Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort


Monday, April 23, 2012

Knitted Sweet Toy Bunny Just For Tiffany

I bought the pattern for this knitted rabbit from Mary Jane's Tearoom (MJT).  She has the cutest toy rabbit patterns.  I love her blog, the pastel colours and the beautiful photos.    This was not the first time I attempted to knit a toy.  The first time was when I was pregnant, I knitted a rabbit from one of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino books.  It didn't turn out well.  I also accidentally cut one of the ears with scissors, so the yarns unravelled.  It was quite a disaster.  But it didn't discourange me from trying to knit another toy.  I saw this pattern from Etsy, and fell in love with it straight away.  I bought all of the requird yarns as soon as I got the pattern.  The yarns were not available in Australia, so I had to order from the UK.  But I subtituted the grey baby alpaca yarn with another brand which had the same tension.  It took quite sometime to finish this project, as I didn't knit it continously.   In fact I just finished her jumper 2 days ago.  She looks much cuter with her jumper on, I must say.  I am very happy with the end result.  The colour of the bunny has faded a bit since I had finished it around a year ago.  Only the Jumper looks a bit new.  :)  My daughter who is now two years old, loves playing with her little bunny, so all the time and efforts are worth it.  Currently I am knitting antoher toy bunny from MJT called Anikka rabbit.  I think it is more difficult than the one I have knitted as it includes more details.  Let's see how I goes with this, will keep you updated. 

Crochet Owl Hat

I have enjoyed crocheting lately because I found that it is much faster than knitting.  As I don't have a lot of time, I think crochet is perfect for me at the moment.  Recently I crocheted this lovely Owl hat.  I got the free pattern from Daisy Cottage Designs.  Her pattern is only for newborn size and she used worsted weight yarns.  As I didn't have worsted weight yarns on hand and I needed to make a bigger size hat for a two year old, so I had to adjust the pattern slightly.  It is quite simple to adjust, you just have to add a number of HDCs.  Sorry I didn't write down the adjustments.   I really love the end result,  my daughter looks so adorable with this hat on!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Christmas Cupcake Hat

I designed and knitted this cupcake hat especially for Tiffany's first Christmas. 


There is a very big cherry on top and it is decorated with christmas wreaths.

Tiffany is modelling her Christmas Cupcake hat.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Adorable Cupcake Hats

I designed and knitted these cupcake hats for my little girl.  I think they are very cute.  They look yummy too, don't you think?


                                                              Picnic Cupcake Hat
                                                             modelled by my daughter





This cupcake hat is knitted using Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino yarns (my favorite yarns).  My little girl looks soooooo cute wearing this hat.  I am very satisfied with it, I love the flowers and strawberries details.  I added ribbon for more girly effect.  The colours are also very fresh.



Strawberry Cupcake Hat


 
This hat is also one of my favorite.  The colour is so vibrant.  Also knitted using Debbie Bliss yarns.
I added white Strawberry flowers on top.  The leafs actually don't resemble strawberry leaves.

I designed and knitted several cupcake hats for my daugther as I was crazy about cupcake hats at that time, I will post them later.

This Strawberry Cupcake hat is missing, I have looked everywhere, but couldn't find it anymore :(  


My First Day as a Blogger

Today I decided to start blogging despite the fact that I already have so many things to do. I think it might be interesting to capture some details of our lives in writing. I always wanted to blog but I was always either too lazy or didn't have time. Not that I have a lot of time now, but I will make time for it. :)

Since little I always wanted to know how to knit, well this is the influence of Japanese manga (comics book) I liked to read a lot. On these books the girls always almost all the time give some sort of knitted items for the guys they fancy. I thought that's romantic and very personal, knitting every single stitch with love and hope. But unfortunately living in a tropical country, knitting is not popular, no one in my family know how to knit. My mom and aunties are very good at crochet though. My aunty also has a craft shop which is one of the reasons I become how I am today. My love for crafts I think was greatly influenced by my time spent in the craft shop during school holidays. I moved to Sydney when I was a teenager and didn't learn knitting until around 3-4 years ago.

I was sitting in a train on my way to work when I saw a lady knitting a scarf sitting opposite me. I kept analyzing what she was doing and how it was done. It awoken my curiosity and desire to learn to knit. On the weekend I went to a beginner knitting class in the city, it was a 3 hour long class. from then on I didn't stop knitting.

I started to knit a lot of baby stuffs when I was pregnant with my first baby girl.  She is my source of inspirations and motivation.

These booties are one of the things I knitted for her when I was pregnant.



These booties were knitted using Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino yarn.  So soft... I added the picot lace to make them look even more girly.   These booties are so adorable, I was having fun embellishing them with roses.  I didn't know how to do ribbon embroidery at that time, so I bought ready made ribbon roses and just sewed them on.  I made several of similar Mary Jane types of booties with differnt colour yarns and embellisments.  They were quick to knit and the results were very satisfying.  However, one disadvantage of the Mary Jane type of booties, they don't stay on baby's feet for long especially if your baby is like mine, she likes to kick so much and she is so active.