or Deepavali (as i say)???

Mine was fun and hetic… from this year onwards we decided not to go near crackers unless there are kids around (even then limiting to sparklers and a couple of flower pots). Call it a Green Initiative or our part to curb the accident that occur at every stage of the crackers, right from production then transport/storage to bursting them.. or to stop burning money during recession

we just decorated the house with lots of diyas, made sweets at home (part of my training from my MIL ) and ofcourse there is a short puja.

Hope you all had a fun and safe Diwali/Deepavali

I am really missing the city. Its the freedom that i enjoy there and also the time i get to spend with ‘A’ that make me miss it a lot.
We used to live only 10 mins from ‘A’s office….which means no hurried mornings and very leisured evenings (Which are a luxury in Chennai considering he spends around 2.5hrs for commuting alone…).

I would love to visit Sydney again…

The Dry River Bed and the village(taken from the hill top)…

The Temple on the hill (Great place to watch sunsets)

The Back Alley (love to walk along this road… its a no-vehicle zone ) You can see me trying to swing….

Note: Sorry for the grainy picture, it is taken from a mobile phone.
(All Pictures enlarge)

Knitting/Crochet/Spinning will result in yarn scraps and small fibre pieces. I normally discard the acrylic pieces but try to keep all the wool and cotton yarn scraps. Over the time the obvious Q of what to do with them comes up (some pieces in my scrap stash are so small i cant even knit beyond 2-3 stitches)

While you can save every scrap to fill amigurumi toys or other critters,
you can also use some embroidery skills to embellish other projects/plain canvas,
or with spinning for some art yarn!!!!
or to create interesting texture and color like here,
or try a bit of felting.

Though there is needle felting , here is something to try without a needle; Hand-Felting.
(IMP: Use only pure wool yarn/fibre; cotton and acrylic do not felt and silk might give an interesting texture and shine to the felted piece.
I never tried alpaca, mohair and other stuff, do they felt??? )

STUFF NEEDED

Wool: yarn scaps/ fibre specks from spinning
Water: hot and cold seperately
Soap: i like using shampoo rather than dish/laundry soap.
Piece of old nylony lacy curtain and/or softbristled toothbrush (anything to create some friction and agitation);
A pair of scissors – For trimming the dried felt piece

INSTRUCTIONS
Pre-prep

Gather all the yarn pieces(do not cut them any further), untwist them and disintegrate them (I call this.. unspinning ); you can pool the fibres now by color incase you don’t want multicolored felt.
Warm water needs to be as hot as you can handle – Very Important.
The kitchen or laundry areas are great for this.. ofcourse any place where you don’t mind a couple of water drops is fine.
I used the soft nylony meshy fabric peice i had for some friction but i found a used soft-bristled tooth brush also works fine.

Time to get the hands soapy…
Soak the fibre in hot water for 4-5 mins (unless you want to mix all the colors, work with one color at a time)

Take the wet fibre and spread on your hand as a thick layer and pour couple of drops of shampoo on it. just starting rubbing(for agitation) with other hand or a peice of meshy nylon.
Shock it occasionally with a splash of cold water and repeat the process with hot water until the fibres kind of stick with each other and the whole thing is a jumbled mess (looks a felt).
Additional warm water/soap might be needed based on water temperature(the hotter the better), agitation, fibre type and amount of fibre.
Once done; dry pieces flat.
(My instructions are kind of very basic, hope you got them; else there is always YouTube.. )

If felting flat, shape isn’t so important as once the piece is dried, it can always be trimmed with a pair of scissors. Beads are very easy to do too.

Once trimmed, the felt pieces can be used to embellish clothes, accessories, cards…
The beads can be used as buttons, couple more will make a bracelet… practically everywhere where normal beads can be used.

Hope to get you stash your yarn/fibre scraps.
If you are already a scrap stasher, I would love to know what you do with them.

History:My first set of sewing lessons are not so fruitful; it’s probably because i thought i know more than i know and messed up a lot… So for my second set i tried to take things easy and ended up with couple of useful things.
Size:
Pattern: The pattern is from a Japanese Embroidery Book “KYUUTO! JAPANESE CRAFTS WOOLLY EMBROIDERY” (to be exact) that i found at the library (I picked the book solely by the cover ). The original is done in felt with embroidered flowers in the front.
Notes:
I thought of using a doily as embellishment (I think i saw something like that somewhere on flickr) but i was concerned about the time to crochet a doily (ofcourse choosing a doily pattern itself is so tough) and with the ideas from Jaishree and friends i choosed to do flowers.

The flowers are crocheted out of wrosted weight cotton yarn in natural colorway. The stems are a row of single crochet over a length of chain. Couple of wooden beads finished the whole setup. I somehow managed to stitch them onto the bag front (i think i used back stitch) If there is tute or vedio for whip-stitching the crocheted stuff on to a cloth i would like to know….. probably couple of pics might help me.

The pattern given in the book is not of true size and had to be enlarged … I enlarged the pattern manually by squares method (similar to you find in kids books). Then there is cutting, basting(I have to baste by hand before sewing with the machine), sewing.

I added the magnetic snaps for the closure and a small pocket inside. I added the snaps right after i cut the peices…I think i should have done them just before i sew up the lining on the inside. To sew the tight curve in the front with the magnetic snaps on the way… i had to use the zipper foot.

Since i ironed on the whole interface onto the denim cloth.. i didnt feel like throwing out the extra pieces… so they became small pouches (toned down version of Amy Karol’s Artsy Clutch).

Learnt a couple of lining methods and also learnt that i should take sewing slowing…

Time: A couple of weeks as i attend the sewing class only once a week.

I like how things turned out and they will all be coming out with me this weekend.

Oh!!! i almost forgot… The original has a running stitch round the armhole in the front (I am not sure you guys got it). Should i do in the white yarn or should i leave as it is….