Stir- fry Squids
On a cooking spree these days besides the bag fever. This is a recipe I whipped up after having a stir fry sqid dish at a restaurant recently. It was well received and praised to no end but I think it will not be a regular dish ....too much of coconut and butter !!! And I have to watch my weight , health , nutrition ....etc.

Squid marinated in {salt, soy sauce, ginger-garlic paste, vinegar, red chilly powder} and stir-fried in butter / olive oil - your choice. Keep aside.



The grated coconut and finely diced onion being well roasted with a little butter, green chilly and curry leaves in a kadhai.



Then added the squids into the above mixture and stirred around for a while( abt 10 mins) ....no water to be added. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.




And Voila ! Here you go ...easy-peasy yummy treat all ready !



It's a quick and easy recipe ...as you can see I'm no good at writing recipes. I just whipped up this one and had to share.

And More....
Told you these are addictive! Just a couple of more book covers. I've added a matching pansy bookmark to the blue and yellow one. These make such cute little gifts.I was wondering if my son will approve of these as gifts for his teachers....he can be very choosy for an 8 year old!






I'm going to make some more of these ...so many colours and ideas. I love these small and quick projects.

Bag it- 10


In the meanwhile , the bag making continues. This is one big bag that can fit way too many things- even my 14" laptop along with the usual bag stuff. The best part is that it happens to be pretty light considering the size of it.
As for the other crafts , I'm working on loads of flowers. Will post pictures soon.

Crocheted Book cover



Taking a break from big projects that I'm working on right now. These book covers are quick and easy to make. Just whipped them up with any colours and designs and it's impossible to stop at just one. There are two more of these on my hooks right now.
I'm also trying to polish my sewing skills which at the moment are probably close to nil. I can manage to sew in neat straight lines so far. Lets see how much I learn of this but I'd love to try. I'm so inspired by all the beautiful sewing projects made by my friends online.

Bag it - 9 ! Lacy Flower Bag

Like I was saying the last time , more and more bags are turning out by my hooks!I'm crocheting loads of other stuff too but the bags get done before anything else! I have been crocheting for as long as I can remember and the dear hubby has accepted the hook as a natural extension to my arm ( that's what he calls it).





This bag has been on my ever growing ' to make ' list for a long time now. With all the various distractions it always got side lined and the prospect of weaving in so many ends was terrifying. Well finally, I mustered the guts and plunged in. Yes there are a whole lot of ends to weave in and that part is no fun.It was so tiresome that I needed a little change - I thought a little matching coin bag would go so well with it.
I've been trying around other crafts too too much inspiration out there not to give a try to the various crafts. The funniest reaction was from the hubbs, when he saw me ot crocheting for 2-3 days , he was shocked and thought I was giving up crochet to pursue other interests....he actually tried to convince me that crochet and I had a strange unbreakable bond. My son wanted to ry out the new stuff with me but soon got bored of it all- except for the paper quilling - he loved that! We have a few paper quilling projects going on too and a little sewing as well....So I guess I'm turning out to be a multi-crafter after all. I've always found this word strangely fascinating....

Bag it 8 ! Shimmering Lilac Elegance



Another evening bag off my hooks. I love the look of this bag and it is big enough to carry all the girly essentials, I think. I hope to display it during the craft fair next month.
The thing I like about this bag is that it is very verstaile. It would go with most black outfits and it would looks great with Abaya as well. I'm still in the bag mode ...seems like it is an obsession. Does this happen to you ....like you try to sleep and all these wonderful bag ideas and designs keep you wide awake and excited? This is like an every night story for days now ....
But I'm making different things as well. I'll blog about it soon.

Other crafts - QUILLING.

*** Warning : Picture heavy post ***

I had long forgotten the beautiful art of paper quilling. Luckily I met this very talented lady, Amna Al Fardh , who was promoting this craft. Looking at her gorgeous works I was absolutely hooked on.
I was so inspired with her beautiful projects that I just had to learn this once more.I had tried it sometime back but because we do not get the supplies locally and lack of beautiful coloured paper discouraged me from pursuing this elegant craft.
These are some of my very first attempts. Nothing great yet, but I enjoyed making these pieces. When I was surfing online I came across such wonderful resources , tutorials and projects. It would be a crime not to try it out.
This Quilled Snowflake tutorial was very helpful. This is my first attempt at quilling.



And some of the other things I've been playing around with. Maybe I'll use this on my son's scrap book.













And then finally this poppy flower. This was my second quilling project. I found this amazing tutorial by Inna Dorman ,which was very helpful. She has some amazing creations in her site- truly talented. My ' to make ' list is growing by the minute.
I just love poppy flowers ...they are my favourite flowers to make even though I've never seen a real one all my life! Now Roses are what I get to see most and I'm not much of a rose person ..... Find them pretty but not really fond of the smell.
Anyways, here is it is ! I have to seriously take some better pictures.

Bag it - 7 Shimmering Beige
Looks like lately I've been working on so many bags. It's like every night I get haunted by ideas for bags , designs, patterns, colours etc. Or else, how to improve a particular style or pattern. Seriously, I have another bag to show in this post.





This one is very similar to the Silver Bag I had made sometime back with just a few modifications and a shoulder strap added. And ofcourse the rose with gold trim added for the bling factor !

Bag it - 6 Shimmering Black Elegance

Hello after a short break. Yes, I'm back from my 'little ' vacation. It seems more like a dream. Anyways, still settling down into normal routine and finding it so boring.
And ofcourse catching up with various wips and different crafts. I'm having a good time learning new stuff too.
Here is the latest FO to show off!





I guess one of the most common accessory with every girl is a black bag. Yes , I have yet another bag to show :). What can I say ....it's a crazy bag mode. It looks like all I'm doing id making bags. There are two more going on at the moment ....will post when done.But for now lets focus on this one.
It's done in shimmering black and gold thread. I like the look of the crocheted fabric. This bag is surely much better to look at in person than in these pictures. I know my photography skills are way off from any decent level but in this case I think it's the black that makes it difficult to capture a good picture. I've always found it difficult to get any decent picture of my projects in black.
I'm thinking of more stuff in this thread and combo. Loads of ideas but lets see what materializes.

Granny the great








Yes,'The Granny Square' strikes again. It is often the simplest patterns that make the look of really pretty things. I fell in love with the little granny pouches I saw online and couldn't resist making some myself. I love the fact that these are so simple and yet very functional. They work great as business card holders, jewellery pouches, even little goody bags.

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!