Autumn Feeling

Hello dear friends! I believe that the place we were born in and belonged to once always leaves a life-long impression on our body and mind. Even though it is hot and humid in India, and it seems that the summer will never end, my whole inner world has tuned into Autumn. I just feel it so much everywhere I go. I think of making some Autumn projects so that little A can be involved in them. His preschool is going to celebrate Halloween, and this is such a happy thought for me because in India  many schools don't do this. I am thinking of designing a really easy costume for him, and the main challenge is to make a cape. I thought of dressing little A up as a wizard or a superhero. I am going to use this Tutorial: DIY Superhero Capes.
What concerns my ongoing projects, I do have one. Perhaps it also appeared because of all the autumnal longing for cozy stuff. I have been very inspired till now. Once again, after having a long crochet-block I told myself that if I don't start crocheting again I will never start it. And I felt very sad and lost. Hence I searched for some eye-candy projects on the net, sucked in all the colors and patterns I saw, and thought of making something for myself like this Movie Night Cocoon Cardi. I liked its' cozy name, and considered it would be indeed great if went out for a movie soon, and me flaunting this handmade shrug. Alas! I never made it, and instead...

I have made 9 squares so far, and planning to make total of 25. If the  pace is the same as now the blanket shall be ready by mid October :) I must say that feeling yarn and a hook in my hands again gave me so much energy and positiveness! This time I haven't bought any special stash but combined and used the skeins left from the previous blankets. Somehow I am very pleased with the color combinations this time. I also did a BIG step in crocheting - I started crocheting in front of little A :) I had some kind of fear before he would start asking for the hooks and yarn, he does of course, so I give him another ones (which I am not using) and he plays with yarn as with a ball :) Hence I can spare a few minutes of crochet this way, without waiting when the night falls.

To bring on more Autumn feel, here are the photos sent by my parents. Autumn flowers blooming at dacha.

 Canna flower started blooming quite late because the summer was rainy and cold.

 Typical dacha style snack -  fried zuccini circles with tomato and garlic. It is so delicious! I wish oh so much to be there again! One month of trip home was not enough.

Have a wonderful week ahead, keep on crafting!

A Privet from My Parents

Hello dears!!! I am not going to start with apologies and explanations of my absence. For some reason life has become really really busy here. My only nook these days is chatting with parents. Because it is a spring time there in cold Kazakhstan, the images of blooming trees and strikingly green leaves make my heart long for home more these days. Especially when Celsius hits here in India the mark of more than +40, the freshness of the views from a native land is precious. Today presenting a quick and easy on the eye post :) Enjoy!
The apple tree, this year is strewn with flowers. I never get a chance to visit dacha during this time of the year.

 The blooming cherry bushes. The white flowers reflect the sunlight. Cherry grows just next to the pine trees there - doubtful neighbourhood but they have managed for the past few years this way.

 The row of pine trees on the left - my parents are particularly proud of them,

 The same pine trees have given peculiar flowers too, hence there will be pine cones afterwards!

I am sorry I couldn't make a post about Moscow visit last year, let's see if I will be able to find time for this, otherwise, will try to provide more of recent photos :)

Have a nice and fresh new day ahead!

Back to Nature and... Crochet

Many days have passed by, and I am still under impression of my 1 month trip, it is still difficult for me get on track, blog again regularly, and so on. Last time I promised to share more pictures from my journey to parents. As you know I am crazy for dacha, gardening, nature, and all related stuff. So in one of our awesome trips to this lovely abode, I planned to take few snaps of my amigurumi - a white cat which I gifted to my parents last year and Cheburashka, who traveled with us all way long and back this time. 

My father was quite enthusiastic about my idea and helped to find places for photo shoot. Like this one, on the sunflower :)

Or on one of the pine trees. My dear papa! Miss you now so much here. But these pictures put a smile on my face every time I look at them.

 The photo shoot for my Russian cat was done by me, and I tried to find some typical Russian flora for her. Chamomile was one of such plants, and oh, I love their simple look!

I also chose another  flower symbolical for Russian culture - bluett. My Mum never fails to have them in her garden, and they were there last year too. My cat liked sniffing this cute blossoms, and the picture came out cute, didn't it?

She, being a totally Russian cat made of Indian acrylic yarn, never seen this truly Russian tree - birch. So I gave her opportunity to sit on it for a while and enjoy the summer day.

Rest of my exploration of parents dacha included finding of flowers and peculiar plants around. For a long time my parents were puzzled about the name of this bush, which they took from the garden of our relative sin the village. They simply named after a nice old lady, who was alive then and living in that house, Frida. After few years they finally showed the nuts the plant produced to their dacha neighbour, and she assured it was an almond. Though I still have doubts and promised my parents to ask you, my dear friends, what plant it is actually.

This was another curios discovery of mine - a lungwort flower, which as My mum said usually blossoms in spring, and suddenly did it again in August. I suppose it happened because of the wet weather conditions this Summer.

I couldn't not to take yet one more picture of Calendula- can't get enough of its radiant color!

The blanket flowers are called by my parents "Indian flower", because they saw so many of them when came to India, that there was no doubt how to call them.

As title says "and Crochet". Here is what I made in a span of 4 weeks *cough, cough*. Just like last year I decided to mark our visit and made summer doily, so that my parents can recollect all nice moments we shared together. What other pattern can be so fast and easy and beautiful at the same time? Granny square, yey! When packing for my trip home, I just threw 5 balls of yarn in my suit case, and to my surprise those were the colors of flowers growing at dacha. 

Just a little bit of sunshine makes colors more vivid and bright. Love the big leaves of Canna by the way.

Even this is not all I planned and wanted to tell you about. However I already have new things to show, and hope that I will not be behind of time too much. I started learning some new needle art, and went into exploring possibilities of crochet. Thanks everyone for leaving nice comments on my last post, I feel better now mentally and physically, your support matters a lot too! 

Have a wonderful weekend ahead, and keep on creating!

Relaxing At Dacha - Nature in Different Looks

Going to my parents is a total relax for me in a sense of being close to nature. My dear Mum and Dad have wonderful place to be in any kind of days, hot or cloudy. This place is called dacha. And it means a world to me - a connection to flora and fauna, to what nature gives and for what I have to be thankful for. The place my parents own needs loads of care, anyway whatever they are able to accomplish in a year brings much of satisfaction and happiness, I just follow the flow. My and my D could enjoy these sweet raspberries straight away from the bush.

And these juicy berries called "irga'" in Russian, they color your tongue... you know what I am talking about :)

Oh yes, the flowers called after my name "Anyuta's eyes" got a wild card entry this year - self-sown.

A mayor flower with a bee collecting the pollen. Cannot invent a  more summery picture!

Always used to like a blossoming potato plant...

Thanks to my parents once again, but they created a perfect place living for lizards - a pile of stones in front of our dacha house. We saw many lizards during our last weekend stay at dacha and I always associate them with Goffman's tales (though he had green snakes actually).Amazing creatures used to be living close to humans.

This year we have even got some mushrooms, though not good for purpose of eating.

My Mum collected gifts of nature and embellished the house with them in the main room...

and in my and my D's room.

 In the night we had a candle lit dinner as the electricity still hasn't been provided at the area. I don't complain at all. My mum also liked this unplanned Gothic chic. Same flowers looked magical then... Okay, not everything what is candle lit is called Gothic, but forgive me my mood that night, especially after few  glasses of red wine.

Perhaps I will stop here with my last weekend impressions and let you to enjoy, decide, judge, adore, whatever I offered to your attention today. I am still with my parents and will have few more days to soak my native place's spirit for the next year ... I didn't abandon my crochet completely, so will share some small work too later on.

Blessings to all of you and sorry for not being able to check out your blogs! I will do this very soon :) Thanks for all lovely comments you left on my last post- I appreciate you are with me :) Good night, my dears!

Flowers of Parents' Dacha - My Home

Ages.. It's been ages since my last post! The reason is that I went to my native country and dived into all the deals and events here straight away. I was missing my blogger community a lot and I am so sorry for not having time for it. Some of you even contacted me asking if I was fine, which was very pleasant, and thanks so much for your concern! 

Summer has been quite cold here. However my parents have beautiful flowers at their dacha this year. Here are some of them. 

Calendula flowers have layers of petals and I really like the look of them.

Californian poppy. It is open during the day and closes in the evening as if goes to sleep.

This chamomile is a wild plant, and there are many of them in our garden. Wonderful flower!

Delphinium beautifully decorated with stones around - simple yet nice idea.

A single red rose. It looked so touching with the rain drops among the petals.

I hope you all are doing fine and safe these days as I can see that the weather has gone mad in many parts of the world. As soon as I have more of free time I will make more posts with tales about my country, and of course will get back to your blogs, my dears! Last year I made many posts about my trip to parents, here is one of them.

Have a nice summer/winter and enjoy your family time!

Dacha is...

      All my vacation has been full of trips, nevertheless, the closest of all is, a trip to dacha (a summer cottage a few kilometres away from a city), brings me the biggest happiness. I was posting about this place not even once, because it is very special and dear to me, as my entire childhood is connected to it. Though a present dacha was a second one we owned after the first one was destructed in order to clear space for a city... we love it not less and even more and whatever we have there now  is a merit of my parents' hard work put into its development (I also tried to help them with few things there :)).
      So Dacha for me is...
   A variety of flowers which make me feel good and so bright inside when I look at them. They can be marigold planted by Mum beside the house...

and little zinnia...

or a flower, name of which we don't know

     Gladioli of various colors.  My Mum carefully collects gladioli bulbs every autumn to keep them for planting throughout the winter till the next summer.

A yellow flower bush which pollen is being collected by bees.

         Sunflowers which were sown on their own all over dacha. Don't they deserve to have a SUN root in their name?

Way to discover nature: how the plants grow and what they need for it.

A rustle of birch trees in the wind... 

and a walk in our own pine tree alley. My parents planted all the trees about eight years back.

            The opportunity to see endless and changing sky due to the weather or the time of day. 

                  A feeling of comfort while sitting in the house, chatting to parents and having tea.

A creative way of making simple things like these potatoes baked in a charcoal.

       Communication with nature... when it comes to you on its own. These two cats came to our dacha and spent the whole day there... then disappeared.

And of course dacha for me is... be proud of the fruits of your work. This descent harvest we collected one week back. 

     Now as I am leaving soon, I will take all these memories about dacha with me, I will be remembering moments of joy and happiness for the rest of the year and till next summer... the only thing - I wish my D was here with me to share all this.

***Have a lovely day ahead and value the simple things!***