Sweet Pea Patterns Guest Giveaway

Sweetpea Pattern's guest giveaway

This morning I came across this really cute giveaway. The little baby shoes are sooo pretty. I really want want to make atleast one of these with the new hello kitty fabric I got for my niece.
Even if you don't sew , these are just too cute miss. Have a look:

Sweet Pea Patterns Guest Giveaway

Rustic Tatting n Crochet Doily
Have I mentioned before that I do a little of tatting as well? I don't do it as much as I'd like to but I keep at it from time to time. I simply love the dainty look of the art of tatting. Maybe I should fish out some of my tatted projects and put the pictures up.
As always , doilies tug at my heart so I wanted to make a tatted doily too. But I need to make a big doily and so i decided to add crochet to it. If I had to tat the whole thing I'd take ages and this project would be hibernating in my WIP bundle.
The centre is all shuttle tatted and the rest is done in crochet. The table topper measures almost 40 inches in diameter.

Tissue covers
On another new craze, tissue covers! This is ofcourse, own design and once again worked on a whim. It was fun to work this as a crochet along with my friend S. It's aways such fun to crochet along. Designing along is great fun too.These are a couple of such projects.

Better late than never

This lovely pattern was a giveaway by the very talented Nima at her post here. Her blog is very enjoyable and inspiring too.
There are many beautiful versions of this pincushion. Its inspiring to see how everyone works giving their own special touch. It is fast pattern and was done in a couple of hours but it took time to get the fibre fill for stuffing ( I live in the out skirts ). But here we are finally - a bit late but here anyway.
This is the very first crocheted pincushion I made. Wonder why I never got around to making pincushions even though I find them so utterly cute and I use them like crazy. I use my one and only pincushion which was crocheted by a friend and gifted to me.

'Give Away' alert !
A heads up to my friends here. Pammy Sue is hosting a lovely give away at her BLOG.
It's a nice blog and I quite enjoy it. Some yummy food talk as well and recipes too.

Bag it 5 ! SILVER BAG


Yet another bag ! I know , I know . it seems like I have a fixation for bags. It's true that I do. I seem to be making loads of bags big and small. More to come when blogger is friendlier. Right now the pictures are being posted like they are drunk!!! Seriously, I'm frustrated almost beyond the limit. but I will blog:).

ETA : Yay ! Finally the picture showed up okay.

Tissue box covers

Now these are the kind of things that I actually use and feel the need for. Somehow a tissue box cover looks so bland, right ? Okay, maybe not those with pretty designs on them but seriously how many of those do we get to see? I like the way it gives a personal touch to anyplace.
Here are two of my latest designs. I'd love to hear your opinions on these. I'm working on more and would appreciate any input or suggestions for my future designs. Say, what do you look for in a tissue box cover?
I gotta tell you this , right now my son and dh are giving me odd looks for asking this question. Boys!!!

Appliques Frenzy !
It was a craze.....making appliques, most of it was flowers. And now it's time for flowers so here are mine:









Appliques are my favourites because they can be as versatile as you like. You can use them to pretty up almost anything! I used so many to make these little girl clips.







It was fun working with these little flowers and having instant gratification projects.

My bad!

I can remember starting my posts with apologies more often than I'd like to keep count of. Looks like it's become a very common feature here - probably more common than the posts themselves.
So this time I just want to say that even though I'd love to keep this blog going and be regular here too, life more than often gets in the way. Not that I'm complaining , I've been having some really wonderful times and things happening around me. It's just that these things leave very little time for blogging. I really do respect and appreciate those of you bloggers who manage to handle it all so well. As for me , I'm still juggling various roles and duties and fun times. And a special thank you for those of you who still have the patience with me check out here from time to time.

Waves candle holder
A votive candle holder with a ruffled doily base. Yes,this is my own pattern too. But then again I cannot take much credit for it as it is not really all that original an idea. I used a ruffled edging to a simple doily and and made a cover for the votive candle holder addind beads to the edging. All in all, I'm happy with the result but I don't think I'll make many of these. The ruffled edging was just a bit tedious. Maybe next time I'll make it a little simpler .....well, it's always a learning experience !
So here it is :



I'd love to hear your views on it. Please do comment and suggest improvements too. I'm looking forward to improve on this project.

Sunshine Baby Halter
There is always an attraction towards the baby clothes! And halter tops for the little ones are probably the cutest things ever besides the baby sandals. This little set is another such inspiration.




Another Baby Halter

It's my own design and was very easy to make. I have few more ideas floating around but haven't found their way to the hooks yet. Hopefully, someday, I'll turn up a whole new baby collection!

Beach Babe

A wee halter top and matching head scarf for a little beach babe. Out here it's still quite nice to spend a day at the beach- yes still warm enough outside!!!


And then there is more - flip flops for the pretty little feet as well.

Bag it - 3

Another bag to show off. This time of course it's based on the ever popular "Fat Bottom Bag". Ofcourse since the required yarn is not available out here I had to make some modifications to the pattern in order to get the size and depth that I wanted. I used some purse yarn from India and I'm very happy with this yarn. The picture does no justice to bag at all. In person it is very delightful and eye catching.



The toughest part about this bag is perhaps the lining. I had heard almost everyone complain about the difficulty of lining this bag. But the magic solution was provided by a very talented online friend KEL in her post here.
Thank you, Kel, for your very ,very helpful tutorial. It made the job extremely easy.

Bag it! - 2
Is it just me are all women bag crazy? It's been a bag crazy time for me....either buying one or making one! My son call it 'the bag fever'. Seriously, I wonder if there is such a thing.
Sometime back , in one of the crochet groups we had a little 'fun' contest. We were given a free online square pattern and asked to design something, anything but we had to use this square pattern in our design. This is what I came up with. I call it the Inspiration bag.




This is one my own designs and this bag has given me a lot of inspiration to design various bags - hence the name. I'm still working on most of them. More big and small bags in the works:)

Crochet Cradle Bag





Sometimes you just have to make something just because it so cute, you can't resist.Well, that was the case when I saw all the cute little cradle bags all over the cyberspace. I was inspired by the bags here and here.I had to make one ....so I made three ! Just that each one was claimed almost off the hook. This is the only one that spent a short time with me before it was too claimed by a friends little girl.
I'll make a few more of these , I just know it. I love how the little girls get all excited to get them- they make great gifts!

BAG IT !

Haekelbeutel Bag
Not a recent FO but long overdue pictures of the famous Haekelbeutel pattern. So here it is all done and lined - ready to go !

That's my Little Beach Babe !








ETA: Wondering why there are more than one post in a day ? Yup, gotta make up for lots of lost time. I've been a bad blogger :(. But for those of you who have not given on me and still been visiting me here I have a lot to make up for! Thank you for being so supportive.



I had made a scarf for a friend a while back and had fallen in love with the yarn. This halter was made with the leftover yarn. When I saw it I knew I had to make a little something with it for my niece and what better than a halter for the summers out here? the best part was there was still some more left over which was just right for the head scarf and ties for her little flip flops. This was one of those quick projects which I had managed to finish during a 2 hours drive from Abu Dhabi to Dubai.

Broomstick Lace
Learning new techniques or old ones actually , but which are new to me. Some of my dear crochet friends are afraid of losing me to knitting , so this post is specially for them. (This and the next few posts too.)I have been crocheting away non- stop. Especially more since I"ve started knitting. Whenever I have problems in my knitting and get a low morale crochet comes to my rescue. I find peace and solace in old familiar territory. Like coming home.






I enjoyed this technique and I am looking forward to doing a few more projects in this method. Maybe a baby afghan.....lets see. As usual I did not have the tools required and improvising has become a necessity. This time I used my sons Jumbo pencil. I made a smilar scarf earlier too when I was learning the stitch but that was way too uneven and amateur. I'm happy with this one.

Is this lace I'm knitting ????




Yay ! Finally managed to knit lace. My very first lace knitting .....I'm so thrilled. This was a project which was a through and through learning experience for me. Now ofcourse for those of you who are accomplished and pro at knitting his would seem like a joke. But this one had me frogging constantly at the lace part. No matter how hard I tried I messed it up. Something, somewhere always went wrong and mostly it was the counting. I've never had such a complex before.
Anyways, persistence pays and I kept trying, hoping , frogging on and on. Finally , I think even God felt bad for me ..lol! I was at this Book shop and I came across a little packet with a row counter. I had never seen one but I thought maybe it would help. And believe me it did. Once I slid it on my knitting needle and started working on my lace it was a breeze! Not once did I have to frog it out and I didn't even use a lifeline.
Most important of all , I lost the fear of knitting lace- I'm on my next lace knit project.
I learnt how to use circular needles- even though the pattern calls for straight needles , I had to use circs because thats the one that worked best for the yarn.
I learned to seam the knitted sleeves- which I was not very good at .
I learn't that persistence pays off.

So here it is my first lace knit project : Elizabeth Zimmerman's February baby sweater.

My first ever knit baby sweater ( part 2)
Remember a while back I was talking about my first knit baby sweater in this post? Well and then in this other post I showed pictures from the book ? Well, for those who have not yet lost their patience with me , I finally have the picture of the sweater I knit.




The rolling edges was a problem with the stockinette stitch and yes the crocheted edge solved the problem. So the finshed version is here.


This sweater was esy and fast enough to make but the part that got me stumped was seaming the different pieces together and the rolling did not help! But well, I'm glad I have my knit sweater done and out of the way. Now to tackle other projets on my list. Did I mention that I'm leaning toward lace knitting? I know it's crazy but I love the look of it and who knows how long a knit lace projects will take. I'll take me forever to get it done .....But I'll brave it anyways.