sunny days

Holiday is the best day.
The ice cream day.
I am only happy.
When I have holi-day.
holiday, holiday, holiday

Double Crochets ♥

February's Review

So this is it! Bye bye February, welcome Spring! Today we are doing a mini photo review of this favorite month of ours .This leap year's February was full of nice projects, happy trips, an interview, craft times, a carnival outfit, lovely moments, a farewell, celebrations and fun!

a small recap in no particular order: 

* Trips to Halkida 

* Panagiota crocheting in the tram

* Yarn Lovin Afternoons (we love our students! yes we do)

* Farewell Marina

* Nionios and the fishes

* A post about bows

* Our cousin's pjs 

* Valentine's day

* Crocheting...

* Crocheting hearts

* Baking hearts

* Baking a barbie doll birthday cake for a special little girl

* Love

* Having Christie, a reporter from Queen.gr visiting us at TheiaLab, with really lovely tattoos. (check her article by the way, about Double Crochets!!)

* Crocheting again of course 

* Getting dressed up for carnival celebrations. We don't usually do that, but this time Panagiota had the most hilarious idea ever, for the horror themed party  at  our favorite bar Blue Fox , and so we were dressed like Siamese twins....

This recap is so much needed. It's always good to slow down, look back, enjoy and appreciate the achievements. It makes us happy and thankful. Thanks for reading!

~~*~~*~~
On other news, I've heard that, march is the national month of crocheting and crafting in America, wow! Wish we had a crochet month in Greece, too. We are planning to celebrate it anyway. By buying new yarn and crocheting like crazy the whole month. heheh ... are you planning any crocheting celebrations?

big kiss
marietta ♥

Styling a Bow!

The other day during a crochet lesson we featured a pattern on how to make a crocheted bow. Everyone loved it, cause it was a fun and easy project and c'mmon who doesn't adore bows?  Panagiota and I also brainstormed on fun ways to style this project and other bows that happen to be in our possession! There are infinite ways one can do it, and so we decided to show you how to style a bow our way!

 first of all you can style it on your hair!

let us show you some ways:

 you can also play with different sizes of bows and different hairstyles:  

or just put a safety pin and style it everywhere!!! 

Bow craziness...Do you like bows? Do you want to make a simple crocheted bow? It's easy!! So it's, pattern time! For the small red crocheted bow above, we used the idea of this free pattern, (thank you lovely lady of Creative Yarn!), but we changed it a little. So the pattern is this: 

Bow: Ch19, sc in second ch from hook, and in each ch across, turn.

         Row 1: ch1, sc in next st and in each across, turn.

         Rows 2-9: repeat row1.

         Work a sc across the edge of the bow.

        Cut yarn and weave in ends.

Bow center: Ch9, sc in second ch from hook, and in each ch across.

Finishing: Sew bow center around bow, gathering the middle of the bow and 

               joining edges of bow center.

               Weave in ends.

We hope you enjoyed this little post filled with bows, and we would love to see some of your creations and style ideas. How do you style your hair bows? You can show us on our facebook page.

bows all around!!! 

big kiss from us!

Double Crochets

Project: Yarn Lovin Afternoons

Soooo the day before yesterday was "la premiere" of our new project, Yarn Lovin Afternoons @ Theia Lab! We met some wonderful ladies, had some tea, chit-and-chatted and of course we went through the basics of crochet. There were 10 students, 3 out of whom already knew how to crochet! The first lesson was, what else, the basic stitches (slip knot, chain). We practiced a lot and made wonderful bracelets out of many chain stitches.
Here are some photos:

and some photos from Theia's blog post!!

We hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did. It was pretty awesome to meet our new students (See you next week girls!). We will keep you posted!

lots of kisses

♥ marietta + panagiota ♥

edit: p.s check Theia's post about the 1st session of the Yarn Lovin Afternoons...!!!

New Year's Resolution: 2012

Being a team is a state of living for us, we like dreaming and planning together, we like working together, and spending our time off together, so this year we decided to make some "new year's resolutions" together! We the Double Crochets! And here we are sharing them with you.

1. blogging more frequently.  Maybe do a blog makeover also? Spending some more time on our blog is something we both wish to do, although it can be so tough with the everyday routines!
2. keep having fun and dancing more.  We both adore dancing and we are proud members of The Rollin Foxes, the rock 'n' roll dance company of Athens!! All we have to do is keep on rollin! 
3. do more collaborations.  Yes! we have so much talented friends that would be a pity not to work with them on fun and creative projects this year...
4. do more outfit photo shoots for our blog.   mmmm yeah okay
5. set up a Double Crochets online shop. At the moment all of our creations are made exclusively for gifts and friends, it would be nice to do it for more professional reasons, too.
6. document our crochet meetings.  We already do this, but sometimes we get too obsessed with what we do and forget to document it! With the new project at Theia Lab, starting tomorrow, we have to promise to ourselves that we will shoot some more photos! 
7. "spread the thread"!!  This is the tagline of  our blog and the main reason we started our crochet club, to teach more people how to crochet/knit and spread the love for needle work!! 
8. organize a yarn exhibition.  With pictures of our favorite crafts and crafters, and some actual crocheted/knitted objects.
9. participate in a local craft bazaar. There is the Vintage and Crafts bazaar organized by Les Broderies Anglaises, happening at our favorite district (Exarheia), and we really love it, it's a dream of ours to participate to a bazaar of this kind. 
10. crafting more.  crochet more, aaaaaand more, and more, and more!!!! okay some more knitting,sewing,embroidering would be awesome, too! Make do and mend more....  

These are our goals for the 2012! Do you have any? We would love to hear!

big kiss
♥ marietta+panagiota ♥

we want you to meet...

..."yarn lovin afternoons"!! It's our new project! But first thing first, let me give you the whole picture:  Panagiota and I, were really busy on December, and we took an unplanned break from the blog and the crochet club. Then the Christmas arrived and we were super happy, had so much fun and we relaxed (just a tiny bit), everything felt right, and it just might be the new plans that were on the way! And one fine Christmassy afternoon we met Theia! (in greek means aunt) and we decided to collaborate to bring some really cool people together and turn them into a group of cool yarn lovin people! hehehe.

So once a week, on Saturdays around 17.30, till early March, we will be meeting at Theia lab and we will be holding crochet lessons full of information and stuff that would give any crafty human being, yarngasms!! Sounds exciting? We knoooow! If you want to learn more on how the "Yarn Lovin Afternoons" lessons will evolve just come and visit us at Theia lab!
here are some images of this aha-mazing place:
(all photo credits go to Theia)

so who's Theia!? Theia is a creative fashion brand that creates mostly corsets. Behind this fashion brand we met two girls, Thodora and Aliki! The members of Theia also run the Theia Lab, which is some kind of a school for sewing, pattern-cutting and other fashion-related topics (like our beloved crochet!).
   Me and Panagiota will be there welcoming you, every Saturday, starting this Saturday the 14th of the lovely January of 2012, till early March. So stay tuned, cool stuff is on the way (we are planning a lot on more projects, too). And speaking of planning, our New Year's Resolution is coming up...  Did you write any goals for the 2012, down?

kiss kiss with little sounds of excitement
marietta ♥

Our lovely strange places to crochet/knit

    Panagiota and myself, are crazy busy bees at this time of year, and we find it hard to save time for crocheting/knitting, that's the main reason why you can find us crocheting/knitting at the strangest places! Most commonly you will meet us crocheting in the bus, the metro, at bus stations. The second most common place is the cafeterias, and lastly in parks, public spaces and benches! Wherever we have some time to spend it crafting, usually while doing something else, we just do it. 

Here are some photos of needle work actually happening, and some photos of us exaggerating with the concept of strange places, just for fun!

double crochet's club meetings, at a cafeteria

at the Athens Concert Hall

at a fashion show of Athens Xclusive fashion designers week

at the Greek Parliament

at a park on knit in public day

by the sea! 

and a member of our club, knitting at a common place, dressed in a strange way!

So these were our lovely strange places to crochet/knit documented until now!! We are planning to shoot more photos at strange locations while crafting, and we might shoot some more peculiar dressed people to crochet/knit. If you meet us somewhere that you wouldn't expect, please do say hi!

kiss kiss
marietta ♥

Human Being Creative

Back in June we started a post series "Human Being Creative" The deal was that from time to time we will share stuff that insanely creative people make, preferable about crocheting, knitting, embroidery and sewing. The first post was about Penelopy a fashionista and blogger. Today I would love to introduce to you the creative duet: Grandmama's reLOVED! Rember them from this post?! They are two sisters that live and create in Athens Greece, that are well known from the vintage and crafts bazaars in Athens and for their avant gard and original pieces. I totally adore their vintage but also handmade accessories and clothing. This time some terrific crocheted head pieces and colars were the reason we chose to feature them here on Double Crochets.

Check out some of my favorite ones:

(all photo credits goes to Grandmama's reLOVED)

Don't you just love the feeling of their photos!? 

You can find Grandmama's reLOVED on facebook and at vintage bazaars down town Athens! And these are only the crocheted stuff...there are a lot of others....  You'll love them , too.

big kiss

marietta  ♥

Wip!!

Long time no see!
Since my life is a work in progress, balancing between courses and searching for a real job, I didn't manage to write a proper post till now! That's why I decided it's the perfect timing to blog about our yarn projects in progress! Let me tell you, that Double Crochets are on a crochet/knitting fever... it must be the chilly weather! Even though our time is little, we manage to crochet in our lovely strange places (buses, bus stops, the metro, anywhere).
I am about to finish a granny square blanket, while at the same time I am crocheting a secret gift (can't reveal it,sorry), and planning to start this week a v-neck sweater for my boyfriend. Panagiota is knitting a sweet bolero on the cutest shade of olive green (using circular needles), and already planning to start something new. In the meanwhile our crochet club members are all working on scarves, cowls, tobacco cases and more! How awesome is that?!

Here are some photos of my blanket:

Granny squares, you can never have too many of them! More! Mooore!

Here is the link to a program my dad made to generate the possible color combos for granny squares!! It's not totally finished yet, but we are working on it. (I am posting about is soon). You can also check my progress on Ravelry, or search for some awesome free patterns. (add me if you have an account there). This is the pattern I've used for the granny squares, with this yarn and a 3.5 crochet hook, and this is the pattern I am planning to use for the v-neck sweater (giggles of happiness). The sleeveless sweater will be my first "wearable" thing to crochet and I am really really, rrreeelly excited!


so I have to leave you now, to get back to my granny squares! Hoping that everyone is having a sweet lazy Sunday, and wishing courage and strength for the week to come.
cheers
marietta ♥   

1st Double Crochets meeting of the year!

1st double crochet meeting for this year!!

Hello, hello!
Autumn is here and what is more delightful than gather,
have some beverage and start our projects in most unexpected places?
This sounds like double crochets' meeting!
you can crochet or knit, either is welcome!
so choose a project, tiny or large and join us!!
today,first Friday of October will be our officially first!

So double crochets' meetings will be held every week around 21.15 somewhere at Exarcheia district.Every week right before our meeting, I'll try to post a loved free pattern (for crochet or knitting) that will be mostly borrowed from another free source and some times might be ours (crosses fingers).

Free Pattern of week 1
Category: Crochet
Level: Beginner
Type: Belt

click for pattern

This pattern is from Janette of  The Green Dragon Fly blog,
we think is a really beautiful, easy and smart pattern that's why we chose this for our first meeting.It's of course for personal use only,except if else indicated in the pattern source.Feel free to send us pictures of your finished projects!

big hugs and kisses

Panagiota of the Double Crochets