Saturday 28 September 2013

It's Raining Yarn

I have been enjoying a big chunk of crochet heaven lately.  I went to Chinatown last couple of weeks, thinking I could get some worsted-weight cotton yarn.  No luck.  So I figured I'd get some worsted-weight arcylic yarn instead.  And since their for amigurumis Ifigured, I'd go for acrylic for now.  After all I'm still a newbie at crochet.


So I set about crocheting Stacey Trock's woodland animals and I got as far as 1/2 a blue bird, bear head and snout, deer's head, antlers and nose and a racoon head :( I ran out of yarn.  No where on the label did it say how many metres was in one ball of yarn.  It was no fun working with this yarn, it was hard and stiff.  What's next?  I need to go downtown again.  But not till they stock up on black. 

Then I discovered Deramores UK.  I think I might be going over my head here ... call it beginners optimism?  I ordered more acrylic yarn but DK weight instead.  I want to crochet Lucy's Granny Striped Blanket.  Fortunately the quality of this Sirdar yarn is nice and soft even if it is acrylic. If acrylic is good enough for Lucy it's sure good enough for me.  So I learnt fast that even in acrylic there are many qualities.

 
Now this lovely purple heather acrylic / wool mix yarn is 400gm!  It's HUGE!  I have already started crocheting a shrug with it.  I had tough time playing tug of war trying to find the end of the yarn that was inside the ball.  I literally took out it's guts!  So here's the ugly pile of yarn along side the WIP shrug.  The shrug is a pattern by Deanna Young.


And if that was not enough Maycraft finally re-stocked some of my favourite cotton yarn. I would have bought these Lily Sugar n Cream yarn directly for the US, the trouble is they don't deliver to Malaysia and they don't plan to in the future :(  So Maycraft seems to be the only place I can get worsted-weight cotton yarn locally.

These are yarn to continue my granny squares for my bag.  I still need yellow though.  Maycraft were out of stock.



And these are for Sean's Minion beanie.  Initially I wasn't too thrilled with the country yellow that was substituted but I think I like it now.  The finished beanie below looks quite good in fact, if I may say so.  It's a free pattern by Jennifer Dougherty.  I don't think the pattern is available anymore.  I even used a button from Sean's grandmother's sewing stuff.  She passed on some months ago.  And my cousin was kind enough to give me her mother-in law's sewing box and all it's wonderful contents.  You can see the sewing box in my older post here.  So Sean's beanie will be making a trip all the way to Switzerland when I get to the PO on Tuesday.

ETA:  The Minion Hat pattern can be found here (Ravelry link)



And I dug out my knitting needles this week, so as to knit this pretty dishcloth. I'm only a mediocre knitter ... just know my knits and purls.  I've not knitted for yonks, so we'll see how that goes.


It was Lillie's birthday yesterday.  I stitched Primitve Betty's free XS pattern and finished it as a zipper pouch.  I also made a fabric basket using the free tutorial by Ayumills.




And finally for lunch I made a spinach and egg dish.  This is a common home made Chinese dish.  Nothing fancy and absolutely easy to whip up.  You can find the recipe here.


Friday 6 September 2013

Happenings ...

It was Margaret W's birthday end of last month and this is what I came up with.


Cross stitch design by The Sampler Girl and made it into a zipper pouch. 
 I really like the zipper pouch finish as it's such a useful item and I can incorporate a lovely XS pattern and use a coordinating fabric.  In this zipper pouch the fabric is by French General (a gift from Merilyn) with a piece of French Linen tape attached to it.

Now the buttons were difficult to centralize.  Pushing the fabric to the button tool took all the energy I could muster! 



Another tote bag but this time wider using the tutorial by MSQC on YouTube
Visited Yee Buttons a couple of weeks ago and got some stuff and made even more enjoyable when I have a 25% discount voucher!  I got those crochet hooks that I've wanted badly.

The Clover needle threader is fabulous.  The old eyes are quite thankful for it :)  I really love it especially since I've been sewing up some hexies lately.  I've also read some good reviews on the Clover thimble especially for quilting.  I haven't tested it yet but I will hopefully this weekend.  And some perle thread to add to my stash.  Comes in handy when embellishing garments and big stitch quilting.  Among those I got some 1/4M cuts of fabrics for my other projects and hexies.

I was inspired when Libby took out her hexie project here. They look so pretty.  So I took out mine and worked on them more earnestly! :)


 It's a small project, either a table topper or a cushion cover ... we'll see.  Quilting it should be fun.

On the crochet front I made some flowers and leaves using the tutorials by Attic 24 and BobWilson123 on YouTube.  I gave them to Lucy when we met for coffee on Wednesday.  She also gave me a piece of blue cotton jersey fabric which is soaking now.

 Here are some sewing notions that I bought from Lucy's webshop.  Love the packaging of the snap buttons ... rather vintage methinks.


This is my stack of granny squares for the bag I'm planning.  Don't they look like flapjacks? I've run out of yarn :(  Hopefully Maycraft stocks up quickly.  I've joined an affiliate program with them, so if you need some cotton yarn please click on the image on the right.

Last week I made some prawn fritters also known locally as cucur udang.  I don't think I've added enough salt :(  But I'll give it another try.  It's simple to prepare and I followed a good video by our local chef Norman Musa on YouTube. 

 This book came in the evening.  It's my continuing education in garments.  The baju kurung is a traditional garment in Malaysia.  I intend to learn it's inner workings :)  Thankfully it is in English.