Category: news

Merry Christmas!

Posted on by trish

This year Mike and I mar­bled paper using shav­ing cream and made Christ­mas cards with them. It was a lot of fun and I wish you can smell the refresh­ing scent from across the screen! :D 

Thank you so much for jour­ney­ing with me this year. Though my posts have been few and far in between since the fall, this blog has been with me since 2010 and is still a joy­ful anchor amidst var­i­ous busy and chaot­ic times in my life. Thank you for being a part of it by vis­it­ing, read­ing and shar­ing your thoughts too!

Wish­ing you a won­der­ful hol­i­day, with time to pause, rest, re-ener­gize, craft, eat good food, share lots of laughs with your loved ones, and craft some more :D

yarn elfing

Posted on by trish

If you have been jour­ney­ing with me on this blog, you might recall that I like to call hol­i­day gift-mak­ing “elf­ing”. It is that time of the year again for us busy elves! Although I’m not a very pro­duc­tive elf this year… Not much yarn-craft­ing hap­pen­ing, just paper-writ­ing… sup­pose those count as gifts for my professors…

It is also the time of year when we think about mak­ing for those beyond our own cir­cles of fam­i­lies and friends who can real­ly use our gifts of crafti­ness with yarn. The nice folks at Yarn Cana­da are part­ner­ing with Bernat Yarn to give away yarn for indi­vid­u­als and groups who craft for a good cause! Do you and your friends make scarves and hats for peo­ple to find? Or win­ter gears for shel­ters? Or soft pros­thet­ics for breast can­cer sur­vivors? Or prac­tice oth­er kinds of yarn-kind­ness? Check out this page on Yarn Canada’s web­site for more details on how to enter this give-away for a good cause! 

In the mean­while, here are some awe­some ideas I found for the yarn-craft­ing elves…

These very cute cup cozies are loom knit­ted on a 24-peg loom. It’s a paid pat­tern on Rav­el­ry but the how-to video is free on Tuteate’s Youtube chan­nel (which have excel­lent and real­ly well-made loom knit projects!). By Mireia Marcet on Rav­el­ry.

 

Absolute­ly stun­ning granny square by Kirsten Hol­loway Designs.

 

A free pat­tern on We Are Knit­ters and it’s an amigu­ru­mi alpaca! :D

 

An ins­ta-grat­i­fi­ca­tion wool-craft, all you need is some tufts of wool, some pipe clean­ers, some poms, and some love. Bril­liant. From Hand­made Char­lotte.

 

Hap­py craft­ing, everyone!

 

 

today is the day! =(^・x・^)=

Posted on by trish

Today IS the day! The annu­al Toron­to Yarn Hop! Catur­day the cup cozy is chill­ing out at my neigh­bour­hood LYS Yarn­som­ni­acs, one of the many excit­ing stops on our grand tour of Toron­to LYS’s today!

A bunch of us (over 120 peo­ple, to be more pre­cise! :D) are yarn-craft­ing in pub­lic tran­sit and going around to dif­fer­ent inde­pen­dent yarn shops today while rais­ing funds for Sis­ter­ing, a 24/7 drop-in/­sup­port cen­tre for women who are home­less or pre­car­i­ous­ly housed. Last year we raised around $2700, which went toward much need­ed ser­vices such as pri­ma­ry health­care, coun­selling, sup­port groups and meal pro­gram (learn more about the event by read­ing my pre­vi­ous post here).

If you’re not able to phys­i­cal­ly come to the yarn hop this year, you can still join us (and help us reach our fundrais­ing goal of $3000!) by donat­ing to Sis­ter­ing through this link here, and in return I will send you the pat­tern for the Catur­day cup cozy (more pho­tos here), which is a pat­tern that I wrote for yarn hop par­tic­i­pants to cro­chet along. You can donate any amount and you don’t have to tell me how much or send me proof, just sim­ply make a dona­tion then email me at genuinemudpie@gmail.com to let me know, and I will send you the pat­tern in appreciation :)

Hap­py weekend!

 

 

Caturday… and count down to YARN HOP!

Posted on by trish

 

The Great Toron­to Yarn Hop is com­ing up in exact­ly a week, on July 14! :D

All of us vol­un­teers are get­ting super excit­ed and busy orga­niz­ing for a fun day knit­ting/cro­chet­ing/­yarn-craft­ing in pub­lic with oth­er yarn enthu­si­asts. It’s a great event for peo­ple to get to know each oth­er, make a state­ment about the impor­tance of craft and cre­ativ­i­ty by craft­ing in pub­lic, and sup­port inde­pen­dent yarn-craft businesses.

So how does it work, you ask? Yarn-hop­pers buy tick­ets and get orga­nized into teams that take dif­fer­ent pub­lic tran­sit routes through­out the city to vis­it dif­fer­ent inde­pen­dent yarn shops. At the end of the day we recon­vene at a resto-pub for food, drinks and raf­fles. Pro­ceeds from tick­ets and raf­fles go to Sis­ter­ing, a 24/7 wom­en’s sup­port and drop-in cen­tre that offers much need­ed ser­vices like pri­ma­ry health­care, sup­port groups, coun­selling and meal pro­gram to women who are expe­ri­enc­ing homelessness/precarious hous­ing, social mar­gin­al­iza­tion and oth­er chal­leng­ing circumstances.

Sis­ter­ing has a spe­cial place in my heart because that was where I trained as a social work­er. The par­tic­i­pants, vol­un­teers and staff were the most valu­able, knowl­edge­able teach­ers and I would­n’t know what I know now and be where I am today with­out them.

There are still tick­ets left on a few of the routes, you can find out more details and buy tick­ets here! 

If you can’t phys­i­cal­ly come to the Yarn Hop, you can still join us! I wrote a cro­chet cup cozy pat­tern as part of the gifts for the Yarn Hop par­tic­i­pants, called Catur­day (because, you know, the Yarn Hop is on a Sat­ur­day). You can donate to Sis­ter­ing through this Yarn Hop link, and I will send you the pattern! 

You can donate any amount, and you don’t have to let me know how much you donat­ed or send me any proof, I trust that we all want to make a dif­fer­ence in some­one’s life when we have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to. Sim­ply send me an email at genuinemudpie@gmail.com let­ting me know that you have donat­ed, and I will send you a pdf file of the pat­tern in reply :)

The cup cozy uses a small amount of DK yarn and 4 mm hook. It has a dense, tex­tured fab­ric that will keep your fin­gers safe from hot bev­er­ages. If you’re not into cats, sim­ply omit the last row and the embroi­dery, and you’ll have a sim­ple yet not-so-plain cup cozy to show off a beau­ti­ful yarn. Great for using up scraps!

Want to know more about how your dona­tions will make a dif­fer­ence? Vis­it Sis­ter­ing’s web­site for infor­ma­tion and inspir­ing sto­ries from the most resilient women. 

In the mean­while, I was also busy loom knit­ting a mas­cot for the team that Mike and I are co-lead­ing — Team Alpaca! Look how cuu­uute… (if I do say so myself, haha)

I’ve named him Cousin Alpaca, because I have a plush lla­ma, who is per­haps like a cousin to alpaca…? Any­way, I thought Cousin Alpaca is a good name :D

If you loom knit and want to make your own alpaca, the pat­tern is by the Loom Muse and can be found here. 

If you’re in or near Toron­to, come hang out with us and Cousin Alpaca next Sat­ur­day! :D Hope your week­end is full of crafty goodness!

 

 

this week’s awesome finds… and YARN HOP!

Posted on by trish

Adorable lla­mas to hold your yarn/embroidery scraps and it’s a free print­able! :D From Picot Pals.

 

These would make cheer­ful buntings and adorable blan­ket squares. Lla­ma granny squares from Mari­a’s Blue Cray­on.

 

Look at these par­ty lla­mas made of par­ty plates! From Hand­made Char­lotte.

 

For the more adven­tur­ous, this no-dra­ma-lla­ma is very cud­dly. Free pat­tern from Red Heart <3

Why so many lla­mas, you ask?

Well, this year I’m going to be team cap­tain again for The Great Toron­to Yarn Hop on Sat­ur­day July 14, and I’m with Team Alpaca! (for­mer­ly TTC Knit-Along — but we want to expand the name to include all forms of yarn-craft­ing and we actu­al­ly have no offi­cial affil­i­a­tion with the Toron­to Tran­sit Com­mis­sion, hence the name change)

Alpacas are kind of cousins of lla­mas (I think), hence all the lla­ma crafts :)

What’s so great about The Great Toron­to Yarn Hop? It is an event where yarn-crafters get into teams and vis­it var­i­ous local yarn shops in Toron­to, shop for high qual­i­ty yarn and enjoy spe­cial dis­counts, knit/cro­chet/­yarn-craft in pub­lic on buses/streetcars/trains, meet oth­er yarn enthu­si­asts and share projects/tips/jokes, sup­port inde­pen­dent LYS’s, AND raise funds for Sis­ter­ing, a local, 24/7 drop-in and sup­port cen­tre for women that offers ser­vices like coun­selling, hous­ing help, meal pro­gram, pri­ma­ry health­care, and a safe place to be. At the end of the day we all gath­er at a pub for food and drinks and raf­fle draws! I’ve only been involved for the past cou­ple of years but this event is in its 12th year! What can be more great? 

If you’re in Toron­to or close to it, we would love for you to join us! Tick­ets can be bought here for just $20. Each team fol­lows a dif­fer­ent route that vis­its dif­fer­ent stores, and you can check out all the dif­fer­ent avail­able teams/routes and how the whole thing works here. And be quick because quite a few teams have sold out already! 

Need ideas for what projects to shop for or what to make dur­ing the Yarn Hop?

This cardi­gan is made with two hexa­gons sewn togeth­er! Very clever. Make it with a breeze cotton/linen for sum­mer or wool for cozy fall/winter lay­er­ing! Imag­ine using yarn with long tran­si­tion colour changes! From Make & Do Crew.

 

What about a portable project per­fect for knit­ting on the pub­lic tran­sit, like these fluffy clouds? From Bernat Yarn.

 

Mak­ing granny squares is anoth­er excel­lent portable idea. This com­fy sum­mer sweater pat­tern is free this week only on Love Cro­chet!

 

Hap­py mak­ing, every­one! :D

 

sneak peeks!

Posted on by trish

It’s been qui­et on the blog for a while, and that’s because I’ve been busy work­ing on a mul­ti-pat­tern project!

I’m going to put out an e‑book!

Yes!

I thought I’ve been writ­ing up pat­terns for a while, per­haps it’s time to put togeth­er some­thing more “offi­cial”, with dif­fer­ent siz­ing options, etc.

One of the projects does involve the above black cat, and to join in the fun you can down­load the peek­ing cat pic­ture above as a desk­top wall­pa­per! Get the full size pic­ture here and then right-click it to set it as a back­ground, so you too can have those glow­ing eyes peer­ing at you every time you turn on your computer ;)

Here are a few sneak peeks of some of the pat­terns in the book! I’m still work­ing on one oth­er, hop­ing to put this out some­times in July :) 

Yes, this top can be worn with either side in front — it’s like two tops in one! :D

And this one def­i­nite­ly needs a bet­ter pho­to shoot than stripes-on-stripes — but I was feel­ing hap­py that the drape worked out as the way I imagined.

So, stay tuned! :D And hope every­one’s enjoy­ing some sun this week!

 

shine on

Posted on by trish

 

In these dark and uncer­tain times, there can be great val­ue in imag­in­ing a bit of star in each human soul. Not just that it gives some hope for human­i­ty at a time when man’s inhu­man­i­ty to man seems ever on the increase; but also because it points to an inner bright­ness that can light the way in dark times. 

― Michael Meade, The Genius Myth

 

May each of us shine on with hope, peace, love, and craft­ing hands into 2018!

Much grat­i­tude for every­one who jour­neyed with gen­uine mud­pie over the past year. Look­ing for­ward to shar­ing more crafty good­ness in the next! May your Christ­mas and new year be mer­ry, and may you be sur­round­ed by warmth, love, new inspi­ra­tions, and many bless­ings in 2018.

All my best wishes,
Trish

 

tutorials, tutorials, tutorials

Posted on by trish

Remem­ber saku­ra mochi? :D

He’s the first ever post­ed pat­tern on this blog!! Feels like ages ago. It is ages ago. It was in March 2010 that I start­ed this blog, and today it is home to over 40 tiny plush pat­terns, almost 20 wear­able pat­terns, and over 30 oth­er craft tutorials.

When I came up with the num­bers I was quite blown away myself! Actu­al­ly I was more blown away by the fact that I nev­er count­ed or took stock of what has been cre­at­ed on this blog until now. Real­ly because I have two days off, with noth­ing planned, but only had to use up the vaca­tion hours that would oth­er­wise be lost by the end of the year. 

So I did a tuto­r­i­al over­haul! :D

I real­ized that even when I was scrolling through my own tuto­ri­als it was tedious to have to scroll for­ev­er back and forth to find what I need. So I cat­e­go­rized them! 

If you go to the Tuto­ri­als page now, you’ll see a list of cat­e­gories, from tiny plush to non-yarn crafts! 

I don’t know how to do this just yet but in the future I hope to lay­out the tuto­ri­als in a grid rather than a list, like I see on oth­er nice mod­ern look­ing blogs :) But I hope at least the cat­e­gories make things eas­i­er to find.

In the begin­ning this blog was more for me as a way to feel moti­vat­ed to cre­ate, and record pat­terns and how-to’s that I come up with so I can go back to them lat­er if I need to remake some­thing. I real­ly only expect­ed about a dozen peo­ple read­ing it, most­ly my fam­i­ly and friends. It’s nev­er intend­ed to make prof­it. I wel­come yarn and relat­ed prod­ucts and pro­mote yarn-relat­ed busi­ness­es by writ­ing review posts, but I always turn down offers for ads. I have not yet writ­ten a pat­tern for sale. I’m lazy about the blog’s appear­ance (hence the long over­due tuto­r­i­al over­haul and the ear­ly 2000’s look, kind of like my every­day appear­ance :S). But it’s a com­fort­able place that I always go back to, a vir­tu­al home, updat­ing and writ­ing posts even when I’m swamped, even when I don’t feel like it, even when I thought it’s not amount­ing to any­thing, even when Word­Press tells me that my read­er­ship is dwin­dling. Some­how, I want to keep it alive.

Since then I’ve met many great peo­ple through this blog, shar­ing such kind com­ments and craft­ing along, let­ting me know that they’re try­ing out my pat­terns, exchang­ing notes so we can fig­ure out mod­i­fi­ca­tions togeth­er, com­mu­ni­cat­ing in dif­fer­ent lan­guages across the con­ti­nents (me using Google Trans­late), actu­al­ly exchang­ing snail mail and hop­ing to one day meet in per­son… I’m so grate­ful for the con­nec­tions and for the kind­ness you’ve shown me and gen­uine mud­pie. Per­haps it is not real­ly the blog that I want to keep alive, but the con­nec­tions and cre­ativ­i­ty that sus­tain this blog.

So cheers to you! Let’s craft for­ward! :D

 

mystery dino CAL!

Posted on by trish

Intro­duc­ing — mys­tery dino cro­chet-along! :D

This idea has been brew­ing in my head for a while, to make a series of tiny dinosaurs, think­ing about dif­fer­ent dinosaur shapes and ways to artic­u­late them with cro­chet stitch­es… and I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out the best way to orga­nize it and invite every­one to join in on the fun. But at the same time find­ing myself pro­cras­ti­nat­ing with the design­ing… So I fig­ure, I’d just launch it! That would make sure that I do it!

So here it is! Over the next lit­tle while you’ll find a dinosaur pat­tern post­ed every week, or, “exca­vat­ed” from a square of the bad­lands above (ha!). Fol­low along to see what dinosaurs get unearthed! :D 

As you can see one dinosaur is already out! You can find the tiny stegosaurus here. 

What to do with tiny dinosaurs, you ask? It makes a won­der­ful zip­per pull, brooch/pin, and trav­el companion…

They would also make real­ly friend­ly fridge mag­nets. Or a baby mobile with all of them togeth­er. Or a pock­et pal. They’re flat so it’s super easy to mail one to some­one to bright­en their day! Noth­ing says “nev­er in a mil­lion years did I think I’d find some­one so utter­ly per­fect…” bet­ter than send­ing a dinosaur! (haha, maybe not, but still! Who does­n’t love a tiny dino?) 

So I invite you to jour­ney along, and send me your dinosaur pics, and at the end I’ll put my ama­teur graph­ic design skills to good use and make a vir­tu­al dino par­ty with all of your pic­tures! It will be a riot! :D

You can share your pic­tures by:

  1. Email­ing genuinemudpie[at]gmail[dot]com
  2. Blog­gers: leave a com­ment on any of the Mys­tery Dino CAL posts with a link to your blog post with the picture.
  3. Insta­gram: tag me @genuinemudpie and use the hash­tag #mys­tery­dinocal
  4. Join the Rav­el­ry group
  5. Post your FOs to my Rav­el­ry dino project pages! 

 

I hope you will join me! Have a rawr­rring week­end every­one! :D 

 

countdown to the TTC knitalong!

Posted on by trish

I spent yes­ter­day morn­ing stuff­ing awe­some swag bags with awe­some peo­ple for every­one com­ing to the TTC Kni­ta­long (heart-eyes, heart-eyes, heart-eyes). Check this out!

So excit­ed!! It’s only one week away! It’s not too late to sign up, but hur­ry, there are only a few tick­ets left!

So grate­ful for the spon­sors this year!! <3 we’ve got very nice mer­cer­ized cot­ton, large but­tons, nee­dles, hooks and knooks (new craft to learn btw!), gauge ruler, and knit­ting patterns!

There are ALSO lots and lots of YARN raf­fle prizes, which you can check out on the TTC Kni­ta­long Insta­gram feed :) And you can get a free raf­fle tick­et for every yarn or fin­ished item dona­tion! The yarn dona­tions go to orga­ni­za­tions like Street Knit, Knit­ted Knock­ers and hos­pi­tals. Pro­ceeds from the event goes to Sis­ter­ing, a drop-in and sup­port cen­tre for women in Toronto.

Come join us this Sat­ur­day if you’re in the Toron­to area! :D You’ll see me with team Mag­ic Loop!

Have a good week everyone!