In love with fabrics

To be honest I'm not only in love with yarn (that's why I have an enormous stash which I'm trying to downsize since 2014), I'm as well in love with fabrics. So today when I was passing a small clothes alterations studio I noticed a small basket there with a note "Fabtic remnants, £1 a bundle" I couldn't resist myself to dig in. And I found two lovely bundles that I just had to take home with me.

 

Why would I need them? Well, I had a few things in mind for quite a while but didn't have the right fabrics.

The Christmas tree decorations are from a Tesco free magazine and the bunnies are from a sewing magazine I bought a while ago. Plus there are the little owls which I absolutely Love. And they are a free pattern. Take a look: http://moonstitches.typepad.com/photos/tutowlrial/zakkaowls.html

So happy seeing to me. Now I only need to find a bit of time for it.

Socks and coffee

I had such an awesome time from the beginning of November getting ready for a craft fair, taking orders for Christmas and crocheting every spare minute I had. At times it felt like crochet hook is a natural part of my hand. All of the little creatures I made in this month and a half deserve a special post and there will be one, but today I have a well deserved right to rest, because yesterday I gave away my last Christmas order for this year. So today will be a lazy day with coffee and sock knitting.

Time and mandalas

I think I'm getting used to say "This week was so busy/crazy/awful", I'm getting used to tell people how tired I am and what crazy things my kids do to drive me insane and turn the house into a complete mess. I'm used to those things so much, that they make my every week look and feel the same and in the end of the week I tend to forget that it was not only busy and awful, but actually it was filled with lots of different things, often - lovely and positive ones. This week was for instance filled with watching "Call the midwife", knitting red socks for my granddad, planning a trip to Latvia, thinking of participating in a craft fair and crocheting bunnies as a result, enjoying colouring books with Michael, who is three and his favourite question at the moment is "What is this?", making paper swans and teaching one year old Mathew how to dance. Not bad, I'd say :)

And this evening, when little people go to bed will be all about mandalas. The case is I made a mandala quite a while ago, before Yarndale 2014 with a plan to send it to Lucy (Attic 24 blog owner). I was imagining it being displayed with lots of other mandalas at Yarndale, but then I discovered that my design was too big for the specific sizes they wanted, so my mandala never got anywhere except my own living room. 

But when I made it it seemed that people like it and wanted a pattern. So now finally it's time to write it down and share with happy hooking community. I already made a chart using my original mandala and a tiny tester I made this week, now it only needs a written pattern for those who can't read charts. Looking forward to it:)

Lost and found

I'm here today to tell you a story. A story about a girl who was lost for quite a while and suddenly found herself again in a box of gouache paint one night. A girl who was doing lots of things she used to like, but could not find any inspiration and joy in them anymore, so all the things she made turned into just a mechanical process for her. She was struggling to find a purpose and happiness in her life and after some time she gave up in trying to identify them and decided to live her life without any. But that was like living in the dark, only the darkness is inside, not around you. You can't live your life in the dark, pretending that you are ok, because you are not. It would be a sad sad story if something wouldn't have happened. And that something was a TV show about artists. May be you think that it is stupid to be influenced by telly, but sometimes answers come from any most unexpected sources and we just need to accept them and let them change us. So that show surprisingly influenced her, and she went and bought a set of gouache colours and a few brushes without even clearly understanding why. She used to paint before, when she was a kid, but it seemed like something from the previous life and she never was really good at painting. All that thoughts made her slow herself down and leave the gouache untouched for a few days until yesterday when feeling lonely and unhappy she finally opened it and made a drawing, letting the brushes fly as they wanted and the colours mix as her soul felt they should. She switched the brain off she told her rational part to shut up and made another drawing. And felt better. The next morning she woke up, looked at her drawings and felt something growing inside. And that something was inspiration - a new light meaning that the time of living in the darkness is over. 

That girl is me.

And here is what I have been drawing.

Cars

Sometimes I think that it would be nice to have daughters, lovely little girls with their dolls who would definitely need lots of crocheted and knitted dresses, booties and other stuff, plus I could make endless teddies and bunnies, because girls just like teddies and bunnies. But I have two little boys and they don't need any doll clothes or teddies and bunnies. My house is full of cars, trains, helicopters and railroads. Probably that's why I decided to try to crochet a car for my youngest one. He is starting to crawl and when I see him near wooden or metal toys, or anything with sharp corners, I don't feel that this toys are safe enough, I want to protect him at least by giving him toys that are totally safe to play with. 

I wouldn't say that I am totally satisfied with the result. Probably cars are just not something for me, I'm much better at making bunnies and teddies... Anyway at least it's safe and can be chewed too, as it's made of cotton. Hopefully the little one will like it, especially if I hide all the plastic and wooden cars :)

Walking and looking for inspiration

You never know which simple things can make you super happy until you get them. That was exactly the feeling I had today after I bought a double buggy. Oh yes, I needed a double buggy as 6 month ago our family grew bigger. Now Little Man is not so little, at least not the smallest one in the house :) So, as I was saying, I bought a double buggy and had a long forgotten feeling of freedom when I was finally able to go for quite a long walk with my two little people. I know it might sound stupid - a baby, a toddler, you and freedom just don't come together, but in fact it was the feeling that I control the situation, that gave me some sort of freedom, freedom of choosing the length of walk, the direction, the speed. And for the first time in this long months a walk out with little ones was pleasant, not stressful. Now I honestly have no idea how could I survive without that double buggy :) Here are a bit of pics of our walk. Just wanted to share that lovely feelings of mine with you all.

We went to the Mere which is like 5 min from our home. Well, may be 10. Anyway it's really close and it's the only place like this near our house. This year there are surprisingly lots of swans. It's like three times more than what you see on the pic. So we had some fun feeding them. little Man even managed to touch one of them ( probably he wanted to give swan a cuddle).

That's how the Mere looks. Now it's a bit neglected with trees uncut and that green stuff in the water, but it's still beautiful.

A bit of autumn already.

I treated myself with some berries found along the way. 

In the end, when the smallest person was asleep me and Little Man had something like lunch in the open caffee. Well, he had some chips and I had some tea with my berries and we both felt really related and happy. Such a nice feeling. Hope there will be lots and lots of walks like this in the future with some nature inspiration, photos and relaxation.

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...