Upcycled Zippered Tote Bag

It's been long pending - a tote bag for my MIL...

She has been asking me to make a bag for her with an inside zippered pocket for quite sometime now. But as usual life happens and time flies, it was really difficult for me to spend time on sewing the bag.

One day, while clearing up our closet I found my husband's old kurta that he had asked me to give away. Since the kurta looked brand new I did not feel like parting with it. That is when it struck me to make the bag out of it. So I used one of my MIL's old sarees and the kurta as lining along with the usual rice bag for stabilising (and the inside zipper).

I found this amazing tutorial on the internet that I followed to make the tote bag, along with using my own ideas for making the inside zippered pocket and bag straps. Bag with Zip

Baby Memory Quilt

In continuation to my "Pouches post", I had an order for baby memory quilt by the same girl who had asked for the pouches.

She gave me all her little boy's onesies that he had outgrown to convert into a quilt. 

It wasn't very easy to work on it because of my very tight work-home-child schedule. We were also travelling to our country and upon our return she was going on vacation in 3 days. So I had to hurry up to finish it although we were all severely jet-lagged and exhausted.

The onesies prints were mostly of the same size, so cutting them was pretty quick and consistent. But then there were also a couple that had larger prints, so the quilt top needed lot of adjustment from pieces here and there to make it look uniform. 

 

I wish I had more time to plan and work on it, maybe that way I could have done a better job.. but oh well! I only hope her family liked it :(

Pouches

Facebook is the new e-commerce hub, apparently!
Anyhow, I have always wanted to take my work one step ahead by making it for others besides family/friends (maybe even for a small charge) but I was never confident about it.

Then suddenly one day, I saw this post on a local Facebook page asking for baby memory quilts. There I thought was my best opportunity! I reached out to that person and shared my blog with her. She was quite impressed (I know right!) and made me 2 offers - one for the memory quilt and another for pouches to gift her relatives and friends back home.

Could I be more excited?!! :)

So there I began working on my very first order. The good thing was that she had given me all the materials - batting, clothes, buttons and zippers. She asked me to make sunglasses pouches, cosmetic pouches and flap pouches - five of each.

 

The pouches were adjusted to fit the zipper size so they don't all look uniform.

PS: No particular pattern was followed, I made them purely based on prior knowledge :)

Its Knitting time!

On a snowy cold weather when the whole city is quiet,  most people want to curl up under their blankets beside their loved ones and listen to the silent snowfall. But then there are some others, like me, who want to knit :) - just perfect for the weather!!

I saw many posts on facebook about how people love to knit sweater, hats, socks, booties etc. during the winter season and realised how cool it would be if I could make some for my family. 

The thing I really like about the local community is that they are extremely generous with their time and are always ready to help. That's how I found this amazing knitting group who volunteered to help new knitters learn. 

Thus with the guidance of a wonderful lady - Gerri, I started on my first ever knitting project - A hat for my daughter (followed by one for myself).

         

The hat was such a hit among my friends & relatives that I was bombarded with requests for hats with earflaps. So with the help of multiple patterns from ravelry.com and youtube tutorials, I made 4 hats with earflaps (2 of each).

Then one day, I suddenly realised I needed a break from hats and started widening my knitting skills to try some booties & socks (again made 2 of each but since they were all gifted I forgot to take pictures before giving them away) 

There are many great patterns all over the internet for hats and socks. But here are a few I followed : 

http://onehookandtwoneedles.blogspot.com/2016/03/0-3-month-booties-beginners-knitted.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqbY6IIXTgA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z72LfwSDWlM&t=1106s

Like always, I added my own ideas and tweaked the patterns here and there to make it more colourful/different (and to learn different stiches :))

Currently, Gerri is helping with my ongoing project - a sweater for myself - and since its a HUGE one, I will update the blog with pictures and patterns once it's finished (I can't wait!!) - which will be a few months at the least!