Mother’s Day

This Mother’s Day post is for my mom. I love her. She taught me to knit and crochet when I was a child.  And today I would like to share some of her work with you — she makes amazing toys for my children using crochet Amigurumi technique.

The first two toys — a bear with flowers and a convertible Cinderella doll — are my favourite, but all of them are charming in their own way.

This cute bear lives on my computer desk.

Cinderella in rags…

… turns into Cinderella in a beautiful gown.

And all it takes is a little bit of magic.

This bear is squishy and a bit sad.

A Big Funny Bunny.

A Small Funny Bunny.

A Cute Bunny. He wears a lace collar and for some reason has toes.

A realistic rabbit with a rattle inside.

Just look at this face. Doesn’t it look like his lip is quivering too?

A stress ball cat. And I don’t even have to squeeze it to get some positive emotions.

Ninja-Cat.

This Piggy has the same cheerful body type as the first cat. She is a very content animal.

Moo!

This is a Flying Dragon.

Hissing Snakes.

Friendly Lady Bugs.

Little blue guys socializing.

A mouse with dangling limbs. Would be nice for a car.

Little Turtles are warming up in the sun.

This doll looks a bit like me, although her name is Yoko.

And this doll also has a rattle inside…

and unexpected hair colour.

In recent years, I grew closer with my mom through a shared love of handmade things. Thank you, Mom, and Happy Mother’s Day!

Yarn-Free!

The ranks of local knitters for charity are growing! I met a woman named Mahnaz who works with the new immigrants and runs a weekly knitting meet-up for the newcomers and local residents at the Keshen-Goodman Library. A Ravelry friend told me that this group was looking for yarn donations, and — hooray! — I had some chunky wool to spare. So we had a meeting and talked some knitting stuff. I learned that the group consists of about 15 members, and that it serves as a bridge across the language barrier. It helps their members to be exposed to the local culture and connect with the local community.

As you could imagine, buying yarn is not the first priority for a person who moves to another country, sometimes fleeing her own. We decided that the knitters would keep an item they knit from donated yarn (for themselves or family) and then make another one for charity. Seems fair, don’t you think? The group was also interested in a blanket project, provided I would supply the yarn. The next day I got an email from LK Yarns about a big bag of acrylic yarn donated by their customers together with some pretty blanket squares. Thank you, kind knitters of Halifax!

Now this yarn will be used for blanket squares made locally by knitters from all over the world.

I am yarn-free, and there is another blanket growing slowly.

Meanwhile

Since this blog wasn’t meant to be personal, I kept my own knitting out of it. However, recently I decided to share some pictures here and there, while the charity projects are developing. I don’t use knitting patterns and design all of my creations, except a few occasional last-minute gifts. Here is a small collection of children’s sweaters that were knitted and worn this fall and winter, plus a bonus half-sock.

This is a rainbow sweater and a matching hat. I used two balls of yarn for the body to make the stripes the same width that those on the sleeves. Neat, eh? This happy acrylic yarn was sold by a bag, dirt cheap, and I just couldn’t resist the colours. It was my first bottom-up construction sweater, and it took me three attempts to get the shaping right. Never again. Top-down raglan it is.

The Three Sheep Sweater. Mmm, sheep… I really enjoyed working on this project except it smelled like sheep, too. For whatever reason, natural undyed wool has much stronger smell in my experience. Maybe the colouring process and chemicals eliminate some of the farm aromas?

Baa.

This is a very warm Dinosaur Sweater. I was aiming for an Apatosaurus backlit by the sunset but if you are a paleontologist by trade, you might disagree.

This vest was supposed to be a sweater before I accidentally donated the third skein of yarn I bought for it. It was made with two skeins of Cascade 220, almost to the last yard, thus the 50/50 design.

I only managed to take one picture outside before the battery died, so this is how it looks in its entirety.

I love everything about these sweaters except the hand-washing, forever-drying part. The wool is lovely but next time I will go with its machine washable version.

And finally, please meet Footie, the cast sock. Named by the cast owner, it was used for a week to keep the little toes warm. And when the cast was off, it became a handy transportation device for small animals and marine life.

A knitter suggested that a cast sock could be a nice charity project. Personally, I think that knitting Footie had a therapeutic effect on me but it was also a necessity because it was freezing cold outside. I wonder if receiving a cast sock together with the cast at the Children’s ER or Orthopaedic Department will make any difference for hurt kids and their worried parents…

What do you think?