Tiny Hexagons for new Handbag and the Karoo Floral Kingdom

Since I posted two weeks ago I not only finished the stripey round handbag I posted about previously, but also a 70 granny squares [eight rounds per granny] single bed afghan for the Teen! I am itching to show you how both turned out but a current bout of rainy weather is hijacking my plans for pretty pictures.  

Above is my current work in a progress, tiny hexagons from all my left over Vinnis yarn which will become a great handbag for someone special.  I was about to churn out African flowers when it struck me that these tiny hexagons fit right in with our latest travelling experience through the Cape floral kingdom - I like connecting impressions of places visited with my projects. We recently spent a weekend on a Karoo farm near Laingsburg and the flowers and shrubbery of the region is simply beautiful.  Some of the flowers in the photos below are no more than 2 mm in either height or width!  Unbelievable. Cheers until next time xxxx

 These [directly above] are all teeny weeny and no more than 1-3mm in size each! I got as close as I possibly could with my camera. The below ones are "normal" flower size ;-)

Works in Progress and the Old Age Home

Wow I just realised that I rarely work on more than one project at a time and that I took up a second project yesterday simply because I ran out of yarn for my current WIP.  Expats absorb bits and pieces from all the different cultures they live in and I mentioned before that Penang in Malaysia resort around a saving culture and not a consumer driven one.  Our family now shop, live and consume /save similar to the average Penangite in Malaysia even though we have left the country. That surely has to be the reason why I only work on one project at a time and see it through to the end - no stashing of projects. Below I will post sneak peeks to the two projects - the one is a stripey handbag hooked in Elle Premier and the second project is an afghan for a single bed hooked in Vinnis Nikkim.  I love working in 100% cotton since it looks luxurious and shapes beautifully. 

This week I am kicking of a hooking project with the old and wise residing in an old age/caring home.  I am hoping to also involve ladies from a nearby retirement village since the latter are a wee bit more energetic and will help keep the project alive once I am no longer around in this area to assist. The purpose of the project is twofold, firstly as therapy and secondly to decorate their corridors which is currently devoid of any decorative objects let alone colour.  It is quite sad that these wonderfully wise ladies stare at white and grey walls day in and day out when their minds are full of colourful memories . . .

I saw a bag featured in a local magazine and decided to quickly hook myself one.  Isn't it pretty? I am using both 4ply as well as DK in six different colours - 3 warm and 3 cool shades

A throw for the Tween's bed as requested by her to be joined in off white.  The granny squares are in shades of green, purple, pink, aqua and yellow/orange.

Bags for Hookers, some food too

Oh wow!  First I came across the work of Japanese artist jungjung, then I found myself admiring patterns for vintage bags on Etsy and these are all speaking to me in tones and whispers on the one hand but also yelling on the other hand to be taken notice of. I am so ordering some of these patterns as I have been looking and thinking of crochet bags and hooking something really nice for months now, but was never quite satisfied with what I saw. I am also limited by the dreadful choice of exactly one type of yarn available here in Penang.  I simply refuse to order yarn online, the purchasing of hooky stuff in my opinion is a complete sensory experience, I need to see, smell, feel and react to the yarn before I buy. I did take the plunge though and ordered crochet bamboo hooks from an online store and The Tween is not that selective yet and ordered a thick yarn for her bunny project.

 JUNG JUNG

 JUNG JUNG

These bags put me in a completely different frame of mind, a MUST MAKE frame of mind. Hooking them will also require concentration and focus, perhaps it will slow the speed at which I hook down a little bit - which will be just great seeing that my arm is still recuperating from surgery and I have another 4 weeks or so of NO HOOKING before I can even attempt a single chain stitch . . . I am partial to the green bag, left, bottom quadrant in the below image and the blue as well as brick coloured bags in the last image.

BAGS BY 2nd LOOK VINTAGE 

Aaaack, the surgery on my arm was really a major inconvenience, I mean not only was the ulnar nerve running from the neck to my hand moved at the site where it travels along the elbow, but muscle was also detached and reattached - blergh, the very idea of what the surgeon did to my poor arm makes me nauseous, I am a wimp. My hand is still weak though and I am awaiting delivery of 14 new bamboo hooks, hoping that these will result in less stress on my hand than the "cast-iron" rolling my eyes furiously rusty crochet hooks The Tween and I have been hooking with over the past months - see my posting about the yarn shop here in Penang.

The Tween of course have been watching the door a million times today as she too ordered her own set of hooks and a ball of yarn with her pocketmoney - yip I reckon if she pays for it, she will look after it and actually finish a WIP. She is planning on hooking a bunny in the spirit of Easter and has already been working out a pattern in her mind - she is good, frighteningly good with all manner pattern, drawing, design, design technology etc. Just look at the computer drawings she created in less than 5 minutes today - resulting in a completely new blog-head for Pigtails. I can put the heading together, but the drawing is out of my range of being creative.

Previous Pigtails header:

Hexagon & Granny's Soccer Ball Cushion and Handbag

The Tween's room is mostly a blank canvas of white which is spruced up with a few interesting objects among others "paintings" on raw wood that she purchases every alternate month or so from the quint Amelie Cafe in Armenian street, a favourite space of ours. Various bloggers have documented Amelie and to get an idea of this cafe where everything is recycled by the artist owners take a look here and here. 

As soon as I came across the beautiful African Flower pattern designed by two South Africans, I decided to give it a go and fell in love with the satisfaction of hooking these Grannies. The Tween and I selected the colours at random from our stash of yarn (yes, she is hooked on hooking too!) and it was great fun to see the flowers evolve. I hooked the borders of the hexagons in green and the pentagons in blue, a combination that popped all the colours beautifully and created harmony between other objects hooked in the same tropical colours. After 8 years of desert living in the Middle East we love the vibrancy that comes with living on a Tropical Island.

The "soccer ball" cushion is assembled with 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons and unfolded looks like this [you might also want to head over to Crochetbug for a tutorial on how to assemble the ball]: 

You might also want to head over to Imaging Maths to see it unfolded in a different way:

Or use this one:

The pattern for the beautiful Summer Garden Granny Squares can be found on the lovely Attic24 blog.  44 Squares were used to create the bag.

The pattern for the African Flower is illustrated and described step for step on the fabulous blog Heidibearscreative