Flower Dream Catcher, Russian Doll and Fern's Flower on Birthday

Having +40C and above in day time, air feels like hot "milk" if you walk out, it is not possible for me to be without air conditioning and fans on, craving for juicy fruits and milk shakes - all that means that the Indian Summer has put its foot firmly in the city. I have a hope (a tiny one) that by the mid July the weather will get "better", however most probably it is going to be humid then, the monsoon season will be on its way.

Meanwhile I am getting more and more worried for all the things which need to be done in the house - cleaning, rearranging, refurbishing etc. I read somewhere not to try to get all done, not to stress and exhaust yourself - easy to say. When having a baby is no more just a "talk" but a reality you cannot help but keep on thinking how all is going to be. In order to divert that persistent thinking I devote some of my evenings to craft activities.

"Aunt Alexandra was hooking a rug and not watching us, but she was listening. She sat in her chair with her workbasket beside it, her rug spread across her lap.  Why ladies hooked woolen rugs on boiling nights never became clear to me".- a quote from Nelle Harper Lee's "To Kill a  Mockingbird". Okay, so I don't weave any blankets these hot days but on a "lighter" side. I remembered that many years ago I made a crochet wrist band with cross stitch floss which thought gave me another one "why not to use the cotton floss for something other than cross stitch again?". The inspiration for that "something" was also one broken plastic curtain ring. At first I did't know what I was going to do with the emerged flower but then... okay you know how the ideas are born - it turned out to be a flower dream catcher I made almost two weekends ago. I love it! The thread colors make me happy and the colored wooden beads which are actually embellishments from some scrunchy finally found their use. I blocked the flower and now it hangs above our heads on the wall.
           

But where is the Russian Doll? Here she is in her new custom frame, and I shall tell about the experience. 

It was done from a local shop which deals in making of frames for photos and pictures. It seemed natural to me to do the same for a cross stitch picture. My D went with me to the market, we chose a frame and I (fingers crossed) handed over the Russian doll to a shopkeeper. After three days he gave it back: it looked nice, my first ever hand made work under the glass but.. it was tilted! Obviously that the person who executed framing had no idea of how to actually do it. I regretted that I simply didn't customize a frame and didn't do the fitting myself. Well, now it cannot be undone and I like my Russian doll as she is, though slightly constricted.

Yesterday was my D's birthday. Yey! I made something special for him this year - Slavic vedic amulet called in Russian "obereg". The symbol itself is called "Fern's flower". It was my first such kind of cross stitch and I enjoyed creating it. I put it in a hand made frame, and we will be hanging it on the wall in our room so that he can see it every day and get charged with its energy.

I needed to decorate it with oak leaves and acorns and found a very cute cross stitch pattern which I altered a little. Now I really want to cross stitch oak leaves and acorns alone :) Maybe to add some forest berries too?

Have a happy weekend ahead, my dears! 

Indian Needlework Heritage and A Crochet Potholder

The weekend is nee... Actually for us it starts today evening itself, and since morning I have been thinking of what will I do when I come back home. Some crochet, some cross stitch I am working on at the moment? I have not decided yet and may be I'd simply lift my legs up and read a book. We were also planning few things for this coming up weekend but let us see which ones will get realized. My D suddenly said two-three days ago that he was getting anxious as my due date is approaching and we haven't got anything yet like hospital bag and baby's essentials. So perhaps we are going to finally start shopping for them this time.

Today I wanted to share something special with you, even with those who haven't got  interest in needle work. Some time ago my mother-in-law, seeing my interest in cross stitch, rummaged in her treasures and took out old Indian embroidery (cross stitch) swatches, fragments. I photographed these pieces finally.
These one was made by FIL's mom. It must be at least 40 years old!  I like very much because it is so different from others, and reminds me the latest  discovery I made - Bargello needlework. I would like to try to replicate this pattern, it looks really lovely. 

This one by MIL's mom, might be of the same "age".

 And this - by mother-in-law.

Unfortunately I have nothing of this sort of heritage left from my own grandparents. My mom's mom never used to hand made, she had other interests, and she passed away too soon after my birth - I was a little older than 1. My father's parents lived in Ukraine that time and also passed away soon. So I never knew my grandparents, and always wanted to have a grandmother and a grandfather, listen to their stories, enjoy the relationships. But I know that I am blessed with the love of my parents and now - of my D and his family.

We celebrated the Mothers' Day here on 11th of May, and I am, not being able to give up hand made, made a potholder for my mother-in-law using the pattern Vintage Flower Potholder by Color'n Cream blog's author, thank you Jenn! I loved it, and also loved how colors interlink! My MIL put it on the wall, near her bed :)

That's all for now, my dears. I have started reading and almost finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and it is a bad, bad book! It made me crave chocolate so much and I have to avoid eating sweets now... :)

Have an enjoyable and happy weekend!

Holiday Mood Crochet Bookmarks and a Rose Brooch

Hello, dear friends! Christmas was successful for all of you, judging by your homely, happy posts about celebrations. May it be like this always:) We also had a nice Christmas, though I'm the only Christian in the family (and also an Orthodox). It was pretty cold, foggy and chilled when we went to the church  in the evening. All our family lit candles to honor Jesus and pray for our health, however I really don't know whether it is enough just to lit a candle... Because my FIL fell ill just 2 days after this. Nevertheless, we believe, that God will make things all right. We need to believe because we need support.

Well, away from philosophical mood to real deals. These are other crochet bookmarks I gifted to my friends. It's so easy and fast to make them - perfect for the last minute gifts.  I think I need one too:). I might post some pics we took on Christmas day as to show you how it's celebrated in India. Hope, it' s not too late for this update.

This is a small ego-crocheting project from that new yarn I bought. I made a rose brooch, which will be attached with a safety pin. It'll add some color to my new grey cardigan. The background is a much bigger ego-crochet project, it's completed and ready to have a photo session any time soon I get good light (the sun seems to be abandoning us these days). 

I found this yarn looking pretty in combination with white one. I literally fell in love with this orange sparkly yarn and want to buy more of it for some good crocheting time. I'll be back soon with some more holiday posts.

Have a great weekend ahead and a happy coming up New Year! 

Autumn Crochet Ideas

    Though days  are still quite sunny in India and it is +30 in the day time, I can feel that the Autumn is coming here too: the days have become shorter, the evenings are cooler, some trees have got yellow leaves... I am definitely inspired by the Indian autumn and have so many ideas (just need to implement them) on the crafty front. This year I want to celebrate Halloween too, and thinking what I can create for our room decoration. I haven't started yet any crochet project however my husband's cousin is going to have a baby soon, so I am planning to gift a nice cozy crochet baby blanket for the upcoming winter. My D agreed that this would be a good present. Now the deal is to do yarn shopping this weekend.

    Another project I'd like to try is this nice Mandalay tunic designed by Diane Moyer. Colors are very autumn and the pattern seems to be easy to follow. You just need to crochet two scarf-like halves and stitch them together in front and at the back. 

    My week's achievement would be this simple six petal crochet flower pattern. I liked how the flower worked for decoration of granny squares. I have some doubts regarding it, so please suggest if I made some mistakes in the drawing or instructions. I will improve it :) 

Otherwise the pattern is simple indeed. This is the corner of a doily with six petal flower decoration and with leaves:

  

                                                

***Have inspirational Autumn!***

Decorating tables - granny square doily and an oval mat

    September is not a productive month for me in sense of blogging. It is more productive on the crafty side. Last Saturday I went to our 42 market stationery shop to purchase some crafty things like acrylic paints, paper cutter, craft paper, pencils... It looked like no one else  was buying all that stuff from there for long time, because the acrylic paints were manufactured in 2011 and the sheet of craft paper was looking a little old... but I liked the things I bought anyway. I couldn't wait to use at least some of them. I did a painting in the evening of the same day and was doing it like a mad! My husband must have been worried indeed :) Kidding. Besides the painting I finally accomplished two of the crochet projects: a long-time-ago-started table mat and another granny square doily. 

     Here is my granny square doily. The yarn is some old Indian thread, I am not sure whether it's acrylic or mixed. So you can say I re-purposed this yarn and made a new crochet decor piece from it:). Principe of making was the same as for my first granny square doily. The granny square pattern has a unique quality - it can be of any wished size and it is so easy to make.Yup, the granny square is twisted again.

                             

  

    I truly like the granny square stitches - all double crochet (treble crochet). The chess like arrangement of the stitches makes the whole piece look so snug ( that's why it is called "granny", isn't it?).

   I played with the doily choosing some interesting variants of its folding and usage. I think that this could become a pretty baby blanket or a nice pillow cover. Keeping it in mind ;)

      I am not very used to make crochet tutorials, I have only two so far, but I am thinking to make one more on how to make a simple crochet flower like the one in the picture below. 

  Ta-dah! Or did it take too long since the last post about my table mat? Whatever, the crochet table mat is ready to be used for placing a cup of coffee on it in the morning (for example):)

  Please, refer to the oval motif pattern below. However, I'd like to make few notes: the pattern is going on good until the 5th row as in the picture, then you have to adjust it counting the number of increased stitches from all four sides. It's the toughest in this pattern. I think I kind of changed the pattern and made it more square rather than oval.

  Overall  I am very content about my craftiness these days and I have some MORE crochet projects in my mind.

 ***Have a crafty week and take care!***

Back to granny square - a doily:)

         Nearly one month back  I got some yarn with me from India keeping in mind that I would want to make a few stitches some day. And this day has come :) Today I'd like to present a dacha inspired and dacha made crochet work - a granny square doily with flower decoration.

        This is not a step by step tutorial, however might be giving some ideas on how to use granny square pattern for a nice decoration of your room.

       First I simply started making a sunny granny square using basic single and double crochet stitches.

 When 6 rows were completed, I changed color to blue and made 3 more rows to "frame" a crochet piece. 

Then I decided that the flower details and leaves, which can be arranged in a variety of ways, would be the best to make a doily look summery!

In order to keep the middle of the doily free for putting a vase or a photo frame on to it, the flowers were placed on the corner. I stitched the details to the doily from the back side.

                           

I gifted this granny square doily to my parents so that the memory about this summer would be with them always :)

Crochet purple purse - using favorite colors

   I was pretty busy last week with making of this purple crochet purse, because I was going to gift my sister-in-law on her birthday, which happened last Sunday. So I used any opportunity to crochet  for my  own pleasure combining two tints of purple and this is what I finally got:

   In the beginning I wanted to put three flowers in the corner, but when attached one - it looked sufficient, as purse is small in fact, so I left it the way it is in the picture. I also liked a lot this way of making crochet handles - it looks trendy and very harmoniously along with the entire crochet purse.

  My sister-in-law liked the purse and I hope she will be taking it out sometimes :)

Crochet Time Pass :)

These are some of my creations for the past two weeks, more are coming.

double coloured rose

First Crochet Bag

  Oh... I was working hard the whole last week, so even use to forget about having food..) Well,  it wasn't like this, though I spent plenty of time on my first crochet bag! And here it is, my lovely pink and white summer bag. I started from a small granny square and read in the internet that "You can expand it then as MUCH as you want", so this was exactly what I did! Also I made a small red rose outlined with a thin  pink yarn. This bag was supposed to be used as a yarn store (you can see yarn through the wholes), but I guess I can take it out sometime.

Crochet Decor Pieces

Can't imagine how happy I am that I have resumed my hobby in India! These are two cro-cre (crochet creations) so far.
My first crochet table mat! I was quiet confused when making it, because I didn't really know I'd have this in the end. Though I am happy to have this small decor piece on my table now :)

I used remaining yarn of pink and dark purple color, started to knit from the circle using only single and double crochets. Yes, it was an easy way of making a table mat, but a successful one I guess!

cro-cre: crochet table mat

table mat detail

Another cro-cre (crochet creation) of mine is this box suit. It took me one evening to crochet this watch box suit.

cro-cre: small box suit 

flower detail

  I used yarn of three colors to knit it: blue, navy blue and white. Once again even with small amounts of yarn you can create some nice things! 

 So, these are my small achievements in crochet knitting, more are coming!