Knitting projects ( fall 2021 to winter 2022)

 As winter has sent in here in Jyväskylä, my knitting needles have been very busy. I started knitting last fall to make Christmas gifts, and continued all January and now that it is February I feel that I am running out of things to make, and I am ready to move onto some other kind of craft. 

Here are some of the projects that I have done this fall\winter.

This sweater I knit for a family member. It was fun and very easy to make. Just plain knitting.

The sweater is now done. I added a extra hem on the bottom of the sweater, to balance off the beige in the top and bottom. I really like the way it turned out. 

I had some wool left over from the knitted sweater that I decided to make a pair of mittens to match the sweater.

My next project was to knit a lacy summer dress for another family member. 

Here I have started knitting the skirt part of the dress. I have 230 sts in the round. 

Here you can see the pattern of the lace dress developing .

I have completed the skirt part and am now starting to knit the bodice of the dress. It was a really fun and easy pattern to knit. 

Here I am hand stitching the sleeves to the dress bodice. 

The dress is finally finished. It did not take me to long to make, only a few weeks. I spent more time waiting for the measurements of the recipient of the dress. 

I am very happy of the way the dress came out. I really hope it will fit. 

Once again I had enough wool left over that I decided to make a little lacy hat to go with the dress.

Every year I make the children of our apartment building something for christmas. This christmas I decided to knit the two little sisters who live above us pink socks. These ones are meant for the older sister. 

This pair of pink socks are meant for the younger sister. Hopefully they like the socks.

For my daughter in law I knit a pair of Marimekko design socks. She loves finnish designs. I was really happy on how these socks turned out. the flower pattern was a challenging one. 

These socks are for our son. He loves my knitted socks and apparently wears them all year long. I think I may have to knit him some more after christmas. 

These socks I knit for a good friends grandsons. She has three age 1,2 and 3. I made them all just a wee bit different from each other. Apparently the little boys loved the socks. 

This Tonttu sweater and socks I knit for my granddaughter . I had so much fun designing and making the sweater. I even learned a new knitting technique in the process.

Here I not only knit my granddaughter socks but I knit my son and his wife a pair of christmas socks as well. 

Here is a closeup of the family wearing the christmas socks I knit for them. 

Its now after christmas... and I decided to get around to knitting those extra socks for my middle son. Here is one of the pair I knit. 

Here are the other pair I knit for him.  I really like the colour combination of these socks.

Felt Art ( done at the Kansalaisopisto in Jyväskylä)

I have to admit that I have not done any felting for over a year. With the Textile Artisan school I had been attending for the past two years, it was very hard to do the very thing you went back to school for. So, now that school was finally over I took the summer off of ALL crafts. I was both physically and mentally exhausted for them.. But, last fall I finally was ready to start learning again.... I decided to take some extra felting courses at the local Kansalaisopisto here in Jyväskylä.

 Here are the pieces that I made there.

This was one of the first pieces that I made... I was really struggling with getting back in the groove of my felt art.

This particular picture I was extremely proud of. I love the way the birch tree comes out of the picture.

This piece turned out quite well too. I learned a new trick to make the picture pop more. I have outlined the trees by sewing the edges in black thread. 

In this picture I have added more blue than I usually. I also was trying to portray the snow covered fallen trees. I think it worked out fine. 

In this particular piece I really focused on the blue colours in it. As I have written before, I am not a huge blue fan, so I really have to force myself to add it to my pictures, but I am quite satified with this picture.

This particular piece was one of my favorite ones. It was also my classmates favorite one, so guess what she got for her christmas gift.

In this particular birch picture. I really wanted to keep it the picture in its natural colours, and how it looks often in the winter. 

I did a few pictures of birches in a more Christmas setting. A little Tonttu is bringing home his christmas tree.

Here is another birch Christmas scene. A Tonttu is on his " pulkka".

Knitted " rasymatto" Pillow

 I hadn't done any handcrafts for some time, but finally felt I was ready to tackle on a new project. I thought long and hard on what to create.  I wanted something easy and quick to make that would make my easing into crafts a satisfying and fun project.

I looked through my knitting  basket and found some yarn that had be given to me by my sister in law.  This yarn was not good for knitting socks or mitts ( since it had no wool in it) but I could use it to knit a pillow cover. 

Now, for the design of my pillow. I tried knitting a few different patterns, but none of them looked good. So, I looked through my knitting patterns to see if I could use one of those. I found a Marimekko pattern that was easy to do. So, I tried that.. and it looked perfect. 

 So, the pillow pattern I decided to knit for my pillow is a Marimekko " räsymatto" pattern. 

I am really happy with the colours and look of the pillow. It's simplicity works in our apartment. 

FELT ART

I have set a goal for myself, that I am going to try to make one new birch felt scene every week. 

To be honest, it is much harder to get into making these pictures than I thought. I can't figure out why it is becoming a challenge for me. I love making these pictures, but somehow I am not feeling very inspired right now, so that is what may be the problem. I am forcing myself to create and it is not working for me. So, here is my forced creation from this week. 

 

 

Please be honest, can you see a difference in this work, from previous pieces.

 

 I haven't done any " felt art" for a while. I have been so busy at school with other projects, that the thing I most love to do has been left untouched. Now that I think about it... it was a year ago was that I last felted anything.

 I have to say I  had to think for a moment of the steps  involved in felting. Once I started it quickly came back to me.

My subject matter is trees.. I absolutely love birch trees... There are many many varieties of birches, but the birches I wanted to felt today was the the birches I remember from my childhood.

 I grew up in northern Ontario, where I spent many happy hours with my sisters climbing trees, playing in the forest, cross country skiing, picking berries.. Then as a youth I would go into the forest to think in quiet solitude and sometimes pour out my woes and worries to my Maker above. When we moved to Finland, to the land of lakes and trees.. My heart rejoiced.

 I have spend many hours each day walking and hiking in the city where I live. The  patches of forests in our city, just amaze me. Here in Finland you don't have to go far, to be able to enjoy nature at its best.

So... without much further ado. (I just hope that I will do justice to these beautiful trees that have played such an important part of my childhood and youth.)

  

 On this birch scene I didn't realize my supply of green felts was in such dire straights. So, I did not have the colours I wanted for this, but in the end... I rather like this picture.

 

 This is the reason I went back to school to get my " artisan papers". I wanted to learn more felting tricks,and techniques. My hope and dream is to continue making and selling my " felt art" pictures. 

 

 I made this felted picture last summer. I had posted some of my work on facebook, in a group that I belong to. I got so many requests to purchase it that I sold it, and the customer asked for a matching picture to go with it.

 

Here is the matching picture I made for the customer. I really like the way they turned out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture is a birch scene I made in the summer of 2019. I am getting better at getting depth into my pictures.

This piece was made for a customer, they had asked me to make a picture of their island where their summer cottage is. I took some liberties in this picture, I did make some other felted pictures that were more inline to the customer's taste.

 

                                                        

 

 

 

 

 This particular piece I made when we had a one day workshop at a small craft boutique in Petäjävesi. We spent the day learning about what it is like to run a business, and all it entails. It was a wonderful day.  The bonus was that we got to use all kinds of wonderful felt materials to make what ever we wished. 

Of course I had to make one of my birch theme felted pictures. I am usually not a blue fan, and don't use it often. But the blue metalic materials she made available to us was so interesting, that I decided to make a blue forest scene.  I really like this particular piece..                                                          

 

                                                             

 I love doing this type of felting. Yes, the felted slippers and felted pillows were fun to do, and I learned alot of different felting techniques while doing these projects. It's is these below pictures that I love doing, and hope to continue and learn to perfect this form of Art. 

WINTER BERRIES

This picture I created was a celebration of the
colours of winter. Many people think that winter
can be so colourless. To me the colours are so beautiful, the red of the berries, the white birches, the many colours of green on the evergreens. This was the first of my felting projects in my felting class.

WINTER TIME

I love the quietness and beauty of the forests in winter. I will never tire of looking at them. When
I look at this picture, I just want to walk into the picture, and enjoy the stillness and quietness.
This picture was created in November 2019 in my felting course.

FALL IS COMING

TIME TO HARVEST

A COLD WINTERS DAY

SPRING IS COMING

BIRCHES

 T

A WALK IN THE FOREST

SOLITUDE

FALL.. MY FAVORITE TIME OF THE YEAR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 















This was my first attempt at this form of felting. I had done felted pictures before, but this one I wanted it to look more like an oil painting or water colour. I feel that I had succeeded in this. The depth turned out well. You find your eye looking into the forest.

I have many more felted pictures that I have made. Here was just a few of them, to wet your whistle.

 

                                                                         FELTED ANIMALS

For some reason I have always loved reindeer. There is, something that draws me to them. Maybe it's the nomadic life they lead, or maybe it's because I am finnish and that they symbolize Finland. The reindeer wander the cold frozen tunturi ( mountain) of Lapland, northern Scandinavia, Russia roaming and searching for food.

The popularity of these animals has grown as people all over the world travel to Lapland to experience  Lapland, where Joulupukki (santa) lives. Tourists experience reindeer sleigh rides, and see them in their natural habitat, see the reindeer herders herding as well as seeing them dressed in their national costumes.

I have lived here in Finland for 6 years now, and to my dismay have not yet had the opportunity to visit Lapland. It is on my to-do list. I look forward to visit Lappi and hike the "tunturi"and hopefully see these beautiful animals. So, for now I will paint them in felt. 

This is my second attempt at felting animals. It is not something that I am very good at yet, but with practice I will get better. 

I first drew the reindeer and then started the " needle felting". This reindeer drawing was copied from a painting I saw a few years ago. I have changed it to suit my personal taste. 

I have completed the picture, but as always, I feel that there is something not right in it. This often happens to me, I make something that I think will work, and then once it is completed, I am not happy with it.

I decided to pull the grey felt out of the picture, and add a neutral sky. I added a black felt skyline which defines the seperation between the sky and earth. I find this much more pleasing to my eye. It is not busy or messy looking.

I feel this picture describes the nomadic wanderings of the reindeer and their herders. Out on the open tundra's wandering in search of food, which is mainly lichens.