Birthday presents

In the month of November, there are several of us in the family celebrating our birthdays. My father in the 1st week, me in the third week, and a brother and a sister in the 4th week.
But first, today (Oct. 31) is my brother's sweetheart's birthday. She is a pastry chef, so I thought to give her something she can display on her kitchen.
I saw a ceramic figurine of a baker, half kneeling and ready to serve something on a platter. It is cute and only cost me not more than $4. (I bet she doesn't look at my blog...)
As I always want to add something handmade to my gifts, I thought its about time I crocheted a dessert. I searched for cake patterns on ravelry, and I chose this cake from Melissa Mall. I also adapted Sanguine's creation of whipped cream and cherry on top of the cake.

Presenting my gift:




Hmm...don't you wish you could eat that cake?


I would also like to show you what my sister sent me from the U.K. - her birthday gift to me. Its a crochet book, not a popular one - but I chose it myself on Amazon U.K. It seems like a very handy and useful book for designing.



She also sent me some cute little kitty (text) highlighters. As usual, my son got interested and will borrow it for school ;)

Crochet cotton slippers

I recently finished a new design that I find very useful. Its a slipper and its not so unique, but I used two strands of cotton thread. I used to think that I can only make slippers from WW yarn. Most of the patterns I found used big hooks and thicker yarns and most were done in scs. I tried making one from two strands thread, and it starts with dc rounds, so its fairly easy. I wish I did it a long time ago. I really love wearing it!

Take a look at my happy feet :)



I got inspired to come up with the slippers design, when Daisy asked me if I could make one. She was just beginning to take up Pilates classes and realized she needed some comfy (and cute) slippers. It took me some time, but I think she was so pleased with the outcome.



Here, she is modeling her slippers ;)



More info about the pattern on Ravelry.

Laceydaisy's stitch markers

Laceydaisy is my friend's Etsy shop. She offers some pretty stitch markers and some crochet items too. You can see it here.



Just a sample of her lovely collection of beads which she turns into stitch markers or earrings.

Some small projects

I'd like to show here my recent projects just to take a break from the one project I should be finishing, which is this bag:



It is sitting on my lap and I just stare at it, not wanting to pick up the hook and continue. It's a Japanese design, and I chose it because it's unique and challenging. But somehow, the material I'm using (which is 3 strands of thread combined) makes the project not enjoyable. Its a bit hard on the hands and the slow motion gets a bit boring.

My mind wandered off...I went through my yarn stash and picked the DMC Cebelia thread size 10 - a nice blue color. I thought to make my mom a set of glass cozies and coasters. I finished these, so far:



Also, a few days ago Gene sent me a pattern for a bracelet she designed. I chose to use DMC Cebelia in red. I love working with it, to make small projects especially crochet jewelry.



Lastly, this is the first time I got so inclined to make slippers. I hadn't thought about making one until a friend wanted one to use for her pilates class. Still I was too lazy to look for patterns, until Tina sent me some links. I studied some patterns, and then made up my own using cotton threads (two strands). I'm still learning how to make the right average sizes for it. So far, I had some success making a size 7 for me ;)
I'm now working on a size 5 1/2.

Bags on Ravelry

Thank you so much for the compliments on my bags!!

Since I am still very much into bags, I went on to do more searching on Ravelry.
Did you know...(as of this date)
* there are 3937 bag patterns listed on Ravelry and 1092 of those are crochet
* there are almost 10,000 bag projects and about 5960 of those are crochet
* the top bag lady is Pipp, with 82 bags - none crocheted :p



* the second bag lady is TerryRoss, with 73 bags - none crocheted :p



* the third bag lady is sfb, with 60 bags - only two are crocheted :p



* definitely not a bag lady, (but a real good crochet bag designer) Drew Emborsky has a new fun bag design, and its a free pattern on Ravelry :)



Lastly, here's an old bag pattern that I recently added to Ravelry as a free pattern :)



Oh, I forgot to mention - I have found the crochet bag lady (thanks, but its not me, Gene :)

A couple more bags

This had been an unfinished bag for the longest time. It was supposed to be a backpack, but I decided to just finish it as a tote.



This one is my recent favorite. I call it mini fat-bottom bag (same as the bag in my previous post).


Here it is again, turned inside out. I love the coordinating lining, which I just got from my stash.

Old bags, new bags

I couldn't count anymore how many crochet bags I've made so far. A few have been sold, and many have been gifted. I have several in my closet and other hiding places, some of which I can't recall...But thanks to Ravelry, I am able to organize my bag projects now - at least virtually. The inspiration came when I saw that the current featured Ravelers were those who have the most bag projects that are linked to patterns found in the Ravelry database. At first I thought, I do have a lot of bag projects, but some of the patterns aren't on Ravelry yet and some I haven't found time to link to. Then again, I saw it as a challenge ;) So recently, I linked to patterns and I also added a couple of patterns to the database.

You might want to take a look at my bag projects on Ravelry.
But wait, here are the bags I recently finished.
These are all just small bags, but I have lined it all and I added magnetic snaps on the one without the drawstring.
All these bags are linked to the patterns:

Wrist Purse



Vertical-striped bag



Mini Fat-bottom bag