Point & Shoot Wednesday

I took this pic­ture last spring. It’s one of my favourite pictures.

Today was rainy and grey. On rainy and grey days I often like to pre­tend that I’m in Eng­land or Ire­land. I’ve always want­ed to vis­it Ire­land and see if there are real­ly sheep every­where like in tourism pictures.

Here’s a rainy and grey pic­ture I also took last year, from my bal­cony, after a storm. The yel­low glow in the atmos­phere is just incred­i­ble. Also one of my favourites.

Here’s anoth­er one tak­en from my bal­cony, through my green stained glass sun catcher.

I’ve been want­i­ng to get a Diana cam­era for a long time, but did­n’t want to spend the mon­ey for it. This was an exper­i­ment. Basi­cal­ly I placed a green stained glass sun catch­er over the lens of my point & shoot and clicked. I real­ly liked the result — melty and acci­den­tal and dream-like and I espe­cial­ly like the blue in the sky. I might even print that one day. Def­i­nite­ly one of my favourites.

And then there is one of my favourite places on earth (and I haven’t been to many places on earth) — Nova Sco­tia! The smell of salt water and the humid ocean breeze just feel like home to me (I guess it has to do with my grow­ing up on an island sur­round­ed by ocean — even though I’m ter­ri­fied of deep water and I can’t swim). The trees there have these lichens and moss-like veg­e­ta­tion grow­ing all over them. The woods felt mag­i­cal and I was absolute­ly enchant­ed. This pic­ture was tak­en at a place called The Fish­er­man’s Life Muse­um.

And today I’m lament­ing the fact that Mike and I are miss­ing the fab­u­lous wed­ding of a total­ly cool cou­ple in the East Coasts this week­end! I can only send them wish­es for the bestest things in the world as they enter a new chap­ter of life togeth­er :D And look for­ward to pho­tos tak­en by Face­book friends :P

So this post has turned into a bit of a review of my favourite pic­tures tak­en over the past few years. It all start­ed with me try­ing to find a pic­ture of an amigu­ru­mi grim reaper that my friend and I made a while ago. I still can’t find that pic­ture, and the lit­tle reaper is stolen :(

But, any­way, this review of favourite pic­tures is fun! I should do it again :)

Peace.

The Yeti

I’ve decid­ed to call this jack­et I’m work­ing on “The Yeti”.

I’m fol­low­ing the Copen­hagen Jack­et pat­tern from Nat­u­ral­ly Caron. I real­ized that the 100% acrylic white yarn that I’m using (because I have lots and lots of it) is not going to drape like the pic­ture in the pat­tern. In fact it’s going to look rather bulky when I’m done because this par­tic­u­lar acrylic yarn I have is kind of stiff, because it’s kind of vin­tage. I think they make acrylic yarn a bit soft­er now. So. I thought might look like a yeti while wear­ing it, all white and bulky. Which would be nice in the win­ter. I’m quite pleased with the prospect of look­ing like a yeti in the win­ter, with all that snow (if there’s going to be snow…).

So, any­way, the jack­et is made up of 2 long pan­els and 1 short pan­el, plus the col­lar. So far I’ve done the first pan­el and it occurs to me that it would make a rather nice cowl.

Like an Irish fish­er­man sweater, but a cowl.

It would have to be worn with a sweater pin. I don’t have a sweater pin. But I have a small piece of drift wood I picked up some time ago at a beach. So I used that for the pho­to. Drift wood… fish­er­man… perfect :)

I took a clos­er pic­ture of the drift wood, because I think it’s quite beau­ti­ful in itself.

For a moment I debat­ed whether I should stop and just let it be a cowl. But I thought about the yeti… and decid­ed that I will fin­ish the entire jack­et. It’s going to be a bit of a long project, but it does­n’t feel like it’s tak­ing as long as it is actu­al­ly tak­ing because of the fun cro­chet cable pattern.

And as always (well, not always, but often enough), my gauge is com­plete­ly off. I think the yarn I’m using is a bit thin­ner than the one called for, even though it says “worsted” on the label and the pat­tern also calls for worsted weight yarn. So I switched to a larg­er hook and also fol­lowed the instruc­tion for a medium/large size (i.e. adding extra dc rows to the long sides) to match the dimen­sions in the pat­tern dia­gram. But the con­struc­tion of it is rather straight­for­ward so I’m sure it will all work out.

And I will look like a yeti. *grin*

Oh gâteau!

Today I stum­bled upon this love­ly, love­ly, love­ly piece of cro­chet heav­en, all full of cakes, all made for charities!

~Cake Sachets by Nor­ma Lynn Hood~

Oh. My. Good­ness. I under­stand that you might need a moment to take them all in. So I’ll pause…

Just look at the incred­i­ble details! (I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly drawn to the car­rot cake in the bot­tom right — the tiny car­rot is just too adorable) And all the dif­fer­ent kinds! AND! Instead of plain ol’ Poly­fil, these cakes are stuffed with laven­der sachets — pret­ty + func­tion­al = Bril­liant! And the line-up of Fairy Cakes are just so, so cute I almost melted.

And yes, these rare treats are made and sold for char­i­ties, but the retail places where they’re sold are in San Fran­cis­co… which is kind of far from where I live :(

But the kind woman who runs the shop has also gen­er­ous­ly post­ed free pat­terns for some of her sweet cre­ations, includ­ing a Twinkie and this Sun­dae Oh La La Cheese­cake!

Oooh la la! I think I might make a cake or two, or cup­cake, with that adorable tiny car­rot on top! :D I hap­pen to have a jar of laven­der sit­ting on my shelf, my mom bought it for me from her trip to Chi­na. But maybe the car­rot cake should be stuffed with cin­na­mon sticks…? Yay, projects!

So, any­way, if you have a moment check out Cake Sachets! :D They’re just so amaz­ing and it’s an all-around great inspiration.

Have a sweet Sunday!

Piña! Colada!

Final­ly get­ting around to post the pat­tern for Piña Cola­da :D They’re about 3 inch­es tall, and I’ve attached mag­nets on the back for mine.

This is not a com­pli­cat­ed pat­tern, but it has many parts to it, and I apol­o­gize in advance if there’s any mis­take — please let me know if you see any! Your feed­back is great­ly appreciated :)

To make Piña Cola­da, you’ll need:

  • Small amount of worsted weight yel­low, green, brown and white yarn
  • Small amount of DK weight white yarn
  • 3.5mm and 3mm cro­chet hooks
  • Embroi­dery floss in pink, brown, and black
  • black round beads for eyes (I used 4mm)
  • sewing nee­dles
  • Stuff­ing

Pineap­ple: with yel­low and 3.5mm hook

Row 1: ch 3, 4 sc in 3rd ch from hook, sl st in top of begin­ning ch.

Row 2: ch 2, hdc in same st, 2 hdc in each of next 5 st, sl st in top of begin­ning ch.

Row 3–6: 1 sc in each sc around. Fill with stuffing.

(You may also want to sew on eyes and mouth before stuff­ing it, but I usu­al­ly like to decide on the place­ments of eyes and mouth after the amigu­ru­mi has been stuffed and filled, and then I hide the loose ends of the threads under the mag­net or pin that I’m going to attach on the back.)

Row 7: 2 sc tog five times, sl st into next st, leav­ing a long tail, fas­ten off.

Weave tail through each of the 5 st at the open­ing, pull tight and tie off. Weave in ends.

At this point, I also added the “eyes” of the pineap­ple by stitch­ing french knots all around, like so:

Pineap­ple top: with green and 3.5mm hook

Row 1: Leav­ing a long tail, ch 6, sl st into 2nd ch from hook, 1 sc in each of remain­ing ch’s, ch 1, turn.

Row 2: sc in 1st sc, sc in next sc, ch 4, sl st in 2nd st from hook, (cro­chet­ing back towards the begin­ning of row 1 at this point) sc in each of remain­ing ch’s and sc’s, ch 1, turn.

Row 3: repeat row 2.

Row 4: sc in 1st sc, sc in next sc, ch 5, sl st in 2nd st from hook, 1 sc in each of remain­ing ch’s and sc’s, ch 1, turn.

Row 5: repeat row 4, except omit ch 1 at the end. Fas­ten off.

Then, start­ing from the end that has just been fas­tened off, I rolled it up, like so:

Then I stitched it togeth­er, through all the lay­ers in the stitch­es below the “spikes”, using the tail I left in the beginning.

Sew pineap­ple top to pineap­ple. I had enough yarn left after sewing the pineap­ple top togeth­er, so I did­n’t tie off and just con­tin­ued using the same yarn tail to do the attach­ing of the two parts.

Then I attached the eyes with black embroi­dery floss and embroi­dered the mouth (I used brown embroi­dery floss). I like to use straight pins with black bead pin heads to try out posi­tions for eyes.

Now it’s time to make arms and legs, but they’re option­al. I made them for this pair because they’re wed­ding gifts and I like that they’re able to hold hands :)

Arm/hand (make 2): with DK weight white and 3mm hook

ch 8, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, ch 3, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, ch 3, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, sl st in 5th ch from the begin­ning ch, sl st in each of remain­ing ch’s. Leav­ing a long tail, fas­ten off.

Leg/foot (make 2): with DK weight white and 3mm hook

ch 8, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, ch 3, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, sl st in 5th ch from the begin­ning ch, sl st in each of remain­ing ch’s. Leav­ing a long tail, fas­ten off.

Then I stitched the arms and legs to the pineap­ple using the long tails I left, and weaved in all ends.

Now, on to the coconut!

Coconut — shell: with brown and 3.5mm hook

Row 1: ch 3, 4 sc in 3rd st from hook, sl st into the top of begin­ning ch.

Row 2: ch 2, sc in same st, 2 sc in each sc around, sl st into top of begin­ning ch.

Row 3: ch 2, sc in next sc, * 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc into each of next 2 sc*, repeat from * to * around, sl st in top of begin­ning ch.

Row 4: ch 2, 1 sc in each sc around.

Row 5: repeat row 4. Fas­ten off, weave in ends.

I sewed on the eyes and embroi­dered the mouth (I used pink embroi­dery floss) at this point.

Coconut — flesh: with worsted weight white and 3mm hook

Row 1: ch 3, 4 sc in 3rd st from hook, sl st into the top of begin­ning ch.

Row 2: ch 2, sc in same st, 2 sc in each sc around, sl st into top of begin­ning ch.

Row 3: ch 2, 1 sc in each sc around. Leav­ing a long tail, fas­ten off.

Put coconut flesh into coconut shell, so it looks like this:

Using the tail left from the white part, I sewed the shell and flesh togeth­er by mak­ing a few stitch­es around, being care­ful that the white yarn is not show­ing through the brown shell, i.e. sewing through the stitch­es that are on the inside of the shell. I sup­pose one could also attach the shell and flesh togeth­er with a blob hot glue at the bot­tom, that might be more straightforward.

Last­ly, make arms and legs and attach to coconut.

So here we have it -

“Piña!”

“Coladaaah!”

I real­ized that coconut in Span­ish isn’t “cola­da”, like I’ve always thought. I found out that “Cola­da” actu­al­ly means “strained”. But coconut need­ed some mag­net­ic alpha­bets to pose with. Hence the picture.

Again, I hope the pat­tern is clear. If you come across any prob­lem or need clar­i­fi­ca­tion please drop me a note!

What is your name. What is your quest. What is your favourite colour.

Purple/pink flow­ers with white and yel­low cen­ters. We saw them in some­one’s front gar­den on Sunday.

Blob of yel­low sink­ing into sea of white in a make-shift paint con­tain­er (i.e. plas­tic egg car­ton) on a pur­ple table cloth.

And speak­ing of colours, this morn­ing I came across this colour per­son­al­i­ty test via How About Orange. The results look sur­pris­ing­ly elab­o­rate. And here is a bit of what it said about me:

You are 45 % extro­vert and 55 % introvert. 

You are able to have an in-depth think­ing, you think before act­ing, and you know how to com­mu­ni­cate your knowledge.

You are also a leader, you know how to orga­nize the groups of per­sons and give them your energy.

Final­ly you are cre­ative, you always have new ideas, and your inspi­ra­tion comes from the inside.

In your rela­tions with oth­ers, the bonds that you cre­at­ed with your fam­i­ly and friends rep­re­sent 54% of your core emo­tions. Your cre­ativ­i­ty, your open­ness and your need to open up to renew­al in your life have also an impact of 45%. 

Also, your point of view and your deci­sion-mak­ing are moti­vat­ed by your inner con­vic­tion at 58%. Dia­logue and exchange of views with oth­ers are tak­en into account at 41%.

Final­ly, your actions and behav­iour are deter­mined by your sen­si­bil­i­ty and that of your part­ner at a ratio of 60%. Then you are dri­ven at 39% by own will and per­son­al goals.

And all that from pick­ing out colours from most favourite to least favourite, and then again from least favourite to most favourite… the inter­net does know every­thing, does­n’t it? Includ­ing things that we don’t even know about our­selves! Yikes.

What I’m real­ly won­der­ing is, why do all the per­cent­ages only add up to 99? Where did that 1% go?

I’m con­vinced that the inter­net is try­ing to with­hold some infor­ma­tion from me. And that infor­ma­tion must be real­ly impor­tant, and it’s all encap­su­lat­ed in that 1%.

When we first met, Mike had this greet­ing on his answer­ing machine:

“What is your name. What is your quest. What is your favourite colour.” (These ques­tions were stat­ed, not asked. So that made it kind of con­fus­ing when I called him for the first time. I think I left a mes­sage say­ing that my favourite colour was blue.)

My quest, now, would be to find out what the inter­net knows about me and my favourite colours!!! That one per­cent

Let me know if you do the test too, would you?

In progress…

This past week­end, I start­ed anoth­er shirt recon­struc­tion project with one of Mike’s shirts that he no longer wants to wear.

I’ve actu­al­ly done the recon­struc­tion part, now wait­ing to sew on a trim cro­cheted with cot­ton thread. I want to wash the trim in the laun­dry once to see if it shrinks before sewing it on. Will prob­a­bly be able to post the fin­ished prod­uct next week :D

I was also work­ing on a free pat­tern from Lion Brand Yarn called an “Acorn Shrug”, which looks like this:

I real­ly liked the col­lar, and the name of the pat­tern, so I start­ed on it. After work­ing on it for a week I real­ized it’s going to take for­ev­er to fin­ish and it uses up tremen­dous amount of yarn. And it was a bit bor­ing to make, because it’s basi­cal­ly a huge rec­tan­gle made with hun­dreds of thou­sands of sin­gle cro­chet stitch­es. So I decid­ed to unrav­el it. This is an action shot of me unrav­el­ing it.

Yarn nog­gin! As big as my nog­gin and I was only 1/3 through the pat­tern. Imag­ine all the yarn it would take to fin­ish mak­ing it!

So now I decid­ed to make this Copen­hagen jack­et from Nat­u­ral­ly Caron Yarn instead (and unlike Lion Brand Yarn, one does­n’t have to sign up to be a mem­ber to access the free pat­terns. SO! Cro­chet along, any­one? :D).

It has the same col­lar that I like, and prob­a­bly takes up the same amount of yarn, but more of dif­fer­ent stitch pat­terns and there­fore more fun to make. I have a ton of that white yarn any­way, all donat­ed :D

I will be report­ing my progress peri­od­i­cal­ly, stay tuned!

Hope you’re enjoy­ing the sun and warm weather!