Taikasatama

Plantago Major

2010-07-06T14:15:00.001+03:00

Plantago Major
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

It's been a while since my last posting. I have been wondering whether or not blogging, at least in this form, is a good option for me anymore. I've always loved picture galleries and to be frank, even if I love to talk about myself, perhaps it's even more natural to me to let pictures tell the stories. But I will have to think about it, in any case my Flickr stream is updated more often and with more pictures, and I also added the little sidebar thumbnail thingy for that reason.

And then here we have a drawing of one of my favourite plants:)

Pop up card, part 2

2010-05-30T14:58:00.001+03:00

Pop up card
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I had to make another one::) This one is perhaps even more simple than the last, especially I just cut out a scrapbook sheet as a decoration. But this is so fun!

The cutouts are from a Sassafras paper and the background is metallic acrylics, watercolours and shimmering inks accented with a couple of acrylic diamonds. It's not as shiny as it sounds like, adding watercolour to the shimmering and metallic elements makes a very interesting transparent matter layer and underneath you can see the shimmer. Pretty toned down and elegant, actually. (Especially considering my love for glitter and rainbows:) )

Pop up

2010-05-28T06:55:00.001+03:00

Pop up
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

So, when you have a bunch of submission deadlines coming up, lots of ideas in your head just begging you to actually knit them for once, school dead-deadlines behind and a bunch of other little things going on in your life... what to do?

Get on a midnight learning a new skill-spree, of course. So I present you my first pop-up spread. I can't believe I actually did it! It's nothing too sophisticated but when I was a child the greatest magic was to get to read pop up books. There's something adorable about them.

So I started learning. I could figure out the basics myself but sometimes it's just as good to read what someone else has already written instead of figuring out everything from scratch, so I read through these tutorials. Picked up a few things here and there and then started trying things out.

I spent a while folding papers strips differently and then opening and closing the booklet to see if they were working, it was pretty much a trial and error. When I was folding my final strip of paper, something clicked and I think next time things will be much smoother. And I can focus on getting a nicer looking result as well:)

Ok, I just wanted to share this:) I rarely learn new techniques even though I eventually enjoy them and adapt them to my own uses. I should do this learning thing more often.

And if anyone is interested about the materials, cardstock is Canson Mi-Teintes in different shades of green and I rubberstamped moths and dragonflies on them. Plus some metallic acrylics, shimmering inks and glitter glue, as usual:)

Valaskala

2010-05-14T16:29:00.001+03:00

Valaskala
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Yay, I have something to update finally! I have been feeling like I'm losing my touch all this spring, but every now and then I've managed to make something that I am happy with:) There should be some invention though, to allow me to knit and make these at the same time.

This is in a booklet where the theme was just splatters.. So I did a basic watercolour wash on the brown cardboard in the backround and added random drops of shimmering ink. Plus a whale, I had to learn to draw whales while working on a swap so all these whales are popping up everywhere:)

Strrrripes

2010-05-05T20:36:00.001+03:00

Strrrripes
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

aka my new hoodie:) I finally figured out the best way to use up some of the ugly brown Rowan wool cotton I got on ebay thinking of was another colour. Pairing with dark purple did the trick. I spent ages looking for a good purple and finally settled for Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed because of the Tweed flecks. Of course, as I walked out the store after buying them, I realised Colinette's Velvet Damson colourway might have been even more perfect.

But I'm happy with what I have. The tweedy yarn is absolutely wonderful to knit and to look at, I could just keep starting at the knitted fabric. And Wool-Cotton is a great yarn, I can't fathom why it doesn't seem to be more popular. I also decided this hoodie was a good project to learn how to knit a top-down seamless sweater.

And on I went. I used a set of directions found here on Ravelry. I skipped making a mini sweater and went straight into the latter explanation. It was all good and I couldn't be happier with how things turned out. I also have my own list of little tweaks I can do next time, but I think everyone needs to try it themselves and found out which things work for them and which don't.

The only thing I don't like about this project is that I am knitting back and forth because I want the hoodie to have a zipper in the front and I thought steeking was more effort than purling through every other row. Let me tell you, steeking is a walk in the park compared with all the purling when the rows are loong. (Not that I have a problem with purling, it just takes a fraction of a second longer than to knit and also a little extra hand motions. I'm lazy like that. )

At the moment I have knitted the main part and next I'll moce onto the sleeves. The great thing is that the upper part of the sleeves is already done along the body, so they shouldn't take as much time as they normally take. After sleeves it's just a matter of attaching a zipper and knitting a hood. Which I have never done before either, so it'll be interesting:)

Skew

2010-04-25T16:47:00.001+03:00

Skew
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I have been silent for a while, but I've been furiously knitting! I searched for a perfect yarn for Skew for a while, thinking that it needed to be something cheerful and bright. I couldn't think of anything until I remembered my neon coloured hanspun! It was just perfect for this!

The yarn was about sport weight, so there were some issues. I measured my swatch and calculated the stitches and happily started knitting, only to realise that the stretch when knitting in bias is so different, that my sock didn't fit me at all. So I adjusted stitch counts and went on. That time I actually finished the sock and then realised I couldn't get it on past my feel! Frogging time again. That time I made sure I got it right.

Repeat for the second sock, only this time I already knew the right stitch counts but still somehow managed to mangle the heel so that the sock just wouldn't fit. After a frog and reknit, they are finally here! It's a good thing they are pretty, because I was getting a tiny bit frustrated:)

Some pattern notes:
- Toe: I didn't do the toe as instructed and instead of did a flatter and wider toe and then adjusted the rest of the increases accordingly. The pointier toe looked so weird on my feet.
- Gusset and heel. Make sure these fit, make sure you can get the sock on and off and don't take the stitch count fool you.

syli

2010-04-14T21:33:00.001+03:00

syli
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

"syli" / "embrace"
Lyra Aquabrush pens.

cat

2010-04-12T22:57:00.001+03:00

cat
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

A card. One layers of watercolours, and another layer of pens because watercolours alone just weren't enough.

Kaupunki

2010-04-10T21:21:00.001+03:00

Kaupunki
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

A page in a "city" themed booklet. I love buses so much, especially this one.

Feet

2010-04-06T21:46:00.001+03:00

Feet
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Thanks for the long easter weekend, I finally got to doing something. I am still going on with my phase of doing really weird (for me) things. Like feet.

The background was a random ad, which is pretty much covered up here with acrylics and pens. I know this idea has been done over and over again, but not by me, haha:)

My socks!!!

2010-03-27T12:50:00.001+02:00

My socks!!!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

My socks are finished and I'm so happy! I love the colours so much and knitting these was so lovely. I have always said that I don't really love the Wollmeise base yarn, but somehow with these socks I didn't mind. And of course the knitted fabric becomes absolutely gorgeous.

I had these on my feet the moment I cast of the last stitch:)

Chains of Love socks

2010-03-19T11:32:00.001+02:00

My stripey socks
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

These are the socks I started with J&B! I love them to bits, I wanted to make them stripe in these thick, spiralling stripes and it worked, yay! As you might guess, the pattern is called Chains of Love and it's a great pattern. I did convert it to a toe-up because that way I had better control on the pooling in the foot.

As for making it stripe, at first I had 68 stitches at 9stitches per inch. Then I realised the stripes weren't moving enough so I reduced to 66 and that seemed to maintain a similar thickness but still kept them spiralling nicer. I actually tried a bunch of numbers here and there, from 62 to 68 but you could easily see when the colours were stacking rightly and when not. As a general hint, the thin stripes happen when you have a smaller number of stitches and you can thicken them by adding a couple of stitches.

(Of course, to make things confusing, if you go over a certain amount of stitches, the spiralling will actually change direction and then the opposite is going to be true. But that's unlikely to happen in socks, apart from perhaps kneehighs)

WIth all this variation in the number of stitches, I added some 1x1 ribbing to the sole. It keeps the fit snug even if the size might change a little bit with these experiments.

Rainbow socks

2010-03-17T22:13:00.001+02:00

Rainbow socks
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Another pair of stripy socks. I started knitting these in December and almost finished them in a week. And then - 4 months of procrastination happened. But I'm glad I finally finished them:)

As for my photography skills, well, someone might have spotted that I was taking a closeup of the seam that the stripes make, but that just wouldn'¨t me my style would it.

But on the topic of Noro socks, I have made and used a pair of socks made with both yarns, Kureyon and SIlk Garden sock. I am a little surprised to admit that I prefer Kureyon sock. I adored knitting with SGS but as it turns out, after about two months of wear the socks had holes on their heels.

KS, however, has held up beautifully and I have worn those socks for about six months and they've been my favourite pair so that's a lot of use. There was some initial pilling, but after taking those out, the socks look great. It was actually a surprise for myself as well, because somehow the yarn itself doesn't seem that tough. Or then I just had a really good batch:)

After finishing these I decided to reward myself with some Wollmeise. I'm making Chains of Love socks with Johannisbeere und Brennessel, a colour combination that I don't like that much, expect apparently in Wollmeise. It was one of the colours that finally made me gave in to the craze. But I'll get back to them later.

I hope when you think of me years down the line

2010-03-14T00:18:00.001+02:00

I hope when you think of me years down the line
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

A lyrics page with Mountain Goats:) The song is actually kind of bitter rambling by someone who is breaking up and this is a little too harmonic for that, but somehow it seemed still fitting.I used my new Lyra Aquabrush pens for the background, they're great!

It's funny how this is very much like the stuff I made some 5-6 years ago. I've been trying to force myself to make blander and tidier and more organised images ever since and yet if I give it a slightest chance, the 5-year-old who wants to play with colours always comes back in me :)

It's the 80's

2010-03-07T17:13:00.001+02:00

beads!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I finally got to blocking my 80's-inspired scarf:) It's black, it's lacey, it has glittering beads, it's the 80's! I love it, even if it isn't the most sophisticated thing in the world:)

Knit with Filatura di Crosa Superios, a blend of silk and cashmere and Tilli Tomas Beaded Lace, this was a bit of a splurge, but on the other hand both these yarns are pretty affordable in their own categories. Combined, I had about 450 metres of yarn and that was plenty to make a decent-sized scarf, I even have little bit of leftovers.

I used a feather and fan type of stitch pattern, found in Haapsalu Sall. As the Superior had twice the yardage, I knit from the peak up, increasing 2 stitches every round to make a flattened triangle shape and knitting 4 rows of Superior, 2 rows of Beaded Lace.

The two yarns have a different texture, Superior is thin and has a nice halo while Beaded Lace is silk, shiny and smooth and a little thicker. When I wear this around my neck, you cannot really see the difference, especially since the fluffiness of Superior covers it up a bit, but when I took pictures against light, you can see the different texture. (Yeah, more pics on Flickr/Ravelry, as usual:) ) One of the reasons I used the feather&fan-kind of stitch pattern is that it makes undulating stripes and those accentuate the different textures, too.

And as a last pattern note, there is no use to try to make the beads turn up only on the right side of the pattern. Had I wanted that, I'd probably added beads separately . This way they have more of a randomly scattered appearance.

Happy Sunday everyone, my goal for today is to finish a pair of knee high stripey Noro socks and finally block and start seaming my Wren:)

Carnivorous

2010-03-02T11:49:00.001+02:00

Carnivorous
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

oh yeah

2010-02-24T20:18:00.001+02:00

oh yeah
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

This is what happens at 5am, after laughing hysterially for a night with friends... :D:D

bling

2010-02-22T20:47:00.001+02:00

bling
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

More things I did over the weekend. A pretty nonsensical little thing, but I've come to realise that whenever I don't have a clue of what I'm doing, it is time for acrylic diamonds and glitter. Works every time.

Pretty things

2010-02-22T12:42:00.001+02:00

Pretty things
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

One of the rare times I get to combine the two things I blog about:)

We had a little decoing meeting over the weekend and I got so many pages done. I missed the big meetup of this winter due to being sick so this was at least a little something to make up for it:) More pics to come:)

Oh Baltic Sea

2010-02-20T13:28:00.001+02:00

Oh Baltic Sea
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Sea themed songs and dreaming of summer. Sigh.

B-E-N-D-E-R Beeeender!

2010-02-17T12:58:00.001+02:00

B-E-N-D-E-R Beeeender!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Give me a B! Give me an E! Give me an N!

Enough said, even though I could keep on with the Futurama quotes for a while. I am making Bender Bending Rodriguez. I put soe bendable wire inside his legs so that you can bend them. And at the moment I am working on his shiny metal ass. It's taking up a lot of yarn.

Oh, and he's going to have a working flap for booze carrying purposes:)

Neon!

2010-01-28T15:47:00.001+02:00

Neon!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

i had to cheer myself up last week somehow. Well, my to-go comfort thing are spinning batts, so that's where I headed this time as well. And look what I got today in the mail! It's a batt by spunrightround.etsy.com, and it's the best thing ever! Neon yellow and hot pink! With sparkle!

Good taste? Oh well.. :)

Birthday card

2010-01-25T13:14:00.001+02:00

Birthday card
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Oh yeah, I am in that point of my life where there's nothing left but painting flower cards:) I don't know, but I sort of like this one anyhow. It's for the sister, who I'm sure is going to have an opinion on sending her flower cards.

Oh well:D It's made with watercolours and moderate amount of shimmering inks. I also found out that it's interesting to use the inks as a wash before applying any paint on the paper - it doesn't make as glittering effect as you might think, the shine just shows up randomly on behind the colours.

Echo flower shawl

2010-01-21T23:30:00.001+02:00

Echo flower shawl
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Some of us have new shawls. And they're green!

So, as ou can guess I finally finished my Echo flower shawl. Someone on Ravelry was so sweet and sent me enough yarn to get through the last couple of rows. And I love this!

Specs: Yarn is Wollmeise Twin in Petersilie, needles used were lace Addis in 4mm, I made a scarf size version of this, with the exception that I did one extra center repeat. It' halfway between a scarf and a shawl in size.

Yay, I'm so happy about this one. I've needed a new green shawl and this one suits my complexion better than the straight, bright greens. And the yarn is so heavy that it adds nice drape, too. The only thing I wonder about WM is that it didn't take the most aggressive blocking very well. I mean, the pattern opened up fine and so on, but I blocked this very stretched out and it definitely bounced back a little from what it was while still wet.

Knitting needle holder

2010-01-20T00:44:00.001+02:00

Knitting needle holder
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Yay, I finally got a needle holder! I've been needing one for ages, especially after I started using mostly wooden needles and was alwas so worried that I'd break them in my bag.

This is from bluestockingyarns.etsy.com. They were great, and I love the simplicity of this. I tried and this was good for both my longer dpns as well as glove lenght dpns. And it's pretty, I love the detail of using a couple of different colour woods combined, it's just a small thing but adds a finishing touch.

Otherwise I*ve been engaging myself with old episodes of Dawson's Creek. Oh, childhood:)

Wren

2010-01-09T17:12:00.001+02:00

Wren
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

What? A blog needs regular updating? Meh.

Aaaanyhow:D New year is slowly getting started. I took an extra week of vacation as the Christmas time was a bit rough to go through. I'm feeling so much better now and well, I need it since next week I have to work twice as hard:)

I've also been knitting quite a bit. I decided to not buy Wollmeise anymore until I have knitted all my planned projects with it - of course there's only been one update this year, but i made it through that. I am also wondering if the biggest craze might be passing... this is, of course, a selfish wish so that the yarn would always be available to me:) But it seems that the yarn isn't at least sold out in minutes anymore - that's progress, right?

But as a part of this decision, I started making a cardigan. Firstly, I was making Whisper from Spring 2009 IK. It's such a pretty little thing. After knitting it for a while I came to second thoughts - it isn't really a cardi that would have worked on me so I frogged and after some searching on Ravelry, I found Wren.

I am aiming for a sort of combination of the good sides of both these cardigans. I like Wen for the shoulders and front, but I also want some of the flowyness of Whisper. I am also doing it a little smaller in fit - I am making my actual size even though my gauge is tighter than in the original. On top of that I am adding some extra waist shaping to make it more fitting and more A-lined in silhouette. I also won't be using it closed on the front, so with that, too, I'll see if I make the sides a little less wide. But I'll keep the shape that is a bit too wide on the hem and then decreases to the waist. That, combined with the flowy fabric (24s perinch, which is slightly too loose for this yarn), I think I'll get the best out of both of these cardigans:)

And that's for the knitting talk of today:)

Happy new year:)

2010-01-01T17:23:00.001+02:00

Rocking horse
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Christmas cat

2009-12-28T15:39:00.001+02:00

Christmas cat
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Yay, the holidays are finally over and I am safely back at home. I caught a little flu on the way and am exhausted, but it's always so good to get back home. I'm also seriously planning on going for a trip abroad next year - it'd save me from so much hassle and stress.

But I made a christmas cat:) Just watercolours... and lots of fun playing with masking fluid:)

Air

2009-12-22T14:50:00.001+02:00

Air
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Entry in elements themed booklet. I've found the watercolours again. here I was thinking of cold weather and really intense winds. I should do more this type of things.

Soocks

2009-12-21T14:34:00.001+02:00

Soocks
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Looks what I made! Look what I made for myself in the middle of my busiest Christmas knitting!

Oh well, I have a long train ride tomorrow to knit for other people.

This was one of those enjoyable projects that I could have knitted on and on for hours and then some. The yarn is Silk garden sock and I love it. It is thicker than Kureyon sock or general sock yarns and textured in that noro-ish way that I love in my knitting. (not everyone does, I know..) On hindsight, I should have omitted the stripes and just knitted the yarn as it was. Not all of these colour combinations work and they take away a little of the faded vintage feel of the colourway, which was what I most wanted to preserve in my socks.

Tiny card for Christmas

2009-12-20T00:22:00.001+02:00

Tiny card for Christmas
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Having to stay inside with a flu has one pleasant side effect: when 'I start to feel better, I get ahuge energy boost for a day or two. I spent this one on making a bunch of christmas cards.

Most of them were these candles. They're simple and all, but I've enjoyed making them and somehow painting flames with lots and lots of water is very fascinating. I also have some other cards I did, I'll get back to those:)

Now, I should take one last look to my BA thesis before the Christmas-rush. Being sick also means that I am long way behind my shcedule and I need to make up for that, if I only figure out how.

snowflakes

2009-12-06T12:05:00.001+02:00

snowflakes
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

These pretty much call for a lolcat captioning:)

But yay, snowflakes! I spent almost the entire night crocheting these with some leftover Yourkshire tweed yarn. I might add some more beads, something pearly perhaps. And I'll get to starch these up, that'll be fun!

I'm also really inspired by the Estonian Käsitöö magasine they started publishing in Finland as well. It was a great combination of whimsical and simple, more Scandinavian aesthetic, as well as traditional patterns and contemporary little things.

What especially caught my eye was a little story about vintage Christmas ornaments - these snowflakes weren't one, but it made me want to start making ornaments myself. I also want to try out making some baubles to hang up in the tree, something ornate and shiny and with no concern about good taste:)

(Oh and please no one remind me I have a million knitting ufos at the moment, including the pair of mittens I wanted to wear this winter! )

Blackened

2009-12-02T10:22:00.001+02:00

Blackened
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I took this photo this morning after being wide awake for the whole night again. I really don't appreciate how the dark time of the year affects me, especially I sort of like the darkness itself, just not the side effects.

I've also been feeling miserable about ever trying to take a picture of anything properly. But this morning there was a little bit of sunshine between the clouds and while I tried to shoot these socks, I got a nice detail out of the camera:)

The socks are for my sister who for some twisted reason asked for black socks - not exactly the most exciting colour to knit. But I added some merino-cashmere-nylon handpainted yarn and bäuerliches cables to them and suddenly it all made sense. The yarn is Have you any wool Luxe sock and I can heartily recommend it, it's soft and comes in several pretty colourways, I wish I could have them all:)

Little mermaid

2009-11-30T02:19:00.001+02:00

Little mermaid
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Something a but more simple from me. But I wonder if I am the only one who never really knew, what happens at the end of this tale? I only found out a couple of years ago when I was chatting with people about it and it came up that the story doesn't end with "they fell in love and happily ever after"...

So when I got this dark vintage theme, I thought it ws a perect example. The ilustration is by Grabianski and I just added bits and pieces. Some knitted lace, a jeweled brad and a bit of Glossy Accents. Also, some watercolour on the image to darken it a bit.

Lace and fragments

2009-11-24T23:46:00.001+02:00

Lace and fragments
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Another one of these booklets:) I've been hooked on the Finnish version of Project Runway and I think that some inspiration of it seeped into this piece. I tore and abused some think veilish fabric and things just somehow got to this shape. The strands of "pearls" dangle freely:)

Owl eyes

2009-11-22T19:31:00.001+02:00

Owl eyes
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

A detail from a larger piece where I used some old lace and mercilessly just tore it to pieces. It's all so simple but I like this detail a lot.

Falling duck

2009-11-16T22:34:00.001+02:00

Falling
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

How to buy Wollmeise?

2009-11-13T23:11:00.001+02:00

Die Auster
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I've been a bit absent from internet these days. But for a good reason, I finally have only one more essay to write before getting my Bachelor's. And on top of that, I have quite a bit of my Master's done as well. I couldn't feel more reliefed to finally have something concretical to show about my studies.. wel, in a few months time. But it's so close that I just need to get there now.

But I also wanted to write down a couple of words about Wollmeise. I totally lost it with Wollmeise this summer - before that, I was a but intimidated by the hype, thinking that it can't possibly be so good as people make it out to be. But after seeing some gorgeous green projects, I caved in, spent a long while reading Wollmeiseholics Anonymous group on Ravelry and started stalking for an update.

And well, what do you know - it was better than the hype. The colours are perfect, so deep, so pretty, so alive. They are also bright and perhaps someone who prefers more subtle tones, might be happier with other yarns. To me the bright is perfect. On top of that, the base yarn is great. It isn't the nicest yarn to knit, but not unpleasant either. What really makes the yarn is the knitted fabric. It looks great with cables, it looks great with lace and the colours make it pretty even in stockinette! The lace yarn is even more to my liking, unfortunately because it is pretty much impossible to get. It is a little bit lighter than the sock and the lightness of it makes it feel a little more wool-like.

As for the stalking - the updates thread at Wollmeiseholics Anonymous is golden. It's pretty active at all times but when there's an update, the amount of messages sent goes very high very quickly. People are so nice and will always announce it there is there's an update. For Europeans, the only problem with update time is that people might be at work - for people in the US, the updates seem to be in the middle of the night and I've heard that people actually set up an alarm clock and wake up in the middle of the night to refresch the "In stock" page. That's about it. At the WA group on Ravelry there are also threads about most common update times and such, so that people can plan it a little bit.

But what I recommend as a way to get a good variety of colours is to buy We're Different bags. They are updated on the store just like other yarns, but come in bags of 2 or 5. These are colours that don't exactly match their picture or perhaps guinea pigs, test versions of regular WM colourways. You can buy the bags by general colour (ie. greens, purples, blues etc.) or compeletely random. What I like about the bags is that you can easily get several skeins and on top of that, they tend to go out slower than normal updates. Of course you will still need to be online at the update time but you have more time to think. Also, if you don't like the element of surprise of the grab bags, they might not be your thing.

Lastly, you can buy Wollmeise from destashes on Ravelry and maybe elsewhere. I think that there's always a couple of skeins for sale on Ravelry and people ask quite reasonable prices after all.

So, it's hard to get but not impossible. If you can't stalk for updated yourself, you might want to ask around if someone you know is also stalking and could try to snatch you some.

Wollmeise

2009-10-29T22:45:00.001+02:00

Wollmeise
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Autumn vacation is over and I am slowly getting back to real life. Of course, that calls for a wollmeise grab bag. I'll need to quit by wm-habit...really. I love even the colourways that I don't actually like as colours.

Scarabäus, Ballerina, Ebenholz and Barist'O. They'd make a gorgeous yoked sweater together. And I think I also need a plain sweater in Ebenholz, it's the perfect dark, rich brown. Much better irl than in pictures. And Scarab&Ballerina are the perfect contrast colours next to it. And i can't even wear yoked sweaters, but I want to make one. Perhaps I should make some plans with one and set-in sleeves.

Mittens!

2009-10-07T20:58:00.001+03:00

Mittens!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Each autumn, when the weather gets colder, I get the urge to wear mittens. And each autumn, when I look at my endless pairs of mittens, I realise I want to make something new. Same thing this year, only this year I didn't have the automatic vision of what I want...

But I've been very good at drawing a couple of ideas for mittens or designs each night and from one of those doodles these mittens started to get form. I haven't knitted a single swatch yet so i won't start bragging, but hey, with these colours, you can't go THAT wrong, can you? (Really, I love Rowan. And I really need it to be available at the local supermarket.)

Huurre

2009-10-02T19:01:00.001+03:00

Huurre 2
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

This is the great project I've been working on slowly and steadily: my own Wollmeise pooling scarf. Well, the first one, I have several skeins in other colours waiting:) This colour is , obviously, Tants (I loved that story when I was a child!) and it has oliveish light green, brown and a cool purple.

I wanted to show the little hint of green on the edging, sort of like frosted leaves or flowers. Hence the name, Huurre. (One of the several words in Finnish that mean frost:) )

Uniheinä

2009-10-01T23:04:00.001+03:00

Uniheinä
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Scallopping horses on misty grass. I can have this dream for ages, just scallopping on and on and on. This booklet had a wonderful theme, Colours of your dreams, and when I think of my dreams, this one is the first that comes to mind. It's a good dream.

Sonne:)

2009-09-27T15:19:00.001+03:00

Sonne:)
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I finished my light shawl. Knit with Wollmeise Sonne, and there was no chance of me capturing the brightness of the colours. The oranges are almost neon, veyr bright, and the whole shawl is just glowing.

This was also the first time I blocked Wollmeise - it was a pleasant surprise. The yarn relaxes so much when wet and even though it doesn't block as easily as lace yarns, blocking was still quite effortless. Good to know, with me having both Aeolian and a pooling lace scarf on the way at the moment with WM.

I've been on a finishing old things kick. I finally bind off the Natalyas I started for a friend last winter - I guess they'll me ready for this one:)

I'm also going to start making socks for Joulusukat project. It collects socks to be send to hospital and elderly care patients in Kuopio area. Sort of a Christmas gift. I knit quickly and have lots of letover yarns, so I'll be trying to knit something special for each pair.

Sonne!

2009-09-16T23:17:00.001+03:00

Sonne!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

So, I'm officially old as of this weekend. How depressing. I'll need to celebrate it at some point with the proper Finnish way*, maybe that'd make me feel better.

Meanwhile, I got a skein of Sonne and I am making myself a glowing shawl. Glowing I tell you! Sonne was actually the first colour of Wollmeise I ever saw and it was pretty much love at first sight. I'm so happy to be knitting with something as beautiful as this yarn.

But the shawl - I am just relying on the colour doing it all. I am using Lumiruusu pattern from Ulla 1/08 and I'll combine the edging from Aeolian to it. And it's a triangle and not a half circle. Actually I feel like even this amount of patterning is distracting the yarn, but I also wanted something airy and lacey.. hopefully this is a good compromise.

*involving alcohol, alcohol and if you're a bit wussy like I am, some cake

Sun catching

2009-09-10T22:08:00.001+03:00

Sun catching
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Mmm. Last night I took out my box of beads (it's umm, large to say the least. I just love beads, especially natural stones and crystals) and used a thick wire to build up a couple of suncatchers. Really simple and just putting all the different beads together, but also relaxing and with these huge beads, simplicity really is the way to go.

This picture is my own favourite, the blue colour is so deep and the light shows so beautifully there. I took some more shots, just click to Flickr as usual:)

Joutsenhuivi

2009-09-08T15:27:00.001+03:00

Joutsenhuivi
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Look what I finished! I waited ages to start the Swan lake stole and now it's finally done. It was one of those projects where everything just seemed to go wrong one way or other, but well, there's nothing a good wet blocking doesn't fix:)

More pictures on Flickr; it's really huge so I couldn't take pictures of it all spread out, there's just no such space in my studio. And again, I'll happily recommend Hedgehogfibres.etsy.com to anyone, the yarn is great!

Speaking of photos, I've been going through some huuto.net and ebay auctions, trying to find a mannequin to pin shawls and shirts on. No luck so far, either things are too expensive or they are on thje other side of the world/country and too big to ship. I'd just want something really simple... But I'll go to a flea market tour this weekend - last time I went there I found a nostepinne and several old spinning wheel bobbins - why not a mannequin this time, then?

Mittens with Löwenzahn

2009-09-04T12:13:00.001+03:00

Mittens with Löwenzahn
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Since I've pretty much missed each and every update since July, apart form a couple of late findings, I decided to actually knit with the Wollmeise:) This is just a simple and quick pair of baby mitts but they sure show the colours beautifully! The yarn is Wollmeise 100% in Löwenzahn light. I also have a medium intensity skein and that's less yellow.. maybe someday I could catch a dark skeins as well.

So, yay, mittens, carry on:)

Firestarters

2009-09-01T19:06:00.001+03:00

Firestarters
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I guess these socks are a good way to start the autumn season:) I'm back at home after the summer, feeling a little blue because I would have loved to stay in the capital area and will do my best to be able to head back there as soon as I can. On the other hand I am getting slightly excited about school and new classes and such, even though at this point I'll just have to be working hard with the thesis. For which I still need a subject...

But, knitting, socks, yay! These are Firestarters, obviously. I got a skein of Flydesigns Monarch in Ravelry destash and wanted to try it out in a nice pattern that works in variegated yarn. I... am not too sure if I like the way these look like. Not enough pooling or not enough solid green:) I like my socks either pooling like mad or then semisolid with a complex pattern. This yarn might have looked better in a chevron type pattern instead.

The yarn itself is great, though. It's very similar to STR and Jitterbug, but slightly thicker, perhaps more like STR mediumweight? It has a similar tight twist which I just love. It just needs to get a Finnish retailer!

I've been also occupied with mitten design. I am slowly working my way into colourwork and fairisle type of colour usage but I suddenly have troubles with finding a good, reliable yarn source. I mean, sure, there are Satakieli, even Vuorelma's Kampalanka for the most complex things (I will get there one day, I promise!) and then there is Pirkkalanka in a heavier weight. But, I'd need a yarn with a huge amount of colours and also semisolids or variegated colourways. Cascade 220 comes closest, but even that doesn't have all the variegated colours I'd need. Or then I'd need to reconsider the colourways.

Rainbow socks

2009-08-11T22:12:00.001+03:00

Rainbow socks
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

The summer is almost over. I'll be heading back home soon, back to a more regular bloggina and picture taking as well. On the other hand I have a feelng that I won't be going back home permanently. This summer somehow awakened a desire to leave again - the only question is whether I'd be leaving to south or back to east and when that might be. Not too long, I hope, in any case.

These socks are probably one of the more concrete things I'll have to show of this summer. And I love them.

brooklyn

2009-08-01T22:18:00.001+03:00

brooklyn
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I'm still stuck with the same thoughts and song as the last time. But it's all good because I get to paint pretty things about the song. Too bad the summer is soon over, I've had a blast.

Drive across the country

2009-07-17T23:22:00.001+03:00

Drive across the country
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

This has seemed to be the theme of this summer. Sitting on the bus, crossing the bridge and trying to catch a glimpse of the cruise ships on the way, or sitting on a train with too much or too little sunshine and always hours to go before being home. And not being exactly sure which way is home.

I am camera and scanner-less during the weeks so I am not able to share most of the things I've been making. I've found my watercolours again. And I've found my love for glueing little paper bits together again. That's good:)

And I finished the scarf design I've been working on but I need more pictures of it. But I actually finished something! I have about 5 lace shawls planned out and I have no idea why they are suddenly so intriguing, after being a bit bored with lace on winter. Mmm, lace.

Water!

2009-06-29T19:38:00.001+03:00

Water!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Amazing what some macro+zooming combination does! (And of course by accident:) ) When I saw this blown up on the computer screen it took me a while to even regognise what it was, it looks like fibre optics or angelina! All those little sparkles of light.

Lace:)

2009-06-28T22:33:00.001+03:00

Lace:)
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

It was a sunny weekend. I'm also having troubles getting the pattern for this scarf up before the end of June. I can get the knitting done and I have all the written parts ready but oh, the charts! I've never done charts on computer and I am kind of wondering which way to take - make a grid in photoshop and then add knitting symbols font on it? Or just use excel, add the symbols on cells and then make all cells even squares? Decisions, decisions!

I did take a bunch of closeups on the sunny evenings this weekend so I have at least some photos done. Still, it'll be hours and hours before I can have anything done.

In conclusion: I am finally working on this pattern again. And in an unrelated matter, I have a skein of Wollmeise's sock yarn coming to me! I never knew it was actually possible to get it! Part of me hopes that I won't get too excited about the yarn because it's so difficult to obtain, but for what I've read in other people's comments, the yarn looks just as great irl as it does on the photos.

Such lovely colours also always make me dream of learning to dye. I'd have so many great colour combinations and shades in mind already... but I'm fighting the urge! At least until I have my own house..:D Which is most likely never.

A sheep

2009-06-21T13:17:00.001+03:00

A sheep
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I love sheep:) And this whole piece just makes me smile.

Rainbow!

2009-06-20T12:18:00.001+03:00

Rainbow!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I should be working hard on the lace design I have going, it is working out really pretty so far, I just need to knit the sample before trying to find test knitters and actually publish it... so, the reasonable thing to do is to start a different project:)

Actually, I've been working out clearing all the yarn I'm not going to knit with from my stash and a skein of rainbow yarn came up. It wasn't enough to make a bigger project with and I realised it was perfect for some intentional pooling! So here we go:) I love love love the pooling thread on Ravelry and have been waiting to get my hands on some Wollmeise or Schaefer Anne or other pretty and colourful yarn to make some pooling scarves. But meanwhile, this one can do:)

I just aligned the colour repeats in the yarn for a few rows, then casted on with scrap yarn and started knitting and trying to keep the colour aligned.The colour runs are so short it's a bit difficult, but it works:) The yarn is Novita Hippy from.. 3-4 years back and it always had these amazing colour but I didn't know how to make them actually look nice until now. I only have the one skein so this'll probably become a cowl/neckwarmer or just something unpractical because it isn't enough for a scarf.

Oh, and happy Midsommer!

Duck, for a change

2009-06-19T14:42:00.001+03:00

Duck, for a change
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I've spent the last two weeks in another city, working... it's funny what a change of place does. I was certain that I wouldn't get anything done and I'd just be homesick all the time but instead it's the opposite. This morning, packing my things before heading back home for the weekend, I felt really reluctant to get back home. And I'm happy that I'll still have a few more weeks over there.

But here's a colourful duck:) I've found lots of good music lately and following that, I've lots of great ways of using colours as well.

Tie

2009-06-07T00:29:00.001+03:00

Tie
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I haven't really known how to do these things lately, so with this one I'm just happy that I made something! It's a spread in an unthemed altered book by a friend. "Tie" means "way" in English, by the way;)

Inkpads and then some iridescent ink and some ephemera. Plus a duck:)

Work in progress

2009-06-06T12:11:00.001+03:00

Work in progress
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

This is likely going to be my new lace design. I'm saying likely, because after hours and hours of swatching with stitch patterns that "are sure to look beautiful" , I'm a ever so sligtly skeptical about this one, too, until I see how it works out in a larger scale. Hopefully things will work out because I really like the idea in my head, at least. i'm trying to finish it by the end of June, which is a bit of a challenge but on the other hand deadlines tend to help me with getting things done. Perhaps I'll post some more sneak peeks along the way:)

I have a special liking to taking picture of lace in its first rows. It is so cute, looking more like a tangled mess at that point and then the transformation into lovely, flowy lace pattern is just magical.

Oh, as for some specs, this is going to be a scarf with instructions on enlarging it to a stole, the yarn is purple laceweigh linen from Vuorelma,( I'll try to find some other linen yarns to recommend as well) and... well that's all I know at this stage:)

Clapotis

2009-05-28T19:40:00.001+03:00

Clapotis
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Yeah, I went and did it. That'll make me the last person on Earth, but oh well:) I haven't knit very much this spring, partly because of the problems with my wrist and partly because of other deadlines, responsibilities and such. And also partly because I have felt obligated to dedicate time for designing efforts as well. It might very well be that the efforst don't take me very far, but I'd feel guilty or disappointed afterwards if I didn't even try.

Having said that, I realised I needed a summer scarf. Then I saw green Hipknits Silk Aran and things just clicked, a bright green Clapotis to crunch around my neck was the way to go! Unfortunately, once I got the yarn, it was a sort of sea green and not the bright green I thought I was seeing on the monitor. I decided to go ahead with the Clapotis anyhow and umm, buy some other bright and summery yarn to make another, summery fun scarf. I'm even considering yellow! We'll see.

Blue

2009-05-22T23:22:00.001+03:00

Blue
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

New yarn:)

2009-05-10T20:17:00.001+03:00

New yarn:)
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Yay, I finally finished spinning a huge batt from woolytreasures.etsy.com. I made some dk weight self-striping with it and I can't believe I made it through all that wool. And made so little yarn with it, eventually it's only about 250 metres of yarn as I najavo plied it.

Haha, I don't even have anything to say about this one, other than I spun it for about three weeks on evenings. Of course it helped that I couldn't do hardly any knitting because of my wrist being busted, so I could just spin something random. The wrist is getting better, by the way, for a while it got me really worried but switching the mouse to my left hand seems to have done the trick:)

Inspired by a book

2009-05-09T20:00:00.001+03:00

Inspired by a book
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I've never made anything even remotely fan-artish, but first time for everything I guess... This is for a inspired by a book - themed swap and I, obviously, used Robin Hobb as my inspiration. I love these books so much, so I didn't even try to go to anything detailed and particular and instead tried to find some of the atmosphere from my favourite moments in the book.

I didn't even realise, but I did this solely with copics! I usually can't do anything with only one medium, so I am kind of surprised that it worked out this way.

Lapsetti! Aka. Snow Duck

2009-04-13T00:20:00.001+03:00

Snow duck
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Yeah, I had a great Easter, why do you ask;) I woke up to a bit of snowstorm on Saturday morning and since my playing in the snow quota of the winter wasn't quite done, on I went. I made a duck. And then I made some ducklings. And then a duck more. I started to have a technique and all.

In all seriousness, I wish there was a way to work with snow inside. It'd be so much fun. And I don't even like snow!

Ok, I'm going nowhere with this. But I'm making ducks, so all is as usual. And all this snow is gone by now and the duck is now headless:D

Moukku

2009-04-09T12:20:00.001+03:00

Moukku
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Umm, happy easter if you celebrate:) I feel like giggling a bit when looking at this because I drew my sister's cat here, or something that resembles my sister's cat a little bit and he's such a character that you can't not like him:)

Mainly inks, with some shimmering purple ink (shimmering inks are pretty much the best thing ever) and there are watercolours somewhere beneath all the layers of paint. If you can't tell, I was aiming for something delicate and watercolour-y... haha, one thing I've learned is to never have a vision, they never work. And two of my favourite things: basic grey letter stickers and mirror pieces.

Rav exchange

2009-04-06T22:41:00.001+03:00

Rav exchange
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Christmas is here! Or at least my package for the Finnish swap on Ravelry. Last weekI got a huge envelope stuffed with all sorts of goods, pictures don't even begin to show how much goodness there was. Needles to day, the chocolate I already ate..

Sssssspaaaarkle

2009-04-06T15:01:00.001+03:00

Sssssspaaaarkle
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Oh yes! I got some more batts from etsy, by woolytreasures. I was so happy to see this pile of beads and sequins on top of the batt, I can't help it but I love sparkle and colour so much:) Some more pics of lovely things to come:)

My new spindle:)

2009-03-27T13:32:00.001+02:00

My new spindle:)
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Look what the post just brought me! This is from jesh.etsy.com, so pretty! This was a custom order and jesh was great, the spindle even arrived here from the US in two days!

It's top whorl, and I strongly prefer bottom whorls, but I decided that I'd learn to spin both ways. Though I already tried it as a bottom whorl and it spun just fine that way, too - on some ravelry thread I found out that the hook wasn't necessary at all to spinning and after trying spinning by just tying a knot on the shaft, I can say that it works just as well.

Yay, now I can have two projects going at once:)

My little pony...

2009-03-27T12:02:00.001+02:00

My little pony...
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I think I've had an overdose of sunlight lately. Which can be evidenced by this page:D Yeah, I made an mlp themed page and it was kind of fun. Remember those lampshades with that kind of fringe in the 80's? I used to love them so much! And well, My little ponies, too. And pink, probably. Oh, the childhood:)

Green stripes

2009-03-25T22:37:00.001+02:00

Green stripes
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Mini Mochi! I fell in love with the Fern Rainbow colorway a while back and at the first glance had a vision of striped knee-high socks. And that's where these babies are heading.

I started at the ankle, knit a few rounds and started working on the heel and all the way to the toe. Next I'll pick up the stitches from the provisional cast on and just knit up until the socks reach my knees or I run out of yarn. I decided to knit these this way because I am not sure how far my 3 balls of yarn will take me - in theory, they should be enough, but you never know. And, as for why I didn't start from toe, I just prefer the cuff down flap heel and the fit of socks knit this way.

The stripes forming are pretty, although I have to do a bit tweaking every now and then. I decided to let in a couple of those occasions where both strands of yarn are the same colour at the same time or change colour in the middle of the sripe and look very irregular.

Spinning fibres:)

2009-03-24T14:23:00.001+02:00

Spinning fibres:)
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Yay! Tody I got my order from dyeingforcolor.etsy.com and it's so pretty! The blueish is tussah silk and the green is soy silk. Just small amounts, so no large lace shawls to be made, but we'll see how much I can get out of them. I think that the soy silk is so soft that it might need to be plied with another fibre.

Freezing

2009-03-22T14:10:00.001+02:00

Freezing
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

The spring seems to be around! Which means that this is the perfect time to declare my hatred of cold, especially when it's really freezing. The dark and cold winter mornings are one of the nastiest things I know and I'd rather just sleep throgh them.

Scrap happy

2009-03-21T19:37:00.001+02:00

Lapsuus loppuu
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Inspired by all the paper scraps on my desk. And some nostalgic lyrics:) And there's some knitting in, too! I like to glue knitted fabric on paper, it behaves so differently from anything else and still remains its fluffyness:)

Watercolours

2009-03-20T13:30:00.001+02:00

Watercolours
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I was so proud of this one last night! Especially the little piece of text, which seemed ingenious to me at 3 am... if only I hadn't realised this morning that it's actually a badly mangled version of a poem I love... I seem to be in a habit of remembering lyrics and words wrong, not badly wrong but replacing a few words here and there to fit them to the image I have about them in my mind. Which is ok, as long as I don't go and make pieces and show them in public:)

Well, long story short, here are some watercolours, ignore the text, it's fine as a merely decorative element. I guess:)

Altered photo

2009-03-09T23:48:00.001+02:00

Altered photo
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

This is what happens when friends let me borrow their supplies:) A couple of weeks ago I had a great evening of decoing and artmaking with a dear friend of mine and it's always so inspiring to see how other people make their things and to get to use their supplies. I wouldn't ever have come up with something like this on my own:)

This is a piece of a booklet which included several copies of the same vintage photo and asked each participant to alter one copy. In the original picture the girl is laying on grass or a meadow and that's where I got the thought to change that to something else entirely.

I scratched the surface of the picture with scissors until I had some basic shapes and then painted on with dark blue acrylic paint.

I like this piece. And it does represent my feelings of having moved from the countryside to the city.

Bombadils and fibres

2009-02-22T01:33:00.001+02:00

Bombadils
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I finished my Bombadil socks! I love the pattern, it's one of those things that look more complicated than they are. Because I used a heavier weight yarn, I knit with a tight gauge and knit the sole in ribbing and while the socks are a bit on the loose side, they aren't too big. I had a bit of trouble following the pattern after making the heel, but by that point I just decided to improvise the rest because it was quite obvious what the pattern was supposed to look like.

The yarn is Mirasol Miski, a worsted weight made with llama. After my succesful Araucania Copihue socks I'm trying to find other warmer-than-wool fibres and see if they help my cold feet. This yarn was lovely in all other ways but I have to say that in my feet alpaca is noticeably warmer.

But, this yarn IS almost silky, has a bit of shine to it, the colourways are gorgeous and just worth trying out! I have a little bit of it left and wonder what to do with it.

Or actually, I have two growing piles of leftovers, one is green and the other is purple. Maybe some day I'll make one, (well ok, two) of those scrap yarn scarves that are made with different weights of the same colour. The only thing is that those scarves are beautiful to look at but not exactly my style. Hmm.

WIP: Offset cardigan with Luxus Cloud

2009-02-20T21:48:00.001+02:00

Offset cardigan with Luxus Cloud
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I finally started making this little not-so-surprise-anymore cardigan for a friend's child. There's going to be offset buttoning on the front, it's knit as one piece to the sleeves and instead of a side seam I made a simple cable on the side.

The yarn is a positive surprise - Novita Luxus Cloud, wool-bamboo mix. I have been a bit skeptical to try out Novita's Luxus yarns because their regular yarns aren't often to my tastes, either, so the extra price for the Luxus yarns didn't seem justified since I knew I could get similar yarns for a similar price elsewhere, with the only exception that I could trust the quality.

However, Luxus Cloud is delightful! It is very sproingy, a little fuzzy on the surface but not much and has great stitch definition. It also has a sheen that makes the white yarn look almost pearl-like. I haven't encountered knots in the skeins and all in all, it's been wonderful to knit with. If only there were better colours, I'd have tons of sweater projects for myself, too:)

Here's another picture of the cardigan, you can see the side cable there.

I love seals

2009-02-20T13:59:00.001+02:00

I love seals
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

That's pretty much all I have to say. I love them. Yeah:)

This is a page in a small booklet with a "things I like" theme. I decided to make something simple and a little naive after tons of more serious pieces.

I also found Donald Duck comics again! Or more particularly, I found Don Rosa again. A friend of mine keeps dragging me to the comic shelf at the library and it's so interesting. This week I suddenly found a Don Rosa album and decided to borrow it, just for nostalgia's sake. I was a little afraid that they would have lost their magic since my childhood but not really - of course it was different but this time I paid much more attention on the visuals: the lines, the drawing style, little details on the background and that type of things. Wonderful:)

Light and shadow

2009-02-08T20:13:00.002+02:00

Light and shadow
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

A light and shadow themed booklet. I worked on this for about a month, a couple of minutes at a time. It started with the idea of something black against something almost white and sort of grew from that. The texture is completely missing from the picture, though: the black part was drawn and then cut out of thick watercolour paper so it's a bit raised.

I also used a knife with a rotating blade for the first time with this! I normally don't like to cut out ornaments or anything because I am really bad at working with a blade, but the rotating one was just perfect! It didn't feel like I was cutting it, it was more like sculpting paper.

On other news, I finally put up my first pattern on Ravelry. It's called Flourishing mittens and you can find it there for free. I'd like to put it somewhere where non-Ravelry folks could find it too, but I haven't found a good pdf hosting site just yet. It was also received quite well, which was a nice surprise, I kind of thought no one would notice.

Needles

2009-01-19T23:32:00.001+02:00

Needles
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Just a little bit of nonsense. But I was taking pics of my unfinished Natalya gauntlets and the sun and the colourful needles just looked so intriguing that I had to take a picture. The Harmony needles aren't really quite that bright in real life, more like a dark red but direct sunlight does wonders:)

Gilmore vest, part 2

2009-01-04T14:09:00.001+02:00

Gilmore vest
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I finally took more pictures of my Gilmore vest! I've used it all the time after finishing it, too! I added the cable-like rows to add a little interest to this and I also decreased a couple of stitches at the waist to get some shaping done but otherwise I followed the pattern.

And the pattern itself is so simple that it's really easy to alter it to suit pretty much any yarn or any additions one might think of:)

I also have been knitting Christmas gifts, making Christmas cards, putting packages together, yes, I know it's January... But I'm a bit slow:)

A hole

2008-12-22T01:56:00.001+02:00

A hole
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Another one of those "depths of your mind" booklets. This one wasn't so scary initially but as I started painting, it just became darker and darker. This was one of those pieces that get you out of breath when you finally finish the frantic painting.

Watercolours, copics and the white lines are letraset transfers.

Rope bridge

2008-12-20T03:45:00.001+02:00

Rope bridge
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

A booklet I made for a swap with a theme "depths of your mind." The background is a watercolour piece I made a while back and suddenly I just realised what it had to become. I used some copics for the image and the round things are brads, some of them are keeping the book together and others are just decorative.

And yeah, I am scared to death of these bridges. They really are the stuff nightmares are made of. And then there's the Indiana Jones scene, too..:)

See my vest, see my vest, see my veee-ee-eest...

2008-12-18T01:51:00.001+02:00

My vest!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

The Simpsons reference of the taken care of:) A quick shot of the Gilmore vest I just finished. I love it so much and even though it's small, it shows the fake-cable-pattern on the shoulder which is the maing thing about this.

The yarn is SWTC Yin and more details to come when I have more light to take pictures:)

Christmas cards, again

2008-12-15T01:51:00.001+02:00

Christmas cards, again
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I made another one! Well, this is from the same batch of cutting card out of bigger piece of cardstock as the previous card was but this is cut from the edge of the paper and thus, it has some random colour and lines on it. But I really like this even though it is a bit weird.

Watercolours, some pencils and the ornament in the corner is done with glitter glue. This should be the last christmas card I make, unless I forgot about someone...

Birch card

2008-12-13T22:05:00.001+02:00

Birch card
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I just can't stop making christmas cards even though I promised myself I'd print them out this year.

So, here we go... I got this idea of painting a large piece of cardstock with a repetitive scenery of trees and the lake and then cutting out smaller pieces of it to make cards. I also wanted to try a very simplistic style with painting, large and quick brush strokes and not too much attention to details.

The text, as you can guess, says 'merry christmas' in Finnish. I'm not sure about the composition on this one, the whole cutting cards out of a larger piece of painting sort of threw me off. In a way I like it, in a way I think it is way too centered.

Icarus

2008-12-11T22:52:00.001+02:00

Icarus
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Yay! I can finally post about this. I made this shawl for a Secret Santa type of swap. I wanted to make something really special for my swap partner and I thought lace would be the perfect thing. I browsed through dozens of shawl patterns and finally picked Icarus (By Miriam Felton) because it seemed both simple and decorative at the same time. I was also imagining the shawl worn as a scarf, folded around one's neck and the straight eyelet lines are going to line up very prettily then, too.

I used about 600 yards of Zephyr silk-wool laceweight. The colour is off-white but not quite as creamy as in this photo. The 600 yards wasn't enough for the shawl as written, so I made only 3 of the central repeats. (The pattern had clear instructions on how to adjust sizes.) And it still became pretty large, covering my back almost entirely when trying on.

So, there it is. It was a while since I last finished a lace project and the blocking efect is one of my favourite things in knitting. Not only because of the way it lays out the pattern but also because it makes the drape of the lace a bit different. Airy and dreamy.

I've also a few close-ups on Flick, if you feel like clicking:)

What are ducks for?

2008-12-10T05:07:00.001+02:00

What are ducks for?
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

This was so much fun! This booklet was a sort of accidental collaborative project with me and my friend. She started making this and at some point got really frustrated with what she was doing. I happened to be witnessing it and we agreed that I'd take the booklet on from where she left of.

You can see the original here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/myrntai/3095742139/

I immediately saw a duck there (of course, I see ducks everywhere) and just took it from there. I'm not actually all that sure what is going on with this piece or why the text say what they do, but it was quite an intuitive process of making some things stand out more, adding bits and pieces and fading some other things on the background.

And fun was had:) My favourite part of this are the line of x's on the left, they are actually the stitches I used to bind this booklet.

One more christmas card

2008-12-05T21:55:00.001+02:00

One more christmas card
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Something quite simple, but the Basic Grey papers are so beautiful that I didn't even want to go for anythign more complicated. The horse pic was originally taken by my friend.

Wintry

2008-11-17T23:36:00.001+02:00

Wintry
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I really seem to be in a winter kind of mind here. I'd just love to sit on the computer, sipping some hot chocolate, occasionally looking at the bright winter day outside and then focus on the computer or perhaps painting or knitting again.

But, in reality, it's cold and grey and dark outside (and not the good kind of grey and dark!), no snow to be seen and my wintry apathy keeps creeping on. I have a ton of schoolwork to do, I'd just love to sketch more and more knitting designs that i'll never have time to actually do, not mentioning trying to write up the patterns. The old problem of so many things and so little time.

But here's a wintry card, the kind of wintry I am looking for at the moment. Snowflakes, watercolour-like scenes, iridescent snow, frost - but not too much. We'll see.

frost flowers

2008-11-17T22:15:00.001+02:00

frost flowers
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I visited the countryside over the weekend. It was cold and rainy but I did get some lovely pictures. Raindrops and leafless trees. And this huge bush full of white berries that I hear are very, very poisonous.

My latest spinning

2008-11-12T17:59:00.001+02:00

My latest spinning
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

A couple of nights ago I picked up my spindle again. Spinning seems to be something that I do in between knitting projects and right now I have huge plans for several things but while I am waiting for the yarns to arrive or looking for just the right patterns, spinning will keep me nicely occupied.

I'm spinning laceweight singles and this'll be a 2-ply yarn. Or, if it seems that I am getting more yardage than I assumed out of this batt, I'll navajo ply it.

And the batt is gorgeous, it's superwash merino with angelina from theranch.etsy.com, I just love their batts! It's called Lily Pond and it's mainly mint green with some spring green, yellows, light purple and light blue. The purples and greens are the colous that spinning brings out.

Oh, and last night I started making Ene's Scarf by Nancy Bush, then I want to make Icarus shawl, today I printed out the pattern for Gilmore vest and I just got some green Berroco Merino Nuance for another vest. I've been strangely fascinated with the combination of a vest and a blouse lately:)

And you might also want to check out the new metapostmodernknitting.com issue:)

Puppy

2008-11-09T22:51:00.001+02:00

puppy
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

A little bit of journalling/altered book-ing. Sometimes I torture myself and type 'puppies' on google image search or on Flickr and then spend ages repeating "awwwww" to each picture:)

My pretty mittens!

2008-11-04T17:41:00.001+02:00

My pretty mittens!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Noro Silk Garden and some pretty flourishes and instant gratification is on its way! :) I wore these for the first time today and the colours just shined (or shone?;) ) in the grey autumn day.

I impulse bought two skeins of Silk Garden lite a while back and instantly knew that it had to be made into this kind of mittens. Lately, I've been knitting a huge baby package for a friend of mine and I had to postpone my other projects but now that it's out of the way I finally had free time for my own projects. It's been getting colder so my green lace mittens weren't really warming me up outside, so this project was the first on the list.

The grey yarn is Novita Stone, awfully pretty and awfully scratchy and awfully splitty - so that's one out of the three:) Seriously, I am very tolerant about wools that other people find incredible itchy and the Stone is almost too much even for me.

Silk Garden, on the other hand, is delightful. I love the colours, of course, and I love the one-ply texture. And it's soft, too, not the softest yarn ever, but nice enough that I could imagine wearing it against my skin. I did have to fiddle with the colour changes a little bit, otherwise I would have ended with one purple mitten and one brown mitten - so now i have three small skeins of browns and purples because I dug out all the fuchsia and teal for these:) And even then, the other mitten is almost completely purple:)

I thought of uploading the chart for the swirls on Ravelry, but I'm no sure what kind of changes I'll need to make on it because I have such small hands that it wouldn't really work for other than children's mittens as it is. But we'll see, on the other hand there are already several cool swirly mitten patterns out there:)

Bleep.

2008-11-01T17:46:00.001+02:00

Bleep.
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Good morning!

A small journal page, which describes exactly how I feel about getting up early to go to school.

The background is from a German atlas book from about 1900-1910, it didn't have a publishing date but it has all these countries and misconceptions that existed back then. It has been interesting trying to compare the information in it to information from other sources to determine which year exactly it was published. Curious minds need to know:)

Oh, and I go the book at a flea market and it's practically fallen in pieces, the pages are loose and the covers are really worn, so I'm not destroing anything rare and valuable for my collages.

Christmas comes early:)

2008-10-30T23:12:00.001+02:00

Silly little things
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I don't particularly like Christmas itself, but for some reason I do like making Christmas cards. Not the traditional kind of cards, though, but something a little different from the usual.

This is a picture I am thinking of using this year. Perhaps I'll print it and use some kind of embellishments with it or perhaps I'll paint it with different colours or on different types of papers so that no card is exactly the same. I know it's a little silly, but it makes me smile:)

strung

2008-10-28T19:12:00.001+02:00

strung
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Today looked like this. Pretty much. Even though I have to say it WAS a sunny autumn day for a change. I wish it could be spring already...

Ashes to ashes

2008-10-27T00:07:00.001+02:00

Ashes to ashes
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I am trying to get away from whites, blues and neutral colours but sometimes they just seem to catch me nevertheless. I've had Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie in my mind for several days and it's funny, normally with my favourite songs I always have some sort of visual image of them but with this song I have no clear images in my mind. I've been making several small pieces inspired by the song, though, and this is one of them.

A human figure on the background is covered by a thin layer of gesso. Brads, ribbon and some letters to accentuate. I like the times when I am able to keep things relatively simple:)

Brown.

2008-10-24T22:45:00.001+03:00

Ruskea
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I moved to more abstract things for change... I've been doodling this kind of lines and shapes all over my notes for ages now and decided to finally make a deco using them.

Watercolours on Canson mixmedia (I've been using way too much of it lately - soon I'm going to run out and I have no idea where to get more.) and some copics. The dark grey stuff is called "imitation lead" and it is meant to make tiffany-like effects on glass without actually making tiffany. It also makes for a great, raised texture.

For some reason this reminds of of the Kaivo fabric by Marimekko, even though the print itself is very different.

Hyle!

2008-10-20T23:52:00.001+03:00

Hyle!
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

Or a seal for non-Finnish speakers:) It's an entry in a small seal themed deco, I have the greatest book full of pictures of seals and this was heavily inspired by the lovely closeups on that book.

The background is watercolours, iridescent ink (which is, of course, almost invisible in the scan) and some copics on Canson mixmedia paper, the seal I did with copics.

Shiny!

2008-10-05T23:41:00.001+03:00

Shiny pretty things:)
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

I just had to post this close-up:) I enjoy shiny things far too much:)