Knitting ! I'm working on it
It sounds unbelievable but yes, I have been knitting. Actually trying out various stitches and making swatches. I've done cables and even a bit of lace knitting. It all seems pretty easy when I'm doing it in the swatch sizes. I wonder if I'll be able to follow through it on a bigger piece. I sometimes just mess up the stitches when I'm working on it long enough- funny though , I thought when you work at something longer it is supposed to get better not messed up. Hmmm......I have to figure this one out!
My latest projects is a baby hat called Tiny Topper From the Vogue Beginners knitting book.



It's my first ever knitted piece measuring exactly as the pattern says. I even worked a little swatch to check the gauge. I also learned to measure the stitches.

Now to pick up something a little more challenging. Maybe a simple baby sweater next - until I get the courage to do it! Knitting scares me a little : there I said it! Now that it is out in the open ,I have to get over my fears and move on with until it scares me no more.

Catch-up time!
So happy to finally have this UFO moved out of the list . It id now officially a new Finished Project. It's such a wonderful feeling to have it done after putting it off for a year or so. This is a dupatta edging for my aunt. For those of you wondering what a 'dupatta' is - let me explain- It's like a stole ( a little bigger and wider )worn over the traditional Indian / Pakistani outfit called Shalwar Kameez. It's a very classy, modest and preety outfit. The Dupatta is the essence of the outfit. Lets say, like the topping on a chocolate sundae. So usually this particular part of the outfit is accesorised with lace, motifs, beads etc.
This dupatta is done for one of my favourite aunts - more a friend to me . I could not find threads to match the embroidery work done on the dupatta so I decided to use the black thread and multicoloured beads to match the work.


I like this folded version better ...all the beads together look good , don't you think?


And here is the close up of the stitches. It's more like a fan style stitch with beads included . Really simple and easy.

Now after looking at this you might wonder why it would take me more than a year to finish a simple thing like this. Well , all I can say is that I'm not sure either . It may have been the 1200 plus beads to string in , crocheting with size 20 black thread on black fabric, a monotonous design ( can't blame anyone for that , it's my own design!! ) or making 12 yards of lace edging!!! Anyways, I'm glad it's done and over with. But seriosly , I liked the end result. So I guess it was worth the pain.

And...........More Doilies!

This is a doily that I first saw at Swapnae's blog and quite liked the shape of it. It's a charted pattern and quite easy too unless like me you lose track while listening to music and talking/ playing with the kiddo during a long drive and skip a couple of rows and then realise the mistake at the second last round! Yes I had to frog out 8 rounds !!! And anyone who knows me knows that I hate to frog out my work. I try in any way to work around my errors...laziness? , I suppose! This doily is done in a nameless silk/ rayon blend thread that I got from Bangalore last year. The thread is very slippery to work with but the end result is so worth all the struggle with thread. The finished peice has a very polished and classy look to it. The pictures don't show but it looks very classy in person.



This is also a charted doily I saw in a Chinese pattern book. There is no name for it , just a chart given with the doily number.So I decided to call it Peach star Chinese Doily.This was a surprisingly fast to make doily. It took about a day of working on and off. It's done in size 10 omega crochet cotton thread. My favorite part of the doily is the outer portion which forms the peaks. I like that mesh like look of it.I had toyed with the idea of adding beads to get away with the picots business but decided against it as I felt it would draw attention from the pattern stitches as beads invariably do.Don't you think?

5-Hours doily
So I had promised last time about my next project that it wouldn't be a tissue box cover again.It's my ever favourite doilies. Yes, I'm on to making doilies once again. But don't you worry , I have many other projects on the go. This one is called the 5-hour doily. Seriously, it takes lesser than that much time and is a simple and quick to make project. I was watching a Hindi movie and I had this one ready by the end of it. It's not one bit surprising if you are familiar with Hindi movies- they are very long , like 3+ hours. And it looks like lately the movies are getting longer and longer !

I've seen this doily done by my other friends ( a group project ) in a combination of colours and it looked very pretty too. But I could not resist white -there is something about white doilies ...the simplicity and the elegance , maybe.
The other day I saw this lovely recipe at Pearlin's blog.It's nice and quick recipe and makes lovely side dish. Thanks for the recipe pearlin- you were right it made a great sandwich filler.
This was supposed to be along catch up post with al ot of show and tell but Blogger is really slow today ...hey the internet is slow too since yesterday! So watch out for more pictures, maybe tomorrow. You all have a great day !

A Blog Contest

Give you a heads up - Check it out! I came across this contest today and it seems very interesting. All you have to do is comment on the post and mention that I led you to the contest.
But besides the contest , I quite enjoyed the blog. She does great work and has some lovely projects done.