Rambling Roses Design

When you’ve got to motivate your 6-year-old to make 22 valentines for her class and you don’t want to opt for the generic box of candy from the grocery store, where do you turn? Pinterest, of course.

I came across this pin last week for non-candy valentines and jumped all over it. I had the necessary supplies to pull this off :: construction paper, cute pencils, Exacto knife… check, check, check. I even had said 6-year-old eager and willing to get going… HUGE check!!

The entire thing took us less than an hour and it was so enjoyable to work on it together. I will definitely look out for more crafty projects we can make.

A couple things to note, I changed my printer settings to print out the template onto cardstock. There are lines printed on the template where you cut slits to slide the pencil through. I needed to extend those lines to be longer so that my pencil could fit through without ripping the paper.

We stuck a handwritten, heavily-stickered note to the back of each heart and we were all set.

Her best friends get a little something extra, namely, rainbow loom bracelets. Tell me that it’s not only at my house that there’s this Rainbow Loom mania going on 🙂

Valentines craft complete, now, I’ve got to go bake a couple dozen cupcakes!

Posted by Preeti & filed under Gifts, Kids, Rambling. This post has 6 comments.

I received a custom request for a set of gift bags for Valentines Day. These little bags were so much fun to put together. Filled with little candy and treats for the fast-approaching ❤ Day, I’m sure these are going to be loved :: for the giving and the receiving.

They can be re-used to store little treasures or filled with lavender to freshen up any space.

I made the bags using linen (of course!) and pretty fabric for the trim. The part I enjoyed the most was the applique of the hearts, you know how I love me some hand stitching 🙂 The hearts are totally appropriate for the occasion, no?

The bags are unlined and the edges are finished with a zig-zag stitch all around to prevent fraying.

They’ve gone into the shop. Yes, the shop is open, yay! It’s got only the one item listed so far, but I’ll be adding more lovely things as I make them 🙂

❤

Posted by Preeti & filed under Bags, Etsy, Gifts, Sewn Finishes. This post has 9 comments.

Thank you so much to everyone who emailed me and commented about my new site! I really appreciate your encouragement ❤

I talked about knitting a lace shawl with beads a little while ago. This shawl had a deadline since I wanted to wear it to my cousin’s wedding in December. I wanted something pretty and warm at the same time to wear so that I wouldn’t become a frozen ice cube in the winter chill.

Everything went well even though this was my first time knitting with beads and I got that shawl done well before the wedding. When it came to the actual day, it turned out that I didn’t need the shawl after all. The lovely waterfront venue for the wedding was toasty warm thanks to the heated floors. So, my beaded shawl remained tucked in my purse.

I used Tosh Prairie in a gorgeous colorway called Spectrum and Japanese seed beads for some subtle bling. The seed beads mimicked the colors of the yarn perfectly and it was so easy to add them using a crochet hook.

I wanted to knit a lace shawl that was delicate with a curved edge. I knew that a Boo Knits pattern would be the right choice for what I had in mind. I chose Fragile Heart opting for a larger stockinette body combined with the lace edging. I could have actually knit this thing bigger because when all was said and done, I had plenty left over :: each skein of Prairie has 840 yards. That’s a lot! I didn’t account for this generous yardage until after the fact. Therefore, the size is more scarf, less shawl-like… bygones, bygones.

I blocked it and it turned out to be light as a feather and absolutely delicate. I got my lace fix and tried my hand at beading with this project. Whee 🙂 The colors are just as intense in the knitted fabric as they appear in the skein. Spectrum is truly spectacular!

I’ve worn this scarf/shawl/shawlette a bunch of times and I love how soft and luxurious this yarn feels. The beads look so lovely when they catch the light. I definitely want to add beads to another project.

The wedding was lots of fun. Miss. K was part of the bridal party as the flower girl. She looked like a fluffy cloud in her dress 🙂

Prithvi, was one of the emcees at the reception and he did such a great job! Proud mama.

The happy Mr. & Mrs. 🙂

So, back to my shawl… here are some project details

Fragile Heart (my Ravelry notes)
Pattern: Fragile Heart by Boo Knits
Yarn: Madelinetosh Prairie in ”Spectrum”
Needles: Sizes US 5, 6 & 7 / 3.75, 4 & 4.5 mm

Posted by Preeti & filed under Family, Finished Knits, Kids, Lace, Scarves, Shawl. This post has 11 comments.

Welcome to my new home here at…

I’ve been sitting on the idea of moving to my own website for ages. I decided to stop waiting for the right time and just do it already! So, here I am and I’m glad you’re here 🙂

I’m totally green at all this techy stuff and there has been a definite learning curve. But, it has been quite fun thanks to all the support and tutorials supplied by the world wide web!! While I have tried to transition all of my old content over, I realize that there maybe stuff that I’ve overlooked. If you find anything that’s broken please let me know, k? Thanks 🙂

Thank you to all my ~~followers~~ friends for stickin’ with me at my old space. I hope you will update your bookmarks at my new digs to:

https://rambling-roses.com

There’s a handy subscription box on the sidebar and a few other social media avenues available for you to choose from so you can continue to follow my blog.

It’s a brand new day! Onward and upward!!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Posted by Preeti & filed under Rambling. This post has 4 comments.

We’re back home from our travels and are more or less or settled in. With the start of a fresh new year; like most everyone; I’ve embraced the idea of a clean slate providing a launchpad for brand new ideas and a renewed focus.

Over the next few days, I will share the projects I have finished but didn’t get a chance to blog about before 2013 drew to a close. But today, some snapshots of our recent holiday to India (some of these pictures have been pinched off Vineet’s Facebook page, I’m sure he won’t mind, lol!)

It was exciting and adventuresome and a whirlwind of travel to so many places all squeezed into 3 short weeks. We always seem to do vacations this way… at breakneck speed!

Transatlantic winter travel always poses a threat for delays and our flight was no exception. We didn’t make our connection in Frankfurt and as a result we ended up having to do two stops instead of one before we reached our destination. With all of the re-routing, our luggage was lost in transit. Hah! We did get our stuff after a couple days but it was a strange feeling to have to go shopping straight from the airport!

Vineet’s sister and her husband flew in from Tennessee too and so we had ourselves a mini family reunion over the holidays. We went to Chennai, Cochin, Bangalore, Mysore and Kabini and enjoyed Christmas with family in India during this trip. See, I told you it was a whirlwind!

I have to share this sight… these men hard at work on that unsafe looking fishing boat, no life vests, no navigation system, I think there was a motor but I didn’t hear it running!

They were on that boat in the middle of this

Here’s the amazing part, they hauled out two huge nets bursting with fish! Bravo, three men whom I do not know!

We took a few days to unwind before we headed back home and we picked the middle of the jungle to relax and rejuvenate.

It was definitely a great choice because we were spoiled by the beauty of our surroundings and majestic wildlife.

I will never tire of seeing elephants and we saw a whole lot of them this time.

We would have loved to have spotted one of the big cats but they were quite elusive. We heard one of them calling though and that sound was so thrilling and so heart-stopping at the same time. The deer were on high alert too.

The kids looked everywhere for fallen peacock feathers but there were none to be found even though there were peacocks everywhere. Wrong season maybe?

All holidays must come to an end and now we’re back. It does feel great to be home 🙂

I’m excited to share the plans I’ve envisioned for my creative focus for the year ahead. Watch this space!

Posted by Preeti & filed under Family, Rambling, Travel, Vacation. This post has 4 comments.

Warmest Christmas wishes coming to you from the other side of the globe! We are visiting family in India at the moment which accounts for my radio silence on this blog. I will be back with a post real soon.

Have a wonderful, joy-filled holiday season with your loved ones!

Posted by Preeti & filed under Rambling. This post has 4 comments.

I’m sure I’ll be knitting my latest project till the last minute, maybe even blocking on the road and this is why…

One of my cousins is getting married in 2 weeks. She’s pretty local, lives on Vancouver Island actually. I’ve picked out a dress to wear but for obvious reasons unless I grow some kind of thermal skin, I’m going to become an icicle.

So, what do you wear with a dress that’s got no arms, or shoulders that’s not a winter coat but still is elegant and provides a teensy bit of warmth?

A shawl! Yes folks, I am knitting a shawl!!!

That’s not all. This shawl is knit using laceweight yarn. I don’t know when I knit something with laceweight last, but it is going very slowly!

And since I’m continuing with the impossible theme here, this shawl pattern has…

…beads!

I have to say that I’m done with the stockinette section. So, I’m sort of half way there. I’ve got the lace section, the lace border and the picot bind off left :: all done with beads, aaahhhh! Yup, certified glutton for punishment!

The wedding is on December 14. Can I pull off the impossible?

Posted by Preeti & filed under Lace, Shawl. This post has 8 comments.

My mom has this really lovely friend, Jane. She is always so well put together. Imagine a taller, Audrey Hepburn, that’s Jane. Although, she’s lived in Canada most of her adult life, she is still very British. That accent… love it!!! Her sense of humor is charmingly tongue-in-cheek too. An exceptional woman!

Jane is a knitter. I found this out when she saw my son’s modified Rikke hat that I knit him a while ago and she could just “read the pattern” by looking at it!! She loved it, the texture, the yarn and the crown decreases and said that she’d like to knit one just like it.

So, I emailed her the link for the Rikke hat and gave her the details for the yarn and some possible substitutions. I also pointed her to Ravelry… enabler that I am 😉

Jane hasn’t been able to knit very much lately, her hands have been too shaky to hold the needles still. You see, Jane was recently diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s disease.

From one knitter to another, a handknit hat.

Rikke #2 ** (my Ravelry notes)
Pattern: Rikke Hat by Sarah Young
Yarn: Mirasol Qina in “Purple Haze”
Needles: Size US 5 & 7 / 3.75 & 4.5 mm

** The hat is being modelled by my 6-year-old that’s why it looks extra, extra slouchy

Posted by Preeti & filed under Accessories, Finished Knits, Gifts, Hats. This post has 7 comments.

Outside our kitchen window is a star magnolia tree and it provides us with plenty to look at year round. Delicate scented white flowers in the early spring, lush green foliage all summer and when the leaves turn in the fall, they are a beautiful orangey yellow.

The leaves continue to fall and soon the branches will be bare. These bare branches give us hours of winter entertainment watching our own backyard bird channel. Right now, the ground is a carpet of gold under this tree!

At the neighborhood coffee hangout, chilled cups with straws and clinking ice are replaced with steaming mugs of various delicious concoctions. My friend who is a coffee lover, put in a request for a set of mug rugs. Her only requirement was that I incorporate some sort of leaf element into the design. I had free reign with the rest.

Inspired by our magnolia tree, I picked out some coordinating fabric, some linen and was all set to begin. I cut out a few leaf shapes and fused them onto the linen, then did some free motion sewing around each leaf to secure it. The rest was just standard sew-baste-bind.

Ever have a project that you have in your head and everything goes according to plan? I’ve never ever had that happen to me, and this time was no exception! I was adding the binding to the last piece and realized that I didn’t have anymore of the red fabric left. I was shy of just three inches, arrrgh! I went back to the shop where I purchased this fabric and they didn’t have any in stock either, arrrrgh again!! I was on a deadline and so I didn’t have time to re-bind all of them using a different fabric.

Plan B. I decided to add an accent fabric to make the binding strip longer and so I added it to the top part of the last little mug rug which meant that I had to cut the red bit shorter. There was no going back once I cut!

I folded the binding over the raw edge of each mug rug and hand sewed it to the back. They looked great except that stripey bit!

The finished mug rugs were handed over to my friend with me fumbling over the words to explain my binding dilemma.

She loved the set and said this was exactly what she wanted. Guess which one is her favorite? The one with the scrappy binding 🙂

Posted by Preeti & filed under Sewing, Sewn Finishes. This post has 5 comments.

Vancouver’s annual fiber festival, Knit City, took place this past weekend. It was bigger and better this year. Thank you Amanda & Fiona! Two days filled with yarny fun and this time we even had the pleasure of listening to a lecture by the Yarn Harlot herself. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me and so all I have is this blurry instagramed picture of her standing behind the podium. And yes, she is that pint-sized IRL!

It was such a hoot, she had us roaring with laughter the entire time. The vendors outdid themselves and I can say for certain that the yarnaholics of our city went home satisfied.

I was very restrained this year with my yarn purchases and also, I bought only one pattern. Self pat on the back I think!

From left to right…

Sweet Merino Lite from talented local yarnista, Sweet Fiber. This colorway is called Teal and it reminds me so much of the Pacific Ocean in the summer.

Organically grown cotton and bamboo from the dyepots of my Knit Night buddy, Heidi, the genius behind Vegan Yarn. The colorway is called Thrift Store. Verrrah nice!

I couldn’t resist some madelinetosh and so it had to be Tosh Prairie in Spectrum with Japanese seed beads in Rainbow Cobalt to make a… wait for it…. shawl!

Gonna wind the yarn for the shawl after I’ve narrowed down my pattern choices on Ravelry. Yeah, who am I kidding, this could take a while!!!

We’ve had a crazy phenomenon the past few weeks with much of the Pacific Northwest shrouded in a blanket of thick fog.

What made it crazy was the temperature inversion :: cold in the city where we’re at sea level and warm on the ski slopes where they are already set for ski season! The fog lifted in time for Knit City but it was super cool and so eerie while it lasted.

Fall glorious fall

Soon it will be time for woolly hats and Deck the halls. Can you believe that 2013 is racing to the finish line? 56 days till Christmas, ahhh!!

Posted by Preeti & filed under Canada, Yarn. This post has 4 comments.

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