As the title says, I finished the skirt. I now have a warm, sturdy, colourful, pocket-equipped skirt.

This is kind of what I had in mind for the skirt that I gave up on – an irregular composition of semi-random pieces of fabric. I intentionally let the shape of the fabric pieces guide the design, rather than drawing something and then trying to make the pieces fit.

While at least two of the fabrics had a clear front and reverse side, I decided to ignore that. If the piece fit and the grain was right, then I used it regardless of which way it was facing.

This way I could make the whole skirt with very little waste. I have several larger pieces left over that could become something (throw pillows?) as well as smaller scraps for decoration, patching or applique.

Here is the white dress in all its glory.

It came out just the way I had envisioned it. Fits well, looks great. By far the most elegant thing I have created.

And the most labour-intensive one. I tried to roughly estimate how many stitches I knit, and came up with about 133 000.

I am very grateful to my friend in Estonia who gave me the yarn that started this project. It’s a lovely fine vintage wool yarn, probably hand-spun and unbleached. I don’t think I could have found anything like it from a commercial source. I held it double with a silk mohair, and the end result is soft and woolly, but still drapes well.

This is no superwash merino yarn, the kind that almost doesn’t feel like wool, and it definitely feels woolly against my skin. Not so that bothers me – just so that I am aware of it. Like a gentle reminder that it is there, and it is wool. (I’m writing this several weeks later, after I’ve had a chance to wear it to a family Christmas party for several hours.)

I had planned to add embroidery to the dress, to make it look less stark. Now that I have it in front of me, I rather like it in all its simplicity. I think I’ll hold off on the embroidery for now.

My felted slippers didn’t even last a year before getting big holes in them.

I could make new ones – I even have an idea about what I might want to change to make them felt better and last longer – but that seems wasteful. Instead I bought a needle felting kit and some raw wool to patch them up.

I’ve never done any needle felting, and with the waxing experiment fresh in my mind, I was leery of the project. It turned out to be super easy and I was done in no time. The first mend was a bit lumpy but the next ones were better, and even the lumpy one evened out after I walked on it for a bit.

Buying yarn for a new pair of slippers would absolutely have been cheaper. But I’ve learned something new, and hopefully I’ll be able to use this stuff for some other mending project in the future. Or for these same slippers when they get new holes – the way the yarn has gone shiny on the sole, I can see it’s going to happen.

The knitted white dress is pretty much done! I set myself the goal of finishing it this year, and I’m going to make it. I only have the hem to finish now.

The skirt has curled up every time I’ve tried the dress on. It’s getting a folded hem and a lead weight cord (the kind that is often used for curtain hems) inside that to straighten it out.

I started sewing a winter skirt last season but then got sidetracked and never finished it. Now it’s cold again and I want something thick and warm and long and cosy to wear. Plus it will be nice to get that project pile off my sideboard.

I’m piecing it together from leftover fabric from the red skirt and the brown skirt and some new cream-coloured wool that I bought at the crafts festival last year.

I don’t have a clear idea of what the skirt will look like, but I found two pieces of red that are about the right shape and size for a yoke-ish part. While I ponder the rest of the design, I can get started on the pockets.

Nysse, as usual, had his own ideas of what a pile of wool fabric is good for.

The body of the striped sweater is done. Now I need to do something about all the yarn ends.

I didn’t even cut the yarn for every stripe – only when it was unused for two centimetres or so. Even so, they are SO MANY. I regret that choice; I should have just lived with the long floats.

Christmas party! As one of the newly-joined employees this year, I was roped into the party committee. Which really didn’t involve much more than a brainstorming session for finding a theme. After that, our new office assistant took over, because it turned out that organizing a party is one of her favourite activities, and she wasn’t very interested in offloading any tasks to the rest of us. Until this afternoon, when I got to hang up balloons and other decorations.

It didn’t look like much in strong lamplight but felt quite festive with added disco lighting.

And here’s my alien costume! There were a few more aliens in the party crowd, and three Edgar the Bugs.

Active Solution has a tradition of themed Christmas parties, and this year’s theme is Men In Black, like in the movie. I expect the vast majority to turn up as agents in black suits and sunglasses, but it’s a lot more fun to be an alien.

I made an alien costume for Ingrid for Halloween, oh, maybe ten years ago? I can’t remember which one of us came up with the idea of a four-armed alien, but it was an awesome one, so I’m reusing it. Apparently I took no photos of it at the time, or at least none that ended up on the blog.

Two simple long-sleeved tops that (almost) match in colour and material, and a pair of gloves. Stuff it all and attach the one to the other, and when you wear it, bam, four-armed alien. Pieces of elastic at the wrists looselyl attach the fake arms to my real ones, so when I move mine, the extra two also move.

This time I think I’ve managed to do it with almost zero waste. Both tops are from Skyddsvärnet second hand, and the bottom one has a buttoned neckline so it fits around my waist without any cutting. I’m attaching them to each other with safety pins, which will make fewer holes than machine sewing would.

The sleeves are stuffed with rolled-up wool felt that I had in the basement; the gloves are my mitten liners; the stuffing inside them is a few sheets of newspaper and some squares of kitchen towels for the fingers. I hope to be able to dismantle it all when I’m done, donate the tops back to Skyddsvärnet, and put the gloves back in the glove box.

What I haven’t managed so well is getting it done in time. I bought the tops two weekends ago, and had the arms all done this weekend. I totally forgot to take into account all the evening activities this week – two concerts and a major after-hours release at work – so here I am, putting in safety pins a half-hour to midnight. I’m sure the lighting at the party will hide all shortcuts and mistakes.

Another interpretation of the same design as I did a month ago. Sharing the same principles, somewhat: aiming for the rectangles to be dominant without resorting to full applique, but this time allowing myself to use tulle. Lines for the ovals. Something opaque for the small filled-in oval.

It’s funny how differently we value things. The others in my embroidery group were gushing over the embroidered tulle, admiring its cleverness and unique look, while for me that was the lowest-effort part of the piece. It was like mindless doodling with yarn and thread: start at a corner, follow the structure of the fabric, “bounce” when you hit an edge, stop before there is too much of it. Almost mechanical. I literally chose it the other week because I was tired and couldn’t be bothered to be creative. I myself was much more proud of my very even feather stitch, and the woven oval as a nifty way of making something very covering without applique, and those got no notice.