Getting artsy again

Long time with crafty posts.

I’m swamped with work these days. To add to that, I’m busy working on two novels and a couple of short stories in parallel. Then there is promotion activities for published books.

But all of that aside, I need to be ready for Eid-ul-Adha. And I thought of receiving an old trend – Sindhi Tanka.

I had the fabric in solid magenta color and one hank of white and lavender shaded yarn.

I started it yesterday and it’s 60% done. It has been thirteen years since I did this stitch. I had no supplies to do a proper tracing of the design and I drew the boxes manually. I’m not happy with the fitness, but that will do.

I’m hoping I can get this ready for Eid.

Happy stitching!

Shabana Mukhtar

And back to crocheting

When summer began, I chose to forget that I work with yarn. Even holding the wool and crochet used to make me sweat. Besides, I had finally started to write fiction. And crocheting took a back-seat.

Crocheting, sewing, writing, blogging – these are the hobbies my alter-ego possess. I am so proud of the other side of me.

The ‘me’ however, has a day job, and needs to take care of bills, rents, household chores, grocery, laundry, dishes, arghhhh. Although ‘me’ is providing ‘the other me’ all the luxuries, I don’t like this version of me, not very much.

As monsoons are here now, I think I should resume working on the shawl that I so lovingly started to crochet.

It is simple diamond stitch with 3ply light yarn. Hoping it turns out as good as it looks right now.

Happy crocheting!

Shabana Mukhtar

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Back From Break

Happy New Year Everyone!

Been away from WordPress for a long time, or so it seems.

I was overloaded with office work, and that followed by a 6 days long rejuvenating stay with family, although in a city where mercury was a little dipped.

And, hold on to your seats, I made my first sale.

This was my first project that I started, and the longest time I spent on it to get it complete. It was closest to my heart. However….

However, I got a good offer and I accepted. And let’s face it, I was not going to wear it all that often. My city is sort of neutral, temperature wise.

Makes me think more about taking up crocheting as a profession. Okay, maybe part-time for now. Worth trying, I say, let this be my new year resolution.

Cheers,

Shabana Mukhtar

8 months of crocheting

December began, and changes the mood entirely. Makes me feel lazy, just want to sit in a warm cozy blanket and do nothing. If only, it was that easy.

I have been swamped by the office work for past few weeks, and haven’t been able to crochet much. I hardly finished a cardigan for myself, utilizing the weekend for crocheting. That also means no posts about new crochet projects for a while now. This one is to summarize then, and now.

Yarn Stash – Then

Yarn Stash – Now

So far, the crocheting journey has been really satisfying. I have finished one gift item for each of my family members. Well almost. I haven’t don’t anything for my dear mom. Up next would be something for her using the lacy green yarn.

And maybe attempting to replicate this using these bundles.

I’ve also posted my experiments of crocheting various projects. I request you to take a look at my other posts about crocheting, especially if you’re a beginner, like me. If it inspires you to pick this as a hobby, I’d be delighted to know.

Writing and crocheting have many similarities, I realize. For both, we need patience, we need to read a lot, and we need focus.

Stay tuned for more.
Faseeha

Scrap yarn granny blanket

All this while, I have fought the temptation to buy more yarn.

Minutes after finishing and clicking pictures of the one day shrug, I looked at remaining yarn stash.

Most of my planned projects are done, leaving odd combination of yarn left. It differs in type, quantity and color. Some are cotton, some are acrylic, or acrylic nylon. Some are 3 ply, some are 4 ply. Some are variegated, some are solid. A weird combination indeed. Absolute scrap. I want to use all of it and create something useful. But how?

I thought of doing a granny square blanket. I have apprehension about how it would look, given how strange this lot is.

I did one mistake. As I wanted to use every single millimeter of yarn, I joined next yarn even if one square is not complete. I did not start the next color in corner so it looks a little distorted for the first 3 colors.

In one stretch, I finished this much.

Now I am done, and I must say pleasantly surprised with the output.
I’m amazed that those tiny little balls, in the most strange combination, would result in such lovely blanket. A perfect gift for my newborn, one-week-old nephew.

Scrap-Yarn-Granny-Blanket-4

Scrap-Yarn-Granny-Blanket-3

Scrap-Yarn-Granny-Blanket-2

Scrap-Yarn-Granny-Blanket-1

One day shrug project

Last Saturday, I finished my ambitious cardigan, first attempt of working with fine yarn. It turned out great. I thought I’ll take a break from hook for a couple of days. It will help to relieve my crochet finger syndrome. That pain in my index finger fie to long hours of working with crochet hook, and slightly bent and stiff feeling in the bones of index finger – I call it “crochet finger syndrome”. I thought maybe I will get better ideas for next project if I take a break. I got an idea the same day. I was aching to try it out. Started it the next day. It was Sunday and I had plenty of time at hand.

 

 

 

I made the first one. I used the two balls of dark color to make a medium size shrug (150 grams of yarn).  Just the thought that I finished one project in one day, is making me feel very proud.

I finished the shrug, but did not get time to click pictures, and I was excited to post about it. Whatever I could, is here. The lighting in the picture is really poor, Apologies for that.

One Day Shrug

 

I am tempted to try it again, to test repeatability of my idea.  With the small size one with lighter shade of yarn – just one skein of 75 g of yarn.

Getting Lacy

Enough with the crochet cardigans and shawls and beanies. Now is the time to create something delicate.

I wanted to make some jewellery using crochet art. but the only thread I had, was too delicate.

The thread crochet hook was smallest size and it is difficult to work with that hook and that yarn. The thread was getting untwisted in the process. The motifs were not coming very nicely. AND, I kept hurting my finger.

Time to buy  a new one. The one I got is a good 6 sizes bigger.

Working with laces is more tiring. The work does not grow very quickly. And you’ve to be very careful. Holding the work, the thread, the crochet hook; all of this feels very different. I guess over time, I will get used to it.

I’ve completed only 3 motifs so far. I already love the lace. Quite excited about this one.

Pooled variegated cardigan

My current project is sort of best of both worlds – a combination of top down and bottom up crocheting. While it is a little bit more effort than usual, I feel more confident about the “finishing” of the project.

I had 4 hanks of 56g each in my stash. The yarn is 3 ply 3 shades of cyan-grey colorway. I wanted to do something lacy, light for spring / early winters. As I had long strand variegated yarn, I also wanted to see if I could do planned color pooling. Having done shells in a few different ways for my previous cardigan projects, I didn’t want to repeat that. I was looking for inspirations. I happen to visit my parents for a weekend and I saw a nice white lacy tablecloth. It was worked with diamond stitches. It was really lacy and the diamonds were repeated after every 5 rows of dc1-ch3 sequence. I decided to go with diamond stitch cardigan with 3/4 sleeves.
***

Yarn:

56 grams of 3 ply yarn gives about 350 meters. So I’ve about 1400 meters to work with.

Pattern:

Back of body

• Chain for 18 inches.
• Do a dc each.
• Do diamond in 7 rows, skipping first n last st of row, to reduce for armhole.
• Repeat until desired armhole length depth is achieved.

Two front pieces

• Chain for 9 inches.
• Do a dc each.
• Do diamond in 7 rows, skipping first n last st of row, to reduce for armhole.
• Repeat until desired armhole length depth is achieved.

Join the front pieces with back. Join the shoulders as well.

***

At this stage, I realized that the diamond stitch is not looking very nice with variegated yarn. Secondly, pooling was not working as planned.

I decided to change the stitch. Starting top-down from base of finished work, I started doing rounds of dc for desired cardigan length.

***

Next I worked the sleeves in dc stitch throughout. I also added pocket this time, my hands are really cold during winter. Added wooden buttons. Use shells for edging top and bottom. Some work is pending for sleeves.

Here’s the cardigan before blocking.

 

***

Now to the pooling effect, I tried different tension and you can see the effect on pooling.

Alternate rows:

 

Stacked bars:

Shift effect:

Desired pooling:

Off course, this would work in rounds and not in rows.

Overall, I am happy with my experiment of pooling. i have learnt a thing or two about pooling. It will certainly help me with me next attempt at it.

Another thing I learnt is while doing sleeves top down, somehow it shrinks by each row even when I am not decreasing stitches. I want more “open” sleeves, but it fits snugly. in future I would do sleeves separately and later sew it to the armhole.

***

This is the most economic cardigan I have ever owned. It cost me 160 INR for the yarn and INR 30 for the buttons. Along with hours and hours of crochet. Still, it’s just 190 bucks. Where would I get that?

Glad to have added another piece to my winter wardrobe.

Cardigan vs shawl

I’ve crocheted 3 cardigans and 1 shawl so far. As I am finishing about to the 4th cardigan, and looking at my yarn stock to start another project in parallel.

Yarn Stash

I decided to use the left over 3ply yarn for doing a diamond stitch. I started to wonder again – what should I do: cardigan or shawl/scarf.

This question has haunted me for a long time. Which of the two is more useful?

I was thinking shawl can be wrapped around throughout the year whenever there is a nip in the air. cardigan is more like a winter item. Which one would you rather prefer? Shawl or cardigan?

 

via Daily Prompt: Prefer

 

6 months retrospective

So much has happened in past 6 months.

1. My little sister got married, hurrah
2. My younger brother got his first job in my city, moved here, and again back to home-town for his dream job
3. My mother diagnosed with hypertension (sad)
4. I put on 10 kilograms of weight, after that lost 5 kilograms, followed by a weight gain of 3 kilograms again (very sad indeed)
5. Crochet, crochet and more crochet
6. Blogging, blogging and more blogging

The last two have certainly kept me busy.

When I am not crocheting, I am planning for crochet – what color, which yarn, which stitch, whom for.

When I am not crocheting, or planning to crochet, I am writing about it. I am glad that I can post at least once a week, thanks to this hobby. I have finally started to pursue my life long dream of writing. Writing that can be shared with the world.

I’ve more than 15 posts to my credit thanks to crochet, and those random thoughts that come to mind every now and then.

Overall, these 6 months have been quite fulfilling as far as my dream of writing goes.

What’s next? I can either be fed up of this if this is not really my thing. Or I will be a full-time blogger / writer. Hoping for the best.