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.

When there is more love to give…

Yes, sometimes you just feel like there is more love to give. Here, love means yarns.

When you know deep within you that the yarn you are holding for the longest time would feel more used and more loved with other people, you just have to share them, lest, you end up with more stash you can handle.

Do not misunderstand me, i do not want to let go of all of my yarns. Sometimes, you just know when it’s not about letting go, but sharing. When blessing just comes your way, share them. So there are more to receive. Last Sunday, the priest told us, Love begets love. sure it is. When you give love, sooner or later you end up getting some, and sometimes more from what you have given.

Here are the latest from what I have (bought) that will soon be given away:

Five balls of yarns of varying texture and color

As usual, let me share you the story of where these yarns came from:

Ball of yarn from Dreamshoppe

This yarn was among my last purchase from Dreasmshoppe, around three to four years ago. I tried several times to make a project out of this, but failed. Call me anything, I love making wearables and these type of yarns just don’t suit my need. I got attracted on buying this, hence it’s been sitting on my stash for the longest time. This yarn costs around Php200 a ball. I think it’s a wool blend something.. hehehe, forgive me for not remembering.

The color is variegated blue to dark gray and light gray.

Pink variegated yarn from Indonesia

This is one of my last purchase of yarns from www.craftandme.com. I have used the yarn as accent to a bolero I made for a friend. This is not easy to use since it’s a bubble type yarn. But the color is very pretty.

Acrylic yarn from baguio

I think, this yarn belongs to one of my earliest purchases of yarns from Baguio. I have incorporated this yarn in a number of projects, still the yarns resist to disappear. I think the original ball was very big, because I have made two shrugs from this (from what I remember). I have made so much use of this yarn already, it is time to serve another master. The color is orange, red and maroon in one ply. as compared to other acrylic yarns from Baguio, this one is not loosely plied so it is really nice to use in any project.

Green Mohair Yarn from Indonesia

This yarn belongs to the lot I purchased along with the bubble yarn. I was so interested on different yarn types, so I included this on my purchase. It’s very thin but when crocheted, it gives anything a fuller look. so do not be mistaken in achieving a very lightweight project.

Big ball of woolen yarn

I have a friend who sold me a lot of yarns she purchased somewhere. This big ball of yarn is one of them.. It’s so big and thick and I got like so many balls of them. so many that i gave one big ball to my friend who owns a cat. because cats love yarns. and it’s so woolen like those balls of yarns that is being played with cats. I think the cat would love it. and he sure did. I even made the cat a blanket so he would feel more loved.

Now this yarn is thick and wooly but would be very nice for a project. I used this to test my weaving skills and it gave a nice finish. but i would never want to use this for crochet. since i like crocheting using thinner yarns

So there they are. I hope the recipient would love them as much as I did, or more.

[Post Updated]

After finding more about the identity of my recipient, I feel a bit proud that she dropped by my site to say hello, more that she was able to chat with me for some time to chat and share. I found out she is an artist who needs different materials for her upcoming project, and that due to time constraint, she is unable to wait for incoming yarns she would receive come may. I got curious about her identity that, when I googled her name and saw her works, I was amazed and awed. I knew it was asking too much to go through the yarns I could give away, (not to mention i still promised someone more yarns from my stash). My question is what can i give? That would not really hurt me much? You see, when you are attached to the yarns you have kept for so long, you feel a connection, so that is why when i give a piece from my stash, i try to share the story of that item before letting go, so i could still remember.

I added a few more yarns to give away

here are the stories of the added yarns:

Ribbon Yarn

This is an experiment from “recycling yarns”. I managed to obtain a very good looking knitted top from a thrift shop. The yarn is a ribbon type, silky and soft. How I never managed to create something from this, I wonder. I guess, it’s because, “recycling” was never for impatient people like me. I think I threw away the knitted top I can never manage to defrog properly.

Plastic Raffia

This plastic raffia, is another purchase from Indonesia. It is a left over for my attempt to crochet a bag. Unsuccessful though. It is not easy crocheting with plastic and more, you can never rewind this yarn into a ball again, because it’s too slippery, but I think, “she” mentioned that she likes this, so here it is.

Mako Cotton Yarn from Turkey

Yes, i think I have given two of this last time, and I am giving another one. I figured, I would never purchase another ribbon yarn again because I would find it hard to form it into lacy kind of clothing. I knew my husband won’t be happy seeing half of this lot going to other people i do not even know. But I was thinking like, they like it this much, maybe, in some way it can have more use than what i was planning for them? True enough, I do not feel so much affinity with this yarn because they have been purchased just recently.

Boucle Yarns from Rosario Pasig

This yarn is a forgotten yarn. I was trying to rummage at old boxes to see if i would still have the soft fluffy yarn she was eyeing for but couldn’t find any, and then I saw this big leftover (from what my friend gina, made a beret) boucle yarn from Rosario, Pasig. And I was amazed. this yarn was waiting to be discovered so it could get a new master!

Green Yarn from Baguio

I thought I have given all of these yarns from the last year’s giveaway, but again I discovered that I still have one more small ball left to give.

Whew, so that’s it. To you, I hope if you receive these yarns, (though not much) would help you in a way, to create something wonderful

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

Mix & Match – Ginantsilyo

Though the air is still chilly specially in the morning, most of us look forward to summer vacation. Ginantsilyo offers a stylish mix to match the summer heat!

Summer Get Up – Blue Ginantsilyo

So, what’s on the shelf? The crocheted skirt is up as a “made to order” item. Small – medium size costs 1,200Php. Add Php200 per size increase.

Blue Crocheted Skirt

The skirt is made of cotton blend on soft blue tone. The hipline is accentuated with a square motif with adjustable “drawstring” belt.

Another up for grab is the very stylish owl crochet earrings

Blue crochet owl earrings

This pair is a smaller version of the Big & Chunky Earrings offered last month. The earrings are made from embroidery cotton thread with sapphire blue class A stones and kidney earring hooks

The earrings are currently available for Php 250. The owl is approximately 1″ (not including the hook and the bead)

* (Bikini top is not available for sale)

**Shipping fee not included.

Calla Lily – Crocheted Earrings

I love the book 100 Flowers to knit and crochet by Lesley Stanfield. My only problem with this is almost all the lovely flowers I would love to crochet is given as “knit instructions”.

100 Flowers to knit and crochet by Lesley Stanfield

But fortunately, I have taken the instructions given in the book as guide to hacking my crochet instructions of the calla lily. If you are a knitter, proceed to following the instructions given in this page. If you are a crocheter like me, I have a decent hack of the said pattern:

100 Flowers to knit and crochet – arum lily

Note that I do not claim to have an exact translation of the knit-crochet pattern. Also I am not very good in writing instructions.

This is my crochet version of the motif:

The trick is use embroidery threads instead of yarn, 0.70mm hook and White Glue to make the earrings stiff after crocheting

Tools for creating tiny earrings

You will need three colors of thread: Yarn A (white), Yarn B (green), Yarn C (yellow)

Use Yarn C:

The spathe is crocheted using 6 strands of thread.

ch 10. Fold in two. (set aside)

—

Special stitches:

2sc cluster: 2sc in 1 st, equivalent to 2sc count

2sctog: 1 sc in 2 st, equivalent to 1 sc count

(n)sc: where (n) is number, 1sc on 1st (n) times;

The lily:

Use two strands of Yarn A:

Foundation ch 6, (crochet in rounds, with sl st to close each round)

round 1: 9 sc around

round 2: sc, 2sc cluster (around) make 15 sc

round 3 – 6: 15 sc around

Fill the cavity with excess thread

round 7: sc, 2sctog around (makes 9 sc)

crochet in rows, start each row with ch

row 8-9: 9sc

row 10: sc, 2sc cluster for the remaining 8 st, (17 sc)

row 11: sc, 2sc cluster for the remaining 16 st (33 sc)

row 12-13: 33sc

row 14 – 17: *2sc, 2sctog* (repeat * til end of row)( make 25sc, 19 sc, 14sc, 11sc)

row 18-23: *2sctog, 2sc* (repeat * til end of row) (make 8sc, 6sc, 4sc, 3sc)

row 24: 2sctog, sc (2 sc)

row 25: 2sctog (1sc)

row 25: sc (1sc)

cut off yarn

——

Use two strands of Yarn B.

attach yarn to the tip of the lily (foundation ch)

9sc (three rows)

Insert the spathe inside the lily.

Cover the earrings with white glue then let it dry.

Attach pearl/bead to the end of the lily using jewelry wire

—-

Final Product:

Dangling Crocheted Earrings – motif: Arum Lily
from 100 flowers to knit and crochet by Lesley Stanfield

Second attempt:

Calla Lily White

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.

Single Crochet-sc poem

I think that I shall never see
A stitch as lovely as sc

A stitch which forms a lovely mesh
Against crochet chain’s simple lace.

A stitch that looks so firm yet light
In a fabric crocheted from left to right

A stitch that may in summer wear
Become crocheted bandeau in one’s hair

Upon whose hands I shall crochet
The intricate woven filigree

Crocheted stitches make fools like me
But only sc makes a full amigurumi

-Lorelie Dazo (January 18, 2013)

Amigurumi Bunny

*SC -> Single Crochet

Amigurumi – crocheted stuff toys

When you make amigurumi the stitches are all single crochet

I have confirmed! I used SC 😀

Ginantsilyo

Stories about life, love, yarns and stitches

Open Shoulder Cropped Top

First swimsuit design

Ginantsilyo Collections

AJA! FIGHT ON!

Another Yarn Purchase – Mulberry Silk!

Of Love and Valentine’s

I love you, Mike

When there is more love to give…

Wear it proudly

Visualizing my craft room

Mix & Match – Ginantsilyo

Calla Lily – Crocheted Earrings

Yarn Hoarding – not good when you have just woken up

Will work for yarn

Incoming – Ginantsilyo on sale

Single Crochet-sc poem

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I love you, Mike