Thursday 25 December 2014

0 Comments The Crown Jewel

Hello again! It's Christmas time! And although in Russia we do not celebrate catholic Christmas, it has become a lovely and heart-warming habit of mine after living in the UK. 

Don't you just love it when everything lights up in bright colours all around, when Christmas markets come to town where they serve you piping hot street foods, caramel apples and mulled wine? Mmmmm... I sure do!

And I do love the hassle of picking-buying/making-wrapping-and-delivering gifts to their respective recipients. I am an enthusiast gift-giver, so it is possibly my most favourite part of the whole annual Christmas fever. 

This year I bought rather than made most of the presents and postcards (ironically enough, I enjoyed being able to send out a few this year since I am away). But when nearly all of them were already wrapped and ready to go under a Christmas tree, I found this delightful crochet pattern which I simply HAD to make.

The tutorial is in Dutch (mind that I don't speak a word of it), but the pictures are pretty self-explanatory, and it is quite easy to pick up the required number of stitches from the text. 


I made the crowns a bit more festive-looking by heavily 'bejewelling' them with sparkly seed beads and sequins I got stashed from another project I never got to finish. I put them both on brooch pins I got from John Lewis' crafts department, which have neat little holes in them for easier sewing.

I got so excited while making them that I completely missed out on the opportunity to take a few snaps of the actual process, and this is literally the only picture I have of them before they were added to the other presents. But that shouldn't be much of a problem, because you can see the final result fairly well.

One of these would look adorable on a blazer lapel, a chunky-knit cardigan, a comfy turtle-neck, and even on a winter hat if you truly aim for some royal feel one of these days! 

E.V.

P.S. Will definitely make one for myself! <3

Sunday 21 December 2014

0 Comments Knitting Aside...

With all the posts on crochet and knitting (another one coming up fairly soon), I thought it was getting a bit monotonous, so I decided to entertain you with a post on a completely unrelated matter. Last night I finally put up the Christmas tree!

I know, it might seem that I've done it quite late, but the main holiday we celebrate nationwide in Russia is the New Years Eve, while our Christmas is orthodox style and is only celebrated in January and by the religious population. So the delay is quite acceptable in my case. Although I have been dying to put it up for a while now, just didn't quite have the time...



This tree is from IKEA, and it's pretty damn amazing for a fake Christmas tree! Once you fluff its flexible branches it actually does look like a real conifer. We have the smaller one out of the two available sizes, and it is just perfect for the limited space we have in our living room right in between an armchair and the 'sewing station'. 

My little helper

And here are some snaps of my favourite pieces from this year's Christmas tree: 

Little red tram - so cute!
Garland in the background: IKEA
Owl bauble: this year's IKEA Christmas collection

Amazing glass bauble from last year's IKEA Christmas shop
Kitty bauble I bought a couple of years ago at London's Winter Wonderland
The first batch of presents appearing under the tree this year
Giftwrap: IKEA

The holiday season is always an exciting time, whether you are a child or an adult. There is some sort of "magic" in all these rituals we do every year, like putting up and decorating the Christmas tree, buying and wrapping presents for the important people in our lives, having the fairy lights all around our houses. It's all quite atmospheric.

It is also a wonderful time when all our problems seem to be a bit less significant, and when we suddenly start enjoying silly but joyful music that is playing all around. It is a time to both reflect on the past and think about our future aspirations. And, obviously, it is the time to celebrate the friendship and love in our lives, so do not forget this essential part! ;)

Wish you all an amazing holiday season this year!

E.V. <3

Thursday 18 December 2014

0 Comments The Wedding Gift | Imported Post

I resurrected my deleted blog for the sole purpose of exporting this post about a crochet throw I made as a wedding gift for my friend this summer. Luckily, it hasn't been 90 days since I deleted it, so all the lovely pictures of the throw from various angles are safe and sound. Plus, it did save me some time on re-writing the entire post. Although I did some minor editing to the original text, like cutting the now out-of-context intro and tweaking some sentences to sound better:

"Here's to the oh-so-expected celebration of my classmate's wedding which I attended back in August and the gift I brought.

Considering that this was the first wedding I ever attended, the decision of what to give as a gift was not an easy one for me. Starting from the beginning I didn't want to give money (although it is a fairly common option) as I thought I could come up with something a little more personal. Traditionally (I suppose not only in Russia), the wedding gift should be something to better the just established household of the newlyweds. For instance, in Soviet times a set of good quality bed linens would be a great option. Now that things like that are not as hard to come by, one needs to be a bit more creative.

One of the older Burda Style magazines had a nice crocheted throw in it, and I thought to myself "how hard can it be?" Crocheting should take less time than knitting something this size, and I'm a fast knitter anyway... Well, long story short, "to add a little creativity into the gift" turned out to be "spending a month making it every single day with no exception". 




The throw is a mosaic made out of 8x6 square motifs sewn together, and finished off with a crocheted frill all around as below. Less than halfway through, I decided to 'cheat' a little by reducing the number of squares and making the throw 7x5 squares instead. Good thing that due to the thicker yarn each motif was already slightly bigger, so the end result turned out to be of roughly the same measurements as initially planned. 



Good thing I cheated, because I was literally finishing, blocking and wrapping it only few hours before I had to catch my train to Riga. 

The finished throw turned out quite large and cozy, and frankly, I would make one of my own if I wasn't so sick of it towards the end. The colour, I felt, was ideal for this piece, and thus it was well worth waiting for a week for just enough yarn in this colour to be delivered to the store. 


It was very good to know that my friend was actually looking for something of the kind for their new place, so the gift definitely served its purpose very well."

I do hope you like it! Making it had its ups and downs, but overall I'd say I enjoyed the process. What I enjoyed even more though, is the fact that the friend who got it still to this time drops an occasional compliment saying how she likes it and how well it fits their place. Conclusion - the goal of giving something memorable was achieved!



E.V.

Tuesday 16 December 2014

0 Comments Onerva | My First Shawl Project

As I have probably mentioned somewhere before (or maybe it was in my old blog which ceased to exist by now...), I had spent the last six years living happily in the UK, and it just so happened that I had to return to Russia just before the Summer start this year. 

During the period from August to mid-November the longest I have stayed in one place was literally 10 days. These few months were busy and, frankly, quite exhausting, both physically and mentally. Since then I've been staying put here in Moscow, and although I did manage to catch quite a few pleasant autumn days, soon enough the harsh reality that was waiting just around the corner became apparent: the Russian Winter is coming... (GoT pun intended)

I faced one major problem with the first negative temperatures outside - I have no winter warmers appropriate for Russian weather! When I say appropriate I mean warm and manageable. Especially since you have to keep taking it off and putting it back on again when you go in and out of premises/transport. And, preferably something that wouldn't completely ruin my hair, and here is where the shawl part comes in.

The idea of knitting a triangular shawl has haunted me for some time now, and I finally got a solid excuse to do it! In this particular case I was finding a pattern specifically for the yarn I already had in abundance, the lovely Rowan Fine Art in colour Raven (just over one full skein). After a brief search on Pinterest I found the beautiful yet simple Onerva shawl which had both the desired gauge and just the right amount of lacy-ness

The shawl was completed in about a week, which is not at all long for such a project. The knitting went quite smoothly with only a couple of spots I had to rectify (mostly resulting from my own negligence), and the pattern was rather intuitive too, which meant little concentration on counting stitches. And, after casting off and blocking this lovely lace - here it is! 





Love how you can see the colour transition through the pattern!

The only problem with it is that I expected to use up most of the yarn by the end of this project since I kind of wanted to get rid of it. In fact I only used a half of what I had! Well, some of the 'leftovers' went towards a lovely Christmas gift for one of my friends (not going to reveal what it is just yet :p ), and whatever is left looks to be just enough for these lovely fingerless mitts with a very poetic pattern name "A Time to Reap", which I will show you as soon as they are finished and I manage to take a few nice shots of them ;)


E.V.

Friday 5 December 2014

0 Comments Birthday Dress


At Kremlin State Concert Hall
It became a more or less consistent tradition for me in the recent years to wear a new dress on my birthday. I suspect a lot of us try to wear something new and exciting on such a day. It kind of adds to the overall excitement of the moment when you get to shop for a new outfit, or order it Online and wait in sweet anticipation until it arrives to your doorstep, or even get one made just for you.

When I was a child my mother would sometimes make me new pretty dresses for my birthdays. That wasn't the case every single year, naturally, but I still remember those times when the dress would be hanging in the hall already finished and when I simply couldn't wait to put it on. Such excitement!

This year I decided to make one myself, and let me tell you, it is NOT as exciting when you are the one making it! Things tend to go wrong making you lose motivation and at times even hate the idea altogether. 

It was all going great and smooth until it turned out that the pattern I was using had faulty fitting and the top part just wouldn't fit me properly. It was too tight on the bust, too loose on the waist and overall looked pretty terrible. Terrible to the extent of me deciding to rip it and make a different bodice altogether from the remaining fabrics. Here you have a few snaps of the final version:

Princess-cut bodice 
Semi-circle ruffle skirt


Narrow hemming
Blind zipper - both inside and out
Silk lining (black)




Personally, I am quite happy with the result. The dress turned out to be very elegant and flowing, with a slight 50-s touch just as intended (although I'm contemplating to make a net tutu to be worn underneath for a more authentic 50-s silhouette). 

You can't see it from the pictures, but it has thin spaghetti straps and a fairly low back, so it does require some matching layering to cover the shoulders. What you also cannot see here is the length, which comes about two thirds down the calf, making it a long-ish midi. 


But my favourite part is the fabrics itself. Abstract peacock feather print on a deep navy background, subtle silky sheen and rustling texture. Can be accessorised to be both formal and smart casual, which is probably my favourite quality of silk garments. All in all, makes a perfect dress to wear to a ballet performance :)



E.V. 

Thursday 4 December 2014

0 Comments The Horrors of My Writing Experience | Imported Post

The second and last imported post from Medium is here (I told you I didn't write much while I was there). This one is more of an introductory post for the blog rather than a regular stand-alone post, but it does express some ideas as to why I generally struggle to write. Again, sorry for the formatting, I swear it's not me!

"I was never particularly good at expressing my thoughts. And I think a lot on a daily basis, as many of us do, with a general tendency to overthink things. Sometimes I figure that maybe (just maybe) the whole magnitude of thought building up in my head over time is the problem, that I simply cannot cope and condense it to clever and elegant little thoughts to share. And this reveals the second problem, which is specific to my writing - even if I were to write something, would others find it enjoyable and clever to read?
See, I am an extremely fussy reader myself, and I get put off by great many things which others would probably find quite insignificant. Like grammatical errors. Or poor formatting (I am only not using Justified text formatting now since Medium only allows Left or Centre, and my ‘OCD Sense’ is tingling). I also tend to get bored of bad or plain writing pretty quickly and without guilt. And, since I am my best critic, whatever I think about writing (and sometimes I find my thoughts rather interesting) undergoes strict censorship inside my head by great many parameters, usually to the extent of leaving me with zero enthusiasm. Oh, and did I tell you English was not my first language?
The other big thing for me is engaging with the reader. You see, even though I am a massive procrastinator and regularly engage myself with admittedly pointless activities, I feel that writing something without expecting it to be read by at least someone, is a worthless waste of time and energy. And I’m not one of those free spirits who finds peace in simply letting it out. I find great satisfaction in knowing that people find something of interest in what I have to say, and maybe even more so when I see them interested enough to say something in return.
Finally, my circles… Oh, the horror of letting it slip to someone that I have started a blog!.. I am exaggerating, of course, but I do find my relative anonymity to the Internet community somewhat soothing, at least in the beginning. This blog is a brave new step for me, there is a lot of discovering to do along the way, and I hope my stories and thoughts will be worth your while."
E.V.

Tuesday 2 December 2014

0 Comments Polyester Rant | Imported Post

Ok, so I mentioned already that I was experimenting with other blogging platforms recently. Not that I have written a lot there, but I figured that it would be nice to get everything in one place, so now you can read here what I did elsewhere. Enjoy! (Excuse the formatting, copy-pasting unfortunately brought in some scripting I can't get away which double-spaces everything in this post...)
Self-made cotton sundress



"I love clothes. No, not like that… I love good clothes. I am not a style freak, but I admire a well-assembled outfit. I enjoy a nice match of colours or patterns, when it is not too much, but just enough to create that interesting and unique look. A kind of look that people could call stylish without necessarily knowing what exactly attracted them. Elusive. Subtle. But most importantly, I enjoy quality natural fabrics in clothes I choose for myself.
I do well understand and appreciate the fact that people are looking for easier and cheaper sourcing for fabrics since it brings us such materials as bamboo, viscose or acetate versus cotton or silk. I even understand the need for polyester and polyamide - some pieces really do require extra durability without sacrificing the ease of movement. But what I do not understand, and which I find a complete outrage, is the fact that larger section of [especially] women’s fashion is being invaded by polyester (among other artificial yarns) every season that passes.
Taking ladies high street shopping as an illustration, there would be at least 15 pure polyester tops for each one made of viscose or cotton. Depending on the brand, the quality of make will naturally vary, but the fact remains exactly that — polyester prevails. And it is not even the designs, no. The majority of the pieces I encounter are up to standard, feature lovely patterns and overall follow the current fashion trends. But my God are they impractical!
Now, each material has a fairly unique quality to it, which is why it is generally being chosen for a certain piece. Wool for warmth, cotton for breathability, silk for its sheen, and so on. Polyester has replaced all of the above. You can find polyester dresses that resemble wool crepe, polyester that looks like woven or jersey cotton, polyester chiffon… Sadly, they all look like things without delivering the expected qualities. A dress like that will never keep you warm enough in the cold, but will likely feel quite hot when worn indoors. Polyester can hardly be called breathable, and its feel (more often than not) is not too pleasant on the skin.
Some might argue that I should stop looking at cheap/mass brands for quality stuff and be happy with whatever they have to offer. But the more expensive brands are no better! Yes, they do use some nice fabrics and the fitting can be better at times, but they just as easily sell full-polyester dresses for the price of silk ones. What is sad is that the current demand trends make it possible, and it looks like it is moving towards natural fabrics becoming a more high-end good for which one’ll have to pay double.
Don’t get me wrong though, I do own some polyester pieces myself, and I do enjoy wearing them from time to time even if they are not the most practical/cozy items. But that is a reasonable fraction of my wardrobe versus the sheer volume of polyester in the mass market as opposed to natural materials.
The last half a year or so I have been resorting in occasional clothes making, the hassle of which brought me more joy and fulfilment than ‘scavenging’ for nice clothes on the high street or online. I do have a feeling that with the tendencies I spoke of above this might become a more recurring thing. But for now, rant closed. x"
E.V.
P.S. Let me know if you want me to tell you more about how I made this dress and if you want to see some more pictures.

Wednesday 26 November 2014

0 Comments Houses Down the Memory Lane

In retrospective I can say that I have lived in a fair number of different places during the last 10 years or so. For the total of six years I have lived abroad, away from my home and my parents (who managed to move approximately 7,000km away from what I used to call "home" during that time). I lived through student accommodation, annoying landlords, obnoxious flatmates and poor living conditions. I had to teach myself what it is to find a new [affordable] place in  the shortest period of time, what it is to move towns, what it is to move in with people you don't know when all you can do is hope it is going to turn out fine.

All this moving from place to place has diluted the idea of "home" as it is for me quite significantly, but I have to say that each house or flat I lived in still holds a certain place in my heart. Yes, some of them were quite terrible, and some landlords were plain unbearable, but I do have at least a few memories worth keeping about every single one of those places.

What I wanted to talk about here in this post is revisiting places one used to live in before. Not necessarily coming inside (as if some new tenant would let you in just like that), but even simply passing by in a bus, or walking by the building. To be perfectly honest, I myself fail to describe the feeling I get when I casually happen to be next to the place I used to live in. Temporary, short-term, but still home at some point...

For the record, for the first couple of years of living alone I never even fully unpacked my things and at times even lived off my suitcases. The logic behind it being that I will be leaving this place soon enough, so by not fully unpacking I would save myself some packing time in the future [oh, so mature and wise in my pre-18s!]. Later though I decided to 'go with it' and unpack completely, even being brave enough to occasionally buy something for the room, despite having to include it in my subsequent 'house removals'. That way I learned to view a new place as a new home, even if for a little while. 

Naturally, leaving each place you call "home" would inevitably mean having mixed feelings. See, one gets attached even to what is bad in their lives (I know, definitely not the healthiest thing to do, but that is kind of how us humans tend to work...) But especially that was true for those places where I had had the greatest times. Revisiting the places though, any of those places, is always (I don't even know...) haunting in a way, arouses curiosity and some inexplicable excitement within, and definitely sends me back down the memory lane. 

Whether or not it is a pleasant journey back in time or not, it demonstrates how a simple habit of living at a certain place can transform into something much more subtle and elusive like a lingering sensation of emptiness when one sees or thinks of a place one used to live in some years back. 

I am pretty certain I am not the only one thinking that way, and that a lot of you have experienced at least some of those nostalgia symptoms at some point. For now though, all the best! And don't forget to cherish your memories.

E.V.

Tuesday 25 November 2014

0 Comments On my Medium Experience and Another Blogging Issues

Ok, now that it's been just over a month since I created this new blog I think I'm finally beginning to understand what I want it to look like. 

Before I continue, I have to say that I experimented with Medium. At the first sight I was strongly attracted to Medium's simplicity, which supposedly took every bit of distraction away leaving a blank 'sheet' for one to write on. Pure creativity, no shenanigans. And I was happy with the way things worked - no customisation to worry about, minimum formatting, and so on. I even got a few pageviews and reads, too.

Soon enough, however, I began feeling a bit intimidated and plain annoyed with it. Looking through the suggested posts on the main page it appeared like the whole platform was inhabited by columnists, book-writers and overall some sort of professionals that came there to share their wisdom with the world. 

My suggested/recommended posts feed was filled with posts, or articles rather, along the lines of "Why <something everyone does> is a bad idea", "How to <make, improve, excel at> <some product or process> in few easy steps", "Why you shouldn't be doing <something that you do>", "What mistake has <a famous person from a specialised field> made", and many many other variations. A lot of them screamed of pretentiousness and fakeness around us, and how things like travelling have succumbed to being a vain rather than mind-opening activity. And although I did agree with a few of the ideas myself, in its entirety the content on that platform turned out to be very different from what I always understood by blogging.

Just to be clear, to me the idea behind it is probably one of the best ideas ever when it comes to blogging - minimalistic design with minimum distractions to help focus on writing. What could be better? But from what it looks like, using Medium has turned into somewhat of a 'fashion statement' screaming "I chose to leave mediocre mainstream platforms in favour of this professional-looking site where everything I say will look important". Or it is simply an article-writing platform.

I just think that blogging needs to be a bit more personal, a bit more engaging rather than simply tossing dry instructions or ideas at the reader. I believe that a bond should be formed between the blogger and the reader, where the story is told or a thought is shared, and where the reader follows the story and the whole blog just like reading chapters of an infinite book. 

What I try to achieve in my blog is to record whatever I would put in a personal journal with slight censorship correction, obviously. Stories? Maybe. Maybe even some creative writing, but I cannot yet say for sure. Hopefully something of interest to you as the reader. But I want to make it personal. I want to make it a continuation of myself, if I may say so. I want to share because I want to share and for no other reason.

I think the point has been made, so take care for now! 

E.V.


Wednesday 22 October 2014

0 Comments New

For a number of times now I have been attempting to start a blog of my own to share my thoughts and, hopefully, make new friends on the Web. Being inspired by many many others whose blog content could not have been simpler, like the new stuff one got, or a new place one visited, and on and on, I figured, how hard can it be?

To be perfectly honest, I cannot say that I feel it is entirely who I am. I mean, obviously, sharing new experiences is wonderful, but I doubt that I am the right kind of person to keep posting exclusively cheerful and life-ascertaining stuff. I do get serious sometimes, too.

So, after another miserable attempt with practically 0 viewers on average (excluding myself) and literally no subscribers/regular readers in about four months, I took down my last blog at nobody's loss apart from my slightly bruised self-esteem. Anyone else had that problem at some point?

Don't know yet what I am going to be writing about though, so hopefully something will come up as I go. Until then, ciao!

E.V.