Jaylin is the name!

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Thank you for your responses here, on facebook as well as on Instagram. Of the total 34 responses received 10 of you got it right. The majority of you had chosen Jayden. Congratulations Kaikelasa and Yvonne Dunmore for getting the answers right. If you provide me your email address I can send you the pattern. 

I have designed a pattern after a gap of almost 7 months. The last time I released a pattern was in August last year. Moving to a new house had changed my routine and I was forced to put off designing any new item. I was also distracted by my newfound obsession for dollhouses which I somehow managed to pull myself away from. No, I haven't entirely given up on dollhouses. I'm making one from scratch but the process is very time consuming and needs a lot of patience. I have to wait for some materials to arrive, wait for somethings to dry, just wait, wait and wait. During these waiting times I did manage to crochet a couple of garments for myself, not my own designs, but unfortunately they did not turn out as expected and so I had to frog them both. The cardigan turned into a pullover which I wore a lot during this winter and a pullover is becoming a cardigan which needs the sleeves to be completed. 

The Jaylin baby blanket is an easy pattern, suitable for a beginner. You don't need to refer to the pattern for each and every row, it can easily be remembered. I have also included instruction to customize the blanket. This blanket measures approximately 32 x 34 inches using DK weight yarn and a size G/4 mm hook. You can purchase the blanket from here, here or here.

The tatty bear that you see above can be purchased from here or here. My next pattern is going to be a free one and is getting ready. Have a great week ahead!

Guess the name and win the pattern!

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My latest pattern is this lovely baby blanket which is ready and will be available in my shops on Monday but before that I want to play a small game. I have already given a name for this blanket and all I want you to do is guess what it is. You have to choose from the options given below and if your answer is correct you will get the pattern for free. The options are:
a. Jaylin
b. Jayden
c. Jayson

You have the whole weekend to choose and the name will be announced on Monday.
You can leave a comment here or on my facebook page or Instagram
Have a great weekend!

Some progress and some losses

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Hi everybody, I hope you are all staying warm. I have been reading about the polar vortex in USA and watching all the crazy freezing mid-air videos and feeling thankful for having comparatively warmer weather here, but here too it has been unusually chilly for the past week or so. 

Two weeks ago we had hailstorm and these are the hail stones.

I frogged the cardigan that I showed you here. I was not happy with the way it turned out. It didn't look good on me. So I unravelled the whole thing and it has now become a simple raglan sleeved pullover which I'm wearing right now. The yarn is a bit scratchy but it does keep me warm although I made the sleeves a little shorter than intended. So I might have to lengthen them but that it for a later date. I'm done with it for now.

I have made some progress with the doll house. The living room is almost done and I'll be starting the kitchen soon.

This is the living room. I'm making everything from scratch. The house is made of cardboard. I used popsicle sticks for the floor. I'm using scrapbook paper for the walls and thin cardboard for the panels all glued to cardstocks. These will finally be glued to the cardboard. I made the staircase out of mdf sheets and giant reed canes. These are similar to bamboo. My husband and son brought these from a field nearby. 

For the brick fireplace and stone hearth I used egg cartons. I'm starting from the lower floor and will be working my way up. There will be an upper floor and attic. 

Speaking of my losses, I lost all my data. ALL except for a copy of my pdf patterns. I have this habit of saving everything in my external hard drive and keep nothing in my computer. I have had some bad experiences before where my computer crashed and I had to lose my data stored in the computer, so I always saved everything on an external hard drive. Though my husband insisted on retaining a copy in the computer as well I never did it and I also I didn't listen to my son who asked me to store everything online. Finally one day last week my external crashed and everything's gone, all my patterns, pattern photos, collection of ebooks, thousands of other stuff and above all almost 13 years' worth of photos! My husband says he'll give it to some expert and try to retrieve the data but I'm not sure. I can only hope. Even if everything is lost I hope we get back our personal photos atleast. I terribly regret not retaining a copy of everything elsewhere.

I showed you the baby pigeons in my last post. There were 3 babies, 2 outside the house on a window sill and one inside our house. Well, one of the 2 that were outside died yesterday. We used to watch them everyday as they grew up.

Few days ago we found one baby with an injured wing. The wound was bleeding and my husband brought him home and applied an antibiotic ointment and left him back in the nest. He was alright then, there was no more bleeding. A couple of days ago the other baby flew off and this one stayed in the nest. Even before the babies left the nest the mother had laid a couple of more eggs. I guess the mother pushed the baby out of the nest because we found him twice sitting on the stairs and put him back in the nest. 

On Saturday, my son found him outside our door and brought him in. He just walked around exploring the rooms and settled in one place. In the evening my husband put him back in the nest but within a couple of hours we found him again outside our door. So we brought him in and put him in a box beside our bed because we didn't want him to spend the cold night out in the stairs, but poor thing, we found him dead the next morning. Don't know what happened. May be we could have done something to save the poor thing. Feeling bad!  

New year, new beginnings and some old memories

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Hi to all of you who still visit my blog and read my posts. I know I disappeared from blogland all of a sudden. There have been some major events that happened since my last post in early August. We moved to a different house in October. Preparing to move, moving, settling into the new home and new routine all took my mind away from blogging and also crocheting. I like this new house better than the older one (both not our own).

There are plenty of pigeons in our building. The house has a courtyard and it makes it easier for the pigeons to even come into the house. 

One even built a nest inside a box that I had temporarily stored on a cupboard. At the same time another one made a nest outside the house on a windowsill. There were two eggs in the one outside on the windowsill and 1 egg on the cupboard. All 3 hatched on the same day, that was 2 days before the new year. For the first time I saw baby birds this close and that too within a few minutes of hatching.

There are a few squirrels living in a tree close to a window. They are not very scared of humans and always coming in through the open window demanding to be fed. I always leave some nuts for them. They remind me of our pet squirrel named Bujju from many years ago.

My husband brought home this baby found abandoned on the road. Our Bujju loved coffee! Every time I finish my morning coffee and leave the cup on the table he will dive into the cup and finish off the remaining few drops. 

He was more attached to me than my husband or kid. Whenever I sit on the table to work he used to climb to my shoulders and lick my neck. His tongue was scratchy like a cat's tongue.

He was with us only for a few months. We lost him to a stray cat that sneaked into the house and carried him away. Poor baby, we still miss him. I never knew squirrels could be this friendly until we had Bujju in our life. 

Moving on to other things, something else is keeping me distracted from crochet. I suddenly find myself attracted to miniatures and dollhouse making. I had always liked miniatures and dollhouses but this sudden obsession is something which is new. I don't know what started it but the next thing I knew I was pinning dollhouses, miniature stuff and tutorials, watching youtube videos and following miniature blogs. I even started making a dollhouse out of cardboard, the progress is slow and I'm making plenty of mistakes but learning from them. I might even make a tutorial here on how to build a dollhouse from scratch. I'm not entirely giving up on crochet but I have already started exploring ways to combine both.

This is the unfinished shell of my dollhouse. It will have 3 floors, lower floor, upper floor and an attic. Not so attractive to look, right? Wait and watch! 

As I said I haven't stayed away from crochet. I did make a cardigan for myself. I was even planning to write a free pattern for it. It looked alright after finishing, it looked alright on my dress form but it doesn't look alright on me. I'm not pleased with the neck. It looks way too broad on me but I'm not going to alter it now. 

I also started a pullover for my son. It's almost done but I'm not pleased with that one too. Something is not looking right. I think I didn't get the armholes right but I'm not going to do anything about it now, maybe later. I'm too distracted by dollhouses.

The scrap yarn hexagon blanket is taking a lot of time to complete. I wanted to finish it by the end of the year but obviously now it's going to need probably another year. 

I'll leave you with this. I have rambled enough for now. Most probably my next post would be a tutorial on dollhouse. Enjoy your weekend!

New patterns - launch offer 30% off

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I have listed 2 new patterns in my shops. The blue one is the Madelyn top pattern which is easy consisting of only few basic crochet stitches and therefore is suitable for a beginner. I have written the pattern for 2 sizes - adult small/medium which would fit a bust size of 34-36 inches and medium/large for a bust size of 38 to 40 inches

The grey one is the twisted cables cardigan which consists of advanced crochet stitches and would be suitable only for someone who knows advanced crochet stitches and has a knowledge of how cables are worked. This is my most difficult pattern to design ever. It gave me plenty of headaches but I was determined not to give up at any point and I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. I have written this pattern for 5 adult sizes ranging from a bust size of 34 to 42 inches.  

I made it with and without sleeves. 

As a launch offer I'm giving 30% off of these two patterns when you buy them from my webstore and also from Ravelry. You don't need any coupon code. The price will be automatically reduced during check out. I hope you enjoy these patterns.

Other than crochet

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I used to be a hobby-hopper, always hopping from one craft to another, but after taking up crochet seriously I haven't done much of hopping around. Once in a while I do try other things like sewing, knitting or sketching and I thought I would show you some of the things other than crochet that I made recently or still making. I should mention though that I am only at the beginner level and not an expert.

I am very pleased with the way my kindle sleeve turned out. I never used my sewing machine to sew anything other than repairing or altering clothes. Except for the basic ones I'm not even familiar with most of the functions of my sewing machine. So making a Kindle sleeve is a big achievement for me though the finishing is not that good. I used my son's old shirt. I even embroidered a flower with the aid of Youtube videos. 

I love to draw but I don't consider my drawings show-off worthy so they don't get featured here often. Anyway I thought I'll show you a couple of interesting pages from my sketch book - the A and B pages. I'm trying to fill each page with images starting with each letter but so far I have managed to fill in only the A and B pages though I started this roughly 2 years ago. 2 years for 2 letters, so will it take me 24 more years to finish this? 

A for ...

B for ...

I am also doing a cross stitch. It's called Victorian elegance. 

    Ok, so that's it. 

Triangle shawl - free pattern

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Hi, here I am back after a long break with a free pattern for you. I got back from my vacation three weeks ago but was busy finishing the cardigan pattern that was incomplete and needed some finishing touches. Once I completed the cardigan I started this shawl. 

Before going to the pattern I'll let you have a sneak peek of my latest pattern, the twisted cable cardigan that will be available soon.

Coming back to the shawl, it took me about 2 days to design and make this shawl. I picked up bright colors for the shawl because I needed some color therapy after working with grey predominantly. 

You can purchase the PDF version of the pattern from here for a small amount. The PDF contains a chart as well as instruction to customize the shawl size. 

Click here to add it to your Ravelry queue or favorite it

Click here to like my facebook page

Instruction

This is an easy pattern consisting of only a few basic stitches. The pattern is written in standard American crochet terms 

Materials

Sport weight yarn approximately 335 yards

Crochet hook size D/3.25 mm

Tapestry needle

Size

The shawl has a width of approximately 50 inches and height of 29 inches without blocking

Stitches/abbreviations used

ch - chain

sl st - slip stitch

sc - single crochet (UK - double crochet)

dc - double crochet (UK - treble crochet)

dc2tog/dc3tog - double crochet stitches working together in 2/3 consecutive stitches

tr - treble (UK - double treble)

Pattern

Row 1: Ch 284, dc in 5th ch from hook, ch 3, skip 3 ch, 3 dc in next ch, ch 3, **skip 3 ch, dc3tog, ch 3, skip next 3 ch, 3 dc in next ch, ch 3**. Repeat from ** to ** across, you will have 5 ch in the end, skip 3 ch, dc2tog. Turn.

Row 2: Ch 4, dc in next 3 dc, **ch 7, dc in next 3 dc** Repeat from ** to ** across, tr in ch after last dc. Turn.

Row 3: Ch 3, dc3tog, **ch 3, 3 dc in ch-7 space, ch 3, dc3tog** Repeat from ** to ** across until last dc3tog, dc in next ch. Turn.

Repeat rows 2 and 3 until the triangle is complete. Fasten off and weave in the loose ends.