Red, White, & Black

Wondering what the title is about?

Well, my daughter started going to the Day Care last week, and day before yesterday I was informed that they are conducting a Fancy Dress Competition for the kids to celebrate Children's Day that is today. I thought I will just dress her in some traditional skirt and blouse as I didn't have much time and my lil one does not co-operate well with dresses other than stretch pants and Tees.

But my crafty side and wanting to dress up my girl was not letting me sit idle. I was clear on two things - I will not buy any costumes nor will I spend too much time on the project, as I was not sure if she would wear it at all. I took a look at her dresses and finalized on a cute, red frock that she wore on her very first birthday. Then it was up till a little above her ankles. Now I knew it would be just till her knees or so. But it is a cute dress... will frills and tiny embellishments, satin and a tulle over it. Many thoughts crossed my mind - butterfly, angel, and even Red Riding Hood.

I had almost zeroed in on a Butterfly. But could not buy the supplies yesterday due to incessant rain. Then I thought I'll go with Red Riding Hood. I searched my stash and old clothes, but could not find a material to match the hood and I was very doubtful that she would wear it. Finally when I was putting her to bed, I browsed for ideas and saw some Minnie mouse costume. Yes! I finalized. As soon as she was asleep (11:45 PM) I told my hubby that it would be a Minnie. After finishing off a very very late dinner and other stuff I finally started to get the dress together.

Here is the pic for my idea and details.

The first thing was the black highlighted ears and the red bow.

- I wrapped black yarn over a headband and hot glued the yarn ends.

- I thought of cutting out felt ears but hubby suggested Pom Poms. He had seen me making some of those over the last few days. I opened my Pandora's box :-D (my yarn box). I was lucky enough to have some black yarn and quickly made two Pom Poms. I hot glued them to the headband and tied the strings also so that it doesn't come off.

- For the bow, I cut out a bow shape felt, gave it a little pinch in the center (vertically) and hand-stitched it onto the yarn layer on the band.

- Next, I cut out white small felt circles and stuck them to the bow.

And the headpiece was done.

The pics were taken on my phone, early in the morning and are not clear enough!

Now the polka dots for the dress. I thought of many things - paper circles, felt, fabric paint, etc. Felt won. But again fixing them to the dress was the next question. I knew hand stitching would be the best option, but I was out of time. It was already 2 AM. I quickly cut out some felt circles and stuck them onto the tulle layer with some clear tape. It was very clear to me that these would come off but I had no more energy and time to spent.

And how can you miss the yellow shoes Minnie wears. Felt was my option again. I just cut out a small half oval for the front of her pink shoes and stuck the pieces with clear tape.

I wanted to kick myself for not having bought her a pair of black stockings yet. The closest dark color stocking she has is a navy blue one and it didn't quite go with it. So I matched it up with a black stretch pant and red and black stripped socks. 

Done.

And how it went? Well, the little Minnie loved it and she is a little obsessed with her yellow crocs now. When one felt dot fell off from the dress, she starting picking the other dots and I had to keep fixing them back :-) The bow and ears looked too cute on her!

I skipped few things for the costume - gloves (no time), black full sleeved tee beneath the dress (it would be hot for her), and did not paint her nose black ;-)

My Minne mouse was all happy and I did click some pics while she kept wriggling out of the frame. Hopefully, I'll post those soon.

Baby Booties

After my baby's birth, I never really had time for any good craft. I had made few shawls before the delivery, which she snuggles in at night. All I could make for her after that were booties. I had never tried booties before. But when we started taking my baby out and she needed something for her soft feet, I started hunting patterns for booties. I came across the Posh Crochet Baby Booties video by CrochetHooksYou and have made 4 booties for her since then.

I doesn't take much and gives instant satisfaction. I don't have pictures of the earlier 3 and now her feet has outgrown those. I made some tweekings to the sole and the overall design and created a new pair for her bigger (cuter :-)) feet. Time for some pictures.

Nothing fancy. Just to keep her feet protected. She has now completed 9 months and is often out of the house in the yarn either crawling or on her walker. Could not get a decent picture of her wearing the booties. She does not like being stationary now :-)

I put on the buttons so that I can pull them tight when the stitches get stretched. Overall she is happy in the booties and so am I :-)

Pattern: Posh Crochet Baby Booties

Yarn: Vardhaman Millenium

Skill: Easy

Hook: 4mm

Floral Season

I recently am in love with pretty cute crochet flowers. I started making lots and lots of them and am using a mine own modified version of the Mollie flower tutorial. It is addictive. I have been using all my scrap yarn and making cute flowers in the past few days. 


I started making these tiny flowers as I didn't want to start on anything new and big for sometime as I have some important things to be taken care on the home front. And oh yes, my friend bought 2 bags full of yarn when he went visiting somewhere in North India. The colors are pretty and the yarn is soft. I really want to just start off with them. But I am giving myself some time now. I am awfully sad that I cannot start on new projects now, but almost everyday I take out all my yarn, spread them out neatly on the bed, admire the beauty, have some sweet cuddling time and pack it back all neatly and carefully. Phew, it is so tempting.


Okay, back to my crochet flowers. Time for some pictures now.

Larksfoot Update

Its been a long time now since I finished my Larksfoot mini blanket. I had even photographed it right after finishing (at night itself, as I was impatient to wait till sunrise) and transferred the photos to my system. But had been keeping it here for so long. And every time I open my cupboard and see the finished blanket, I felt sad that I did not introduce the sweet one on my blog here. I finally made up my mind to blog about it. 


So here comes my Larksfoot mini blanket.

Hope you liked it as much as I did!

New Yarns

I did buy quite a lot of yarn over the past few weeks. I bought them from Raja Market and Commercial Street. Except for one or two, the rest are dull colors. I already started making the project using the Larksfoot stitch using these yarns. Out of the rest, I picked three colors for a new project. The colors are these.

I took this picture using my mobile and in insufficient light. So it doesn't do proper justice to the yarns. I fell in love with the purple yarn instantly. The green is actually a lighter shade. And the cream colored one on the right end is equally lovely.

I have started rolling these up. I am imagining some pointed ripples or some simple ripples. I do have a project in mind. Let me see how it goes. My hands are just itching to lay them on these lush lovely yarn.

Again something Floral

I am having busy weeks now, owing to work and household chores. In between I managed to sneak in a few stitches here and there. And the results are …..

Yes, floral coasters.

And no, I didn’t stop at making two.



I made whole two sets of four each. So eight all together.

I don’t have a written pattern. Just worked it out. Will share the pattern if I ever write or draw it J

Grassy-Lush Tablemat

Recently I came across this. Ever since I wanted to make something similar. Though there are instructions on how to make it, I headed over to the PlanetJune blog where I had seen this tutorial earlier. I had some green yarn left over from my Mini Green Blanket. When I started off I was not sure of the project. After some retries, I nailed it! And then there was no turning back!

It was super-easy and didn't take much time. I was able to complete it within a few hours. After all the loops were done, I cut through the loops and I loved every moment of it.

I love the lushness and softness.

The back is just some normal dc rows. I made this one variation from June's tutorial - June used SC stitches to turn over, I used DC stitches.

So I will be making more of these and in bigger sizes.

Granny Square Edges - Tip

The biggest challenge when making Granny squares are that they often do not turn out to be the perfect squares with the crisp edges. This creates difficulty when trying to join two squares together.

So some tips -

When making a Granny Square:

1. Choose the correct size hook for the yarn you choose.

2. Hold the loose end of the yarn with even tension throughout the process. If you keep varying the tension, the size of the stitches also vary, which creates uneven squares.

3. When using more than one type of (or colour) yarn to make a square, make sure that the yarns are of the same ply and thickness. Else, the square can become uneven.

When joining Granny Squares, if the edges of are curved up like this, it is difficult to get the stitches correctly.


Here is one tip. Hold the squares to be joined together. Insert a smooth thin rod through the holes in the edge and hold it taut till you get a neat corner on the square. I used my crochet hook itself to hold the stitches up.


Now you can see that perfect bend at the corner as well as identify the stitches easily.

Happy joining :-)

While I was away for a month...

Whoa! It's real long since I blogged anything here. But I have been doing things all along. I didn't click any pics and kept postponing it. That is the sole reason why I have not been blogging anything till now. Even now I haven't clicked any pics. Thought I'll just update you guys on what all I have done till now.

I made a big crochet granny square. The colours are maroon and green. It looks like an accessory for Christmas. Well, I made it atleast a month back and it now is in place for where it was created - on my fridge. I'll click a pic and post it soooooon!

Next were my experiments with my lovely sewing machine. So pathetic of me that I have not clicked a pic of my sewing machine yet. Anyways, the first few days I used it to learn and refresh my sewing lessons. Straight lines, curves, zig zags, and on it went for a few days. Then I sewed up a hand clutch. Yes, I did it! Though not a perfect one, I just loved it.

Then I sewed and sewed and tried to learn stitching necks for dresses. It took me a while to learn it. And once I learnt it, I jumped on to a kurta project, for me. I cut an old big dupatta and within a few hours, my first kurta was ready :-) It is not fit to be worn out because it is a bit crumply at places owing to the nature of the cloth material. But yes, I am wearing it at home :-)

Later I had the courage to create a kurta from a lovely FabIndia cotton dupatta I had for some time now. It did not take me long to finish it and the end result was really pretty. And I wore it out as well. Few said it was nice, though nobody knew I had stitched it ;-) I was thrilled with the result.

After the success of the FabIndia dupatta-kurta, I have now another on In Progress. It is a lovely orange shaded fabric. Only the neck needs to be completed and a little bit of shaping up. Then the kurta will be done!

On the crochet space, I did have some green, yellow, and off-white yarn left from this project. I started making granny squares out of it to make a small throw for the winter coming up. But I am out of yarn now. So I have gone back to my old Big Pink Blanket again. I completed 3 more rows of shell stitched on it yesterday. It is almost over 2 years since I started on the project. I don't know how many more months or years I'll take to finish it. Being a long item, it is a bit difficult to sit on the chair and sew. Let's see how it goes.

Again Grannies

I had completed one more crochet project some time back. It is a crocheted table spread. In our house we have a small table in the living room. It is wooden. I always wanted to have a table spread on it. And now I have created one.

The color is a bit different in the photos but still nice.




I love the stitches at the edges and the sides of the spread.

Busy...

I have been busy crafting and crocheting over the past few weeks. But I still have no end results to post here yet.

I have been trying to progress earnestly on my Big Pink Blanket. It was actually progressing well when I ran out of the pink yarn. So had to keep it aside till I went and bought new yarn.

In the meantime, I started with a small project - crocheted table cloth for our small centre table in the living room. As usual, I am creating Granny Squares for this as it the easiest and quickest type to complete a project soon. I am progressing on this project.

Apart from these, I have another new project. Something of the kind I have never done before. We had printed out some of our photographs and want to put them up on the walls. We didn't want to go with the store made photoframes. Instead, wanted to add a personal touch to it. So hubby has bought me the required materials and even given suggestions as well. I am also reusing some of the stuff available at home for the purpose. I am making photoframes for the photographs now. It is a bit of a tedious job actually - measuring, cutting, pasting, pressing, allowing to dry, and afterall the bits and pieces of mess on the floor. But it is really INTERESTING. So far, I have completed to frames.

Hopefully within few days I will be able to post a picture with the wall full of our photos here :-)

New Tote

I finally completed something which was on my list for a very looooong while. I had started this project way back in July last year. I had blogged about it here. It is a tote and was almost done, but not complete until two days back.

For the body of the tote I used thick maroon yarn. I did the modified shell stitch (as in my Big Pink Blanket). This stitch gives the bag a chunky look.

For the mouth of the tote, I used thin black yarn and single crochet stitches to make it firm and strong.

For the handle of the tote, I used it from an old handbag and did spaced single crochet stitches way around the belt.

I took the tote out with me over the weekend and am extremely pleased with the result. I may add a zipper or button to the tote mouth some time later.

Bits and Pieces Project

After clearing off all those bits and pieces of papers and twines from my butterfly mobile project, I have come back to my very own Crochet. This time I have started on something with all the left over yarn I have from the previous projects. I was way too confused what to make out of these small balls of yarn. They would not be enough to complete a project. So I thought and thought and thought and finally it dawned on me.


Yes, I have been crocheting flowers. Remember my flower project? That was made into a small neck scarf.

So now what do I plan to make of these? I am still thinking. I have a couple of small ideas. Let me see what works out. Meantime, if you have any ideas, let me know :-)

Rippling Away

My first attempt at a ripple project.

Does it look nice?

Its a baby wrap or shawl.

I loved the way it turned out.

Chose the colours and started on it right away.

I am really thrilled by the end result. Now, I have to weave in the loose yarn at the ends.

A treat to self!

Guess what I treated myself to today - lots of free time alone in the comfort zone of my home.

I did a couple of this and that. Roaming in the house here and there. Strictly no tv and browsing - this distracts me and eats up my whole time. A bit of leftover work. And finally enjoyining the rest of the evening. Did it all mean the same? Yeah, I actually was completely relaxed and enjoying the day in bits and pieces. Lunch with hubby. Coffee and some hooking up alone. Oh, loved the sunshine too.

Its been a couple of days since the sun actually shone in this part of Bangalore. It used to be wet and dull all the day. I really hate going to office on those days. I love being at home when the weather is cold and gloomy. But can't help it. My laundered clothes stink and may need one more round of washing :-( And my plants craved for some sunlight.

Hmm... Finally the sun shone today - in all its glory. Actually while walking to office I hoped the sun to hide behind the clouds for some time. But yay, I loved it.

See...

My green lovelies loved the warmth and light.


I loved this small patch on the opposite wall...


... and the small cloudy designs.


Love the light falling on these leaves and trees.



Through the camera lens I spotted this pink and off-white balcony grill and think that its really cool.


And from where I sit now, it looks like this.

Love this view as well.


So I am treating myself to a cup of cold coffee in my fav mug, doing some more rounds of my Big Granny Square, and loving my new yarn balls.