Farmer's Market

 

Farmer’s Market is a knitted version of our shopping bag filled with fruits and vegetables bought at a local farmer’s market. The fruits and vegetables are nicely stored in the knitted shopping bag. 

You can buy the knitting pattern in my Payhip store: Farmer's Market 

or in my Ravelry store: Farmer's Market

or by clicking on this button:  

In the picture bellow you can see all of the fruits, vegetables that are in the bag.

The pictured sample uses Knitpicks's Brava Mini Pack in Jewel colorway. In the picture bellow you can see that there are still plenty of leftover yarn from that Mini Pack. 

All of the items in the bag use small amount of yarn and are ideal for using up scrap yarn.

Here is the list of the fruits and vegetables in the bag:

Finished Measurements:
Shopping bag 9.5” wide x 10.5” high; handles 27” long
Fruits and Vegetables:
Apple 3” diameter
Beet 5” long
Blackberry 1.5” long
Blueberry 1.25” diameter
Carrot 7.5” long, including the leaves
Cherry 1.25” diameter
Cucumber 5.5” long
Eggplant 8” long
Grapes 5.5” long
Pear 5.5” long, 3” diameter at widest point
Plum 2” diameter
Pumpkin 3.25” diameter
Raspberry 1.5” long
Strawberry 1.25” diameter
Swiss Chard 5.75” long
Tomato 2.75” diameter

Thank you for reading and visiting.

Gulliver visit

 

We have a very special visitor for about two weeks. A small rabbit named Gulliver travels around the world and spends about two weeks with a host family all around the world. The rabbit and the idea about his journey started with the toy designer Sarah Elizabeth Kellner who sent her knitted rabbit on his adventurous journey in July 2018. 

You can follow Gulliver's journey in the Ravelry group Rabbit Hole Knits and see though pictures, extracts from his travelling diary, and a map how many wonderful places and people Gulliver met along his journey. 

I always admired her toy designs, you can see her patterns here on her website: Rabbit Hole Knits

For two weeks Gulliver is staying with us, exploring the places and meeting new friends, like Monster Al and Little Blue Bear.

In the picture below you can see the two of them reading one of the books about Monster Al's adventures, if you want to know what is in that particular story, read the story here. 

Gulliver allows everyone to see their lives from a new perspective and appreciate the place we live in, the people we are surrounded by and what we do. For a brief moment we are sharing our lives with a stranger and become friends for life. 

Thank you for reading.

Bernie's Doll

 

Remember how in January of 2021 Bernie Sanders and his knitted mittens were all over the Internet? 
In a sense it feels such a long time ago, yet it's less then five months ago. 

This knitted Bernie’s doll is inspired by the images I have seen. I started to work on this doll at the end of January, see my first blog post about it here: Work in progress - Bernie's doll  Somehow to knit this doll took much longer then usually, see my March work in progress blog post with a picture of still unfinished Bernie's doll. But in the end I have finished the doll sometimes at the end of March, Work in progress blog post from the beginning of April finally have a finished Bernie's doll picture. 

It took almost equally long to type up the pattern into a PDF file from my handwritten notes. You can see that part of work in progress in the picture bellow. 

Finally, the pattern is available to all, and it's free, my gift to you. You can get it by visiting my Ravelry designer page: My designs or you can download it from Ravelry by clicking on the download now link  bellow. At some point in the next week I will add the pattern to Lovecraft website as well. 

download now

The doll is knit in worsted weight yarn and it uses several knitting techniques: knit in the round, increases, decreases, I-cord, short rows, Grafting (Kitchener stitch), Bobbles, Loop Stitch, stranded colorwork and stripes.

I have to say that my knitted dolls designs have been improving over the years as I try to get more realistic and 3D appeal to them. In the pictures bellow you can see how the dolls have changed from my first doll designs to the latest by using a variety of knitting techniques and adding the clothes as separate layers instead of knitting them as the part of the dolls.  It started with the Man with the Yellow Hat, through the Spider Man, Iron Man, Batman and Robin, Pat and Mat, Luki's doll, Baba Yaga, and now Bernie's doll.

All of the dolls, except Baba Yaga are available as free patterns. There is no pattern for Luki's doll as that was a very special design for one boy based on his drawing. 

See all the toys in the pictures bellow. 

Thank you for visiting.

June 2021

 

June is all about freshly picked strawberries. The sweet taste of freshly picked strawberries brings back my memories of the time when we would go with my parents and collect the strawberries from our small community garden. It was a way for my parents to assure that we have fruits and vegetables to eat as the selection in the stores of that time was rather limited. These days, we have a small strawberry patch and even though the squirrels and birds are getting to some of our strawberries we still have few to snack on each day for a few weeks in June. 

Bellow are some of my knitted versions of strawberries, like those Strawberry Sandal Motif, which were published originally in June 2019 of I Like Knitting:

photo by I Like Knitting.

Or my basket of knitted strawberries, an art piece for an exhibit, or a little strawberry hat: if you want to see how I made the hat see the original post here:  Strawberry Hat 

Thank you for visiting.

My dog is a better influencer...

 

Seriously, my dog seems to be getting more Instagram collaboration requests than I have ever received as a knitwear designer. All he has to do is being himself and I just help with posting a picture of him to his Instagram T-Bone dog diary. 

I have to do more, than that. 

photo by I Like Knitting

Spotted Around Set is an e-book collection of two knitting patterns that were originally published in October issue of I Like Knitting Magazine and on their website, see the blog post from last September here: Knitwear Designer. After the exclusivity period finished I have the rights to the patterns and I can publish the patterns independently. You can buy the patterns individually or as an e-book for a discounted price.

At the moment I am working on another project for a third party publisher and my independent work is  as usually put on hold as the deadline is nonexistent unlike the contracted work for a third party.  

But once the work is finished I will return to my independent projects and continue to work on those. There are so many knitting patterns in various stages of work in progress that I hope to finish and publish during this year.  Like the pattern for this Bernie's doll. It took me about two months to knit the doll and now the pattern is taking even longer to write up into a word document from my handwritten  notes. 

Thank you for visiting and reading. 

Spring WIP and Memento Hat II

 An update on the Memento Hat: See at the end of this blog post. Including the links to where to purchase the pattern. 

The test knitting for this Memento Hat is almost finished and I enjoy seeing the pictures of the test knitters finished hats. I also have the pattern back from the TE and I will be looking over the suggestions and making the corrections based on the feedback. Bellow is a picture of my dog with an older version of the same hat, knit in worsted weight cotton yarn. 

I plan on finishing the edits and have the pattern published by the end of this month. But sometimes things do not work according to plans. For example, last weekend I really thought that I will look the edits over during this week.

But, our garden still needs to be tended and cared for, the plants need to be planted and seeds seeded and the time left after the work was done I have used to lounge in the hammock wearing the Memento Hat. I guess, as I age I have realized that there is always another day to sit in front of computer screen but perhaps there might not be another day when the weather is warm, the sun is shining and I have an hour to just exist and be present and enjoy the peace and quiet of simply being alive.

The pattern is now available on Payhip: Link here: Memento Hat

You can purchase the pattern in my Ravelry store: My designer page

Soon the pattern will be added to Lovecraft: link will be added here when available 

Or you can purchase the pattern by clicking on this button:

Thank you for reading and stay well.

Spring WIP and Memento Hat

 

This is a picture of my last year Dandelion Honey. Each jar was filled with a sweet syrup and a whole lot of memories. I wrote about it in this blog post: Work in progress. Every time I have used the Dandelion Honey I recalled the memories from my childhood and the time when I was making it. I have included the recipe in my e-book Baba Yaga's House. 

This spring as I watch the flowers bloom I though about making the Dandelion Honey again. And so instead of sitting in front of the computer and finally typing up the knitting patterns for Bernie's doll and few other projects I went to collect the Dandelions and spent my weekend making the sweet syrup that will flavor our teas, or lemonades for the next few months. This year I added another project to try: A syrup made from Violet flowers. I have collected the flowers on my friend's lawn and I made sure that there were plenty of flowers left behind for the pollinators to feed on.

I started this yesterday, and as I am typing up this blog post I just finished pouring the Dandelion Honey into jars that will be stored in the fridge until it's all used. In the picture bellow you can see this year Dandelion Honey and the syrup made from Violet flowers. 

After a few weeks of knitting samples and writing pattern that will be published by a third party later this year I started to work on a new project. Few weeks ago I have been accepted into an Influencer program at Knitpicks - We Crochet. I have received a box filled with yarn and few other things. You can see the box in the picture bellow.

I had a project on my mind that I was going to do with the Memento yarn. But I decided to create a different hat, one that can be worn during the summer days. I named it Memento Hat. Pictured is the large size and I have used less then a skein of Memento yarn in Moonshadow colorway. Over the next week or so (life permitting) I will type up the knitting pattern and post the test call in my group on Ravelry. After the pattern goes through the hands of technical editor and is fully test knitted I will publish the pattern. If everything works out it will be just in time for the summer. 

A rough cost for this project:

A skein of yarn: Memento $9.99

Knitting pattern: Memento Hat $4.99 (I have to pay the TE)

Your time to knit this hat: ???? ( I knitted the hat in few hours over this past week)

The perfect hat for all your memorable summer adventures: Priceless 

Thank you for visiting.