The highlights of 2014

It's been quite a while since the last update of my crochet journey. 2014 was one of my most exciting years, counting the one in which Alex, my son was born. The first half of it we spent in Thailand, then when we finally got home I had Alex's second birthday party to organize. Check that and the whole August and I found myself packing my suitcase again. This time Alex and I went to the Greek seaside with my parents. We got back just in time for me to get ready for a two week trip to Western Europe. We spent most of that time in Paris and Berlin, but also visited an uncle in Luxembourg.

In the meantime we had other birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate. I barely had time to catch my breath and Christmas was already knocking on my door and with that the first ever craft exibition I participated in. I also managed to squeze in a smaller charity event. I was able to warm up little heads and hands with four hats, two pairs of gloves and a scarf.

My favorite projects of 2014 (in no particular order) are:

This little girl doesn't have an owner just yet, but I'm sure she'll find one in no time. I like this bookmark because it was the last project I started in 2014 and the first I finished in 2015. You can find e beautiful Little Owls Hut pattern here.

The canvas art above was our gift for my in-laws' anniversary. It holds a special meaning for my mother-in-law, since the yarn I used belonged to her late mother, who passed away two years ago. She also used to crochet and do cross-stitching. While the picture is about romantic love, it also refletcs my fondness of the lady whose stash I inherited.

I made this infinity scarf from my birthday-yarn. I loooove colors! The FREE pattern is available here.

A monkey vest for my monkey-boy. The three of us have a love-hate relationship about wearing it though: I love it on him, he, well, not so much. You can find the gorgeous Ira Rott pattern here.

These were part of my Christmas exibition. You'll find the FREE Christmas tree pattern here, while Unravel me's geniusly simple mug cozy is available here. And last, but not least my absolute favorite hats and glove of last year:

You'll find GoodKnits' foxy FREE pattern here.

The unbelievably cute Repeat Crafter Me pattern is here, did I mention it's also FREE?

This foxy mitten pattern was created by Little Thigs Blogged, you'll find it here for FREE!

This hat is sure to blow away the fisherman or woman in your family, the Angels Chest Boutique pattern is availabe here.

Happy New Year Everyone! I wish you all the best 2015 can possibly bring! And so does our snowman, Teddy!

Chandelier necklace

Since we are leaving Thailand soon, I didn't want to start on a big project. But I didn't want to just not make anything either. So, when I found B.Hooked Crochet's April CAL I knew it was just the thing for me.

Brittany made a lengthy tutorial on how to crochet a necklace, that has a very complicated looking chart. I didn't have to watch the video, because luckily I'm comfortable with charts, but if you are a beginner crocheter I can only recommend you try your hands in this one. Not only will you have a beautiful necklace as a result, but you will find out that not everything is as complicated as it might seem at first glance.

You can find the FREE tutorial and chart here.

Baby dresses

Last month I made two little outfits for the tiny princess in your life. Both patterns are Rebecca Leigh's elegant designs. I had loads of fun figuring out the details and the kind of personality I wanted to give each of the them.

The avocado green dress has a white and yellow butterfly on its bodice crocheted with pearl cotton crochet thread. While the one with the rose skirt has a cute pink hedgehog on its bodice. They both have ribbons that compliment the colors of the skirts.

They are very special to me, because these two dresses are the first items to debut my Etsy shop: Sunny Edge.

Square fest

Here are a few afghan squares I made over the past couple of months. The first three are part of Moogly's 2014 crochet along. Which is awesome, because hundreds of people are participating. There's even a group for it on Ravelry. At the end of the year all of us will have an afghan that is similar to the others', and, at the same time, totally different. The base of the fourth square was made following a pattern, like the rest. However, the bear on it is my own design. I call it Mr. Patchworkson square.

Toys from February

Despite it being the shortest month, during those 28 days I finished quite a few stuffed cuties. First of which is a teeny tiny messenger owl. His mission is to carry short messages between me and the hubby. This little guy was the gift I gave to my sweet-sweet Valentine. It is also an original Freshstitches cutie. You can find the pattern here.

The second sweetheart is a rainbow giraffe, who's a real eye-catcher. His FREE pattern can be found here.

Now, the third one is special. Her name is Maya and she is a gigantic pink monkey. She is the biggest toy I made so far. The pattern was designed by Irene Staal, you can find it on her Ravelry page.

And last, but not least comes the grooviest cat in town. He has dots, he has stripes (on his back, not visible on the picture), he has everything. You can find the FREE pattern here.

Crochet symbols chart

There are many different ways to write down a pattern, some use charts, while others write down all the directions. Choose the latter, and you still have two options. You can use either the US or the UK terms, or sometimes both. If you are like me, and only are comfortable using one set of the terms, you might find scratching your head when faced with the other.

If they were two completely different set of terms it would be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I self-taught myself to crochet via various Youtube videos, I could find on the subject, and almost all of them used the US terms. Which, if I'm completely honest, to me personally make more sense than the UK terms. But I could get just easily used to the other ones, if not for the fact that they use pretty much the same terms, only for different stitches.

A US single crochet is a UK double crochet, while the single crochet in UK terms is a slip stitch in the US version. I could go on, but you get the idea. Now, this doesn't seem too complicated at first, and it isn't with simple patterns. But imagine making a difficult afghan square. Sometimes it's hard to follow the pattern even if you are on top of your game terms-wise. If you, however aren't even sure about what you are reading, you might get a headache just figuring that out.

That's why using symbols sounds easier, at least they are always the same. Of course not everything can be written in charts, like amigurumis for instance. Also, they can scare away the inexperienced souls.

As I was browsing the vast world wide web the other day, looking for something completely different, I stumbled upon a chart that made my life all the more easier. This chart, created by Jamie Ekins, contains all the terms and symbols one could wish for in one place. It's also colorful and fits only one side of a paper. Print it out and you'll never feel lost again.

You can find Jamie's original post and the .pdf version here.

Lollipop, the unicorn

Lollipop is the third member of the toy team I'm making for Alex's classmates. She is a cuddle-loving cutie. I followed the pattern for her body, but the tail and mane are my creations. It is very simple: I made a number of chains between 30 and 40 (didn't want the locks to be exactly the same length) and then did 3 sc in the first chain, then 2 sc in the second, and so on.

You can find the FREE pattern here.