First steps in fair isle

There’s been a lot of temptation this week. Even though I already have a lot of projects on my needles, which is mostly work for my Etsy shop, I was very close to cast on the Shwook hat. Maybe it’s because of the yarn that is taunting me on the shelf, or it’s because Anna just finished hers too.
But I’ve tried to be reasonable and wait for October before casting it on.
In the meanwhile I wanted to practice a bit of fair isle, since I’ve never tried this technique before, and see if my colour combination was working.
And I never thought that it could be so addictive! After finishing one of the charts to check my gauge, I didn’t want to put my needles down anymore. I was completely hooked. October’s going to be amazing! If any of you is interested in a knit-along let me know, that could be a lot of fun!

A handmade lifestyle: a Blue naive giveaway {closed}

Dress: Blue Naive / Pendant: Mandarine's / Shoes: Seychelles

At the beginning of Summer, I found myself browsing Etsy pages, to find the perfect Summer dress. As the temperatures were getting higher and higher, I knew that a linen dress would be the perfect kind of material that I was searching for. So when I came accross Karolina wondeful shop, Blue Naive, I immediately felt connected with her aesthetics and her wonderful photographs in the woods near her home.
Just a week after chatting with her, I received ther stunning handmade linen dress in my mailbox. That's without a doubt, the most precious and the most confortable piece of clothes that I own.

* Could you introduce yourself & your  shop Blue Naive.
My name is Karolina. And Blue Naive is my new chapter of life. My husband and I, left our stressful and intensive lives in a city and moved to live in a small house near the river in the middle of the forest. Now I live with the nature rhythm, in a huge amount of silence and peace with myself. Being surrounded with trees, I started to feel more relaxed, more alive, more sensitive. I've been working as a sale manager for a long time, and I was getting tired of the stress and an intensive life. For more than a year, I started to realise that I was totally not satisfied with my life, the way I was living, and what I was doing for a living. So I really started to think what kind of person I wanted to be. Then we fond a beautiful old house in the middle of the forest, close to a river.  Not long after, I left my job and embraced a natural life in the woods.

Linen came to me naturally. One day, I sewn myself a dress and it was beautiful! Shortly after, I decided to open an online shop, and that was the perfect reason not to come back to the city.

* How did the idea of creating Blue Naive came to you?
Everything was born from a huge inner desire to return to the purity, simplicity and gentleness. All Blue Naive clothes are born surrounded by nature, the century-old spruce and long-lived flowers, inspired by the flowing stream, and the fresh air, enriched with pure love and gentle care. These clothes are less about fashion and more about the way of living. It`s about balance between city and nature. With our clothes, we aim to give peace of freedom, and the moment of nature sense.

• Which item that you created do you like the most?
www.bluenaive.com/en/product/blue-naive-flighty-linen-dress
This dress is my favorite, because of it's simplicity and comparability. I made three of them for myself in different colors. And I can't stop wear them.

* What are you currently working on?
Now I'm working on new dresses, skirts and sweaters for fall and winter. I'll be using wool and cashmere. It's going to be very light yet warm, cosy and delicate. I hope to make it available at the beggining of September!

• What effect do the seasons have on you/ your work?
They have a huge effect on me. Summer doesn't last long, so you can only wear linen clothes during warm weather. At the beginning of summer all my customers are from Europe, but at the end they're from Australia! I'm looking forward to be working with cashemere & wool, but I will miss linen definitely.

• Any plan for the future?
Yes, my next goal is to participate in www.maison-objet.com/ this September, I will be searching for new materials, partnership and so on. And of course, the new clothes for fall and winter.

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So this week, Karolina is generously offering to one reader, the linen dress of his choice (for a value of 75.73 USD). To enter the giveaway:

1. Visit BlueNaive and follow her.
2. Come back her, and leave a comment below, telling me which item you would like to win.
3. For an additionnal entry, share this giveaway on a social media platform, and come back here to enter a new comment.

Please, remember to leave me your email address so I can contact you. The giveaway will close on Monday 18th August at 8EST time. Good luck! Congratulations Nicole!

Cold coffee

These days are so hectic, yet very peaceful at the same time. I’ve been drinking countless cups of coffee, some of them were slightly hot, but most of them were completley cold before I even thought of having a first sip.
So much knitting happened, and many projects are off my needles. At this time of the year, I usually cannot stop thinking about fall and all the cozy knits that I'm going to wear, and all the fall activities that I'll be doing.
I’m still enjoying Summer very much, going to the seaside every weekend to get as much vitamin D as possible before the long Winter settles, picking up lots of flowers and pressing them for a future project, and eating fruits and fruits again.

Taking a step forward

If you’ve been following this blog for some time, you might already know that two of my favourite topics are knitting and self-sufficiency.
If I do talk (a lot) about knitting, yarn, stash and other woolly-related matter, I don’t think that I write enough about the second topic, and how important it is to me. I do share my little trips to the woods, where I forage and gather mushrooms or berries, the walks that I take in the country or in the city and find a clean patch of nettle or a crab apple tree.
But so far, that’s the only aspect of being self-sufficient that I have experienced. After living in China for quite some time and then in France, I didn’t have the chance to grow anything else than a few avocado seeds. So as soon as I moved to Latvia, I wanted to take advantage of my small balcony, and gain some experience of growing vegetables.

I’m still very far from my big goal/dream of owning a piece of land and growing vegetables from a patch garden, gathering fruits from a few trees, and some eggs from the chicks, but I still believe that I’m taking a step forward in archiving that dream. My mini-garden, if I even call it that way is very modest. A few months ago, I bought some seeds at my local nursery, some organic soil and recycled containers. At the beginning of May, some tiny baby tomato plants were popping out. But none of my salads, radishes or herbs wanted to grow. Since I never grew anything before, I was very doubtful regarding the outcome of my new hobby. I never really believed that I could actually grow something at home. But now that my tomatoes are about one meter tall, and each plant is carrying a few precious fruits, I’m started to hope that I will taste my first home-grown veggie this year.
The parsley is also doing great! As sons as I saw some leaves coming at the surface, I couldn’t help myself and cut some of them to season the meal that I was eating that day.

Last week, as I was getting more and more into growing some greens & learning about medicinal plants, I bought more seeds. And in just a week, the calendula and the thyme have already tiny shoots! This is so encouraging!

Are you also taking steps forward in pursuit of your dream?

Yarn Along

Knitting/ Since reorganising my stash, and having beautiful yarn on display all the time, I started feeling the urge to cast something new. A few months back, Grace sent me the most wonderful package that contained some Quince & Company yarn.
Since the packaged arrived, I became some kind of "skein fetishist", keeping my "precious" yarn in my stash, with no plan to use it anytime soon. Before trying their yarn, I never really had a problem to cast on a project with a yarn that I had bought. I'm not a compulsive buyer, so when i have a project in mind, I just buy enough skeins to complete the project. Since I'm knitting "on a budget", I do not buy yarn without having an idea in mind, so there's no skeins sitting in my mini-stash for a very long time.
So I never had to face this kind of situation before. I knew that I didn't want to cast on socks - the yarn is far way too precious in my opinion, and I wasn't so sure about making a shawl either. But then after browing my favourites on Ravelry, I remembered this beautiful project that I could make.  And it's a shawl!
Over the past few days that I started knitting, the yarn has been flying on my needles. And before I could say "just one more row", I had already completed the stockinette section...

Reading/ The self-sufficiency issue of Extra-Curricular magazine. It has several interesting articles, including an interview with Rohan Anderson, soap making, slow fashion, and herbal medicine.

Watching/ Started to watch Bushcrafting (again), and planning to watch this documentary very soon.

*I'm joining Ginny's yarn along this week.

A week of wool

Lately I decided to reorganise my stash and separate the yarn that I stricktly use for the shop to the one I use for my personnal projects. I don't own much, but I love to see these little skeins together. Whenever I stop by, I try not too look at them for too long, or cuddle them. Crazy, right? How can tiny colorful balls of wool can bring so much hapinesss and warmth into someone's heart?

As I mentionned in a previous post, Lori got me inspired by her Shetland trip that she's taking along with Nicole (these ladies are so amazing. They both contributed to Madder's Anthology I ( I had to grab a copy, but that's another story)). They both knit garments to bring with them on the Scottish Island, and one of these pattern is the Shwook hat. I've never tried colorwork before. I guess I've always been quite initimidated, and didn't feel confident enough to knit with several colors. For some reason, I find it very hard to combine colors together and create a palette that will showcase the pattern beautifully.

The five skeins in the middle are the ones that I'll be using to make the hat during the Shetland wool week in October. Even though I'm not attending the event, I thought it could be so much fun to take part in the festivities, and celebrate a week of wool.