New hangarok

To my surprise I found some left-over grey wool which was enough for a new hangarok for Rune. It was only an hour's work and the 'turtle brooches' are actually buttons from the
haberdashery!!! Ain't life grand when everything comes together :)

Meet Ojo or Wickie

Well, my dear friends, meet Ojo **, the finished naalbound teddy bear I made for Rune. The face I made last week was just a trial face, but not really all that bad so I found some nice linen and created a similar face - or rather: bear snout. It turned out really well.
The ears were made of a simple Josephine knot with a few extra stitches in the second round.



Rune absolutely loves her bear!

** July 7th: Rune has decided the bear should be named Wickie...

Naalbound bear

Okay, okay, okay.... I know naalbound toys weren't found. Only those two wooden horses. But can you blame me?

I started at the top, with the bear's head. A Josephine knot and then 7 stitches in the loop. After this, I increased until I had the right shape and continued in the Oslo-stitch. You can easily do this yourself, all you need to decide is how big you want the bear to be. This is the head


I just made the bear up as I went along, you know, no real pattern just do what I felt like. I made an extra circle of green wool to create a soft and big tummy on the bear. The legs and hands will be half red/half green, to create an image of unity on the entire toy. I have said this before: toy making isn't just for the kids, it is just as much fun for Mummy!!

This is the trial face. I used some old flannel to see how it turned out. Runa thought it was cute, so I'll use some decent Viking-linen to make the real bear face.

More on the hangarok

When the embroidered piece is done I plan to do this on the hangarok as well, this is tape woven actually! I'll try to add the pattern soon for you too.

A little bit of progress on the hangarok

It really isn't a lot, but I wanted to show you this anyway. The dark green outline is now done and I am continuing with light yellow on the inside, just the single row as you see on the left.

New Hangarok

I am in need of a new hangarok and I've decided to make a nice embroidered piece on it. I found a set of two birds I have my heart set on making (from one of those Dover books, with iron-on patterns):

I bought some lovely fine embroidery wool at Venne Colcoton
It is perfect!


I'll keep you posted on the progress!

New clothes and stuff

The Whitsun weekend at Archeon meant I had some sewing to do. Having a child is wonderful but you kinda go into hibernation when it comes to sewing new clothes. But Runa is growing fast so the young lady needed new clothes for Archeon. Here our little super model is posing in her new dress and hangarok.

Take my word for it folks: turtle brooches are NOT available in miniature size, so I took a pair of earrings! They do the trick!



Our 'son' Lars was there as well, of course, and here we are doing crafts after lunch, while Runa was reaking havoc inside the tent....

It was a great weekend, we had a ball!

A day at Archeon

During the year we spent the odd Saturday or Sunday in Archeon, the archaeological themepark 20 minutes away from us.

These photos were taken yesterday :)

Her royal highness in her chariot

Playing Kubb

Naalbound hat

And while I was at it, I also decided to make myself a naalbound hat. It was attempt number 10985037 and all the other ones before this one horribly failed. All the other times I started at the top of the hat and increasing never worked the way it should; at any rate all the hats turned out to be awful and ugly.

But not this one! Yay! I started at the bottom this time, with a nice bit of leftover burgundy wool. The hat is made entirely of bits of leftover wool, even the embroidered flowers. I added those to create unity with the mittens.

Mittens are done!

I finished my mittens and it was easier than I thought at first :) I am very pleased with the result! The embroidery is probably not authentic but I just liked it....

Mittens are done!

The thumb was easier then I thought! It was only a matter of measuring regularly and increase where needed. After the mitten was finished the second mitten was done in no-time as well.



Of course, I couldn't resist spicing it up a bit. Don't know if that is authentically Viking... but I had fun doing it

Progress on mittens

When you've reached the palm of your hand, before the thumb begins, you need to make a loop that is big enough not only for just your thumb but also for all the thumbmuscles to be able to move with ease. Make sure you measure carefully! For me the width didn't have to be so big, because my hands are small so I only used 9 stitches to create the width. I needed 21 stitches to create the actual loop that goes around the thumb to be fastened on the other side, i.e. 9 stitches further on.
If your hands are bigger, use more stitches to get the right width and length!!


The cuff of the mitten is made by decreasing stitches rapidly after you've made the thumb-loop. For me, I went from 37 to 21 stitches. Fit each time you've decreased stitches! The mitten isn't very flexible, since I've used the Oslo-stitch (my favourite) but this means you have to be careful the cuff doesn't become too tight

First attempt to make mittens

When you start making socks, you can also make mittens! I had never done that, but this month I decided to give a try.
Here's what I've done so far.

The start is the same as with a sock, a loop of 10 stitches and increase to 28 stitches. Of course, if your hand is bigger, you need more stitches! You stop at the 'end' of the fingers (or the basis where you fingers begin, depends on how you look at it).

After this, I need to make a second loop for the thumb. I'll post more photos when I've done that!