Giveaway Day-handmade bags

For the Giveaway day, I am giving away a handmade pouch. All you have to do to enter the giveaway is
1. Be a follower of my blog and
2. Leave me a comment on this post letting me know why you like pouches.

Comments are closed for this giveaway!

 

Crochet trim

I have been completely bitten by the crochet bug. After having started the fusion crochet blanket and successfully completed 5 blocks in 5 days, I embarked upon the journey of making a crochet trim for a dupatta.

A dupatta is a long stole worn with the Indian traditional outfit, the Salwar Kameez.
On being suggested by a friend to try adding a trim to a dupatta, I found the perfect specimen required for this experiment at the back of my cupboard, a rather dull black plain cotton dupatta without a border. It looked like it could do with some makeover.In the absence of any real crochet thread at home, I just used some black wool AND was I surprised at the outcome or what !

For seasoned crochet enthusiasts this might look like a humble trim befitting a novice, but for me this turned out to be a real Anthropologie trim…am impressed by my humble attempt and the output.

Linking to:

 

A Plus quilt of my own

Over the weekend, I drew a simple plus quilt in 4 colours and calculated the fabric requirement, cut the fabric too. Now its ready to sew

The choice of colour is blue as its for a little baby boy!

 

BBC-B: Beginner’s Baby Crochet Blanket

I like the way the crochet mug rug turned out so its time to start a fusion crochet blanket. I give myself a pat on my back for taking up new projects while I am still knee deep in my WIPs. What worth is a girl if new projects aren’t getting added to her WIP. What will happen to all the inspiration!!
The play of fabric and crochet seems to really draw my attention so I took some coordinating fabric

* cut them into 5″charm packs
* stitched sides with 1/4″ seem
* left a small space for turned
* turned and ironed
* top stitched the sides
* a line of wide buttonhole in coordinating thread

and then the crochet !
The crochet border is yet to begin…

Linking this to :

 

A new Project

In life, one comes across various kinds of quilting projects.

First, there are projects that you like and you wish you had made one similar to this.
Second, there are those that inspire you, YOU file them safe somewhere at the back of your cranium and one day during a lazy evening walk it turns into something inspirational and a new idea emerges.
There is yet a third category of projects, which when you see them, you want to jump up and grab your laptop screen. These make you feel like you should leave everything else and start making one right away.

My current project belongs to the third category. A little background story on the discovery. I was late to post for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and when I did get to see the post, I found it to be a guest post by Jenelle from Echinops and Aster. I looked at Jenille’s blog and realized that like me she loves crochet, hexagon EPP, hand embroidery and is an amazing quilter. I am just learning all of this so love the fact that Jennile and I have similar likes and this gives me an opportunity to learn from someone, who like me, most probably, is torn between hand projects and machine quilting. I also discovered that she is having a quilt along and I have happily volunteered to join in.

Done and despatched

Its very comforting to see that the India Modern Quilt Guild (IMQG) has a set of office bearers now. Erika is the new secretary who would be in charge of ‘Online events, announcements and Overall management of the facebook group’.

While I always feel excited about new challenges, they somehow get lost in the busy humdrum of daily life. And by the time I realize I am too close to the delivery date. It doesn’t feel good that way.So I decided to jump right into it and complete it. Did I hear someone mention resolution. well! well! It isn’t as serious as that…just had the idea and the time so sew-ed it and sent it out. Am happy about the quick achievement

The challenge ran something like this:
“To enter, you make a 12″ x 12″ block with a house on it. The house block can be made with any technique. Each person should include a 6″ x 6″ white fabric with their name signed on it for the back! Make sure to send it before 31st March 2013 to the address below. Winner will be drawn on 2nd April & will win the quilt Shruti makes from all the blocks received!”

Here is…my contribution to the house block quilt.

House Block

A close up of the raw edged tree that I love so much

House Block-raw edged applique tree

And the Aurora borealis kind of Northern skies !

House Block-northern skies

Linking to Live a Colourful Life !

 

2013 – The road not taken …yet!

A quilter needs her path to be defined at the beginning of the year so that at the end she can check where her quilting foot has been during the course of the year.

Thus to give direction to the quilting head, a ‘to do’ list is necessary. I am aware that the actual course of the year would look different from the designed path to accommodate new ideas that germinate throughout the year, yet would want to complete the following few:

1. Sew at least one bag
2. Make at least one large quilt-anything larger than a baby quilt qualifies as large.
3. Learn to crochet beyond the basic stitches
4. Do some sashiko – the Indian version is called Kantha
5. Make lots of small gift items like pot holders, mug rugs, small pouches et al
6. Schedule giveaways on the blog
7. Learn some fabric painting
8. Take the WIPs further- try and finish them.
9. Make a handmade item for grandmom in law, maybe a granny strip blanket, teh final idea is yet to crystallize
10. Take part in at least one international swap during the year
11. Make quilts for family
12. Repair my own clothes. While quilting is interesting and exciting, mending never is, so a heap of clothes sit in my cupboard waiting for being repaired. I am so loathe of this activity that I just go and buy new clothes instead of repairing the old ones, which at times, just require a 10 min stitch.
13. to be decided…

This is enough for the year as I feel I am tending towards my ambitions getting the better of me!! The list is just to keep me in sync with my “to do” list and to help me get out of a quiler’s block, if I reach one anytime during the year

 

Know thy machine

Its my turn at Shruti’s blog for the Know they machine blog hop series. She is not just my teacher in the blogging world but also a constant source of Inspiration. Its a proud privilege to be participating in a blog hop hosted by the talented girl !

Here is my machine …

Now lets make way for the questions:

1. What machine(s) do you have? Brand and Model.

I have a Huskvarna Viking–HV E20, truly a P-R-I-Z-E-D possession…I won it as a prize

2. When and where did you buy it? What were the reasons for selecting this(these) particular model(s). What was its approximate cost.

I had been to the second IMQG(India Modern Quilt Guild) meet in Mumbai and won a second prize in the mini quilt competition. It costs around Rs13000, which is $250. When I saw the various models from HV, I had secretly hoped to buy this model, which was well within my budget and has the basic features that I wanted in my sewing machine.
3. What do you like about your machine? Have you named it? Have you made a cover for it?
I have named my machine and me ‘The dream team’…I dream and it helps me convert them to reality. Between the conception and creation, falls no shadow:)
I would love to make it a cover, but have been indecisive about how and what colour to make it. It is still in WIP mode.

4. Does your machine give you any problems? Could you tell us a few?

The machine is hardly a few months old so I haven’t seen any problems…too early I guess. However, sometimes the upper thread tension is higher than the lower thread tension so the bobbin thread shows on top of the fabric. However, just removing both threads and putting them back has worked wonderfully well until now.

5. What do you sew on it mainly? Quilts, Clothes, Bags etc. How much time do you spend sewing on it? What are the features of the machine that help you improve your work?
I sew pretty much everything on it from mug rugs to pouches to bags to quilts and everything in-between including mending kids clothes. FMQ option is great and so are teh various stitches available on it.

6. What advice would you give others when deciding about which machine to buy?
Two simple points, features that you need and price commiserate to that. Nothing else matters

7. Will you share with us a special memory associated with your machine?
ha ha ha
You got me at that Shruti! Its definitely the moment I won it as a prize. It was beyond belief.

8. If you had unlimited resources in the world, which machine would you choose to buy and why?
I would like a machine where I could quilt large quilts without having to roll them and pull them and twist them around doing FMQ…maybe even one that does fancy embroidery.

Thanks a ton to Shruti for rolling this out . What fun !

 

Sunday Stash

Actually bought on Thursday
The top burlap like fabric is for a bag…I had a bag in mind and went looking for a loosely woven fabric…glad I got it without much effort. They just has a small swatch and I grabbed it instantly before anyone could claim it(not that anyone wanted it, anyways). Bought some coordinated flower fabric along. Didn’t have anything in mind while buying this but now i think it can be the perfect rear fabric for the modern baby triangle quilt top.

 

Hop skip and jump!!

My ‘lil one was jumping around as usual and got a cut—a very small one at that but it was right under his toe so he was inconvenienced to hop, skip and jump. Mothers of little ones know how stressful it can get and I would personally go to any length to gte him distracted. Not that he has interested in the cut anyways…Not taht he remembered it 5 minutes afterwards, anyways. He was more concerned about the shopping trip planned at the mall and I was more worried about his cut and what to do about it.

I remembered how Shruti had posted an idea on designer band aids…she had been sweet enough to gift me a few as well but I had saved them so carefully somewhere that I couldn’t find them at the time of need.
So what does a worried mom she !! well !! well ! she quickly makes a few of them herself They are super easy and kid was super excited about them…