Speed weave / darning loom

 A while back I bought a little speed weave  Here

But I have been to busy to play with it until now. It's a very cool 😎 gadget don't you think 😁  If you never heard of a speed weave, it's a tiny loom for darning.

I had a really good time trying it out. 

This was my first attempt of darning with it 

Not to bad for a first attempt. 

My second attempt turned out a little better 

I don't think it was very fast, and I would have done it much faster using a darning mushroom 🍄 

The end result however was much better and it is a fun way to darn socks 🧦 

I'm of course joining Evelyn  for some Mondaymending over at Instagram.

If you haven't listened to the interview with me and  Suzie over at Sew organized style hurry up and listen as there will be a new episode on Friday 😁

I am also making a slow progress on my mother's sweater. It is a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the end 🔚 

I have enjoyed late summer and spent much time outside. Today it is more autumn weather and rain ☔ 

Wishing you a wonderful new week ahead 

Katrine 🌼 

Sew Organised Style podcast

 I have had a long summer break from my blog.

Hope you all have had a lovely summer.

I have not had a break from mending and this sweater is what I have been working on lately 

This woolen sweater was was full of pills and had a few holes and stains. I actually said it was beyond saving... 🙊🙉🙈 Magic words... I obviously had to give it a try 😉

First I gave it a good shaving 

It's very worn and I did make a few extra holes while shaving it, not to mention the job was much bigger than I expected 😝😝😝

It made quite a difference though 😁😁😁

It's still a wip as I am planning to hide all the darns with flowers and beads

And now I'm sitting outside enjoying the last bits of summer and mending 

Today Suzie and I am Guesting over at  Sew Organised Style podcast

Talking  about our mending community Mendingmayhem and mending

We had great fun making this podcast and hope you enjoy listening 

Thanks to Maria and Sew Organised Style for inviting us 

More hearts 💕 and a bit of mending

I hope you are having a lovely Easter 🌷 🐣 🌷
I have made some more hearts 💕
I crochet a few from a Pattern I found on Pinterest.

 Me and Suzie  have launched an initiative to make, create, spot, and search for 2020 hearts - to symbolise hope in 2020.   Over at our mending community Mendingmayhem at Instagram.

They can be sewn, painted, knitted, drawn in the sand, crocheted, chalked on the pavement, found in the shape of a stone or a leaf - a shadow, a cloud!

When you start looking for hope you find it everywhere, and you can make your own too!

So please will you join us in spreading hope during this crazy year? 

Share your hearts by tagging #2020heartsforhope and please tag #mendingmayhem too.

Feel free to share this initiative.
So if you are on Instagram please join us to raise hearts.

Since the weather got warmer our snow chicken melted. I still wanted to share some hearts with people passing by so I made two hearts out of some branches and put some solar light on them. I'm really pleased with how they turned out

I finally found time to replace a fabric with holes on a friend's pillow. I hope he likes the cadillac.

I also had to repair my hubby's denim jacket, it's very much worn and it got a lot of holes since last time I mended it.
First I machine darned the holes but I didn't think it looked so good and made elbow patch.

My hubby is definitely over the mend my clothes invisible 😜 as he also wanted an embroidery on the back.

Wishing you a lovely Friday
Stay safe and well
Katrine 🌼 💚

Confession from a newly appointed teacher

This new job just took me by surprise as I never applied for it, nor is it a job I want.
You can surely say it came out of the blue.
I actually shouldn't work at all. I'm chronic ill and I struggle to make things go around in my everyday life.

But there is a crisis going on and schools are all closed. So we all need to do our best.
I though home schooling ment teachers would have online programs and follow up with the kids. My bad. Mostly they give out tasks for the day and the kids have to study by themselves.
Since my kid has special needs it's not really working out. Probably not for a lot of other kids too
At school my kid has an assistant who helps him out.
I never actually liked school.
They don't do things the way we did. And it's PowerPoint, word document and annoying apps. That is impossible to understand and to use.
There should be added something here and there and recording sound files and God knows what... Calculate with x and y
Glaciers and history and science projects to try to understand.
It's ages since I was in school and I can't remember half of this. To be honest I did probably not pay very much attention back then.

The first week I spent more time on finding out what to do and how to do it than I actually managed to help my son with his work.
I wanted to cry.. I was so tired I had 2 extra naps a day. I learned my kid a hole lot of new swearing 🤬 words. So he actually learned something... I felt like an idiot most of the time... I pulled my hair and seriously thinking about throwing the computer out the door...
The only light in this is the one  teacher who calls and help my kid very much.
This week the apps and other annoying stuff made a little bit more sense. But not very much
I'm still not a teacher. And I still hate to do school work.
But I do want to help my kid as much as I can.
And we are the lucky once as my kid only needs help for school work 👍 as I browse through the news I can read about families with disabled children who suddenly have absolutely no support at all. So I feel I'm a whining bitch while I think about when I last had a proper hot meal that wasn't hotdogs or frozen pizza 🍕 because when school is done I am out of energy.
I think we probably can grow potatoes on the living room floor. That is probably a good idea, as I don't have to go outside to pick them up... 🤣 🤣 🤣
But at least my kid gets a bit of school.

And he made this beautiful redesign from some old bottles. It made me really proud ❤️
.
I have tried to keep some sanety by trying to do all the fun prompts for mendmarch. Hosted by the fun and mendy Kate @visiblemend over at Instagram.
Usually I like to write much more about my mending here but due to the situation you can check out my Instagram or  Facebook page  instead.
Adding a few pictures of what I was supposed to blog about

Gratitude for my hubby and all the other truckers that does a very important job every day but people first noticed how important they are now due to the crisis.
Text says without trucks, Norway 🇳🇴 stops
Here is an article about how important key workers are treated in this crisis. I'm ashamed. Is this how we should treat key workers the article is in Norwegian

My sister got her dress repaired 

 Worst winter coat ever got a lot of new mends

            Bugge for my hubby's shirt

           My sister in her franken pants 👖

                    Spilling coffee ☕

                      Fixing dad's shirt

             Very old and loved woolshirt

                  Crochet longer sleeves


Though I feel like I rather should clean..
But keeping sane is pretty important too.
Though I'm pretty sure homeschooling will kill me before corona...
I should have been outside making the garden ready for spring 🌷

I have piles of dirty laundry to do.
And I have been writing on this post for days, but I just keep falling asleep.
But it's important to keep positive right?
So I was very happy to see we have got lots of snow this morning.

 Something I usually hate. But now it means I don't need to think about gardening for a while.
I lost several kg because I'm to tired to eat. That's really good as my clothes lately seems to have been shrinking in the wardrobe. If homeschooling keeps up for another month I actually might have a bikini body in June..

The deers have been really helpful too cutting back all our fruit trees and even a holy bunch and some rhododendrons too.
That is pure luck 🤞 🍀

I probably can leave the laundry for a while, with social distancing no one will notice my shirt has a stain from last week 🤣🤣🤣
And I can send my hubby to the store. He can just say he came straight from work if someone says he has dirty clothes.

I got to refresh my knowledge from childhood and the book they are reading in Norwegian is really good. I hope I will manage to get to the end.

But now I really need to have another nap.
Stay safe and stay home
Katrine 🌼

I'm marching on with Mendmarch

If you read my previous post you know I'm joining the Instagram challeng mendmarch.
It's a fun challenge hosted by  Kate @visiblemend who have listed fun prompts for the 31 days of March.
It's also very satisfying to meet up with other menders and of course to get a lot of mending done 👍

Since the last time I have darned a pair of well worn bought wool socks 🧦 for the prompt holey

 I usually tossed bought socks when they got a hole 🕳 as they usually just keep getting new ones when they came to that stage. Averagely they lasted a year
This pair has now lasted 2,5 years. That is quite a difference don't you think?
As I always have left over yarn from sock knitting, it doesn't cost me any thing but time. Darning is kind of meditating as well.
My assistant is being very helpful 😆

For the prompt wooly I mended a hole in a woolen shirt.
I'm always happy to have wool clothes as they keep you warm even if you get wet and they don't smell so bad as for example cotton or microfiber underwear, and yes I am a frozen person 🤣

Wool underwear is also very expensive and so it's very much worth mending.
Here I used a bit of felt fabric. A little lace flower from my stash and some beads from my jewellery making days.
I darned the hole first and sewed on the decorated heart after with some golden thread.

My sister wanted me to fix her dress 👗.
That was really lucky as I didn't have anything for the prompt dress.

The splits in the side of the dress was way to big and it had a hole in the hem and it was just very boring. Cold I fix it?
Sure I could.
I decided to crochet the split together and adding a crochet lace to the hem. It would cover the whole, making the hem a better heavier will make the dress fall better. And not being so boring 💤
To make sure it wasn't a tiny bit boring anymore I added a crochet lace to the neckline and added a little heart pendant to it.
I used running stitch around the split and hem and crochet in the stitches.
 This is also called crochethacking.
You can find a lot of inspiration from Emma over at Instagram.

 And my assistant is still eager to help out 😊🐶
She even started on her own the other day 👍🐕finding a sock 🧦 in need of reinforcing and a yarn.

And I discovered it before she made a mess 😂 and I was really supposed to use this socks for the prompt confess, as it's actually the only pair I have knitted for myself and I wanted to mend them with duplicate stitch.I am not enjoying duplicate stitch but I didn't make tommuch mess either. 👍

Confession time

Kate was afraid I wouldn't have any thing to confess for today's prompt in #mendmarch 🤣🤣🤣 she should have known better... I always have something I can confess to if I want... 🤣 🤣 🤣
So I confess
✅To buying this lousy fast fashion winter coat a few years back.

It's the worst jacket I have ever owned.
✅ To not have bothered to replace the zipper 🤐for over 2 years. I just used the snap buttons instead
✅ To not care very much how I patch this coat together.
✅To have made a hole 🕳 when removing the zipper because I plan to put in a new one but never bothered.

✅To just have Zigzagging sloppy over the hol and with what ever color was in the sewing machine

✅To just using this coat when I do something just outside our house and maybe to the mail box once in a while 🙄😜
Though being a cheap fast fashion coat it's very giving coat.
It gives new opportunities for mending all the time.

Seams break all the time. I have mended the most of the lining seams including pocket lining. The fabric is fragile and it tears very easily. Zipper broke very fast.
✅Over all I think it is my worst purchase ever.
First patch was from mendmarch 2018 it's the black and orange with the Eagle 🦅


Have a lovely weekend ♥️
Katrine 🌼 💚