Polly ..

Greeting friends,

Everybody will experience the pain of parting from their friends at times and my dear dear sweetheart Kate  also experienced this pain for a while,  but now her wait is over. Her dearest friend poly is ready and is very excited to meet her best friend Kate. 

   

                   

I had knitted Kate few weeks back and I was on a verge of moving so could not knit Polly immediately after Kate, now that I have moved and kind of settled in my new home I decided to finish Polly as soon as possible. Kate is so happy to meet Polly. What a happy reunion . 

                      

   

   Now Polly and Kate has lot of things to catch up with and I am pretty sure that they will sit and chat the whole day :) 

               

                        

     Now I will leave these two alone , so that they can catch up with each other and goodbye to everyone until next time :) 

Kate and her birthday gift....

This blog is about a sweet little girl 'Kate' . She is designed by Wendy Philips . I bought this pattern from her Etsy  shop called dolly time. I love all her dolls and her blog. This is the first time I bought the patterns from her shop. It was easy to follow and I learnt new techniques as usual, especially while attaching legs and arms to the doll and also new way of making the Dolly's hair and facial features. Here is the picture of my sweet little girl Kate.

                              

   So today is a special day for Kate because its her birthday. Kate had a wonderful birthday, her mum cooked her favorite delicacies , her father bought her new skirt and a cardigan , and she is wearing a pair of shoes that matches her skirt. She has been wearing her new dress the whole day and she doesn't want to take them off. Here is the picture of her clothes . Her skirt is made out of fabric and her cardigan is knitted.

                 

        

                                 

  This was not the end of her day.  Guess  what ? she received a surprise gift from her uncle that made her birthday memorable. what was that gift?. A play kitchen set. Kate did not expect this and she jumped with joy because she always loved playing with her play kitchen set with her best friend Poly. This was the best gift that she has ever received for her birthday so far.

                        

                              

     

 Kate has already opened her package and arranged her new dishes with lot of enthusiasm and excitement.

                           

       

But did this excitement last long? Unfortunately no, since her best friend poly is not yet ready, she cannot play alone without her best friend poly. Hopefully she will get made soon. I am on the verge of moving so lot of things are pending , I would love to knit poly before the move but not sure if I will be able to finish knitting her but I promise Kate that I will try to knit Poly as soon as possible . Till than poor Kate should wait for her mate.

                              

 

                             

This little story is based on my own story. When I was just 6 or 7 years old my uncle gifted a play kitchen set for my birthday which was totally unexpected. I was really the happiest child that day. I still have those toys with me. So this blog is to just celebrate my childhood. The play kitchen set that's shown here was bought from dollar tree. Sometimes dollar tree can really surprise me :) .

I hope my readers enjoyed this little story of Kate .....

Thanks for stopping by........

Picnic day @ Uc Davis....

The 99th annual Picnic Day will take place on Saturday, April 20, 2013. This family friendly event is free for all to come and experience the richness of diversity and achievement at UC Davis and the surrounding community in the areas of research, teaching, service and campus life.

As UC Davis’ annual open house event, Picnic Day has been prominently featured in the press. Now in its 99th year, this traditional event has been voted “Best Davis Event” by the California Aggie for the past four years.

Picnic Day has an expected attendance of 125,000 visitors and is believed to be the largest student-run event in the nation. In 2007–2008 an estimated 100,000 people attended and reports for the UC Davis Centennial (2008–2009) place attendance anywhere between 125,000 and 150,000. Current and prospective students, alumni, staff, faculty, and people from everywhere are invited to attend this festive day that showcases the talents, achievements and history of the university. With more than 150 free events throughout campus, Picnic Day provides fun and education for all ages.

The above information is as per the Davis wiki and the university website. I have been living in Davis from past 5 years, every year I visit the UC Davis campus for picnic day. Main thing I like about this event is dogs. I have seen most beautiful breeds on this day , I should not forget cats. If people are interested they can adopt dogs and cats. In the morning there will be a parade , people from different countries walk in the parade carrying their country's flags followed by number of other activities like music, dog shows where dogs will participate in some competitions it's really fun to watch those dogs and many other activities.

Davis is a very small town with a population of 75,000 people but this is one time of the year where I see many people thronging this place. All the restaurants will be full , you will only see crowd every where....since this might be my last picnic day at UC Davis since my husband will be graduating soon I thought I should write a blog about picnic day... On this occasion why not some fun for my dolls, let the girls have some fun :)

My first knitted doll

I got an urge to knit after I received four sweaters as gifts from my husbands grandmother. She is an expert knitter and she knitted four beautiful sweaters for me. When ever I wear them people notice my sweater and complement. I wanted to knit but I did not know how to go about. Luckily my neighbor In my old apartment taught me how to knit. It was a quick crash course since she was moving to Chicago and I had less than a week to learn to cast on, knit, purl and cast off . She did what ever she could and I am very grateful for that... After practicing for sometime I bought a basic knitting book from border's . I always wanted to make vests and sweaters so there was an easy sleeveless vest pattern in the book, I started making the vest. Even though the knitting was good , the armhole shaping and the neck shaping was a disaster :( , even the size became too big, I then realized that the yarn that I used was not appropriate. I also realized that armhole shaping and the neck shaping is not a walk in the park ....so my first vest was a big disaster :)

I did not give up started a new project which was a shrug . This time was I successful ? Nay, was not :( . This time the shrug became too small :) may be it could have fitted a doll, but I don't know what happened to that shrug I was too disappointed and I got rid of that shrug if I knew I was going to make dolls in future may be I would have retained that shrug ....

Anyway my third project began and it was a shrug again :) I did not give up on cardigans, vests and sweaters yet ;) . This time I wanted to make this shrug to gift one of my friends who taught me to sew. She was leaving to India for good and I wanted to give her a thank you gift ,which was also a parting gift ,so started this shrug I was too ambitious and made with two colors black and white :) , I completed the shrug I wanted to add a flower I didn't know how to crochet I asked my friend to crochet a flower so that I can embellish on the shrug everything was ready I gave the shrug to my friend and I thought she will be thrilled but she was kind of disappointed :( . I can say that it was not very good but it was not bad either, since it was handmade with love I thought she would accept but she returned the shrug back to me :( I cannot blame her everyone likes to receive a good gift. I then gifted her a three strand bracelet and a black necklace that I made and she loved them...

After this incident I was slightly upset about my failure ,then my husband gave a very good suggestion that I should first make small projects and then move on to big projects, then I was looking for small knitting projects and I came across this easy doll pattern and then I decided that I should make dolls. I took a long time to make but I was happy with the end result.

I called her pinku .then I made a slightly bigger doll called Rinku. I showed that doll to one of my friends who use to work In a women's center library and she loved it and wanted to buy this doll for her mom for Mother's Day. So I was only left with pinku.. ...
So this is how my doll making thing started. Which I am enjoying. I went on to make few more vests . They came well, not excellent but not bad,I still get complements when I wear them. Even though I want to make dolls, I want to try making other things as well.
Lastly I want to dedicate this picture to one of my childhood friends. I love her and she is my best friend. I wanted to give Rinku to her but I can always make another doll for her :) .

Lil piggy off to school....

So this cute piggy was my first crochet project . I crocheted him may be a year ago. I learnt to knit may be 4 years back but I could not crochet. I had a friend who could crochet very well and she taught herself how to crochet thanks to the online tutorials. She tried teaching me as well, we use to do a lot crafts together and that was fun. She taught me how to sew, but she was not successful to teach me how to crochet, I can't blame her :). Anyway one day she had to go back to India and so our craft activities came to an end :( . But I always wanted to learn how to crochet.

One day I was telling my mom on the phone that I don't know how to crochet and that's very bad because my mom use to crochet when I was a kid. She use to make clothes for my doll. But I never learnt from her either. So she just motivated me by telling that When I can knit I can crochet as well. She said just take some yarn and a crochet hook and try for some time and you will get it and that's what I did exactly. I just sat on my couch took some yarn and a crochet hook and learnt some basic crochet stitches and I was very happy. I discovered that with just single crochet you can make so many things. Amigurumi is just excellent and fun, it's easy and fast to make. I Found a cute and easy pattern online and in few hours little piggy was ready just like that... I have to really thank my mom for this :)
And after this no looking back, I have crocheted many cute things and hope to continue for ever...
I love his bag and his face. Adding a button for his nose was such a cute idea :) . Overall I just enjoy making dolls :) .