Crochet Handles for a Purse

Nearly 2 years ago I made this ripple purse from Attic24's neat ripple pattern. Since then I got many searches of "how to make crochet handles" which led to my old blog post... but there I didn't tell "how" properly. I don't know whether it is really required to make a separate tutorial or instructions for the same however I thought it could be useful for some folks just in case. I will be uploading the same on Ravelry, it's been loooong I logged in there. As I understood  I am not in favor of illustrating each and every step with photos, so I hope the written text is sufficient.

✫CROCHET HANDLES FOR A PURSE✫ 

Materials: DK yarn, 100% acrylic

               Tapestry needle

Hook: 3.5 mm (not bigger than 4 mm)

Difficulty: easy

sc- single crochet

ch – chain

sts – stitches

st - stitch
A tip: You need to make two long rectangles.
Begin with ch 9

Foundation Row:  turn, sc in the second ch from hook and sc till the end – 8 sts. Turn work.

Row 1: Ch 1, sc in each st across – 8 sts. Turn work.

Repeat Row 1 till the desired length of a handle is achieved. Fasten off last stitch.

Fold first stripe into half, and start sewing  from the short side, and then - from the long side with a single crochet or slip stitch, or tapestry needle stitch. When you have finished approximately quarter of its length, stuff with polyfill. *DON’T stuff the ends of the stripe too tight, you’d need to attach them to the purse later*. I used a thick crochet hook to stuff the handle and move along the handle tube. Continue sewing up on the side and then stuffing as you

go. Finish by sewing another short end of your handle.

Work the second handle the same way. You will get two soft tube-like pieces in the end, now find where you would like your handles to be. Mark the point with a stitch marker or a piece of yarn. Start sewing one end of the handle to the purse, then another one on the same side of a purse (like in the photo above, I placed mine 10 cm apart). Secure the handle properly. Do the same with the second one. You can embellish the handles with crochet flowers or hearts, or other items like beads, sequins, may be ribbons, whatever you can think of.
I found that crochet handles come out sturdy and durable this way. I am yet to try to crochet a proper bag with lining, perhaps a diaper bag will be most useful now. We are going to be very busy this weekend - many pending deals are there plus meetings with friends are planned.❥❥❥

Have an enjoyable weekend, my dears❣ Be happy and have peace of mind.

Weekend Has To Be Varicolored

A weekend has to be... diverse, relaxing, cheerful, happy, stress-free, energetic too, and yes, varicolored.  The week has been dragging its feet very slowly this time, making me feel stressed, unhappy, worried, and tired. Since I am in the office today as well (don't like this tendency), I have to bring some color to my eyes when I come home, or better take colors with me everywhere I go :) The latest such thing to take along was this String Tote bag designed by Linda. Few days ago she kindly shared the pattern, and I HAD to make it! Thank you, Linda, so much for the pattern. I will make more of these bags for sure!

My version of the bag came our slightly longer than I expected, perhaps because I used acrylic yarn, and not cotton as directed in the pattern. Well, because I don't have it, but I have many balls of acrylic in my stash. The bag in the action - hanging on the nail in my room. *The wall hanging picture to the left is a memory from our trip to Massoori hill station 3 years ago. Might be not hand made, but looks like, and they say it is good to have a picture with the flowing river in it (Feng Shui). 

This string tote has a unique feature - you can turn it inside out, fold into a cute pouch as to carry in your purse in a compact way. I would never think of such an option!

The colors I chose remind me of some hip-hop street art, may be the one I saw somewhere in Moscow and the colors printed in my mind.

Oh yea, a close up view of my favorite acrylic yarn, and the pattern. It is the easiest possible pattern, but it looks gorgeous. I can imagine a net cardigan made with it.

I didn't have much for a Wednesday Blanket Update, so will be doing it next week now. Yesterday I  was seriously worried about my blanket border. Every crocheter says that this is the most important part of the blanket, it gives that finished look or probably ruins it, so it has to be perfect... Well, I started rummaging Pinterest, trying to search randomly in the net. I did find good patterns, which I thought of using, but either they were too common, or too complicated, too lacy. Therefore I decided to design my own. Here it is. 

Color sequence will be not the same as in the pic, but the pattern will be such. I will of course make the border broader, at least 6 cm in width. Yes, I know, I hurry a little, imagining how the blanket looks like when finished. I am preparing the written or/and graph pattern of this border for myself and will certainly share with you. 

I skipped my mind to share with you another self-manifestation of nature in our garden - a pigeon fledgling who settled at our back yarn garden few days ago. He can't fly yet, but keeps on sitting on the flower pots and plants all day long... Once I saw when his parent was feeding him. This picture isn't new, so at that time he was scared of us. Now he is totally used to our presence as we keep on checking on him every day. I am a little worried for him though because it seems like his one wing is bigger than the other one... I hope he will still be able to fly later on. Still I wonder why they chose our garden as their sanctuary.

Have a nice weekend, my dears, eat well (I will!), sleep well (I am so doing it!), and enjoy your time with your close ones!

P.S. hmm... just noticed while previewing my post that I surely like purple and green yarn colors :)

Achieving Something and Another Cheshire Heart - Wednesday Blanket Update

It is not easy to get everything you plan done. Not easy but possible, same as possible to get my crochet blanket growing and updates being posted :) I hope you can see the difference between the last update and this one. I didn't crochet much though and added only few more squares. I haven't sewed any of them into  the blocks yet. If my calculations were correct I'd be able to finish crocheting all the squares in 5 weeks' time, making 20 squares per day (no weekend crochet). What in its turn means that the blanket will be definitely ready by suppose August-September. I can't wait to see  it spread on our big bed!

 My side project of the last week was made for an American lady, our preschool's mentor I told you about in the last to last post. I wanted to give her something what would be cute and light in weight... I am grateful that I am able to make such thing myself. I couldn't help but crocheted this Cheshire heart which will fly across the ocean to the Key West in a couple of days! The lady liked it very much, especially the colors. I was more than pleased to get this feedback :) 

I have gifted few of these hearts already to the friends in India and abroad as a gift-symbol of love and care. My husband though seeing this (another such) heart, asked why did I make it so long, and suggested to make it broader and perhaps shorter... I tried to explain it was my style, design and so on... but he just looked at it and my slightly disappointed face ( I am very sensitive towards critics:)) and said that it was still beautiful and good for gifting. Thank you, D! :) I am also thinking of designing something new soon and sharing a pattern. The Cheshire Heart pattern is here if you wish.

Last weekend I was experimenting with new art forms and would be sharing what I had done soon.
Bye till then and have an enjoyable second half of the week, my dears! 

Hearty Crochet

My dears, hope you are doing great! I shall admit that I've been a little busy lazy in the first half of February. Perhaps the waning moon made me such, and  I hope it'll give a charge of new strength as it's in its growing phase now. I also put a moon phases widget on the left side bar. It is very useful for choosing the best days for planting. My little garden hasn't been productive so far, the beans didn't give any valuable harvest, and I'm waiting for this weekend to plant them again. 

I had pretty nice marigolds last year, so I sowed them again, but found out one sunny morning that the birds, who are living on our citrus tree, impertinently pulled out some sprouts and plucked first tender leaves from others! This was the moment when I turned to an angry bird myself... and covered my precious plants with thin cotton cloths. Now I do this every morning, and remove the cloth in the evening.

Hey, but I gave a crochet title to this post and still chatting about my garden issues. Well, to the business. Tomorrow is St. Valentine's day, and I just couldn't stop making hearts the whole week. After the first stripy heart, I made two more. I took the pictures in the morning. It was windy, and hearts kept on swinging, so I was able to catch only few still moments, when finally settled them on the cloth. 

This blue heart is filling my cupboard with eucalyptus fragrance... sorry, I don't have lavender in my stash now.

This one was gifted to my friend today. What I like the most in making of these hearts is that you can use leftover yarn, combine any colors - they seem to look nice together anyway. By the way, I made a pattern for these hearts as well. A Stuffed Cheshire Heart Sachet pattern is a free download which you can find here if interested.

So, this was my hearty crochet and hearty wishes of a good day to you, dears!

 Have a fabulous 14th of February (and other days too;)), have fun, Love and Be Loved!

Little Hearts and A Walk in the City Heart

One week has passed by, another week. Not a significant one, there was a little bit of this and that, as usual... waking up in the morning, going to office, then coming back and waiting for my D to come too, then having tea (or having it later), watching movie... By the way we watched a very good film "Gandhi", in which Ben Kingsley plays the main role (of Gandhi of course:)). May be some of you saw it, but if you didn't, do watch it, you'll definitely recognize many famous actors.
Today I had a nice walk in the lunch time. It was sunny, warm and a pleasant weather overall. This is so called "city heart", sector 17, which is the central part of the city and most popular place to hang out and shop.

Huge trees grow there, I'm fascinated by their trunk, which reminds me veins or even limbs of a human...

Last year this was the time when I renewed my crochet hobby, and the first thing I made was a stuffed Valentine's heart for my D. This year I'm still thinking what I can make for him, perhaps Cheburashka will be to the purpose, or may be better let it go and have a spontaneous Valentine's day? Let's see. 

Yesterday, however I made myself to sit and make at least some little hearts to decorate the rooms. Somehow I got into the mood of "all lovers' day"  as we call it in my native country.

If you wish to make these hearts, I prepared a pattern with some pictures. Hope you will find it useful in anticipation of a holiday, as it's a quick and easy project, which makes it suitable for beginners as well (oh, sounds like I'm already a mature crocheter). I made this pattern while I was in the office (yea, I have a damn interesting job!lol) so photos might seem to be taken from hiding ... what is actually true.
Little Hearts Pattern:
Ch4, join in ring
Ch1, 6sc in ring, join in first ch1
Ch3 (counts as dc), dc in same st, [2dc in next st] 2 times, in next st make [dc, picot, dc] - made heart's pointed bottom; [2dc in next st] 3 times. Join in the base of first ch3. Make a loop for hanging the heart :)

Here is how you can make a loop so that to hang the heart anywhere you want. 

In the end I came up with 6 hearts - not bad for one working day :)

I made these yesterday. I like red and orange ones especially. 

Have a hearty weekend, my dears! Sending loads of warmness and best wishes your side!

Gold Autumn findings

     We call Autumn "gold" (Zolotaya osen') in Russian, what already speaks for itself. Yellow, orange, brown and all the tints of these colors are around. May be I can't call Indian autumn golden, but I  can dream of it at least. I try to cheer up myself with all the bright colors as my D is leaving  for official trip today, I am going to miss him a lot! So why not to spend time crafting while he is away? Like Penelope did waiting for Odyssey... Remember? 

     I have collected few ideas and tutorials for autumn time which I hope to use in coming up days. This is easy to make and nevertheless gorgeous looking stuff by GingerBreadSnowFlakes, OdeToInspiration, MyMadeupStory and PetalstoPicots.

    First I'd like to show this awesome A Little Fall  Leaf Re-use Project by Pam. All you need is Mod Podge or Fevicol, autumn leaves and a jar. Thanks to Pam for such awesome idea to make autumn days cozy with this autumn leaf candle holder! :) 

    Another project I'd like you to have a look at is a Recycled Jar Lantern DIY from Julie P. I guess I could use those nice wrapping papers I showed you earlier.  I am amazed how simple it is to create something beautiful and useful (by the way)! You can keep this jars as vases.

   Now, from jars to pumpkins! The next two projects make me cheerful, I can't even say how much! Isn't it a nice idea by Ode To Inspiration to make a No Sew No Glue Pumpkin home decoration for Halloween or for creating gold Autumn mood? Looks stylish and cute :) You can check another idea using sweaters for the same pumpkin at Charlotte'sWeb.

    Just look at this crochet Little Pumpkin by PetalstoPicots! Such a temptation to start crocheting it right now... Hmmm... I had orange yarn stash somewhere... Hurrying home today! Let's see if I can find free time for this pattern. (By the way I have started a baby blanket, will post some pictures next week) :)

 Hope you liked my gold Autumn findings and I'd love to know what inspires you in the Autumn season.


                        ***Have a great day!***