I'm alive and knitting.

Ok that's it I must make a post here. I'm alive. How many times have I posted it here? *sigh* I'm knitting. A lot. I've participated in 2 KALs @ Google Plus, became a tester of 2 patterns (of designers also from Google Plus) and made several 1st time projects. Here they are:

Bashful butterflies shawlette is my 1st KAL, 1st attempt to make a shawl and historically 1st KAL @ G+ awesome knitting community.

A closer look to the pattern. It was a bit hard to figure out for the 1st-timer, but I got so much help both from other KALers and designer herself that it turned out to be pure joy. Here's a Pinterest board with photos of shawls made by other participants. All of them are spectacular.

Sade hat and Sade mittens are what was G+ second KAL. Unfortunately this time it wasn't as big wow omgosh 1st time KAL and I didn't see many ppl who completed their items. But I did mine and I'm glad I did. I'm not so glad about my yarn+needles choice though. The mock cables don't pop out the way I wanted them too but I can live with it. The size of mittens frightens me though. They turned out HUGE. Humongous. And I can easily wear a pair of mittens and then wear these mittens too. I think I'll be more then glad when we'll have -20C here ))

And these Berry Berry mitts are the 1st pattern I volunteered to test. Funny thing is all the above patterns are of the same designer, Julia Temisevä. As you see she makes very sophisticated patterns that are interesting to knit and pretty to wear.

This is an ear-warmer and the second pattern I tested. It's free and available at Ravelry here.I'm not sure whether I made it for myself or DH and haven't chosen a button yet but I liked knitting it. The instructions were so simple I made it in one evening. Such a wonder still that I encountered so many crafty people in one place: designers, professional and amateur knitters, ppl from yarn industry etc. I maybe talk too much about G+ but it's really the first social network that I really really enjoy using.

Now let me quickly show you what else I made.

Haruni shawl. My 1st big shawl made of a single 400m sock yarn skein in 15 days.

My 1st hat I made for myself but it's my Hubby who wears it - he liked it from the 1st sight.

Wavy Lace Toe Up Socks. The pattern look sooo different from what my socks turned out to be because mine are one-colored and designer used melange yarn. My fav socks so far.

Peace socks. Why designer named them so? I have no idea. The lace pattern btw is the same as center of Haruni shawl.

Countryside socks. Just a plain pair of socks, one-skein project.

There are several more FOs that I haven't photographed yet and now on my needles are..

More socks :) Will hopefully, post more soon. Hopefully.

Zolotoe runo lottery

One of my fav crafty shops "Zolotoe runo" (Golden fleece) has created 2 blogs here on blogspot and on livejournal and makes a lottery! Winner can choose between a x-stitch set and set of acrylic circular needles (def my choice).
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"Золотое руно" открыло 2 блога (в ЖЖ и на Блоггере) и разыгрывает "конфетку" для подписчиков - набор для вышивки или набор акриловых спиц). Розыгрыш тут. Подведение итогов 1 декабря. Спешите участвовать!

Last weekend: birdwatching

I love taking photos and blogging but I h-a-t-e post processing. It literally eats my time and mood to resize each photo then play with contrast/levels in GIMP then add a copyright so that I finally post it. So the other weekend is coming up and I'm still writing the post about how I chased ducks and other birds last weekend. What a pain! Ok ranting mode off. I've got to show you what I did last weekend.

And all I did was birdwatching and duck chasing. I simply can't get enough of ducks even if they're just simple mallards or any other birds.

Though this weekend there weren't only mallards but this darkey puffy roundish diving ducks. If someone knows how they're called - please tell me.

They almost always looked sleepy with their heads turned backwards. Then they would wake up and dive and stay underwater for about half a minute. Then they would appear on the water again and.. fall asleep. Or so it looked. Look at those feet btw )))

Did I say I can't get enough of ducks?

But there were other birds too. In the park someone has hung a feeder made of a huge plastic bottle. The bottle was empty when we found it but hubby put some sunflower seeds in. And voila a sparrow immediately came to forage. Look close at its beak!!! The feeder btw is so provoking I imagined that I could actually capture a bird if I just closed both exits with my palms. I didn't do that of course but the idea.

Now here he is peeking out of the feeder. I find house sparrows pretty handsome. When you don't have many different species around but only sparrows you hopelessly start watching them out and they turn out into a great birding adventure. In fact if you look closely to smth you used to take for granted (like sparrows!) you find many interesting things in its behavior.

This is.. was.. well somewhere is a young fieldfare. I've not much to say except that this photo is totally in Birds from behind mood.

A robin chick. It was such a cute encounter in the end of our walk. He just landed on a fallen tree a couple of meters before me. Adult birds are so scared away easily but this chick sit there so close I managed to get my camera and take a couple of shots. He then flew a couple of meters away. The day was ending and I was afraid my photos will turn out blurry (they did). I tried to capture him again and again he let me come closer and take a few shots before it finally disappeared behind the leaves.

In the morning we've noticed a nightshade. It grows at the same place for several years already. I don't know its proper name only that it's from Solanceae family. These are its flowers.

And these are the berries. They're not edible. I've tried them once and they have a light sore taste. I didn't find the courage to try and taste the particulars.

This is another...ugh berry tree. I have no idea what it is. This blog is in fact a collection of photos of unknown fascinating plants, bugs and birds :)

And a mushroom. Guess what? I don't know how it is called too. This photo is a little bit blurry and looking at the mushroom gives me that strange hallucinogenic effect. Like it's velvet soft and glowing.

And that's all I saw last weekend. I just so hope post processing didn't take so much time. I have so many photos from this spring and summer I'd love to post but don't have courage and inspiration to even open my photo folders.

Have you tried Google Plus?

Yep that's me :) I've started experimenting with Google Plus recently and found myself completely in love with it. Well maybe not that completely because I'm a picky and critical user but still I found it cool.

Everyone keeps saying it's another Facebook but I think it has several core differences that make it unique. Main thing is there are no 'friends' or 'groups' you're accustomed to but circles that are both groups and friends. You can define privacy levels by sharing things only with ppl you want to and you can keep a single account for both personal and business contacts. All in one place - convenient, huh?

Even more convenient if you write in different languages and don't want people read moonspeak. You simply share your posts with people who will understand you.

And since G+ is new to everyone and everybody's exploring it, people are more helpful and friendly then on other services I know. And this makes it a great place for socialization. Since I live in Russia but write in English and most of my contacts are bloggers and crafty ppl from all over the world it is important that I have a chance to socialize and make new contacts easily.

Speaking of crafty things: there are some crafty communities too! A knitting database and a general crafty database. Any user can complete a form and get visible to all other friendly knitters and quilters and other ppl.

The complete list of communities is here. It is small but growing.

So if you're already using G+ or plan to try it - feel free to add me to your circles! Oh and in case you get lost - here's the awesomest Google Plus start-up guide for new users. C u :)

More Sox and a new tote

I know a secret of how to update your blog more often - it's creating more stuff. I make things - I want to show them - I write more often. Magic! 

I knitted another pair of socks. Finally found some self-striping yarn (can you believe one can hardly find self striping sock yarn here??), bought 2 skeins and made socks right away out of 1 skein. I thought how to use the second skein and decided to make a twin pair of socks. Does it mean I'm getting to become a sock maniac? LOL

By the way, like I said I used the same skein for this pair and the stripey pattern turned to be almost identical for both socks. I expected they'll look different and so glad they're almost the same.

I continue exploring my sewing machine too. Last Sunday I made this Scrooge tote. So I don't have to buy any plastic bags when I go to the supermarket anymore! Well not until I run out of all that huge heap of them. You see when we go to the supermarket my husband uses a backpack and if we bought a lot of food we also get a couple of plastic bags. When we get home we don't throw them away, but use as trash bags.Recently though I found out we don't have THAT much trash to use all the bags we have. So I'm going to use this funny tote and slowly get rid of all the plastic bags one by one.

When I was going to make the a.m. tote I spent an hour of distress: I don't have enough fabric! Almost no patchwork fabric, no plain cotton fabric just some leftovers, fake fur for toys and some curtain lace. Ahh and those fabrics that I do have don't match each other. At all. So yesterday I went to a local fabric store and bought some fabrics that sure do match each other perfectly. If you enlarge this photo you'll understand what I mean :) I'm not lazy I'm just a newbie. And I'm anxious to find some nice pattern to use them.