lopa sweater with red colour in it. The main colour will be white and then I'll use one or two different brown colours. I haven't knitted that much yet. I have had a lot of other things to do lately. After Christmas I almost felt tired of knitting. I did not do anything since we came home until today. But now it's coming back again. That's how it is. When you finally sit down and start something exciting you just want to continue.

We will see when it will be done. At the moment I'm also knitting on a hat. However, it is not turning out so good. Really weird. I'm just trying something out.

The visit to Sweden is over - I managed to do a lot of knitting.

Me and my boyfriend Johan has just come back to Iceland. We went to Sweden over Christmas and New Years Ewe of course. Johan was prepared for a hectic period with travelling all over. But I did not feel like that. I thought it was really nice. Just ok, not hectic. I felt relaxed. It was maybe because I had my knitting to relax with during the trips (train, airplane). We celebrated Christmas in Stockholm with my dad plus family. After that we went to visit my mum and my sister with family (my niece) in Svenljunga (south Sweden). After that we took the night train up to north Sweden to visit Johans’ family. They live in Strömsund, a small town with about 4000 habitants. So you can say that we almost travelled through whole Sweden.

In Stockholm I even had time for some small shopping. I bought some pair of shoes, some clothes and the rest of the Christmas gifts of course. And I also had the opportunity to meet some friends down town. We also went over to Johans’ brother with family to eat dinner. They live in a suburb of Stockholm.

Wow, all this we did in 10 days. That it actually a lot.
And then I also had time for some knitting. Of course I knitted some of the Christmas gifts.
The scarf for Jonas (my sisters spouse) was finished first. I like the colour. I actually finished it on the airplane from Iceland.
After that I immediately started on a collar for Linneas’ (dad’s wife) mother. I knitted a bit in the evening, the day we arrived, and then also the next two evening before Christmas Ewe. I finished it just in time. It is actually nice looking. It’s made in léttlopi so there is not a need for a lot of yarn. You can actually just take some leftovers.

After that I started to knit a cute little dress for my niece. We went there the 26:th of December. But sadly I did not finish it before we arrived. I finished the last part the 27:th and it turned out really good actually. A perfect fit. A nice little Christmas dress or just for New Years Ewe.



And this is how it look like on:


After that there was time for some gloves. I promised my sister do make her gloves that matched her hat.



After that I made another thing in the series for Jonas. A hat that would fit the scarf.


Then I actually did one more thing, a pair of socks for my mum. I used the rest of the yarn from Jonas’ hat.
They turned out like this:


..and now I guess I’m going to start with the the lopapeysa using the bright red lopi yarn I bought. It will be interesting to see the result. I have to start that tomorrow when we have knitting club.