giant julekuler

Made for Dave and the cats, who now live in Santa Cruz. The moose pattern has been his favorite, and we affectionately call Laker "moose" so it felt especially appropriate. Instead of the usual size, I used some chunky yarn leftover from a pair of hats we've got and some vampire-slaying needles. It turned out looking great, I should keep that in mind for more. 

 

it’s julekuler season again

It’s just after my birthday, so you know what that means - julekuler season is upon us! I got this book for my birthday a few years ago and have enjoyed making a few baubles a year since then. This year is no different. These two I started in August when I just couldn’t resist the siren call of this book on the shelf. Now that the tree is up, it’s REALLY time!

I’m still working off the same yarn I’ve used before; I keep it in it’s own little project bag so I’m ready to go whenever the fancy strikes. This year I had a rocking horse to make for a friend who is moving (who also happens to have a black horse... not a coincidence), and I decided to make patterns that I’ve enjoyed previously.

These knit up pretty quick, in a few hours, but I find that the quickest and most fun ones to make don’t have long color runs requiring a lot of twisting. The horse is an exception because well it’s a horse. But other than that I really enjoy the patterns with a lot of... pattern? Whatever the right word is, here’s a few that are done already.

julekulers begun

Soooo week 23 post quarantine went by in a flurry of anxiety because of the wildfires. Ick. Not much of anything except reading CalFire updates, worrying, and more worrying was happening until just a couple days ago. We finally found a little bit of comfort the last few days in both the fact that the fires are getting more under control and (for me) in knitting these little guys. 

Julekulers are definitely comfort knitting! They’re quick and fun, and I really enjoy reading the little blurbs about the different patterns. I’m not sure how many of these will get made this year, but I’ve got a good start already. I’ve been mostly browsing through the book looking for patterns I haven’t made yet. I’m finding that I enjoy the ones where there isn’t as much behind the scenes twisting of the yarns. The red and white one had short enough color runs in each row that there was NO twisting. It went much faster and I was much less frustrated by tangled yarn. I would like to try some in chunkier yarn and in leftover colors that aren’t necessarily holiday related, too. I think they would look quite pretty as well. For now I’m sticking with holiday baubles for gifting. Can’t wait until I have a bowlful. 

holiday crafting

We were so lucky this holiday season to have my parents and nieces come stay with us for two weeks! Before we moved our trips involved a lot of going out and exploring the Peninsula and San Francisco in part because it's fun and also to be honest our place was small for guests. Now that we've moved further from the city and have more room, we had a lot of fun exploring the new town and local area as well as sticking around home to cook, craft, and putter around. It was marvelous! They left yesterday, but I've enjoyed looking back on some of the projects "the girls" got up to. 

First things first, Mom brought a kit to make a paper wreath for our French-ish bedroom. There was a lot of hot gluing involved, and Mom was an expert paper roller. The girls had fun trying on the cones as unicorns and seeing if we could put pom poms in them to make them ice cream cones instead. It turned out really well and is hanging in my craft room waiting for us to finish up our bedroom so it can find a good home. 

Oh, did I mention pom poms? We made a lot of pom poms. At first it was kind of just something fun to do with some scrap yarn I had. We even went out to Joann's to get some really fluffy yarn to make huge ones. We made long hangers on them and hung some from our chandelier in the dining room for a festive atmosphere. (Anthropologie, eat your heart out!) Then Mom and the girls pulled up some of their Pinterest ideas and showed me a bunch of pom pom wreaths. Well. That had to happen. 

Observant viewers will also see another project that I don't have great pictures of - unicorn ornaments! We had a lot of fun with glitter paint, sculpey clay, and hot glue to make ornaments that look like whimsical unicorn heads. And narwhals. And a kitten. They were well worth the effort. Back to the pom pom wreath. We spent a few minutes here and there over the days making pom poms until we thought we had enough to fill out a 16 inch styrofoam wreath. We've got sizes from about 5 inches all the way down to an inch and a half. I thought we'd hot glue them on, but instead we ended up using a combination of tying and pinning to get all the fluff balls fixed onto the wreath. It turned out looking super cute and is hanging up on my craft room wall where it makes me happy every day.

One of the last nights everyone was here, mom and daughter got to do a project together just the two of us. Mom had found a tutorial for these Danish stars and wanted to try making some. They take just four strips of 2.5" wide fabric to make and the only sewing required was to sew the strips in half longways so you had a thin strip with fabric print on both sides. Then essentially it was a folding game. We combined a few different prints I had into four stars, one for each crafting gal we had. 

When we were finished, Mom had the bright idea to hot glue a twine hanger into each of them so we could use them as ornaments. Mine quickly found its way to the tree. 

And of course, no trip is complete without a last minute project. This one finished literally minutes before everyone headed out the door to the airport. I wanted to make Mom a julekuler this year but wanted her to pick the pattern. I forgot until the last night - yikes!

Luckily, it only takes me a couple hours to make one at this point since I've made so many by now. Mom picked this pretty tree motif and I started it one evening and finished it off, stuffed it, and made a hanger the next morning. Phew! 

It was a wonderful holiday and end to/start to the year. 

Julekuler 2019

I've been busy making little potato chip knitting projects (i.e. julekuler) among the other crafty things that have been happening lately. These are great things to sit down to a football game with, and there's lots of that going around this time of year! This is the second year of julekuler knitting from the Arne and Carlos book Dave got me last year, and it's just as fun this time around as it was the first.

The patterns above are: Bird on Branch, Greek Cross, Xs and Os version 1, Hearts, Secret Rose, and Handcraft Border from the book. I wanted to try out some of the patterns that had lots of cross/diamond-like patterning to them. I think those are my favorite type of designs. And of course, the bird I made in red as a cardinal, in my mind at least. I miss hearing their chirps since we don't have them out here in California. 

The ball below is a very special one I made for Andrea, who is a puppy raiser for an organization that pairs service dogs with veterans and autistic children. Elwood was a black lab she had for almost two years and is now paired up with a teenage boy helping him through life. He was a wonderful dog and it is so rewarding knowing he has a job at last! I found this paw chart online and adapted it for the julekuler pattern. If I had to do it over again, I'd leave the toes all black rather than trying to checker them, but this one looks cute too. 

They were all steamed, stuffed, and finished this afternoon. Some may be destined to be gifts, but the majority we will keep and grow our collection year over year!

it's that time again

It's heeeeeere! Julekuler knitting season is once again upon us and I'm starting up with gusto. I love knitting up these little guys - instant gratification that can be finished in just a few hours and there are so many different patterns in this book to keep things interesting. 

I've already gotten a few traditional designs knitted up, and I experimented with a three-color puppy paw. If you can find a chart of something online or set a design into graph paper yourself, then you can stick it on a julekuler. 

I'm a big believer in leaving November for my birthday and Thanksgiving rather than getting on the Christmas train early, but for these I make an exception. Onward!

another batch

I'm wrapping up November with another batch of Christmas balls. They look a little bit like cookies out of the oven, don't they? 

These six are: Poinsettia, Christmas Bells, Selbu, New Snow, Hospitality, and Decorating the Tree out of the 55 Christmas Balls to Knit book. I believe this makes 13 so far. That's almost 25% of the book! I've found some favorites for sure; Halling Border, Selbu, and New Snow being a few of them. I also really like how the checkered skirts on the tree decorating people look.

The yarn I'm using is just an acrylic Loops & Threads dk weight from Michael's. I'm pretty sure that's the store brand. It's really soft and pleasant to work with and I'd totally use it for other projects too. I'm filling with polyester fiberfill I had in my closet, which I need more of now that I've made a bear and 13 julekuler. Wool yarn and batting would be nice too, but this is just what was affordable and accessible when I was looking around for materials. This batch brings me almost to the end of a ball each of red and white - a little goes a long way! I did go out and get one more of each, so there will definitely be more on their way though I am going to set these aside and work on something different next. (!!!)

julekuler

These things are like Pringles. Once you pop you can't stop. They even stack up nice and neat. I wonder if they'd fit in a Pringles tube.... For serious though, these Christmas balls are so much fun to make. I expect this space to be filled with pictures and posts of these guys well through the holidays. Maybe even into January. 

They are the perfect instant gratification project that is also skill building. I can finish a ball in just a couple of hours and each time I work a different pattern I try different ways of working the stranded knitting, even sometimes within the same ball. One strand on each index finger, holding only one strand at a time, holding both strands on one finger, continental style, english style.... you get the idea. I find that I'm quickest with one strand on each index finger when there is a lot of color switching going on but that the backs of my hands start to hurt sometimes when I do it that way. I think it all just takes practice to feel comfortable, kind of like when I first learned how to knit and it felt totally foreign compared to a crochet hook. 

The way I've done these so far is to knit up a stack of them along with their hanger loops and then sit down and stuff a bunch of them all at once. For someone who never liked the finishing stage (weaving ends, blocking, closing holes, etc.) it's really quite satisfying to finish these little guys up and get them hanging. I think they have changed me!

After a nice steam and a stuff they are ready to hang up. A single one is impressive, but I think they look rather fun in groups. Herds? When starting out, I thought these would be small, but they end up actually quite big, about 4 inches in diameter, which makes them about the size of a typical glass ball ornament.

So far in addition to Squirrel I've gotten six more done: Dovre, Reindeer, Rudolph, Halling Border, Mittens, and Christmas Stocking are the pattern names from the book.

The way I knit each ball takes up about 15 grams or so of yarn, that's about 40 yards in the kind of yarn I'm using. I haven't done that many with the black (just the one) but as I do more I think the black will make additional appearances. I also have some sparkly embroidery thread that I'd like to play with as well, probably just for duplicate stitching rather than trying to knit with it. Paired with the black and white that might make for an elegant ornament. Until next ball update, here's my happy little pile. 

squirrely

I opened a birthday present early. 

I've been watching all of Arne and Carlos's YouTube videos lately. They are just a hoot and a half, and I love their approach to knitting: "does it work? does it look ok? then that's how you do it!" They've certainly given me the gumption to try some things that I thought were too hard (ahem, fair isle mittens) and have woken up the creative bug again. This book of Christmas balls (julekuler) is one of their first to be published, and I have been eyeing it ever since I watched their tutorial video. Dave's parents sent it to me. 

When it came in the mail I went out and got some red and white yarn so I could get started. They look really fiddly, but if your'e comfortable on double pointed needles then you've got the hardest part down. They definitely benefit from being steam pressed - don't be skipping that step. I did a lower temperature press because this yarn is acrylic, but it still smoothed out lumps and bumps. Stuffing and finishing is very easy to do despite the fact that it seemed confusing when I read it. Watch the tutorial. 

The first pattern I chose was the squirrel because Dave has been requesting we do a "woodland creatures" theme for our holiday decorating for the last couple of years. I think we might be able to oblige this year! These are super addictive and I'm really looking forward to making more of these. I already know which one I'm doing next. What I really like about this book is, similar to their overall goals as designers, they have included traditional motifs as well as some quirkier and more modern designs so I both learn something about Norwegian knitting and also get to have some fun. More to come!