Crafts, leisure and happiness

A new giveaway on my store blog . You could win these stitch markers OR a coupon for 20%off from my store. The giveaway ends Feb 29, 2012. Details on the Amber Threads blog here .

A new giveaway on my store blog  here . Giving away a skein of lovely banana silk yarn in a color of your choice. Here are some pictures. Detail on my store blog! Happy crafting!

I've been living in the USA for a while now and like most NRIs I miss Namma Bengaluru a lot. Notice I did not say "home". I don't do that anymore. For now USA is my home where I have my space, my life and I feel most at-home at my home here. But there is that eternal longing to return. There's also that nostalgia when I hear a particular song or eat a particular food but those are just momentary and they pass. I'm pretty sure though, that if I move and make my home in Bengaluru, I will feel most at-home there. I do make it a point to visit Bengaluru often and after the initial couple of days of just-returned-from-the-states attitude (which I'm pretty sure annoys my sister), I begin to notice how things ARE getting better there. The roads are not as clogged, the people are driving better, there is just a little bit more greenery than the previous visit and the roads are cleaner. I saw more sensitivity among people driving. The "Me first" attitud...

A new giveaway on the Amber Threads blog . I'm giving away a coupon for a discount of 15% on your entire purchase from my store. Plus free shipping this entire month. So hurry and check out how to enter  here !

I'm hosting a giveaway on my Amber Threads blog. I'm giving away two gorgeous skeins of Duke Silk Yarn. Here are the details. And here's a pic of the yarn I'm giving away. 10 days to go!

I'm really excited to share that my online yarn store is now open! Check out http://amberthreads.etsy.com ! Also check out my other blog http://blog.amberthreads.com for generous giveaways every month and lots of yarny info. Here are pictures of some of the yarn I have in my store!

I went to the local craft supplies shop and was casually browsing the bead aisles. Well, I always wanted to take up beading as another hobby (in addition to spinning, dyeing and weaving), but I'm not a big jewelry wearer. So it was easy for me not to indulge. But I always browsed the beading aisles out of curiosity and the last time I saw these things called toggle clasps. And it occurred to me that these would make great snag free stitch markers. And that's when I caved in, and bought all the tools needed. Different kinds of pliers, head pins, wires, beads and toggle clasps. And here's the outcome. And while I was looking online for tips on using the various tools I came across  this tutorial  on making stitch markers. It's a nice step by step tutorial with great pictures. What d'ya know, my idea was not so original after all. Well the square stitch markers probably are. The stitch markers are lightweight and snag free. The square ones can fit up to US size 11 ne...

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...

The Maker Faire (for those who don't know) is exactly that. A fair where "Makers" showcase their work. There were makers of all kinds, crafters, artists, engineers, inventors. My favorite "Maked things" (as my son would probably have said) were the  amazing mechanical contraptions which seemed to have jumped out of movies. Unfortunately I could not capture them on my camera for one reason or another. Over all the Maker Faire was very overwhelming. I think it's a great way to get Makers together but the way the stalls were organized or the place or the crowd was just too overwhelming.  My other favorite was this Lego city, an entire city made of Lego blocks! I could have spent days just looking at all the details, I can't imagine how long it must've taken to build it.

The second article I submitted to Yahoo Contributor was published too! Its a step by step guide to learn knitting using free online resources. Comments on the article are welcome and will be appreciated.  

My first article was published on Yahoo! Contributor network . It's nothing great, just a simple article. I had already posted about this in a separate blog post, but turns out some of my friends missed it and they suggested I dedicate a post (albeit a small one) to this. So here it is.

I almost did not realize today was a Wednesday. I thought today was a Tuesday for some reason. Where did my Tuesday go or was it Monday that I missed? Hmm, anyway. Here are my WIPs for this week. I'm hoping to be done with the  Kaftan  tomorrow, sleeves to be added. I'm sort of getting bored of knitting kid stuff now. Or it might be because I'm knitting this Kaftan  with acrylic yarn. Nooooo I'm turning into a yarn snob! I thought that day will never come. I have this tweedy yarn from Tahki and decided to make a scarf out of it. I picked the Daisy Stitch from this book. This picture is just of a swatch. I'm still trying out different spacings between the daisies. Here's the picture of the Long Jacket . Not much progress as you can see. I'm not liking this acrylic yarn that my mom had bought for me a long time ago. I have so much of it, I HAVE to make something large.  And yeah finally the promised modeled scarf. Pretty right? Yeah the scarf too! I f...

Before I began to love knitting I was one of those people who at anytime had at least one book and more often than not around 3-4 books that they were currently reading. That's why my DH bought me a Kindle. And surprisingly ever since I've had the kindle (8 months now) I've bought and read only around 3-4 books and that's it. That's owing to a lot of reasons. 1. I quit my job around the same time I got my Kindle and I swear that has nothing to do with it, so I spent a lot of time at the library and most books I wanted, I borrowed from the library. 2. I quit my job around the same time I got my Kindle so I had a lot of time on my hands to knit. And I swear knitting also does not have anything to do with my quitting my job. So I knit a lot. 3. And since I spent a lot of time at the library and I love books and I love knitting, I looked for the knitting books section and needless to say I spent most of my time there. 4. Now since I'm in the habit of not BUYing boo...

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...

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 ...

I recently bought these walking shoes because I realized I enjoy taking a walk around the block and of course I knew it's a great way to burn off some calories. These shoes have a pocket into which I can place a chip that can talk to my iPhone and track my walks - miles, time, calories burned, pace, etc. I can even program my iPhone to play my fav music while tracking these walks. So I was inspired. The first day I walked with these shoes I found out I walk 1.89 miles in 35 mins and I'm not even tired.  So I figured, maybe I should have a goal. Until now my goal was just to get some exercise in. So I thought hmm how about walking/running a 5k race. So I started researching on what it takes to participate in a 5K run. All it takes is training and consistency. I think I'm up for it. Have to find a community / forum for encouragement and support probably. Anyone up for a run with me? First there is an 8 week program for beginners and then a 6 week training for the 5K . Ok,...

Not that I was out of town or anything. I was just away from my blog for quite some time now - 3 weeks since my last post. I did have a few things to blog about but let's just say I did not feel like it. What did I do then? I organized a birthday party for my DS he turned two recently. Here's the cake I'd ordered. Isn't it beautiful. I was heart broken cutting it. I'm almost done with the choo choo sweater. Just have to seam and weave in the millions of ends. That's been the case for the whole of last week. I finally started on finishing it today. Lazy lazy. Well not really. The last couple of days were spent on this really nice book that Tami suggested - The Hunger Games . Tami, I love it! I finished it in 2 days. I meant to buy it but then I found it at the local library so I grabbed it. I might have to buy the second book in the series - Catching Fire because I'm in a long line to borrow it at the library and I can't wait. I hope it's as good...

This morning's conversation with the lil dude. He turns two next month. Lil Dude: Sounds yike a choo choo (when he "heard" the light rail hooting in the distance. He could not see it) Me: Where is the choo choo? Lil Dude: It's eside a tunna (It's inside a tunnel) Me: Oh. Where is the tunnel? Lil Dude: It's behine a tee (It's behind a tree) Me: Where is the tree then? Lil Dude: Okay It's that time of the week again and I finally have something new to show. I've started the "Choo choo tain (train) sweater" that I've been wanting to make for him. Here's how far I've gotten. The second picture is of the motif and the different colors that will be going into this sweater. Most of the colors are for the train. I hadn't realized how slow color knitting can be, especially when you haven't practiced enough. But it is fun all the same. I also managed to finish the bolero last week. And I'm glad to say the rec...

Here is a link to the host of the Work In Progress Wednesday Meme . And here's this wednesday's WIP. I know I've been posting the same bolero and scarf, but I AM a slow knitter. I do have two other swatches on needles, one for Bubba's (DS) sweater and one for a KAL I'm on. But each of them just has a couple of rows on them so a picture will hardly show anything. So I'm saving those for next week. Here's the bolero. My excuses for the slowness - This is the first time I'm doing short rows, so I had to look at multiple videos online to learn it. It's such a cool technique. I had to use it for the high neck of the bolero.  I misinterpreted the pattern at one place and a fellow raveller had to come to the rescue.  My family thinks knitting is my hobby and should be done only in my free time! And they think doing the dishes, vacuuming and other such odd household chores and spending time with the hubby and kid etc should take a higher priority.  In ...