Scrap Sunday gone too far

Posted on 25/11/2018 by atelieroursonne

Last week, I have told you about my charity project. So, I have a list of mainly nice projects for mainly nice people which I had to put aside for a few days. Because I also wanted to make a couple of items to be sold at the christmas market of the Kinderkrebshilfe, a Vienna based charity supporting families with children with cancer and this market is happening in a couple of days.

Apart from the money for charity making purpose, I also really wanted to reduce my stash and I thought hats would generally be a good project to use up left over fabrics. Well, I guess, one hat is in deed a good project to use up left over fabrics. But 25 is not. Somehow I have started using big chunks of fabrics and my drawers with the small-sized scraps are even fuller than before. Plus, as I made reversible (or lined) hats and scarfs, I ended up using my lovely striped fabrics which I usually use as combination with the more fancy fabrics (in case you haven’t noticed).

So, on the plus side, there is visibly more space in my cupboard and it will be even emptier, once I have finalised all the nice projects from my private list. But there are actually big holes on the shelf with the stripy fabrics while there are still some fabrics left that really shouldn’t be in there anymore. It seems to be really hard to get rid of those. Maybe I should approach the whole thing with more structure next time and take out all the fabrics I want to get rid off and then actually use them rather than rummaging through the piles and taking out almost the nicest bits. If there is a next time. Because I do wonder one thing: Is it really worth it? I am not entirely sure how much they are going to sell them for but someone mentioned 10 Euro per hat. Which I would find far too low. Shouldn’t people spend more money for charity rather than trying to buy cheaper than on the high street? Especially as I consider my hats as good quality? Do I want to make things for people who do not even appreciate the work that goes into? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just donate 250 Euro and keep the fabric for nice people on my list only? Plus, hats are actually rather boring to make. So, I am very much looking forward to next week when I can finally make cute little dresses and shirts for cute little babies which I will or will not show you next week I guess.

But enough talking, here are the hats and scarfs (still pretty impressive)

pattern: Minutenmuetze and Wendebindemuetze by klimperklein, scarf: freestyle. Fabrics: seriously? all sorts of

The baby hats are partly matching the scarfs but that was really more of a question of availability.

These last few are actually not for the market but “custom made” for my list as some of my friends are just not cute little babies anymore so all I could make them were hats:

Enough for today, I’ll have to write a shopping list for the fabric shop now and get some new stripes in.

Good things always come in pairs

Posted on 31/01/2017 by atelieroursonne

I have no clue if that sentence in the title is true but I finally got hold of the camera with quite a few pictures of things I made ages ago. And I realised that I seem to have made a few things in pairs for whatever reason. (As you clearly can see from those few lines, I am highly motivated, focused and know exactly what I am doing or talking about).

As it is rather a lot, lets just look at the pictures as a sort of resumee.

So there are the octopus trousers (klimperklein pattern). The first ones where too big, so I had to make smaller ones for the small one. But then the big one liked them and wanted to have his own pair. Rather unusual to want the same as the baby but if it happens to be a really cool baby then why not.

The original ones, with aubergine cuffs (which you clearly can’t see in this picture) are my favourite:

They are ready for next season. Still, the aubergine is pretending to be some kind of black, a colour which I clearly don’t even own:

For some reason I did not actually take a picture of the one that gets worn a lot these days. (I guess another sign of overwhelming lack of motivation), so here comes the picture of the big boy version with pockets next to the baby version one (who is officially totally a toddler, sorry)

I made the big version with pockets as big boys clearly need pockets

and I thought it might be a good alternative for leggings, maybe even to be worn to nursery. At least on dress down Friday. But obvi0usly they never got worn, ever. Why “obviously”? Clearly you are new to this blog. I am talking about Mr. No Thank You. I’d like to point out that I am not embittered. Yes, I could have used this huge piece of cute fabric for some other cute baby items for any other cute baby with grateful parents and yes I could have used that time making something for people who would then have been happy about it but no, I am not embittered. Why not? Well, because I kind of knew anyway.

In any case, I found those baby trousers extremely useful so I made another pair

for my nephew, using the fox fabric of the reversibble jacket.

And since I still had some of this fabric left – a rather thin sweat by the way – I made another little jumper for another baby

And I made hats for these two babies, stupidly I only took a picture of one of them:

These hats not only come in pairs here but rather in bulk. I don’t even know how many I have made over the last few months, I love the pattern (klimperklein, Wendebindemuetze) and I love the fabrics (Boo and Zoo by Hamburger Liebe)

As I realised that these hats are actually not made for Austrian winter, I quickly had to knit (yes, I am still doing that too) a hat for Mr I Am Not A Baby Anymore.

(Ok, technically it does not fit into this post as it is not part of a pair and as it is really made of the tiniest left overs you could possibly imagine, it obviously belongs in the Sunday Scrap posts but once again, motivational issues make it unlikely that I will sit down again and write a whole post about a silly knitted hat so lets just enjoy it here.)

But enough of these old pictures, I have more recently produced proper pairs:

Two pull over scarf thingies (“neck socks”) with a soft and thick cotton fleece as a lining, much better than long knitted scarfs that might dangerously get caught somewhere.

A set of hats for twins (klimperklein, Minutenmuetze)

Please check out the pattern of the lining. I really love it. Tiny balls are the new stripes.

Technically the hats are reversible. But that makes the animals stand on their head. Clearly someone hasn’t been thinking this through.

Phew, that was quite a lot, wasn’t it. But that happens when you do not write your blog posts on a regular basis. To be honest, we are not quite done yet but I am jsut as tired as you are so I’ll leave the cutest pair for another post, especially as the colour combination deserves your full attention. I think after years of pink-orange-teal I have finally found my new trio….

Busy Business Bee

Posted on 19/03/2016 by atelieroursonne

I had a very busy week. Businesswise. Well, obviously also familywise but that is the norm so doesn’t count.

So, apart from the observed knitting class (a crazy one, really. Not only did almost everyone turn up for once but there were also 2 new people and 2! who came to visit because they were interested in taking over the knitting class plus an unusually high number of children. It was crazy. But good. The observer was most impressed by the atmosphere in the class and how I managed to do my thing – I guess the poor man didn’t quite expect a bunch of chattering women with small children climbing all over the place whilst discussing numbers on needles and yarns and patterns and how to calculate clever things 🙂 ) – see I closed the bracket so we are back to the initial sentence – I also had a lot of custom orders to be finished.

Apart from about 10 yoga bags (another bracket but just to tell you that the pictures are really bad as taken in a rush this morning so I am not going to show you I think) I also had to knit a woolen cardigan for a little boy except that I didn’t know the parents nor the little boy and their personal taste. Plus it was meant to be a special present, so I thought that something classic rather than crazily colourful would be more appropriate.

I have used my favourite pattern for these kind of things: Little Rascals by Julia Stanfield. I am a big fan of top down seemless knits.

I have used Lana Grossa Cool Wool big, a lovely soft merino which can even be washed in the washing machine if you really have to. The shade is amazing too. It is a rather darkish blue for the classic look but it is a melange so there is something going on, it is not just a plain blue.

Just blue would possibly have been really classic. But also really boring, so I thought a bold red stripe with white edges will make it look fresh and sporty whilst still classic enough to not be offensive to someone who does not share my love of less obvious colour combinations.

So that was all nice and classic and precious (wool, remember) but a tiny voice of the little 2 year old girl in me said: “yuk, boring!” and it began to dawn on me that maybe the 2 year old who will actually wear the cardigan might not think: “Oh what a lovely and nice little cardigan in a neutral colour. It will go with many of my smart trousers and shirts for special occasions” so I decided to add a little thing to the outfit which would be more every day nursery style and might find more appreciation from the little boy (obviously without knowing him, I might be totally wrong)