Autumny* cowl

* just because of the colors and I'm planning to wear it on winter and spring too :)

The best thing about the autumn is its colors, but they end way too quickly, and then we are left in the darkness for quite a while just waiting for the bright white snow. To prolong the colors and the joy I made a fast cowl (took me just 2 evenings).

You want to know how my Autumny cowl began?

BBB progressreport: The one before last :)

JUST border left!!!

and some of the yarn ends of course..

Latest newcomers:

• round ripple square (from ravelry)
• and I saw over the internet its lookalike snowflake pattern and that one is for free although I did not try this one yet;
• BEST way to fill rectangular spaces - box stitch (tutorials and schemes can be found all around internet I just used trc instead of dc)
• Two circles joined together as a symbol for love, marriage and working together (you name it), I saw in @memoo1409 instagram feed :)
• V stich squared (made it up as I go, no actual pattern there) 
• and V stitch simply in rows for rectangle (this is the new MUST have blanket all around instagram, and from the small piece I made I do get why it is so popular - light, fast growing and simple!!!)

So here it is!
My BigBrightBlanket in all it's glory :)

Shopping list..

Good morning :)

Today my kids pushed me out of bed at 6 am .. apparently the bed is not big enough for the four of us .. now I am stuck in the corner watching them sleep just to make sure those little cute monsters doesn't fall off ... I kinda wish we were still sleeping on the mattress in the middle of a room (like 2 years ago) not on our beautiful bed (witch was handmade by my hubby) because then I could make coffee or sleep in this very corner not worrying about the kids falling off the bed ...

But there is a bright side to this - I have FREE time to DO stuff on my mac (which is quite rare).

I have wanted to share my shopping list on the fridge for a while even made the pictures of it a week ago.

In general, it is not a new idea, I think most of you do this or something like this.
The thing that makes it special is using the receipt from previous shopping as a space to draft the next shopping list.
I used to cut a strips of paper out of old notebooks etc but this is SO much easier! :)

simple and effective! :)

+ I make a shopping list for the BIG shopping of the week although I do buy milk and other small things more than once a week. So I will never run out of receipts! :D

progressreport - BigBrightBlanket

ALL 4 corners DONE!!!
just "frostbite" and border left :)

latest newcomers:

• little hearts (in ravelry)
• variation of cornered granny square (in ravelry)
• label
• my kids individual Latvian pattern 
• jet another rectangle 

And probably some other squares I can't remember at the moment ...
newertheless .. Happy CRAFTING and see you soon! ;)

Alphabet wall!

Wall alphabet .. lovely, BIG, delicate, colorful letters ... I have been wanting to make my own a loooong time - and now I have IT!! my own version - Latvian one! :)

And the most important thing about mine is that the letters are detachable! :)

Random rambling: Sleep

I have been a bit sleep deprived lately and I can't say that before kids it was much better .. because going to sleep early always seemed such a waste of time ..
I wonder why?

Well it was a bit better - I could afford to sleep just 5 hours some nights and then enjoy longer 10 or 12 hour undisturbed night sleep occasionally .. now my two little angels are playing tricks and it doesn't seem possible in the near future ..

Few years ago I heard there are some other sleeping patterns than the most used 8h night in every 24 hours ... but I discarded it then because it seemed hard to implement .. but now living with average 6h of disturbed sleep daily it seems rather intriguing to sleep even less but feel better...

More about the daily plan so far and the upgraded plan for the future .. if not interested please return to your own precious daily hours ;)

Random rambling: Food

I have recently rejoined caloriecount to observe the things I eat and are they any good for me and my goal to loose few kilos ... and man! I knew I had a sweet tooth but OMG! if I am being my usual "IeateverythingIsee" self, then more than a half of my daily calorie intake consist of sugars and sweet things!!!
I will keep on blabbing here about my latest obsession of food logging and goals in this direction for future self... so better go on crochet something ;)

Cake in the MUG

Original recipe and inspiration.
I loved the idea, but the header smelled of despiration no matter what they say. First time I tried to make one it it tasted like that too... but I loved the idea of cake in 4 minutes too much so I kept improvising.. One cake a day ... what a lovely month!
Some days it tasted like a little piece of heaven and some days I thought about throwing it away ...
After way too many cakes in the quiet afternoon tee time ... I found the PERFECT cake in the MUG recipe!

ingredients: banana, egg, curd, flour, honey

Take 2 mugs! - this is the most important alteration! and all the recipes in original link are probably just fine, but it will still be a desperate way to cheer yourself up by making a fast microvave cake... so make a fast cake for you and your friend/husband/wife/kid/.. ;)

Remake: The lamp!

I remade the lamp in our bedroom just because I got tired of the old one.
And when I found a frame in our garden house that looked just like the one I had used previously I took it as a sign that I should really do it.

And you know what?

In two years we still haven't hidden the wires .. it is quite sad and hilarious at the same time.

Nevertheless this is our new lamp!

Random rambling: Time

Introducing new thing around here - Random rambling.

As the name suggests it really will be about random stuff that bothers me or makes me think about life in general or my kids, future, politics, my fears and everything else that's good or badly wrong in world at the time I find the time for checking out the virtual reality...
So this will be a place for me to vent.

Do not read further if you are here for crafty advice/inspiration.. there will probably be none in this post :D

fast summer pants :)

Found this ridiculously easy summer pants sewing tutorial!
and wanted to share this brilliance of simplicity :)

First time I tried to sew them though the measurements failed me and I found out that my butt is BIG :D

So next time I tried to sew these summer pants instead of measuring my waist I measured my hips just to be sure the pants will cover it. And fabric width should not be 3/4 of this measurement but rather 5/4 ... just because you loose some "waist" length making the crotch. and it is a lot easier to cut off some fabric then add it on ;)

It took me 2 days of my baby girls nap times to finish the pants but it was totally worth it!!!
and believe it or not - it really is THAT simple to make a summer pants :)
Says the person who hadn't used the sewing machine in ages - that is saying something!

not so pink couch

For past 7 years pink couch has been there for me in good times and bad .. but lately I had neglected to call it pink because it had been stained so badly and was pink just in my memories.. so he* had a makeover and from now on will look like this!
* yes he! .. it feels weird to call my sweet pink couch as "it" ..

Down the memory lane ...

.. slow progress ..

Stealing moments for crocheting .. weaving in ends while playing with lego ... dreaming of a long afternoon naps for my two adorable kids when I could add some circles to the blanket :)
I think there is some conspiracy amongst them - they rarely nap at the same time ..

❤

Today my baby boy turned two!
It feels like I am on a high speed train .. and everything flies by too fast .. how come I don't feel any older and wiser?

For all kind of different reasons he has been avoiding kindergarden so we have spent loads of time playing games .. it means no progress in my crafty endeavors but loads of fun and smiles from my little man :)

I made this in his nap and thought I take a picture of him happily destroying it, but it all went down a little too fast :D
he sent a giant bomb (the ball used in pilates) on the "Olivertown" and that was the end of my hard work :D

Add a button!

I have a jar for buttons .. any loose* button I come across ends up there ..
* mainly buttons from old clothes
A while ago I made a button bouquet for my giveaway winners and I have used the jar buttons as replacements for lost buttons in our everyday clothes, but this is WAY better! and more fun manner to use up old buttons ;)

I knew it when I saw a button necklace in pinterest that I had to make a string from buttons for my pearled curtain :)

So a progress report is in order :)

Wrap it up!

My baby girl was cranky for few evenings and I realized I want scarf sling to hold my baby close and have my hands free to do other stuff (I do already have ring sling but it is not appropriate for infants).
As I knew I will use it rarely and just till she learns to sit on her own (I like my ring sling and I think it's easier to use than a scarf sling) and my baby girl turned 2 months old yesterday (OMG! time flies when one's having fun) so I can't afford to wait when I will get to the store (we cant't buy it in our home town and we are not planning a trip to Riga any time soon) or while I get one delivered by buying on internet ... besides they usually are quite expensive ...
So I made it myself! From a leftover fabric I had in my home .. you'll soon find out why I had those fabric pieces ;)

It is made from two pieces of fabric (68x240cm) overlapping in the baby part. so now it measures 68x440cm it could have been 20 cm longer... that would make it easier to tie it up.. but nevertheless I like it very much. And my baby girl loves it too :) she falls asleep almost instantly when i thug her in.

I have started to daydream of a sling from two different fabric pieces so that the colors can play ... I will make one to show you what I mean if I get to the fabric store before my baby girl learns to sit on her own.

Happy crafting! ;)

In our house we do!

I have been exploring pinterest and I've seen a lot of lovely and inspiring "In our house we do" signs ..
And I started to think what my families sign would look like and even started to write one .. I thought what we actually do rather than just copying other signs (most of them have the same text .. is it some quote I don't know about?) .. and started to "draw" the concept in my minds eye ..

This is what I had drafted ->

• We do LOVE each other
• We do lough a lot
• We do DREAM with our eyes wide open
• We do cry sometimes too
• We do kisses and hugs
• We do adventures
• We do CREATE (lately chaos more than anything else)
• We do learn how the world works
• We do sing, dance and simply jump around a lot
• We do annoy our downstairs neighbors ..

And then I realized, that the perfect sign would actually look something like this ->

Instead of house there should be written home, but then the name is too short to substitute as a roof ..

Debris!

In honor of the end of construction or reconstruction in our apartment I am making my hubbies favorite salad and thought I could share our recipe. He calls them construction waste aka debris.
To be honest I make them quite often because I like to open a fridge and find something almost healthy already ready to eat :)
Besides it took me only half an hour to whip them up this time (well I am not counting the time I spent boiling staff) and another great feature - while making I can leave them at any point and come back later to finish (just need to remember to put the knife further away before I go) and this bowl will last at least two meals (and few refrigerator raids during the day and sometimes night) so it's a great time saver for me :)

Ingredients:
300g boiled potatoes
2 boiled carrots
2 hard boiled eggs
400g canned green peas
400g pickled cucumbers
300g sausage

plus:
~150g mayonnaise
~150g sour cream
3tsp horseradish (mārrutki)
salt
pepper

Cut all of the ingredients into small cubes. Except green peas (for obvious reasons) and eggs I just smash "to dust" with fork... then add everything else and you have loads of delicious debris :)

Bon apetit!

pictures on the go ->

3rd time's a charm

As it is no longer 2013 ... I had to change the label no matter what! so I changed it a bit more ..
This is the new and improved version (here you can see the old ones) ->

I am optimistic and hope to find the time to finish Big Bright Blanket it this year :)
I will leave the fringe (as suggested by Linda), so there will be more white (or pink) granny square type rows around the label .. to show off the fringe and easily join it to the rest of the blanket.

Did you notice - no more BBB (I was planning to embroider the name Big Bright Blanket on those Bees, but I found out that embroidery on crochet is not my thing .. so no BBBees at all).

Your own pattern Latvian style

Way back when fabric for clothes and everything else was weaved (knitted, crocheted) at home not bought in supermarkets as ready to wear clothes, tablecloths, bedspreads et cetera ... most skillful women wanted to make special things like no other so they draw their own patterns for weaving, knitting, cross stitching and all the other crafts ...
This is one of the ways to draw an individual pattern using the date of birth.

My kids patterns came out looking identical because both their birthdays contain the same numbers :) hopefully it will mean that they will get along nicely ..

This block I crocheted for big Bright Blanket, just to make it even more special (if I would do it again I would use hdc instead od dc and in the first round just 2 hdc instead of 3dc) .. but I am planning to make cross stitched wall hangings from all of our families individual patterns :) knowing how fast my priorities and ideas change I won't be too surprised if I never cross stitch them although I am pretty sure I will use these patterns in some future projects.

FIRST moment, hour, week ..

She came in this world unforeseen as snow in December ... fast and easy ...
Let's welcome my baby girl Samanta in the bright new world! :)

And I did finish cocoon although just barely on time ... She looks SO adorable I can't stop looking ...

Rectangle

Crocheting a granny rectangle can be quite tricky... and there are loads of variations for it (my first formula inspired by rectangle granny square i saw in Blair Stokers grannysquare sampler and a different approach for granny rectangle by Sue Rivers and probably many more I don't even know about) ... the latest revelation in this matter looks like this!

My crafty NY resolution :)

Year 2013 has been blessed ... and although the only thing that I have trully done from last years list is the last one - "be creative in all aspects of my life!" - I feel contented :)

I hope that this year I will be able to check (or cross out) more than just one thing from the list :) and have the strength, time and creativity to extend the list as the year 2014 unfolds :)

so here comes the NEW LIST:

1. Make a quilt ... Started it last year .. but so far I have about 30% of the squares needed .. so still in the jean cutting part ... hope to finish it till summer ...
2. Sew a bag for the stroller .. already know how it should look like but haven't found appropriate material...
3. Blog more ... maybe make a section for my everyday life with the kids ? ... could be fun ... will think about this  :)
4. Finish the Big Bright Blanket - and as it is almost done it should't be a problem.
5. Finish the Blanket of hearts till summer ... hope that this year I will actually do this :)
6. Finish the Blanket of the stars ...