Felt Fabric Fun!!

Hello my "dear" readers..

How are we doing today? Knowing you guys, you all must be neck deep in your WIP's he he...
Well @ my world, we have been having lotsa crafty times. I have always wondered what is this Hot Glue gun. So one day, at my LCS when I saw one, i immediately picked it up along with some washable felt. Then began the hunt for making felt flowers. Oh boy, you have so so so many options and varieties to chose from.I officially rule Pinterest a great culprit when my house chores are piling up!!

Anyways..here's what i did..

 

These felt flowers are inspired from HERE, HERE and HERE. The flowers are glued on to a crochet mesh which is a vase cover. But as my vase is big and i had bad light almost everywhere..its just the cover in the pic.

Go ahead and try these quick wonders. I did not do felt flowers as i found glueing them a messy thing and also sewing them boring..so Hot GLue gun - YOU ROCK!!

 Made a pair of flower clips for my Princess..

 

One store i am going to sorely miss in India is IKEA. I love this store for all the great furniture, home DIY and in general a must visit store if you do not have IKEA in your city/country. These are the plain magazine racks i bought from there. 

With my little princess, one rainy afternoon, we transformed this into...

THIS..!!

 A perfect store of my books and the kid's bed time stories :)

My ripple is in its final run ...
4 more colors = 4x4 = 16 more rows..and then i am waiting to do the border :!!!!!

 ...shhhhhhaaa...not looking forward to this part tho..

Leaving you guys with what my Little Princess has been up to..

A butterfly fairy made from mosaic pieces

  and a flower painting which occupies a place of pride in our cozy bed room:)

Have a great day and lovely week ahead..
Do write in as i love reading from you..

Happy Crafting..
xxx

African Flower Cushion

Hello my dear lovelies!

How is your Monday? Hope the weekend was lovely and good times had ensured :)

Today, i am presenting you ladies with my lovely African Flower cushion..

Ta-daah!!!

  

You can find the free pattern for these hexagon lovelies HERE.

 Ok, now...confession time. Although the hexagons themselves are real easy peasy, the joining is a real pesky business. One which i did NOT, repeat, DID not enjoy in the least bit. The Join-as-you-go method is done for each hexagon point. But you still need to individually sew/stitch/seam the 6 sides and it is a boring task. I switched to doing a mattress stitch after 1 side of SCs. Normally i prefer joining 2 sides with SC as i feel its sturdy..But boy, i immediately saw the amount of edges and switched to my yarn needle :)

I crocheted the back with some alternating rows of DC's.
Finished it off with these lovely blue flower wooden buttons..

 

So here are my 2 cushion covers, with 4 different patterns for the front and back and four possible ways to play around with them!

BTW, these cushions are a gift for my MIL as her favorite color is BLUE..

We had a very crafty weekend here at my world. Will post pics soon on that. And also a new project which i am waiting to start.

Now, yours truly turned 30+ somethings in the last week and i did have a great day with my 2 kids n hubby. It was a very quiet affair, just us with some presents for my kids..and awesome pizza and pasta lunch at my kids favorite place in Hong Kong. But, that day did not end on a happy note as i lost my wallet and have been running about since then to get all my cards, ATM and identity done. I just returned today after getting a temporary Hong Kong ID as it is mandatory for anyone staying over 90 days here. The only consolation was i had no money in the wallet as i had not visited the ATM and was with my banker :)

But, i did order myself some gifts as only i know what books n yarn i need!! Of course we are always out of Yarn..

Do you guys agree with this :)??

Will do a post on my new books n yarn very very soon..
Till then, happy hooking, happy crafting and lead a happy being :)

Love,
xxx

Something Pretty

Hello my dear lovelies!!

HOW ARE YOU guys?? I know I know, I took off and did not bother to write in the last few days(weeks??).. Somehow I did check blogger-land every now and then, but did not find my mojo to write or do anything creative. I was lazy, I was just unwinding with my ripple and browsing a LOT. I blame Pinterest and such equally **bad** things for not blogging more often...

Also, I have started a strict work out schedule and strive to keep up to it at least for 5 days of the week. So in short, lotsa things to do, lotsa holidays as the little miss is having her Easter break and lotsa stuff to share with you guys - my adventures over the last few days..

This is my "something pretty" cushion. You can find the pattern for this pretty square HERE. From a long time I wanted to make this square and now doing my ripple I realized that I had lots of blue yarn in lovely yummy scrummy shades to spare and decided to have a go at the same.

I have done 4 x 4 squares with the following shades :

Aspen
Turquoise
Bluebell
Cloud Blue

The last row is in Cream.

The joining is in Meadow. All yarn is from StyleCraft Special DK.

I wanted the back of the cushion also to be useable. I made granny squares of 4 rounds with the join-as-you-go method.

For a closure I used buttons, alternated the blue and green ones and the button holes were 2 chains and followed with a row of SCs. Be sure to make buttons at small intervals so that the seam does show up.

I did a small border using THIS pattern. I am in love with the effect it has as a whole. The squares, the puff stitch flowers and the simple peek-a-boo border :)

This is my first cushion and I am smitten!! Bring it on...I have already started on my second one.. Another famous pattern - African Hexagon Flower. You can find it HERE.

Currently on my hook...

 

 

What is on your hook today?

Do write in as I love hearing from you my dear readers..



and a warm welcome to all my new friends from equally delightful places!

Love and more,
xxx

 

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.