Crochet Granny Christmas Tree

This original idea seems to be a very old one already. Anyway, thanks to Laura from Sew Ritzy Tizy who spied this granny Christmas Tree in an old woman's house, I was also able to replicate such a sweet ornament. As the name has already given you a hint, it is realised from simple green granny squares with white borders.   The baubles are simple sc or dc circles, and I also added a star (I used this free pattern) and a small string of sparkly yarn as a garland, to give it shine. I used a very small hook (1.1 mm) so my Christmas tree is only about 20 cm high.

PS: I just wanted to show you some goodies I just can't help adoring:

...and a little preview of the glittens I have made this weekend using this pattern - aren't they just lovely? :)

2 crochet cushions

I worked this cushions last summer, the rainbow one even did some trips in the car, but I only managed to finish the daisy one yesterday. They both seem to be very happy cushions, that's why I share their free patterns with you. Enjoy crocheting them!

1. Link to rainbow cushion free pattern: http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/blooming-flower-cushion.html

2. I made the daisy pillow using this photo tutorial on facebook, but I just found another blog that treats the same pattern, so it's up to you to choose which one you use.

Iv cel Naiv - Book launch

It's hard to translate Iv in english, but maybe eventually he would find someone to translate his poetry into a foreign language. Iv is a contemporary poetry writer who doesn't want to reveal his identity for over 3 years now. He calls himself "the Naive". He launched 3 books by far and has a nice blog, but I prefer reading his poems one (or two, or three) at a time, before going to sleep, instead of following his blog... 

Last night he launched his 3rd book, Nesfarsesc, that would translate something like "Unending". Andie prepared with this occasions a lot of french macarons and a little surprise for five volunteers in creating unique flavoured and colourful macarons, based on a poem in Iv's book. I chose a poem about happiness, "Happiness is for the happy people", Iv sais. I used almond, roses and a bit of red pepper to flavour my poem, brown, vanilla and pink macarons for mixing together and red colour for the filling. I even drew a yellow heart on one of my macarons - my boyfriend got the message and ate it in a second. And the surprise was that the volunteers could keep the books they found their poems in!!!

Here are a few photos taken by me and my boyfriend during the event. Thank you, Iv and Andie! :)

Christmas ornaments: take one

I started doing Christmas ornaments from the very first times I did something crocheted, but I realised I don't have enough patience to finish up most of the projects. For instance, the light bulbs in this tiny Christmas tree that I just bought yesterday were supposed to be part of a garland that, eventually, would have represented an advent calendar, but I managed to finish only 8 bulbs out of 25...

The star looks amazing, but I found it so hard to make, that I don't know if I could do another one.

The little owl was just a test for a pretty square, that I also found difficult and meticulous to make.

I have other Christmas themed ongoing projects, but I will show you when I manage to finally decorate the Christmas tree I have displayed at home for over a month already...

This is how it looks like in my office now:

Links to free patterns:
1. Light bulbs advent calendar: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/christmas-light-advent-calendar
2. Star: http://www.sascha-lovetoknit.blogspot.nl/2012/12/de-kerstster-christmas-cal-4_11.html
3. Owl applique: http://www.repeatcrafterme.com/2012/11/owl-granny-square-crochet-pattern.html

4. To make the skates, I only looked at a photo, so I don't have a pattern for it. If you want to try something a little different from what I made, apparently there is a free pattern here: http://blogalacart.com/2011/12/ice-skate-ornament/http://blogalacart.com/2011/12/ice-skate-ornament/

Decorating cookies - First attempt

This is my first attempt ever to decorate cookies using royal icing.

At first, I was thinking about only doing some patriotic flags (on 1st december we celebrate the national holiday of Romania). But then, as I never used before all those cookie cutters I have been collecting, and because outside was snowing (yep, the first snow of this winter), I also created some winter themed cookies.

For the cookies I used the recipe provided by Bake at 350, just that I used brown sugar.
For the frosting I used this recipe.

Crochet snowflake blouse

Somebody asked me a while ago if I can do a blouse out of the snoflake hexagons. She wanted something with long sleeves. Fortunately enough for me, that girl wasn't too convinced about her choice, so I tried to give it a go for myself. After a few more sketches and observations, I concluded that long sleeves weren't such a good idea for this model. Also, for the front and back neckline I crocheted partial snowflakes, so I have a neat border. In the end, this neckline needed a few more sc decreasing rows, to tighten it a little bit. And that was all. I joined the hexagons the same way I did with the corresponding bag, that is single crochet along the edges.

Crochet baby hat FREE PATTERN

I made this hat inspired by Kinga from My hobby is crochet. She didn't write the pattern, so I came with my own version, that I share with with bellow. The instructions are in english. Hope you make great hats for babies in your lives! :)

PATTERN:

I used 3.5 mm crochet hook and Red Heart Baby yarn in two colors, but these can be chosen relative to the age of the baby and available yarn.
Begin with magic ring, A color,
Row 1: 20 dc in magic ring, fasten off;
Row 2 (change color to B): (2dc cluster st, ch1) in each dc, fasten off;
Row 3 (change color to A): (1dc, ch2, 1 dc) in each ch1 space;
Row 4: (2dc, ch2, 2dc, ch1) in next ch2 sp, skip 1 ch2 sp, continue working like this till the end of the row;
Row 5 (attach B color right after the end of row 4): working around row 4, (2dc, ch2, 2 dc, ch1) in each remaining ch2 sp on row 3; before ending this row, make sure to pull toward you the end of the A color yarn on row 4, so you can continue working with it;
Row 6: continue with A color, working around row 5 and making sure to pull toward you the end of B color yarn, (3dc, ch2, 3dc,ch2) in each ch2 sp on row 4;
Row 7: with B, working around row 6, (3dc, ch2, 3dc,ch2) in each ch2 sp on row 5.
Rows 8 to 19: work similar to rows 6 and 7; At the end of row 18, fasten off;
Row 20: working around row 19, 9dc in each ch2 sp on row 18, 1sc in each ch2 sp on row 19. Fasten off.

If 9dc in each ch2 sp on row 20 seems to be too much, you can reduce number to 8dc.

2dc cluster stich instructions

ATTENTION!
This is not a verified pattern. I only wrote the instructions after I made the hat, so they might not be totally correct. Also, I don't have any kids yet, so I don't know how this looks on a baby. If any of you makes this hat, please share with us your work and observations! Many thanks!

Lumi & Kinga

Russian crochet dress

I managed finally to do a proper presentation in images of my beloved dress I made and wore this summer in Bulgaria. Even that evening when the photos were taken, a young curly haired russian girl (she should have guessed something!) congratulated me for the beauty of the dress. I was really impressed!

The model itself is actually designed by a russian, but I can't find her blog anymore, so I made a collage of the photos that inspired me to do this (they still have watermark, so if you find the original link, please post it back here). Hope it helps. As for me, I wouldn't replicate it the second time. It was really a hard work and had to unpick it many times until it was right for me. Enjoy!

Diagram and photos that inspired me:

Any day crochet cardigan and ruffle scarf

This cardigan is based on Double Stich Twins Any Day Cardigan pattern. I say "is based" because I couldn't follow the pattern as it was, the design didn't suit me very well, so I just kept the model and created my own version, with buttons and extra coloured stripes.
The pattern for the scarf is this one (I also added an extra row because it seemed too thin to me).
I think the two pices work very well together.
Used Red Heart Baby in double thread and 6 mm crochet hook.

 

Tatting lace for shirt embelishment

Been having this on mind since a long time. I bought this shirt from Takko fashion and the idea of embelishing the front with some kind of ribbon seemed wonderful, although the ribbon itself with its long beads looked horrible. So I thought about making this lace ribbon in tatting technique. I just had to chose from the multiple models proposed by Daniela on her FB page. Actually, she's the one that taught me needle tatting through her video tutorials. Although I tried using a shuttle, I think I'll stick with needle technique. It requires more attention and I find it more precise.

For the model bellow, I used this tutorial and a transparent bead for each long side.

Crochet photo session

Remember the crochet poncho made of flowery squares? I promised we'd make a photo session wearing that special poncho, so here it is, fresh and hot. My purse also won a special photo shooting so, if you remember my old post about ongoing projects, you'll surely recognise what that snowflake hexagons turned into. Because I used acrylic yarn, it became a little fluffly after a summer of everyday wearing and a couple of machine washings, but it's still holding a good and photogenic shape, don't you think?

Link to the snowflake hexaghons free pattern

Link to the book that contains the flowery square (with purchase)

Bernat Lace Cardigan remake

I was looking for a long time this kind of cardigan to have in my wardrobe and to match with my dresses, but in the end I came to the conclusion that the best you could have of this is the one you make yourself.

I have been wearing this cardigan all summer long, and I'm very pleased with the way it looks, even if I couldn't follow the instruction by sizes, but I combined patterns for different sizes to come to a decent version of it.

Link to the pattern
PS: Do you like my crochet apples? :D

Lila Vanilla crochet baby set

This is my first attempt to crochet something for a baby. But it's for a good cause: tomorrow, my very new little neighbour girl will get baptized, so I crocheted during the week this set. I hope she, and especially her parents, will be delighted by what I managed to do. At least I know I am! Anyway, as I heard from my boyfriend, who is going to put on video the whole christening event, our neighbours are very fine people, so I really hope this will also be an opportunity to get in touch more often with them.

I got inspired from various sources:
1. Beanie
2. Dress
3. Booties

The choice of color was personal.
UPDATE FOR THE BEANIE: With the approval of Kinga from Myhobbyiscrochet,I wrote a free pattern for the beanie, which you can find here.

Thank you for your visit! :)

Maybelle purse

I may have seemed a little bit absent lately, but I didn't give up crochetting. In fact, I have quite a good number of finished projects to show you and even more projects ongoing, but here is something that I just ended and that I am very proud of. Not only because this purse bellow turned out so nice, but also because I thought I would also make proud the creator of Maybelle crochet flower, Annette from My Rose Valley, a very creative lady from Switzerland. She freely released the pattern for Maybelle flower here. I used 100% colourful cotton, 3 mm crochet hook, hardened cotton fabric for interior and two zippers.

So, here I have a brand new purse! Happy me! :)

Flower power shirt

Probably the cutest crochet project I have ever made [by now]. I just decorated a basic cotton shirt with tiny crochet flowers.

Hand decorated T-shirt

I already worn for a couple of times this T-shirt, but I took these photos today to show you that ingenious ideas are worth to put in practice, like I did here. This idea originally belongs to Vixyblu, I just chose another appearance, I modified the drawing a little bit, I used a string of sequins instead of separate ones and I added hand embroidery for the cat's face. It took quite a few hours to do all that, but I think it just turn out so nice! :)

PS: the bow is removable. Actually, I have two more spotted bows that are waiting for their turn! :D

Crochet poncho made of flowery granny squares

This is it! It's finished! After many hours and days of  crocheting and crocheting again and again [in all kinds of positions],  I managed to finish my first big crochet project. I inspired from a blanket tutorial that I found in the book I bought a few months ago (Link to the english version of the book). At first I thought I would go for the blanket too. But I irreversibly fell in love with this flowery pattern, that I wanted to wear it, and be proud of it, indeed! And I made a lot of mistakes doing it: a few extra stitches here, a few less stitches there... Anyway, I think nobody could notice them, instead of me (unless you are a crochet geek too).

Next, soon, I hope, I intend to do a photo session wearing this wonderful poncho, for this blog. You will see then how this would fit on somebody of my size. Till then, here is a preview of what my 2 mm crochet hook created (with my help, of course):

And yes, it's all in pink and white, I know!

PS: I'm not selling this item, and I don't really think I will ever reproduce it. But I was just curious about how much this worths for me, in terms of money, so I made this little calculation:

- I weighed the final result to figure out about how much yarn I used, and it turned out that this poncho ate more than 8 clews of 50 g of yarn x 8 RON each =70 RON;

- 36.5 squares + butterfly x 1.5h (at least) spent on each item = 56.25h (that would be approximately 7 days for a normal 8h work program);

- 60 sides to match together x 12 min for each = 12 hours;

- edging = approximately 4 hours; that makes a total of approximately 73 hours. 

At my workplace, dividing my salary in number of hours I work in a month, I usually get paid a sum of approximately 13.5 RON/hour. For this project, this means 73 x 13.5 = 985.5 RON. Adding this sum to that of raw materials = 1055.5 RON = 245 EUR :D wow... even me, I was thinking of a more reasonable sum...

Link to the book that contains the square pattern (with purchase)

Happy new year 2013 - Occidental Carpathians hike

We spend the last day of 2012 and the very first days of 2013 around Herculane, hiking in the mountains and in the caves that small rivers carved to get to the Danube. It was quite an experience, as it was the first time night caught us (I mean, me and my boyfriend) on the top of the mountain, with an extra topping of snow and ice and little light available (only a few of us got flashlights). Eventually, we got back to the hotel in time, just to start the next day another adventure on the side of a river that was hidding in a cave.

We were lucky to be surrounded by all those young people who seemed to have been there before, and who took a lot of pictures during the activities. That is how the next video came out, showing a lot of key moments of our trip in the middle of the nature. Enjoy watching!

Crochet marathon - ongoing projects

There are so many things that I started recently, but none of them got so much of my mind like... crochet. And there are so many nice things that can be done in crochet that I can't decide which one to choose anymore. That's why I have several projects ongoing, as you can see in the image bellow. I just hope I will be able to finish them all, by the time that I fall for another beautiful project. Oh, its just that there are so many of them!...

L.E: In answer to Sue, as I can't post comments anymore:
The link to the snowflake hexagons is this: http://www.artoftangle.com/snowflake.htm
The circles pattern is actually for a Christmas stocking.
As for the flower square, it is from a book, so I can't post it online.

Ceramic broach romanian traditional motif

These days I saw a tutorial about cross stitched ceramic broaches on Kittenhood. I thought it would be so nice to get back to the origins of cross stitch in Romania and do this kind of broaches in a traditional way. I also found this amazing blog which presents different romanian traditional motifs from different regions of the country. This is how these first 3 broaches appeared. Specially, the flower is one of my favourite motifs. I weared it today proudly. :) So, in order, the motifs come from:

1. Bacau
2. Basarabia
3. Arges

The good news (for you) is that I'm selling them! For now, you can find them also on Breslo (only for Romania), but I think this won't last too long, because the taxes are quite big and I'm only a beginner. And if I'm to sell anything, I would like to go on profit :). Anyway, what you should know is that, if anytime you would like to buy something on this blog, just contact me and we'll discuss about delivery possibilities. Prices are:

15 RON / 5 EUR

Photo: Last day of March. Comment: about collages

A bunch of images that caught my eyes during my randonée today.

Kids playing ping pong...

Another kid decorating a ceramic frog, under the supevision of her grandpa'...

A girl and two dogs waiting for their friend to bring water...

And finally, a weird exposition of floating statues, in a mall:

There was, also, a choco fest, but it didn't fulfilled my expectations of choco lover. But at least I think I got relaxed for the week following.

Oh, I almost forgot about my latest shopping session - got five chicken shaped egg supports, and a crochet manual:

LE:This post originally presented all images separately. Meanwhile, I realized that collages express better how I see the world. Not revealing the details, but seeking for them in context. Maybe it's the fault of my engineering thinking, but a thing is for sure: I created a tradition among my colleagues at work who retire. From now on, the last day of work, each of them with get a collage of their mates, so they remember in years how funny it used to be at work. :)

Photo: Indoor vs. Outdoor Fire

These two photos have been taken in the same day. I noticed afterwards the parallel that can be made starting from this. So, I ask you this question: Which one do you prefer, an indoor or an outdoor fire? :)

Lately - Crochet

I've been really into this art of crochet lately. I said I would go on with angels, but I just couldn't help searching for more on the beauties that can be made in crochet. So first I found this tutorial (attention - by a GUY!) who teaches how to make a snowflake. I think I'll try as many models as I can find, and I really intend to decorate one of my (black) dresses with a few of them.

Right after that I discovered this very interesting tutorial showing up how to make "kind of" crochet earings (that because you need to use a needle more than a crochet hook). So, there I went finishing two pairs in just (almost) half a day! They require quite meticulosity, though... So, here is the picture of these new babies:

Anyway, I was just thinking, I could do hundreds of these items just for fun and pleasure, but what would I possibly do with so many pairs of earings? :P So, I tell you so, if anyone interested, just let me know! More combinations of colors are possible. Colourfull snowflakes, anyone? :D

Prices:

Earings (4 cm/square side)
- 20 RON/pair
- 6 EUR/pair

Snowflake (9 cm/diameter)
- 15 RON/item
-  5 EUR/item

Available on demand :)

LE:  Found out that this earing technique is called tatting or frivolite. What a world!

Piggy birthday cake

A few days ago was my boy's birthday. As I was browsing some FB pages I ran into this photo of a piggy birthday cake that amused me. I asked my boy if I could do it for his birthday, and he agreed. And then, you just can't imagine how much fun we had doing it (I mean, me doing it, and him taking photos of it). Here is the making of the pigs collage:

Next is the making of the cake:

And finally the cake itself: Isn't this nice?

And I think it even looks better than the original! :D

Crochet Angel

This is my first ever crochet. I just wanted to know how to crochet, and seeing some beautiful crochet angel photos on the web determined me to actually start crocheting. It turned out better than I thought, given the fact that I followed only the instructions found in this video. I just adjusted them a little bit to create bigger wings for my angel.

I think my next crochet will be another angel, only in blue :D

About me

Hi there! This is Lumi. I'm a romanian engineer and on my way to becoming a scientist (now how coldplayish does this sound!). I am not really going to sit here and talk about my profession, but I would like to take you on an adventure. A crafting adventure, I call it. That because I always loved to handmade little things for me and others, and now I find time and resources to develop my passion.  And to talk about it. I have to mention that I use the web a lot for inspiration, so my originality may not always be genuine, but hey, we all have to inspire from somewhere in order to create, don't we? I will not focus only on real craft ideas, but also on traveling, photos, things, people and places that I like and a lot of talking about what sometimes goes through my mind. At some point, I could even sell or reproduce some crafts, if anyone interested.

Anyway, I will try keeping this blog as optimistic as a blog can be. 'Cause I like people smiling and happiness, in all its meaning. So, hope to see you around! :)

PS: As for the Scientist, it's funny how meanings interconnect so well sometimes. Not long ago, this blog was actually a photoblog. As wordless photos didn't really talk about me so much, I thought about giving it a refresh, not only to the blog, but also to my life. So, here I go back to the start, starting brand new and hopeful.