Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas or Hyvää Joulua as we say here in Finland. It's been a frrrrreeezing -28 C (or -18 F). RIDICULOUSLY COLD! Today warmed up a bit and it's sick when you go outside with the dogs in a rush in the morning and think, "Man, I'm wearing half the clothing I wore yesterday, I bet it's pretty warm out" ...only to go back in, check out the temperature and see it's STILL a cold -12 C (10 F). That's what happens I guess when you live close to the North Pole. Lol!

Christmas has been quiet this year, it's just the three of us: my dad, my fiance and myself. Oh yes, and FOUR dogs! =D I decided not to stress out about anything being perfect, because I didn't want to be responsible for Christmas prep on my own. I also figured they wouldn't notice if Christmas was a little less Christmas-y (and I was quite right). Therefore, I skipped all baking. All decorating. We had half the choices of food and have still managed to feel bursting at the seams with delicious ham, traditional casseroles etc. So it all worked out.

I am not in love with how the tree looks, but it's festive and it really does make Christmas Christmas. We weren't going to put it up, but at the last minute (Tuesday) my fiance decided he couldn't do Christmas without a tree...so up to the attic he went and got ALL the boxes and my mom's white tree down. And then he put it up with a little help from me. Thank goodness he did! =)

We have been busy all week in general here at my folk's place because we managed to talk my dad into rearranging! Seems like all the hints we've been dropping about how we are going to transform the place when he leaves have sunk in so he finally gave in and saw the point we were making all along...the space has so much potential, take advantage of it! Hallelujah, it's a Christmas miracle, LOL! So yes, the transformation has begun. I'm THRILLED! We also managed to sand and stain as well as upholster the chairs my mom has been going on about for almost 20 years! =) =) =)

sanded

stained

Finito (minus the layers of shellac we have to add)

Oh, and I made out like a bandit this Christmas as well... Sweaters, tank tops, socks, thermals, beanie, Iittala glass and YARN!!! Tons of it, each skein is HUGE and every color seems to be represented...All thanks to the mom-in-law! She knows her stuff that lady. =) She also sent me a couple of crochet books. I'm stoked and so excited to try it all out.

Hope everyone out there in blogland had a lovely Christmas or whatever you celebrate this time of the year and I wish each and all a very happy new year filled with tons of inspiration and happy moments crafting and creating!!! 

My Christmas gifts

Here are the pictures I promised of my christmas gifts. Enjoy!

A flower wreath for my Godmother:

The pattern can be found on the Attic24 blog linked here. She uses her own little picot flower pattern, I used her crochet flowers and leaves pattern. The bow I made up myself by just making a long chain, turning and double chaining all the way back. Then I had a "ribbon" of sorts and I just played with it until I got something that looked like a bow. Haha, this is how I craft... I added a bit of yarn to the back so that it created a hook to hang it up with. I hope she loves it as much as I do!

Snowflakes for my sister-in-law:

I read the pattern wrong when I made my first snowflake sometime ago and used US dc instead of UK dc as instructed in the pattern (also Attic24, link here). They turned out bigger and I thought they were cute so I ran with it. I love the way they turned out in purples, my sister-in-law's favorite color. I hope she can find use for these on their Christmas tree or something.

My step-niece's cat:

 

It turned out really cute and I was easy to make but sheesh, the button eyes I put on are obviously wonky. Oh well. And the ears. Double oh well. I could make another one of these, it was a quite pleasant pattern. The link for this cat can be found here

Nephew #1's shark:

I'm almost too embarrassed to post this picture. It was a good try but this shark was a disaster from start to finish. Especially the finish. The fins all look stupid, not to mention I was so tired of this monster to even bother with the side fins. The teeth were a really sad joke and last minute attempt at something like teeth. I feel bad that lovely little nephew #1 got scheisted out of a nice present. I will have to make it up to him. Good thing this isn't the only present under the tree! The link for those brave enough to try this is here. I think something may have been lost in translation between me and this pattern. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nephew #2's owl

I've already posted about this sweetie owl. But here he is again! The link for him can be found here

 And what's this?! This is the owlish blue bird for nephew #3!

Smaller yarn --> smaller bird. He looks a little silly but he's cute in his own way. This is a pattern that started out the same as the owl above but I lost count and ended up winging the rest. (No pun intended, haha)

My sister's gifts:

I made her a pear, pattern found here and the same Attic 24 snowflakes, only as you can see, in blue. I love these too! 

 

 

 

 

Here are the ornaments for the mother-in-law:

 

The tree pattern can be found here

The snowman had his button eyes and nose hot glue gunned on but he turned out kinda cute in his own way... The pattern for him can be found here on the Bernat website (membership required).

 The white snowflakes are also the same as above.

Lastly, the one and only brother's gift:

Mario mushroom to remind him of the hours we spent as kids playing nintendo with each other. The pattern can be found here. Love it!

That's it for today, so happy to see all my projects again and hope you did too!

Puppy breath and big paws!

What a week this has been!!! 

WE GOT A PUPPY! We had been looking for about a year and finally the right litter at the right time caught our attention, we went to see him at 4 weeks and now at 8 weeks, he is in our home terrorizing our other animal children and being a big PITA but he's so cute and so sweet, it's hard to stay mad at him. We named him Koda since he'll probably be as big as a bear. Lol! He is St. Bernard, Rottweiler and Bull Mastiff.

Those are some big paws to grow into, eh... Well, my week has been trying to teach him the rules of the house and show him I'm the boss here. Not so easy, he is SO STUBBORN! We have been following the training methods of Jan Fennell, she's written a really great book called "The Dog Listener" (link here to her website). It's all about learning to "speak" to the dog through the dog's own language, mainly body language. It's a really great method because there is no violence involved. However, being consistent is super important for it to work -- and it takes time. We're pulling our hair out a bit with this puppy. He's just so spirited... and loud! Our neighbors surely hate us by now. Oh well, he'll be such an awesome dog once we get some manners into his head! =)

I'm sure it comes as no surprise when I say that my next project that I started a couple of days ago is.... A DOG SWEATER! Lol! I'm trying to make a masculine one with the yarns I have in abundance. Therefore, it's a green, navy blue and brown striped sweater. I've been trying to figure out how I can rig it to be different sizes, as I am sure that it will not fit him for long seeing as I am making it according to his current measurements. We'll see what I end up doing with it. If I decide to just make it the size he is now, I can always send it to the sister-in-law who has two small boy dogs. 

This is the top part of the sweater. I am going to do another brown and another green stripe, thinner ones though. By then I should have the needed 14 inches in length. 

My Tuesday was consumed with taking Koda on the bus for the first time (it went surprisingly well) and going to my parents' house where he met my their dogs for the first time. It was my mom's last day before her trip to the states. She'll be gone for 3 whole months. I am gonna miss having her around sooooo much but I know my brother and sister and their boys will be so happy to have her. Anywho, I ended up finally having to finish all my projects and my oh my, it took me all day. I soooooo hate finishing projects. I hate hand stitching all the bits together and them going on crooked or uneven. It's so annoying to spend hours crocheting beautifully and counting rows etc to just make it look very unusual with your sewing. Grr!!! Oh well, the main point is that everyone got something handmade by me with love. I hope they like their gifts! I took pictures with my dad's camera when they were all done but the pictures are still on my dad's camera. I'll try to post the pictures when I go there on Sunday or Monday. Stay tuned!

I still have yet to share my Thanksgiving pictures! Here they are! Hope you don't get too hungry looking at them, hahaha! 

Our table setting created by the lovely hubby-to-be! I love our Iittala glassware. It's so precious to me, it's all been handed down from my mom. 

 

 

 

 

 

On the left is the apple-cornbread stuffing and the right is of course green bean casserole. They were both big hits!

The sweet potatoes that were meant to be baked but ended up becoming boiled because time was of the essence. They were good anyway. 

My green chicken, lol! It was really tender but not the most appetizing to look at. It tasted delicious and the seasoning was spot on. I marinaded chicken breast with onion, garlic and oil and lemon juice. Then I "dusted" them with a herb seasoning containing just about every herb known to man plus garlic. At the end of baking, I added cream to the dish and let it bake a few minutes longer. I think I will make this again sometime when we have company over. I think next time though I'll put a little more effort into presentation, lol!

I

Last but certainly not least, was my first gluten-free pumpkin pie. It was scrumptious! I am going to make another one for Finland's Independence day which is December 6th, Monday. I still have half of the pie crust in the freezer so it's probably best to use it up sooner rather than later. There wasn't much of the pie left the next day, so we ate the leftovers for breakfast with our coffee. Gotta love the holidays! 

That's all I have for today, I'll try to get a chance to post the pictures of all my projects along with the links to make them on Sunday or Monday. We'll see what happens! Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!

Monday recap

I've been away longer than I would have liked, it's so irritating how life gets in the way of my hobbies. ;) I've had ONE entirely free day in the past two weeks and I'm sure you can guess how I spent it... crocheting of course! I ended up having to do dull housework on the side, but managed to get quite a bit done anyway.

In my last post I mentioned redecorating my parent's home when we go to dogsit in January... I found this spectacular fabric (someone had made curtains with it) at the flea market. It's such a pretty pink! I think I might try to incorporate it somehow into the living room decor, just haven't figured out how yet. Here is a picture of it draped over our couch.

In person, it's a lot more pink, I really hate the yellow lighting of our apartment as well as the fact that our camera SUCKS. I'm hoping that we'll get a better camera for a wedding present. Or cash to buy one...

Well, back to my lovely Monday; the day started out gray and cold....

But ended up becoming SUNNY! It felt like I hadn't seen the sun in weeks, I felt so energized and happy! 

I spent the morning making my sister a pear, her favorite fruit. I really liked how it turned out, making several of these and displaying them in a bowl would be quite cute. Too bad I only have enough time to make one!

 The pattern for this can be found on this blog: Amigurumi Girl

I love making the snowflakes, pattern found on Attic 24. I am sure I've probably already linked that, but it's just so fun to make. I tried it in a blue for my sister. I hope I can make a few more of these before my mom leaves on Wednesday to stay with her. Fortunately these are simple and fast, so I just might be able to pull it off.

I also made my lovely nephew an owl! I've seen so many owl things lately and have been wanting to make one. I originally planned on making him a dinosaur but with time being short and so many other little gifts to crochet, I decided against it. The pattern for the owl can be found here: Curiouser and Curiouser blog. My wings ended up getting sewed on a bit wonky. Oh well. I don't think he'll notice. Lol! I didn't have safety eyes so I "embroidered" some black circles. I say "embroider" because I have NO IDEA how to do anything related to embroidery. Oh well, I don't think he'll notice that either. It just adds character! =) I also didn't have felt to make the nose, so I made up how to crochet a small triangle. Something to do with dc and a triple chain. I don't remember how I did it, but it wasn't the most perfect triangle either.

Here is the owl waiting for his round body...

And here he is all done!

I've been so in love with the blog Attic 24, I'm sure before long I'll have used all her patterns. They are such beautiful and cute things! Right now I am working on the springtime wreath she has posted, really brilliant idea. I am making a Christmas one and a flower one. You can find the pattern HERE
Here is my progress with them:

Here is the Christmas one. I am going to make some poinsettia for it once I find a good pattern for them.

Here is the base for the flower one. I love the blues and greens! The third round is going to be made with that darker skein in the picture. I think I'll add some purple flowers to it and send it to my godmother in the states. I never ended up making her another purple scarf. Maybe next year...

All that's left for Christmas gifts that are going with my mom to America is the snake for my newest nephew and some more snowflakes. I still need to assemble the cat, shark and mushroom. I really dislike the finishing stage of projects. I hate the sewing bit because it never quite turns out all that great. Of course, practice makes perfect... but it's just a bit of a bummer when everything gets sewed on wrong or completely crooked and then it's back to the beginning.

Thanksgiving was yesterday back home and it's always a bit sad to miss out on such big family holidays. However, my fiance and parents are set on keeping up tradition so we are celebrating on Saturday when I get out of work. We aren't making turkey because it's so expensive and I think it always tastes a bit funky. So I'm making some tasty oven-roasted chicken breast, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole and cornbread apple stuffing. For dessert we're having pumpkin pie! It's a bit of a challenge to bake and cook for my dad now, since he has a special gluten-free diet. Hence the cornbread stuffing. I had to make the pie crust with gluten-free flour (aka wheat starch). It'll be interesting to see how it turns out, I haven't made a pie crust yet with it. Here is a picture of my pie before and after meeting the oven. Can't wait to eat it!

Here is my cornbread cubed and waiting for it's turn to be stuffing. =)

Well, that is my post for today. I hope I can make it back before too long. I really enjoy sharing what I've been up to. Thanks for reading, have a happy weekend!

About to explode!

I'm home all alone and waiting for noon to roll around so I can head out and go to clinical training... when WHAM! Inspiration hits me!!! Ideas, ideas, ideas, motivation to to them! My adrenaline is beating, I am drawing out plans... And sadly, 12 o'clock is almost here. =( But I've gotta share this feeling somehow!!!

My ideas all pertain to redecorating my parent's home. I know this probably sounds quite selfish, but go with me on it! My fiance and I are going to be moving to my parents house for six weeks starting late January to dogsit while they visit my brother and sister in the states. So for SIX WEEKS we are going to have to live in their apartment which is set up in a way that we get annoyed just visiting sometimes; the spaces are full of potential and used completely wrong (in our opinion). SO, what we want to do, it create a craft/sewing studio for my mom out of this little cozy room with a view of the big birch outside instead of leaving it as a very cramped TV/dining/family room. We want to move the TV/dining/family room bit to the large unused "formal" living room, in which my mom has a very uninspiring, very small, very rigged crafting corner, completed by all her crafting goods in ugly blue plastic boxes. I think my mom will definitely love the result when do our redecorating swap-a-roo but my dad...probably not so much. I think he really likes watching TV from less than 2 feet away.

Desired results of it all:

1. I hope to create a space that my mother loves and is inspired by, a place we can be crafting girls together and where she can continue to sew me millions more curtains and pillows.
2. For my dad, we'll create a more comfortable environment and hopefully prevent his vision getting any worse! (lol) 
3. For ourselves, incredible satisfaction that we maximized the potential of the spaces. A place we'll want to visit more often and be more willing to dog sit whenever they want to go somewhere.
4. For myself, I want the satisfaction of seeing the beautiful vision in my head come to fruition and the enjoyment of creating and crafting and finally taking on sewing projects so I finally really do learn!

AAAAARGH! I wish it were Christmas vacation already so I can start doing my ground work! =D

Thanks for reading! I'm off to dream about how lovely a white craft table with decoupaged roses on it would look, as well as how pretty the curtains in the living room will be...

P.S. I must say, I wouldn't have gotten the decorating bug quite as badly if it weren't for all the great blogs I've started following -- I feel like each and every one of those talented crafty women have a lovely inspiring studio with a view! My mom and I certainly deserve one too! =)

Over too soon!

The weekend is sadly almost over, it's 10 pm now and in a mere 8 hours, my alarm clock will ring...?!

I am quite pleased with my lovely 3 day weekend, it was much needed! The house is clean, I've seen some friends, eaten well and spent all day with my parents and my love AND I got to crochet to my heart's content! A weekend can't get much better than that! =)

Here is a picture, of where I am with my impossible gift list.

I didn't get around to finishing anything completely (it's so dull!) except the scarf that's bunched up in the right top corner. But hey, at least I'm off to a good start!

Thanks for reading and hope you have a great week!

Crochet marathon weekend continues...

So I didn't get a chance to post yesterday, but I will make up for it by posting twice today?
We had some friends over around noon yesterday, so the morning whizzed by cleaning and baking a raspberry pie. But when they left, I grabbed my crochet hook and I didn't let go till late at night. Lol!
One of my dearest friends came over in the evening, but while talking and drinking tea and eating chocolate with her, I finished the sister-in-law cowl scarf! I really love that pattern, it's a great quick project that is useful, but best of all you can crochet with your mind elsewhere as well, which means you can have a conversation instead of thinking about which stitch you are on and do you need to decrease and what row was this again?! All there is to it, is making the amount of chains you would like it to be wide, then (dc, ch 2, dc) in the same spot. Repeat till almost at end of row and on "the edge spot", dc, chain 3, turn and then repeat. EASY-PEASY!

 I also finished the Mario mushroom for my brother. Well, I still need to sew the spots on, but I'm saving all that boring finishing stuff for later today. I can't remember if I've linked where I found the pattern, so here it is at Wolfdreamer's blog. I'll post a better close-up picture when the spots are on... In this picture you can also see that brown lump of yarn, that is going to be a kitty for my brother's stepdaughter! I'll try to finish it today as far as I can, but I can't decide whether I want cat eyes or button eyes. If I decide on cat eyes, that means I have to wait till later this week to finish the cat (stuffing, sewing etc) because I have to make a trip to the one and only craft store in this city to buy the one and only cat eyes they sell. Either way, I'll try to post later how far I've gotten with the kitty cat!

Last weekend I made a super flea market find, 4 euros for a retro crochet pillow cover! Man it was gorgeous, it lept out at me and I couldn't say no! Perfect for our (my)  pink and white bedroom and my white white bed! My mom had also by my request made 2 small pillowcases out of the leftover fabric from our curtains. ---> voila! The bedroom ensemble is complete!!!

Always insisting on being in my pictures...

Thanks to the mamadukes!

Last but not least, a funny out-take picture... My cat being her usual mischievous self, I can't even take pictures of my crocheted goods without her trying to steal them!

Thanks for reading, I'll try to post an update later today! =)