Crochet Textured Scarf

Hi friends! I hope the week has begun wonderfully for you. We are enjoying a deliciously cold winter in Ahmedabad. I know that my friends who are actually experiencing snow and minus degrees may laugh at my idea of a "cold" winter as the temperatures here are in the range of 10 to 15 degrees Celsius. But for a Mumbai gal like me this is definitely cold. 

And I for one, am thrilled because it has given me a chance to crochet and, also knit, winter items. I just finished crocheting a lovely textured scarf in a gorgeous ivory yarn. Can you imagine I had this yarn in my stash for the past seven years!! I refused to touch the yarn till I found the right pattern. Well, I did find the Right pattern. This scarf is designed by the wonderful Kara of Petals to Picots. I think Kara as well as her Petals to Picots site need no introduction. I consider her site a treasure house of crochet with lots of patterns, tutorials and loads of related information. I especially love her Monday 'Pin'spirations and Friday Link Parties. 

Here is my Ivory Textured Scarf:

Isn't it looking lovely? I am sure you want to see the texture up close.

The pattern actually has a "keyhole" feature and a fringe. But as I was not sure I could manage hanging scarf tails I made a slight modification and added two pearl buttons. So now I can wear my scarf long or button it up and wrap it around twice to form a cowl. 

 Luckily I had these buttons in my stash. Do you think they match the scarf?



Here is my scarf cowl

The pattern also includes a nice spiral flower which I plan to make in metallic thread and use as a brooch. You can find the pattern for this wonderful scarf and many other beautiful items designed by Kara HERE.

When I popped in at Kara's to tell her that I finished making the scarf, imagine my delight to see that my Mustard doily has been featured in her "I ♥ Fridays Link Party".

Isn't that peachy? This is the second time I am being featured, the first time around it was my Rainbow mandala. 

A big thanks to all of you for your best wishes in my last post. A very warm welcome to all my new followers. 

That is all for today. Off I go to tackle my next project. :-) What are you going to make this week?

Take care 

 

Awards and Pies

Hello dear friends. How are you? I hope you are enjoying a fabulous weekend. We had a fun time celebrating the kite festival during the week, which is an important event in Ahmedabad.

My posts are getting further apart. And I can only plead TMI. TMI = Too much information. The internet gives us easy and quick access to so many things at a time. I have been flitting from site to site, greedily downloading patterns and wanting to do it all at once. The reason I have not completed any WIP or posted anything is that I seem to have my finger in too many pies.

This pic will give you an idea... :-)

So, as you can see, lot of things going on but nothing near completion.

I did say that 2013 has begun in a great way for me and now I have some more good news. I was surprised to see a message from Rajeswari at Diapermum nominating me for the Liebster Award. Now that made me very happy. It is these little unexpected surprises that bring joy to blogging. The fact that someone somewhere is thinking of you, liking your blog and also making the effort to actually pass on the award to you.

So, you can imagine my utter delight and amazement when within a few days I received another message, this time from Shikha at I Love Handmade awarding me the Liebster Award again!!!  :-)  I was thrilled, two awards in one week. 

Thank You, Rajeswari and Shikha. Then how come I was so quite up until now?

Well, you see "With Great Awards comes Great Responsibility". (Hehe...sorry, just could not resist slipping that in.) But the fact is that the awards come along with a list of tasks and as I was a bit scattered last week I could not do justice to it. But fear not I will be tackling them soon.

I am so disappointed at having missed the "Grow your blog" party at 2 bags full. It would have been a great opportunity to make new friends and of course increase my own readership. But I will certainly visit most of the 400 bloggers who DID participate.

Now off I go to do my award duties ie: draw up a list of my award nominees and frame eleven (hopefully sensible) questions. I have moved the awards to a separate page in a bid to keep the homepage tidy. As far as answering the questions posed by Rajeswari and Shikha, I am thinking of doing that on an "About Me" page. After eight months as a blogger I also think it is time for my readers to know a little more about me. Do you think that is a good idea? Do let me know.

I would love to know what you have been up to during the weekend (only the crafty things of course and not the naughty ones...hehe)   ;-)

Take care and happy crafting.

Love xxx

A Good Beginning

Hello beautiful people. How are you in the new year? For me, the new year has begun very well. What with new yarn and a new bookcase I now have some more new items to add to the list.

As my confidence as a blogger grew, I started exploring new things and one of them was Giveaways. Initially I just did not understand what they were. Once I got the gist of it I gingerly entered a few of them while still not being sure of how they actually worked. Well, wonder of wonders I actually won. Not one but TWO of them. YAY!!!

The first one was the one held by Preeti of Creat-e-witty Unleashed and this is what I won:

Five balls of lovely red metallic crochet thread. Really generous of her. I am thinking of making earrings or hanging ornaments. Of course I am going to keep you posted about it.

Preeti also sent me a nice New Year card which has a lovely painting of an Indian Marriage procession of ancient times, hand printed on palm leaf.

Isn't that nice? Below you can see some intricate details added in the tiny painting.
The strip is only one inch wide!!

The second giveaway was held by Kara at Petals to Picots. And I won the much coveted Sharp Crochet Hook along with a lovely pattern for a Textured scarf designed by Kara. The Sharp Crochet Hook has a pointy end with which you can crochet directly into fabric for edgings and borders without having to use a separate needle to do that. For more information visit their site HERE.

I have already started crocheting the scarf in a lovely ivory coloured yarn and a Ta-Da moment is not far away.  :)

This year I want to explore some more features of Blogger, and blogging in general. So I will be tweaking my blog as and when I learn something new. Any suggestions from you, my friends are most welcome. I am an eager learner. If you find that some of my changes have weird results please do write me a line so that I can remedy that. Which reminds me, the auto spell check does not seem to be working today so excuse typos if any.

Hope you have a lovely, relaxing weekend. Make time for your craft.

Love xxx 

New Yarn for New Year

Hi friends, a New Year means new beginnings and therefore it also means new yarn, of course. Never mind that balls of yarn and thread are now tumbling out of every shelf, basket, box and table in my room. They are not "new" you see.

So I went ahead and got a few balls of new yarn for myself. Here it is:

 

Don't they look just yummy?

The yarn is 100% acrylic, nothing fancy and certainly not Stylecraft. I cannot tell you how many times I have drooled over pictures of the Stylecraft yarn. But it is just too expensive...boohoo.

So I am satisfied with my find. And anyway finding good yarn here is more on the lines of "Beggars can't be choosers"  ...:)

I have not yet decided what I am going to make with the yarn. This year I have challenged myself to make at least one wearable item for myself. All my attempts so far have resulted in items too small or shapeless. (I know, serves me right for letting myself go and reaching an XL size.) If I am successful then I might make something for hubby and sonny too.

Next time I am going to share another new item with you. But I am too excited to keep it a secret. It a new bookcase my husband has ordered for me. My books just like my yarn are now spilling all over the place. It is a good thing I have got a separate room for my craft or else we would have had to sleep on top of the books  :).

Hope the new year has meant a lot of new beginnings for you too. What projects have you planned for 2013, do let us know.

Until next time, take care and happy crafting.

Lovexxx

Mustard Doily

Hello beautiful people. A tour through Blogdom shows that everyone is busy with their "first project for 2013". And that is really good news, because it means we are going to have a wonderful crafty year ahead.

I finished weaving in the ends on my Mustard Doily and here it is: Ta - Da

I have used Bliss Knitting cotton and a 2.00 mm crochet hook. I chose this pattern as I wanted a fast and small project. Well, it has turned out to be 17 inches in diameter....hardly small!!

This year I plan to try my hand at Tunisian crochet and hopefully I should ...before the year ends.

See you soon. Looking forward to some lovely projects from all of you.
Here is some inspiration for you... LOL.

via Facebook

Haha... I hope Hubby is not reading this.
Take care and happy crafting.

Love xxx

Crochet Pineapple Pouch

Wishing all my lovely friends a wonderful, happy and prosperous New Year. I hope 2013 will bring you a lot of joy, peace of mind and more importantly good health.

The first day of the new year, so a blog post is a must...isn't it? Okay I will admit that I am a little superstitious about this first day thing. I believe that things you manage to do on the first day of the new year sets the trend for the year ahead. It can be any little thing like getting up early, reaching office on time, cleaning my cupboard, calling up my parents, or even not popping that cupcake into my mouth, or not getting into arguments with anybody. It is silly I know but then its also fun.

So here goes, my first post for the new year.  :)

Over the years I came across a lot of patterns for sachets/pouches on the internet. But I just could not picture my "boys" appreciating dainty little sachets filled with potpourri hanging around the house. They are already doing me a big favour by leaving my doilies undisturbed. :)

Recently when I was busy hunting for the earphones for my mobile I realised that a sachet would be perfect for keeping them. They wouldn't get lost or damaged in the deep, dark recesses  of my handbag. 

I decided to try a pineapple design with a drawstring. I like this pattern as it is crocheted in the round and there is no seaming involved, the whole sachet works as one piece. It was a chart only pattern with no written instructions and did involve a few calculations to get it right. Also the pineapple motif is usually surrounded by shells but in this pattern it was flanked only by a set of dcs.

Have a look:

I have inserted a tissue so that you can see the pattern. The thread is Bliss knitting cotton crocheted with a 2.00 mm crochet hook. For the drawstring I used a spring loaded drawstring closure (no idea what they are called).

In goes the consignment! :)

Here it is with the drawstrings pulled.  I thought a tassel will complete the look. Do you think I should add a fabric lining so that nothing pops out or does it look okay?

This pouch will work well for lipsticks, prayer beads, keys, pen drives or even "unmentionables". In short, for anything small enough to get lost in your purse. What do you think? So, that is one project I can strike off my to-do list.

 Talking of lists, I do have my usual bunch of New Year resolutions: lose weight, cook healthy, less internet, more Pilates, less TV, more crochet, less sweets, more walking etc, etc. I would like to share this picture with you which sums it all up.  Haha.

via Facebook

See you soon. Take care. Happy crafting. Do let me know your first project for 2013.

Love xxx