Happy New Year!!!

Bag WIP

Last week I started this bag. I decided to make this for myself for the holidays. Today I made a lot of progress on it, that I’m sure it would make it before the New Year ;)
The first time I thought of this design, I wanted it to be original. It also has to be comfortable to carry, roomy enough, and not too big so it can be made in a few days. And since I avoid sewing a zipper, I made it with a drawstring :)
I decided on a neutral color – tan, for the first one that I made. I did like it so much that I hated to part with it and sell it, along with the pattern to Coats Manila Bay :p
Anyway, I really wanted the bag and I thought of making another one in the same color. But now I was in the mood for a darker shade so I chose a bronze-like color. And I already have a pair of sandals to match it ;)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my blog friends and visitors!

Last Minute Suggestions for the Holidays

I have not tried this, but if you know someone who'd love an oatmeal/milk bath, here's a nice recipe, with a lovely printable sachet pack.

There are more cute homemade gift ideas on that site, you just might find your last minute gift there ;)

Gifts in a jar

Last minute crochet gift? You might want any or all of these small free patterns I offer:
Radiant Coaster/Doily
Striped Keychain Purse
Spiral Ruffled Scrunchie

Need some gift tags? I found some cute and funny ones at Brownielocks.

I like this one:

For Dr. Seuss fans, gift tags here.

For customizable gift tags with lots of themes and images available I suggest DLTK

Lastly, a song for everyone, also at Brownielocks.

One More Crochet Ornament

I think this is cute, I got the pattern from a Woman's Day crochet mag, Sept. 1988 issue. It was designed by Eunice Svinicki. I made it from size 8 cotton threads, though in the pattern it was size 10, it really didnt make much difference. The finished size is about 2 1/2" long and 2" high.
I am so happy when I read that someone special loves anything sheep so I tried to make another one for her, but I couldnt get the legs right since I was in a hurry, so I instead sent this one and I hope it didnt look that old. Since it was already received (thank God it arrived safely), I can show the pic ;)



previous post: Crochet for the Holidays

Other than Crochet for Christmas

Christmas is fast approaching and the air is getting colder here at night. Meanwhile, I still found a few more stuff to share here, from christmas past.
But first, here's a fresh new idea I got from my sis. They made this from recycled stuff, old invitations and cards. I think its really neat and cute ;)



Here's another one of my mini cross-stitch project from a magazine. I mounted it on a wooden frame.


The next one is a mini doll made from felt cloth. I bought an Ondori book on mini dolls a long time ago. This was one of my favorite designs there. I made the "eyeglasses" from thin wire.



Lastly, here's a small pinecone ornament I put together with some ribbons and trims.


And, on crochet news, I finished up 3 more striped keychain purses to give for christmas. I bought some cute buttons for it :)



That's all for now, friends, thanks for looking!

More Yarns and more Birthdays

Two blog friends just recently celebrated their birthdays. More about it on their blogs ;)
Lucy and Vik, I wish you both more happiness in the coming years :)

Yesterday I got some lovely yarns that my lovely sister sent me:


Its a furry yarn that when knit or crocheted, looks like terry cloth. It is 100% polyester, it feels softer than cotton, and it looks like cotton to me.
I think its perfect to make sweatbands, wristwarmers, socks, mittens, etc... and since my favorite to make are cellphone cozies...ta-dah...


Just to make sure my phone is safe and warm ;)

Thanks Sis! I love the colors you chose. And if there are some of it in manly colors...(I would love to make a sweatband for the ping-ponger...hehe)

Poster Calendar 2007

Woohoo! My halter design is shown on Coats Manila Bay's poster calendar!
I feel silly getting excited about it, but then a year ago I didnt even know that I'd be designing for them. Yay! And my printed patterns will be coming out soon!


I think their model and photographer did a good job ;)

Knitted Swatches

Yay, I've knitted some swatches! Just to show how these multicolor threads look when knitted. I'm amazed how little thread was needed to make these, yet it takes a while to knit just one swatch!
Maybe the same time it would take to make this:


Striped Keychain Purse

Cannon Multicolor Threads, more colors available!

These are 4 of the 10 new multicolors that Coats Manila Bay has to offer. I have made some new designs using these threads. Shown above are close-ups of the stitches on finished items I recently made. I had fun with the pattern, seeing the stripe design come up as I crochet. This is what I was talking about when I wrote on my previous post that I was "crocheting like mad!"... I was quite excited about it, I thought that Coats should publish a booklet featuring patterns with the multicolor-stripe-effect :D I have yet to come up with a wearable, though. Any suggestions?



Just in time, while writing this post, I was told that the new colors are now available for ordering. They gave me a color card for the new colors, and I just scanned this.
(Note: in this scanned image the thread doesnt look shiny, but I guarantee it is the same Cannon mercerized cotton thread that's smooth and shiny.)The photos below show a better view of the threads.

Crochet for the Holidays

Here are some of my favorite Christmas ornaments, that I made a long time ago. I had a variety of patterns from old magazines, but I made only a few. I wasnt inspired to make the more intricate ones. I made some cross-stitch ornaments too, also from magazines. I bought the plastic tree frames from a craft store here. I still have a lot of the Aida cloth :p
Most of the ornaments I made were either sold or gifted, so here are the ones that remained with me.
Btw, I went outdoors for the photo shoot, look how they seem to hang naturally on the crawling vines ;)



And here are some small toys I made that my kids liked when they were small.
Both were also made from patterns in crochet magazines.
The snowman is 6 1/2 inches tall with his hat ;)



All of these are from past Christmasses. I wonder if I'll make something new for this year... still looking at my old patterns...

Designer bags, crochet version

I recently came across a site by Stephanie Syjuco, an established multidisciplinary artist based in San Francisco, California. She is a Filipino immigrant to the U.S.
Among other interesting items on her site, the one that kept me looking on was her counterfeit bag project, with crochet skills being used to imitate expensive designer bags. Did you see the cute chanel purse counterfeit she made?
As I googled on to know more about her and her project, I saw that there was an article at Crochet Me magazine about this.

I emailed her to introduce myself and let her know that I'm very interested in joining her project. But I said, I still have not decided on what bag to counterfeit, and I might not be able to start this year. I do hope the project would still be going on by next year. I'm so glad she wrote back, and encouraged me to join.

I showed her a photo of my imitation sak bag, which has remained a UFO for more than 2 years now. But I wont be submitting this one, since the bag I imitated is already crocheted, and there isnt much of a challenge in that...Also this one has been around for quite sometime.
Edited to add:
Whatever the purpose of this project, is apart from my intentions in imitating a famous designer bag. For me this project is merely for art's sake, to interpret an expensive bag design in my own homemade version. No profit is intended to be gained from this. This is not similar in any way to the manufacture of imitation designer bags, mass-produced and sold everywhere.


(borrowed pic)

Hachoo...!

Yes, I slept with a stuffy nose, itchy throat, dry eyes and slight fever. I thought a good night's sleep would get rid of it, but still I woke up to this:

photo credit

Its been a long time since I had a cold, now I had to get one at this time of the year...

Crochet Update for November

This is a post about my November update. Actually, there isnt much to update with for now, but I've created a new page and it can be viewed now on my soon-to-be launched website here.
I dont have anything else to blog about except...
I just designed another small item, a different kind of scrunchie. You can see the link to the pattern on the same page.

Crocheted Hat, 10 years ago

I remembered this only now, after I had read Sue's post on making her childrens' costumes.
When my younger son was in pre-school, about ten years ago, I made him a cat costume. Nothing great, but I was proud to use my crochet skills in making this, and that my son was happy about it. Actually I only made a hat and a tail (not in picture) - the gloves, I just cut off the tips of a machine-knitted gloves and hemmed it, and I did the face make-up. I have not seen the hat again, I dont know if its still here...

Crocheted Coaster/Mini Doily

I was browsing through my magazines yesterday, and saw this picture of knitted coasters. I thought it would be much easier to crochet it, considering that I hardly knit, so I tried to make one. I couldnt make my design work with 10 repeats, so I did it with 8. I made a coaster size and another one with a bigger hook, for a small doily. (Photo: McCall's Knit & Crochet for the Home, 1989)


Here it is. Obviously, the knitted original has a more detailed design. But this crochet version is surely a lot easier to make, and looks pretty too. I used cotton threads with metallic for a more elegant look.
I immediately submitted this one for the 2008 Crochet Calendar and I'm so glad that it got accepted!

Crochet Stuff

Do you want to be on the cover of your own magazine (or have someone willing to be on it)? Maybe you want to try creating your own design for a cover at Flickr Toys .
It isnt as easy as it looks, but if you got some time to spare, this is fun to do.
I did this one to preview my new site as well as my new designs. This is just for practice ;) My sister did not know I'll use her pic :p



Please stay tuned for the announcement of the link of my new website at googlepages.com.

I want some brownies!

Today I suddenly decided to bake some brownies. I had plenty of good reasons to:

1. Its my younger son's favorite, and he's always asking me why I've not been baking anymore.
2. I had all the ingredients and its been here for weeks, cant stock them up any longer.
3. I used to bake brownies for someone's birthday, if I had to prepare something, because it is the easiest and most appealing to everyone.
4. Someone's celebrating her birthday today, but I couldn't send her the real thing, so here's the photo to show her that I remembered =)
5. That someone also sent me the crocheted bear posing there along with the Nestle cocoa, which made the brownies taste soooo good!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TINA!!!

(TimelessCreations )

Crocheting like Mad!

I've been doing a lot of crocheting lately and this design I just created makes me crochet a lot faster. I'll tell you why, later... I cannot preview it, since it would give away the design, which I think is quite cute and surprisingly easy to do!!! Maybe I'm too eager and probably overrating it, but anyway I'm thrilled for now. I like my work!

Thanks for visiting and hope you come back often for more of my crochet stuff =)

Btw, I just saw a photo of my matrix purse here on Maggie's Crochet, and thought I would share...you might want to order the crochet calendar ;)

Crochet Designs Preview

I've been waiting long to see the printed copies of my patterns and for the news that its finally out in the market...I think I will have to wait a little more...
Meantime, I have decided to preview the shrug design, since I recently made one for my mom for her birthday. The other one is the mesh shawl/wrap that I made out of the new color of thread from Coats. Both are modeled by my lovely (one yr. older) sister ;) Thanks, Sis!

Crochet Update

I'm happy that I'm really into crochet designing now... I know its been a while since I first realized it. But the other day I was delighted to receive some new colors of threads from Coats Manila Bay :) I've been assigned to make some easy patterns using it.

Here are the two new colors (...I think they have a few more in the making) :

Birthday Greetings
I have a feeling that I missed a blog friend's birthday...I hope not. I have a bad memory, but I'm not going to use age as an excuse for that ;)
If anyone is celebrating a birthday, hope you let us know through your blog...

Here is the birthday girl I know:

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's 70th birthday...oops, I dont know if she'd like people to know that. But I mentioned her age because it is a milestone. I've been thinking what I'm going to do when I reach that age, I googled some and here's some interesting notes I gathered:

What to do at age 70:
1. Stop complaining about your age and climb Mt. Everest like 70-year-old Yuichiro Miura, who became the oldest person to climb Mount Everest.
2. Ski across Canada like 70-yr-old Alex Nilsson (you might want to read the article, it has some training secrets in there)
3. Bike 20 miles a day like 70-yr-old Mary Drake Jackson
4. Compete in powerlifting like 70-yr-old Jeff Telljohn
5. Retire and enjoy life watching television, reading magazines and do some abstract painting like 71-yr-old Cheeta, hehe!
6. Get married like 70-yr-old Edna Townsend to someone 39 years younger. This article has their picture (...hahaha)

I cant decide yet, but I'm sure I wouldnt want to become a serial yarn thief like 70-yr.-old Audrey Yandel.

So mom, what have you decided to do?

That's good, keep on smiling!

Fun Stuff

Lovely Gift

I saw this dishcloth called Garterlac on Vik's blog several weeks ago. It was a very interesting knitted piece and I would love to try it, but my knitting lessons would have to wait some more. I didnt know then that my friend Vik had made one for me, and sent it with hugs from Argentina, woohoo!


I now have it on my little kitchen :D It looks perfect, I love the colors. Thanks again, Vik!


Photo credits: Garterlac dishcloth by Vik, Crocheted Picasso Potholder by Tina, Knitted Dishcloth by Tina


Two Fun Projects I recently saw these online, looks really good but I dont know if I can still find the time to make them...
Honey Panta by Amie


Champagne Wrap by Christie Pruitt