Happy New Year!

A wonderful, loving, beautiful, crafty 2012 to you all!

Tadaaaah Heart Mittens

Winter still hasn't really started. Temperatures are around 10 degrees Celcius, and we've been getting a lot of rain. When cycling to work in the morning, it can be somewhat cold. Full mittens would be too warm, since the cycling will warm me up. That's why I started browsing Ravelry for fingerless mittens. There are so many great designs such as:

I had to start somewhere, so I chose these heart mittens. Because the chart was so small, I made my own chart using excel. You can find it here.

I used 3.5mm double pointed needles. I don't remember the brand of the yarn. Unfortunately W threw out the labels because I had left them lying around... I guess I tought him well! ;)

I bought it at Fadeninsel in Berlin, and I think it might have been some sort of Alpaca blend.
Well, never mind, they feel soft and look gorgeous. They are a bit on the wide side. And I think that next time I might shorten the finger part just a bit.

 When you check out the pattern, you'll see one of my pics on the 1st page! I received a message on ravelry a couple of days ago, asking my permission to put the pic up on the 'details' page. I'm sooo excited! This is my first project which is featured on the project description! Yay! :)

December

This are some random pictures of what I've been up to in December:

We bought this wonderful Polaroid camera at a fleamarket at the IJhallen in Amsterdam:

Do you know Jurianne Matter? She's a Dutch designer who makes all sorts of wonderful paper accessories. I wanted something to brighten up the house and finally decided to get these paper flowers:

I bought the can at the airport in London, aren't the colors wonderful?

For my 27th birthday, I asked for help to buy a Magimix foodprocessor. Because we moved around a lot, and we have a very very very small kitchen, I decided to wait for a more spaceous house. That was until there was a promotion where you get a juicer if you buy a foodprocessor. So now I'm the proud owner of this wonderful, powerful, beautiful, (and a bit big) foodprocessor:

It's really wonderful! Last weekend we decided to make raison buns for breakfast, the dough was processed in a blink. I watched it in total awe!

When my little brother visited, we made our own pizza:

Don't get me started about the juicer! I don't have words for how great it is. Carrot juice is one of my all time favorites, add an apple or an orange for a fresher taste and I'm the happiest girl! ;)

More more more pics to come. December was a busy month, and with all the Christmas shopping, I came across soooo many fun stuff. I even allowed myself to indulge in some shopping for myself! :)

Christmas

Hi! How was your Christmas? Did you celebrate it with friends or family?

I haven't been feeling very 'merry' lately, which is why I didn't blog. Not too much about that. Let me show you our christmas tree:

 

This is the tree at Groningen train station, which we passed through on our way to visit the family. I really love the grand hall at the station. Isn't it beautiful?

My week is full of work and not too much fun, but I will try to upload some pics, 'cause I've got lots to show you!!

Winter tomato

Somewhere last summer I sowed some tomatos. Can you imagine how sursprised I was when finally, months later, little teeny tiny tomato plants came up!?

Unfortunately it was rather late in the season when that happened. And with the cold setting in and all, I decided to take one of the plants out of the garden and take it with me to work.

We had just moved our office to the 8th floor with a large window-sill and lots of sun. I didn't expect too much out of it, but if it would have any chance, it would be there.

And look at what it got me:

Some weeks ago these beauties had grown and where actually turning red! Who would've thought!?

With lots of sun and the nice airconditioned environment, they soon developed in decently-sized real red tomatoes!

And when they were bright red, we picked, washed and ate them! It's a wonderful idea being able to eat something that you've grown yourself. Well, ok, not really 'yourself' of course, you know what I mean, right!? ;)

An extra pic of the view of my new office, it's wonderful. I can see lots of airplanes, and the colors at dawn and sunsets are totally awesome.

Hexagon blanket

As I told you in the previous post, one of the projects I'm currently working on is a Hexagon blanket.
You probably all know Lucy who has a wonderful blog over at attic24. Over the years she has published some wonderful patterns, of which the blankets are the most wonderful to my opnion.
Previously, I made a squares blanket using her pattern and I started a ripple one, but wasn't pleased with the colors and the yarn, so I tossed it out.

The hexagon blanket has been on my to-hook list for a while now, and with the colder weather, I found it a good time to make one.

I ordered some acrylic yarn (Populair fin) in 16 different colors:

 

When I started working on the first rounds, I discovered that the yellow yarn, which you can see in the middle of the top row, didn't really fit in. So that left me with 15 different colors to make the 3 inner circles out of.
To make sure that all colors are represented equally, I started with a number of small circles per color:

I then made the second round with all the different colors around the smaller ones of which I forgot to take a picture...

After that all third rounds were added

 Then, I laid out all the circles in a way that it was sort of random, but without certain colors being over- or underrepresented in parts of the blanket

 For the last round/border per hexagon I chose to use only one color, a purple-blue, which wasn't used in the previous rounds. The first round of the border looks like this

It makes it look like a beautiful flower, doesn't it?

I'm working on bordering all the hexa's up and putting them together now

I love how colorful it is, but that the purple border holds it all together. :)

I'm off to continue joining the hexagons now, can't wait for it to be finished!

Work in progress

Some people can really focus on one project, and don't start any other crafty projects before they finish the previous one.
Well, that's just not me...

I usually have a couple of WIP's which I intermittently work on.

Right now I'm working on:

1. a skirt for which I already cut out the pattern out of a flowered tricot. I just need to put it together.

2. a shawl, a triangle shape made out of tricot and lined with a supercool stretchy border which has to be sewnw on.

 

Because I totally love it uptil now, I also bought some bright blue fabric and yellow edging to make another colorful one:

3. an infinity scarf with a stroke of lace.

4. a lace scarf, which I blogged before. It's really light and delicate and beatiful. But with the cold weather I've been feeling into more bulky knits and crochet.

5. a scraps blanket, really colorful, but without a real pattern to follow, so after each row I have to decide with what color I want to continue and what kind of stitch I want to use. All the decisionmaking and thinking made me put it away for a while.

6. knitted multicolor smaller blanket, rather simple and easy, but it's getting quite heavy, so I decided I need to interleave it with some crochet.

7. and that's why I started a hexagon blanket (pattern), about which I'll try to post more later today. It's really awesome, and really deserves a post of it own.

8. I just finished a scarf for my mom, which started out as last years birthday present, but which I didn't finish until her birthday this year. It was a last-minute job, and I totally forgot to take pictures of the finished scarf. Hopefully she'll be able to take some pics which I can post her.

Other projects I want to start:
1. a hat for the daughter of a friend. I just received a picture of her new coat so that I can make something that goes together with it. I think I'm going to make this one (pattern):

2. On my Saturdaymorning tour of blogland, I came across this wonderful blanket by purlbee:

 

3. a huge cowl, something like:

and on top of it all, Christmas is coming really really soon, and I also want to make some decorations for the tree and the house. I've pinned some ideas which I found on the net or on pinterest itself. More about that in a next post!

Do you ever have this many projects lying around? Are you crafting for Christmas decorations or gifts?