Ziva Doily by Preetha Jeyaram Mohan

Textured doilies have become quite popular in the last few/several years. I've made probably over a hundred doilies, but I had never made a textured one until now!

This is my first textured doily! 

The pattern is Ziva by Preetha Jeyaram Mohan.

Preetha has tested a lot of my crochet patterns, and I was glad and excited to test a pattern for her. 

This was a challenging project and I learned a couple of new interesting stitches along the way. 

I absolutely love the way my Ziva doily turned out! I used aunt Lydia's classic thread in size ten and a 1.75 mm steel hook. My doily turned out 10 inches.

I was worried that when I block my Ziva doily, the dark blue color might bleed. And it did!

But I actually like the way it looks! 

Preetha's pattern for Ziva Doily is available for sale on Ravelry for only $1.00

You can also follow Preetha and see more of her crochet work on Facebook! 

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In my previous posts I've shared some personal struggles that my family and I are going through. A lot of you have been very supportive. I greatly appreciate that! 

This summer has been very difficult for me. I live in constant state of stress and anxiety. And now there is also so much worry and sadness in my heart. 

About a month ago, my father had an open heart surgery. The doctors said it went well, but his recovery has been very difficult. He was admitted to the hospital twice after the surgery. He had fever for many days and was very weak and fatigued, yet the doctors were saying it's just a part of the recovery process. 

Finally, when he was back at the hospital for the third time, they discovered there was an infection and they had to perform another urgent surgery. 

It's been a few days now, and my dad is still in the hospital in a critical condition. 

I'm really scared and worried. And I just don't know how to deal with all these feelings and emotions! 

Crocheting doesn't help at the moment as I can't focus and keep making stitching mistakes. 

I did a lot of gardening today. That seemed to help a little. 

Tomorrow I'm going to drive two hours to visit my dad. 

Please, keep my dad, my family, and me in your prayers and positive thoughts. Just knowing you are there for me helps. Thank you! 

Watermelon Toddler Summer Dress

I designed this toddler dress a year ago, but I've made some slight changes/improvements to the pattern and had a great team of crocheters to test my pattern! 

I made the dress shown below with Cotton Fair yarn by Premier Yarns, which is 52% cotton and 48% acrylic. 

And this one I made with Dreambaby DK yarn by Plymouth Yarn, which is 50% acrylic and 50% nylon. 

Both dresses turned out lovely! 

When one of my testing team members sent me photos of her dress, I was absolutely stunned at her creativity. 

She turned this dress into a true watermelon one! Isn't it just gorgeous? 

Ravelry (c) Preetha Jeyaram Mohan of Pretty Expressions 

And here are some other variations of this dress pattern. 

Ravelry (c) jovetted

Ravelry (c) Ashita-Husbana 

Ravelry (c) Jonash2004

A huge thank you to all of my wonderful crochet testers! You gals are amazing!

The pattern for my Watermelon Toddler Dress is available in my shops: Etsy, Craftsy, and Ravelry!

My New Website OlgaPoltava.com

I am so excited to share with you that I now have a new website with my own domain name - olgapoltava.com! 

I feel like it's a big and significant step for me as an independent crochet designer!

I created my website through SquareSpace. They have beautiful and easy to use templates, so one can build a website/blog/online store completely on their own! 

Isn't that awesome?

My new website is easy to navigate! On the main page there is a clickable gallery of my paid crochet designs. Each photo redirects to a Ravelry page, from which my pattern can be purchased!

If you go to the navigation menu, you will see that my website has five pages in total and a list of categories for my paid patterns, as well as free ones.

I started a blog on my new website, but I still plan to continue this blog too. I hope I'll manage them both! 

The other pages on my new website are About Me, a brief narrative of how I started crocheting, blogging, and selling my patterns; Contact Me gives info on how to reach me through email; and Terms lists my website rules and copyright policy.

That's it! 

I like the simple, clear, and easy to navigate look of my new website. 

And I intend to keep olgapoltava.com  free of any advertisement (other than my own paid patterns, of course! :))

So come and take a look around and wish me good luck with my new website! 

Thank you! :) 

Happy Summer and Vintage Doily

It's the first day of summer! Hooray! 

I'm in a very cheerful and high spirited mood! 

Look what I found tucked away in my craft box! A beautiful vintage doily that I made a few years ago!

I did a post about it and shared the free vintage pattern back in 2015. You can see it in this old post!

But I honestly don't like the pictures I took back then. So creepy! They don't do any justice to this beautiful doily!

Thus, I wanted to take new photos, bright and cheerful! And the first day of summer is perfect for it! 

The gladioluses are from my garden! Many years ago I bought five bulbs from a dollar store, and since then I have beautiful, cheerful gladioluses every year! Good investment! 

The apples are not from my garden! I just thought they would fit nicely in the pictures! 

But I do have some golf ball sized apples on the tree in my backyard! I'm so excited and cannot wait for them to grow and ripen! 

Happy First Day of Summer! 

What's going on in your garden?