A Beastie at mine

Hello, my friends!

I think that you have noticed that I didn’t talk about my BM’s Christmas gift in my last post… That is because I didn’t craft him anything… I asked a friend to do it for me… that because I have seen this post a long time ago and I said to myself that this could have been a perfect for him!

So I wrote to Helen from Crowcrafts Beasties and asked her if she was avaiable for this project… AND SHE WAS!!!

So, after an hideous and long journey, our new family member was dropped on the the doorstep on December 30th, on my BM’s birthday… What a perfect timing!!!

Our Dr. Who made himself at home immediately…

…. and found his favourite place ….

He has a passport…

… and he carries the Sonic Screwdriver…

And what to say about the Tardis… ????

AWESOME!!! Simply AWESOME!!

I do not know how to describe Helen’s work… it is neat, well finished, you have that clear feeling that she put her heart in it… every single detail is at its place! My MB and I, we felt so well while opening Helen’s parcel… So, my dear friend, thank you a lot! My BM appreciated your creature and its space time vessel so much indeed and thank you for the Beastie calendar and the lovely postcard too, they were a really beautiful and unexpected surprise.

Have a happy and crafty week everybody!!

Love

xxx

Tajana

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A bit late but… Happy New Year

Hello, my dear friends!

A very happy new year to all of you!!! I wish you a lot of love, happiness, fun, WIPs, FOs and yarn!

How are you?

Did you have some good and cozy time spend in a good company of the loved ones? I truly hope you did and that the beginning of the year is exciting and satisfying!

It seems that 2017 is going to be a surprising year as 2016 was… Well, I can speak for the part of the world I’m living in since Italy is still stroken by strong earthquakes, fortunately far away from Peschiera del Garda, but which are causing so many tragedies. I do hope that Mother Nature will give a break to the population suffering this disater.

2017 is the year of my 40th birthday too. Whaaaaaaaaat??? Already?? But but…. I was a little girl only yesterday! I swear! IT WAS YESTERDAY!

Oh, I will tell a lie if I say that I’m not affraid of the time flowing by but on the other hand I feel so well! Life is treating me very well indeed and I’m so thankful for the chance I had to enjoy some very happy and rich moments despite all the adversities. I do hope that this will continue for a long time ahead…

I owe you some Christmas photos. As I tell you I knitted socks as Christmas gifts for the family men and here are some photos. It had taken me a month to finish all the pairs and I took photos only of some of them…

The project I’m most proud of is a two color stranded hat! I have to thank to a friend of mine for the help and the directions given! It had had a big success and, apart the two knitted for my nephews, I knitted two more of them commissioned by friends of mine.

This is a project I do love to knit so much! It is fun, lovely and so nice. The pattern I use is this one. 🙂

I crocheted a Sleepy Bear for my BM’s nephew 🙂

… and despite my perplexity about the color, the little chap likes to play with this crocheted guy :).

And here are all my gifts gathered together..

I can’t deny that there was a lot of stress about deadlines and the satisfaction of everyone’s desire, but everybody liked their pressie so I felt so very well after Christmas.

We had a handmade Christmas tree this year …

… and we have a new leafy friend to take care about…

A bonsai. A ficus tree…. purchased before Christmas and it is still alive! Yeah!!

To not be forgotten: would you like to make the lovely snowman from the upper picture? Click here 🙂 . And if you need the translation, I can ask the permission to the designer to translate her pattern.

What had happened more… let’s see… Oh,well, anything special… I’m back on my craft 🙂 🙂 🙂

My BM made me a nice gift…

Oh I almost forgot about a pre Christmas quick commission, a pair of mitts and a hat for a little nine months old girl…

… and I made myself Amabie…

I think that that’s it for now and that I didn’t forget anything. After holidays life has continued to flow in its usual way, I’m so happy about that, and I can tell that I have a lot to do. A commission, a gift exchange (Roma, I didn’t forget about, after the stole it is your turn 🙂 ), a hat and a scarf for my BM and a lot of accounting study…

So let us put on the go mode!

Love

xxx

Tajana

 

 

Salva

Salva

Last jam making of the year

Hello, my friends!

As I told you yesterday I discovered the joy of fruit this summer and made a lot of jam. Cherry jam, strawberry jam, apricot jam… I thought that it would be nice to give jam jars as Christmas gifts to my friends and mused a lot about how to embellish them for this special occasion… well, I found that kitchen string could be quite decorative… as much as buttons and tags…

Cherry jam

Strawberry jam

Apricot jam

I made the last pot of jam of the season last week with some really juicy plums…

… and I crafted the tags for the jars…

… with crocheted flowers which pattern is from this beautiful book…

I simply adore Emma Lamb‘s style!!

So here we are!

Well, I can feel satisfied! There’s enoug jam for everybody! Would you like to come and try some? You are all welcome!

Have a great weekend!!!

Love

xxx

Tajana

Popping out again

Hello, my dear friends!

It has been a while since my last post here on the blog. What had happened….? Well… It is hard to say but let it put that way… I have a compulsive need to create and hold in my hands the result of this compulsive activity. Around Christmas last year I found so hard to spend time both online and crafting and I discovered Instagram, a quick and easy way to share photos, exactly what I needed in that very moment. So you can easily imagine what had occured. I was able to show you my WIPs and FO projects and follow and be followed by all my blog friends. Well, to be frank it is much easier to find me on my personal Facebook profile and on Instagram than here or on Pinterest…. So I totally neglected my blog and all that beautiful people who are my ultimate inspiration. As I always say that there wouldn’t be any crafted goodie at mine if there weren’t you, my friends, who inspired me.

I have to thank Roma for bringing me down from the moon. With few lovely words she made me think about the goal I gave to this blog and I understood that writing always  calmed down that crafty urge I have and always made me collect my thoughts. For a new beginning. Maybe I’ll not be present so often as I used to be but i promise I’ll start sharing again my projects here in blogland. All the photos you’ll find on Instagram first…. Sorry for that!! But my musing will be written here.

I’d like to start with sharing one of the Christmas gifts I finished off lately. I knitted a stole for one of my SILs ….

It has taken me a while to knit this stole but it is totally worth the effort. The pattern is a simple one, I just replicated a lace chart from Elisabeth Lovic’s book. 🙂

I have knitted two shawls too… the Stone Tulip Shawl! What a beautiful pattern!

The first one is for a friend of mine while the second one is meant for another SIL (there are three of them… the gift for the third one is in progress… ).

A friend of mine asked me to crochet her a Mermaid tail blanket.

 

If you like to make one of these you can find a pattern here.

My Big man and I were away for a holiday in the mountains this summer and having a break under a glacier eating a sandwich with home made bread and wearing hand made socks was great!

Alost the same feeling as in the moment i found this book in my mailbox!

I had fun with little sewing projects…

…. and I crocheted a Sleepy Bear following a pattern by Jennifer Olivarez.

This was a very busy summer because I discovered the joy of fruit…

….and made a lot of jam!

I hope that I was able to illustrate a bit of what had happened here down in Italy during my absence. Now I have to say bye and hurry to knead my flat bread with the yeast starter (…who is yelling for some attention down in the kitchen… ).

Stay tuned and have a nice day, lovely people out there!

Love

xxx

Tajana

Salva

The Big Acorn Race

Hello my dear friends!

It has been quite a long time since I wrote a post on this blog of mine. Life is rolling in its usual way here. I always craft a lot but I’m spending my time on a job hunting which takes me a lot of time. Oh,no result up till now but I’m enduring this situation. Well, if you like you can follow me on Instagram. I love it because I can share the photos of my projects much faster than here on my blog.

I popped up here today because I’d like to share with you somethng really sweet. An amazing blogger and a good friend has published her first crochet book ever. Jennifer from Squirrel Picnic wrote The Big Acorn Race, a real crochet Wonderland!! What to say more?? Oh, my word treasure is really poor to describe it but if you click HERE you’ll find a really nice review by Kathryn Vercillo who has perfectly understood the essence of The Big Acorn Race.

I had the luck to have been asked by Jennifer to be her pattern tester something like a year ago. You can’t imagine how happy I was when she asked me that! I will never thank her enouhg to have had me taking part of her project!Her patterns are magical, they have the power to make you feel happy and thrilled and calm all in the same moment. I warmly suggest you to purchase her book, you will make yourself a really nice and magical gift!

Two days ago I have received my copy and I simply couldn’t resist, I had to put myself on work!

I crocheted some oak leaves by using the pattern from the book and applied them on a shopping bag I sewed for my Mother in law as her birthday present.

See??? This is only an idea and my personal interpretation of a pattern written by Jennifer. There are much more wonders to be discovered and a lot of lovely projects to be made thanks to Jennifer’s creativity!

Go and check out her pages, you will not regret!

Love

xxx

Tajana

Some rest at last

Hello, my dear friends!

Here we are, two more days till Christmas!

How are you, how is your crafting going on? Are you freaking out? Oh,I hope that, whatever is your business right now, you are having great time!

I managed to craft all the gifts I planned to and here are some random shots…

I embroidered two Russian nesting dolls, one for the lovely lady who owns my fav yarn store in Parma and the other for my MIL, to add to her gift since she copied some of my ideas and I wanted her to have something special though… Both were turned into lavender bags….

The pressie for my Big man is wrapped….

… and put under the tree…

…we still have the same tiny tree from Parma… maybe there a change should be made… oh and yeah, my BM will have a new pair of socks soon 🙂 …. Isn’t the above yarn just lovely…? 🙂 🙂 🙂

I made some fabric hearts for some friends…

…. and crocheted some of them too…

The candy bags are filled and some of them were already given to the children…

I knitted some cowls, the one from the below photo is for one of my SILs…

And I wrapped the gifts for my friends…

I took the photos of the embroideries and I will show them to you after the holidays.

My dear friends I wish you a very merry Christmas and I hope that the new year will bring you smiles, happiness and love! Thank you for being there!

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

Love

xxx

Tajana

Candy Bags for Girls

The below two are my favourites…

I followed a simple but very lovely pattern found here 🙂

Love

xxx

Tajana

FOs and WIPs

Hello my dear friends!

Another post about Christmas gifts! Oh,please,try to stand me if you can… but this is that part of the year… the final crafty rush !!!

I start with the gift for the most important person of my life, my Big man…

Following this tutorial I made to my Big man an apron to add to the previously sewed messenger bag… Since he didn’t want me to knit him a sweater I had to find a solution for his Christmas gift and decided to make something he won’t never imagine to receive. I added a personal note to the apron….

Oh,he don’t like garments with writings so I had to camouflage my message 😀 😀 😀 and,no, we are not married but ‘I have the best companion on earth’ didn’t sound me good so I opted for ‘wife’ …. well, there’s a clear desire expressed in my words too and I hope that he will understand…. ( 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 I’m laughting because I know he wont…. ).

He has already received two pairs of socks and the cable scarf…. and under the three there will be the below goodies…. not bad… What do you think? Would your husbands like to have those goodies for Christmas?

🙂 🙂 🙂

I’m so happy that I can show you one of the embroideries I’m making for my friends since the receiver doesn’t have neither a FB nor an IG account… 🙂 And since I like poppies….

My friends can do with their embroideries whatever they want…. a bag, a frame, a pillow…. The others will be shown after the holidays 🙂

My FIL has his first sock ready ….

…. Rowan’s Fine Art is so soft…. thank you, Magliuomini!!!!

I’m so happy because I will finish Christmas my list soon, in a two weeks all the items should be ready…. well, at least the biggest ones… there’s a scarf for my brother to be finished off, now on my needles, the blanket for my younger nephew and the second sock for my FIL… I feel quite ok about, the buntings for the blanket are cut out, the scarf is made on 8 mm gauge needles and the second sock is going to be started tomorrow during a knit café organized by me here in Peschiera (I hope someone will come tomorrow….) .

My BM asked me to make something for his colleagues’ children so I made yesterday two small bags to fill with candies…

As you can imagine, the bird is for the girls and the dog for the boys! Well,I have to change the fabric for girls since the black colour isn’t the best choice I could eventually make but all in all the idea is nice. Quite quick too 🙂

That’s it for now, my friends! I have to run to the supermarket and pick up some groceries so…

I wish you a happy weekend and a lot of happy craft!! ❤ ❤ ❤

Love

xxx

Tajana

FO :: More Christmas Gifts

Hello, my dear friends!

What to say…? Upseting events are occuring around Europe lately and it seems so stupid writing about crafting in these days but I’m strongly covinced that a way to fight those who are hurting us so badly is to not stop living our every day life! We can sit down and talk about the political situation which had brought us to have terrorism in Europe all day and night long but I do not see a solution in that now!It seems too late to me…  Instead, I suggest to respect more ourselves, to love our family and friends, to try to protect them in the best way we are capable of and hope that our politicians will find a way to face and solve the terror threat as soon as possible. God, we are living in the 21st century and still fight each other!! How stupid this is!!!

But, please!!! Let’s go back to craft now!

I have finished off three more Christmas gifts.

I asked my Big man if he would like me to sew a blanket like this for his nephew too but he wasn’t sure if his sister would like it… so I sat down at my computer and find on Ravelry this nice pattern…. I’m not a big owl fan but I liked this one and,after have been given the blessing by my BM, I knitted it…

I will let you know after the winter holidays if this creature will be appreciated or not. In the meantime, the owl is continuing to sleep in my crafting den 🙂

Another scarf is ready!!! Yippee!!! This one is for my SIL husband 🙂

Not bad… I like this scarf, the garter stitch is so simple and versatile and so beautiful!! The yarn is a nice washable merino and this dark blue shade is so manly! Even my Big man likes it 😀 😀 😀 But my favourite is still this one… 🙂 🙂 🙂 Maybe because it fits so well my companion….

The last thing I’d like to show you is the below one…

….a detail of an embroidery…. And that’s all for now… I will not talk about embroideries until Cristmas…. because my friends will receive embroideries for Christmas,that’s why… I will just show a detail from time to time ….

So… now it’s time to wish you a nice and peaceful day! There’s one more scarf to knit, as also a pair of socks and another blanket to sew… and more more more… better if I go beck to work!!

Love

xxx

Tajana

Abilmente Vicenza

Hello, my dear friends!

Here I am! Abilmente Vicenza is behind me and I can happily tell you that it was great.

I don’t even know where to start to write about this beautiful fair! As I arrived I was captured by a warm creative stream which led me around and which I can still strongly feel even if two days has already passed. It was beautiful being a part ot that colourful and so inspiring event.

The members of the Magliuomini group are simply amazing.

I was welcomed with kindness and was put at my ease from the very first moment and even if I was so very thrilled I was never disoriented. Pretending to have winning an Academy Award (….. be patient with me and excuse my emotionalisam…  because I feel like that for real….), a special thanks goes to Kate Alinari, known as the Magliuomini’s Godmother, and to Paolo Dalle Piane,  known as Magliuomini’s Boss!

Great experts and yarn lovers, their support was of a great help for me. Thank you, guys!!

This overall sense of well-being helped me during my class which went well and I was so pleased by my pupils’ desire to organize a knit café and work on socks again 🙂 . I was so concentrated on explaining (…and on trying to avoid leaving a bad impression…) that I didn’t take photos of my class but there are two of them published on my FB page taken by one of my pupil’s husband so you can see us ‘in action’ 🙂 . But despite my fear and excitement, I had fun indeed!

I saw amazing crochet and knit installation art!

Do you remember or have you heard about the World’s biggest blanket crocheted in Trieste and displayed in Piazza Unità on June 20th 2015? I have published some photos on my FB page… well, pieces of it were displayed at Abilmente…

I was overwhelmed by this crochet beauty…. The power of the hook rules!!

There was a yarny tribute to Mondrian…

Amazing, don’t you think?! And of course, this is only a little part of the whole …. I felt like Alice in Wonderland and I spent more time looking around in awe than taking photos. But I hope that I gave you the idea of what I have seen…

There’s more…

…. and more and more and more…. I’m sorry that I didn’t have more time to visit the fair. You need at least two days to see everything.

The list of events organized by the Magliuomini Group was rich indeed! I was so lucky because I was able to attend to a meeting with two extraordinary artists, the DAMSS, on Friday afternoon. Trying to summarise the presentation of their art two words come up to my mind, precisely contamination and experimentation! And an invitation to try to do the same by ourselves!!

(…. I fell in love with her… a deep, visceral love… )

As you can see, the two artists work mostly with fiber exploring the effects if treated with artistic techniques from other fields like those used in furniture restoration… Their work is an union of art and handicraft and highlights the importance of the beauty in everyday’s life. Their enthusiasm was contagious and I came home with a new awareness of which role art should have in my life. Oh, now I know what I want as Christmas gift! Their book!!

I’m so so so so very glad to tell that I had the chance to try some crafts I have never tried before….

…. like doing some spool knitting 🙂

This is an interesting technique suitable for knitted jewellry and much more and I was thinking about buying a spool… I have to thank Sara Lo Sasso for have shown me how it works 🙂 .

And … I SPUN!!!

I was invited by Fiberfabry to try to spun, he explained me the basics of spinning and have to admit that I’m tempted to buy a spindle….

All this was crazy!!! What a great experience!!!

I think you can easily imagine that I came home with new goodies…. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

First of all I have to show you the gift I received from Magliuomini 🙂

Is there anything that I have to say about this photo?? The yarn is amazing as it is the knitting needle gauge!! And it’s ROWAN!!! As the yarn I bought for my hat….

(Do you like this shade of red, Claire? It is not exactly cherry red but I think that, by adding the Rowan’s kidsilk haze from the previous photo, I will obtain a nice result… 🙂 )

You can also see the result of my very first spinning on the above photo 😀 .

And as last but not least, I bought a self healing mat and a rotary cutter.

It’s an A2 cutting mat, 24″x18″, for 18 euros. Well, I liked the price so much that I decided to buy it!! What do you say, was it a bargain? I couldn’t find anything under 30 euros in the stores I was looking for it before so I purchased it at the fair…

At the very end of this long post I’d like to show you my pass ….

…. and tell once again how great Abilmente was for me!!

I wish you a good beginning of the week!!

Love

xxx

Tajana