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

Potholder pattern and Tutorial

Hello beautiful people, I hope you had a good week so far. Here in Ahmedabad, the rains are just not relenting with heavy downpour, thunder and lightning in the evenings. And in the daytime it is dark, cloudy, hot and sticky. But on the crochet front all is bright and cheerful as I have managed to complete my first ever crochet tutorial! 

Let me begin by welcoming 

          M. J. Joachim from Lots of Crochet Stitches by M. J. Joachim

(she does have lots of crochet stitches with patterns and tutorials, a must visit site for any crochet enthusiast)

and    Linda from Linda's Crafty Corner.

Now on to the potholder pattern. For those of you who only need the pattern, here it is:

Materials:

Your favorite cotton yarn

Crochet hook which is appropriate for your yarn.

Chain 18, join with slip stitch to form ring. 

Rnd 1: Works 24 sc into the ring.

This forms the loop used for hanging your potholder so you can make it as small or large as you like. (For example you can do Ch 12, join with sl st to form ring and work 18 sc into ring for a smaller loop. This will not affect the pattern.)

Rnd 2: Ch 1, Turn, 1 sc in each of next 5 stitches, 3 sc in next stitch, 1 sc in each of next 5 stitches (13 sc)

From round 3 onwards work in the Back loop only. The Ch 1 at the beginning of each round does not count as a sc.

Rnd 3: Ch 1, Turn, working in Back Loop only, 1 sc in each of next 6 stitches, 3 sc in next stitch, 1 sc in each of next 6 stitches. (15 sc)

Repeat round 3, making 3 sc in the center stitch each time so that each round has 2 more stitches than the previous round.

Continue till you reach your desired size. Fasten off. Weave in the end and your potholder is ready.

Ridged potholder

 And here is the tutorial:

I have used White Rose knitting cotton and a 3 mm crochet hook.

Chain 18, insert hook in first chain,

Join with slip stitch to form ring

 TIP: Hold the "tail" end of the yarn alongwith the ring so that it is woven into the project as you     work. This applies to all crochet projects.

Rnd 1: Work 24 sc into ring.Join with slip stitch.

Rnd 2: Ch 1, Turn the ring

      1 sc in each of next 5 stitches, 3 sc in next stitch and 1 sc in each of next 5 stitches (13 sc)

From round 3 onwards work in the Back loop only. The Ch 1 at the beginning of each round does not count as a sc. 

Usually stitches are worked by inserting the hook under both loops of the previous stitch as seen in this photo

Here is a better picture of working under both loops

 

To work in the Back loop only, insert hook in the loop which is away from you as shown in this pic

And also in this picture

Working only in the back loops gives you the lovely ridged texture seen in the potholder.

Rnd 3: Ch 1, Turn, working in Back Loop only, 1 sc in each of next 6 stitches, 3 sc in next stitch, 1 sc in each of next 6 stitches. (15 sc)

See the ridge formed due to working in the back loop, in the pic below

Repeat round 3, making 3 sc in the center stitch each time so that each round has 2 more stitches than the previous round.

TIP: To make things a little easier, when you make 3 sc in the center stitch, insert a marker into the second sc, so that in the next round you know where to make the 3 sc.

Continue till you reach your desired size. Fasten off. Weave in the end and your potholder is ready.

That's it, you lovely square potholder is ready. Enjoy.

Phew, my gosh that was a bit of hard work. It is a long tutorial for a small project, I know. But I am secretly hoping that my friends who don't crochet, will read this and be tempted to take up the hook.

I would like to take a moment here and sincerely thank all those who have put up any kind of tutorial (crochet, cookery, sewing or anything else)  because it does take a lot of time and effort. (Especially since my assistant cameraman ran off to college and refused to click photos for me .... he he.)

As this is my first virtual tutorial I will be anxiously waiting for your comments. Feel free to send in your suggestions, opinions, criticisms.... because I know there is room for improvement.

To learn the basic stitches you can visit Lots of crochet stitches by M.J.Joachim and also look up videos by Crochet Geek and bobwilson on Youtube.

So, cheerio until next time. I am waiting to hear from you.
Love xxx