Origami and a Crochet Poem!! :)

Hello dear friends,

I am happy to share this post about a guarded treasure in our home . This treasure is owned by the gem of my family - my daughter, Anshita ! She is nine years old and loves to do Origami , the art of paper folding and enjoys writing poems .

On one fine day, she just flipped through the pages of one of my crochet books and to my surprise, wrote a poem for me :) , that too on Crochet !! . She is a very good writer and her class teacher admires her a lot !

I have typed her poem , unedited , at the end of this post. Please do read ; I am sure you will enjoy reading it as much as I did :) 

Origami paper top and it spins too !



Origami books and Origami bookshelf

Origami Caterpillars, are they going to eat the entire Origami Christmas tree ?

A cute little Origami frock for her !

An Origami tuxedo for him !

Origami shirts, if the Tuxedo doesn't fit him !

A Crochet Poem for my Mamma !

 

 

Do you know the stitch called loop,

With which you can make an amigurumi troop?

Do you know the shells,

Which bring you under spells?

Just look into the world,

Of stitches uncurled!

 

Bobbles and beads,

There’s more to that you’ll need.

“P” is the short form for picot,

The short form for yarn over is “YO”.

Do you know hairpin?

It’s a needle, not a pin!

 

Do you know how to make 3D flowers,

Which have magical powers?

Then there is a slip knot,

That you can make while sleeping on a cot!

 

May I ask you about stripes?

That I can do with a few needle swipes!

 

So you will now agree,

That crochet is the toughest art you ever can see!

 

                                                                                                -- by Anshita

 

I am proud of my daughter and I love her very much! :)
Thank you for your time for reading it ! I will convey your comments, if any, to her .

With all blessings to her :) and blessings for the gems in your family too :)

Happy blogging !

Warm regards ,
Preeti .

 

Weekend Stash, Fabrics and Yarns!

Hello dear friends!!

Hope you all enjoyed your weekend . Thank you all for visiting my blog and writing those encouraging words which helps me a lot to look forward in the world of needlecraft without looking back at the career I left behind !  I must say I have found great admirers and sharers in all of you ! :) And there are lots of ideas in every blog to learn from.

I did some unusual shopping this weekend . I always yearn for making quilts and beautiful patchwork that I see on many eye-catchy blogs . But making quilts is a farfetched dream for me . Another reason is that, here in Hyderabad, the winters are mild so we do not use quilts. But I can make other things ! I had earlier made a bed sheet with patchwork some 10 years back, but after that I had been just warming my eyes on various needlework magazines and blogs :)

So, this time I decided to buy some cotton fabric pieces . Please suggest me a beginner’s tutorial for patchwork . For now, I have to manage with available tools that I own – needle, thread, fabric and scissors:) I do not have self-healing mat or a cutter .

Also, last weekend I fetched my Anchor knitting cotton order from shop . We do not get that in any of craft shops here . So I am supposed to order, that too, full boxes! :( Few more light colours are pending. Enough for me to survive for more than a year! :)

I am glad to share with you all . Keep writing and have a Happy week ahead!

Preeti :)
 

Paramecium Floral Crochet !

Paramecium Floral Crochet ? It’s a weird name right?

Well, that’s what my daughter said when she saw the oval shaped doily that it looks like Paramecium belonging to unicellular ciliate protozoa group !!! :)

It took me back to my schooldays when we drew diagrams in Biology about Amoeba and Paramecium. Anyways, I added that name as well in the title.

This oval doily is made of Size 20 Anchor mercer crochet cotton and measures 12 inches wide and 19 inches long . I took the pattern from a crochet book ‘Old time crochet made easy’ by House of White Birches publication. It is not exactly an oval shape, the centre border bulges out on both sides. I have not streched it . Need to do some washing and blocking . Vikki has send me the instructions for the same.

WIP – iPad cover

My new project is a cover for my iPad . I am using Anchor knitting cotton for the first time . Hope it turns out well . No particular design, just a wavy chevron stitch.

The horse painting in the background was done by my daughter; it was a paint-by-number kit, but she did it very sincerely and patiently:)

Hope you liked my work!

And, I also hope this Paramecium post title does attract crocheters to my blog rather than scientists!!:)

Have a nice day!!
Preeti.




 

Embroidered fabric greeting card!

This is one of the experimenting projects of mine done some 8 years back .  A gift for my hubby, Raj, on his Birthday - An embroidered fabric greeting card with an envelope too!

Let’s open it :)

 

 

 

It is mostly done with closed herringbone stitch including the text . To give a glittery effect, I enhanced it with mirror work .  For base, I chose red coloured fabric which is symbolic to love .  Since lot of effort has gone into making, I am going to treasure this for lifetime .  But, I feel I can do much cleaner embroidery now than I did on this .

 

 

 

 



It took me 4 months to complete the card . It ideally should have taken not more than 3 weeks time . Why I took it so long was because I embroidered this when my daughter was 6 months old . She used to doze off for 30 min after every 2-3 hrs of energetic crawling and disarranging my kitchen cabinets which were at her reach .  It was a secretly done project and I was confident about it as my daughter dutifully kept it hush-hush from her Dad :). She tried to tell him something by showing him bits and pieces of leftover threads, but he could not trace the treasure as the sight of threads scattered around was not new to him .

I could not go out and purchase the much needed materials as there was no one to look after my daughter . I had to do with whatever available at home .  Some part of the card has now got an imprint of crayons on top, how and when, no idea . I cannot wash this card as there is a drawing sheet encased in the fabric to give it a minimal flexibility and support . But, in all, it looked attractive to him and he was happy to have this unique gift:))

Hope you liked it :)

Looking forward to a blog-full week ahead!

 

Enjoy!
Preeti

 

 

 



 

Dainty Mini Doilies :)

From squares to doilies and from doilies to squares, I just keep on crocheting these .  Although I have made a couple of crochet bags and small purses but usually I get hooked to squares and doilies. Perhaps, the sight of instant project completion is bliss. So I keep on making those without bothering about what to do with those pieces. 

These two mini doilies were made from the book -- 99 little doilies-- by Leisure Arts.


Doily # 1   OF   99 Little doilies

 

Doily # 2   OF   99 Little doilies

 

The book contains a variety of crochet designs and shapes for little doilies. All the pictures in the book are randomly placed in the middle pages with doily number on it. The instructions are in the linear order number and can be followed based on the doily number which you select. In a way it is easy to select your design from pictures at one place rather than flipping through all the pages to choose a particular one.

Size will vary depending upon the thickness of Yarn you use. With a hook size of 1.65 mm and a crochet thread size of 10, most of the doilies range from 5 to 8 inches in diameters. I have also added few snaps from the book under the tab Inspirations.

I am planning to make all 99 of them ! Will keep updated.  Untill then,

Happy Crocheting!!

Preeti.



 

Maharani ki Jai ho! Stitch Magic !

Maharani ki Jai ho! Stitch Magic !

Here comes one of the treasured outfits of my precious little Maharani.

I stitched this full length Princess frock/gown for my daughter five years back when she was four. It took me four months to complete as I worked on it only on weekends. I wanted to complete it on her 4th birthday, but missed by a month:(

There are 2 reasons why I treasure this: One, I made this when I was a full-time professional working on it in bits and pieces on weekends; the other, I did not own a sewing machine at that time so the entire dress is hand sewn by me :)

It is made of pink satin fabric with a similar shade colored net fabric on the skirt. The flowers are made of same fabric. I glued sequins on the top part and on the net fabric. Some of the sequins have come out now as it might have gone through 10-15 hand washes. I just rubbed the pink fabric glitter with my fingers at random places on the net to give it a sparkling effect. Not that much visible in photo but it used to glitter when she moved around:))

And do you know the spread or circumference of the skirt? A whopping 3.5 meters! Quite heavy for a four-year-old, right? But the satin was of fine quality and light weight so it wasn’t that heavy for her. In fact with this dress, she managed to play on the slides too in a park adjacent to a marriage function hall!

Hope you enjoyed the royal treat!

Warm regards,
Preeti.

Crochet Squares on fire !

Crochet Squares on fire !

Recently I have become a crochet square crazy. I wanted to make a blanket for my daughter who said yes but denied to use it as we rarely need blankets in Hyderabad even in winters. I somehow emotionally blackmailed my husband to share a colourful blanket which he was almost ready but later suceeded in convincing me that no one is going to look your masterpiece if it is lying around in bedroom. So I gave up the idea and concentrated on making cushion covers with those squares.

I am suppose to make 9 squares for each cushion, that amounts to 45squares  for 5 of them. I work with sport weight yarn.

I made the above spiral square taking reference from one of the patterns provided in a free ebook at
http://www.crochetme.com/content/Free-eBooks.aspx. You have to work 3 rows together alternating one by one.

Earlier I knew only a little of crochet stitches. I made the other squares from the book '50 fabulous crochet squares' by Leisure arts.

A standard granny square which was quite easy so I decided to use this as an alternating square in my cushion cover.

 

 

 

 

Assembling .... I wanted a thick strip to join them and did not want to create borders on all squares. That could have been extra work . I devised a new way.

 

 

 

A clean joining finally. I will share the technique I used in joining these squares in my next post.  If possible, pattern too.

 

All the photos for my blog are taken by my nine-year-old daughter. I am the worst photographer in my family. The chocolates that were deliberately spilled out of the box, never went inside :)

 

For more pictures, please view My Gallery .

 

Enjoy!

Preeti

 





 

Great mind at work Yoo Hoo!

Knock, knock...Whoo's there?

My owlet computer cover project was completed few months back.

I like embroidering the cute owlets. This one was a free hand drawing which I did on monitor cover and I just randomly scribbled 'Touch me Not' for the keyboard cover.

 

 

 

 

The embroidery stitches I used are the simple ones. Most of them are in chain and stem stitch. The leaves of the tree are in closed fishbone stitch. The owlet feathers are done in satin stitch.

 

 

 

 

I used 6 strands to give the Braids effect.

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

Well the owlet seems to be happy since then, it hoots on all through the night !

 

Please drop in your comments if you liked it. I need those badly to promote my new blog.

 

Hoot Hoot Hoot, let the comments boot boot boot :)

 

and... for that...

 

I am Up, the whole night !

Preeti :)