Our new Etsy friends

Our trip to Canada was one of the best vacations I've ever had. We get chance to see Montreal and Quebec City and we met some new friends!

It was a wonderful time. There is so much to see! Historical sights in Quebec City are combined with beautiful nature and lovely people. Montreal is a large friendly city where everything is so convenient and you feel like you are home.

One of the trip highlights was meeting with Monique and Geneviève who also owns shops on Etsy.

Monique's shop is blueberryfields (you will find such pretty crochet and sewed items here!) and  Geneviève (MademoiselleG) is a great artist, I just love her paintings!

 

I corresponded with Monique from time to time since 2009 and it was a great chance to meet in person!

 

We met at the cute coffee shop right across the street from our hotel and chatted for hours. I even got some very pretty gifts!

Monique and Geneviève are such lovely people! I wish they lived closer to be able to get together from time to time.

It is always nice to meet a good friend. Friendship warms the soul and that's what is important.

Knit and crochet while on vacation

Of course, we had time for our favorite hobbies while on vacation. My mom was one busy knitter (as always) and I was making some crochet snowflakes for our Christmas tree. The pine forest, meadows and river near by our friends house were a great inspiration for these cold-time-projects!

 The one thing we were missing was some colorful yarns from our home stash. The ideas were floating in the air, we just had to grab them!

I wrote many of those ideas down. We are home now and have plenty of  time for this creative side of us. I like to visit places but I also love to be home!

My "whats-going-on"

I am preparing for my trip to Ukraine and very excited about it. It is a rush trip but it is going to be fun. I will even have a mini Etsy meeting there!

I have so many great ideas on how to improve my shops and I just simply don't have time right now. I am making notes and hope I will start working on them in August when I am back.

Summer is very hot and exhausting this year. This is the first summer when I realized what a siesta actually means. Stay indoor 12 noon to 4 PM and have a nap if possible. The sun is the killer right now so stay cool and drink lots of water.

Now, back to packing - have a happy summer!

How did we start making socks

We started making socks about 6 years ago.

 We lived in the Pacific Northwest at that moment, on the Olympic Peninsula where the weather is a bit too cold for me. It rains a lot so even though we lived in the banana belt zone there, we still did not get a lot of sun.

Even without a lot of sun the summers were glorious.

So it was one of the chilly fall mornings when I suddenly realized how much I hate slippers. I just don't feel comfortable running back and forth on the carpet and I definitely don't like to have my first cup of coffee feeling cold when I am barefoot!

The store bought socks were nice but slightly too tight on top and they were either too long or too short. I did not like the colors and I was just feeling uncomfortable and had to think of something!

My best solution was I ask my mother, who knits, to make me a pair exactly as I like it. My first pair was in bright colors and helped brighten a dreary / gloomy day. My mornings were peaceful and quiet again.

I was so happy with my socks that my mother made a bunch for my neighbors and we gave them as gifts for Christmas. Everyone loved them and asked for more!

 Now we are making them from several types of yarn. Since I am using them to walk around the house, I like to use a durable acrylic yarn. It is coming in lively colors, acrylic yarn is easy to clean and care for. The socks are thick, warm and strong. They are also great to wear while gardening, perfect to wear inside of clogs or resin boots and machine washable!

The socks you wear with your regular shoes have to be thin enough to feel comfortable but warm. Wool is best material to use in this case but the nature of wool is fragile. Socks get a lot of pressure inside your shoes so to prolong the life of your hand knit item is better to use a blended yarn of wool and polyester.

There are many ways and types of material that yarns are made of and they all have a special purpose. We use many of these blends in our products.

Have happy feet and stay warm this winter!

Our mornings

What is the best place for dog to sleep?

Of course, it is on her Daddies shoulders!


Little Ruby thinks nothing can beat:

the early (4 AM) wake up,

then quick refreshing walk (it's still kind of chilly at nights),

followed by a delicious snack (duck jerky please, the one from Costco. She might sell everything for it:) not that she has much)


and finally, 2 to 3 hours nap. Yes, on Daddy's shoulders. Mom's are not wide enough :)

My Birthday Party

I always wanted to have a nice English Tea Party in my garden.

So I invited some friends over for a cup of tea and mentioned they should look slightly old fashioned. Hats, flowers, lace, pretty colors, everything will work!
I searched for a typical Tea Party menu. Tea sandwiches and small cakes are a must. I got that and a little extra. After all, it is my Birthday party, too!Oh, it was so romantic! Pink champagne toasts followed by 5 o'clock tea treats.It was a lot of laughter and unexpected surprises. One of my friends wrote me a short Birthday poem - I did not know she loves poetry!When it was time for candles everything turned even more magical. A light breeze, small crescent moon, star filled skies, light jazz music and a nice company.What could be better for a relaxing evening?Best Birthday Party ever :)

And The Awards goes to... 15 blogs I love!

I was so pleasantly surprised to receive this Beautiful Blogger Award last week from Lisa at Visual Journey! Thank you, Lisa, you have a beautiful blog yourself!


So, I am going to follow traditions and pass this award to 15 blogs I love and also going to tell 7 things about myself :

15 blogs I love:

1. Love stitching red

2. Common ground

3. Cindy at her country home

4. allthebeautifulthings

5. snippets and stash

6. Little Red House

7. The life of a Novice

8. lilla lotta

9. My Romantic Home

10. The Shabby Stitcher

11. The Shabby Nest

12. Katrineshine

13. Golden Section

14. Hildi's Good Life

15. blueberryfields


Here is 7 things about myself:

1. I am obsessed with antique finds

2. I love cross stitch! This hobby relaxing me and also I'd like to think that I am creating a ageless treasure to pass to my child!

3. Cooking is my passion and my friends love it! They are always here for you to try a new recipe! :)

4. I love Fall the best with its Indian summer, pumpkin patches, Halloween fun and a family gathering at the Thanksgiving table. After Thanksgiving is the exciting preparation for Christmas and New Years!

5. I do not like sports too much but I am enjoying the Gym

6. I love the looks of formal and cottage gardens and cute little cottages, it makes me think about fairy tale stories. That's why I am painting it when I have inspiration.

7. I'd like to travel the world

About Us

You probably already noticed the subtitle about this blog: it is dedicated to my Mother’s knitting projects on Etsy and it is also a little journal of our lives.

So let me tell you a little more about me. My name is Tanya, I am in my 40-s and enjoying it so far, as much as I can:). I am a curios person and always looking for something interesting to try: another job to work or another place to live, or simply trying a new craft idea or a new recipe! I am always full of ideas but not enough time, which is common for these times. I am spending my time mostly caring for our family but in my free time I am enjoying photography, painting, creating small cross stitch designs and most recently I have started to work on some jewelry projects. In my past I’ve spent a lot of time traveling since I was working in the traveling industry for a while. I saw a lot of places, met many great people and this was a great source of inspiration for me! Now my travel is for pleasure, not for work. Our travel now is in the Caribbean’s and road trips in the US with occasional trips to Europe. Our latest trip to the Bahamas introduced me to shell jewelry, in which I have had many compliments on the shell jewelry I was wearing from there. These simple designs have inspired me to start making jewelry.

Since my Mother moved in with us last summer I am spending a lot of time promoting her work on Etsy since this is her only income right now. Where this will take us – who knows! Right now we have this little cute shop under SOCKSANDMITTENS name where you can find good quality hand knit accessories which I consider to be great handmade gift idea for a lot of occasions and of course, especially for Christmas and the Winter Holidays.

My Mother, Valentyna, is always the best in everything she does. If you ever bought her gloves or socks you will never find a loose loop! These little cute things are made with love and every time you wear them it feels like you get a hug:). She is self taught and has been knitting non stop for over 50 years. I still have some of her knitted treasures which have become a heirloom for me!

Anyway, you can see what she does if you visit our shop on Etsy or a Hand Knit Goodness section on Flickr – please let us know what you like the best or what improvements you would make on existing designs. We are always happy to hear from our customers and friends!

If you ever will decide to give a wonderful hand knit item this Holiday Season to somebody you love please consider us for a custom order – we’ll do our best!

Thank you for visiting my blog and have a great everything!

Yours truly,

Tanya

The story behind our Etsy store

As long as I can remember myself my Mother was knitting.

Valentyna was born in Ukraine right before the World War II, survived all the difficulties of war period and first years of recovery, and of course, living in a big family made her and her sisters very handy. As a kids, they helped their parents to build a house(!) - it still stands, by the way! They planted a beautiful garden around it to grow some fruits, nuts & vegetables, got some chickens and this gave them a daily food on a table. They were sewing, knitting and stitching to save some on home essentials and all of these together helped them to go through the years of recovery.

Later in life her knitting hobby grew into passion - she is never letting go of her favorite needles! I am still cherishing the lovely mittens with ornaments - perfect for the freezing Russian winters - she made for me almost 30 years ago!

Since her husband of 30 years passed away she became very lonely. She tried to live on her own for some period of time but this seems to be not working for her. So, we decided to give it a try and invited her to move in with us.


She did, and since last summer she is living with us and makes all these little knitted treasures you can find in her Etsy store (www.socksandmittens.etsy.com).

I have to tell you - I really love her work! She taught me how to knit when I was 5 years old but it did not became a special thing for me. I made a couple of sweaters for myself but never moved any further with this. But Mom... she is so creative & energetic! She is knitting non-stop every day - I wish I could do this!

She is surrounded by family again and happy with her passion hobby - this is where are we now...