A Kind of Gardening and New Yarn

Hello,my friends!

I’m glad that I can tell you that the weather is better now here in Italy. Well, it is still quite hot but the humidity level is a bit lower and I can be active as my usual at last 🙂 As the temperature lowered down I took the chance to clean our home and to cut the grass in the kind of ridiculous garden we have… it is a 4×4 m square of open space which I’m totally unable to cultivate not because I have no time but because I kill all the plants I try to grow by my simple gaze! It is a kind of super power which unfortunately does not work on weed…. so to clean up our garden I used a sickle and sweated for two hours… but I did a quite acceptable work for my Big man and my standard…

I told to my Big man that I have no problems with works which require physical force but I need him to help me with plant growing…. I know that I’m a plant killer but he still didn’t try to grow anything… maybe he will be more successful than me….

But,please please please,let’s change the topic and talk instead about something else like our last purchases… first of all, a ladder!! It was high time indeed and I’m happy that I was able to hang the curtain I sewed in the kitchen at last!! 😀 😀 😀

Two more curtains to go!! Well, I do hope that I’ll be able to decorate this house before we leave it for another one LOL Despite my sarcasm, I like the look of my kitchen and the efforts made to embellish it a bit more. Now it is time to add something colourful and I left my mind to muse about wildly…

The second purchase was yarn and I had for the first time ever my Big man coming in the yarn store with me… 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well, there was a specific reason for it! One among the most famous yarn stores in Parma was having a sale lately and I wanted to take advantage of that for the Christmas to do list. So I obliged my BM to come with me and help me chose the yarn for the family boys. They will all receive scarfs 🙂 and I’m quite happy about the money I saved thanks to the sales :), something like 50 €, without losing in quality 🙂 Almost all is merino, except one which is a mix of cotton and merino 🙂

I was already looking for some patterns on Ravelry and can’t wait to start these projects!! I love to work with merino,in my opinion it is the best yarn!! All the girls will have a bag and all the little ones will have a quilted blanket… I foresee some busy months…. I have only one problem… My Big man realized that yarn actually has a quite high cost and asked me to not spend so much money on him…. that’s not good because I was thinking about making him a sweater with merino and the cost of the yarn is almost 80 €, the same I spent for the above yarn which is to be divided among five persons… what can I do instead of the sweater? Do you have any suggestion? I really don’t know what to do since I already knitted him a scarf, a beanie and two sweaters… I have even asked him if he would like to have a Dr Who’s scarf but he was honest and said that he would never wear it… so no colour, no yarn, then what??? I’m really in trouble!!!! Any advice is higly appreciated ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ Thank you so much!!!

Love

xxx

Tajana

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FO :: My Very First Quilt

Hello,my friends!

What an awful heat we are suffering here in Italy!! Still!!! And it seems that we will have such a dreadful weather during all summer… Can you imagine…?Just to describe a bit better the situation my Big man and me went to buy a portable air-conditioning and they were all gone!!! And here is how I look like almost every day…. Please,forget the red lipstick and the elegant hairstyle seen on Facebook….

Sweaty, red in face and very perplexed!!! Please,please, heat give us a break!!!!

I try to craft despite the hot weather even if that’s not always easy… the concentration lost and a lack of creativity are always around the corner… but you know me,I’m stoic! So,inspired by Sheila’s patchwork picnic blanket, I tried to sew one by myself too… I bought the wadding and the plastic tablecloth I needed the day after I sewed together the fabric squares….

… and I didn’t have problems with the wadding and the quilting itself….

…. but sewing on the plastic tablecloth….THAT WAS A REAL DISASTER!!!!

It was hard to make it slide properly, it curved and curled continuously…. a nightmare!!! Now I know that sewing a plastic or a vinyl or a leather fabric is just too ambitious for me. I’m not even sure if I have an appropriate sewing machine foot at mine for this kind of materials. Here they are….

Is there anything suitable,in your opinion? On my hand,I decided that I’ll study my sewing machine accessories once the heat will be gone….

Back to my quilt now. 🙂 I didn’t give up from it and decided to change the original project by using some fabric I have at mine for quite a while…

Its purpose didn’t change at all, since it is FO I’m using it like a rug in our living/crafting attic and I use the plastic tablecloth to protect the quilt from the dust… See what I mean in the below photo and, by the way, this is how the back side looks like …

The borders are not straight like I wanted them to be but all in all I’m satisfied… and here it is the front side…

The plastic tablecloth is bearing the scars of the many tries I made to sew it on…

… but i decided to leave it so and remind me that I still have a lot to learn about sewing…

And finally, my quilt in use….

What do you think? Did the quilt turn out ok since it is my first one? I was thinking about sewing blankets for the little ones of my Big man and my family! In your opinion,can I dare to?

Despite the imperfection of my crafts,my aim is to have a cozy home and I see that slowly I’m achieving it. 🙂 This makes me feel good indeed….

Love

xxx

Tajana

I gave a try to …

…the art of patchwork…

The lovely Sheila from Sewchet wrote a tutorial for a waterproof patchwork picnic blanket and I liked it a lot!! What a nice project for a beginner like me!!

I’d like to have one too to use like a rug in our living / crafting room and since I have a lot of fabric remnants I cut out the squares by using a cardboard template of the desired dimentions….

… and then I sewed them up, first in stripes….

…and then in a big patch 😀 ….

The only problem is that the seams do not correspond at all. I suppose that using a template and a pair of scissors is not the best to obtain patches of identical dimentions but I do not have the mat, the ruler and the rotaty cutter at mine and don’t want to buy them before seeing if I’m capable to sew a blanket without… Well,the big patch is quite neat though so I decided to continue with my project… I have to buy the wadding and the plastic coated tablecloth and was thinking about going for some shopping tomorrow in the morning,but I’ll see if there will be enough time since I have a lot to do at home… The only doubt I have is how to quilt since the seams are irregular… Well,I think I’ll ignore them and just sew straight following the square lines… I sincerely hope that my blanket will turn out well….

Love

xxx

Tajana

The mustard yarn epilogue

Oh,yeah,it is true! I had bought a big amount of the mustard cotton yarn and I tried to make the most of it indeed! First the dress, then the Crescent shawl and, as last, this little goodie… a grocery bag…

…. well,in fact it is too small to carry groceries but it is perfect for books…. LOL The cost of the yarn? 26 € for thirteen balls thanks to my friend Katia. I’m quite satisfied with my maths LOL and even if I had paid it twice as much it still would have been a bargain.

Back to the bag, I had found the pattern online quite a while ago but I don’t remember where. Here’s the photo I saved on my computer and if the author recognizes it as his own pattern I kindly ask to let me know.

 

As you can see, the size can be adjust as you want and it is quite quick to crochet so… Have fun!!

I can easily suppose that you could be slightly sick of seeing all that mustard at mine…. 😛

…. but,oh,there’s a ball left!!!!! Can you spot it?

Seriously now, I think that I’ll take a break of that mustard but in a few days even this last ball will be happily used for a very good purpose so I hope that you’ll forgive me its longlasting presence at mine… Do you remember the Charity Yarn Bombing promoted by The Grange Range last year?? This event will occure again in August this year so I will use it to crochet flowers! And if you are interested to, just have a look at The Grange Range blog for more informations:

https://thegrangerange.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/charity-yarn-bombing-2015/

Have a great weekend, kind and lovely people out there!!

Love

xxx

Tajana

What a heat!!!

Hello, my friends!!

These are dog days indeed!!!We reached 35°C and I am hardly able to do anything with this heat! Oh,add to this temperature a relative humidity of 73%… ohhhhh…. The only way I can face this weather is by knitting …. (what an excuse, isn’t it…? 😉 ) …. the border of my Crescent shawl is slowly growing….

I do hope that it will be finished off for the weekend…. Can’t wait to wear it!!

My Big man and me were at a local antiquity street market last weekend and we made a lovely purchase …. well,it was more like this…

Me: Oh, look!!! I love that! We absolutely must have that at ours!!! (read: I absolutely must have that at mine!!! ….. it is only me, or sometimest it happens to you too to think you live by yourself…. in particular when it is a matter of home decor….)

My Big man:

(ONLY BECAUSE HE CAN’T UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE OBJECT I FELL IN LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT….)

Let me introduce you….

MY VERY FIRST CUPCAKE STAND

The photo does not do justice to the stand but I’ll try to take some better ones in the future. I simply love it! And, of course, I tried to bake some muffins just to see how the stand looks when there are sweets on it…

Better,don’t you think? Now I have to learn to make cupcakes and try to decorate them just because!! Well,even if my Big man doesn’t understand my enthusiasm for those useless things, he will love to pick up a muffin from the stand for breakfast from now on 🙂

Off to try to refresh me somehow!

Have a nice evening!

Love

xxx

Tajana

Ho ho ho….

…. the second curtain GO GO GO !!!!

Two more to go 🙂

Have a nice evening ❤ ❤ ❤

Love

xxx

Tajana