FO! Blanket for Baby Grant

Finally I have finished the baby blanket for Tara's newest son! His name is Grant, and he was born on December 14. That was the spark for me to begin crocheting at a more frantic pace to finish the blanket before I left home so that my bro Andrew could bring it to New York in January and deliver it to Tara and Joe. And woohoo, it's done!

One thing I learned was not to trust the "no dye lot" designation of the yarn. I used Bernat Softee Baby, and although it says "no dye lot" on the label, there are actually dates printed on the labels, and different dates are not the same! I didn't realize this until the blanket was half finished and it was way too late to remove the different yarn. What's even worse is that the yarn used in the middle section is actually a lighter weight, so the whole blanket width becomes narrower in the middle, and then widens out again at the next skein! That was super annoying, but I think overall the blanket still looks pretty sweet. The yarn for the blue border is my favorite. :)

Mr. Gobble-Gobble

Happy Turkey Day! I made this super awesome turkey (he looks cuter in person) at the request of my mom, from a pattern I found on BitterSweet, and it came out great! I hope he finds a comfy place to sit amongst my mom's holiday decor in San Diego. As for me, well, James and I are off to Connecticut for a 2-day thanksgiving partay with almost all of my Sri Lankan cousins! Yay!

The Days of Chivalry

Hark! Behold Sir Brave Knight who rides his white horse to befriend the fire-breathing dragon, in order to rescue the princess that the dragon holds captive due to his teenage crush on the lovely lady. Oh, these finger puppets were so much fun to make! I got the patterns from an old issue of CrochetMe. So far I haven't given them eyes, and the colors are a bit customized, but I think they turned out really well! Now I can branch out a bit and create some new characters to join these four. I'm hoping to give them to my cousins' little kids, who are between the ages of 2 and 5, whom I will see on Thanksgiving at the big Sri Lankan gathering at my aunt's house in Connecticut. Thanksgiving there is always guaranteed to be at least a couple days of madness, silly games, piles of food, tykes running around, and probably some loud singing and goofing. Can't wait!

WIP: Tara's Baby Afghan

My cousin Tara is due to have her second baby in December, and so I'm making a baby afghan for him/her! Tara doesn't know if it will be a boy or girl, so I settled on white for the blanket. I picked a sweet, lacey pattern which would work up rather quickly and still allow for some pretty stitching. It's great to have a repeating, easy pattern like this that I can crochet somewhat mindlessly at the end of a stressful day. :)


 

Festive Embossing

Today it was finally time to try out my newest paper-crafting toy, the embossing heat gun (given to me by James's lovely mom). I found some adorable stamps on sale at Michael's with a little turkey, pilgrim, and native american on them, and I absolutely had to make some Thanksgiving cards!! Plus I was due to make a few birthday cards, so my selection of cocktail stamps came in handy. Let me just say I am completely thrilled with the whole embossing technique - it is so much fun to watch the little powders melt and brighten! I am definitely raiding the embossing powder section of the next craft store I wander into. Oh, I can just see the entire house filling up with new crafty supplies... pretty soon James and I won't even fit inside the place, and we'll have to sleep out on the front steps...

A Rose for Alice

Well it seems that I've caught the crochet bug again! I began by crocheting this lovely ring for my lovely friend Alice on the occasion of her 24th birthday. I still haven't sent it to her in NY, but hopefully I will get around to it this week! It was pretty easy to make, and next time I might try adding a little second color of trim or a bead in the middle. 

scrapbooking - Europe 2006

Okay, so I haven't crocheted in a while, but I have been travelling! James and I took a whirlwind tour of several countries in Europe, following my stay in Biarritz, France, for a lithium battery conference. We took a ton of great pictures and of course I couldn't resist putting them into a scrapbook! Actually I've never made a scrapbook before, so I was a bit nervous to get started. Then I began, using some spray adhesive (which is a little smelly) and a 12"x12" black-paged notebook, and woohoo! Here's the start of it! After the first few pages, I realized I needed some colored pens that would write on black paper, and the metallic ones I got are also great for doodling and drawing borders. I am also a big fan of those letter stickers, which make great titles for each page. My other favorite scheme is using the city and country maps I saved from the trip as backgrounds, and drawing little arrows to the places we visited. It's so much fun, but it's taking me hours and hours! Anyway, here's a little sampler:




 

Hiatus

Oh man, I haven't been crafting very much lately! I don't think I've crocheted anything in the past month!! This is terrible and horrible, but honestly, I've had to devote all my time to a different kind of artwork... my master's thesis!! It is due on Tuesday, and it's about 98% of the way there, but I still need to add just one more figure. I can't believe it really takes one month (or more) to write a thesis. But it is true.

Summer is almost here, and I hope to think of some summer crafting projects that don't involve having my sweaty hands stick to yarn. I still need to work on my blue pinwheel shawl - kind of summery, right? Check out my progress below... (kind of pathetic, yes). And I have just a couple more finishing touches on my new iPod cover - pink monster! More to come...

Six Wagon Wheels

Hello! It's been a while since I've posted, since I accidentally mailed off Rani's red headband without taking a picture of it... but here's my new work in progress! It's a spoke-wheel motif shawl, from a pattern in my Vogue scarves book. I got the yarn super cheap from Buliding 19, the super-cheap store exclusive to Massachusetts. Man, that is a crazy place. All the yarn was at least 50% off, and I couldn't resist getting some of this Patons Grace cotton yarn (I also got several skeins in royal blue), and some beautiful Patons Kroy sock yarn in Vista Sea (kind of a deep purple with blue and green). I love it! But now my yarn stash is almost unbearably large!! I just can't help it - it's a curse! Anyway, it might take me a while to crochet all 65 motifs for this shawl, but I think it will be perfect for summer! That is, if summer (or even spring) ever comes to Boston! 

lovey days

Here's a random selection of some Valentine's cards I made for my dearest buddies here in Boston. Note the awesome touch added by the letter stamps that Kim gave me for my b-day. Woohoo! It took me forever to make these cards (like maybe 5 hours, while watching the Olympics) because I always want to make each one unique. So different from Xmas, where I made myself into a one-woman snowman-making assembly line, cutting out 10 circles at a time. But unique cards are more fun, I think. :)
Soon to come: the headband I crocheted for Rani! All I have to do is tuck in tails! I'm so lazy!!
 

New Yarn!

My sister Kim sent me this wonderful stash of yarn for my 24th birthday (along with some way cool alphabet stamps and patterned paper), and now I'm scheming for ways to crochet it all into cool things. I recently bought a Vogue crocheted scarves book on major sale at Micheal's, and I'm dying to make one of those scarves with some of this yarn. The light pink yarn is a super soft cashmere, and the blue is a nylon/acrylic that feels like a bunny's tummy. Perfect scarf material! But the orange yarn intrigues me the most - it's a warm earthy color with a unique texture; it will be more challenging to find a project for this one.

BarryToon!

I made this for my friend Barry, who is a super crazy and talented artist/musician/toy-designer/mythbuster, since he made fobtoons (fob = friends of barry) for probably everyone he knows. Including me! When he asked everyone for their Barrytoons, I just couldn't resist making this guy. ...I'd say the hardest part was making all his hair! But at least it's accurate, haha...

Mom's Flower Tote

Ohh, I forgot about this one! I made this bag for my mom last year for Mother's Day. Sheesh, all these posts seem to be related to my mom... Anyway, I found the idea for the bag online, although the basic pattern was just to make a giant rectangle and sew it together. Then I made up my own flowers to sew on, and I embroidered the stems. Voila!

Earrings for Sungyon!

I made these for her birthday back in the fall, and then as luck would have it, one of them fell out of her ear on the very first day she wore them. So I just finally crocheted up another one (in like 20 minutes). I made up the design myself; it took me a few prototypes before it looked right. They're a nice dark red color, if you can't tell. I think I need to work on my photography skillz...

Chic Pillows

My mom and I made these two pillows for my living room here in Cambridge. Actually, all I did was fix up the ribbons for the gold pillow, and Mom sewed them together. Mom is really the greatest crafter ever, and no wonder I get so much done when I'm home visiting her. :)

Angela's Headband

A headband for Angela! I made this for her 23rd birthday, which was several months ago - so this is long overdue. I basically picked out a cool-looking stitch from the Harmony crochet stitch book and made it into a pattern. I started it over Thanksgiving at Auntie Kumu's house, where my crocheting buddy was my 2nd cousin Lauren who was knitting a scarf, while we both watched our cousin-nephew William, sleeping in his stroller. Ahh, good times. Anyway, I'll have to get a pic of Angela modeling this headband soon!

Spike Stitch Pillow

I just finished crocheting this super awesome pillow cover for my mom - she picked out the color scheme for "my" room at home (i.e. the room I stay in when I come visit Mom and Dad). I found the pattern on crochetme.com again, a site that usually gives me a lot of good ideas. My mom sewed a purple fabric backing for the pillow, and it came out well!

Easter Bunny

I made this little egg warmer last March for my mom. It was pretty easy and quick to make; I found the pattern somewhere online. Too bad my mom didn't actually get it until like July, since it got lost in the mail and ended up back in my mailbox in May.

The Key Basket

Check out this basket I crocheted. I bought some jute twine at the hardware store and crocheted this according to the pattern I found on Crochetme.com. The pattern worked really well, but the twine was a little messy - it tended to shed bits of fiber and dirt on my lap while I crocheted. But I love the final product! I use it to hold my keys, which I am always misplacing otherwise.