Oh raglan sweater, how I adore you!
Just until recently, I mean like about a month ago, I used to swoon over knitted raglan sweaters, wondering how difficult they must be to make.
And boy, was I wrong.
After I watched my first tutorial I realized that it might in fact be the easiest knitted sweater to make.
As far as I have understood the raglan sweater theme, there are two ways of making these sweaters, top-down and bottom-up.
My favorite is the top-down method.
You just start knitting the collar, and before you know there’s a whole sweater there right in front of you on your needles. With no need for sewing in the end!
Have I mentioned I love it, already?
If you’d like to try making something similar, I would wholeheartedly like to recommend you this Youtube video from RJ Knits which helped me a lot. Thank you, RJ Knits!
Happy knitting and crafting, dear friends!
Love,
Petra
Hi friends!
I hope you are doing fine!
I thought I could just stop by here for a little while and show you a few bits and pieces that I have finished knitting recently.
Knitting has been bringing me a so much joy these days.
Soooo, the sweater you can see above has been made for my son. He is a huge Charlie Brown and Peanuts fan. Hence the zig-zag sweater.
And then Charlie Brown socks followed. They are quite slippery though, that has yet to be solved.
These! Twisted headbands. They are so addictive! And amazingly useful!
You can find a tutorial on my site here.
I made another sweater for my son. It’s quite oversized and should last him a couple of years.
Also, it seems I used two different color lots… but I don’t mind it a lot.
Another headband. This one has cables, my all-time favorite.
Love knit cables!
And here’s another set. So chunky, soft and warm!
Socks. I finally brought myself to knitting proper socks. It makes me really happy.
These were toe-up socks made with short row heel.
Another addiction!
Big wrap or shawl. I will show you this one once it’s finished.
And a cute set for my son. It a hat, a cowl and mittens. I did not even know these items are so easy to make! Like really!
Well, that’s that for now.
But there’s so much more to come. I can’t wait to show you!
See you soon, friends!
Love,
Petra
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Hi dear friends! I hope you are doing fine!
I have a very simple tutorial for your today. It’s an easy knit twisted headband.
And it’s easier to make than you’d ever think.
This is how…
Using a simple rib stitch (knit one, purl one), you knit a piece of fabric that wraps around your head comfortably, covering your ears.
I worked with worsted weight yarn (Aran), cast on 32 stitches and used 5 mm knitting needles.
After casting off, fold both ends in half.
Then move both folded end close together so that they are kind of hugging each other.
Finally, using a yarn tail and tapestry needle, seam the edges together.
Well, that’s easy, right?
I love wearing these headbands. And I am quite addicted to making them.
Sending lots of love,
Petra
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Hi friends! How are you doing?
Me and my son have been making Christmas ornaments over here. And we’d sure love to share.
They are really easy and a lot of.
I think there’s just something really special about making handmade ornaments?
All you need is some air dry clay, a rolling pin, a couple of Christmas cookie cutters, a straw, a few interestingly textured items to give your ornaments some lovely festive patterns, brush and watercolors and some yarn. That’s it.
To make our ornaments, we first rolled our clay into about 3 mm thickness.
We used our cutters to cut out various shapes.
We used a fir tree branch and a rolling print to make a fun imprint.
We also used a piece of burlap ribbon to make a pattern.
To make sure we’ll be able to hang our ornaments, we made holes in them using a straw.
Cute, right!
Love them!
We let the ornaments dry for a day or two. And then we painted them.
Finally we added festive pieces of yarn to be able to hang our ornaments.
Easy and fun.
We are wishing you the best Holiday Season!
We love you,
Petra and her family
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Hi friends!
Today I would like to share a little art project with you.
As you may or may not know, I have a little-beloved-6-year-old-first-grader son at home and making art projects is what we like to do.
And because we find it so much fun we thought it can, perhaps, inspire some of you too…
Sooo… lately, we found a great artist recommended for primary art lessons called Paul Klee… and let me tell you – he is my hero now (I LOVE the colors he was using!!!).
The specific painting we chose is called “Cat and Bird”.
The photo above is the original painting by Paul Klee (photo via WikiArt). Isn’t it just cute?
These are the materials we used:
-paper
-pencil
-wax crayons
-brush
-clean waterWhat this project taught us:
-basics of composition
-how to draw a cat
-wax resist technique
-watercolor wet-on-wet techniqueOh, and before we start – we got the idea from this cute little educational cartoon called “Art with Mati and Dada“. I wholeheartedly recommend the Art with Mati and Dada series that are available on YouTube for free.
1. First, we drew the cat and the bird.
When we learn to draw something new, I often prepare step by step instructions for my little boy.
He finds the process much easier and enjoyable this way.
2. Then we traced the drawing with colored wax crayons.
Just like this.
3. After that, we covered the whole paper with a lot of clean water, making a good base for our wet-on-wet watercolor painting.
4. And finally, with our brush loaded with specific colors, we applied them onto the paper. The pigments started to diffuse causing the colors to blend into each other beautifully.
And that is all my friends.
We will be back with more art soon!
With love,
Mommy and Son
]]>Dearest friends!
Long time no see, huh?
To those of you who wondered how I am doing and to those of you who sent me wonderful messages (even after all those years I haven’t shown up) – THANK YOU!
I would just like to let you all know that I am still here, thank God. I am doing great, living in my colorful world.
I am sending you love and colors with this mosaic I finished recently … and I hope I’ll be able to send you more happy glitter in the future.
Love you guys!
Petra ♡♡♡
]]>Dear friends!
I wish you the most wonderful Holiday Season filled with happiness and cheer!
Thank you for visiting this little place!
Love you!
Petra ♡♡♡
Hello dear friends!
I hope that you are all doing fine.
I am confirming that I am still here, and crocheting… Always!
Actually, I would like to show you my latest creation, a crochet snowman. Ta-dah!
I’ve had this snowman kind of idea in my mind for quite some time, I think I’d even mentioned it in one of my posts here on this blog a couple of years ago, posting a picture of a snowman just being made… Well, that one never got finished, just until now.
Having a little boy now, I thought it could be sweet to make something unique for him this winter.
So, a snowman was born.
And my baby (well, almost 3 years old baby) likes his new toy friend very very much – he just grabs him by the hat and off they go together… 🙂
My plan was to make it rather tall. Using an Aran weight yarn (Red Heart Soft) and a 4.5 mm hook it turned out to be almost 18 inches (45 cm) tall.
In case you wonder about the pattern… I do have it written down on paper, I just need to make slight changes, transfer it to my computer, take step-by-step pictures… and then I will surely share it with you. Once it’s all done I will let you know here on this blog.
]]>And now I am rushing to make 2 more, one the same size, one even bigger. Our living room (which is more like a play room now) just needs them… I think 🙂
Thank you for letting me share!
I am wishing you a lot of peace and joy during this beautiful time of year.
With lots of love,
Petra ♡
Hi friends!
Yes, my project of pouring more color into our home continues. And, as promised, I did it again – I could not resist and gave the chalk paint another job to do. This time, I laid my eyes on the TV unit in our living room.
This is what the TV unit looked like originally. It is Ikea’s BESTÅ.
Here’s what I used: one 230-ml jar of country blue Dekor Paint Soft (chalk paint) from Paintart, two 230-ml jars of vintage brown Dekor Paint Soft (chalk paint) from Pentart, a brush, a fine sanding block and finally, after some reconsideration, I replaced the wax (shown in the picture) and decided to give varnish one more try (I was a little hesitant after my not so happy experience from the previous project, where the varnish contained lumps and I did not really know what I should think about that). The new varnish I used was a transparent matte acrylic varnish for wood called Sportakryl from Balakryl and it worked like a charm, phewww.
As in my previous chalk paint project, I went for this fun shabby look, where you first paint your furniture one color (I first applied two layers of brown) and then paint with a different color (I used one layer of country blue).
When all paint is nice and dry, you then use a fine sanding block to distress the top coat of paint here and there, mostly on the edges where the natural wear would appear.
Finally a layer of varnish is applied and that’s it. So easy. So much fun.
]]>Although I am aware that this look might not be for everyone, I just can’t get enough of it. For me, it produces very unique pieces of furniture that look straight out of a fairy tale. Love it so much!
Thanks for letting me share.
With love,
Petra xoxo
Hi friends!
In the past few months I’ve been really eager to pour more color into the place where I live. Just for fun. To make us feel better. And while doing that I learned one big thing about me – I can find a good excuse to use PINK in every project, for every room (I honestly did not know that about myself, but now I do…) 🙂
With this and this happy project under my belt, I am super-excited to share with you another thing I made, my newest darling, the crochet round rug.
And it’s pink. Yes. What else is new, you might ask. 🙂
Anyways, I had been planning to make a big area rug for quite some time. The only thing that was holding me back was the fact that I did not really know how to prevent the rug from slipping (with a little baby in the house, that was my top priority).
This issue was miraculously solved one day when I stumbled upon this Ikea product. The Stopp unti-slip underlay keeps the rug in place, which reduces the risk of slipping and makes it easier to vacuum. Awesome, huh?
If you’d like to make something similar, I am happy to describe for you what I did:
I used bulky yarn (this, this, this and this) and 6 mm crochet hook (J-10).
PATTERN
In Round 1, I made a magic ring and crocheted 13 double crochet stitches into it.
Note: If you’d like to make your rug with single crochet stitches (US), starting with 6-8 stitches is recommended in round 1.
If you’d like to make make your rug with half double crochet stitches (US), 10 stitches are recommended.
Round 2: Make two stitches into each stitch of Round 1.
Round 3: Make two stitches into the first stitch of the previous round, one stitch into the next. Repeat this pattern.
Round 4: Make two stitches into the first stitch of the previous round, then one stitch into the next two stitches. Repeat all the way around.
Round 5: Make two stitches into the first stitch, then one stitch into the next three stitches. Repeat this pattern all the way around.You now see a pattern emerging. In every round, the number of stitches between increases increases by one. To continue making your rug, increase the number of stitches between increases by one.
My rug has 53 rounds. And then the scalloped edging as Round 54.
Tip: If your rug starts to WAVE, that means you have too many stitches in the last round. To help that, make one round without any increases.
If your rug starts to look like a BOWL, that means that the number of stitches in the last round is too little. To help that, make one round with double the amount of increases.
Edging:
I ended my round 53 with 570 stitches (I think I officially ended with 571 stitches but since I needed to have a number of stitches which would be dividable by 6 to make the edging work, in round 53 I ‘got rid’ of 1 stitch by making 1 dc decrease in two last stitches. It is not noticeable at all).
To make the edging I made this: ‘6 double crochet stitches – chain 1 – skip 2 stitches – 1 slip stitch in following stitch – chain 1 – skip 2 stitches’ and then continued repeating it all the way round.
And that pretty much concludes how the rug was made.
And here it is in full action.
The round rug currently resides in our living room, serving mostly as playing headquarters.
After sewing the unti-slip underlay to the underside of the rug, it works just like a charm.
Thanks for letting me share.
See ya!
With love,
Petra
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Hello everybody? How are you doing this very fine day?
Today I am excited to share with you a few words about painting with chalk paint.
First of all, chalk paint is GORGEOUS!
I have been toying with the idea of using this kind of paint for for quite some time. The internet is just flooded with beautiful chalk paint projects. When I stumbled across a chalk paint video tutorial one day and realized that applying this kind of paint is actually BEYOND EASY, I just knew this needed to be done.
So, what is chalk paint then, you might ask… It is a kind of paint mostly used for furniture refinishing to give it that beautiful, aged, rustic, dreamy, milky, matte, slightly distressed appearance which is often used to create a Shabby Chic look.
Chalk paint can pride itself by adhering to almost any surface (no priming or sending necessary), it is extremely easy to apply, it dries very quickly (like 20 minutes quickly), it can be applied as a thin wash or in thicker layers, it is non toxic and is easily distressed.
Perfect, right?
So, being eager to give this paint a try, I scoured our flat for the right item and found a victim.
This chest of drawers.
We bought this chest a couple of years ago for our son (well, actually, my husband bought it while I was still in the hospital with the little one after he was born). Although I really liked the shape of this piece of furniture, I never was a big fan of the image (dear teddy, I have nothing against you, I just never really understood why is your star inverted, that’s no bueno, nah-uh).
When choosing the color, I actually had a few choices in my mind – pink, yellow and turquoise. Since this chest will have its place in the bedroom where the color scheme is golden, pink and purple mostly, I thought that this nice fuchsia shade could work nicely there. And then, you can never go wrong with pink, right? (… no matter what a husband might say, just tell him he’ll learn to appreciate it… one day… for sure… the beauty will reveal itself to him…)
So, there I was, with a lovely fuchsia color.
The fun about painting with chalk paint is that you most usually combine two colors, with the bottom color peeking slightly through the top layer.
So, for the bottom layer I chose dark brown, just the same shade as the top and sides of the chest.
I also used a brush, a fine sanding sponge block, matte varnish and wax (I used that to refinish the top and sides of the chest only).
Oh, and I used much less paint and varnish then I thought I would – about 3 1/2 oz (100 ml) brown paint (the jars in the picture are 5 oz – 150 ml), 2 3/4 oz (80 ml) pink paint and about 6 3/4 oz (200 ml) varnish (the can in the picture is 17 oz – 500 ml).
And here’s what I did…
First I applied a layer of brown paint.
I found out that the painting worked best for me when I applied only small amounts of paint at a time and after each addition, I kept brushing and thinning the paint until the result was milky and rather thin.
I let the first layer dry and applied a second brown layer.
After the second brown layer was nice and dry, I applied the lovely fuchsia. I was impressed by how easy it was to work with this paint and how lovely it looked immediately.
Since I was going for a shabby look, and let considerable patches of brown color rather visible.
After the pink layer had dried, I sanded the surface here and there for a slightly more distressed look (I especially worked on the edges and corners, but not much, just a little).
I then cleaned the surface thoroughly with a clean cloth.
Finally, I applied a matte varnish.
To be frank, I am not really sure about this product. It had little lumps in it and after I initially freaked out, I realized that brushing thoroughly makes them kind of melt and disappear.
Next time, I might just finish with transparent wax, which, as I hear, is an alternative to a varnish.
]]>So, here’s our new chest…
My heart is happy! 🙂
Next up: living room – TV table, from white to rustic blue. Cannot wait. I will definitely share the project with you.
Take care.
With love,
Petra
Hi friends!
Today I am super happy to present my newest project to you. It’s a thing that’s been keeping me blissfully busy for the past few weeks. A crocheted airbed cover and cushions for my office nook.
What I had in my mind while putting this together?
Happy. Happy. Happy.
That’s basically all. 🙂
And what’s the whole story behind the project?
Well, it’s kind of funny and unexpected. It has two parts…
About my old airbed… I dragged that one into my ‘office’ room in a rather secret way one day to, ahem, improve my ‘working conditions’, ahem ahem (I covered it with a blanket and it worked like a charm). And later, to my no surprise, when discovered by my little two year old son, it was elevated into a position of his favorite place to play (especially as a slide… a short one, but still) 🙂 And as it often goes with mamas, when I saw the happiness in my boy’s eyes when he played on this bed, I thought – ‘Hey, what if we made this a little cuter?’
And that’s where the second part of the story comes into play. I realized that the columns of colorful crocheted squares that had been lying on my table ready to be made into a blanket could be actually used for something else. A new bed cover. A circus-extravaganza bed cover.
So that’s exactly what I did.
The whole project was very easy to make – the main pink part is made of rows of double crochet stitches (US terms). And then there are loads of solid crocheted squares that were attached to the main pink part (I joined the back stitches only).
The yarn that I used is called Red Heart – Lisa and I used a 3 mm crochet hook.
I made the squares following this pattern.
Oh, and I made a few cushions too using the same kind of squares. I will post a tutorial on those in one of my future posts…
]]>Frankly, I was so looking forward to sharing this project with you! It makes me so happy, I hope the colors will bring a little joy into your day too.
See ya!
With lots of love,
Petra
Hello dear friends.
I have a new recipe for you today. It’s finger-licking good. Or spoon-licking good… whichever may your choice be 🙂
I made this recipe having all the chocolate lovers on my mind… and those who love cream too… and, of course, those who fancy a bit of cream cheese… and also remembering those who like fresh fruit… soo, that could be quite a few of you… and, okay, okay, I had myself on my mind pretty much as well…. 🙂
Making this cake is a lot of fun. Let me assure you, it is rather easy to assemble. Actually, I find the assembling the most fun part…
There are a few tricks involved that will assure that your cake will have not-so-usual vertically placed sponge.
Here’s how you achieve that… First of all, you bake two sponge cakes. The first magic trick with rolls (roulades) is to turn the cakes out onto the sugared parchment while still hot. You then roll the sponges up (this will assure that the sponges will ‘get used to’ being rolled up and they will not break when filled and rolled later on). Let cool and rest for about 2 hours.
And how to achieve the vertical cake parts? Just spread one half of the filling over each sponge cake. Cut each sponge cake in four even strips (starting at the wider/longer) side. Sprinkle each strip with fruit.
Roll up one sponge strip…
… and place it onto a larger platter (I used the bottom part of a 10 1/2-inch = 27 cm springform pan). That makes the center of your cake.
Then take another strip and roll it around the already made center part of the cake, placing the strip so that the end of the center part strip meets the beginning of the following strip.
Basically, you form a nice spiral shape.
Another strip added.
Continue working this way until all 8 cake strips are used.
And that’s pretty much it.
Finally cover the top of the cake with a little bit of creamy filling.
I wrapped a springform fastener around my cake in the end, but it is definitely not necessary, the cake holds together very nicely.
And to make it all prettyyyy, pour some lovely shiny ganache over the top, sprinle with fruits of various kinds and you are good to go…
We liked this cake, I hope you will too.
Enjoy!
With lots of love,
Petra xoxo
(This cake was inspired by this recipe.)
And here are all the details you will need…
Hi friends! Today I have a lovely recipe for you. I made it the other day and have to say it’s a real treat, especially for those who love the chocolate and cherry combination. Like me. Do you? (… but, then, is there a sweet combination I don’t like? 🙂 )
These delicious squares are beyond easy to make, the preparation takes just a few minutes. Plus, the cherries in this recipe can be easily replaced with any seasonal fruit you wish to use.
We loved this recipe. I am sure I will make it again soon, and next time I might even add drops of cherry jam to the batter here and there. And some rum essence too, that could work very nicely. What do you think?
And here are all the details if you’d like to make the yummy Cherry and Chocolate squares too….
Enjoy!
With love,
Petra 🙂
]]>Hello dear friends!
I am sending you my warm Sunday greetings! May your day be lovely, happy and blessed.
We have been spending our Sunday mostly outside (oh my goodness, the weather has been marvelous over here in the heart of Europe, so INVIGORATING). And I was lucky enough to find me some precious moments and hide myself in my ‘office’ (a.k.a. Happy Room) where I enjoy spending my time hidden behind columns of colorful yarn squares. The bliss!
Things of various crochet kinds have been going on here recently, I have been happily working on a couple of projects and I am eager to share more as soon as there is some significant progress achieved.
For now, sending you looooots of love,
Petra 🙂