Making Doughnuts...

Yesterday, Golden Flower, my Facebook friend, dropped me a message to go over to her house as she has Raya goodies for me. And she purposely cooked extra to give as I would usually drool over her food photos posted up daily in Facebook.

I was thinking what to give to her. It won't be nice to go empty-handed. Since I can't cook for her then I was thinking of crochet-ing one or two dish cloth but halfway through, to my dismay, there was not enough yarn. So, mi madre has dismantled whatever that has been done.

I went to my e-mail to check what has been sent through the newsletter of my subscription and found this really simple flat doughnuts. It never occur to me to look for bouncy-stuffed doughnut. I only have a couple of hours left and I started to work on the non-edible doughnuts. 

They were quite cute and the way she decorated them was really nice. Maybe I should make her stuffed doughnuts to decorate her house. Until today, I still have nothing for myself as I've been sending things away. In exchange of these small doughnuts, I got 10 different types of cookies which were so delicious, I have rendang chicken drumstick, curry chicken, chicken and meat floss, ketupat and nasi impit. They were so good and we were eating after having our lunch an hour prior to the arrival of these yummies~!

That Pokéball...

My precious studies business so I expect her to have a business of her own. Before she even started on her business studies, she has set up an online business. I was browsing through her Instagram and I was horrified to see a crochet Pokeball. I asked her who's going to do that for her to sell and she said I'm going to do that. I have never done it and I don't even know how is it suppose to turn out to be.

Next thing that I did was hoping that nobody will buy but such evil things attract buyers real fast. That day itself someone messaged her regarding the Pokeball and suddenly I was doing it already. No doubt it's just a red and white ball with a lens on it, but it was part of the evil pocket monster game.

When I was still a child, I played with marbles, stones, shoes, bottle caps and rubber bands. Children nowadays can chant a whole paragraph of evils without knowing that they have sold their mind and spirit to the devil. They can call out curses right in your face but they can't recite the times table.

Blossom Summer Tank with Juliet Collar...

I took 2 skeins of cotton yarn in raspberry cotton. I have never crochet a blouse before so I have no idea how many skeins of 100g cotton yarn I need. The owners of cottonhouse were really helpful. The lady boss told me that I might need at least 6 just to be on the safe side. I bought 6 straight away.

I clicked on the first pattern which was quite beautiful according to the picture where the blossom summer tank  was worn on a mannequin. I started learning how to make blossom stitches according to the instructions. By the time I did until the 20th row, I was horrified with the out-of-shape tank top and thus, mi madre has to dismantle everything. Then, I started from scratch all over again and to my horror, the tank top from size M to size S. Again, mi madre has to dismantle them all. I was on the verge of giving up but I was too adamant to make this happen. I read the instructions again and literally dissect every single word.

I finally got it after many tries. Yeah, don't give up. When I'm desperate to make something happen, I will not give up but sometimes you feel like you're just so stupid because you repeated your mistakes. You knew its wrong but you still try the same method. Now I'm a bit smarter. 

I thought the tank top was too simple so I flipped my crochet book bought from Big Bad Wolf and found a collar that would bring the blouse to a higher level. It's Juliet collar and the worse part was there were only a few sentences of instructions in the book and the rest was just a pattern which couldn't utter a single word. I studied the pattern for more than a week staring into something with no words at all, thinking that one day a few words might appear to explain more.

I went head on and did it with no mistakes at all. By the time I finished the project, I felt like a professional and I could take the world  just do anything with my hands. Hanging these two pieces on a hanger was just different from seeing them worn in real life. That's Gracie's birthday present. I never give anyone birthday presents because I never know what to buy. Everyone practically has everything, nobody needs any more photo frames and cups.

My Chuka Idako...

Pinky, my travel buddy asked me to crochet her a little red octopus. Both of us really like chuka idako, wherever we were, they tasted the same. It's just a pity that Wal-Mart in OCT no longer sell it. Maybe most Chinese do not eat it?

I found my little chuka idako pattern and started on it. It just took a couple of hours to finish compared to the bunny which took me 7 hours to complete one. I dragged my feet on doing it because I thought the curly limbs were too difficult. They ended up easy enough. I thought mi madre how but mi madre seemed not to get it. I'm teaching my precious how, but she's so slow I feel like whacking her. I don't seem to have patience in teaching people how to crochet maybe because I lack the proper skill myself. I learn by making so many mistakes and mi madre is hired as the destroyer. She will just pull the yarn and roll it back and I'll start all over again. I don't have the heart to dismantle my hardwork so mi madre has to be the villain. 

They looked really cute, these little octopuses. My favourite colour among all is the shocking pink. I like all shades of red and pink, but I prefer shocking and bright colours. 

The Tote with Perfect Mistakes...

I like this present piano teacher of mine a lot, so since her birthday falls on the day of my lesson, I thought why not make her something nice, my fingers were itching to crochet.

On Sunday, I sat the whole day studying and making the tote bag pattern from one of my books. It looked really simple and nice. Instead of using nylon, I decided to use microfiber. I have two rolls of microfiber with my favourite colour but I have yet to decide what to do with them. The pattern was really very simple but along the way, something happened with the increase of stitches. They were so out I did not know what to do. When I make mistakes for my cross-stitch, I will find ways to cover them. Well, this is crochet and there are no ways to cover them unless you dismantle the whole lot and roll up the yarn and restart. I do not want to restart because I don't know where are the mistakes.

Halfway through, the stitch counts became correct. When the tote bag was standing tall, I almost fainted. The back portion of the bag had so many extra rows that I decided to turn it into a flap. The flap needed a button to hold it so I simply made a magic ring and because the hook and the yarn were big and thick, the button that I imagined turned out to be a gigantic button used by I-don't-know-what.

While making the handle, I think I was talking to either mi madre or the hubby that I missed two stitches. I really wanted to faint so one handle was short and the other was of the exact stitch counts. The long one was stitched to the front part while the shorter one was made to be at the back. 

The tote bag was completed with the 'Made by me' label. Yeah, seriously made by me. Only I can manage to pull off such big mistakes and give it away as a gift. You can't buy it if you have the money because I don't know how to make the second one with the same mistakes and the flap. That microfiber tote is hug-able. It's soft, really soft.

The Beginner's Ribbed Scarf...

I was excited to start on the next project and I went to town and found another shop selling yarns and sewing accessories. The yarn was quite thick but being ignorant and totally without knowledge of the types of yarns, I went ahead to buy those yarns. The ribbed scarf pattern was taught by Ms. Craft Nerd, again from YouTube.

I did the blue scarf for Pinky and I have shipped it to Australia.I will not consider it as a waste of time and money but I was a bit upset because the scarf was so hard, I would rather use it to wipe my feet then wear it around my neck. The 100% acrylic was totally useless as a scarf, it will not be able to keep warm at all. Pinky is very afraid of cold cold winter so in the end, I wise up and went on to buy expensive 100% wool yarns for her and I found her favourite 100% cashmere wool as well.

The pink scarf with a headband were flown in to Taiwan for another friend. She has the same taste of colour of myself so it will be easier to choose the yarn while Pinky is my total opposite and her wardrobe is so boring, it looks like she has only black and white in her wardrobe. Well, at least we got good practice in crocheting. Thank you Ms. Craft Nerd...

The Mini Basket...

I've wanted a mini basket for quite some time but I don't know which type I want. If I don't have any mini baskets, the hubby would surely use empty boxes to put stuff in. He's always recycling while I always wanted something new.

Finally, I found the basket that I wanted. Not the grocery basket, picnic basket or any fanciful Moroccan basket. I just wanted a simple mini basket and I've got what I wanted after a thorough search online. My watches have their own nest now if now they will be everywhere.

The T-Shirt Yarn Rug...

We've just moved house and the amount of old t-shirts are aplenty. If we want to give it away, nobody will want them. If we want to throw them away, we would have done so a long time ago. Mi madre thought of something. Mi madre started cutting the t-shirt all around the body and roll them into a ball. Using the size 10 crochet hook, mi madre started off to work. Mi madre complained that outside my room lacks of a rug, thus the rug was created. Yupz, mi madre was also into crochet but mi madre was too lazy to count stitches. Mi madre prefers the same count of stitches for every row so that it wouldn't go out of shape.

My First Crochet Project...

My first crochet project was taught by YouTube because no humans wanted to teach me. I have preferred learning from someone who is breathing and very much alive but since I asked the professionals but they turned me away, I had to crawl myself to the laptop connected to the television screen, and I asked YouTube to teach me. I just typed out Amigurumi Crochet on the search panel because I thought that to launch myself into crocheting a scarf using 5-6 skeins of yarns was just too much to handle. 

Something small should be good and the person who taught me was Happy Berry Crochet. She was really patient as she video-ed her own fingers, working around the hook and the yarn. I watched the YouTube video so many times that when I saw that there were two other parts of the video, I simply wanted to give up. In the end, as the last straw, I took a piece of paper and a mechanical pencil, and started writing down the steps, not realizing that I was actually doing the steps in written form, using all the abbreviations which I thought I coined up myself.

It was not easy but after some time, I got the hang of it and it became really enjoyable. I thought of selling my handiwork but then again, I might want to sell some other stuff. These bunnies were my babies, my first ever real project.

Well, I'm more of a paper-and-pencil person and I need everything to be written in details. I don't mind reading pages long of instructions but videos do really help especially when you know next to nothing. Thank you Happy Berry Crochet. You've been such a wonderful help. After I get started on crochet, cross-stitching seemed like kindergarten level.