Crafts, leisure and happiness

I know I haven't blogged in a long while, that's because I've been busy. Busy setting up my online store - shh.. (how is shh spelt, did you know there is no such word in the dictionary, hmm.. (now this word is in the dictionary)). About the store, well it's real fun setting it up all by myself putting many open source softwares together. I hope I enjoy running the store as much as I like setting it up. Maybe I should just make a business of setting up online stores. Apart from the store, I've been busy knitting. Here's what I've created in the last few months. And look to this right side panel -> for my current works in progress. A hat for the lil dude A market bag , I love this bag. It was fun to crochet it and I love how it's assembled. It's HUGE and very useful. This cardi . Not such a good picture, but a great cardi. The color is more beautiful than it appears here. This tank for my neighbor's lil girl. I made a total of...

I can't believe I stayed away from my blog for so long! Well here I am, back in the new year. With a published article  on Yahoo Associated Content to my name (waving and bowing to applause),  lots of FOs (Finished Objects you pervert) and refreshed after a nice time with family, especially with my little one. His day care was closed for around 10 days and I had the best time with him. I'm proud to say he was a golden boy in terms of his behavior and we had a rollicking time together. We did many little and big things together but that's a whole other post. Here are some of the FOs, I don't have pictures of all of them. A vest for a newborn on the way. It's " Pebble " on Ravelry. Sweaters for Bubba. The one below is a test knit. Will give more details once the designer publishes the pattern. Here's a really bad picture of the finished scarf being blocked. Will upload some pictures of the scarf being modeled. Remember  Tamy's WI...

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...

Made this little hat for my little one who loved it the first day. He wore it and wanted to check himself out in the mirror a million times. I was so elated then because he usually hates hats, but now that I think about it I realize it was all part of his usual bed time dawdling. He refuses to wear it now. In any case it was a fun and an especially quick knit. Come fall and winter, I hope to get the dude to wear it. Pattern details: Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver Solids colors Buff and Cafe. Needles: US 8, 16"circular, and set of 5 DPNs Pattern: Measured the little dude's head circumference with some difficulty and cast on based on that. For my gauge it came to 70 sts, and came up with the fair isle pattern as I went. It is a repetition of 7 stitches. Worked even for around 4.5 inches. Placed markers every 10 stitches and decreased a stitch before the marker every row and then bound off and added a pom pom. Notes: Since I was knitting in the round, there was a jog at the join/sea...

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 ...

Ungoo Originally uploaded by vin E Amigurumi is a word derived from the japanese words Ami meaning knitted or crocheted and Nuigurumi stuffed doll. Worked entirely in spirals it was a fun and quick project to work on. I initially made it as a gift for one of my friends who recently had a baby and knowing babies it probably is not such a good idea letting them chew on acrylic yarn so decided against it. To make it interesting to a baby I converted it into a rattle by inserting a small tin box with tiny jingle bells in it and it sounds great. I got this pattern on the Lion brand website and intend to make a whole jungle. Let's see.

Cool huh? Took me forever to finish it though. Men's sweaters can be quite monotonous to knit. The sweater I knitted Originally uploaded by vin E Yarn: Paton's Merino Wool Pattern: Inspired (made quite a few modifications) by the pattern on the Berroco patterns site. Here's the link. Doesn't look quite so much like the one on the Berroco site. The sleeves of my sweater are shorter and the whole sweater should have had a closer fit. Nevertheless doesn't look too bad on the whole.

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.

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".

Saw this cool pattern on www.knitty.com . Actually I think I liked the picture more than anything and this flickr page full of Sheldons and decided I MUST make one. And so went and bought all the needles I needed to and used some yarn that I had with me. So far this is how he looks. Will keep updating this post Pieces of Sheldon's shell. To be put together Originally uploaded by vin E Sheldon's attachment piece close up Originally uploaded by vin E Sheldon's shell Originally uploaded by vin E Here's how far he's come along - Shell all done. Body left. Shell all done Originally uploaded by vin E Sheldon's shell upside down. Originally uploaded by vin E Sheldon's body - blind and limbless!! Sheldon's body Originally uploaded by vin E Blind Limbless Sheldon Originally uploaded by vin E Sheldon All DONE!!! Check out my flickr page for Sheldon modeling some more. Shell-less Sheldon Originally uploaded by vin E Sheldon modelling Originally uploaded by...

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...