Comfort Crochet

Hello my dear lovely readers!

How are you guys doing...A warm welcome to all my new friends. I truly cherish this friendship and value all your lovely comments! It really brightens up my day and makes my crafty adventures more awesome :)

A special thanks to all you guys for the kind words on my previous post of Garden of Flowers jacket.
The jacket was also featured in Sara's blog - My Merry Messy Life - Hookin on Hump Day #37.

Wearable and thread crochet are great to do, but not like some soul crochet. You know what i mean - comfort crochet. In Hong Kong the comfort food is the sweet bun, i see people eating it for breakfast and in between meals.As a south Indian for me the comfort food is idle and sambar. I can eat it any item any where and do it almost every week @ home.

In terms of crochet my current project is really comfort one. You can do it when you are watching TV, babysitting the kids, playing with the toys, or in between household chores...Its the ripple blanket. I picked it up after completing my jacket.

 My man in blue - loved jumping on the ripples...

 I am planning to make it for a queen size bed. Basically it is for a single bed, but loads of room for the turning in sleep type people :) Currently covers 2/3 of my bed and need to do 1/3 more and then the border and i am planning to add a flannel lining to it. Let me see how it does about...

  

 Some Easter egg decorations me n the little miss made for her school Easter Egg competition.

 Since we don't eat eggs at home i made these from thermocol eggs found in my local craft store.

Coming back to my comfort project, i line up my next 10 colors and take a snap shot of it. Then its easy peasy...1 row  then a color change, 2nd colors of 2 rows, another color change 1 row...and you have the interlock ripples..You can find the pattern i have used from Lucy's Attic24 HERE.

So off i am now, to enjoy some cold drink and back to my hook and some favorite site-com.

Stay crafty and stay happy. Love to hear from you as always...

Love,
xxx

Garden of Flowers Jacket

Hello my lovely people!

Are you enjoying the weather outside. I must say that its been wonderful here, about 20 degrees with loads of sunshine in the day time. A great time of the year before the horrid humid summer n rainy season set in.

Hope your hooks have been busy and your crafty juices flowing and livening up your lives and homes and studios and whatever space you own :)

I was always smitten by the traditional granny square but when ever i wanted to hook a wearable, it was never a granny as i did not find any good patterns online or in print. Finally i came across an inspiration from the book Granny Crochet Favourites and this is the result..

 ...oooops...he sneaked in somehow.. :)
and is puzzled by what his mom's doing!

Some awesome flower therapy - the Gerbera daisies. They add a dash of color to any dull space and they are my latest favorite flowers, bought from the local fresh market...

 

Wearable crochet is always tricky i feel, especially when you are doing your own pattern and do not know how it will turn out...

I will try to give some info on how this jacket can be hooked. But this is just for idea and NOT an exact pattern. I am too lazy to click step-by-step pics :P

So here goes nothing...

1.Try to read the below diagrams..

 This was the draft for my project. If you click on the image, you will get a more readable size i hope! Basically the first step is to determine the chest size and the length. Crochet a patch of any type of granny squares to meet the requirements. You need to horn your maths my dear friends for this...Not a pleasant zone i hear you say!! Couldn't agree more with you...

Crochet 2 such patches. You can see the color blocks in the pic above.

2. Determine the sleeve to sleeve length and the width of the sleeves. Begin with a starting chain = width of sleeve and do SC's while turning the work after every row.

3. After you reach the length required, you are going to do the back yoke. This was half the width for me. Continue doing SC's till you reach the length = width of chest. NOTE : This yoke length should be equal to the width of your granny patch.

4.Continue with next sleeve by chaining the additional half chains and then working SC's again till you reach the end of the sleeve. Fasten off.

5. Refer to fig again to know where to begin the front yoke and the neck decreases. Any question, feel free to pop in! 

6.Attach the 2 granny patches and your jacket would look something like this now..

 

7.I used SC to attach the two sleeves and the front and back patches too. 

8. Crocheted a simple border of 2 rows of granny stripe around sleeves and jacket ends.

 

9. Also a border of 2 rows of SC around the neck and fastened off with a button to keep it in place.

 

And here comes the Ta-daaah!!!

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 My girl was extra extra happy and gave me loads of kisses and said she will not share this jacket with anyone! Silly things to make my day :)

Some more details:

Yarn used : Sublime baby cashmere merino silk DK in various shades of spring + 4 balls in cream for the sleeves and yoke.

Hook size : 3.5mm

Granny Flower Pattern LINK here. Tweaked this pattern a bit so that it looks more solid and less spotty.

Little Miss:  Totally cute and flower girly types.

Me:  Blissful, satisfied, totally happy as something which i formed in my head and later on paper yielded the exact results i was expecting!!! Yipeeeeeee

 Flower : Sad and broken @ Little Miss's hands.

Hope you guys found some sense in what i have tried to explain. 

Love to hear from you guys as always.. Hope you are safe, happy and crafty...

Lotsa love,

xxx.

 

 

Spring in her step :)

Helllo my Lovely Beautiful people!

How are we doing this day? We have started feeling the presence of Spring already here. Its soooo wonderful. The dawn of new day, new hope and new seasons. Its so wonderful to see the trends of the world, be it festival or weather or seasons reflecting on our blog-sphere. I was seeing spring everywhere, in the clicks, in the works, in the words and in the mood. It wasn't long before i was drawn in too..

Cannot resist sharing this with you guys :

Early Spring by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 
Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plowed hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.

Past, Future glimpse and fade
Through some slight spell,
A gleam from yonder vale,
Some far blue fell;
And sympathies, how frail,
In sound and smell!

Till at thy chuckled note,
Thou twinkling bird,
The fairy fancies range,
And, lightly stirred,
Ring little bells of change
From word to word.

For now the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And thaws the cold, and fills
The flower with dew;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The poets too.

This so reflects the changes in heaven and in earth. One of my favorite poems.

The above top was done for my princess dear. I just was drawn into crochet with threads and beads by a lovely book. Will share more about it in my coming post.

Ok, honestly, she did not need this top. Neither did i need to crochet this ridiculous idea of mine :) I was in the middle of a spring granny jacket which was in the middle of a blue ripple..he he but yes i had to do this. But but but...no more wandering and loitering. Back to my jacket and then back to my ripple. Everyday i see the ripple in my crochet WIP bag and feel guilty. Do you guys feel such things on seeing your WIP's which should not be IGNORED?

Hope you are having a fantastic season. If not, i am sure spring is just around the corner. To brighten up and make you merry!

Love and more,
xxx.

The week that was..

....filled with laughter from child's play.

 ...spent cozily and comfortably rippling away after the entire household was sleeping..

...crafty with the little miss who did not listen on my ideas of painting an octupus and did this on her own!

...exciting as my LYS had a sale on Sublime Merino and this is my new "posh" wool stash - a part of it..The banker does NOT approve of such bulk purchases :)

...creative as this little beauty of spring squares is going to become a Spring-Flower Jacket for my Little Princess..She is so excited about it and keeps asking me when i am going to be "stitching" more :)

And before we know it, the weekend is upon us!

Hope you guys had a fabulous week and here's hoping that the weekend would be even better.
Get happy, get silly and go have some fun!!

Love,
xxx