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wearablecrochet#streetstylecrochet

Showcase Your Wearable Crochet with #streetstylecrochet!

When it comes to social media, such as Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram, my approach so far has been fairly passive. First of all, my life is not exactly “Instagrammable” and I am not sure what aspects of it would be interesting to the general public. I don’t have pets, my lunches are usually boring, and my kid’s drawings are not quite of the National Gallery standard. So, apart from occasional blog updates and pattern publication announcements, my social media “feed” has been anything but yummy.

I am, however, nosy and I lurk. I choose to observe quietly instead. Specifically, I love seeing what other people wear and how they put together an outfit. So when I go on social media, such as, say, Instagram, I like snooping around to see what crochet wearables other people make and, most importantly, how they wear them when they are out and about.
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Sleeveless Crochet Top

Adding New Twist on an Old Look with a Sleeveless Crochet Top

One of the benefits of making a piece of clothing in your favourite colour is that you probably will find a fair number of items in your wardrobe with which to combine it and get a good wear out of it. Moreover, it may actually compliment some of your existing outfit formulae so you can easily give a new twist to an old look.

Remember this grey combo I showed you? My newly crocheted top  blends in perfectly and transitions this outfit into a colder season. It adds that extra layer of warmth on a day when the sun is still there but is no longer as affectionate:
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Crochet Neckline

It’s All in the Details

OK, I may have been called fussy detail-oriented (only a couple of hundred times), but one can never be overly perfectionist with handmade clothing. There is no cutting corners when it comes to making sure that there are no hanging yarn tails or unsightly seams, and that the wrong side looks just as neat as the right side.

When I was making this vest (remember my sketch?), I knew exactly how I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be minimalistic in style, simple in shape, easy and reasonably quick to make, but, most importantly, I did not want it to look homemade.
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Grey Outfit

Grey is the New Black

“What’s your favourite colour?” is a question I am asked frequently and one I always get tripped up by producing flavourless answers, something along the lines “it depends”. As truth be told, I don’t really have a favourite colour.

I remember liking black. Not sure that was so much prompted by the mysterious magnetism of this colour, as by the fact that it was the most practical choice for the humble wardrobe of a young lady coming of age in the post-breakup Soviet Union.
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singlecrochetyuliyatkacheva-1-4

Dear Single Crochet

Dear Single Crochet,

Ever since I graduated from making baby booties and moved to “grown-up” crochet design, I completely forgot you. Seduced by the exotic and trendy world of Tunisian crochet, I found you too simple, and not in the classy Tunisian simple stitch kind of way. You were too fat, too unrefined, too uncool. I thought you were not worthy of my time and I was a mean designer for never considering you.
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c350x786

Do You Polyvore?

It has been scorching here in London for the past couple of days, which is a good enough reason to procrastinate on any kind of chores/work, and go and play in a fantasy land called Polyvore, where you can imagine owning any crazy number of Jimmy Choo shoes, Louis Vuitton bags and Rayban glasses.
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EBOOK COVER

Now LIVE: Jolie and Gamine

Although hopelessly late, but, hopefully, fashionably so, Jolie and Gamine, the patterns for the two garments I have recently added to my wardrobe, are  finally out! They are available both as individual downloads and as a bundle (a Ravelry ebook, called “Summer 2016”, which I probably should have called “better later than never”).
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front page gamine

Note about Pricing and Coming Soon

With my first ever pattern uploaded in July 2011, I have now been selling my patterns for over 5 years and, boy, has it been an amazing experience – from seeing the ever growing array of your fabulous creations pop up on Ravelry, to being interviewed in craft blogs, to having my pattern featured in a popular magazine.
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Jolie + Stripy Cami Top + Jeans

New Look: Jeans or Skirts?

There is one lesson I don’t seem to be able to learn: don’t leave things until the last minute. I am currently away from my “office” and staying with my parents, and I am yet again revisiting this lesson, as my plan to publish the patterns for my two new crochet garments while travelling is going to the dogs. Or my parents’ cat (the real master of the place).

Things tend to never go as planned, so, no surprise, my mum’s humble computer and unpretentious software are refusing to cooperate and work according to my ingenious plan, which sadly means that my “Summer 2016” garment publications are going to be held off until early autumn.
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