It's Time...

Time to start growing little seeds for the spring and summer. I made a little greenhouse and put a lamp on a timer so the little ones will have lots of light. 

Grow, grow, grow!

There's a hole in my bucket....

... Dear Liza, dear Liza.

Well, no, there was a hole in my sweater. Annoying, I could not wash it because then it would all unravel. So, I crochet a flower, I am not that good at crocheting, knitting is my thing, and sewed it on. 

Yarny Thursday

I am not sorry I was blunt on Tuesday, I don't know why I feel the need to cushion everybody about how I feel. This is the reality, and a lot of things got cancelled, which is crappy, so that is how I felt.

Ok, feeling a bit better and ready to show you the latest Friday Studios Yarns:

Blue Blue Berries (Sold)

Juggler

Sea Mist

Lawn Flowers

canceled

Todays post canceled due to panic attacks.

Finished!

Finally, I am finished with this sweater, it takes a lot of time to knit a whole sweater, and a lot of audio books, about seven to be precise. This is a Drops pattern, and I got the yarn from my mother in law, who knows I like colour, as a birthday present a few years ago, and it took me a while to find the right pattern. 

I like this one though, it is knitted in two pieces, in different directions, garter stitch, one starting at the sleeve and the other starting at the front hem. (Notice Cornelia's lovely artwork there in the background.)

Then everything was sewn together and a blue crochet edge was added. (And here you can notice the left over christmas star that no one has bothered to take down.)

It has a nice little collar and the pieces and sleeves came out surprisingly even.

The buttons were totally perfect and I had picked them up at the fabric store just because they were so irresistible, big and red, and for no other reason some time during the summer. They were found out now and aded. (This picture apart from a happy me, features our family's torture / relaxing area, the bed of nails, surprisingly comfortable and addictive. )

New labels

The new Friday Studios yarn labels are here! I am very pleased with them and the logo. Inside there is room to fill in the details of each yarn personally, and e-mail and addresses also of course and on the front is the logo. Oh, I feel so professional. ;)

This yarn in off to Canada tomorrow for a swap, I am getting a very pretty fabric case for my circular needles and other knitting notions in return. Finally there can be some order among my circular who are now living in circular chaos, which makes it very hard to find them and also to know which sizes I actually own. And since I am addicted to circulars I though an organisation action was due.

Yarny Thursday

There is only one lonely hank of yarn today, because of the late wool delivery, I wish they would decide which type of delivery system they want to use, but lots more yarn is on the way.

There was one sheep that was a little bit better than all the others, 

the Golden Sheep.

Hey! I forgot about this one: Theme Park. Bonus yarn!

Do you need a good laugh...

...Then have a look at this Facebook page reserved for the highly amusing joys and horrors of badly made taxidermy animals. Dårligt udstoppede dyr.

New wool happiness

Finally the new wool has arrived, Il try not to leave such a big gap between deliveries in the future, I get wool withdrawal. ;)

So, these are some of the new colours, any suggestions or requests? 

Every time I order a new batch, whatever  colours I order, there is always a certain mood that the yarns in that batch all share. Curios.

Crochet jewellery

I stumbled upon these pieces of crochet neckless on Ravelry. They are made by LivingColor on Ravelry. They are stunning in their simplicity, in a technique which usually is used to make granny square blankets, and in their complexity of colour and material choices. I like how the golden thread is aded, it seems to sort of point out that this is jewellery we are talking about and not some ordinary crochet object. I would love to cast one of them in say aluminium and paint on the colours or in silver with enamel. Makes you think. 

Not as easy as you might think...

There is more to selling on etsy than one might think at first glance. There is five pictures to each object for sale, and you have to photograph them (horrible in Sweden in the winter when you have three hours of good daylight), edit them, crop them, make sure the colours are good and organise them in some way. And then there is the descriptive text, that are supposed to lure in buyers and be peppy, informative and preferably a bit funny. 

I am not complaining, I really like working with my shop, I am just saying; there is more work than you might think. :)

Personally I go to great length (and time in front of photoshop) to make the colour of the yarn in the pictures, as close to the colour of the yarn in reality, as I can, not to mention making the image look positive and bright, (well now I did mention it ;) so no buyer will feel disappointed upon the arrival of the yarn. 

Lots and lots of people have really, really crappy pictures, bad lighting, bad camera, no focus, no thought to backgrounds and how to represent the item.

And then there is others who take it to a whole other level, making art of representing items, like zwzzy who is selling vintage clothing.

Yarny Thursday

A little yarn update for you:

Granny Candy

Bubble Gum

Purple Rain

Merry Go Round

Exiting ad

I have bought my first ad, as in an advertising space for a month on Ravelry. It is going up during February and it is going to be very exiting to see if it has any effect. I made it by playing around and adding to my new logo.
This is it:

The resolution is not crappy, it is that they requested a very, very small picture. :)

Tulips!

I can never resist the first tulips, and why should I? This is my favourite flower, well, one of my favourite flowers, but it is definitely my favourite flower to have inside in a vase. 

 This is IKEA:s vase for tulips, one of there really cheep but actually very nice items. I am sure that, if you are swedish, you own one, or a person in your immediate family does. It is a very good vase. When I bought it was advertised as a tulip vase.
But Why! Is it you have to buy two bunches of tulips, which always comes in packets of ten, to fill the vase and not stand there wondering why they look so lonely and why you were so cheep you only bout one bunch!
I am sensing a conspiracy here, a secret agreement between the tulip growers of Sweden and IKEA.

But the upside is, that when you have to spring for two bunches you can have two colours and they look fabulous and overflowing instead of cheep and lonely.

What? Buy another vase? How do you mean now?

Applesauce!

I have been all crafty in the kitchen and made my own applesauce (äppelmos). I got a whole bucket of apples from my mother in law Eva, who had many buckets of apples. :)

 Lovely little wrinkly winter apples, most of them was very nice, just a few were mouldy or rotten.

 The main work it seems is to peel and chop the apples, if you don't have the "professional" applesauce gadgets, which I don't.

 Then you just boil the apples on low heat with a little water in the bottom of the pot, and it becomes applesauce by it self. I mushed it a bit with a potato musher, and aded about 2 dl of sugar, to 2, 3 litres of sauce.

 It is sweet with a lot of the apple freshness to it, yummy. I opted to freeze it instead of preserving it in jars, that seemed a lot harder.

Tada!!! Finished homemade applesauce!! 

New Logo!

Friday Studios yarn has the honour of getting its very own logo! 

Tada, it speaks to me, and I believe the colours and the font mirrors the emotions I create in my yarns. New labels are on there way, and I hope I have managed to change from the old logo everywhere. I do love squares, as Göran knows. ;)

Gifflar

A "vanilla giffel" sort of a day.

Record

I think I have a yarn record: This yarn was uploaded and sold in about 10 minutes on etsy. Sometimes you have to be quick. :)

 Hot and Cold

Here birdie, birdie, birdie...!

I got this stylish bird-feeder for Ola this christmas. It fastens on the outside of a window with a suction-cup, and you get the chance to see the birds really close up.

 They seem to prefer the feeder by the tree though, maybe they haven't noticed that I put only luxurious peanuts in the window feeder. Or it might be the big threatening figure (me or Ola) lurking just behind the peanuts. ;)

Here Kitty Kitty...!

 We found the cutest thing right outside our front door this morning! Someone is guarding our front porch. :) It looks like I got that kitty I always wanted.