It took me one hour or so to collect the tutorials and patterns available online and 1 min to decide not to follow any of them. Instead, I used the pattern from the book シマシマの本 ― ボーダー布を使って gnip sent me quite a while ago. The book came with a WAWA. It’s about using striped fabrics, all kinds of them. I never told gnip how much I liked this book, coz I think the best way to show my appreciation is to make something inspired by the book. Although the book has given me quite some inspirations in the past, it is my first time to really follow a pattern in the book.

When I was showing Mr. Y the pattern before I started copying it, he reminded me that the pattern is for toddlers, not babies. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a bigger hat than one that is too small. I can always attach an elastic band or do something like the hat from Me Sew Crazy later. In the worst case, I can always adjust the pattern to make another one.

I was using some IKEA scraps from a previous secret project. One of the advantages making things for babies is that the items are usually TINY. It’s so simple that I made the whole thing before little K woke up from her morning nap time (1 hour?). The hat came out nicely and it just fits! I guess, either I mistook the pattern or little K’s head is as big as average Japanese toddlers.

It was fun to work on small projects like this while little K’s napping. It’s somehow like a very exciting race. The award is her waking up smile.  :-) Thanks to my lovely sewing machine and thanks to gnip!

There’s a Chinese idiom that says “three heads and six arms (三头六臂)”, usually used to describe unordinary people who are so good at multi-tasking. Three heads might be arbitrary, but extra hands are definitely useful. Imagine a pair of arms cuddling the baby, another pair cooking dinner and the other doing laundry. The more arms, the better!

No matter how I wish I could be such a person in the past few weeks, I am still an ordinary women with one head and two arms, handling challenges one by one. The difficult time wouldn’t be forever long. It could be close to the end before we realize it. Sometimes, ignoring one or two tasks makes life much easier. Blogging is probably on the top of my to-skip list now and crafting might be somewhere in the middle. In spite of all the , I finally made the very first homemade toy for little K. Hooray!

I just don’t feel like making any “traditional” soft animals at the beginning. Little K already got quite a few different animals from our friends. Therefore, my first toy for her has to be something so special that only little K can have it. Little K happened to have a nickname that has something to do with octopus. I went to the department stores to check out the infant toys. Surprise, surprise, there are not so many oceanic creatures, so I started sketching octopus since Christmas.

It didn’t take me long to have a rough idea of the octopus I wanted to make, but making it is another thing. I am simply scared of any repetition in crafts. The eight “identical” arms are totally a nightmare for me, not to mention the multiple circles that represent the suction cups. None of them are the same. More than half of the time were spent on these arms. If I didn’t finish the arms in one shot (one night after little K went to bed), I might never finish the whole thing.

There are a few octopus patterns online (e.g. futuregirl’s felt octopus and hulucraft’s patchwork one) and a lot of very inspiring stuffed octopus around. I followed roughly a tutorial without a pattern. It took me a few attempts to get the head in a satisfied shape. I didn’t stuff the arms and didn’t make it too long so that I don’t need to worry she strangle herself with the toy while the arms are easy for little K to grab.

When I presented the finished octopus to K, she smiled, grabbed it and tried to put the head into her mouth without hesitation. I might be the weirdest mother in the world, but little K clearly has a special taste too.

YJ’s husband is a car expert. They own a very nice yellow convertible. Since she was expecting a boy, I wanted to make him a car, which has to be soft and safe for newborns. Crocheting (amigurumi) would be the easiest choice to achieve these goals. I happen to have bright yellow cotton yarn at hand. Convertibles are too complex and not so easy to be infant safe. Hence, I just make a rather ordinary car with a little race car like touch in the front. The frustrating part is, as always, the assembling part. The flaws due to careless designs became so obvious during this step that I have to ravel some pieces until it appeared to be alright according to the non-crafter  in the house.

Mr. Y was a little surprised and a little unsatisfied when he realized the car was not for his daughter. At the meantime, he quickly rejected my proposal of making a red Beatles in a similar manner.  “No, no, no crocheting….you need to sew with some lasting fabrics……”, he said. That’s why it is so hard to start a project for little K!

When I was working on the car, there are a few crocheted cars over the internet very inspiring. Here, here and here. I also found out that those cute “anne-claire petit” cars and other crocheted items of the same brand are not hand-crafted by the designer. Instead, they are outsourced to China. It is not much different from the plushies “Made in China”. My friend Mars used to send me pictures of some anne-claire petit toys from his trip to the Netherlands. The toys were apparently displayed as indie crafts. Many people that have seen these toys, including me of course, are easily convinced that they are hand-crafted by the designer. Now, I felt misled. I would certainly appreciate the Nici animals more than ever now.  I bought a Nici’s Federic Fox yesterday. It’s surprising that little K showed high interests in the fox. (She hasn’t been attracted by any toys so far.) Therefore, he now has a new Chinese name and belongs to our princess.

When Mr Y was preparing the apartment for little K’s arrival from the hospital, he moved my sewing machine to the cellar. 10 weeks later, he brought it back as he need me to make something to protect his new toy. It could be much easier if he hasn’t research on commercial Kindle cases/covers. He started like “I just want something really simple….” However, there is a long list of hidden requirements attached to the word “simple”. He has rejected all the handmade Kindles cases tutorials/patterns that I could find from the internet, so I have to whip up my own.  He even found one nice tutorial himself but then told me that case is too lousy. Clearly, the leather cover from Amazon was his standard. I “simple-ly” told him not even to think about it.

It was not easy to communicate with customers who knows little about crafting. I need to understand what he wants and explain what I can do. Mr. Y wanted the case ASAP, which means I need to stick to the materials I already have. Therefore, I showed him what I have (in another box that had been moved to the cellar) and explained roughly what kind of case I can possibly make with those stuffs.  I cannot remember when was the last time he asked me to make something for him (not including cooking), but I am sure it is his first time to go through my stash. More than half of my fabrics was from friends. Most of them are in small pieces that are perfect for dolls and mini plushes. I ruled out the possibility of patching up the small fabrics as it would be too feminine for him and too time consuming for me. Given the limited resources, we didn’t spend much time selecting the fabrics. I hope  could remind Mr. Y of who was always complaining when I was window-shopping fabrics.

The sleeve was indeed very simple. It’s a scaled version of Mr. Y’s cellphone case. The sewing was done in a nearly insane way when little K was napping last Sunday afternoon (the sewing machine was not in the same room as little K). Since the customer doesn’t care about seams and any other technical (crafting) aspects, I tried to use the sewing machine as much as possible to minimize the time. For instance, the initials on the sleeves were actually my lazy way of fixing the fabric sandwiches together without basting. The bright side of free work is that I can pretend not seeing so many flaws and Mr. Y has to accept this sleeve no matter what because I don’t have time/materials for another one!

When I took my hook pouch out of the moving box, I didn’t have any particular projects in mind. I simply wanted to start something and finish it quickly, like the old days. It is natural to continue with this gray yarn. There is still a big ball left over from the two projects I already finished and it is the only thing lying out of my yarn box. Having gone through a few popular patterns on ravelry randomly (the pattern search/browsing in Ravelry is good!), I decided to work on Phannie mainly because of the front post double crochet stitches in the pattern. I don’t do post crochet stitches so often, so it was quite interesting to work on this small project. The making was fun, but the result is not. I look funny with any hats/caps and berets are the worst. Hopefully, the beret could find a new home soon.

I did realize how long I haven’t updated here when I was asked to log in wordpress *again* in order to leave comments on a friend’s blog. Little K is developing so quickly that I just don’t have much energy left to keep a written log or to get more craft projects done. The beret was done weeks ago. A terrible fever just got into my way when I was about to blog about this project. I would like to blog once a week or more, but that seems infeasible. I’ll try to start with update for at least once a month, which means I need to stay healthy and to finish some projects every month.

Speaking of parenting, there are all kinds of discussions/news recently related to this controversial excerpt from Amy Chua’s new book. As a “victim” of really Chinese parenting, I wouldn’t do what Amy Chua did to my little K. Every child is an individual. There’s no one single method that works for everyone. What worked for my big sister gave me such a negative viewpoint of the world.

In my view, happiness is far more important than the so-called “success”, mostly in terms of successful careers.  I hope I could make little K a happy girl. In order to show her the cheerful world, I need to be more positive myself. I am still learning and little K is helping with her encouraging sweet smiles. It is NOT easy to be a baby. She need to go through so many pains and miseries, but she smiles when the pains go away. All I can do is to make it as comfortable for her as possible, for example, to keep her upright for 1+ hour after feedings. When she sleeps in my arms or on my chest, I can read, or sometimes knit a bit. One day, this vest is finished and little K has also made progress. It does not seem so difficult to stay calm as it was at the beginning any more. Knitting cables is not so difficult as before as well.

The pattern is Pembroke from Petite Purls, delicate but fairly straightforward to make. My stitches were a little too tight. While I followed the pattern for 6-month-old, the vest fits little K already. It’s not for her.

BTW: I recently watched the latest season of Amazing Race. Brook from the runner-up team is probably the most positive person in the world.

I was just going to update on the little mittens when the water broke.  My little K came a little earlier than expected. Maybe she couldn’t wait to be my model. The pattern is available from Knitty. Many people said the mittens looked like boxing mitts. When I showed Bec this picture, she noticed immediately that it’s not in my usual colors. I used old leftover yarns for this pair, as it was only supposed to be a prototype of something else, which I didn’t manage to start, just like many other great plans before the due date. I don’t find much time for crafting now. It’s unclear whether I would really make the mittens that were in my mind. The first thing on my to-do list is to unravel the WIP I couldn’t finish in the hospital……It doesn’t work for little K.

At this moment, a positive and supportive companion around is extremely important for people who can easily lost confidence, for example, Tim Gunn from Project Runway. He might be the only reason I’ve watched quite a few seasons of this reality show. (There are a few nice designers in the show, but I definitely do not like Heidi Klum/Michael Kors/Nina Garcia.) I always like to hear him saying “Make it work” and “Carry on” to the contestants.

I guess, as a fairly negative person, I am lucky to have several “Tim Gunn”s in my life, including the one who’s been very close. Being together after years, we are facing a so far the biggest challenge ahead and some unforeseen physical uneasiness happened to me. I am really grateful how he stood by me and helped me through all the miseries. I won’t tell him that, otherwise he would be too proud of himself.

However, he is not always supportive regarding my crafts. Therefore, I was quite happy when he seems happy with the eggplant hat. Although it might be only due to the reason I knit but not the thing I knit, it’s encouraging enough for me to keep on knitting.

The next finished project is this nice poncho from DROPS design. Both of us fell in love with the sweet little model on the page. I used two folds of yarn so I can reach the right gauge and the poncho also looks “chunkier”. The seed stitches on the hood and the edge give a very nice touch to the piece.

I didn’t even read through the pattern before cast-on, which turns out to be a good thing.  Parts of the pattern in increasing stitches were so confusing that I wouldn’t consider this project if I’ve read it more carefully beforehand. In that case, I wouldn’t have my own sweet little poncho in lilac. For anyone who wants to try this pattern, some sketches of the piece would be helpful to understand the pattern better. There are two seams to be sewn together. Don’t be confused by the sweet picture here!

I always tell people that I am not a knitting person and I always prefer hooks to needles, but I cannot deny that it is hard to resist the cute little knitting patterns, especially those are freely available via Ravelry, which not only allows you to find the patterns but also supplies a large picture collection of finished projects. This sweet baby hat is on the top of my latest favorite list.  

One thing I hate about knitting is the casting on. It took me one whole night to finalize the first row of this hat. There’s nothing special about the first few rows of this hat. There are not so many stitches on each row as it is only a hat for newborns. You will laugh at me if you see the number of stitches in the pattern. But, still, I couldn’t get the stitches and the gauge right so easily.

It becomes much easier once the first row is fixed. I went out to find the green yarn the day after and finished the whole hat before going to bed. I am somehow surprised that Mr. Y also likes this hat. He usually sniffs on anything I made in purple or any similar colors. Maybe the knot on the top gives it some magics. My next project will be only using the same lilac yarn. Let’s see how he reacts. One predictable thing is that I’ll have too much green yarn left over and wouldn’t know what to do with it for a while.

One of the many reasons I haven’t blogged for so long is that I’ve been working on this crochet project. I started it back in early April right after our trip to Japan. It is not the largest piece I’ve finished, but it definitely broke my record of one single project: it took half a year! It should not have taken so long. Considering how little craft-related things I brought back from Japan, my crafting mojo was probably long gone even before the trip. It wasn’t so easy to get it back when there’s no strong motivation at all. There are so many other things. I couldn’t help thinking that maybe crafts are no longer my thing any more. In any case, there won’t be projects that last forever. It is either continued or dropped. I am glad that I didn’t give up this project because the result looks exactly how I expected. The blanket makes me smile whenever I look at it. )

The pattern is called “Soft Stroller Blanket” and published on the winter issue of Crochet Today! in 2008.

A lot of things happened in the last 3 months and finally summer has arrived in Germany. I got quite some requests/complaints/concerns regarding my absence here lately. I hope it’s not too late to show up again now.

The pineapple lace doily was a good-bye gift for a close friend. She has started a nice new life somewhere else. Hopefully I can see her again very soon.

I finally got a chance to visit Japan and stayed there for 2 whole weeks. It was a wonderful vacation and I’ve been putting up photos to my facebook. I didn’t spend much on craft supplies in Japan and brought back only one craft book, the only one on my must-have list. I was also sort of surprised too.

Another friend moved to Berlin in February. I’ve already gotta visit her twice in the last 3 months. This entry is actually posted from Berlin. Love the city!

February was quite a busy month and March is going to be even busier! In order to enjoy the vacation at the end of this month, I need to work harder! I only managed to finish this little crown lately. There are plenty of original crochet patterns available on this Japanese blog Crochet a little, including for the little bird I made last year.

It’s just a little sad she’s moving away. I had two friends who I can talk to about crafts and one of them left this small town last year. It is much harder for me to find a new friend than to fly to Berlin.

That’s my birthday gift from last year, although the kit only arrived this year due to some delivery dramas. Don’t get it wrong. The gift was a Revell model kit rather than the finished model and I like it this way.

I’ve never got the chance to try such plastic models before, partially because the majority of the models are military ones that do no interest me at all and partially because they were much more expensive than the toys/models my dad can make for me or help me to make. I don’t fancy them until Mr. Y got me this kit. As a passive viewer of TV series “Lost“, I like this minibus model a lot. I even had it on my favorite car list when we were looking for a car.

Assembling it is time consuming and also fun experience working with Mr. Y at the same time. He’s obviously more motivated than I am to finish it. It’s not so frequent that we can do handcrafts together as we have totally different hobbies.  It didn’t come as I would like it to be, but given it’s my first hands-on experience with this type of model building, I am rather satisfied to see it did look like the real bus. Thanks to my little cute camera and GIMP, most of the flaws due to my fault are unseen from the picture. More specific, it was Mr. Y who decided to skip the last step of attaching those tiny decals.

We have already started looking for the next model we both like.