april flowers

 

I love bloom­ing trees. They make the city look hap­py and new.

 

 

 

The African vio­let on my desk is doing real­ly well this spring — look at this bou­quet! It’s real­ly too gen­er­ous, I rarely fer­til­ize it (I do talk to it though), but every time I trim the leaves it pro­duces more flowers.

 

And tulips are out in the near­by park!

 

And a very cool float­ing flower table decor at a cafe Mike and I went to.

 

And they had star­ry ceil­ing lights.

 

Wish­ing you a great start to the week! :D

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Mag­no­lia nap­kin rings made from paper plates, from the always awe­some Aunt Peach­es.

 

Screen print­ing with embroi­dery hoop, nylons and mod podge, would real­ly love to give it a try! From Cal­i­co Skies. 

 

Ruched leg­gings made from t‑shirts. Looks like the tuto­r­i­al is for kids-size leg­gings, but maybe I can find an extra extra large t‑shirt in the men sec­tion and it will work for me… From Luvin the Mom­my­hood.

 

I once saw a shirt at a thrift store that had a piece of sad-look­ing toast on it and it said “I feel crum­by”. So regret­ting not buy­ing it! But I can now make my own crum­by toast with poly­mer clay, and also hap­py ones :D From Craft Left­overs.

 

Make a desk­top cal­en­dar with a cas­sette tape case! Bril­liant. From Pys­sel­bo­laget.

 

Also bril­liant is plas­ticine art framed in a CD case. From I Made It So.

 

Funky stripped socks for chairs! :D I’m think­ing they would make real­ly great house warm­ing gifts. Pat­tern on Sim­ply Notable.

 

It’s like my teacup mush­rooms, except with real plants! Going to make this next time I pick up some teacups from the thrift store :D From Sew Trashy.

 

Made from sewing two silk scarves togeth­er. Sim­ply awe­some. From Talk 2 the Trees.

 

Bear, made from a sock. Very neat. Spot­ted on The Meta Pic­ture.

 

Very sophis­ti­cat­ed-look­ing origa­mi bows. Fold­ing dia­gram via How About Orange.

 

Would­n’t this make an awe­some pin? :D Pat­tern is in Ital­ian but Google trans­late does a pret­ty good job. From Il blog di Lau­ra.

 

Have a won­der­ful Mon­day! :D

 

 

a long overdue shop update!

Spent the past week cro­chet­ing and sewing, and final­ly a shop update! :D I haven’t been putting a lot of effort into the Etsy shop, to be hon­est, but my friend has just opened a phys­i­cal shop down­town and I real­ly want­ed to make some stuff for her, so I thought I’d put some new stuff in my shop as well :D

 

I had this idea in my head for a long time, a grassy brooch with flow­ers on it, but could­n’t fig­ure out what I should use to make the flow­ers, what kind of flow­ers I want to make, etc. It final­ly all came togeth­er when the weath­er was get­ting warm and the dan­de­lions start­ed bloom­ing, and I was remind­ed of the back­yard in my fam­i­ly’s first home in Cana­da. It was in North­ern Ontario and we had wild ros­es and, of course, dan­de­lions in the yard. We’ve nev­er had a yard or gar­den in Hong Kong, so this was quite new to us. We plant­ed oth­er things too, like pan­sies. But the wild ros­es and dan­de­lions, they’re the ones that came back spring after spring with­out water­ing, tena­cious­ly, per­sis­tent­ly, care-free.

So! The spring gar­den brooch is in the shop! :D

 

 

I also made an oval one.

 

The brooches were a lot of fun to make. I’m hop­ing to make more soon, maybe with dif­fer­ent flowers.

And here’s snow mush­room’s cousin, spring mush­room! :D

 

Spring mush­rooms like sun­bathing and pic­nick­ing on sun­ny days and falling asleep to the sound of the rain. He has shiny sequins on his cap. 

 

There’s also anoth­er cousin of snow mush­room, the snowflake mush­room. She will be liv­ing in my friend’s shop.

 

Snowflake mush­room has snowflakes on her cap.

 

The orig­i­nal snow mush­room is still avail­able at the shop :D

And here are the ones I’m bring­ing to my friend’s shop — the teacup mushrooms!

It’s also an idea that I’ve been think­ing about for a while. The grassy bit is a lid, so one could put things in the teacup, like can­dy, loose change, a rock col­lec­tion, love notes…

Here’s anoth­er one…

 

When I was at the thrift store I saw these glass­ware and I thought these would be just per­fect for the snow mush­rooms! So I had to make them too.

 

They have spark­ly beads on their caps :D

 

The teacup and glass­ware mush­rooms are only at my friend’s shop for now, but I’d be hap­py to mak­ing them on com­mis­sion :D

 

It was a bliss­ful week cro­chet­ing, drink­ing tea and watch­ing Gil Gris­som solve crimes…

The mush­rooms and I wish you a love­ly week­end! :D 

 

 

 

simply minty

Sat­ur­day, movie night (Ponyo! I high­ly rec­om­mend it :D), per­fect time for a mint hot chocolate.

Mike saw a “recipe” for mak­ing mint hot choco­late in our local gro­cery store’s fly­er. We made a pot of pep­per­mint tea and dis­solved hot choco­late mix with it. It’s that sim­ple :D

 

It was sur­pris­ing­ly VERY minty. Will have to make this again soon.

I tried to avoid get­ting clut­ter into the hot choco­late pho­tos as much as pos­si­ble, but as you may guess the cof­fee table is yet again cov­ered in but­tons, yarn, hooks and nee­dles. I’m work­ing on some new projects for a friend’s new shop for hand­made stuff! Can’t wait to show you when I’m done :D

Have a great evening!

 

 

super awesome week :D

Last week was the first week after school was done, I quick­ly filled it with trips to the craft/bead/fabric stores and a craft day with friends!

Found an acorn charm for 75ï¿  at the bead store :D It’s my new favourite neck­lace at the moment.

 

Then my friend and I went to the friend­ly fab­ric store down the street from the bead store, and African print cot­ton was on sale! Going to make more square blous­es (like the blue one in this post).

 

Lat­er in the week a friend came over to make uni­forms for her floor hock­ey team. We made sten­cils out of trans­paren­cy plas­tic (I hap­pen to have stacks of them at home) and applied fab­ric paint on the t‑shirts with a cut-up kitchen sponge.

 

We print­ed 22 shirts! One set of navy blue and one set of white. They were lying on the couch drying…

 

And my friend brought over home­made mac­arons! :D They were so good… felt so com­plete­ly spoiled!

 

A very pret­ty pink one with green tea fill­ing :D

 

Have a great start to the week!

 

 

 

cherry blossom festival!

There isn’t an offi­cial fes­ti­val, but every year I treat it like it’s a fes­ti­val :D

 

 

 

 

 

We went a bit ear­ly this year and the trees are not all in bloom, but excit­ing nonethe­less! Even brought a pic­nic of bacon and toma­to sand­wich­es this year :D

 

Saku­ra mochi also enjoy­ing the pic­nic and nice weather.

 

We sat beside a tree with some grassy moss grow­ing on it.

 

Then we walked around and came across this strong tree by the water.

 

And a red-winged black bird!

 

Have a hap­py Sunday!

 

 

 

 

happy sweet 2nd! :D

gen­uine mud­pie is two! :D

To cel­e­brate I’ve writ­ten my very first gar­ment pattern! 

 

A par­ty sweater, kind of like the rain­bow cake from gen­uine mud­pie’s first birth­day. The colour scheme also reminds me of pic­tures of cir­cus in chil­dren’s books :D

The pink and yel­low are scrap yarn giv­en to me so I don’t real­ly know what they are. The pink is prob­a­bly acrylic but the yel­low feels like mohair. I like how the the fuzzi­ness gives it dif­fer­ent textures. 

 

I did­n’t make this up all by myself though. It’s inspired by this knit­ted sweater by Kate Knits. I love the shape of it and real­ly want­ed to make it but I could­n’t under­stand the knit­ting instruc­tion. So I thought maybe I can make up some­thing sim­i­lar with crochet.

I also don’t know how to cal­cu­late stitch counts for dif­fer­ent sizes, but here’s the dimen­sion of the one I made, and I’ll pro­vide some guide­lines for mak­ing smaller/larger sizes. It’s mea­sure-as-you-go and cus­tomiz­able :D

Note: I blocked the top part of the sweater before tak­ing the mea­sure­ments below.

 

As you can see, the con­struc­tion is fair­ly straight­for­ward, and it works up very quick­ly (I made it over the East­er long week­end while watch­ing action movies on TV :D). Though I messed up the stitch cal­cu­la­tion for the shell pat­tern rows in the one I made, but I think I’ve got it fig­ured out now for the writ­ten pat­tern. But since this is the first time I try writ­ing a gar­ment pat­tern there may be lots of mis­takes — so if you try it and spot any­thing wonky please let me know, I’d great­ly appre­ci­ate any cor­rec­tions and feedback!

So let’s get to it! :D

Yarn: I used four 50g balls of sport weight yarn for the main colour (MC), plus a bit of pink (C1) and yel­low (C2). If you’re mak­ing a larg­er size more yarn will be required. 

Hook: 6mm — I want­ed the gauge to be pret­ty loose so the fab­ric will drape nicely.

Sweater is cro­cheted flat, bot­tom up, in two iden­ti­cal pieces (front and back) and sewn togeth­er at the shoul­der seams and side/underarm seams.

Guide­lines for smaller/larger sizes are in italics.

Body:

With MC, ch 56.

For smaller/larger size, minus or add 6 stitch­es in the foun­da­tion ch. 6 stitch­es mea­sures about 2″. 

Row 1: hdc in 3rd ch from hook, hdc in each ch across, turn. (55 hdc — the begin­ning ch counts as an hdc)

Row 2: ch 2 (turn­ing ch counts as an hdc.), hdc in next hdc, hdc in each hdc across, hdc in top of begin­ning ch, turn.

Repeat row 2 until piece mea­sures 13.5″.

For smaller/larger sizes, cro­chet to desired length mea­sur­ing from under­arm. Each hdc row mea­sures about 0.5″.

Sleeves:

Row 1: at the end of last row of body, ch 7, hdc in 3rd ch from hook, hdc in each of the next 5 ch, hdc in each hdc across, hdc in top of begin­ning ch. Take hook off loop, but don’t fas­ten off.

Attach a sep­a­rate ball of MC to the top of the hdc that is direct­ly below the last hdc just made, ch 6, fas­ten off.

Place hook back in the loop where it was left off at the end of last row, hdc in each of the 6 ch just made, turn.

For smaller/larger size, minus or add mul­ti­ples of 3 ch on each of the sleeves, just be mind­ful that the total stitch count needs to be a mul­ti­ple of 6 plus 1 for the shell pat­tern lat­er on.

Row 2: ch 2 (turn­ing ch counts as an hdc.), hdc in next hdc, hdc in each hdc across, hdc in top of begin­ning ch, turn.

Repeat row 2 sev­en more times.

For smaller/larger sizes, mea­sure from top of shoul­der to under­arm, then minus 4″ (shell pat­tern rows),  and cro­chet to that length mea­sur­ing from the start of the sleeves. Each hdc row mea­sures about 0.5″.

Shell pat­tern rows:

Fas­ten off MC, attach C1.

Row 1: ch 3 (counts as 1 dc), 2 dc in first hdc, skip next 2 hdc, sc in next hdc, *skip next 2 hdc, 5dc in next dc, skip next 2 hdc, sc in next hdc*. Repeat from * to * until last 3 hdc, 3 dc in top of turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 2: ch 1, sc in first dc, skip next 2 dc, *5 dc in next sc, skip next 2 dc, sc in next dc, skip next 2 dc*. Repeat from * to * until last 3 dc, sc in top of turn­ing ch.

Fas­ten off C1, attach C2. 

Row 1: ch 3, 2 dc in sc, skip next 2 dc, sc in next dc, *skip next 2 dc, 5 dc in next sc, skip next 2 dc, sc in next dc*. Repeat from * to *, 3 dc in last sc, turn.

Repeat row 2 of C1.

Fas­ten off C2, attach C1. Repeat rows 1 and 2 of C2.

Fas­ten off C1, attach MC.

MC row: ch 2, hdc and dc in first sc, skip next 2 dc, hdc in next dc, skip next 2 dc, *[dc, hdc, sc, hdc, dc] in next sc, skip next 2 dc, hdc in next dc, skip next 2 sc*. Repeat from * to * until last 3 dc, hdc in top of turn­ing ch, turn.

Shoul­ders:

ch 2, hdc in each of next 13 hdc, dc tog next 2 hdc, fas­ten off.

Count 15 stitch­es from the end of the row toward the cen­ter, attach MC to the 15th stitch. ch 2, dc tog next 2 hdc, hdc in each hdc across, hdc in turn­ing hdc, fas­ten off.

For smaller/larger sizes, mea­sure how wide you want the neck open­ing to be and the width of your shoul­ders, and deter­mine the stitch count for the shoul­ders row accordingly.

Repeat entire piece once more.

Sew shoul­der seams together. 

Attach MC to cen­ter back of neck, sl st in each st around neck­line, fas­ten off and weave in ends.

Sew under­arm and side seams togeth­er. Weave in ends.

Attach MC to cen­ter back of the bot­tom of the sweater, ch 1, 1 sc in same st, 1 sc in each st around, sl st in first sc, fas­ten off and weave in ends. 

Note: I did­n’t cro­chet a fin­ish­ing round around the arm open­ings, I just made sure that I weaved in all the ends neatly.

Block if desired.

And it’s done! :D 

 

Here’s to a sec­ond won­der­ful year in the blo­gos­phere! Thank you so much for jour­ney­ing with me, look­ing for­ward to shar­ing more crafty adven­tures and every­day inspi­ra­tions with you :D

 

 

 

all-purpose cardigan

 

Have been look­ing for an all-pur­pose cardi­gan a while. You know, a cardi­gan that will go with any­thing. I fol­lowed this pat­tern, and used a neu­tral grey wool, with a soft yel­low bor­der to make it a bit more interesting.

I made it over the past month while work­ing on final papers. It kept me from los­ing my mind :)

And now that school is out I’ve been exper­i­ment­ing on a new pat­tern for the blo­giver­sary of gen­uine mud­pie! I know, I’m a month late (it was some­times in the mid­dle of March, but I was so busy it came and went before I real­ized it), but I sup­pose bet­ter late than nev­er! It’s my very first gar­ment pat­tern, will be post­ing it once I have it blocked and pho­tographed :D

Also went on our annu­al cher­ry blos­som view­ing this week­end! Will be post­ing about that soon as well. Lots of blog­ging to do this week! :D Yay end of semester!

Have a great start to the week, everyone!

 

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

I meant to write this post ear­li­er, but have been busy writ­ing the one final paper for the school year — and it’s done! Hur­ray! But before I knew it, there are only 30 min­utes till East­er Fri­day! A lit­tle late for East­er crafts, I sup­pose. But who says marsh­mal­low peeps and sheep can only be around dur­ing Easter?

 

Cable sheep! I think I can make this one after a whole lot of prac­tic­ing on this shrug :D From Lion Brand Yarn (free, but sign-in required).

 

How CUTE!! A felt marsh­mal­low peep! From Michael Ann Made.

 

I was nev­er suc­cess­ful in blow­ing out an egg. Rocks are nice hardy alter­na­tives! :D From Can­dice Ash­ment Art.

 

A very nice­ly designed origa­mi bun­ny. Link to the dia­gram on How About Orange. 

 

And now, some all-year crafts! An amigu­ru­mi cro­chet hook! How cool is that? Pat­tern on Nerdig­u­ru­mi.

 

I’m only able to grab a very small image, but you can see how cute this is :D Pat­tern (and larg­er images) for for­tune cook­ie baby booties on Craft­sy. The dol­lar stores sell those Chi­nese take­out box­es, don’t they?

 

Bril­liant way to repur­pose an old chop­ping board. From Fam­i­ly Chic.

 

This would make an awe­some shirt pat­tern! Must get myself some wood­en clothes­pins… From Easy Peasy Pie.

 

Hap­py East­er, everyone!

 

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