I have been meaning to show you pictures of my recent project, but with school holidays and few orders in between there were not enough hours in my day.

So while boys playing Lego and waiting for weather to cool down that we can all go to the beach… I’m not going to miss this opportunity to write a quick post;)

I love crochet toys and softies … and one of my favorite things that I wanted to make for a long time is crochet food. Its just looks so pretty and realistic…yum yum and I can imagine how much fun & hours of play it would bring to kids.

I gathered all my DK colours; got some soft stuffing, needles … I began crochet farming!

 What a great project…easy and my Fruit and Vegetable basket filled up in very short time. My boys loved to guess what I was going to make next…they were so excited!

 My crochet harvest… its looks very healthy, don’t you think?

 Great toys for kids, but  I’m also wouldn’t mind to have it in my kitchen;)

Enjoy your weekend.

Love, Yuli xxx

 I hope you had a lovely time celebrating and relaxing with your family. I also had very melow and happy time with my boys and now ready  for new chapter, adventure and fun. I wish this year will be a great and amaizing one for all of us!

 Here is some of my highlight in 2011:

I made quite a few orders for local shops…so excited to have my handmade stuff in Bloemfontein, Pretoria and KZN. My Laska dolls traveled to few countries in Europe, U.S. and Australia! And I made couple of fun projects for friend’s birthdays.

Didn’t write many posts (sorry its my biggerst low light); Started using my Flickr account; Was more active on Yuli handmade FB page and managed to gain few fans!!! Yay!!! And of course got some inspirations and wasted sometime on Pinterest;)

Had few requests from local online shops, but still thinking about it. Maybe join couple of shops this year.

Once a week I gave crochet lessons at local wool shop…it was a great fun and got quite a few ladies hooked. I’ll absolutely continue with classes this year!

And stated to give crochet lessons to local ladies from small underprivileged community…hopefully we will continue this year and create opportunity for extra income for them. Just have to learn some basic Afrikaans, not may of them speak English…so its get confusing and funny at some times.

 One of the big projects of 2011 was my first crochet blanket for my god daughter …

It’s took me 4-5 weeks to finished it, but I think most difficult of all was to chose and arrange colours. So to make it easier and see it in the big picture I played with colors on my laptop and ended up making colour combinations for flower center of the motif in Power point. It was a great help! I could see how will it look together and how may blocks of each colour combinations I need.

 First I made all flower centers

Then I worked with green colour around each colour and my mother in law volunteer to help to hide all the threads…I’m so grateful for that, with 168 blocks it a huge job and not a fun one.

And the last stage was to work cream colour around each square and connected them as I went in planned sequence. And here it the end result…I called this blanket “Forget Me Not” – Photographs by Jenya Zhivaleva

 Little Anna was so happy with her present…first time she saw it she start pointing at all different colour flowers and had a big smile:) Her mom told me that she gave it a name and takes blanket everywhere they go!

So you see I had good and exciting year and I’m very grateful to everyone who was part of my creative journey in 2011!

And thank You my friend for visiting me here and readyng my post xxx

Did you had a good year and I would love to know what your creative plans for a 2012…

Look forward to hear from you!

Best wishes and love,

Yuli xxx

And now, I just want to check something on my site ….and its GONE :(  hour of my time spend on posting it and its Gone…Where are you?? I want you back!!! Bizarre.

But what they say  

So here I go again;)

In few hours will be first day of spring…Yay. Can’t wait for warm weather and summer clothes…Bring it on – I’m so ready for it;) I even bought myself boogie board (haha I hope I have write speling) yesterday…yes, I’m going to boogie board this summer…Woohooo

And to add to the spring mood here is my favorite SA song at the moment – old classic Miriam Makeba meets new beat Milk& Sugar. Love it!

In my handmade life - I just finished and send order for the brand new shop “Sera” inBloemfonteinwhich opens in early October! Thank you “Sera” and good luck… I wish you lots of happy and wealthy customers. Cheers!

 I’m also finished with another crochet cushion for my friend’s birthday… I think it came out rather nice. What do you think?

 In previous post I wrote about my new phone. What a good excuse to make something for my new gadget.

 I came up with this – Tunisian crochet phone pocket. And nearest future I will share this pattern with you… Never before I wrote pattern for someone else but me to use, wanting to do it for a while… So watch this space for free pattern ;)

Crochet is getting big in this country… Wool shops are busy and loads of ideas and patterns in local crafty magazines. And it’s finally loosing status – “it’s for old ladies”! Yay! And if you reading this post and you not “hooked” yet… you better get to you local wool shop and buy some crochet equipment. It’s tricky in the beginning, while you hand getting used to it… but I’m sure as soon as you get the hang of it - you going to love it!

 My crochet classes still every Friday at local wool shop, so if you would like more info – please email me. I’m happy to teach and share my love for crochet and of course I’m glad to make extra money to buy more WOOL….Hello, my name is Yuli and I’m a wool addict :P

Thank you for visiting me here and have a beautiful spring day.

Love,

Yuli xxx

I finally made something for our house. It’s fun and easy to crochet granny squares, but my less favored job is to work in all the little threads. My mother in law come to the rescue, thank you! Here is pictures of two finished cushions and one in progress.
And yesterday very dear friends of mine gave me new phone – HTC wild fire!!! Woo hoo! What a fancy phone, well at least for me… It’s like mini PC! I’m sure it will take me a few days to get to used to it… quiet a busy toy. But at the moment I’m cooking Mac&cheese for my boys and writing this post. How awesome! I hope my new little gadget bring more post and pics to my blog…
Cheers:)

Love,
Yuli xxx

I been planning to post pictures of new beanies and fingerless gloves for a long while…there is certainly too little hours in my day sometime. Here there are

I make them in variety of colours. If you wish to order – just email me and I’ll send you colour samples in PDF.   

Love and keep warm,

Yuli xxx

 I’m following  creative blog Made. This months Dana and few other craft blogs celebrating The Boy 2011. They have lots of ideas and tutorial for boy stuff …. Go and check it out! And I must admit I do too much of girly thing – they so easy…pink, ruffles, flowers and fairies. Thanks to Made I decide to create some boy’s things here my latest:

Other day my dearest friend Deoni gave me Elna over lock !!!!!!Woo hoo….. Easy sewing here I come…. Planning to make cool things for my boys in nearest future! Watch this space ;)  

Love, Yuli xxx

My summer flowers in the garden gave me some inspiration… And I promise myself that this year I’ll make my self pair of slippers too…its about time :) 

Have a beautiful day!

Love, Yuli xxx 

  In November last year we started with our vegetable garden… we were given about 10 bags of manure and I bought some seeds from our local shop… and look how wonderful it grows! We didn’t have much of the summer this year – lots of mist and rain, but it so lovely for our garden!!! 

When I was growing up in Kiev, my family and grandparents always had fruit and vegetable garden… I have lovely memories of pick fresh stuff for supper or fruits for jam. I’m glad that my boys can do same thing too. 

Because it was my first time of been gardener/farmer I had few mistakes… I plant too many seeds together and way many plants for such a petite space… Peter has to pull some plants out… ouch. But I have learned and will try not to do it again! We planning to extend our patch soon, I would love to plant some new stuff and see how it turns out. So watch this space xxx PS – we already are eating our cucumber, beans and herbs… I made pesto other day… yum! 

]]> http://www.yuli.co.za/index.php/2011/02/12/our-petite-%e2%99%a5-vegetable-garden/feed/ 0 http://www.yuli.co.za/index.php/2011/01/20/little-fairy/ http://www.yuli.co.za/index.php/2011/01/20/little-fairy/#comments Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:16:40 +0000 Yuli http://www.yuli.co.za/?p=500 Read more »]]> Look who came to visit my little garden… isn’t she gorgeous!!!  I wonder if she sprinkled some pixie dust!? We always need a little bit of fairy magic;)  don’t you think so…

Faith, trust and pixie dust!

Laughter is timeless…Imagination has no age… And dreams are forever!

Hello… 

What a week! Busy, busy, busy…. my big boy went to Big school in his new uniform, he looks so grown up (sigh) – where did time go??? And my other rascal went to new school too and it looks like he having lots of fun! Yay!!! And me settling into routine… so nice to have child free morning!!! I can get lots of thing done… bring it on ;) 

So now back to creativity – meet my Laska Dolls - childhood inspired dolls, and I’m not going to use “vintage” word – so over used:(  I just want to make something that will remind me and hopefully some one else – of simple things in life. Personally they remind me of my childhood and time that I spend with my grandparents’ very summer and my favorite pancakes that my babushka made for me in the morning… 

Laska – russian word for – expression of love and care.

  Laska Dolls made with scraps of fabric that my mom in law and my dear friend Claire gave to me last year…Thank you so much.  And lately I got a bit tired with my hooks and wool so it was perfect time to do something new. I sold them at the Xmas market and made few for my friends… Little people and even big ones really like them… such a good feeling :) 

   Each doll has a name and little story of where she lives, what animals she has and what are her favorite things to do… and her favorite recipe. My boys love them (they even helped me to make them) and they really really want me to make one that looks like a pirate… So I better get busy while they having fun at school. 

 It was great to share this with you and thank you for reading. Have a fun day. 

Love, Yuli xxx