During my school days, my mom and her friends would spend their leisure time by knitting, stitching, canning jams, squashes, pickles etc., Crochet was also one of their leisure time activity. My mom, a seasoned crocheter has hooked lovely ponchos, mufflers, tops, baby booties, table mats, etc.,. They would exchange ideas and designs from various magazines. And, also the nearby City central library had a good stock of international design books. Seeing her work with those yarn, hooks and needles, i too have dabbled with it during my younger days.
Not just my mom, I have even observed my grand mom make lovely crochet bags whenever I visited her during vacation. She would make them out of discarded packing material. My mama worked with a pharmaceutical company and so they had lots of drug cartons stocked at home. The cartons were packaged with a broad cream colored stiff fiber. My grand mom would immerse the discarded fiber in water and soak them for a while. The yarn would then turn into strands that were pliable. She hooked them along with little colored embellishments like beads and tubes to make beautiful bags. To make colored bags, she would even dye the yarn. Readymade wooden handles would be fixed to it to make a beautiful shopping bag. These were then distributed to all her daughters and relatives.
Not just my mom, I have even observed my grand mom make lovely crochet bags whenever I visited her during vacation. She would make them out of discarded packing material. My mama worked with a pharmaceutical company and so they had lots of drug cartons stocked at home. The cartons were packaged with a broad cream colored stiff fiber. My grand mom would immerse the discarded fiber in water and soak them for a while. The yarn would then turn into strands that were pliable. She hooked them along with little colored embellishments like beads and tubes to make beautiful bags. To make colored bags, she would even dye the yarn. Readymade wooden handles would be fixed to it to make a beautiful shopping bag. These were then distributed to all her daughters and relatives.
So, I was familiar with this craft but never
perfected or practiced it. But, in the summer vacation gone by, i picked up the basics again from my mom and improvised on it. Now this is my new hobby that I am trying to perfect.
My daughter too learnt it from my mom
and has crafted some beautiful gifts for her friends as key chains,Cell phone pouches, lovely flowers
as an embellishment for their dresses.
These
days when I see the balls of colored yarns in the
basket or even while during my evening walks, my mind is always working on what permutation and combination of colors to use with the limited stock that I
have. Now, I am on a crochet overdrive:) I don’t know how far I
will travel, but for the moment I am enjoying the colors and my creations.
These
are some of the things that I hooked in the past months.
Flowers in my yarn garden.
were stringed into a garland(unable to rotate the pic)
to adorn the lord's feet
The colored granny squares can be hooked into a little(baby) blanket, shawl or cushion cover( project in progress)
The big granny square in the above picture was made bigger with the rainbow colors...
.... to add color and warmth to the bedside table in the children's room
which combination to work with?
This owl keychain and the flower below were hooked by my daughter for her friend on her birthday. Her friends want more now. In the first pic, do you see a hair band? a button can be sewed to the white hairband and the below flower can be plugged onto the button. It will make a beautiful Navrathri gift for little girls who visit home. we can change the color of flowers to match the dress. Many more simple gift ideas can be made with crochet what with navrathri round the corner.
I will let you know what i did with this stack of colors in my next post.
Thanks Asha for the eye catching photos of your creations. Crochet is a great adventure that makes way for our wildest imagination and creativity.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure SG:) True, for now i am enjoying the colors and my creations.
DeleteSuch creative crochet work! As I kid I used to make lots of things with needle and yarn like sweaters for our dolls, socks, caps but somehow never got around doing crochet work.This post brought some lovely memories of winters as kids.
ReplyDeleteMe too....have done that though with needle and thread. Sewing clothes for my dolls. Yeah shilpa.....lovely memories of those times, when there was more leisure time sans TV and internet.
DeleteWow. Where do you find the time for this amongst everything else that you do ?
ReplyDeleteWhen i like something, I find time. When i don't like to do something, i am too busy. Like for instance, no time for reading. my reading habit is dead:(
DeleteI also used to do everything..embroidery, crochet, knitting, but now, I just dont feel like doing anything..may be I finished my quota then:)
ReplyDeleteOh that's nice, you seem to be a creative person:)
DeleteWow Asha you are very creative.I think it is in your genes.First your Granny, then your Mom, now you and next your talented daughter. Every piece is a master piece.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much ma'am for such encouraging words:)
ReplyDelete