30 Days Of Christmas. Day 2: Knitted baubles

I know I  was going to sew today. But it looks like I'm not in the mood for sewing, all I can think about is knitted baubles. Yes, exactly! Especially after a lot of inspiration found online this morning.

It all started with this picture found on Flickr:

After meditating on that picture for a couple of minutes I went to Google and started searching for some more info hoping actually to find any free patterns. And I found them! Here is a little list of what I found:

1. Three free designs by Marry Ann Stephens (all three in one PDF file):
http://twostrands.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/christmas-balls.pdf













2. One more bauble by Marry Ann
http://twostrands.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/two-strands-christmas-ball.pdf

3. Some really easy baubles by I Like Lemons:

4. Two patterns by Lion Brand:

 http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/L0286AD.html
http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/L0226AD.html

5. Chevron baubles with pattern and tutorial by Bunny Bosworth

Plus there is a great book by Arne and Carlos "55 Christmas Balls to Knit: Colourful Festive Ornaments" and lots of inspirational pictures online.

I'm going to grab a set of double pointed needles and some yarn bits from my oddments basket and try. Looks like the ones from I Like Lemons are the easiest version. But I really like the chevron ones too...

30 days of Christmas. Day 1: little crocheted heart

So, today I started a little project. Or is it better to call it a journey? A journey through one of the most unpleasant months of the year to a beautiful Christmas tree... I like how it sounds.

First of all I found a box at home. It even looked like a Christmas box which is ideal. Hopefully in 30 days this box will be full and I will be really proud of myself. Then I searched for some patterns and inspiration. I decided that I won't be supertraditional and really anything as long as I like it and it has appropriate size can be a Christmas decoration. It can be bunnies or any other animals, snowmen, little houses, hearts, apples, angels or any other dolls, balls, trees and so far. The best places to search for inspiration are Pinterest (look at my "Christmas decoration ideas" board there), Google images, any craft magazines like Mollie Makes... There are lots of great ideas in the Internet using all kinds of materials and any skill levels, the most important part here is the creativity.

Now shall we start with the first Christmas tree ornament I made. Today the weather was awful, cold windy and rainy and I could sit in my living room and hear that rain and wind outside. Probably that's why I wanted a bit of romance and choose a little crocheted heart by Taube Skywalker as a first project.
I had that "pattern" for a while and never had a moment to try it out. The way it's written may seem a bit confusing especially for beginners, bud don't worry - I will explain :)

Ok, that is how I did it (not totally followed the instructions, but who cares after all). First of all you need some DK yarn (about 200 m in 100g), a bit of stuffing and a 3mm crochet hook. When I made the solid colour heart I was crocheting in spiral, so no slipstitches in the end of each round were needed, but when I made the stripy heart I was working by rows and each row started with ch1 (I didn't count it as a first dc), dc into the same space, and ended with slipstitch.

We start with two heart "tops":
Round 1: Make a magic ring and make 5 dc into the ring
Round 2: 2 dc into each dc of the previous round = 10 dc
Round 3: 2 dc into every second dc of the previous round = 15 dc
Round 4-5: dc into each dc of the previous round = 15 dc
First top done! Cut the yarn leaving a tail and make the second top using the same instructions, just don't cut the yarn in the end. Now we'll need to join these tops together.
Round 6: dc into each dc of the previous round of the first top, then dc into each dc of the second top = 30 dc
Round 7: dc into each dc of the previous round = 30 dc
Round 8: *crochet 8 dc, crochet 2 dc together*, repeat from * to * 2 more times = 27 dc
Round 9: *crochet 7 dc, crochet 2 dc together*, repeat from * to * 2 more times = 24 dc
Round 10: *crochet 6 dc, crochet 2 dc together*, repeat from * to * 2 more times = 21 dc
Round 11: *crochet 5 dc, crochet 2 dc together*, repeat from * to * 2 more times = 18 dc
Round 12: *crochet 4 dc, crochet 2 dc together*, repeat from * to * 2 more times = 15 dc
Round 13: *crochet 3 dc, crochet 2 dc together*, repeat from * to * 2 more times = 12 dc (start stuffing your heart after this round)
Round 14: *crochet 2 dc, crochet 2 dc together*, repeat from * to * 2 more times = 9 dc
Round 15: *crochet 1 dc, crochet 2 dc together*, repeat from * to * 2 more times = 6 dc
Round 16: crochet every two dc of the previous round together = 3 dc (I found this round most annoying and difficult as it is not actually that easy to pull the hook through the last two dc).
Now cut the yarn leaving an end, hide that end using either your crochet hook or a tapestry needle and you're done!

Hopefully my explanation is ok :) In fact I enjoyed making that little hearts and I'm now thinking of making some more one day. But for tomorrow we need a new project and I'm thinking about birds perhaps... About something like this one:

 

And I should make normal daylight pictures of the hearts tomorrow.

Infinity scarfs

After making a couple of infinity scarfs as gifts using a super easy video I accidently found on YouTube (you can find it here) I thought that I would like one for myself too, but as I've already made three scarfs using one and the same pattern I wanted something new. Well, you just get bored when using one and the same pattern again and again. So I made a little research on the Web to find some more interesting patterns. Sadly, there are not so many of them. Most infinity scarfs I found were just made using trebles in a round. But I wanted something more interesting, something really special and free. And finaly I found three free patterns I liked. Here they are:

1. Chunky circle scarf:

2. Blue infinity scarf:

3. Edie infinity scarf:

Now I only need to decide which one I like most. I allready have the yarn - James C. Brett Marble Chunky in shade 14, which is red and changes the colour a bit. Not shure which of this tree scafs would look better with this yarn...

Do you have any new projects in your mind?
Hope you do as it's allways fun and exciting to start something new.

Have a nice evening and see you all soon :)

Hat mood, charity and some Scrap buster hats for babies

Since my last post I had a great crocheting period. I've been in a hat mood. First of all because I noticed that my Little Man's hat, a gift from his grand grand parents, was sliding over his eyes all the time he was outside, so it was obvious that he needed a new hat, the one that would fit. I've searched my stash, found some yarn and grabbed a crochet hook. In the first evening I had to remake it, starting all over again for about 5 times, but after all of that and one more evening the hat was finally finished.



As you can see Little Man likes it. It has a big metal button on a side and fits perfectly. Every mum knows that babies are not big fans of hats and if they can pull that hat off, they will. Well, no chance with this one, Little Man was trying really hard but had to give up without even moving it away.



Sadly I wasn't writing down the pattern while working on it. May be I will try to recreate it later as it might be useful for some other babies too.

After finishing that hat I realized that my husband needs a hat too (it was snowing and freezing outside), so from the same yarn in the same evening I made a hat for him. That one was so easy, that I will make a pattern for it and crochet one for myself. Sadly, no pictures of it this time.

Then last Sunday I bought a knitting magazine and found an article about knitting for premature babies there. It was good to know that there are ladies here in England who knit tiny little clothes for premies and give them to the hospitals. While reading this article I felt that a big need for some charity work was growing in me. I wanted to help someone too. But I wasn't sure, that our hospital would take my knitting as I don't think they are dealing with premature babies. So I was thinking about orphanages. Went to the Internet and soon discovered that there are no orphanages in England. Makes me proud of this country again.
And then I remembered that in 2011, when I was pregnant with Little Man I took part in a charity project for orphanages in Russia. I crocheted a blanket for them. Why not to make something like that again? I found one of the project coordinators in the Internet and started crocheting.
Here are three little Scrap buster hats I made for babies:



The pattern is A Scrap Buster hat from A Dog in a Sweater. When I saw this pattern for the first time I immediatelly wanted to make a hat like that but wasn't sure that I would wear it. It felt like something too childish, so perfect for babies, not for grown-ups. So when I decided to crochet for an orphanage it was a perfect chance to try the pattern out.
What should I say about the pattern... It's easy. In fact it's super easy and written so good that it's easy to follow even for beginners. The only thing you really should think about before making them, except the size, of course, is the colour. The original hats looked a bit strange to me. No, they were fine, they just looked scrapy. And I wanted to make my hats funny, colourfull, but stylish in the same time. This are still scraps, but it doesn't feel like something that's made from unwanted leftovers.
I've changed the design a bit too as I didn't want to make the long braid like on the original hat, and I wanted mine hats to have a bit of gnome style. So I made following changes: after row 18 I repeated rows 17 and 18 two more times and then crocheted every two together in the next row. As one of the hats was Little Man's size I asked him to be a model and you can see how it looks on babu head:



Now I'm working on two pairs of baby booties from my scraps too for the same orphanage. Will show them to you when they are ready.

Hope you all have a nice day :)

Infinity scarf and other stuff

Yesterday was a quiet day at home as we decided not to go to Little Man's baby group. It wouldn't be great to share our illness with other little ones. So we stayed at home, played with Little Man's garage and all of his cars. It's so much fun now when he is trying to put one car inside of the other.
In the evening, searching for something in the Internet, I accidentally found a wonderful round scarf tutorial on You Tube. Probably I'm just really lucky as I often find something useful or beautiful by accident while looking for something else or just browsing the Internet for no particular reason. But, back to scarf - it looked so beautiful and easy that I immediately wanted to try it. Then I had half an hour inner fight with my rational part who tried to tell me not to start another new project while I have so many unfinished ones, but my impulsive part was stronger and I started the scarf. And it was finished by midnight! Just in one evening!



I'm sooo happy with the result! It will be a present for my sister who lives in Denmark. It's quite cold there at the moment and I hope this scarf will keep her warm. Plus all the nice thoughts of her I had while making it.



For this scarf I used a ball of James C. Brett Marble DK, shade MT9 and 6mm crochet hook. It's 100% acrylic, but I love this yarn for it's gorgeous colours. One ball was enough to make a 16 row scarf. And it turned out to be really warm.
So, are you excited and want to make a scarf too? OK, guys, here is this wonderful video with all the explanations:
 

The author uses chunkier yarn and 6.5mm crochet hook, but as you can see on my scarf DK works too. Go watch the video and make a scarf for yourselves as it is sooo easy!

After a nice evening yesterday this day just had to be good. And it was especially because we all felt better and the sun was shining, so we even had a short walk out.
Little Man was asking for freedom and straight after he was given what he wanted he fell into snow with his face. And he didn't like it :)



But he enjoyed all the trees and bushes in snow and I couldn't resist to make a picture.



We've seen the ducks and geese to. Last year I was mentioning them a couple of times and we went to see how are they going in this cold weather. Well, they're just fine in the middle of the pond looking really funny when they try to walk on ice.



If you remember, last spring the swan couple had babies there and now I was really surprised to see how big this babies are grown.



And here is me with the Little Man just before we went back home:



We do have quite funny faces. Probably it's because we spent more than a week stuck at home and were a bit confused to be out for the first time :)

Hope you all had a nice day too. See you all soon.

First little projects 2013

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year!
This is my first post in 2013 and the first post after quite a long silence over here. I had the reasons for that silence, but hope not to do so again. In fact I really hope to post more often in 2013.
Anyway, I've started this year with a crochet hook in my hand and allready have two little projects finished. The first project was a set of coasters as a gift to one lovely lady.
 

In fact I saw a wonderful picture on Pinterest and was immediatelly in love with what I saw, so I wanted to make the same. And then I found the original pattern with a picture and was complitelly shocked about the fact that they look soooo different. Which made me thinking of how our choice of material and colour can change the look of our finished works. Honestly, if I saw just the original pattern picture I wouldn't probably even look at it and wouldn't like to make something of the same kind for shure.

So you would understand, here is the thing that inspired me:

Source: lululoves.co.uk via Darja on Pinterest

 

And here is the picture in the original pattern:

See the difference? Well, that is why I wanted to show it. The material and colour can really change the look of your work and make it beautiful, modern, professional or it can make your work boring and unattractive.
By the way, my coasters are made from mercherised cotton (DK) using 3,5 mm crochet hook.

Ok, finished with the first little project and now it's time for the second one - my super funny granny socks.



As my feet were freezing for a while and the floor in our living room, dining room and kitchen is really cold I was dreaming of a pair of socks for myself. But between October and December I knitted so many socks (2 pairs for my husband, 4 pairs for my little man, 3 pairs for sale), that I just felt sick thinking of knitting one more pair. I needed a break. But I needed some socks too. And then just by accident I found a video on YouTube about how to crochet socks from granny squares. I thought it could be a nice option for me and after a little search on-line I found a webpage with all the information I needed: the patterns for squares and a super long video showing how to crochet it all. Sadly, it's all in Russian, but if you can read the crochet charts I'm shure you can make it.
But! It all looks easy, and it is easy in fact, but takes a while to make. My socks took 5 days (the usuall knitted pair would take 2-3 days to finish) and you will need about 150g of yarn, or may be a bit more (mine took 160g).
Still it's a good option for those who can't knit or for crochet beginners. May be I'll even make an English tutorial on how to make this socks... We'll see how it all goes.

Have a nice day with lots of sunshine!

Fabric balls!

Just a quick little post to show you the fabric balls I made for The Little Man. He really likes them and we are practising some sort of football now :)



The pattern and tutorial fore them are here: http://www.purlbee.com/fabric-beach-balls/ and if you heven't seen Purl Bee before prepare to waste some time browsing all of their tutorials and ideas, as they've got tons of them for sewing, knitting and crochet lovers!
And I will try to get some sleep and be organized for my shopping and packing tomorrow.

The owl

When I was making gifts before Fathers Day I bought three plain vests for our Little Man and made the "SON" aplique on one of them. As I thought it looks fun I had an idea of making some apliques on two other ones. So I searched the Internet and found an Owl aplique pattern which I liked immediatelly. It was a bit too big for a 6-9 months vest, so I printed it out on 70% (not 100%) and made one for the Little Man.



Looks like he likes it :) It was easy to make and fun to look at so I would really recomend it :)

Brighten up the day!

So it's raining adain. And I found a yellow leaf on our table in the yard. Which probably should mean that the summer is ower. It's allways a bit sad as it just flies away so quickly and I allways have this feeling that I had so many things I wanted to do in the summer and just had no time for them. Probably, it comes from childhood and school years...
Anyway, this day is so grey, that I just wanted to brighten it up (or at least my blog) with some colourfull pictures. That's why I'll show you the project I made for a great friend and a wonderfull person on her birthday. She likes coffee, so the present had to be coffee-related.
And here it is: a mug with a mug warmer (not really shure how to call this thing), a tin with some coffee, a mug rug and a birthday card.



It all started with the mug rug and a pattern I found in Pink Penguin blog. It's owner, lovely Ayumi, kindly shared not only the pattern for it, but the wery clear instructions on how to make it. I really got inspired and started it stright away. Please bear in mind that this is my wery first mug rug and I wasn't sewing anything for quite a long time. Last time I had some experience with my sewing machine even before Little Man was born, I think. So it is not ideal. But I had so much fun making it! And I will definetly make some more. I really like the idea of a mug rug itself and it might be a good project to practice in quilting.



The mug warmer was made as a crazy quilted peace using the fabrick scraps I had from the mug rug.



And here is the other side of it.



And, of course, a Birthday card. By the way, I noticed that I really enjoy making cards with fabrick. It is allways fun and in the end you allways have a unique card that looks much more interesting than the ones in the shops. At least you can be shure that noone else will give your friend exactly the same card as you :)

So, I feel a bit more in the mood now and will go and have some knitting done. Hope you all have a nice evening and if you like sewing and are between projects at the moment, go and try Ayumi's little tea pots! You will enjoy it, I promise!

Oh, almoust forgot! Here is some new bunny inspiration:

He is sooooo cute! Found here and painted by Anastasia Loseva from Latvia, the country I originally come from and the country we (me and Little Man) are flying to in a week to meet my family.

Knitted baby cardigans. Free patterns found online.

Ok, so I was searching the Web again. This time I had a reason - just found out, that my good old school friend became a Dad and he and his fiance had a lovely boy. Well, of course I needed to knit something for that little man! But all the patterns I had were for bigger babies (ok, it's not true, I had a few for newborns, but they just didn't inspire me). So I went online and spend some time searching. And some of the patterns look so nice, that I just have to share them with you!

1. Concentric stripes cardigan for 0-3 months made by Inner Child Crochet

2. Garter yoke baby cardigan for approximately 6-12 months made by Jennifer. She also suggests to use fine yarn for smaller size.

3. Easy baby cardigan by Diane Soucy. Size is newborn and it really looks easy. Fast, fun, super-cute pattern, as it's said on Ravelry.



 4. Little garter cardi by by Ragga Eiriksdottir foind on Knitting Iceland. Sizes: 3-6 mo (9-12 mo) 2-3 y. Great, isn't it? It is a seamless cardi, so might be a bit tricky to make but looks like it's worth it.

5. Sunnyside baby sweater from Tanis Fiber Arts. It looks gorgeous and has a variety of sizes avalable: 3-6 (6-12, 12-18, 18-24) months.



6. Plain cardigan by Pickles from Norway. Size 0-3 months is free, bigger sizes are available in their shop. And they have a lot of other cool free patterns too, like Cool Kid Hooded Hat or The Oslo Anorak

7. Grow-along cardigan. This is for bigger babies, from 6-8 months to 1 1/2 years, but it is so beautiful, that I couldn't resist.

They are just lovely! All of them. So now I only need to decide which one I will make

Cussion for grandma

My grandma had her birthday on the 5th of July and I made her a present. So here is a little story about all of that.
My grandma is a person who teached me to knit back in my childhood. She was doing a lot of sewing, knitting and embroidery and even now she still is making cross-stitch, despite her age, pains in her neck and bad eyesight.
As I remember, she allways used to have some handmade cussions on her sofa in the living room and I thought that she would love to have another one made by me. So I searched in the Internet and found a project I liked:

http://www.crochet-world.com/printer.php?mode=article&article_id=1182

So we ( me and My Little Man) went to the wool shop to pick up some yarn for the project. I decided to let him pick the colours for his grandgrandma. And all the colours he was choosing were pink or a mix of pink with something else. And it wasn't some dusty pink or purple pink, noooo it was really bright pink, pinky pink, I would say. In the end we agreed to take a colour changing yarn, that had pink in it, but some other colours too.
In the process of crocheting I discovered that in DK that I was using the cussion would be too small, so I had to make 5x5, not 4x4 squares as in the original pattern. I also changed the back and just made it plain white with treble crochets.
Then I had to soak all the squares in the water, pin them to a water resistant surface and let them dry naturally.



Tons of pins and an hour later it looked like this:







It was actually a good thing to do so the squares would really look like squares. Then I joined them together using this method from lovely Lucy from Attic24, added the back part and inserted a cussion inside.

The most stupid thig is - I forgot to take a picture of the finished cussion and a birthday card I made. But I'm really glad my grandma really liked this cussion :)

About the pattern - it's really easy and, even working slowly, you could finish this in a couple of days. But, if you are going to use double knit yarn like I did, I would advise to make it 5x5 squares, otherwise you'll end up with a really tiny cussion.