My Story, My Life

Dresses and Crochet

I have attempted to crochet dress from the past, none actually reached the conclusion stage:

This woolen navy blue dress for example, I never finished this one because I can never wear it. Look how ambitious the design was. (1) Tube (2) Backless (3) Fitting

I was more into the design aspect of the dress, not into finishing it.

The resulting fabric was thick and heavy. Not really for the type of climate we have in the Philippines.

I am no longer that “thin” as I was before pregnancy, but I also am able to wear “fitted” dress as long as I will not exhale out! 😀

And then this one:

Black Stripes Crocheted Dress

Look how lazy I can get! Just the other sleeves and it’s done… I need motivation…

Blue dress

I think i was trying to create something to this effect.

When all I want is a flowing a-line dress.

I tried to create a wrap around dress with “corset effect” upfront –

Irish Pirate Dress

Didn’t go that well because the shoulders were too wide. I will have to redo that part..

And then this, finally.

Lacy Golden Dress

Which I have proudly worn in a wedding as I have shared in my previous post

Now I am trying to “create something” again… oh, i just hope this will turn out good and I would actually finish this. 😀

Orange WIP

Of Love and Valentine’s

Today is Valentine’s Day, as we celebrate more love than we usually do, let me share a poem I have written years ago for my then boyfriend, now husband. I wrote this even before we got engaged without realizing that this would be an oath of a love that will forever hold true. Actually, every time I recite (silently) or read this poem, I cry, not of sadness of course. Just because I meant every word I have written.

Here it is, and yes, it’s titled simply:

I love you, Mike

I love you mike, I really do

What I want most is to be with you.

My dreams are scarce as compared

To my yearning of the days we’d shared

I love you mike, for years to come

You would always be my only one.

The life I seek would not suffice

If not spent by your side.

I love you mike, from this day on

Ours is a love meant to grow strong

I see tomorrow with my hands locked on yours

With this…. I ask for no more.

If these are not enough to say my oath

Of a love that will forever hold

I love you mike, Come what may

I’ll stay with you ’til my last day.

Wear it proudly

When you have worked so hard for a project, the only possible ending you want to be is to wear it, and wear it proudly.

That is what I did last Sunday, February 10, 2013, during my friends’ wedding in Kawit Cavite. The wedding was magical, like almost all weddings, though theirs was akin to a romatic comedy movie, with lots of punchlines and funny stints, that made the whole event light and fun.

Glai, You did it!

This is my friend, Glai, who finally tied the knot after nine years of being in a relationship with Eio.

The maids of honor and the matron :)

This is me and my friends. They are all maids of honor of Glai, with the exception of me who is already married. I was wearing the golden dress I was raving for how many months since last year.

Golden dress

I finally succeeded in making the dress flowing and ruffled at the hemline, though the dress is a bit short (due to lack of patience)

I have sewn a chiffon of the same color as lining for the dress, so i can wear it more comfortably during the occassion.

Me and my family posing at the church’s entrance

I also wore a handmade lace headband:

Handmade lace Headband

I love my overall look and the fact that I was able to wear it in a memorable event.

This is me – wearing my creation: Happy and Proud

Lorelie in Golden Crocheted Dress

Visualizing my craft room

I have yet to clean up my room. It has gotten really, really messy. I have been trying to visualize the craft room I will ask my husband to create for our new house, hence it has been my struggle to come up with a design I want. With this, I have to clean up my yarn stash and come up with an organizational schema that is both visually appealing and functional so I can decide on what kind of shelves we will put up.

I have visualized the working area of my room:

It will have a small corner sofa near the entrance, and a small round coffee table (to serve as my working area) with a (probably green – or orange – or pink) carpet underneath. The nearest image I was able to search for the idea is this kitchen nook from http://houzz.com, the only item missing is the carpet beneath the table.

Image taken from www.houzz.com

Now my struggle is the area where the shelves or cabinets or drawers will be put. I cannot decide what kind of storage furniture I will use. And I have been eyeing, cute woven baskets lined with fabric.

Image from http://houzz.com

And the cubes for the shelves, to indiviudally hold the yarns.

My room would have three parts, the craft work area, the storage area, and the other part would be my office, which i would not want to discuss in detail here. It will just have an l-shaped working table to hold a number of computers I am using for my work. Yes, come the end of this project, I will be using probably 5 monitors, two for my windows machine, two for a mac, and one space enough to hold my laptop.

Now, my struggle is, my husband wants me to decide so that he can finally draw the layout of my room. But I cannot decide til I am able to organize my yarn stash, (my clays, my beads, my fabrics!) , hence the struggle.

Recently, I have decided to give up on woven baskets, because they are too expensive and I want to try something out, asap. So to help me, my mom purchased these racks: (rack costs P250)

Rack full of yarns

So I immediately emptied my boxes to try to organize them in the racks (in vain). Everything still looked messy.

My husband’s cousin who is also an Interior Decorator talked me out of giving up organizing my yarns by “brand”/source and shift to “by color”. The reason I was insisting on “source” is because of the shape of the yarns. If it would be by color, it would be more difficult to pile them up.

Yes. Piling up is the only way I can go with this kind of storage. If i would go by color, i would need a more decent shelf, and the yarns should have approximately the same shape.

Hence, I bought another kind of rack. And I have to wind my yarns into balls using a winder, specially the yarns that has been used.

Green yarns in rack

Now, I have these more decent looking racks with shades of green. The plastic racks (costs Php88 each) are stackables so I can put one rack on top of another or we can put plywood on walls as shelves and have these racks lined up. This way, my yarn stash is more organized. What’s more, they look nicer and prettier too.

I have more to wind and I have more racks to buy, unless I can find more enthusiasm in making my own baskets.

See:

Yarns by color

Yarn Hoarding – not good when you have just woken up

After my first yarn frenzy at https://facebook.com/onlineyarnstore, I told myself I would not do it again, but I am really curious about the other yarns. One time, while browsing her page, I saw a post that tells she would be posting new yars for sale!!!! And yes, I did wait for the yarns to come, until I was overcome by sleepiness. When I woke up, the novelty cottons and basic cotton I was expecting to get are already taken but these bulky acrylic still had loads of left overs. Disappointment plus excitement lead me to a whopping P1,900 worth of Yarn Purchase.

I immediately concluded – YARN HOARDING. Not Good, when you have just woken up. The problems of facebook online buyers and the frenzy over getting the items first (without having the chance to browse first then decide later) leads to not able to afford what you bought, or more of you did not expect you have bought that much! With no shopping cart to indicate your shopping expense progress and no (remove this item) from your list because you respect their regulations of “touch move”, I ended up not knowing what I actually purchased, if I have hoarded too many of the same colors or if you are still within reasonable amount of spending.

Yummy Pinks!

Good thing two friends came to the rescue. Gina, who willingly bought part of my stash (I told her to get anything she likes so long as my bill will go down) and Ian, who is too willing to buy yarns for me as birthday gift (which was last year, mind you). Hence, I ended up not paying anything. The last part of my stash would be paid by the seller, herself as our agreement for the images I will be doing for her.

And though I immediately regretted my action during that morning, I am super duper happy for the yarns that have arrived on my doorstep today! Yippee!!! Thanks to my friend, Ian.. I promise to make a bonnet for him 😀 hehe.. but look at the colors I’ve gotten?! Would he like a fuschia bonnet? hehehe..

Will work for yarn

I am closing a deal with the owner of Yarn Source Manila as an image provider and would be designer of her multiply page, if (I managed to learn how to do it). Here’s my peg – will work for yarn.

Hehehe..

I really do love that I finally found the yarns I’ve been wanting to buy in Baguio but can’t ever since I crocheted this:

Psychedelic Shell using Baguio Cotton Yarns – Free Pattern Available Here!

The yellow and black yarn used here are soft cotton yarns which are actually cotton threads wound together to form a thicker strand:

Yellow soft cotton yarn from Yarn Source Manila

It was a good opportunity that the owner launched a photo contest which I joined and she later contacted me to outsource some images she would use to promote/enhance her multiply and facebook page.

And I am quite happy drawing for her I love drawing and I love yarns Not a bad deal for me

Some sneak peak:

Hopefully the images would be accepted

Sneak Peak: New YSM Images

Incoming – Ginantsilyo on sale

I have four projects (for sale) I am currently working on, two bags and two clothes. Since I am really a dressmaker by heart, I really prefer working on clothes even though the bags are almost done. So here they are:

White and Blue Crochet

The two projects are a blouse and a skirt. This is my courageous attempt to remake my white crocheted cover up, which I swore I won’t do again, ever, because of the tedious stitches used for the lace. But the design is really lovely and eye candy, so I mustered the courage to post it on my facebook page as an incoming for sale, and lo and behold, I received an order for this blouse.

The blouse retails at P2,000 crocheted using a 1.60mm hook and cotton yarn. I must say I like this rendition better than what I was able to make for myself, because the yarn I used is softer and thinner. The lace came out the way I wanted it, full and clean.

Circular Motifs

And here is the skirt, which is my mom’s first project but I have taken over to add the rectangular motifs around the waist.

Lace and Motif

The skirt retails at P1,200 crocheted using 2.10mm hook and cotton blend yarn.

I modified the original design because I cannot rest on just seeing the same pattern for the whole skirt. Our initial plan is to create a monochrome effect by changing to a different lighter colored yarn but it did not work out, so I have to plan for a better effect. I have tried several motifs and finally found the right one.

It’s kinda nice, that I can spend my weekend at home with my family and while watching some tv, I am crafting while dreaming for the stuffs we will put in our new house with a prospect of getting some money out of my crocheted projects.

Hooray for today – thank you Yarn Source Manila

I received the yarns from Yarn Source Manila. She was very happy with the image she requested, and I was more than willing to do it! 😀

Hooray for today!

Hooray for mornings and things that make them good
Hooray for beaming smiles that make my day
Hooray for stops and gos
Hooray for colors and quick hellos
Hooray for surprises that walk my way
Hooray for friends I’ll make, oh hey…hey!
Hooray for treats that make me smile,
Like magic stripes that fill the sky
Hooray for days that make me say,
Oh Hooray for today!

[Theme song McDonald’s commercial]

My mom is currently inspecting each yarn

Then she decided, she likes the yarns

Louie discovered the commotion and is taking his pick

Will he choose the black one?

My mom picks up a yarn for him

Nope, he likes colorful yarns

I have influenced my mom to crochet again

I have influenced my mom to crochet again. And she has crocheted a lot ever since. Now she is helping me with my business.

She is also taking orders from my facebook page as well.

Here is her current product:

Mint Green Crocheted Skirt

I am more than amazed on her finished skirt. She has been indulging me since last Christmas that she’ll make something for me. And here it is. I really really like how the crocheted skirt turned out.

As soon as I published the skirt on facebook, we had an order for this design. And my mom started it right away, she can crochet so long as my little kiddo won’t play around the yarn.

My mom starting out on her next order

The open lace work pattern we used for the skirt is very nice. I really like the stripes and the lace combined

closeup stitches

Crochet to earn

One of the things people mostly asked me is how much can you earn from crafting?

I have been a crafter since I was a kid. My mom takes time to prepare me lunch and gives me around five pesos (if I am a bit luckier, she will give ten) as “baon” to school. That will be enough to buy me a cupcake and an orange juice in foil pack.

But since I want to do a lot of things and cannot afford them, I often sell the things I can do,like pencil drawings of famous cartoon characters in a sheet of bond paper, crocheted purse at P2.00 to P5.00 each, homemade polvoron and pastillas my mom cooked, pad papers transformed into notebooks. I know ever since that crafting actually earns me money. And whenever I want something, I do not hesitate to think of a craft I could sell.

So how much have I earned from crafting? I am unable to count. The most memorable earnings I can remember was from creating beaded accessories which helped me afford half of the money I needed for a conference trip in Bohol during college. That is saying something. The only “accounting” I remembered doing was that for a thousand pesos worth of materials that could supply me accessories for a month, I can earn twice as much in a week.

Take my friend, Cherry, as an example. She has a facebook page that showcases her amigurumi projects.

Crochet Bags and Souvenirs

She sells amigurumi as souvenirs.

Crocheting is very hard despite the popular belief that it is the most convenient needlework craft. When doing amigurumis, you have to be very, very, very, very patient.

I have no patience doing amigurumi.

Amigurumi couple by Crochet Bags & Souvenirs

Imagine doing this a hundred times more:

Crochet Bags and Souvenirs – married couple

And with a number of different designs:

Different Amigurumi by Crochet Bags & Souvenirs

The best thing about Cherry is that she creates her own designs with no patterns to follow. She is humble enough to admit she can’t read and understand patterns and instructions, hence she improvises, with only Monaco cotton thread as her material and a single sized hook.

This year, like Cherry, my mind is full set to sell and earn. I am crocheting carefully as to make each stitches neat and uniform. And I am trying to create new designs as well. This time around, since I am no longer crocheting for myself, I am very patient with each project. Do not crochet when you are tired and do not continue when your hands hurt. Each misgivings I will feel for a project might contribute to the total effect of the finished product, so I will only do so when I am eager. And since I have a goal in mind, I know I will never run out of eagerness.

Selling would not limit me to what I can do, but would bring enough challenge for me to make more beautiful and neater crocheted items. I hope too that this would help me earn enough money to buy curtains for our new house

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I love you, Mike