Crochetkari: Two Timing

Friday 9 November 2012

Two Timing

Hello dear friends, How are you? Are you looking forward to this weekend? We are eagerly awaiting the weekend as Sunday will set off the celebrations for Diwali - the festivals of lights. Not being a great fan of noisy firecrackers, I look forward to doing some beautiful rangoli. And of course gorging on some lovely sweet and savoury goodies which are made specially during Diwali.

I am posting after a long gap. Blogging did seem to drop off the radar for a couple of reasons.

A) I was busy with the Diwali house cleaning, which is an intense spring cleaning of the whole house. A lot of cleaning, scrubbing, polishing and of course de-cluttering. The purpose of this marathon session is to welcome the Goddess of Wealth, Laxmi, who is said to visit houses which are sparkling clean. (I have a hunch, this tale was invented to ensure that houses get a thorough cleaning atleast once a year...  wink, wink) And who does not want the blessings of the Goddess of Prosperity!

B) After giving it a lot of thought and debating over it, with a heavy heart, I made up my mind to go ahead and cheat on my Love. Yes, I am now a two-timing b****......
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ahem... I am talking about my love for crochet. I hope you were not thinking something else, silly.
Ha ha, the reason for all this cheating is this ball of gorgeous yarn I found in my stash. It is a beautiful variegated yarn with shades like the sky just before sunset. Here, have a look:



Seeing the lovely colors in the yarn, I now realised why spinners go ga-ga over their yarns in their blogs and put up umpteen photos of the yarn from all different angles possible.  With the colors changing every second with every stitch, I was falling in love with the yarn.

And now, the reason I cheated is that I had only one ball of 150 gms of the yarn. Compared to knitting, crochet IS a bit of a yarn eater. So to get the maximum out of the yarn I decided to knit rather than crochet with it.

Winter is slowly and steadily creeping in on us. I decided to make a scarf for hubby. Then followed a lot of pattern searching on the internet. After getting inspired by a lot of patterns, I finally decided to "design" my own pattern.

The yarn is self striping. Tell me, does it not remind you of a twilight sky,


 I wonder if a plain stockinette stitch would have been better. But I wanted a textured fabric so I decided to go ahead and proceed with my pattern.


The best part about the pattern is that the fabric does not curl at the edges (which means no blocking... yay!). This pattern is very simple and would also look good with a solid colored yarn.

This is the pattern in case you are interested  :)

Using 3.25mm knitting needles, Cast on 34 stitches.
Then knit all stitches for 3 rows.
Pattern:
Row 1:  K3, *K2, P2 * till last 3 stitches, K3
Row 2:  K3, *K2, P2 * till last 3 stitches, K3
Row 3:  K3, *P2, K2 * till last 3 stitches, K3
Row 4:  K3, *P2, K2 * till last 3 stitches, K3
Repeat these 4 rows for the desired length and then knit all stitches for 3 rows again. Cast off.

If you try the pattern, do let me know if there is a mistake. I can't wait to finish the scarf as the mere thought of so many "live" stitches and handling two needles is a bit daunting.

And while on the topic of Diwali, let me show you the beautiful oil lamps, called deeyas, I bought.


Lovely...no? BTW, Rangoli is an art form of making decorative designs outside the main door of your home, using colored powders, flowers, chalk or even rice flour paste. The designs are an auspicious and  welcoming gesture for the Hindu gods. I hope I can turn out some beautiful designs this year so that I can share them with you. (Just google Rangoli and enjoy the fantastic pictures.)

Before I sign off, a warm welcome to Irina from Handmade

A very Happy Diwali to all of you. Take care and have lots of fun.

Love xxx

15 comments:

  1. What an interesting post! It's funny because about a month ago we were doing some intense spring cleaning too although it was more because Chris' parents were coming to stay!! I hope you have a wonderful Diwali and I'm really looking forward to seeing your rangoli decorations. Maggie xx

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  2. Oh I forgot to say... I love that yarn! What a lucky hubby! Xx

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  3. Hi Dear.... I was wondering if alls well. Sangeetha and so silent for so long, though I enjoyed looking at my Babushka dolls :) Hmmm... so the secret was that you were doing a 5S at home... Good. Gives a lottttt of satisfaction after all the cleaning and surprises coming out of attics.... Oh! I have this and ah... this is there too..... I have thought of initiationg a journal to note where I store certain things that I don't often require but don't remember where I have stored it when needed....

    And, yes... I am gonna make a rangoli too... I enjoy making it. But this time around we have kittens playing around the area where I draw the rangoli....:( Have a look at the few rangolis that I made over the years...I posted about them a few months ago... http://aishwaryasworld.blogspot.in/search/label/Festivals

    Appreciable that you carved out time for scarf too. Its looking great. Happy Deepavali to all @ home.

    Lots of love
    Aishwarya

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    1. Hmm..... a journal might be a good idea to keep track of things. Thanks Aishwarya for the idea, I will give it a try.

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  4. I love the scarf! A lovely yet simple pattern that I have a skein just waiting for! Thanks! Now I need to clean my house, too, so I can find it!

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  5. Hi, Sangeetha! Glad you are so busy with Diwali and with the scarf. It looks very nice. your husband will be happy happy!I am a little selfish in this, I am not making anything for my husband :)
    I don't yet whether we are doing Rangoli or not, but I like it!
    Have a happy Diwali!Enjoy.

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  6. I tried knitting. It didn't make any sense to me at all. Wish it did as I like the way it looks. I'll just stick with crochet. The scarf for your husband is nice. I have a similar yarn, but it came from the States and is probably a lot thicker than what you are working with. We can't get really thick yarns here. When we went to Nepal, we visited a village where they explained to us about the visit of Laxmi -- they had handprints all around the outside doors of their homes. Happy Diwali. Tammy

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  7. Oh you are so lucky to be able to knit as well as crochet! I'm envious..in a good way :-)
    That really is a pretty yarn and the self-striping is something I'm always a little amazed by. How do the yarn makers know how long to make each color?

    TracyAnn from www.crochethappy.com and http://asktracyann.crochethappy.com

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  8. If your not busy its not Diwali :) lovely design and yes though I dont knit I love the yarn!

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  9. Hi Sangeetha - nice color. When i saw this I was remined of the pony store they also had this color yarns. Nice to know that you are also a knitter. Just recently joined a crochet class and have started to learn and understand crocheting. Hope we can soon start a swap for shankranti"PONGAL" - this is one of the important festivals in Chennai. Thanks for the scarf pattern. different type of moss/seed stitch. Please do have a peep atnityas knits quoin - http://nityakalyani-kalmat.blogspot.in/ your comments are welcome

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  10. Hi Sangeetha, That yarn is so pretty. Your scarf is lovely, I really like the texture to it. Elisabeth xx
    http://elizyart.blogspot.com

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  11. Very pretty! Thanks so much for linking up on Hookin On Hump Day!

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  12. Hi Sangeetha, very nice yarn there! Where did you get it from? Do you know any nice online stores in India where I can buy lots of yarn? I got the crochet hooks from Pony Craft Store and they are truly wonderful :) Thank you so much for that tip, I was looking for some good crochet hooks and wasn't finding them anywhere..
    Would prefer some nice vibrant colors (VIBGYOR :) )

    Thanks,
    Sneha

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  13. Hi Sangeetha, Just loved the yarn colour, I too knit scarfs with Stockinette stitch, it gives a beautiful texture. I also try to add some new stitches for a different look. You can visit my facebook page and blog for more knitting patterns.
    www.facebook.com/knitnpurlocean
    http://knitnpurlocean.blogspot.com

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Thank you for taking a moment to write to me. I look forward to your comments.
If you have any specific questions about yarn, stitches, hooks or patterns please send them to crochetkari@gmail.com

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