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