a bird named joy

I was curi­ous about mak­ing sun catch­ers with white glue and beads, some­thing I saw in one of the blogs I fol­low. So I thought I’d give it a try.

Here the glue is set­ting. It took a long time…

setting

 

I was wor­ried that it was going to stick to the mold, but it came out very eas­i­ly :D

joy 1

 

It’s now perch­ing on a small stone vase, it was a birth­day gift I received last year. It’s made from a glazier stone from Nova Sco­tia, one of my favourite places on earth!

joy 2

 

Watch­ing it sit­ting on the vase reminds me of a sto­ry that a very wise woman shared with me this week, The Moun­tain that Loved a Bird by Alice McLer­ran (and so won­der­ful­ly illus­trat­ed by Eric Car­le!).

In the sto­ry are a bar­ren moun­tain and a bird named Joy. It’s a beau­ti­ful sto­ry about sor­row, and how courage, love and hope can emerge from it. A syn­op­sis of the book can be read here. But the book is writ­ten in such a pro­found­ly mov­ing way, if you can get a hold of a copy I real­ly wish you can read it (if you haven’t read it already). 

Take care, everybody!

 

p.s. the let­ting go series is prov­ing to be a bit dif­fi­cult to keep up because of an extreme­ly busy cou­ple of weeks, and because it’s get­ting hard­er to find things to recy­cle or throw out when Mike is doing the same… so I’ve decid­ed to give it a rest for a while, maybe I’ll come back to it in a bit, but I will cer­tain­ly make time to cre­ate when I can, and I will most cer­tain­ly keep you post­ed when I do :D

 

 

 

a very full heart

vday 1

Actu­al­ly man­aged to squeeze in a wee valen­tine’s day craft Wednes­day night — a knit­ted heart from pat­tern by Mochi­mochi Land! :D

I enjoyed the pat­tern very much because it’s knit­ted flat (I’m not very good at knit­ting in the round). And I attached a pin on the back so I can wear it proud­ly, this heart that is very plump and full of grat­i­tude and love for the won­der­ful, most amaz­ing and sup­port­ive man I’m mar­ried to.

 

vday 2

 

Have a won­der­ful week­end, everyone!

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Just in time for valen­tines! :D

 Can­not get over how cute this hedge­hog is! Knit­ting pat­tern from The Purl Bee.

 

 Maybe a bit too late to mail this, but still makes a real­ly cool gift! For birth­days, anniver­saries and oth­er hol­i­days too! From Oh Hap­py Day.

 

 An idea to use with kids, but I think I would have lots of fun with water­colour too :D From Inner Child Fun.

 

 These cute hearts! They would make such a nice brooch all year long! From Mochi­mochi Land.

 

Wish­ing you a very sweet weekend!

Lots of love,
Trish

 

 

sakura

DSC02353

Look­ing for­ward to spring and cher­ry blos­soms! A cozy cir­cle scarf pat­tern for Lunar new year! :D You know, in Chi­nese Lunar New Year is also called 春節, which lit­er­al­ly trans­lates into “spring fes­ti­val” in English.

I’ve been see­ing this com­bi­na­tion of stitch­es (sin­gle cro­chet, chain one) in dif­fer­ent projects around the web, have also used it in my buck­et hat pat­tern for a bas­ket weave kind of tex­ture. Recent­ly I was mak­ing a cir­cle scarf for a friend and fig­ured that when arrang­ing rows of colours in cer­tain ways it actu­al­ly looks kind of like plaid. 

DSC02365

 

It’s made with a larg­er hook so it’s quite soft. 

I used:

Three skeins of worsted weight yarn in grey, pink and white, approx. 100g per skein (only used half a skein for each colour)

9mm hook 

5mm hook (to weave in ends)

Two hours — a very quick project

Cir­cle scarf:

With grey and larg­er hook, ch 130 (you can ch more or less to adjust the length. Mine wraps around my neck twice snug­ly. Just make sure that there is an even num­ber of stitches).

Being care­ful not to twist, sl st in first ch to form a circle.

Row 1: ch 2 (counts as sc, ch 1), *skip next ch, sc in next ch, ch 1* repeat from * to * to end, sl st in first ch of row while chang­ing colour to pink. Here’s how I usu­al­ly change colours at the end of row. When doing the yarn-over to make the sl st at the end of row, yarn-over the new colour (in this case, pink) instead of the work­ing yarn (in this case, grey), like so…

DSC02342

Tie the short end of pink to the work­ing yarn (grey) to secure it. 

Row 2: with pink, TURN (be sure to turn the work at the begin­ning of each row, oth­er­wise the pat­tern will look slant­ed). sc in first ch 1 sp, ch 1, *sc in next ch 1 sp, ch 1* repeat from * to * to end, sl st in first sc of row while chang­ing yarn to white.

Row 3: with white, TURN, car­ry up the oth­er two colours of yarn and wrap them in the first sc in first ch 1 sp, repeat row 2.

With sub­se­quent colour change, yarn-over with the new colour as you make the sl st at the end of the row, TURN, then car­ry up the oth­er two colours and wrap them in the first stitch you make with the new colour in the start of the row. Let go of the oth­er two colours as you go around the scarf.

Repeat Row 3 with the fol­low­ing colour sequence:

Pink

Grey

Pink

White

Pink

Grey

Pink 

White

Pink 

Grey

Pink

White

Pink

Grey

Grey

With small­er hook, weave in ends.

DSC02361

Keep warm until spring arrives! 

 

 

letting go week 5: pile of clothing

feb4 pile of clothes

 

A pile of cloth­ing, which looks a bit like land­scape in picture.

It includes two jumpers that I cro­cheted but did­n’t wear much, but makes some inter­est­ing pat­terns in the pic­ture. Also in the pic­ture are a t‑shirt, a cro­cheted bolero, and a jean skirt I made from a pair of jeans.

And this week we are say­ing good­bye to Lar­ry on Mike’s par­al­lel blo­gi­verse. 

You might also notice that the head­er image has changed! :D I post about many dif­fer­ent kinds of crafts on this blog but I thought the friend­ly mush­room real­ly rep­re­sents what I like and what I like to make the most. And it’s all spring-like and cheerful!

Have a hap­py Thurs­day, everyone!

 

 

 

giraffe winner!

A gigan­tic thank-you to every­one who entered my sec­ond give­away! I’m super excit­ed to announce the winner…

This time I decid­ed to pick the win­ner in style by draw­ing num­bers out of a hat.

giraffe draw

And the win­ner is.….  the 8th com­menter in the post!

Con­grat­u­la­tions Jeanette!!! :D  I will con­tact you by email short­ly for your mail­ing address­es. And yes, I do ship inter­na­tion­al­ly. Giraffe the neck warmer is equal­ly excit­ed to have a new home!! 

 

Thank you to every­one for your support…

have a fan­tas­tic week and a very Hap­py Ground­hog day!

this week’s awesome finds

 

 Infin­i­ty scarf made with fat quar­ters. I espe­cial­ly love the hand stitch­ing on it. From Sew Home­grown.

 

 I don’t have pets, but this looks real­ly pret­ty. And I bet it smells nice. Plus I’ve seen witch hazel in the drug store but nev­er know what it’s used for. Home­made flea repel­lent for fur­ry friends, from MAKE.

 

 Whoa! A totoro bed! Spot­ted on Cut Out and Keep.

 

 A six-month pin­hole expo­sure with a beer can! Mag­i­cal. Maybe one day I’ll give pin­hole pho­tog­ra­phy a try too. Sto­ry on The Pho­tog­ra­ph­er.

 

 A very sweet crea­ture to make for Valen­tine’s Day. Plush kiss gen­er­ous­ly shared for free by Heather Jar­musz  on Rav­el­ry. 

If you’re look­ing for more sweet things to give to loved ones check out Hei­di Ken­ney’s awe­some valen­tine print­able!

Also, it’s just occurred to me that tomor­row is Ground­hog’s Day, and my ground­hog pat­tern is fea­tured on the Lion Brand Yarn blog! :D The one cre­at­ed for the Lion Brand blog post looks much big­ger, made with a thick­er che­nille yarn… I wish I can see the shape of it more clear­ly with­out the dog chew­ing on it, but I’m thank­ful to be men­tioned :D

And last but not least, there are still a few more hours left to enter the Giraffe neck­warmer give­away before it clos­es tonight at midnight!

Have a love­ly week­end, everyone!

 

 

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