So far this is the oldest I have ever been!

This is post #100 on this blog, yay! And I honestly have nothing really interesting to talk about, except my birthday ^_^”

This weekend, I got to celebrate my birthday with family and friends and I got spoiled rotten! I got a lot of gifts, including some great crochet-related ones that have been on my wishlist for a while now.

To make everything really easy for everyone (including yours truly) here’s a pictures of our dinner table filled with my presents:

Crochet-wise I got:
– Feestpoppetjes Haken (crocheting party puppets, very loosely translated, since it’s in Dutch) by Marieke Dissel
– Zoomigurumi 2
– The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amigurumi by June Gilbank
– Two crochet hooks from the Clover Amour series: 2 and 3 mm
– And a couple skeins of a very soft yarn ^_^

Boyfriend surprised me with a big stack of books and the third season of The 4400 and then there are the books I got the week before from a friend and some other random gifts and cards. One gift I was really pleased to get: the kit to make my very own BeanStalk from Fantasy Atelier:

“Beanstalk”

I actually put mine together today, but I will show it off in another post. It isn’t as glorious as this one though… But I still really like it ^_^

I’ve been reading the Complete Idiot’s Guide and love it! It’s a very light read, and even though I have been crocheting for some years now, it doesn’t bore at all. I’m at the part where you learn to make your own patterns now, and I’m hoping I will pick up a couple of nice tips.

I also received quite a bit of money, which went straight into the laptop-jar. With a bit of luck, I might bring one home this afternoon ^___^

Other than getting loads of presents, I really got to enjoy the weekend together with my friends and family, which is really what birthdays are all about, right?

Oh, I almost forgot: a friend of mine is letting me pick some stuff from Heikina, a dutch crafts webshop. I really need to get over there and see what kinds of things I still need (which will probably be everything if I browse long enough…)

Well, I won’t be bored for a while.
Do you ask for crochet stuff for your birthday? Or do you celebrate without the gifts?

Cheers, Lydia

Frustration…

Sometimes, nothing turns out the way you want it to. I wanted to give Boyfriend a scarf for Christmas, since he can’t seem to think of any presents. But I’ve run out of yarn and the lady I bought it from wasn’t at the market this week. To make matters worse it’s impossible to find online. Next time I’m able to go to the market is… 2014 -_- so yeah, no scarf for Boyfriend.

I’m also working on a Christmas gift for a friend. He didn’t ask for it, but when I saw the pattern, I just knew I had to make it for him. But now I’m stuck, because I ran out of the main colour, again. Now I have to wait for it to be delivered, but the last time I ordered, it took quite a while to get here. So fingers crossed that it will get to me in time. On the other hand, I probably won’t see this friend before New Years, so I’ve got a bit of time.

In order to vent my frustration a bit, I decided to make a scarf or cowl for myself. After starting several different patterns and frogging it all, I ended up with a nice cowl after all.

Now it just needs a nice big button to finish it up ^_^

The pattern for this cowl comes from All About Ami. It’s called the buttoned shell stitch cowl. I made it with the same yarn as the ribbed pom pom beanie I made a while ago, so it makes a set 🙂

Do you get frustrated easily? And how do you handle it?

Cheers, Lydia

Keeping warm

After seeing my warm winter hat, Boyfriend asked me if I wanted to make one for him as well. So I got the yarn for it and planned to make it in secret to give to him for Christmas.

Saturday we had our annual celebration of ‘Sinterklaas’ (basically a dutch Santa). Each year, we buy generic gifts and play a game together with Boyfriend’s family where you can get gifts, but also need to trade or give them away. You start with all the gifts still wrapped and end up unwrapping them during the game. Long story short: Boyfriend ended up with a hat…

So a change of plans was made and now I’m making a scarf. I hope to have it done by winter 2015, it’s so very big! It measures about 2.5 meters in length and it needs to be broad enough to keep his neck warm. This is how far I’ve gotten:

In the meantime, I’m also working on a slightly secret project to give to a friend and I finished working on a commission for another friend, but can’t post about it yet, since he needs it for a gift as well ^_^”

Working on the scarf is a bit boring, so I think I will work on some small projects in between. I plan to make some Christmas ornaments for work, those should be quick enough to make whenever I get really sick of going back and forth.

How do you handle slightly boring projects? Do you just stick to it to get it done faster, or do you switch every now and again to keep things interesting?

Cheers, Lydia

As a bonus, here's a picture of Japie next to our Christmas tree ^_^

The final pony

Finally, the set is complete! I managed to finish up working on Dr. Whooves earlier this week, but hadn’t had the chance to post about him just yet. I didn’t have a lot of free time to make some decent pictures, but I was able to make some today.

And here he is:

He looks a bit angry, maybe I should’ve angled the eyes a bit less…

His cutie mark did come out rather well, thank goodness!

I’m not entrirely happy with the way he came out. I crocheted the head a bit too loose in places, so the stuffing shows a little and the eyes are a bit too stern. But I also believe this is the most difficult one of the characters I had to make, since there isn’t a lot of reference material apart from fan-art. In the end, he will just have to do and I’m also very sure that the people he is going to will love him no matter what I think ^_^

The whole flock together

I am rather relieved that the whole set is now done and ready to be send overseas. It can take a good while for packages to reach their destination, so I hope I’m able to post them soon so that they will make it in time for Christmas. I did stack them all into a box already, so basically, all I need to do is go to the post office this week ^_^”

Playing pony-tetris

Last two on top, it’s a perfect fit!

Have a lovely sunday!

Cheers, Lydia

The wedding planner

My cousin is getting married today and I almost forgot to crochet him and his fiancee a little gift! Luckily, Google always has the answer when it comes to quick little projects and I found a really cute pattern on Lion Brand.

They look adorable together, don’t they?

This morning I said to Boyfriend that when (not if :P) we get married, I want all the guests to give me a skein of yarn. He then decided that he wants a set of guitar strings from everyone. He also thought my idea was weird, but let’s ignore that part ^_~

I’ve got a bit of a headcold, so I’m pretty much rambling today. I have built a little crochet cave on the couch with a blanket and food and all my supplies together and I’ve been watching Graham Norton all morning.

And now I’m babbling again… I’d better get back to bed or something, seeing how I need to go to a wedding party tonight ^_^

Cheers, Lydia

Animal Cupcakes complete ^_^

Of course, after my post last friday, my order came in the mail that afternoon. So this weekend I was able to finish all the cupcakes I had been working on 🙂
Here’s the result:

Underwater set

All together tucked in their little box

Farm set

It’s a tight fit!

Peeking out of the window ^_^

I’m surprised at myself for liking the ‘Farm animals’ set better than the ‘Underwater animals’. Seeing how I have three fish tanks and zero cows. But I guess when you put them together the farm set just works a little better. Either way, I hope the people I have in mind for these like them as well!

I made one extra cupcake, a now very lonely little elephant:

So lonely 😦

I wonder, should I make complete ‘Zoo set’, or just give this little guy away on its own?

Cheers, Lydia

I’m not addicted, really…

In case you wonder what I’ve been up to this past week, here’s a work-in-progress picture:

I desperately need my order of safety-eyes to come in so I can finish these animal cupcakes ^_^

I owe a few of my friends a small gift and these were just too much fun to pass up on. I got some cupcake giftboxes to put them in, all together it just looks too cute.

Here’s the one cupcake I could finish before running out of the right size eyes and the box they’ll go in:

All right, back to work!

Cheers, Lydia

Happy Mothers Day!

My moms pot-holders have been looking awefully raggy lately. And I just happened to have the cutest pattern for a set! So I couldn’t resist making them as a Mothers Day gift ^_^

When my mother-in-law saw them, she said she’d like a set as well. But since I don’t really like making the exact same pattern twice, I decided to make this second set with different animal heads: cats!

I hope they’ll like them…

The pattern for the sheep and chicken heads and the pot-holder itself is from Christel Krukkert. For the cat-heads, I improvised ^_^

Cheers, Lydia

Welcome into the world!

My cousin and his girlfriend had a wonderful little baby boy last weekend. Normally, I have a little stash of baby-gifts laying around, but I have to admit that this time, I wasn’t prepared. Lucky for me, I have quite the collection of pattern books by now and as usual Ana Paula Rimoli helped me out.

I really love how this pattern came out, the colours give me a little bit of a retro-feel and the tiny bear is just too cute! I added a scarf for him, so he won’t catch a cold up there in the sky (like I did last Queens Day -_-” my throat still hurts…)

Taking his balloon for a test-drive inside, safety first!

Going out into the real world, safe travels little one!

Don’t worry, he was safely hooked onto my balcony. I just realised a bit too late that I’d have to take him down from there as well. A bit of acrobatics later and we’re both safe and sound back inside. But I just couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to make such an awesome picture (if I may say so myself…)

Cheers, Lydia

PS: This also became an entry for the Martingale Crochet-A-Long.

Birthday spoils

This weekend I got to celebrate my 26th birthday. I enjoyed a day full of visits from family and friends and got spoiled rotten with presents. The loot included a couple of crochet pattern books. Some, I had wanted for a while now and some, I didn’t even know existed. One of my friends decided it was time for me to learn how to knit as well. Either that, or she couldn’t remember whether I was into knitting or crochet ^_~

Funny thing is, two of the books I recieved were for making Christmas ornaments. One for crochet, one for knitting! “Kerstballen haken” by various authors (Crochet Christmas ornaments, I don’t believe there is an English version of this one) and “Kerstballen breien met Arne & Carlos” by Arne Nerjordet and Carlos Zachrison (55 Christmas Balls to knit).

I got two more Dutch pattern books, one from my wishlist: “Amigurumi & Forest friends” by Tessa van Riet-Ernst. The other one was a surprise to me: “Nog meer minihondjes en beestjes haken” by various authors (Even more crochet minidogs and animals once again, I don’t think there is an English version). From this book, I already had a couple of patterns, since I own all the books from one of the authors, but there are still quite a couple of fun looking ones in there that I didn’t know already.

And then there were two English pattern books on my list: “Super scary crochet” by Nicki Trench and “Creepy cute crochet” by Christen Haden. So, if we ever decide to celebrate Halloween, I won’t have any trouble making decorations for that ^_^ I especially love the patterns in Creepy cute, they look so easy and fun to make! The patterns from Super scary crochet are a bit more elaborate and turn out less cute and more scary.

So, it looks like I will be busy making lots and lots of new ami’s. Plus, I have to learn how to knit!
In about three weeks, I’ve got two weeks of vacation time coming up, so I know I won’t be bored.

Cheers, Lydia