I'm knitting once more! The Pouf pullover

So, the item I started on my 2018 Make Nine list is the one that ended up being the last one to get completed. Yeah...how about that?

I started this pullover around new year last year, chose it because it was cool but mainly because it was a simple knit and given my lack of experience, I needed the practice...or rather, I wanted the practice because I wanted to learn to knit.

The whole thing started with me being in Antwerp, Belgium beginning of December last year and wanting to bring back a piece of fabric. I went around a few shops and didn't find anything appealing enough that I just had to have (and I thought the struggle was only here in Norway...), so I started looking at yarn, you know...because I wanted to improve my knitting skills.

I found this fluffy bouncy merino wool in the nicest color. It looks like powder pink but when you look a bit closer you see it has flecks of many colors in there too. Lovely!

Then I started knitting...As I was working on the bottom ribbing, it looked really small, so I did some measurements and decided to increase the number of stitches by a third...which looked OK until I finished and tried the thing on...Oh! the horror 😱! The thing ended up being quite heavy and big that it pulled itself down making it look like it was melting down! The high neck was non existent and the hem reached my knees! I even washed it at high temperature and the thing refused to shrink. There was no way I'll be wearing this!

So do I throw it into a dark corner and forget about it for a while? That wouldn't really be me now, would it? 😁 So I took a deep breath and unraveled the whole thing, then threw it in a dark corner 😂😂😂. But I did pick it up again, and started over. This time not deviating at all from the pattern and guess what? It worked! It looks really close to the pattern photo and I'm really pleased with it.

It's delightful to wear, it's warm, it's cozy, it's just great! Is it perfect? No, far from that. It looks unevenly knitted, it does...and I'm really hoping some wear and tear will even that out a bit. The chunky wool proved not to be the easiest thing to knit prettily with for a beginner like me, but I still love it 😍. And guess what? I'm knitting something new right now. Far more involved but it seems to be going surprisingly well (fingers crossed).

This concludes my 2018 Make Nine list! I made them all! But will I do 2019 Make Nine? No. This was far too restrictive for me who sews for fun, changes her plans a lot and actually likes to do it that way, so pre-planning 9 items early on in the year was not my thing...Plus, if everything goes according to plan, I'll be way too busy for that next year 😉

Pattern: The Pouf pullover by Lion Brand Yarn
Yarn: Schachenmayr Merino Extrafine 85, color 241
Photos taken at home in Asker, Norway with world's most gorgeous model: My cat Otto 😘

Cozy autumn sweater

This is a project I made from a Cotton Candy fabric. I got some new knit fabrics in with this retro floral pattern and I really wanted to showcase them, so I decided to make a garment I need and will use: an autumn sweater.

My favorite jersey dress so far

Remember me saying I'll show you two not season suitable makes? This is the second one 😁.

If you've been following me for a while and seen my makes, you'll know I'm more of a woven fabric than knit fabric person, I prefer the element of "dress up" that woven fabrics give in comparison with the casualness and t-shirt factor of most knits.

But I've been eyeing this particular jersey for a long time, loved it at first sight but thought it was expensive...then a year or so later, it goes on sale! yaaay! I looked at it, decided summer dress and bought me some.

"Burda 6858 + flowers = love" dress

I noticed this pattern first when I was making a dress for my friend and suggested patterns. That was back in 2016, the same year I found it on sale and bought it. Looked at it numerous times since, but none of the fabrics I had seemed to match it and I always had some other project that I wanted to make more.

Red skinny jeans

For Norwegian click here

I made these quite a while ago, but life happened and it's only now that I get the chance to write about it. Originally I was thinking of a 2018 Make Nine list for my shop Cotton Candy, but then found out that it's not practical, I want to make things spur of the moment as new fabrics come in for example...So after sewing 3 items from that list (these jeans, the simple top and a T-shirt dress coming out next spring as it's not weather appropriate in Norway right now) I decided to drop the list.

A red scarf for a red autumn

Well, OK...the autumn is not just red, it's also orange, yellow, green 😍 and potentially grey 😕. But the scarf still fits great with the season. And! with my new faux suede jacket, which was really the main reason I chose the color red. It complements the color stone perfectly.

"I've been thinking about you" jacket

And the reason it got this name is because this pattern was love at first sight. Since it was released in May 2016. I fell for the lightness and simplicity of it combined with the rough-ish look the suede gives.

What do you do with 6 small pieces of fabric or Minerva Crafts 2m lucky dip bundles

This time I got a very interesting product to test for Minerva: The 2m lucky dip fabric bundle. Why is that so interesting? Because:

• You don't know what types of fabric are in a bundle.
• You don't know how big or small the pieces are.

The dress with the nicest neckline

For Norwegian click here

I know I've been saying this a lot about my makes lately, but I love this dress!

It's one of those patterns that were love at first sight since it was released in April 2017, but other projects came in the way, summer ended, and generally life happened. Then this April as I was getting new fabrics for my store I fell in love with one of the new designs, fast forward a few months, the new fabrics arrive in my warehouse, I start taking photos for the website and fall even more in love with the olive green colorway 😍.

My favorite summer top

Click here for Norwegian

A bit after I opened Cotton Candy, I decided to make a 2018 Make Nine list for Cotton Candy as well. There were a few reasons for that:

1. I wanted to showcase some of the nice fabrics I have (obviously).
2. I wanted to inspire sewists in Norway (and maybe outside of Norway too) to make their own pretty clothes and not limit themselves to a difficulty level thinking some project or other is hard.
3. I wanted to make video sew-alongs that show the process of creating a few garments step by step, again to show that anybody can do it.