An ode to pattern writing

writing down the pattern

on counting stitches and marking repeats

on manipulating designs of adjusting widths.

I tally the chains, the loops and the dc’s

and scribble them down on my small writing sheet.

I crochet a few rows then stop to see

if the created piece of clothing fits me

and then I go on and stitch a few more

til a part of the garment is ready to go.

And then i predict the few rows ahead

and checks if the pattern is still correct

if i have to unravel then I will unravel it so,

just to make sure i have counted the right rows

Yarn Review: Ice Yarn’s SuperFine Wool Metallic Gold Cream

Online Store: www.yarn-paradise.com

Item Link: https://www.yarn-paradise.com/mohair-angora-wool-superfine-wool-metallic-gold-cream

SuperFine Wool Metallic Gold Cream

The yarn is composed of two individual strands of highly opposite characteristics. The cream strand is a blend of acrylic and wool which makes it soft, dull and easy to break, while the gold strand is Lurex, a metallic yarn which makes the yarn shiny and sturdy. These opposing characteristics make the yarn not easy to work with. The strands somehow ‘split’ as you work with them and with a thinner yarn that you cannot stretch; it easily slips on your hook and gets misplaced.

You have to work around a few rows to be able to get used to working with this yarn but it will reward you with softness and allure. It is so lightweight that a single skein of 50g will give you 650m length. That is enough for me to create the top part of this dress:

gold cream dress back part

Just be very careful when working with this yarn, because its thin and rough and soft at the same time, threading it around your finger tightly may hurt if you are crocheting too fast. The friction from the Lurex yarn can cause a small striation on your index finger as you work your way on each rounds. I usually wind my finger with a bandage just so I can avoid this friction.

Overall, I love this yarn. It made me realize a dream of mine to crochet a dress. The yarn is superfine and very light in weight. The dress consumes 4 skeins of yarns and that is just 200g which is the usual weight (if not heavier) of the tops/shorts I make.

I recommend this type of yarn for crocheters who want to create big projects that requires long yardage.

On shaping the lace

What I love most about crocheting is that I can create shapes that I want: Conventional shapes to unusual ones. This is the logic I apply in creating clothes. I imagine the shape I want. I look for inspirations on how clothes are formed. I look for laces of different kinds until I can stumble on the one lace I would use for my project, then I study how each part of the lace would contribute to the creation of the shape. Then I crochet. Or with careless attitude, I just hook up and crochet.

I love clothes. Well, to put it bluntly, I love making clothes, but I am not skilled at sewing that crocheting has been my ultimate armament in dressmaking. Hence, I put forward my passion in couture towards crochet and how I can improve my skill to become a good tailor.

An example of this effort is studying how crocheted lace will hold the bust or shape it in such a way that it will hug the bust line. This was initiated on my first attempt at creating a dress (remember the gold one?) Now I want to make another but I have to create a different design, so the shaping of the bust is different.

shaping the lace

But again, since I am petite, the dress would again hug the upper body and will be flowing from the bust line until mid length of my thighs. This, of course will be decided as I create each part of the garment.

On the crocheted lace, the whole thing was crocheted in rows and I formed the shape by gathering the stitches in such that it will form a slanting angle from the rounded corner. It took me three attempts to attain the desired shape, and thanks to this that I keep regaining my cool on attempting to understand how the whole OOP thing would work on javascript, next to PHP, I think JS is the most hard-headed bunch of all languages. Now, I am ranting.

Give yarns for christmas

I have two friends who I want to give some yarns this christmas season, they are very good followers of my blog plus they are mostly used to using the cotton yarn, staple to the Philippines. I want them to try something different.

The first lot is a mixture of off-white wool knitting yarns in bulk weight. The label even says ‘extra thickness’.

Bulky Wool Japanese Yarn

I do not know how to make full use of these yarns since I mostly do wearable crochet. I think if they will include it in their wearable items, it would be useful as accent or border. But the thickness of the yarns turns me off, sometimes I wonder why I even bought this lot. I was just excited to acquire yarns. Now, it’s time for them to be used by people who might be able to appreciate them more. The color is nice, that I can tell. I used some of the lot to make flowers for accents but that did not really used all of them. I know I had more of these than in the pictures but some of those are not in a good ball shape anymore, they might need some rewinding.

The second batch only has one skein each kind (though I am not sure as of this moment, I know I had two balls each but maybe I have used them for something else and wasn’t able to properly keep the leftovers)

merino wool blend acrylic japanese yarns

The violet yarn has a lovely shade. It would be nice for a purse or any small pouch. I could say the same thing for the navy blue one. Though I am unsure if the yardage would be enough for bigger projects. They are both wool blend. I am unsure of the exact fiber content because everything is written in japanese. The yellow monochromatic yarn is 100% acrylic, but the texture is same with the wool blend.

The next lot is one of my beloved yarns three years ago. I wasn’t able to use these because I was an idiot for even buying them. I just loved the texture, but did not know for what purpose they will serve me. The yarn brand is Linie Taiga and cost me around 200 (or 250 pesos per ball).

linie taiga wool yarn

They would be very nice as lining for a hat, that I can tell. I love them that I know it’s already time for someone to be able to actually use them.

The next lot are leftovers from a purse-making project I got three years ago for Christmas. When I offered to sell small purse for giveaways. I hated that time that I got to finish a lot of coin purses. But these yarns have velvety texture that is soft to touch.

velvet textured yarns

crocheted coin purse using velvet yarns

These are the purses I made before from these velvet yarns. I do not know where I put the lighter shade of purple of these lot so it’s not included in my giveaways.

This is my last skein of this yarn. I used two yarns for making slippers for my sister. It is nice and warm and soft to touch. These would be nice shoes for a toddler and would certainly be enough for that! I am not so sure about them making slippers for themselves though..

fancy yarn

I have loads of these yarns. They are thick and sturdy. And I use them for bag handles, or for shorts.These yarns came without labels, so I am not so sure about the fiber content, but they feel like cotton.

cotton yarn

The next ones are ‘baby yarns’ according to the labels. But I am not recommending to be used for babies because they have not been kept properly.

Baby yarns

The next ones are my feltable wool yarns in moss green shade. These yarns would be lovely for any project. One spool is enough for a beret.I bought a lot of these yarns from china. I still have lots of leftovers but i have so many greens so I can spare to give two spools away.

Feltable Lambs wool

And this small ball of feltable wool yarn too I personally wounded this yarn into a ball using my small manual ball winder. The color is very very nice and would be great for accent.

Feltable wool yellow

And oh, I also said that I will give bamboo hooks but I cannot find them! I do not know if i have much left too because through the years I love giving them to friends who find them fascinating. I am not comfy using big hooks so if someone can appreciate them more than I do, then I give them away.

Hopefully they will like these yarns.

Going Gaga over Hairpin Lace

A month ago, I never knew the name of the stitch I so love to make but do not know how. If you notice from my previous works that I have so many treble stitches in between horizontal lace mesh:

Mint Green Striped Front Tied Crocheted Blouse

This is me, attempting to actually do the so-called hairpin lace effect I’ve been eyeing over the years through windows of shops and magazines, until now.

Through a fellow crocheter, fats of http://crochetology.net, who introduced me to the term: hairpin lace, and lori of http://lorisart.blogspot.com/, who showed me that I could create a makeshift hairpin loom, my world literally turned upside down. I am gaga over hairpin lace now. I love incorporating it in anything I can create and everytime I see fences, or grills or anything that has two parallel bars, I imagine me crocheting lace in between.

So far, i have made a makeshift hairpin lace loom using rubber soles of old slippers and two double pointed bamboo knitting needles:

Makeshift Hairpin Lace Loom

I was able to make this hairpin lace collar:

Hairpin lace collar

And then I bought this small crochet fork from a fellow raveler at http://handmadebybheng.blogspot.com which is very small I do not know if I can make further use of this:

Sunday lace work

And i started a dress that is also showcasing a hairpin lace collar

Dress showcasing a hairpin lace collar

Now, (since I get bored so easily) I am starting another project with hairpin lace collar again 😀 hahaha.. I have yet to test my patience on a full hairpin lace garment because, working with the loom is really very crazy and tiring! Aja! Aja!

Let’s work hard! Hook up!

I miss my friends

This month marks the first year that we have moved to the south. Along with this change comes the ultimate sacrifice, being away from my peers. I miss my friends. I miss cooking for them every now and then. All the sudden calls for a dinner night, or a movie. I miss going out and hanging out with them.

UP Barkada on my wedding day

These dudes and dudettes are my first friends in college. They helped me cope up with the shocking culture change, helped me appreciate myself more, taught me how to love and be loved.

We were never the tight knitted type of friends, but every once in a while when there is a chance, we meet. This once in a while meet up became more scarce when we moved to the south. Where we can no longer just be available on a thursday night, or can we invite them for a friday dinner.

My inner circle

These dudettes consists of my closests friends. I miss them the most. Before, they are literally just a doorstep away. We spent the rest of the college years together since we are all Physics majors, two of them is taking their Phd’s and one successfully finished her dissertation just recently.

These are the people I am most comfortable with.

I miss my friends.

I miss forcing them to come to our house and have a look at my latest creations and choke a comment or two.

If they were just nearby, they could have seen how I literally struggle to finish the dress I am crocheting for over three weeks now.

Current Progress

Struggling to finish this because, I chose the skirt to be blooming as the length goes longer. And currently it’s more than two feet in diameter. The dress actually looks like a blouse now with it’s current length:

Dress or Blouse?

If they were just nearby, they would urge me to finish this, though most will just shrug in amusement. And I can even hear another say, she will borrow it as soon as I finish it.

I miss my friends. I hope they can visit me anytime soon.

Buy one – take two for free

One of the few things that popular media has injected in our state of mind is that in-laws are meddling people that can potentially ruin your relationship with your better-half. Luckily for me, this is not the case. I consider myself very fortunate to having acquired a second set of parents. It’s like buying one (Mike) and getting two additional goodies, for free! I also find it funny that we share some common similarities. Both of us were classmates during college and got married in mid-20’s. His mother is very artsy-craftsy like me, and his father is very serious and scientific like Mike.

I am telling this because I want to share the wedding dress my ‘nanay’ made. Actually, she made the gowns of all my bridesmaids and flower girls and even my mom’s! Isn’t that amazing???

My wedding dress made by my mother in law

Nanay made my wedding dress (back)

She also made my graduation dress (and the list goes on…)

Now, I am actually targeting to be as good as her when it comes to making dresses. And as you know, from my previous post, I have tried a few times. I may not be using the sewing machine she gave as much as I want to, because of the hectic work I have and because my toddler loves to mess up with my craft, but I am seriously considering entering a dressmaking class.

Since I have hooked up again in crocheting, one of my current goals is to finish this dress that is taking forever to make! But I am making very very good progress so far.. and I am itching to crochet all the way til my hands burn out.

dress in the making

Effort is nothing without good results

Effort is nothing without good results

College taught me this.

I remember a time during college when I entered a Crystallography course and spent a lot of sleepless nights over assignments just to be turned down at a mere glance. Maybe you would say that the professor is snubbed and not easily pleased and with little regards to how much effort I have put in my assignments. Maybe you are right. But it just emphasized the reality to me, that no matter how much effort you have put into something, if it is not right, it is not. Until you learn how to do things properly, that is when your effort will amount to something.

Mind you, I love that professor. So much, I used him as a subject to learn calligraphy brush tool in inkscape. [He he]

Studying calligraphy brush tool in inkscape

Same thing is true with my job. Colleagues often tease me on how overworking I can be, but I do not just want to work. I want to achieve my goal. I would not want to see wasting my 8 hours just delivering ‘work’ and not results. This is not even being hard on myself, actually this is me – seeing value on what I do and what I can do.

I work 24-7, including the nights I spent refactoring my codes in my dreams, and during coffee time with my husband, on suddenly realizing what the logic should be. I am not just a coder. I take pride that I do not just write codes but build them, from pieces of logic into stringing these pieces into a framework, where each object maybe re-used for the same purpose.

I do not think that it is too much to ask the same thing to other people. Anyway, we are not paid to just stay and deliver effort. We are paid to produce results.

This is why crafting is my stress reliever, and I stopped producing projects to be paid. With this, I fully enjoy the benefits of crafting without additional burden of producing the result expected by the client, or beating the deadline.

And I enjoy each time I produced good results with me as its very own beneficiary.

Fitting the dress

I love crafting. I really do.

Stop right now.

Current progress

Stop right, now.

I can’t. I keep telling myself to stop, your hands are hurting. Stop, you need to sleep. Stop. procrastinate. delay.

I cannot.

I am a little bit excited [I guess more than just a little] on how my ‘dress project’ would come out. Though I am not really sure of how each part would progress. Every time I cut my yarn to proceed to the next step, I hesitate but I cannot just stop. I am not even thinking, I am not even counting. My hands are moving on their own. I am hooked.

Today, I am able to progress a bit. The right side already has ‘sleeves’ with dainty picots to adorn the armhole. The picots were unplanned too, as well as the horizontal strip of lace I crocheted as back part and base of the sleeves.

(I originally intended it for a ribbon (perhaps?) or the band below the bust line, then it ended as the back part).

This is what I call, crocheting as I go. No concrete design, just a goal, a quick learning curve, and eagerness to please myself.

And delightfully, today, I already have chiffon to line the dress. The color is in nude, to match the cream wool blended yarn I am using. I have three yards of this, to allow room for mistakes, since I am not a hustler in cutting fabric, and from experience, I have messed up too many times.

Imagining the dress to have a skirt

Now, I am imagining how my project will look like if I am able to finish the skirt. Doesn’t it look nice?

On the same note, I just recently rediscovered an old video of me and my friends singing the song: Stop, by Spice Girls – here’s the link: http://lcdazo.multiply.com/video/item/5/stop-mtv-by-mgs.mpg

Sleepless nights

I remember a poem I wrote a while back about having sleepless nights. Usually when I cannot sleep, the right side of my brain is working nonchalantly. And I have to give in or suffer a terrible insomnia. During these times, creativity should be expressed and writing poems is one of my outlets:

A poem I wrote during one of the sleepless nights after going home from work:

ONE CUP OF COFFEE == ONE SLEEPLESS NIGHT

One cup of coffee=one sleepless night.
A single semicolon leaves my xml unparsed.
Piling up my headers are scripts and css
Adding to a kilobyte of additional requests.

One sleepless night means waking up so late
Leading to many buggy user interface.
Straighten up. Move thy mouse, Kindly check the logs.
Precautions are necessary. Prepare from being hacked.

Waking up so late gives a whole day of migraine
And a single paracetamol may not ease the pain.
Open up the terminal.  sudo ssh.
Repositories are out-of-date. make an apt-update

Headaches, submitted bugs then a meeting with my boss.
One-on-one analysis, another lunch break lost.
Onclick.submit() does not render $this->form().
Firebug console throws a lot of exception.

One cup of coffee = one sleepless night.
Thank you mighty google, for shedding up some light.
Overdosed on caffeine. A mid-afternoon nap.
Caught by my supervisor. A memo from above.

One cup of coffee? Maybe some other time.
My code throws an error on line 209.
One cup of coffeee? I think, this time i’ll pass.
There’s a missing parameter, i still need to CAST().

---------------------------------

Last night was not an exception, It is nothing related about work but due to my obsession on creating a dress. I honestly admit now that I have no idea what my next step would be and since logic mind ain’t working and my brain cells are still hyperactive I just grab my hook again and start crocheting, which to my utter amazement, resulted in something I really find pretty.

Current progress of the dress – inclusion of a lace collar

And though it was really dark when I grabbed my camera and took a picture (and just hoped that the flash would help capture the image) I finally was able to force myself to sleep.

connecting the lace collar

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!

An ode to pattern writing

Yarn Review: Ice Yarn’s SuperFine Wool Metallic Gold Cream

On shaping the lace

Give yarns for christmas

Going Gaga over Hairpin Lace

I miss my friends

Buy one – take two for free

Effort is nothing without good results

Stop right now.

Sleepless nights

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