Mint and Chocolate

Sometimes you come across a pattern and you are overcome by the urge to make it, regardless of its utility. One such pattern is the Apple cozy/jacket. After seeing lots of lovely photos on the internet I managed to locate the pattern here, and immediately decided that I HAD to make it.

I chose a mint green yarn, which would look nice against the red colour of the apple. To break the monotony of the green, I made three stripes of chocolate brown. I stayed up late in the night to finish it.

Hubby dear likes apples and usually takes one to office for lunch. I wanted to show off my cozy in the morning.
What follows below is the scene in my house the next morning:

Me: Shoved an apple into the cozy, buttoned it up and proudly extended it towards my hubby.

HD: Looks at it suspiciously but makes no attempt to touch it and asks "What is this?"

Me: Proudly of course, "It's a cozy, a cover for your lunch apple. Somewhat like a sweater."

HD: "Why does my lunch apple need a sweater? It is not even cold outside."

Me: "To protect your apple when you put it in your bag."

HD: "I have been putting apples in my bag and they have always survived the ordeal."

Me: "Well, this will prevent it getting poked by pens, flash drives, chargers, keys and things you have in the bag."

HD: "You really want me to take this to office, you are aware that I have lunch with my colleagues and ....

Me: "Well, I have made it and now you HAVE to take it to office."

Hubby dear takes the apple from me (cozy and all) and shoves it into the deepest corner of his bag, hoping I suppose that nobody in his office will notice it.

So much for appreciation!!......(ha ha) ;)

PS: Recently I came across a pattern for a banana cozy, haven't made it yet but ... banana for lunch......anybody?

State of Hexcitement

Hello, today let me introduce you to my new love, the Hexagon Blanket. In one of my earlier posts I mentioned being inspired by Lucy of Attic24 to make the Hexie. So off I went to my LYS to get my yarn. I left my home with visions of the beautiful colours that Lucy used and wanted to get similar colours.

But when I reached the store the colours available were not as lovely and the quality of the yarn was not too great either. So after turning the whole store inside out, these are the colours I bought.

There are 21 colours in all. Yarn in India is almost always available in skeins. They are then wound into balls by hand using the age-old custom of wrapping the skeins across your knees or a chair back.

Here is my yarn, duly wound.

Hmm... these balls of yarn don't look hand wound, do they? So how did I do it? Well, that is a secret I will reveal in a later post (and no, it is not what you are thinking).

Now on to the actual making of the blanket. I wanted each hexagon to be unique and that the colour combinations should not get repeated. So I sat down with my two bags of yarn and a 4mm crochet hook.

Firstly I chose a colour for the centre at random, then I went about in an eeny-meeny-miny-moe fashion to choose the next colour and so on. You see, I wanted "unique" hexagons.

After hours of painstaking labour, this is what I achieved.

Then I chanced upon this brilliant tip by Angie who has a lovely blog called "Le monde de Sucrette". She starts out by making the centres in each of the colours, which are 21 in my case. Then she moves on to the next round using a different colour every time. Absolutely brilliant. This gives you unique motifs each time and all the colours are used equally and your work progresses much faster. To see this tip in detail go here. On the same page she has a different pattern for the hexagon, which you may like to use.

This is how I started off. I was now making good progress.

The next pic shows how far I have reached now.

Here is close up of the blanket. Looks rustic, doesn't it?

And a couple of more photos, with and without the flash.

Mwah.. I just love this blanket. I will keep you posted about my progress with my blanket.

A big thank you to Lucy and Angie for the pattern and the tip.

Check out my latest hexagon blanket and get my free pattern HERE.
Happy crocheting!

Been to knitaly?

"knitaly" isn't that a very apt name for a knitting blog.? It is also the place where I found this beautiful pattern for a crochet cell phone cozy and best of all is that she has very kindly given instructions in English too.

This is my cell-cozy. I think it looks pretty much like hers, don't you?

Now to find a green dress to match my cell cozy...ha ha.

See you later.

Table manners

Doilies are definitely a thing of beauty and a joy forever... Over the years I have made dozens of doilies. I find it just magical that a simple ball of thread can end up looking so intricate, exquisite, delicate and of course elegant. Oh yes... I do love doilies (or did you guess as much from my last post!).

But, once in a way I like to keep pretty aside and go for for something that is practical, something that is useful. This Table Napkin Holder is the result of one such trip down the Utility road. I had seen some pretty napkin holders on various blogs (not sure whether they are Spanish or Portuguese), but could not find a suitable pattern in English. So I decided to just make it up as I go along.

And, my dearies this is what I made.

The cream and brown colour were chosen to match our dining table. I used knitting cotton  and a 2.5 mm hook. Once it was completed I felt it looked quite plain, so thought of adding some flowers on top.

I wanted an "elegant" spray but these flowers were all I could manage before my patience ran out.

Do you think the flowers match the napkin holder? Please let me know. Maybe next time I will make different flowers and use different colours.

Here is a close-up of the flowers.

Now isn't that something pretty and handy to have on your dining table.

See you later. Do feed my fish at the bottom of this page.
Love xxx

My Favourite Book

Reading used to be the greatest passion in my life till crocheting took over. As it was simply not possible to read and crochet at the same time, books had to take the back seat. The other reason being that it is so much easier to crochet and watch TV at the same time. But I still love books very much and am always on the lookout for new books to buy.

Today I am going to show you my most favourite crochet book  Lovely Lace. 

This book was a  birthday present from my dear friend Malati, in the year 1988. Since then I have made many beautiful doilies from this book.

Here are a few pages from the book and some of my doilies;

 

This doily is now with my mom gracing her centre table.

This doily was an experiment in colour.

The last doily has since been frogged as the shaded pink was not doing justice to the beautiful pattern. As if it was not evident in the first few rounds... I completed the whole pattern before unraveling it ...duh?!

Here is a small tip for crocheters who use pattern books. I never crochet directly from the book. I always use a copy of the pattern and then put the book back in my library. I find it easier to mark my place, note down any modifications, write down the size of thread and hook etc on the copy.  So now you can see that my book is in excellent condition even after 24 years!

Did you find this tip to be useful? Do let me know.

Happy crocheting. xxx

One for the little boy who...

Today's post is about my boy A, who is not really "little" anymore. Over the past 20-22 years I have crocheted dozens of items and then gifted them away to family and friends, but I had never actually made anything for my son.

So last year when we got him a laptop I was more thrilled than him, as I wanted to make a laptop cozy/sleeve for him. Inspite of showing him the lovely photos on Google, he gave me a horrified look and declared that he was never carrying his laptop in any "girly crocheted cover". I was very disappointed, but not for long.

As my son is pursuing a degree in "Animation and Multimedia" my cousin gifted him a  Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet

Luckily for me (and unfortunately for him...he he), it came without any kind of cover, and I managed to convince him that the drawing pad would get damaged without a cover.

Now for a non-girly yarn! I dug into my stash and came up with this yarn I had purchased in 1993. The yarn was meant for a sweater for my husband, but the texture of the yarn did not seem right for a garment, so it remained in my stash all the years.

And...(drum-roll) here is the final product!

The first row was a length of chains equal to the breadth of the pen tablet. Then I just made dcs in the round so that there would be no seams to sew later. The back of the cover is plain as shown in the pic below...

On the front side I decided to create some texture to protect the drawing surface. For this I used a simple pattern of 1Fpdc, 3 dc and by shifting the Fpdc to the centre of the 3 dc in the next row managed to create a lattice effect. The picture is not really clear but you will get an idea.

Upon completion I decided to use my sewing skills (which are actually zero), to make a lining for the cover. The pen tablet came with a stylus, cable and of course CDs, so three pockets were made for them.

Phew... finally it is done.

Here are a couple of projects done by sonny boy using the pen tablet.

Bye for now. See my obedient fish follow your mouse at the bottom of this page... don't forget to feed them.

How does your garden grow.....

This question is not for Mary who is quite contrary, but for my brother S, who is  passionate about his gardening hobby. He has a variety of plants in his garden, like ferns, gladioli, petunias, zinnias, hibiscus, Song of India, chlorophytum, coleus, herbs like coriander and curry leaves, and vegetables like chilly and spinach.

His current obsession is the Adenium and already he has some 20 pots of adeniums.

Have a look at his very first gorgeous gladioli blooms.

Some more of his wonderful flowers,

Petunias

Marigold

Cute little critters guarding the blooms!

Birds of feather...snack together!

 The result of all this vigorous gardening is that now he has run out of "floor space". To cut a long story short, I decided to try my hand at Macramé (after a gap of 20 years) and make some hanging plant holders so that he can have a mid-air garden.

I wanted a simple and quick pattern. Ta-da, this is the result.

I love these leopard print beads, don't you?

See you later. Please feed my fish at the bottom of this page, thank you.