Blixten - A Swedish Hippy Bus

This is the owner's own wonderful drawing of Blixten

Wheels with red centres

I got a message from Carl, who says he is a Swedish hippy! Could I make a knitted version of his hippy bus - Blixten? (Blixten means Flash in Swedish, which is also the name of my cat, who I now call Blixten sometimes if she is dashing around.) But I digress, Blixten is an old Opel Blitz van from 1968, turned into a camper van - or "hippie bus". 

I was up for the challenge, and I have been working on it all week,. I thought it would be fun to show you in photos some of the process. You can also see lots more photos of the real van and family on Blixten's very own blog. They are clearly in love with Blixten, and have a lot of fun family trips. The inside is really cool too.

Planning out the side panels on grid paper

Side panels knitted

Knitting a central panel - front, base and back of van

Starting to come together, with icord for the thick red stripes and embroidery for the thinner one

The front wheels have rims also made from icord

Some more detail on the back doors

Side view with the roof and wheels added

This was one of the hardest parts to knit. The ledge and back bumpers

The back is complete, and the air vents have been added on top

My favourite view is the back, because of all the details

The front also needed details: bumpers, lights and numberplate

All completed - I am now off to mail the van to Sweden. 

Carl has said he will send me a photo of the two vans together - real and knitted, which you can see here.