Black and white ot tatted lace t-shirt

At the same hobby site http://www.forum.hobbyporta.ru/ this time being myself the organizer of a lace competition I finally fulfilled the complete make-over of an old favourite t-shirt, which white parts faded with time.

I saw a book in tatting in a book shop when I was 16 and was blown away by the stunning beauty of this lace. I bought the book, ordered a shuttle and after several days of hard attempts and sometimes despair I learned the basic tatting knots. Since then I use it from time to time in small works like collars but due to its time consuming technique it has been quite seldom.

This time decorating a t-shirt was really challenging as there are so many ideas to choose from. Once I was browsing a wedding magazine and came across a very unsual wedding dress by Vera Wang- white but with a black belt with flowers. I just reversed the colors, a black t-shirt and white cotton tatted lace. The lace pattern is my own, although I got inspired by some old English laces.

Again I was not the winner of the competition but I have a unique garment and already think to relook another t-shirt!

Baltic waves

On http://www.forum.hobbyportal.ru/ there is a good tradition of organizing different knitting competitions. It is a wonderful stimulant if you need to finish something quickly and I wanted to make something new for this summer 2008.

I already bought very beautiful blue linen yarn and completted it with viscose/cotton. The pattern I found at Scandinavian on-line magazine DROPS. As usual, I do not like following the instruction so I changed it after my liking.

I knitted it in circular needles and diminushed the diameter by appr. 20 cm. I also made it fit the body by several dicreases symmetrically distributed at work. The upper part is my own project.

I have always been fascinated by crochetted imitations of Brugge laces. After several experiments and gauges I created this diagram. It was real fun to follow all the curves of the lace.

Baltic waves did not win the competition but I am very happy about how fast I managed to finish it.

Going skiing in Chamonix?

Winter 2007/2008 Russian knitting society was hit by an urge of Chamonix. No, not the famous skiing resort in French Alpes but a sweater. First appeared at the runway its modifications were everywhere, all the repectable knitting magazines proposed their own versions.

I could not ignore this very interesting model and also bought alpaca yarn specifically for it. I decided to go after the original model from a fashion show but the picture was barely enough to go on my own. I am very thankful to girls from osinka.ru, a Russian hobby site who have already knitted it and shared their experience.

Despite all these precautions it was not going smoothly. I remade it 3 times almost completely untill I understood the trick- the upper part should be very large, at least 20 sm large than the diameter of the shoulders (in my case 120 cm versus 100). That will allow it later to sit well even if you raise your arms. My first version, made wrongly smaller, the sweater followed the arms with every up-movement, going almost up to the neck.

Otherwise it is a very easy model. By the time I almost finished it Gedifra published their variant, also very close to the runway one, and the upper part is considerably larger, like in mine.

Vogue Coviello cardigan

Sometimes a sweater is born because you know what you want. Sometimes because you saw an intresting model in a magazine. Sometimes because you have some yarn you do not know what to do with ...

This was the case with a beautiful designer cardigan by James Coviello published in Vogue Knitting magazine. I had some mohair yarn I did not what to do with and then I got an idea- why not to try crochet one like this?

Not wishing to wait too long I took a description in hands ... and put it away! I said probably several times even here I H-A-T-E word descriptions for 10 pages instead of a half-page diagram. Simply not able to read it in any language. While a diagram could be used even from a Chinese magazine.

So having such a description is equal like not having any at all for me. I browsed all my books and other magazines and lucky me! found almost the same pattern in the form of an easliy read diagram. Looking at the picture and ignoring the description actually worked fine for me. In less than 3 weeks I managed to finish the work and mohair yarn did matched this model.

Going Irish

I always wanted to try to crochet something in so called "irish crochet" but was a bit scared by this very complicated technique that has no precise descriptions.

One time while browsing different internet shops sites I came across a beautiful cardigan apparently in this very technique.

It was not so minuscule as in traditional Irish crochet and plus to that I found an approximate descriprion of a slightly different cardigan.

Crochetting the motives was fun, easy, fast, enjoyable. Yet when it came to putting everything together it took maybe three times more than the crochetting of the motives. And it was supposed to be symmetrical, too! I literally counted every stitch!

It was supposed to be a summer cardigan but I manged to finish it just before the New year. I do not know if I will dare one more time for such an adventure as Irish crochet big piece of clothes but I should say it was a very rewarding experience.

Design inspired by Karen Millen

Summer sales 2007, Karen Millen shop in the center of Stockholm, it became the love from the first sight. From the second sight it became ... a huge disappointment... it was far tooooo short than I wanted!

Well, not being able to forget it I decided to create something of my own inspired by that little cardigan.

I already had the yarn, 500 grams of beautiful golden viscose that I bought in Germany for years before for ...1 (one) euro the whole pack on some incredible closing sales. So I started to look for a suitable pattern but did not find any ready made. Then I made it myself. This kind of sleeves "reglan" I have never made before so it was a great experiment that involved a lot of adjustements and remakes. I am still not quite satisfied with it but I let it be.

Some matching buttons and voilà- a new cardigan!

Later that year I visited one yarn shop in USA and the shop assistant asked me if it was a Rowan. I could poudly say it's my own. Great thanks to Karen for inspiration, of course!

Bolero á-l`a Carlos Miele

Well, that was a long, long pause. Many things happened in between, the major being a move to a new appartment and it is still not settled yet. During this time some new projects managed to get finished nevertheless.

First I start with some works from 2007.
Somewhere during spring 2007 I discovered the existance of a gorgeous, stunning white cache-coeur by fashion designer Carlos Miele. If I am not mistaken it was from season spring 2006 and I simply fell in love with it.
I decided to make something similar and it was not very easy. Luckily some other girls on a Russian site, Osinka also fell for it and by the time I found this design they have already crochetted theirs. They provided the basic diagram and I adjusted it to my size and cut. It became a bolero instead of a cache-coeur and later I had some problem finding a nice brouch to use as a pin. I finished by making one with beads.
It was very exciting project!

Rodriguez jacket

While browsing the net I found a picture of a very sweet summer crochetted jacket and just fell in love with it. A bit later I think I saw somewhere that it was created by Narcisco? Rodriguez (not at all sure) and was sold at nordstrom.com.

I had neither pattern nor graphic, just a picture. The dolly pattern was not so difficult to crack, but the irregular net that joins the motives was kind of tricky. I did not draw any graphic (lazy girl) and tried it on me all the time. Here is the result and the original picture:

Golden dress

Last year, just before my anniversary (let's not mention exact figures :) ) I wanted something quite special. I had a beautiful golden viscose garn with a metallic thread. And I found a gorgeous pattern.

But it turned out to be quite a challenge to manage it, first while knitting, when it turned around itself thousands times making it very difficult to proceed (2 rubbers around the garn ball solved the problem), and then while shaping it. I usually steam it with an iron, it always worked fine. But this time, probably because of the metallic part, it ... shrunk. Badly. I had to undo almost everything and the thread became very rough. That's why it is a bit tight in some places.

Otherwise the pattern was very easy to work with. I changed it, as I did not want such an open back as on the picture, and also I crochetted it without cutting the thread, just changing different sizes of crochet hookes, approximately every 3-5 cm of the dress. The lining is sewing by hand, as I did not have a sewing machine then.

So here is the result:

french top

Happy New Year to everyone! Wish you guys many things like love, health, wealth, joy and happiness! Also a new break-thru in your creativity and great projects this year!

Wow! Before Xmas I was so busy that could not find a moment to continue my blog. Not good. Try to correct it today.

Xmas and NY are traditionally high season for parites and every girl wants a new outfit. Mine for two years ago was this:

Original was from Phildar, a French knitting magazine: