Paw Print Heart Patch

 

My original Paw Print Heart was written for working in the round. I have to admit that I prefer to create 3D toys and objects by working in the round and avoid the sewing pieces together part. But some people prefer to knit on two needles instead of using the magic loop method or working on the double pointed needles. Last fall I received a message on Etsy if I can create a flat knit version of the paw print heart. 

I was home sick in the early November and had some time to play with yarn. I managed to create a flat version and the pattern is now available on Ravelry, Payhip, Lovecraft and in my Etsy store. I love the idea of knitting a small paw print heart patch and apply it on clothes, cushions, or blankets. 

Paw Print Heart Patch on Ravelry

Paw Print Heart Patch on Payhip

Paw Print heart Patch on Etsy

Thank you for visiting.

One stitch at time....

     At the end of April, I had everything ready for the next toy mystery KAL. I only needed few more pictures of work in progress to show what the toy looks after each clue during the mystery KAL. Then something unexpected happened in our lives and I am still trying to figure out the next step. Life goes on and I will be back with the toy mystery KAL in second half of the summer, but I need few more weeks of time to allow me to process my grief. 

Be kind to each other. Life is full of unexpected twists and turns, yet full of moments of joy. 

Thank you for visiting.

Life as a work in progress.....

 

These two images are my favorites, they remind me that life is filled mostly with little things that make our day-to-day lives worth living. We may not see them or appreciate them at the moment, but when we look back at them, they give us a warm feeling of accomplishment, happiness and joy. 

Sometimes our lives get tangled up and we have to go through periods of difficulties. At times like these it's good to look back and appreciate those little moments that brought us joy. I just went on a trip through the memory line by looking through the older blog posts, especially those that have the tag #life 

Looking through them made me appreciate everything that I have accomplished so far and especially for being still able to experience those small moments and live. When I wrote this blog post named Reflections it was about a year after I had my second episode of DVT and first PE. Since then, things go up and down, there are periods of calm and my leg is fine, and then something triggers it, and my leg acts up and I am left in a whirlwind of pain and inability to function as a healthy person. It is rather strange feeling of being totally without control and waiting things out, by following the doctors' orders and hope for the best. This is where knitting comes in hand, as it allows me to concentrate on something different, something that I enjoy and brings me and those who appreciate my knitting creations joy. 

 And so in the world of knitting joy I am happy to announce that I had several knitting patterns published in the past few weeks or months. Below are links to these knitting patterns on Ravelry, they are also available on Knitpicks website, and some will be a part of the new upcoming book: 60 Quick Knit Gifts for Babies, published by Sixth&Spring Books.

Rabbit toy

Striped Baby Blanket

Pencil Jar Cozy

Luvbot 

Making the Gradient Blanket

photo by I Like Knitting

Also, after six months exclusivity period my Helena Cable Cardigan, originally published in February issue of I Like Knitting Magazine and on their website is now available as Ravelry download and will be at some point available on Lovecraft and Payhip.

Last time I was home sick and recovering I created a free pattern code for the readers of my blog. It was overwhelming. This time I offer a free knitting pattern to all new subscribers to my newsletter: Stana's Critters Etc and they do receive exclusive coupons in every newsletter I sent out. 

If you don't want to comit to subscribe to the newsletter but would like to have some discount, I offer you a 20% off from any of my self-published knitting patterns, just use the coupon code blog from now until August 31st, 2022 EST midnight. 

Thank you for reading.

New Patterns and more

 

In my blog post from September 2020 (read here) I talked about how my love for knitting and creating started. You can see a photo of my first finished sweater, and in some way my first design of a sweater, even though it was created only to fit me, and I never dreamed of becoming a knitwear designer at that time. 

photo by I Like Knitting

This is my 304th knitting pattern, Helena Cable Cardigan published in February issue of I Like Knitting magazine. The pattern is free for the subscribers. 

link here to the I Like Knitting website

Helena Cable Cardigan on Ravelry

Update on Helena Cable Cardigan

photo by I Like Knitting

For the pictured sample I have use the Cascade Yarns Aereo Tweed in Marine colorwork. It's a snuggly mix of Merino and Baby Alpaca yarn that was a pleasure to work with. 

Two of my previously published patterns are now available as Ravelry downloads and will be shortly also on Lovecraft website and in my Payhip store.  See pictures bellow of the Cuddly Cat Pillow a whimsical pillow and Brie's Cowl an introductory brioche technique in the rounds.

photo by Interweave Knits

photo by Knitpicks

Also, during the last year, I had few more patterns published by I Like Knitting: 

First in August 2021 Issue two patterns for pillows:

Zion Canyon Pillows on Ravelry

Zion Grotto Pillows on Ravelry

photo by I Like Knitting

In September 2021 Issue it was a Raven Plaid Poncho.

 Raven Plaid Poncho on Ravelry.

photo by I Like Knitting

Once the rights to these patterns are reverted back to me, I will add them as PDF files to Ravelry, also to Lovecraft, and Payhip.

My 305th published knitting pattern is a whimsical instant gratification project named Monogram Gift Heart.

At the moment the pattern is available as Ravelry download, and will be added to Lovecraft, Payhip and Knitpicks website. The pattern is written for variety of yarn weights, from fingering all the way to bulky, and has charts for all the letters of the alphabet, a paw print and a written-out direction on how to knit the hearts. It is a perfect project for those long gloomy and cold days as it will brighten up your day as you work on the monogram heart, and it will definitively bring a smile to anyone who will receive this little gift heart. You can play with different letters, creating words and messages.

Happy Knitting.

Thank you for visiting.

Brunelli Wrap

 

These two photographs may seem irrelevant to the title of this blog post, but in a strange sense it represents part of the knitwear designer process. When I looked at the sky I saw these heart shaped clouds, and I had a camera in hand and was able to take a photo. In a way it was a luck that I looked at the sky at that exact moment and had a camera and was able to capture the clouds shape before it disappeared and changed its shape. If I looked at any other moment the heart shaped clouds would be gone and I wouldn't have these two photos. It seems that the same goes for submitting to a third party submission call. 

My ideas are few of hundreds submissions that the editors look through for each submissions call and sometimes it needs a bit of luck and the right moment for an idea to click and be accepted.

Brunelli Wrap is a perfect example. It was rejected so many times that it felt like it's not worth it. Yet I kept returning to the sketch and swatch, and decided to knit a sample anyway. It was at that moment the pattern was accepted for a publication. Here is the post I wrote about the Brunelli Wrap after it was published in October Issue of Knotions Magazine. The rights to the pattern has returned back to me and I can offer the pattern to purchase on my Ravelry Designer Page,  Payhip, Lovecraft website and you can also buy it by clicking on this button, which takes you to Ravelry:

Picture bellow is by Kellie Nuss for Knotions Magazine.

Thank you for visiting and reading. 

The Year 2020 and Happy Holidays

 

What a year this has been. It will be remembered for generations and taught in history classes. 

 Happy New Year 2020 was my first blog post of this year. 

This is my last blog post of this year. 

Between these two blog posts the world dealt with some challenges and we are still not over the Pandemic. I have seen posts about how so many people wish this year didn't happen and how the New Year cannot come fast enough. 

Whether we liked 2020 or not, it is a year of our lives that will never be repeated. We do not have the option of replay or start from the beginning, and we should try to embrace this year with all that has happened to us, the world, society, and individually. It is upon us what tomorrow and future holds.

 I sincerely hope that you, the reader, will have a Happy Holidays and may your days be filled with love, kindness, compassion, and generosity towards each other. 

Stay focus on the breath and look up to the stars and Universe, for we are all made of the same material.  

Joy to the world, and may you find some peace and health. 

Thank you for reading. 

PS: In my small world of knitwear design work, I have managed to published 34 new knitting patterns this year. This include plenty of self-published patterns, including an entire e-book Baba Yaga's House and also having my work published by variety of third party publishers like: I Like Knitting, Knitpicks, Lovecraft, Interweave, and Knotions. 

Snowmen Garland, Paw Print Pin Cushion and Paw Print Heart

 Over the past week I have published three knitting patterns. They are all quick and wonderful last minute knitted gifts. Each of these takes about two hours or less of knitting.  And all you need is less then 50 yards / 46 meters of yarn. The patterns suggest worsted weight yarn, but it will work in any yarn weight. The size of the finished item will be different from the samples done in worsted weight yarn, and you will have to adjust the needle size accordingly to the yarn weight. 

The first and the most easy of the three patterns is Snowman Garland: 

You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry: My Designer Page

or clicking on this button, which takes you to Ravelry:

 

or you can buy it on Lovecraft website, or on Payhip

My second pattern is Paw Print Pin Cushion: 

You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry:

or clicking on this button, which takes you to Ravelry: 

 

or you can buy it on Lovecraft website, or on Payhip

My third pattern is the most difficult of these three as it requires stranded knitting, increases, and decreases working in the round, but it's also my favorite one of the three:

Paw Print Heart

You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry:

or clicking on this button, which takes you to Ravelry:

 

or you can buy it on Lovecraft website, or on Payhip, or in my Etsy store

Here is a picture of our dog with the Paw Print Hearts. He has been an inspiration behind this pattern and as a thank you I will donate $1 from each pattern purchase during the month of December to our local animal shelter. Our dog has arrived from an animal shelter and he has been a wonderful addition to our family. 

Thank you for visiting, and thank you for buying my knitting patterns. 

Generosity, GAL, Fasten off Yarn 2020, and life

 

This is the time of year when people tend to be more generous and caring. In the knitwear designer world it is also the time of year when a wonderful event Gift-a-long is happening on Ravelry.

GAL 2020 officially started yesterday with a week long sale event, after the sale event is over the gift-a-long continues until the end of the year. There are games to play, prizes to win, and more. You can join the event on Ravelry Indie Design Gift-a-long I am also participating as a designer.  Stana's Critters Etc on Ravelry.

In June of this year (I think, but I might be wrong) Ravelry website was redesigned and the new Ravelry website was live. Apparently there have been some issues with the new design. Due to this a new event was created  Fasten Off Yarn-a-long  This event starts today with another sale time and conitnues with knit a long, games, prizes and all, but is held completely off Ravelry. I am also participating as a designer in this event, you can see the patterns here: Stana's Critters Etc 

As a knitter I will try to participate and knit something from other designer's patterns. I have quite a few favorites and I just need to decide what to make. 

Life is rather interesting. We all are trying to cope with the effects the pandemic had on our lives in the past several months. I am not sure what the future is holding for us, humanity and the world, but I try to be optimistic. That is rather difficult at times when I scroll through the news and read them. I personally choose each and every day to see something good and something positive in my life. For example my heart shaped rocks pictures and collection. It started with an unexpected chance discovery of a heart shaped rock on a path I have taken so many times before, yet I never saw that heart shaped rock before that day, few years ago. Since that day I have seen so many heart shaped rocks, and clouds and other objects that it might be an ordinary. Yet I choose to see each and every heart shape I see as a message from the Universe that life is good, and that there is hope for all of us. 

One of my latest knitting patterns is named Paw Print Heart. It is a combination of heart shape and a paw print on it. You can see the samples with my dog. At the moment the pattern is available in my Etsy store, Payhip store, and on Lovecraft. I will add the pattern to Ravelry next week.

Each year I choose a charity to donate some money. This year I will donate locally to our animal shelter. It is not the only charitable organization I donate, as I am an active member of Friends of the library and I support them a lot. For every pattern purchase of the Paw Print Heart I will donate $1 to the animal shelter. I guess it is my way of being thankful for the gift of our dog who has arrived from an animal shelter and has been a loved member of our family.

Stana's Critters Etc

Paw Print Heart

Thank you.

The middle part of a journey....

 

Today is a very important election day in the USA. The outcome of this election day will affect me and everyone else on this planet in some way or another. I am trying to be optimistic and believe in goodness, human decency, truth, and kindness, but our human history is convincing me otherwise. I have to admit I am scared of what will happen. Watching the news as stores are boarding up their windows in anticipation of violence and riots is rather depressing. The pandemic that we have been living through for the past several months is raging and seems unstoppable. I cannot help but think of my family and their experiences throughout their lives. My grandmother was one of approximately twelve millions of people who were forced labor during the World War II. She has survived and met my grandfather during that time. My mother had lived through the military occupation of our country and watched the army stay for 21 years while trying to raise her family. I guess my life has been rather easier in comparison. At the time when they were young they lived through forced labor and occupation, while I lived through the fall of Berlin Wall and Velvet Revolution. I have experienced the optimism and euphoria of freedom after the cold war. It kinds of make me wonder what my child will experience and I truly hope that there is a bright future for all of us. 

In some way today reminds me of the middle part of a fairytale. The time of tryout and testing, the time when the hero or heroine has to do the required task to reach the goal and overcome the villain. Unlike fairytales when we know the outcome, when we know that the good prevails and the villains are punished, in the real world we are not guaranteed that outcome. We might not have the happy forever fairytale ending. But we sure must try and hope for the best. 

On my part I will continue the journey and hope. 

As for my fairytale inspired knitting journey, you can see the little bread crumbs I left behind and follow...

The beginning

Winter Trees

Frances

Cat Pin Cushion

Witch's Hat

Frog Bag

Broomstick

Baking

And I am off to bake and knit to occupy my mind and hands until next time...

Leonard and Lola, toy mystery KAL

As I mentioned in my previous post, the new toy mystery KAL is about to start.

Leonard and Lola

Leonard and Lola is the new toy mystery KAL, starting with clue one this week. The pattern will be released in four clues with the final pattern available June 9th.
Pictured is the yarn I used for Leonard. I have used Knitpicks Palette, fingering yarn held double. I will be using slightly different yarn (worsted Cascade 220 Superwash) for Lola. I have already knitted another sample about a year ago for a colleague from work. For her sample I used some random worsted weight yarn from my stash, held double to make the toy a bit larger.

More details and the pattern to download is here:
Leonard and Lola

Don't forget to join my group on Ravelry where you can find the coupon code and where you can participate in posting the work in progress pictures and chat with fellow knitters.
Stana's Critters Etc group

In my small stay at home world I continued on my baking adventures path. I baked my tried and successful recipes, some comfort food, and I tried few new thing. After many years of being asked to try and make the sourdough bread I have gone down the rabbit hole of sourdough baking. It is a challenge and I am not sure how successful I have been. I followed the book The Bread Baker's Apprentice  by Peter Reinhart and started my sourdough adventure last Monday morning with the Day one for Seed Culture, I continued with the Barm and yesterday evening we had the first sourdough bread. The sourdough bread didn't rise as much as my usual bread I bake using the commercial yeast, but it tasted good. I guess I just have to continue and I am sure with time and practice the bread will be better and better. Just like with knitting. My first attempts were so much different from what I am knitting these days. And it also took practice and perseverance.

Baking Week VII

 In my collage picture are: My first sourdough breads, Linzer cookies, Bread, Bread (I baked another), Focaccia (This time I added few thing on top to make it more interesting), Bundt Cake, Tortillas (my first time making them from scratch, they taste different from the store bought tortillas, and they were harder to use for Fajitas, but still tasted good), Ginger Bread (my mom's recipe, fast, easy and good tasting), and my Monday adventure of starting the sourdough seed culture, my bread (I baked it three times this week) and our comfort food of Chocolate Brownies (it's so good to bite into a warm, and soft chocolate brownie).

This week proved to be challenging for our garden. Last week we planted two Pear trees, Blueberry, Currant, and Raspberry bushes, and then this weekend we had a freezing temperatures overnight and it snowed. We will not know if the trees will make it through this temperature change and produce some fruit or not until late in the season.

Pear tree bloom

We also had our first crop of the season. We seeded the radishes early in March, in our new cold frame, and now they are maturing, and are ready to be picked and eaten.

Radishes

Yesterday, on my walk with our dog through the neighborhood I looked up and saw for a brief moment this wonderful heart shaped cloud.

Heart shaped cloud

I see this as a sign of hope, that we as humans will make it through this pandemic and learn to be better and kinder to each other and to the Earth especially.

Thank you for visiting.

Life as a work in progress...continues

heart

Today is Friday the 13th.
Life continues in a strange way. The world is trying to cope with the Coronavirus pandemic and I have to admit, I am scared.
I worry about my mom who lives alone across the ocean, and I cannot help her from here. It has always been difficult, but it seems impossible now with the travel ban, and borders closing. I talk to her every day and I am so thankful for the technology and all the possible way to communicate.
I hope that she will make it through and we will have another chance to see each other in person and I will be able to hold her in my arms.
Our everyday life here is changed. Schools have been cancelled, activities postponed. All of this have been done to help to slow down the spread of the Coronavirus.
To keep myself busy and distracted from everything that is happening, aside of spending plenty of hours with our dog, and knitting, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It seems to me that baking is one of the ways I cope with stress, aside of yoga, and knitting.
Today I baked Banana bread. The recipe I use is from a dear friend of mine, and to keep things simple I use the same Bundt cake form for many of my baking recipes.

Banana Bread

Aside of baking, I also spent my afternoon outside and enjoyed the nice weather. The dog was tired from his nice long hike in the woods, and I got to watch my kid play, and knit few rounds on sample for one of my new knitting patterns.

WIP

Thank you for visiting.

Life as a work in progress

Usually I try to keep posts on this blog about knitting. Occasionally I write about life.

Scraptastic Cowl

This is one of those posts. I am not a native English speaker. I learned the language at school, and even now so many years after I moved across the ocean to be with the man I fell in love, I still make mistakes when speaking, or writing. I do apologize for them. I try my best.

Over the years I wrote few blog posts about life events, if you wish to explore them read some of them here:
Life tag
Portfolio
Gardening
Why I make

A friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer. This is devastating news to hear. What is even more devastating is the fact that she will be paying for some of her medical bills and she needs to still pay her living bills as well. She has set up a fundraiser to raise money to help her go through this difficult time of her life. I decided to donated all of the money I made from selling my knitting patterns during the month of February. I was hoping for a good month, so I would be able to give her a lot. Unfortunately it has been an average month, see the picture bellow what I have actually made during the month of February.

I hope that by sharing her fundraising page here might bring her some more money to help her through this.
Here is the link to her
Go Fund me page

In my knitting life things are improving. My elbow is much better and I can knit again. I try to work on the Scraptastic Pillow, which apparently is tested by my dog for comfort and usability, even unfinished.

Scraptastic Pillow

Over in my group on Ravelry we have the March KAL, working on Odie, the sea otter. You can join us for the fun.

Odie, the sea otter

Thank you for visiting and reading.

Hearts KAL

Today is a Palindrome day 02.02.2020
The last one happened on 11.11.1111
and the next one will be on 03.03.3030

I guess I am lucky to experience one of these days....

It is also a new month and there is a new KAL in my group on Ravelry.
It is all about hearts. Anything that has a heart image, heart shape, or is for your sweetheart can participate. 

Scraptastic Scarf and Cowl

Heart shaped cloud

The link to the group on Ravelry:
Stana's critters etc

Heart

Have fun knitting.