crochet bag

In between my creative  projects, I find it convenient to pick up a small crochet project to work on while I decide on the next thing to make. This bag was started right after I finished Dawn. It took only a few days and I completed it a few weeks ago, but never got round to blogging about it. My photos today have an odd dark tinge probably because it was almost 7pm when I took them and the daylight was already fading.

crochet bag

 

I've crocheted this bag before but second time round was not necessarily easier. I re-started the base 4 times because I kept getting the stitch count wrong. When I was crocheting the net design, I had to rip back every other row or so because I kept making mistakes.

 

I lengthened the handles so that it can be worn as a sling bag over the shoulders and I added an inner fabric drawstring bag to keep things from falling out.

XOXO

KITCHEN RACK

One of my recent prepping projects that was   completed last year these days was a wood storage rack. It was built with some used lumber "scrounged" from a construction site. It's approximately 3×3× 3feet in size. It was made three feet wide to accommodate tit bits of kitchen  . This was made to fit under the kitchen’s preparation platform    as a place to store some kitchen items   in a place that would be accessible when in need.

 
AQUARIUM IS PLACED ON THE RACK 

And since we will purchase/built a new big house in the near future, I didn’t want to procure any new drawer or almirah or I didn’t want to add doors to my store slab (which was our previous kitchen ..and the space ..from cooking platform  and upper open shelf can be made almirah by adding additional slabs and doors )so in short I wanted to make something a little quicker to hold my growing stash of yarn, thread, floss, macramé wires, beads, fabrics and lace.etc…etc, so I decided to cover a wooden rack with some fabric wadding and plastic sheet to prevent the internal space from dust…in our arid area the fine powdery sand particles are really nusions especially in summer that they used to penetrate through the foam wadding+ fabric so I have to sandwich a plastic sheet necessarily….


Here is how…….

This is the rack and is custom made by my handyman

sorry for the hazy picture from my cell-phone

This versatile Kitchen and dish cloth  rack in wood scrap with zip opening is easy to operate . One  shelve stack bottles juicers, antique pans ,wooden spatulas, spoons, ladles, and churners and second shelve stacks dish cloths mesh cloths, muslin cloth etc.  Our dust cover protects stack while a zipper provides easy access to shelves.
xoxo

Pizza dough—

Last week we visited my sis’s house. My niece was making pizza for breakfast …I was there to see her making!  She had a mixture of milk cream, Suji , green chilies, green coriander etc…etc.. she was just smearing the mixture on bread pieces and shallow fried them on iron skillet.i never imagined the pizza without  pizza base…then I explained her to make pizza base…

Random thought about Pizza dough

I make my pizza dough from scratch. It’s easy really. The ingredients are basic: flour, water, salt, sugar, yeast -  and a lot of kneading. I could do it the easy way. I could throw everything in my mixer and let the dough-hook form it. But I prefer to knead the dough myself. In a strange way I find it relaxing, therapeutic almost.

The first time my friend at Canada suggested that I make pizza dough, I looked at her aghast. Me, I thought,  make dough? I had never made dough in my life. We were living in Hisar at the time and I was thousands of miles away from home and from my mother’s advice. But I decided to give it a try. After all, I had seen my mum and Nanna make dough hundreds of times. How difficult could it be?

In fact, it wasn’t, and since that day I have continued to make my dough. And as I knead away with floury fingers (and nose and cheeks, usually), my thoughts chase unbidden through my head. In kneading and rolling the dough I manage to make time stand still. Because for centuries, countless women before me have gone through the same motions – maybe not to make  pizza, but definitely to make Roti . Kneading and forming and shaping – my hands almost feel like they have been taken over by the gentle spirits of those that have passed before. There is a continuity about it that goes back to ancient times. The most basic of culinary arts that produces that most staple of foods: Roti.  In the short span of 15 to 20 minutes it feels as if life has gone full circle. I could close my eyes and instead of my  modern kitchen I could be in a rudimentary hut, hundreds of years ago. In essence, not much has changed.

 

All the above pics snapped at my sis's house

 

XOXO

Travelling with crochet in hand

Of course I did some crocheting myself while traveling
through Hisar and Delhi. I wanted to make something easy.
So I decided to go for simple, round place mats.

It's a central beautiful  circle pattern, using treble crochet.

 I like the result, the milk chock let doily is pleasant .
But now I'm thinking I might turn them into...
a table cloth (another one, yes!), with the big circles connected by smaller ones.

Of course this would mean I'd have to whip up quite a few more.

I was shooting pictures while traveling.

This was the result at the end of my trip...

Happy crocheting!