FINALLY!

A crochet project is completed *phew*. I have been procrastinating. It is actually a project that could have been completed within a-day (a few hours for experienced crocheter) but it took me 2 weeks. 

The right is smaller than the left by the way. Well, I would still
say that its not bad...not bad at all

Last Saturday I did some miniature gardening with E. Basically what we did was to collect weeds and built a setting for his dinosaurs.

Dino hiding amongst the trees...the bottle was supposed to be
a volcano :p

Well...Baby T was more interested than E at the end of the day
and played with the dinosaurs instead

Top view - E was such a 'princess' even though he is a he...
geez

Crafty Mary

Too Many Projects...None Finished

I have started at least 3 projects and all of them are incomplete. There's the Starling handbag and then there's the crocheted ballerina slippers (only the right side is finished) and a miniature kitchen from a DIY kit. There's of course the blanket that is still nowhere to be seen. Crafty Mary is really way behind schedule and I bought new fabric! Sigh...

Ally

Made an Ally over the weekend with the blue FQ tiny elephant print fabric that I bought earlier from Whimsy Loft. As it was only a FQ, I needed another material to match this to get a whole Ally. Chose a blue background polka dot fabric bought from Craftworld (Yee's Button House).

Polka Dot Ally - I made her for a 4-yr old girl that still goes 

around sucking a pacifier. So there is a pocket for her to keep 

the pacifier.

The other side of Ally - Teeny weeny elephant print on her body.

All handsewn...phew! Should really get the sewing machine.

The one thing I hate...was the button that I made

for its tail. Oh well...

Monday was a quiet day in the office. Since it was the eve of Merdeka Day, a lot of them took off to get a wonderful 4-day weekend. Since the office was quiet and I had nothing to do and since I was fasting, went out for loooong lunch break i.e. shopping. But all I bought was this book....

I wonder when will I start with any of the projects.

Crafty Mary

I finally completed the order of 40pcs of elephants at 4.45am on 8 August. Phew! Lucky for me the baby shower was held  later that evening and not in the morning. And, out of excitement or tiredness, I completely forgot to take a picture of the finished product!

These instead were taken on Wednesday, 4 August @ 12am. 

There were only 15 then and boy was I panicking. There was only

one completed (the top yellow one with the black ears) and the

rest were ear-less and tail-less.

The fasting month started on 11 August. Things at work has been slow. Since I'm fasting, I get to go back at 5.30pm or maybe earlier. But coming to work in the morning is a killer. Weekend is the time for us to relax at home, since the weather has been unkind - it happens every Ramadan. I suppose its a test of patience.

Made a pillow for the Baby Foo on Saturday. Wanted to make a bolster but since I don't know how, made a long rectangular pillow for him instead. I named the pillow the 'Choot-Choot (pacifier) Pillow' as there is a pocket at the front for him to safely keep his pacifier in. I know I shouldn't be encouraging his pacifier habit. But you have not seen him losing his temper when he doesn't get his pacifier!

This is Baby Foo's elder brother's pillow. He got upset that I 

made one for Baby Foo but not him. So Sunday I had to make

one for him. No pictures of the original 'Choot-Choot Pillow'.

Since I don't have a sewing machine, it took me like 1 and 1/2 hours to hand sew everything together. I'm sure with a machine, it would have been much faster and I can make 3 within the same amount of time. Oh well...

Crafty Mary

The Purchases

Last week I bought and bought and bought craft supplies. Lucky for me I managed to find local online craft suppliers as I was contemplating to order from the international ones. Phew!

Here are some of the stuff bought *hearts*

Rainbow flannel from LivBeii, small elephant print FQ from

WhimsyLoft and button tool, also from WhimsyLoft

I was too lazy to take pictures of the other stuff bought from Yee Button House in SS2.

Crafty Mary

40 Elephants by Sunday!

A friend of mine threw me a challenge yesterday - to produce 40 elephants by Sunday! This is how it started:

Friend: "Mary, do you know where I can get those rings for key chains?"
Me: "Umm...from craft shop or stationery shops I suppose. I can check with the shops near my house."
Friend: "OK. I need 40 of those. And, do you think you can make 40 of your elephants?"
Me: "What? You know right, they don't pop out from the oven? It's not like baking 40 elephant cookies =_____="
Friend: "Yah."
Me: "OK lah. But they better be small ones."

So there, it is now 2.37pm and I am at my day job. I have Friday night to complete the job as Sunday is the event day actually. So the 40 babies need to be packed and delivered by Saturday in actual fact. In any case, Mary is up for it and will be burning the midnight oil.

Wish me luck!

Crafty Mary

OMG!

I have not completed anything at all. From my crochet afghan to my craft swap item. I thought I would do something over the weekend but instead of doing something, I curled up on the bed and slept most of the weekend. *Sigh* A bad habit that I really need to kick. Lucky that I do not make these things to sell or I would not be selling anything at all! 


Time to pick up the paces and roll out these things soon.


Crafty Mary

More Rubbish and the Progress of My Ambitious Project

Lunch hour: 12.30pm-1.30pm
But I decide to have a long one and end up in a stationery store. Yes, next to my love of visiting fabric shop, Ikea and the haberdashers, I love the stationery store. It could possibly be due to the multi-coloured palette or to the fact that it reminds me of my days a graphic design student (which I failed miserably at).


And, as usual, I had to spend some money buying something : ) 

Got myself some 'fancy' memo pad...hahaha...the pages are made

out of multi-coloured paper. I probably use the pages to make

gift tags. And then, got myself some cheap coloured pens in pastel

tones...tell you, cheap stuff don't work that well :( And, the purple

coloured thingy is a notebook, which i plan to turn into my craft

journal. The damage RM27.50.

Lesson to be learned: Don't walk into shops that you like : )

Here's the progress of my crochet project. This was taken yesterday. As of this morning, I'm at row 12. There's a LONNNGGGG way more to go.

Crochet Project 1: 19.07.2010 @ 9am

I need to stop crocheting this weekend to finish up the doll that I was making earlier. The pattern was taken from Purl Bee and it is a Purl Girl doll designed by Mimi Kirchner, who is a wonderful doll designer.

And, I have also committed myself to a craft swap. Hope to send the package out real soon. Oh, bestie is having baby! Hooray...maybe it's time for me to get that baby stuff book by (for the life of me, can't remember it now).

All these projects, commitments + work, I still found the time for some family party : )

Baby Foo No. 2: 18.07.2010 - Uncle E's birthday @ Bukit Rahman Putra

Craft Mary.

Wednesday, 14 July

Don't how should I title this post. So I'll title it with today and the date even though it's stated at the bottom of this post :p

Here is another Ally that I made for a bestie of mine. *hearts* this material.

The ears have sequin borders, though you can't see it clearly here.

It has a braided tail and a ribbon to top it off. Colour combination is a bit off 

I must say but was working with what I had.

I was crocheting a granny square afghan initially. But dropped that project (it's so me) and moved on to another afghan pattern. A pattern that I borrowed from others but improvised from other crafters. I can't follow a pattern actually, because I don't understand patterns... :p

So, I crocheted and crocheted (more like poking my fingers) and 

ended up with these 3 stripes of colour. A seasoned crocheter would say

that it's a simple design. I'm hearting this anyway.

Took a look at it this morning and realised that width is too small *sweats*. It has 300 chain stitch and 300 more foundation stitch and its too small .... *sigh* I'll have to crochet another 300 chain stitch and repair it. I'd better repair it or I'll lose interest and it becomes another epic failure : ( and dumped in the crochet baskets together with the rest of unfinished stuff.

But, if you can follow patterns, do visit Attic 24 to get a granny stripe afghan pattern that she's making.

The yarns in the bag. Some of them are like 3 years old :p

Crafty Mary

Here We Go Again

I'm at it again. Creating another blog that will be left to mold and forgotten like an old toy. This attempt now is on my crafting. Phish...crafting...even that is a phase, which I hope is not.

***

Started crafting again. Or have attempted to revive my love for all things crafty and handmade 2 months ago with the birth of Ally and Alfie Phant. Made Ally for my sister who simply adores elephants and from then on have made a couple more as gifts for friends. 

Ally on my work desk before it was couriered to my sis

And here is Ally with my sis' cat - before the cat mauled Ally :p

Ally was made using Ikea's Saralisa fabric. And then I went fabric crazy and bought more of Ikea's fabric to make more Ally and Alfie Phant. More Ally actually as guys don't appreciate these things :p

Anyway, the sis thought that I bought the elephant from some charitable organisation or from some market in Thailand. Who would have thought, Mary likes to sew...

Here is another Ally made for a friend's niece. This time round

Ally has pink ears...

...and pink beribboned tail. Must say, wasn't too happy with it.

But the kid loved it. Oh well : )

This Ally was made using Felt and decorated with a Peony flower

design taken from this blog Yoonie @ Home

And finally...an Alfie Phant. Though the Ikea Gunnila fabric 

had flower pattern on it

Currently making 2 more for some one that I don't even know. Thinking of the materials as would like them to look different and at the same time also crocheting...yes, crocheting a what seems to look like a blanket... inspiration for crochet came from here ... Attic 24 lovely burst of sunshine colours *hearts*

Crafty Mary