...a move to the countryside

Yes. We had enough of that. So we have moved here (the white house)

Strangely, it felt just like going back home. So it was, indeed, quite straight forward. The house is still full of boxes, and I am writing from the old laptop (that keeps going off without warning), but we are all very well settled.

I am very much looking forward to setting up all my crafty bits again, hopefully soon I will have them all out of the boxes. We moved here not even 2 months ago...we started planning this move just at the end of last year, so it was rather quick! I can finally breath again :) I hope to be updating the blog soon with some crafty things. For the moment, I am off to unpack yet another box...

A cake!

Oh, I went crazy with flowers, and colours (my favourite ones) and glitter.
It was Emilia's birthday, and how not to make a spring cake for a spring girl. I made it all myself, from scratch (sponge included...after a couple of years I think I've got it with the sponge cakes). The sponge was lemony (some grated lemon grind was enough). I didn't make the sugarpaste myself, I bought a white one and I used food colouring. The piping was a little bit woobly, but they ate it so quickly that you couldn't really tell :D
Yummy!

Little red

Hello!
I am so delighted with this little doll pattern! It is the Chibi Girl, by Fiona McDonald. The pattern is free and can be found here.
I made up the clothes as I was going. She is wearing a blue dress with a white pinafore and (of course!) a red riding hood.
My daughter thought that her real name was Emma, so here is Emma:

I will never do as my mummy tells me...

And you big bad woolf, don't be so sure you'll get me. I read that book before!

 

ha!

Oh, when will he be here???

Hello! Such a long time since my last post!

I have been very busy with many things, among them passing lovely crafty times. I am thinking of (again) starting a new blog. Originally I thought it would be easier to keep things separately (crafts and knitting/crocheting), but it is proving too much, and I end up not updating any blog. So I will have to go back to one only with all the things I do...because after all that is what my life it is like: one little project here, another little one over there, oh, that one has been waiting to be completed for a couple of years already, etc. But not yet.

I quickly want to post pics of my most recent finished project (almost finished, I wanted to knit some flowers on the skirt). I made a Ranpunzel, ordered by my daughter. The doll pattern was taken from the delightful 'Babes in the Wool' by Fiona McDonald. The dress she is wearing was adapted from the one appearing in 'Dream Toys' by Claire Garland.

So, here she is, bored, oh so bored, and ever so beautiful in her boredom...

When???

Seriously!

The blue blanket

 

Today I am starting the blue blanket. It will be for Lucas, and the choice or colours is inspired by the Turkish Mediterranean Sea. A wave to take home.

After having knitted with Stylecraft's Special DK I don't think I will be back to the other cheap acrylics (I still have few balls in my stash, but I will be liminting these to the making of toys, doll's clothes and little accessories for children). The shades I am using are aspen, spring green, aster, cloud blue, sherbet and turquoise.

I will be knitting 15cm squares in garter stitch to make it reversible. To start, I am liminting myself to plain squares, but I might add stripes and texture if needed.

Granny stripes in Turkey

We have just arrived from Turkey. The first thing I packed for the holidays was the granny stripes blanket that I had started a couple of days before, together with my hook and the necessary yarn. And the first thing I unpacked on my return was a finished blanket full of new memories...A hot burning sun and pomegranate trees, warm evenings in the terrace, happy children soaked in watermelon, a warm sea with everchanging shades of blue, olive trees and crispy tomatoes.

I bought the yarn as suggested by Lucy in her pattern. The yarn is Stylecraft's Special DK. It is 100% acrylic. The shades are beautiful and the yarn is soft to the touch, a pleasure to crochet.

I will stock up this yarn to have it always at hand. After having worked with different cheap acrylics (all brands are priced equally), this one is definitely my favourite. Among the brands I have worked with, there is Patons Fab DK, which seems bulkier compared to this one (I would use a 4mm hook with PatonsFab, while I use a 3.5mm with Stylecraft's), the shades are very nice. The only downside is that it feels somewhat rough to the touch. Then there is Robin DK, which doesn't feel very soft either. The look of this yarn is a little 'messy'. While Stylecraft's seem to have all the fibers in order, this one doesn't, and they stick out from the main yarn, giving it an unpolished/opaque look. Sirdar's Hayfield Bonus DK looks much better in that sense. It is very similar to Stylecraft's. The 'messiness' is low, and the yarn still shows a nice shine. It is soft to the touch, and I would say that the best feature is the twist: firm and tidy, and stays in place, so the yarn rarely untwists. Palette yarns are ok, but they differ a lot from batch to batch/colour to colour. I have a couple of colours in my stash which look as good as Stylecraft's, others similar to PatonsFab, some like Robin DK...

Enough yarn talk. The finished blanket looks like this

I put care in making the sides of the same shades to give it a cleaner frame. The edge consists of 4 rows of double crochet (UK, in US terms single crochet), 3 lilac and the last one pink:

I used a 3.5mm crochet hook to make it more dense and I tried to make colour graduations towards a main strong colour. I am very happy with the result! Emilia is now the happy owner of a cosy blanket :)

'Belle'

And here is the doll! I crocheted it for my daughter. I am very proud of it, as I didn't follow any pattern :)

Head and body are crocheted in one piece, while arms and legs were crocheted serparately. I used Patons Fab DK. For the eyes and mouth I used also Patons Fab, for the nose embroidery thread, and the cheeks are two felt circles. So here you have princess Belle, wearing her everyday jumper...

And in her party dress...