Stuff from last months

Some of the crafts I have done past month. Few scarfs. The brown one is moebious that qutely rolls around itself (should have thought about that when desiding texture, lol. I love it anyway. The red one is sort of hat with scarf. The system does not quite work so maybe I will reuse the yarn for something other than this...


















T-shirt with separate sleaves/shurg. I was going to do a jacked but while on needles this knit transfered with serveral metamorphose stages to this. Shrug can be wearen separately. I am pleased with the design - and especially with the colour.






Quick crocheted scarf with "salomons knots". One night project.

Some work in process wall pieces waiting to get collage items attached and other stuff done to them.

Few knitted scarfs

I have been doing pretty little amount of crafts in the summer, but here are few scarfs I have made.

The violet long one I call ice scating scarf, merely because it reminds me of those first times on ice when you alter the width of your legs to learn how to move. The scarf is done with "scrunchy" parts, similart to this washcloath pattern I wrote to Finnish dishcloath blog.

I was watching TV today and had nothing decent to craft, so I made this little scarf out of efect yarn bought from trip to Tallin. Yeah, I played with the image a bit, you can see better pictures of this one on my blog in Finnish.

Altered Book

I made a project to Finnish national TV stations program "Kirppis". It is aired tomorrow morning.

The book is meant to be weadding present. The book has pages where the newly weds can write stuff about their relationship - where they met, how the proposal went and so on. The cover dress, btw, is cut from the plastic circuit mat that can be found on some old keyboards. Recycling can be artsy too!

Hairpin lace scarf

I finnished a hairpin lace scarf the other day.

I first crocheted the loops on sides of the strips together and then joined two strips together with crochet.
This makes valleys and ridges to the finnished piece which I like.

The scarf is long, about my own lenght, and can be wearen in many different ways.

Sampler necklace

Kid woke me up early in the morning and got back to bed herself. I did not.

Did this instead.

Glass beads, waxed chord and clay beads shown in previous post

Some claying

It has been a while since I last clayed, but today I had an enormously pleasing session with clay, music and hands.

I have a business trip coming in few days and did buy a salsa skirt with brown fabric and blueish-turqoise flowers in it. Not my thing, definately, but something decent enough to be used as formal dailyware. Did some beads from Fimo to make me a necklace for it. The colours are very IN FACION here now, but I am bit hesitant to use them just because I am more black and some gray kind of woman myself. But I am trying to learn. As one can not really stick to one or two colours - although I might think violet is good enough to be counted as new black ;)

The other beads are what I would call "therapy beads" as anything made from this kind of beads is ment to be handled while thinking about life, universe and everything. Also the making - the actual process of claying - was a lot like meditation. I used Premo, which nowadays is my favorite clay even though it is not sold in Finland and I have to mailorder from USA to get it here. I only use black, white, translucent, gold, metallic blue and metallic red and occationally silver Premo to make stuff. I mix shades from those or with other clays to get the tints I want. This time the green comes from gold Premo and uggly strong blue from Fimo. Together they are pretty decent green I think.

Hairpin lace

I have been trying to learn hairpin lace lately. This is part of tunic I am working on, just basic stripes with ribbon yarn.

I have been surfing the net for hairpin lace instructions and inspiration. There is some information about it, but it seems that haripin lace is not much studied technique.

I only was able to find one designer who has done some modern looking work with Hairpin lace. There is a free project of Carnivale cardiwrap at Interweave Crochet website. Same designer, Jennifer Hansen, has also some interesting patterns for sale at Stitch diva.

As I am more "I will desing this myself" type of crafter I am drawn to those patterns just for inspiration rather than strict following of them, but I must say the designs are impressive. I want to learn to use this medium to create clothes that are wearable and confortable.

Besides, haripin lace seems to be quite addictive.

Scarf

I did a quick project as I needed a scarf that could be used to cover some formal outforms. It is just basic knitting but the lush yarn makes this looks stunning.

This can be wearen many different ways, but I am planning on making a broach to attach it to showlder. I am pondering between using brown pearl buttons or then doing the thing with polymerclay.

Some works from past month

Have not updated this blog in few weeks.
Did a basic triangular crocheted scarf (two evening projects) and played with icord. The belt is made with icord and sideways knitted loops. I did an article about Icord to Finnish web knitting magazine Ulla, the article is here.

I also did neckalces to resemble shuttle for MIL, she has an old crafting group called shuttle guild and she asked me to make something for their 30th reunion party. So I made theese necklaces out of clay, glass beads and waxed chord.

One more for the lady

One more for the lady. I did not have enough yarn for one colour solution so I made a rim out of that lucious violet I love so much.

De ja vu

It might feel bit like de ja vu but this is not the same hat. The older kid wanted one too and I started this at morning an finnished a while ago. Way fast project, I think.

Now the kids are crawling on the floor playing cats. Nice.

Ps. What a pose!

Cat- hat

I visited a friend today and she had done theese cat hats with two different kinds of yarn. Got inspired to try similar thing with non- woll yarns (kids are allergig) and made this simple hat to the smaller one who herself picked the colours of yarns.

Surprisingly quick and fun project, finnished in one day.

Recycling Dance

Recycling Dance, 2006
Knitted trash yarn, phonebook pages.

Themes:
Why do they print over million phonebooks every day in Finland?
Is useless material usable even for decorative uses?
Can knitting and phonebook paper be combined.

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It was interesting to think about possibilities how to combine knitting with this soft paper. I used dropped stitches to create places where the paper can be slipped in.

I am going to study the combination of materials more. Need to see if there is a possibility to actually knit with paper itself...

Yarn bying diet

Last month I participated in Finnish knitbloggers yarn diet where people signed for not to buy any new yarn and try to knit as much as they can from their yarnstash.

I did some bookmarks, samplers for an article coming later in spring, this wrap and one wallpiece.

The idea of not buying stuff if you dont need is merely impossible for all the crafters I know. As if we all have lived trough desperate times of hunger and financial depression and now are trying to have as much sugar under our beds as possible.

It would be funny if there would be at least SOME free space in our home. There aint. And wont be untill I learn to actually USE that nice and expencive stuff I have collected for at least over a decade now.

Illusion of tux

I finnished my Linux illusion scarf to my husband on monday. As I am no follower of any strict pattern or path, this was very much teaching one to do do as following the pattern exactly is essential when you are trying to draw something to the piece.

Illusion knitting is interesting stuff. When you look at the piece from front, it just looks like striped piece but in angle you can see the result.

Old old old

Was doing some work for feng shui (aka cleaning the house) when I found this old bag that I have made in school. I must have been somewhere around 9-10 when this was made. I have a faint picture of how we used the sewing machine.

My 6 year old kid saw this and got wildly enthuastic. It is amazing what kind of effect there is when you show your kids something you have done when you have been kid yourself.

So mothers, please save some of the best crafts your kids do. And dont give them to them until they are mothers themself...

Ponchokeepwrap

I finnished this poncho/keep/wrap style of garment the other day. It is done with thin cotton yarn and this special yarn I got from germany.

The front is sort of V shape, but the back is straigth. It can be weared any way or even as a scarf-hat thing. Design, obviously, even though I made it myself :)

Ps. Added this blog to Finnish blogilista. fi directory too after getting 3 demands about it last month ;)

Stripes

I have not been crafting much lately because of family matters.

How ever here is something I finally finnished yesterday: A pullover for my 6 year old girl who wanted "somethign blue".

The body part is knitted from basically squarre piece without any pattern. The yarn used was ribbon yarn, wery nice to knit.

A scarf

I usually am more arts and less useful crafts type of person nowadays. But yesterday I was able to buy some cheap yarns. I bought 3 different colours and the blue one just called to become a scarf/ tippet. This was a quick project.

Rather nice crafts

I already have a blog with plenty of entrys going on. The problem is that it is mostly in Finnish and all my friends abroad feel left out as I am not writing much in English anymore. After a friend started not only one but two blogs, I had to teach her how to allow comments from anyone. That leaded to starting this blog. Well. Lets see.

I am Pörrö Sahlberg from Finland. I have two kids and I have been doing crafts and arts more and less profecionally for about a decade. I have a website at
http://porro.claymountain.com/ where you can see some of my works.

My Finnish language blog also has some arts and crafts in English.

On the end of January I started a Finnish language crafting forum "Ihan Itse". It has grown more rapidly than I ever anticipated, so I have had my hands filled with that too.

My crafts include lots of polymer clay, mixed media, jewelry, collages, crocheting and knitting (mostly decorative, not usefull). I also do some papercrafts, stamping, altered books, wall pieces, wedding crafts etc. I love to learn new techniques and I am mostly learning them from internet and books. I love recycling old stuff to create something new and I have WAY too much craft supplies and fleamarket finds to fill my house.

So there, now you know something about me.