spring knitting

There was this buy one get one free deal for Caron Sim­ply Soft yarn one day at Michaels. I was work­ing on a project that need­ed dark blue at the time and thought I only need­ed one skein. So I picked up this fun self-strip­ing fies­ta colour for the free skein because I love the neon yel­low in it. One of my nieces birth­day was com­ing up soon, so I thought I’d make her a fun vest with it :D (pic­tured above) The pat­tern is from issue 88 of Inside Cro­chet, the Imo­gen cardi­gan. I added the arcade stitch to the bot­tom third of it for more fun :)

And then I end­ed up need­ing more of this blue yarn, so I had to get anoth­er skein, and had the chance to pick up yet anoth­er free skein of fun self-strip­ing yarn!

(One might even sus­pect that I did this on pur­pose so I could get more free skeins to grow my stash rather than just get­ting the 2 skeins of blue that I need­ed in my first round of shop­ping. But I promise I real­ly thought I only need­ed one skein of that blue. Who would want to grow their stash? That’s ridiculous.) 

What do I do with this deli­cious mixed berry colour? Turned out that one of my best friends was vis­it­ing from out of town with her most adorable daugh­ter. So I made anoth­er vest, plus a match­ing bias scarf for mum! :D

I used the Chas­ing Bliz­zard pat­tern for the scarf, but only fol­lowed it loose­ly, because my gauge is dif­fer­ent. It was a lot of fun to knit. Here I am kind of mod­el­ling it so you can see the stitch pat­terns a bit better.

And the bun­ny rock­ing the vest :D It was part of a cardi­gan pat­tern from a very old issue of Cro­chet Today magazine. 

She insist­ed on play­ing with the rice cook­er mea­sur­ing cups at the junc­ture of kitchen and din­ing room. (that was how her mum was able to get a pic­ture of the front of the cardigan)

And spring is the per­fect time to go on a knitting/crocheting/yarn craft­ing adven­ture! Two years ago I par­tic­i­pat­ed in the TTC kni­ta­long, it was a great deal of fun vis­it­ing dif­fer­ent local yarn shops, meet­ing oth­er yarn crafters and knit­ting in pub­lic! (you can see my pic­tures here!). I even got a few exclu­sive pat­terns and won a sweater-quan­ti­ty of hand­spun from one of the shops!

This year the kni­ta­long is going to be on Sat­ur­day July 15! It’s been a huge­ly pop­u­lar event that’s entire­ly run by vol­un­teers, so this year I’m help­ing to orga­nize the event and we need a few more yarn-lov­ing folks to help out! So if Toron­to is your neigh­bour­hood and if you love yarn I think you should absolute­ly join me :D

It’s real­ly a fan­tas­tic event that brings peo­ple togeth­er, draws busi­ness to inde­pen­dent yarn shops and ben­e­fits Sis­ter­ing, a local drop-in and sup­port cen­tre for women. So! The next plan­ning meet­ing is Sat­ur­day May 20 at 1pm, and we can even get ice cream after­wards! :D For more infor­ma­tion and updates, check out the even­t’s Face­book page here.

Hope every­one’s enjoy­ing the sun!

 

all was well

This week’s quick make! :D

I had quite a bit of left­over untwist­ed mul­ti-colour yarn left from the pink fish­er­man hat project, I thought it would make a great colour block cowl! Also a per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to try the no purl rib pat­tern from Purl Soho, which I have been eye­ing for some time :D

I used 10 mm straight nee­dles, cast on 27 stitch­es, used 2 strands of bulky weight yarn held togeth­er for the grey part, knit­ted till the piece was about 45″ long, then sewed the ends togeth­er to make a cowl. Here’s a bet­ter look at the mag­i­cal­ly made ribbed tex­ture, with no purl­ing involved! 

It is very thick and warm :)

Speak­ing of warm scarves and hats, I’ve just dis­cov­ered that there’s a knit/cro­chet-togeth­er event in the city next Sun­day! If you’re in the city, maybe con­sid­er join­ing me to knit for those who can use some hand­made warmth this win­ter? Warm­ing Toron­to Knit­ting Day is hap­pen­ing next Sun­day Feb. 26, 12:30–6pm at the Impe­r­i­al Pub (Dundas/Yonge). I’ve start­ed anoth­er fish­er­man rib hat for the event!

And of course you notice the rad t‑shirt I’m wear­ing in the first pho­to? :D 

Mike and I final­ly vis­it­ed the Lock­hart, a Har­ry Pot­ter themed bar in the west end of Toron­to, for brunch!

The food was mar­velous and quite afford­able. The Bet­ter Beer (a but­ter beer in my book :D) does not disappoint!

High­ly rec­om­mend if you’re in the neigh­bour­hood, espe­cial­ly if you’ve enjoyed the Har­ry Pot­ter series. (con­fes­sion: I’ve actu­al­ly not read the books, but quite enjoyed the movies! Maybe I’ll read the books one day…)

Wish­ing every­one a love­ly week­end! :D

 

new year, new wallpaper! :D

I was feel­ing very proud of this fluffy wreath and its mer­ry mush­room friends (which I made from a giant pipe clean­er and wine corks), and Mike kind­ly took real­ly nice pho­tos of them and made it into a desk­top wall­pa­per for me, thought I’d share it with you! :D 

Just click on the size you want and it should bring up an image that you can save.

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Desk­top

Wish­ing every­one a very hap­py new year! May 2017 bring much joy, lots of crafty adven­tures and many blessings :)

 

happy Christmas everybody! :D

Wish­ing every­one a joy­ous hol­i­day and many bless­ings for the new year!

 

And here’s a bit of behind-the-scene with this greet­ing card… every year Mike and I make Christ­mas cards togeth­er to send to friends and fam­i­ly. It’s a bit of a tra­di­tion of ours. This year we came up with the jel­ly­fish idea. We thought about lino block prints (which we may still try anoth­er year) and sim­ply print­ing an image from the com­put­er. Even­tu­al­ly we ran out of time, so I just thought I’d try my hands on what­ev­er we had in the house, which was an eras­er and a big old util­i­ty knife. 

Turned out not so bad did­n’t it? :D I’m quite proud of it actu­al­ly. I also carved the hol­ly stamp, and the berries are stamped with the end of a bam­boo skew­er. Mike typed the text with his grand­moth­er’s type writer.

Cheers to anoth­er year of sim­ple joys, new adven­tures and shared journey! :) 

 

holiday (tiny) shop update!

Feel­ing a bit inspired and moti­vat­ed after vis­it­ing the One of a Kind show last week­end, I made some last minute update to my kind of dor­mant Etsy shop :D

I list­ed a very small quan­ti­ty of items at friends-and-fam­i­ly prices in order to find them good homes, I only have one of each at this time.

There’s San­ta’s Favourite milk and cook­ie orna­ment pack

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This very fes­tive tiny wreath with mush­room and bell (the bell DOES ring!)…

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And a few pairs of tiny sushi ear­rings. There are 3 dif­fer­ent sushi com­bo sets, you can see the oth­er sets in the list­ing.

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To make sure the the orders will arrive before Decem­ber 25, please place orders before Dec. 10 for Canada/US des­ti­na­tions and before Dec. 1 (that’s in 2 days!) for inter­na­tion­al destinations.

Have a look at the gen­uine mud­pie shop if you’re look­ing for some hand­made tiny plush to spread hol­i­day cheers!

Wish­ing every­one an excel­lent rest of the week!

 

peace

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Wish­ing every­one peace­ful Christ­mas and new year :)

Thank you so much for vis­it­ing gen­uine mud­pie over the past year, look­ing for­ward to shar­ing more crafty adven­tures in 2016!

 

yarn-filled day of adventure ahead! :D

Hey every­one! This is awe­some! :D

 

The TTC Kni­ta­long!

If you live in/near Toron­to and haven’t got plans yet for Sat­ur­day August 22, here’s a yarn-filled day of adven­ture! I just found out about this by chance today and have nev­er par­tic­i­pat­ed before, but I thought it is the most AWESOME idea and reg­is­tered right away :D

You can find out more about how it work­s here. But basi­cal­ly, peo­ple trav­el in teams on dif­fer­ent routes to vis­it dif­fer­ent yarn stores in the city, knit­ting (and cro­chet­ing too I’m sure!), shop­ping, eat­ing, and mak­ing new friends :D I also hear that there will be tote bags with knitting/yarn swag, dis­counts and prizes. AND!! Pro­ceeds from the reg­is­tra­tion fee go to Sis­ter­ing, a fan­tas­tic women-cen­tered agency that is very close to my heart. Reg­is­tra­tion costs $15 and it starts today, and sev­er­al teams are full already, so if you’re inter­est­ed reg­is­ter for a spot soon!

It will be great to meet you there :) Have a great week, everyone!

 

this blog is a happy place

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This blog has always been a hap­py place for me. The main pur­pose of this blog is to share the joy of craft­ing. But a few days ago some­thing hap­pened on this blog, some­thing that’s prob­a­bly the most unhap­py thing that’s ever hap­pened on this blog, and I feel that I can­not go on writ­ing my usu­al hap­py posts with­out address­ing it with the vis­i­tors and reg­u­lar readers.

A few days ago, it was brought to my atten­tion that one of my past posts was prob­lem­at­ic. I’ve addressed what hap­pened in the post itself, includ­ing tak­ing down much of the con­tent of that post. It can be read there, so I won’t go over the detail again here. But I want to apol­o­gize to every­one for not being care­ful and thor­ough enough when I wrote the orig­i­nal post. My inten­tion has always been focused on shar­ing what I know, and shar­ing it freely. But in this inci­dent the desire to share had pre­clud­ed thoughts about deter­min­ing what is or is not mine to share. So I will, from now on, be a lot more care­ful about find­ing orig­i­nal sources and acknowl­edg­ing the hard work that artists/designers/artisans have put into their creations.

I’ve had the urge to take down that entire post so that I won’t have to face my mis­take again, so that I can keep this blog a hap­py place. But this blog can be a hap­py place and bear my mis­takes, and we move for­ward from here.

So, to end this post, I share with you a very hap­py spot I vis­it­ed today, under­neath a crab apple tree. I wish I could record the mag­i­cal fra­grance of this tree for you. And here is a view from under­neath the canopy.

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I’ve just vis­it­ed the cher­ry trees at High Park with the Diana this week and dropped off the film for devel­op­ing today, so there will be more bloom­ing tree pho­tos to come!

Thank you for read­ing today. I hope every­one has a won­der­ful week!

 

find me on instagram! :D

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Did you know that gen­uine mud­pie is on Insta­gram? :D

Late­ly I’m find­ing myself post­ing more work-in-progress and oth­er pho­tos (like this one here from my out­ing to the Toron­to Botan­i­cal Gar­den) on Insta­gram. I’ve talked about how I’ve been post­ing a bit less on this blog because of lack of time. Insta­gram is real­ly a much quick­er way of shar­ing. Pic­tures that I would post here a cou­ple years ago (like exper­i­ments with smooth­ies and short rows, or almost-week­ly origa­mi chal­lenge with my niece and nephews), I now post on Instagram.

But I also want to say that Insta­gram posts will not replace this blog. I can’t see myself post­ing a pat­tern on Insta­gram, for exam­ple. I also know that not every­one has Insta­gram, so notic­ing my increased Insta­gram activ­i­ty and decreased blog activ­i­ty is also moti­vat­ing me to work on post­ing here more regularly.

(If only Insta­gram and Word­Press will sync! *shakes fist*)

But if you are on Insta­gram please come by to say hel­lo! :D

Hap­py Sunday!

 

let’s make tiny donuts! :D

And the tiny donut par­ty con­tin­ues! *throws glitter*Photo 2015-04-04, 11 47 19 AM
Before dig­ging our hands into yarn and mak­ing more donuts, we need to pick a win­ner for the giveaway!I used this sim­ple ran­dom name-pick­er tool. And the win­ner is…

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DARLENE!!! Con­grat­u­la­tions!!! :D *throws more glitter*

(Now we all got­ta imag­ine our­selves all glit­tery from head to toe, ’tis how a vir­tu­al par­ty works, except we’re not real­ly cov­ered in glit­ter and we don’t have to spend hours wash­ing it out of our hair only to find more glit­ter on us weeks lat­er — ’tis the beau­ty of vir­tu­al par­ty :D and if you’re receiv­ing this post by email you might want to click on to the actu­al blog so you can get more of the glit­ter expe­ri­ence ;) any­way, I digress)

Dar­lene please send me an email at genuinemudpie(at)gmail(dot)com, let­ting me know which 3 donuts you want and your mail­ing address :)

Thank you every­one for par­tic­i­pat­ing, and leav­ing all the won­der­ful com­ments about this blog (and donuts!)! It means the world to me that you’re enjoy­ing read­ing about my crafty adven­tures! I look for­ward to shar­ing more crafti­ness with you! :D

And now, we make more tiny donuts! :D

This is actu­al­ly more like a recipe than a pat­tern. My donut turns out to be just shy of an inch across. You can make it small­er or larg­er by using a lighter (fin­ger­ing, embroi­der thread?) or heav­ier (worsted) yarn, and chang­ing hook size accord­ing­ly (2mm for fin­er yarn and 3.5mm for worsted, for exam­ple). You can also make a larg­er donut by increas­ing the num­ber of begin­ning ch by mul­ti­ples of 2, and repeat­ing row 3 a cou­ple of times (more about that in the recipe below). I would­n’t start with few­er stitch­es than what the “recipe” calls for though, it can be real­ly tricky to man­age such small num­ber of stitches.

I ini­tial­ly devel­oped this recipe to make donut ear­rings for my shop. It took a few attempts to get the size right and the icing look­ing the way I want­ed. I think I’ve per­fect­ed the recipe now :) AND!! The entire donut is only made of 5 rows! You can make an army of them in an evening :D

I used:

Small amount of sport weight yarn in donut and icing colours (tan, brown, pink, yel­low, white, etc.)

Embroi­dery thread in sprin­kle colours

3mm hook, 2.5mm hook or small­er (for pulling in ends)

Nee­dles for sewing and embroidering

Recipe:

Round 1: With donut colour (i.e. tan), ch 8, join with first ch to form ring.

NOTE: The side that is fac­ing you (i.e. the front of the work) is the INSIDE of the donut. For the first 3 rounds you’re work­ing with the inside of the donut fac­ing you. So the back of the work is the out­side of the donut.

Here I have fin­ished the first 3 rounds of the donut, cro­chet­ing with the inside fac­ing me.

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Here is what the out­side of the donut looks like after the first 3 rounds.

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Round 2: ch 1 (does not count as a stitch), sc in first ch, 2 sc in next ch, [sc in next ch, 2 sc in next ch] around, sl st in first sc to join (12 sc).

Round 3: ch 1, sc in each sc around, sl st in first sc to join (12 sc).

NOTE: If you’re­mak­ing a larg­er donut and start­ed with a few more begin­ning ch’s, you can repeat round 3 one or two more times.

Round 4: Attach icing colour, fas­ten off donut colour. TURN (now you’re work­ing with the out­side of the donut fac­ing you), ch 1, sl st in each sc around in the front loop only, sl st in first sl st to join (12 sl st). (Be care­ful not to pull too tight while mak­ing the sl st in this round, oth­er­wise the next row would be difficult.)

Here I’m work­ing on found 4, insert­ing my hook in the front loop of a stitch.

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NOTE: If you’re­mak­ing a larg­er donut and start­ed with more begin­ning ch’s, you can repeat round 3 one or two more times with icing colour before start­ing round 5.

Round 5: ch 1, TURN (now you’re work­ing with the inside of the donut fac­ing you again), work­ing in the front loop only, sc in first st, 2 sc tog over next 2 st, [sc in next st, 2 sc tog over next 2 st] around, sl st in first sc to join (8 sc), leav­ing a long tail for sewing, fas­ten off.

Sew the final icing round to the first donut round using whip stitch, match­ing the stitches.

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I find it real­ly dif­fi­cult to sew the donut togeth­er with stuff­ing inside, and because the donut is so tiny I don’t feel it needs stuff­ing. I just pull all the yarn ends into the donut with a cro­chet hook after it’s sewn together.

Embroi­der sprin­kles to your heart’s content :)

Pull all yarn ends and thread ends into the inside of the donut with a small cro­chet hook.

And here we have it, a tiny donut! :D

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If you’re mak­ing these donuts, let me know what flavours you’re mak­ing, I’d love to see them! :D

Hope you have a won­der­ful­ly sparkling week­end! :D *throws glitter*