The Sunniest Sunday!

Of course I am referring to April the 2nd, which was the sunniest, warmest Sunday you can dream of in April. We spiced up our short spring trips tradition, and went not only to visit our favourite park (as we did countless  times  before), but also...

We went to Narrow-gauge Railway Museum!!! And we managed to buy tickets for a short ride through forest! This place is extremely popular among families, especially on Sundays, so tickets are sold out quickly.

We had to wait for our turn for a while, so we had time to peek into every corner of the station.

We also had the opportunity to meet the dog who lives there. He greets every returning train with his wiggling  tail, and he is not at all bothered by hundreds of people going in and out.

"Why should I be? I OWN the place"

So we finally squeezed into  a tiny carriage, and went for a short, VERY LOUD trip.

It was worth all the waiting, and so so much fun! 

The train part did not take us long, and we continued this lovely afternoon in our favourite park..
We were lucky to find the last parking spot on the parking lot (yay to me for squeezing in!).

This time of the year sunlight reaches the bottom of the forest, so it is full of white and yellow flowers. And it smells of garlic because of the Bear's garlic (or wood garlic) that grows almost all around.

Last week we completed all of our new apartment paperwork, and now we just have to move in.

Unfortunately I will have to leave Korek at my parent's place. He is a 9-years-old doggo, and it would be cruel to take him away from his very own garden. I will visit him often though! It is less than a kilometer away.

I did make him a sorts of a parting gift:

A Blanket of Shame! I started a while ago, and it was meant to be a sweet vengeance for all yarn balls he stole and drooled upon. I used all pinkish acrylics I could find, and combined them in simple C2C crochet blankie. I used the Corner to Corner C2C Corner Start Tutorial by Lauri Bolland.  And I am very pleased with the result.

So is the new owner! :) He took it away while I tried to get a decent picture.

He surely looks great in pink!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

PS.: Guess who's getting a set of interchangeables for birthday next week? Aaand who got himself a complementary skein of hand painted artistic yarn? :3

I'm still alive... and the Giant Owl Blanket is DONE!

Oooh... so it's February now?
Last two months have been crazy. Many things changed. Some for good - we're getting our own apartment in three months, and some for worse - we lost our little friend - Tiny Tina.

Farewell my fuzzball :(

All this made me a bit to busy to blog. Sorry!

In this post from October 2nd I wrote that "I secretly hope this winter will be colder than the last one, so I will be able to use my shawl often, without risking overheating."
I hereby want to sincerely apologize! I have had it with this winter!!!
It's either this:

Or this...

By "this" I mean that grey haze over my lovely town. Smog is a serious issue this year.

Ok, enough whining!
I promised myself to not reveal my Giant Owl Blanket before it's new owners see it first... but I just can't help myself.

I joined the Sunshine Owl CAL a bit too late and in the end I followed instructions up to week 5. Then the blanket got a bit too big for a newborn blankie.

Here you can clearly see when I  started improvising, and lost stitch count. Oh flaring... I wanted to frog it at first, but then I thought - no one is going to lay it this flat!

For some reason my owl turned too big for the center so I did some shortcuts here and there:

And here's one more look at edges:

For this project I used 100% acrylic yarn  Ince by Bonbon in DK weight. It's not a top-notch yarn but colors are vibrant and pure, it also is very even and works up quickly. It went great with a 4mm hook (4,5 mm for two green sections - lacy ones). The whole thing is HUGE - 120x120cm. And that is not the entire pattern!

It took 510g of yarn - I purchased one skein of each color - 10 skeins in total. Looks like someone will make another blankie!

My next post will also be the 100th post! That calls for some celebration. Of course I'll do my best not to write it in April!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

PS.: Korek says "hello" :)

Autumnal Fennec Fox.

Autumn is officially here! As usual, it brings changes. I'm slowly finishing my internship, meaning I will start a "real job" soon. This will mean less time for my hobby, I'm afraid.

Luckily there are things that stay the same. Like my everlasting love for amigurumi for instance. Last weekend hubby talked me into buying a new magazine, dedicated only to crocheting toys.
Inside I found several patterns for woodland creatures, and one that caught my eye from the start. It took me about 4-5 hours to complete it.

Meet my sweet little Fennec Fox!

Pattern  Amigurumi Fifi the Fennec Fox by Sweet N' Cute Creations  is also  available on Ravelry.
It was very easy to make. I'm not sure if the assembly is depicted better in pdf version, but I didn't find many tips in print. It took me few tries to be happy with result.

For the first time I inserted glass marbles into hind legs and one into chest region. It made it more stable. Most of my plushies end up as baby toys at one point, so I rarely put anything except fiberfill inside. Fennec however, is moving to Cracow to accompany my sister-in-law on her college adventures. I hope she knows better! :)

Next time I will share my big autumnal project! I completed 3 out of 5 sections so far, but rows are getting dangerously loooong. But how can I complain, if I get to work with pure alpaca? <3

Have a nice afternoon!
Gosia.

Cleaning up my project bags.

It's my first summer without summer brake... It is kinda hard, because usually July was my busiest knitting month. I'm not giving up this year, though!
In last few weeks I completed one big project and two smaller ones. And today I received long a awaited parcel - a skein of Malabrigo Sock yarn. I also got a free project bag, since the postage was seriously delayed. Oooh my!

But let's get back to my former -WIPs. I present to you.. my brand new Syna Shawl. Pattern Syna by Mary Renji.

For this shawl I used Cotton Soft by YarnArt and I was really pleased. This yarn is almost unspliatble! Perfect for crocheting!

The only modification I made was finishing work after a solid section. Last row was crocheted using a crab stitch. I still have some yarn left, but I decided it's big enough:

Now I have to buy a matching dress, because we've been invited to a wedding.

My other no-longer-WIPs are not that big, in fact they are tiny! It's a set of newborn-size cardi and a matching hat for my friend. She's expecting her first baby, and I still need to make a pair of small booties.

Free patterns: Marianna's Lazy Daisy Top-Down with sleeves  and eyelet baby hat, both by marianna mel.
For those I used what I had left from Never Again Blanket, which was made for the same baby-to-be.

Now forgive me, but I can hear my lovely, soft, delicate skein of Malabrigo Sock yarn whisper... "wind me, wiiiiind meee!". I just have to trick my hubby into being a skein holder for a while!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

Children's Day!

Who doesn't love Children's Day? Being 26 years old is not a good enough reason not to celebrate it, right?
Over a week ago my and my hubby got invited by my in-laws to their holiday home. Placed in small town, very near to mountains. Weather was surprisingly good, so we even got to do some hiking!

I regretted not taking any of my WIP's with me, so I could do some open air crocheting.
While enjoying the view, that is.

When we took some rest in the evening, my mother-in-law asked if I heard of octopuses (or is it octopi?) for preemies. As soon as I got home I googled a bit and gathered info on The Danish Octo Project. I found also a big Polish group on Facebook, crocheting and distributing octopuses.

All softies must be made of 100% cotton, and stuffed with polyester filling.
Soo... I dug up all skein ends of Alize Bella I could find and started my work. First two projects are staying with me, because I didn't get the tension right, and filling shows through :( I couldn't bring myself to frog them, though.
Here's my collection of finished octopuses/pi:

Two in the middle are the ones staying :)

I also have some unfinished heads, and tomorrow I'm visiting my sister in search of more cotton.
Let's just have one more look at those swirling arms, shall we?

I think I could find time to crochet another one today.
Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

Long weekend is gone...

...aaand I'm back at work.

I've had an amazing 4 day long weekend, though!

On Thursday we visited Pszczyna, just like last year. On Friday we ventured in the opposite direction and arrived at Moszna (please, don't check for direct translation from Polish to English... just don't). The castle itself, looks like it was stolen from Disney logo, but it has a certain charm to it.

Not to mention a skeleton-princess in the highest tower, who did cost me some sleepless nights when I was a kid.

The most enjoyable part for me was a long stroll in the park. Rhododendrons were still in bloom... and just look:

Unfortunately two days of sunny weather turned out to be enough to build up thick stormy clouds, and Saturday and Sunday got us mostly grounded.

Every cloud has a silver lining, right? I had ALL the time in the world to knit! I started with speedkniting booties for my cousin's new baby. Bows Before Bros by Carrie Briggs :

And then I moved to crocheting my Syna Shawl.

No. I did not re-brand my Banana Leaf Shawl. I guess it's destined to be my standby project.

It's a new shawl I started on May 20th. Pattern is called  Syna by Mary Renji

I started using a delivery box as a project bag. You know how they say: reuse, re-purpose, recycle! :)So far I'm done with two lace section repeats, and I'm still enjoying my work. It is a mindless work except for moving from one section to another.

Netflix & Ch.. Crochet it is then!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

Whooops!

Oh no! I just realized I skipped my blogging Sunday!
At least I have a decent excuse - the weather last week was PERFECT. We decided we need some fresh air so we went to our favourite park.
The one we visited last summer, and spring.

Since today we have a horribly cold and rainy Sunday... I'm back!
My "Never again" blanket is going surprisingly well. I am just few metres away from completing third skein. I can't wait to block it!

It is impossible for me to stay focused on one project at a time, so I started this crochet beauty:

Using Ten Stitch Blanket leftovers, and some black acrylic/wool mix. I follow the Granny Mandala pattern by Crochet with Raymond. I hope I will have enough patience to turn it into a circular shrug or a cardi.

Today I got an email about a big sock yarn discount. Couldn't help myself... 4 skeins are on their way.  I think this means getting be back to socks knitting this month. Just in time for the first Sockalong anniversary I guess! :)

Ohhh, now I need to make some progress on the blanket before my new yarn arrives.

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.