I went a little crazy...

 ...and bought all this yarn, actually 20 skeins. Oops. I have so many plans, but unfortunately even this amount of yarn is not going to be enough to make all of them. A vest for Emma? A hat and a scarf? A belt? Or another Hello Kitty bag? Only time will tell. Right now I am just admiring the beautiful colours and hoping to have some time to actually use them!

Rainbow dress

I do know that rainbow has more colours than this dress has, but the colours in the middle remind me of a rainbow. So I decided to call this a rainbow dress :) The fabric is from Marimekko and it is called Alas Taikavirtaa, designed by Anu Luhtanen. The pattern is again very simple and from a Japanese book. It is a bit big for Emma, even though you cannot really tell from these pictures. it is not huge, so she can wear it already.

The pattern is from this book:

Oshama Girls Cute Clothes

Paperback: 87 pages
Publisher: Nihon Vogue Sha (October 2009)
Language: Japanese
24 Girls' clothes patterns in sizes 90-130cm

The girl wearing this dress looks a bit bored in the book, but I liked the colours of the original dress as well. The fabric looks interesting!

Honestly this dress took less than an hour to make, from cutting the fabrics to finishing the seams, so I will definitely be making more of these. Maybe in a smaller size next time?

Edit. I just noticed when looking these pictures that the fabric pattern is upside down. Doh. The rainbow actually IS a rainbow and it should curve nicely downwards. Oh, well, can't be helped. Luckily I have lots of this fabric left!

Butterflies!

I finally thought of at least one way to use the crocheted butterflies: brooches. Emma's friend had a birthday party yesterday and althought the theme of the party was fairies, I made butterfly brooches for all the girls.I wanted to keep them very simple, so no flowers or nothing, just butterflies :) A few are missing, they were snatched by my daughter before I could take pictures.

Sorry about the picture quality, but it was so bright and sunny yesterday that it was almost impossible to take good photos. I am not complaining, though, spring and summer seem to be on their way!

Another princess costume

I promised to make another princess dress to a friend's daughter a while ago and it was so much fun to think about the colours and fabrics that I should use. Together with my friend (and naturally her daughter) we decided to use a lovely cream coloured fabric with dark red and golden birds and flowers as the skirt part. I really liked the end result, but was really nervous when making it. I had never made any clothes for anyone else except Emma and myself. Luckily the dress fit.

Here is Emma reluctantly wearing the dress. She really liked the dress but when she heard that it was not for her, she started sulking. She was not happy!

Then I asked her to smile and she gracefully granted one smile. Gee, thanks.

After this picture she took the dress off and refused to pose anymore. Like EVER. Luckily she forgot that very soon :)

Pillowcase dress

I went through pictures from last summer and found a pic of Emma wearing a dress I made from an old ruffled pillowcase. It was propably the easiest dress I have ever made, since I just cut the ruffles from the other end, hemmed the edge neatly and shirred the top part with elastic thread. Then I used light pink silk ribbon to make the neck strap and made a rose to the front from the leftover ruffle. Super easy!

More dishcloths...

I know: boring! But I have not been very productive lately, so I have concentrated mainly on necessary items. I promised to crochet a dishcloth for my mother-in-law and also felt that I need a few more for myself as well. Now I have used up all my bamboo yarns, so if I want to make more of these, I need to go shopping... Maybe some new colours this time?

You might notice a certain tiny heart in the dishcloth that has been dged with pink. I think it looks very cute! That one is actually going to my mother-in-law. The green-edged one has a lace trim, the pattern is from my elementary school craft book and should be made with a lot thinner yarn. But I think it adds some character to the otherwise a bit dull dishcloth.

Some random creations

I'm back! It was nice to get away for a few days, but coming back and all the morning hassles of going to work and remembering to pack everything Emma needs in the kindergarten is so stressful.  I need a longer holiday to recover!
I packed loads of yarn with me to our holiday, but I ended up having no time to concentrate on anything major. Instead, I made some dish cloths and tried a few patterns from this book:

Crochet edging & braid

ISBN 978-4-02-190444-8

80 pages

I bought this book not to make crocheted edges but to try these really cute small crochets as such: on shirts, brooches, bags, etc. During the holiday I had time to try a few patterns and I love them! I would have tried others as well, but I had only a limited supply of yarn with me and the colours I had could only be used in some of the projects. Here are my efforts.

A frog - It IS a frog even though my family members did not recognise it. This same pattern would make an awesome bear using brown yarn, eyes would just need to be a bit lower. This one might become a brooch.

A butterfly - Very cute, even though I messed up a bit and the body of the butterfly is twisted in the middle. Doesn't matter, I really love it!

A flower - Ok, but there were nicer flower patterns as well. My choice of yarns did not do any justice to this one, it is supposed to be a daisy...

A candy - Very sweet (pun intended!). I could make loads of these, in all possible colours.

A tiny heart - definitely cute. You really cannot see it in this picture, but it is quite tiny and in the pattern you were supposed to put a tiny bead at the bottom of the heart. I just didn't have any beads to put there.

All in all, an excellent crochet book and presentation was perfect, as always in these Japanese craft books. Here are a few sample pages from the book, you might recognise what I made ;)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone! I am taking a little break and will be back posting some of my latest projects as soon as we return from our Easter holiday. I'll be gone only four a couple of days, but I sincerely hope that when we return, there will be a little less snow around!

More crocheted necklaces

After making the crocheted necklace for Emma, I kind of started coveting it for myself. Then I found some cotton yarn in nice colours from our local supermarket, and I just had to try and make myself a longer string of crocheted pearls. The yarn was not ideal, since it was a bit too thick but I loved the colours, so that is what I used.

Here is my new necklace using Novita Tennessee yarn (099 black, grey and 184 lilac).

 I am not sure why the beads look like they are different sizes in this photo, since actually they are all the same (except the one that Emma chewed for a while and that actually turned nicer than the rest, so I might just have to wash the necklace to get the same effect to all beads) . Unfortunately the necklace is also too short for me, even though it looks quite long. I should have tried it before I cut the cord... It should be almost double to look good on me, so I'm off to crochet some more!