Crafts, leisure and happiness

I have a 2 yr old and only last week did I learn about the Amazon Mom membership program. It is a really cool program and I'm really bummed that I learnt of this only now when I'm about to start toilet training him! Once you sign up for this program you are automatically enrolled into Amazon Prime (free 2 day shipping) for the first 3 months and then for every $25 you spend in the Amazon Baby store you get an additional free month. You also get a whopping 30% discount on diapers if you sign up for Subscribe and Save!  This is another cool program where you can schedule regular deliveries of almost anything, like diapers and wipes etc. And best of all both these programs are free and you can cancel your subscription to Subscribe and Save anytime! Read the FAQs, it just gets better and better. I'd thought that Amazon did not have the best deal in diapers and had avoided buying from there. But with this subscribe and save it is by far the best deal I know of anywhere and no ...

It's WIPW 6  but it's only Wednesday 2 for me. I missed last week's WIPW because I had to stop knitting and typing the last few days to give my hands a little rest. Nothing serious just repetitive stress. So here is my work in progress this week. This is a long overdue bolero for my friend's daughter, it's the "Little Flirt" by Sublime. It's a really quick knit for quick knitters. But a slow knitter that I am, and the 10 day break that I took, I've only come so far since I cast on 2 weeks ago. That's the back and the left front done and the right front is on the needle. The edges are rolled up so the shaping for the sleeves and neck are not visible. Still have a border to add all around, then done. Hoping to finish tonight if DH and DS are kept busy. My scarf is coming along fine too. I took some not so great pictures of it again and decided not to upload them. I will upload pictures of the final blocked version. In any case it's just lo...

Here are pictures of some more of my finished objects. The other offset wraplan I was making is finally done. It's the 3-6 month size, and with fewer buttons, better ribbing, better button / hole plackets, a better finish and definitely better yarn than the acrylic one that I used for the first wraplan (Stripy) . A dishcloth with a lace pattern made using lion brand cotton ease (worsted weight cotton). This is the Travelling Vines Dishcloth. Not sure I can use it as a dishcloth, maybe a pot holder or something. I had a hard time with this seemingly simple pattern. I must've ripped the first few pattern rows at least 3 times before I got it right. The pattern is beautiful for a scarf or shawl don't you think?

Here are pictures of my recently finished raglan sweater. I love the pattern . It's very easy and goes really fast and I started this on my trip to India with yarn from India. I think the number of buttons on this makes it look cute. But from my experience I realize now that the fewer the buttons on baby clothes the easier it is to dress them. I made it for my friend's little one. I hope he's not as wriggly as my son used to be when putting on his clothes. Ok pattern notes Yarn : Acrylic yarn from one of those little yarn stores off of Commercial St, Bangalore Needles : Size 4 circular, dpns for sleeves, straight needles for the button plackets. Size made: 3-6 months Difficulty: easy Modifications from original pattern: Changed the ribbing, button and button hole plackets to k1, p1 because with the black yarn the original pattern did not look good. I picked up the exact number of stitches the pattern called for, for the plackets and that ended up causing a small ruffle ...

Today, it's 1 yr and a few days since my son has been going to a day care and he, my husband and me have come a long way since then. We're planning to move him to a different day care and we were trying to list out everything we wanted in a different day care. And it got us thinking about a lot of things. We have learnt a lot of the American ways of bringing up a child and there are so many things we just refuse to learn. And I was trying to think and logically reason out why we refuse to learn certain things. In India we coddle our children for many many years and sometimes forever. It's just our culture to do everything for our child and love them and give give give to them. Out here (in the western world) the focus from the time the baby is born is on making them independent. We realized, being independent and being attached are not really mutually exclusive of each other. If a child is attached to his parents, it does not mean he's not going to grow up to be indepen...

Kimono sweater Originally uploaded by vin E This little sweater was inspired by a pattern I found on the berroco site. Here's the pattern. Made a few modifications to fit Bubba, looks like its going to be too big for him right now. He seems to like it though. When I tried it on him, the first thing he did was spit up on it.

Babette blanket made by Mom Originally uploaded by vin E Babette blanket made by Mom. She made it for my soon to arrive baby. I'm inspired to make one too now. This one is made from yarn bought in Bangalore, India. Looks like some mix of cotton and wool, not sure though. Turned out really soft and warm and huge - 42" X 40" !! Will last my baby a long time! Henceforth this blanket shall be called - "The Ajji Blanket". Click on the pic for more photos on my flickr page.

Here's what Kusuma is upto these days. Churning out beautiful things like a factory. This birdie is just so adorable I had to tell the world! She just sent me the link with the pattern to add to this blog. So here it is if you want to make a birdie. crocheted-bird Originally uploaded by kusumaghoshdastidar

Yellow pepper beanie finished Originally uploaded by vin E I picked this pattern from knitchicks . I went to Michael's looking for an appropriate red yarn for this. Could not find one that I liked. So here's a Yellow Pepper beanie instead of a strawberry or tomato beanie. I hope it fits my soon to arrive little one. Here's what I used Needles : US size 6 DPNs all the way. Yarn : Swish DK from knitpicks , colors Pale Lemon and Asparagus. Used half of the Pale Lemon 50 gms ball and maybe a quarter of the Asparagus 50 gms ball. Finished size: The circumference is 14".

Today I'm about to start looking for a car seat for the new arrival. And these are the questions I hope are answered during my research How should I choose one? What should I look for? Turns out there are tons of resources online to decide how to choose one. Most of them echo the same ideas. Car seats should be easy to install and use, there should be a 5 point restraint system, should be comfortable, the baby's head should be well supported, they should be washable. I liked the baby center articles on car seats. Here's one of them. There are two kinds of car seats that are suitable for infants - Infant Car Seats and Convertible Car Seats . Baby center has detailed information on each of these as well. I also liked the website of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). NHTSA has used a five star rating system to rate ease of use of certain car seats. This has made short listing really easy for me. Check this out. Which ones are safest? There are so ...

I've always been interested in craft work, probably because my mom would enroll me in different courses during summers. I never had the time or the resources earlier to pursue this interest until I moved to the US and found I had a lot of weekends and evenings on my hands. So I started to knit. This post is for anyone who has always wanted to knit and did not know how to go about starting it. This is what I did and I hope it helps Pick your project. Pick an easy or intermediate project Pick one where the size of the finished project need not be accurate for it to be usable. For instance a sweater or cardigan may not be a good idea, but a blanket or scarf or bib might be. Pick your project from one of the many available projects online. I picked my project from http://www.michaels.com/ . This was a baby blanket and it involved knitting the same pattern over and over again. Click here for instructions . Pick something that does not involve more than one color. Joining new colored yar...