Tote bag arrived!

The wonderful Beth sent me a tote bag, as I told you, and today I went to pick it up from the postal office. I went there with a friend, and it proved to be a very smart thing as i was walking on the street, admiring the bag and the wonderful letter, and had it not been for her, I might have bumped into a few people/streetlamps.

Enough of my rambling for now 🙂 Here is the bag:

And to think she called it ugly…

Crochet box

I finally found the final ingredient for my crochet box and I can present it in all its glory 🙂

There’s a match box in it to get an idea of its size. I’m using it to keep my lipsticks and small cosmetics in one place.

Crochet bag pics!

I finally managed to take some pictures of my bag 🙂

The side and base is quite wide, about 4 inches and I’m thinking about making a fabric interior so pencils don’t start dropping out of it when I’m on the street 🙂

Update

My crochet bag is completed and I hope I’ll get a few pictures taken tomorrow 🙂

In other news, my second sewing attempt was very close to being a failure. I have one mismatched coaster to show for it, and two almost-bags, but I’m hoping after lots of time and many pieces of ruined fabric, I’ll be able to make something passable. I’m glad that at least my fingers are intact and my grandma’s sewing machine is still in one piece.

And to finish this with something good: I won a tote bag! I was incredibly happy when i saw that and I have to admit I’m listening to hear if the postman brought something new. All i had so far are two bills, but I’m waiting 🙂

Busy busy bee

I’ve been busy these days crocheting. (i also sewed for the first time, but I haven’t photographed my creations yet).

My first project is a bag, which has the sides completed:

and now I’m working on the bottom, sides and strap (which will be one long crocheted band). After that’s done, I’ll take care of the hanging bits of yarn, put these together and look for a fabric to sew as an interior for this.

And to give you an idea of what I’ll be doing next, or rather what I’ll be using, here’s a picture I took while I put my supplies in order:

What’s in a name?

When i thought of this name, i thought it was fun and nice and fits me. As I was collecting the list of blogs I watch to add them to the blogroll, I realized that ‘orange’ is a rather popular part of names. Of course it is, it’s the poppiest color, so it makes sense. But you could have been more original, everyone will say. As the photo shows, I really had no choice.

That’s my rug, bought a year ago. Notice the green and orange almost-dots. And there are more green and orange dots. These little mats were bought separately and the colors almost match 🙂

The reason for these is that I wanted green walls, and the only rug i could find had the orange bits. So the color theme for my room is orange and green, and all the decorative things i bought since then match that.

Diy: Scarf Hanger

A few days ago I tried to make a scarf of several simple crocheted loops, but it didn’t work very well. I undid the knots and kept the chains, thinking I might have a use for them at some point.

Then my mother showed me this scarf hanger she saw at Ikea

and I had an idea. I closed all but one of the chains, getting four loops and then put them through the fifth chain. Each loop served as one scarf hanger, and the fifth one was used to hang the whole thing.

Here are some pictures to make up for my poor explaining skills (I apologize for the lightning, my room doesn’t have good natural light and it was too late to go outside and take the photos).

These are the loops

I had three winter scarfs there, which are quite heavy, to see if it would hold, and it did. Each loop was made of ch-s, and you can adapt the size to the type of scarfs you want to use. This is a close-up of mine:

This took me about 20 minutes to make, and the biggest problem was that the yarn I used was one of those pre-woven yarns and my crochet got stuck. I think with the proper yarn, it can be done in 5 minutes 🙂

Hope this was useful. if you have any suggestions, comments or complaints, I’d love to hear them 🙂

New project

I’m in love. I was browsing the crafting blogs to find interesting things to add to my increasing to-do list when I discovered something brilliant (and simple enough that I might actually do it). It’s the woven blanket in this post by Sarah London and as soon as I decide on some colors, I’ll give it a try.

Another interesting thing I saw in her blog was the Hawaiian model which I might try at some point.

So… I’m off to raid my supplies boxes. Will return with pictures soon 🙂

Tutorial: border in Illustrator

I saw this tutorial and thought the technique would be great for making interesting borders for different things. Here is a step by step tutorial to make something like this:

Pattern Pattern

I was scrolling through hundreds of WordPress themes, trying to pick one from the many that I liked when I realised that you can’t select any theme for a free WordPress blog. The one I chose was the nicest one from the available ones and I’ll try to customize this one before I think about buying a domain and all the hosting hassle.

Orange and green pattern by everyday icons

I won’t settle for this layout’s graphics, though (what does blue have to do with orange and green, I ask) and the first step is to create an appropriate header. The first thing I thought about was using a nice pattern and for that purpose, I looked for interesting patterns. I found lots of them and below is a list of places where you can see them.

Everyday icons playground – this is one of the most interesting sites I’ve seen lately, and the patterns (lower left corner) are wonderful. The pattern in this post’s image was made by them.

400+ High Quality Patterns – a list of links to different pattern sets. There are many and varied types of patterns there, and you might find some interesting and unusual patterns to use.

BgPatterns – make your own pattern using one of the predefined shapes. You can set the colors, the type of canvas and image size.

Tartan maker – you can create a tartan (kilt) pattern, electing size, type and colors.

Patterns List – a collection of links to pattern sets (31 links).

Pixel patterns – many many pixel patterns.

If you want to see how others have used patterns, here is a smashing magazine article showcasing some of the best designs and if you want to make your own patterns, you could try this tutorial for pixel patterns or Veerle‘s tutorials: for geometric patterns in illustrator, seamless patterns in Illustrator and create patterns in PS2 (requires Illustrator).

I hope this post was useful. If you know of any great patterns sites, please let me know 🙂