Something New

I've been crafting quite a bit in the last while, though you see no evidence of it around here.  I've gotten really lax with taking photos (or making my HLM take some for me.)  There are some real oldies that still haven't ever been posted.

I made a pretty exciting purchase yesterday, though, and I wanted to brag - I finally caught up with (practically) everyone I know and upgraded my old phone to a fancy new iPhone!

This means I finally got to dig out the cross-stitch iPhone case I bought last year (when I originally planned to upgrade) and do up something fancy to decorate my new toy.  I chose a relatively simple Norwegian-style snowflake, and updated it with some contemporary colours.  It's awfully pretty and springtimey, I think, and I'm quite pleased.

I have a feeling the photos around here are about to get a lot nicer.

Nordic Pot Holders

The Norwegian yarn company Drops is always putting out great free knitting & crochet designs.  Over the years I have knit many of them (and have many more in my mental queue.)  Every winter they organize a little set of holiday themed designs, and this is one that I've been wanting to make since they first published it a few years ago.

The original design is in cotton yarn, but I think that's a bit crazy.  Cotton yarn is a fantastic conductor of heat when wet, which translates into burned hands from gripping hot pans (I've learned that lesson the hard way.)  Wool, on the other hand, is insulating when wet or dry, so you won't burn yourself even if these get damp.  I had intended to add a layer of quilt batting in the middle, to add some extra insulation, but it turns out that two layers of stranded DK weight wool are pretty thick already.  I washed and blocked them to tidy up the stitches a bit, and just like that, my holiday decorating has begun.

Snowflake Mittens

In case the last few posts have left you thinking that I'm only making socks, here is a completed pair of mittens to dispel that notion.

I'm sure that I've mentioned before that these are mittens based on a traditional Norwegian pattern. Decades ago, I had a penpal in Norway, and she sent me a pair of mittens for Christmas, one year. They were red and white (the negative-image of these ones, with red where I have white and white where I have blue) and warm sturdy wool, and I wore them for years. By the time they started to show some real wear and tear, I had learned to knit, so I got out some graph paper and sketched out the pattern. I've made several pairs since then, including one for myself out of red and green alpaca, and they lasted for years, as well. A few months ago, I discovered a hole at the end of one finger, and decided maybe it was time to make a new pair.


The alpaca I used before was Andean Treasure from Knit Picks, and the mittens were so soft and warm that I decided to stick with the same yarn. This time I went with a blue and white, and decided to reverse the dark and light colours to make the snowflakes white and the background blue. I am very happy with how they turned out, especially since the weather was so cold for so long. Thankfully it's warming up, now -- soon I'll get to put these away and enjoy the warm weather, but they'll be ready for me next winter, to keep me warm again.

I decided while I was knitting them that I should write up the pattern and post it as a freebie on Ravelry, so other people can also enjoy this simple and lovely mitten pattern. I would love to see some of you make some, though I hope you won't really need a pair until next winter.

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Hat With Braids

I decided to grow my hair long again. It's a cycle I go through every few years: get bored with it being short, grow it out, get bored with it being long, cut it short. Well, right now I'm in that awkward phase that makes it really hard for you to remember that you want it long, since you want so badly to get it cut so it doesn't look like a disaster all the time. The only thing to do is try not to think about it, and make yourself a cute Norwegian hat with braids, that will remind you how awesome it is to have long hair.


I've been craving one of these hats for months, since I first saw it on the Drops site. The other day I was searching for something in one of my storage boxes when I found some Woobu left over from my Jengu Woobu Aran. I immediately thought of how great it would be for this hat.

Turns out that the hat called for a heavier weight of yarn, so I held it double for the pattern, and ended up using a different gauge, which meant I had to recalculate all the numbers, and I didn't make it quite as long... but really, it's still essentially that hat. (Plus I used a lot more yarn than the pattern suggests, to make the braids, so they would be as thick as they are in the photo -- and as thick as they will be when I have finally grown my hair long.)

Don't you love it?