The past two weeks at Karthi have been busy with the kiddos returning to some semblance of schooling. The end of May and beginning of June saw us scrambling to get electronic devices suited for both to attend either live classes via Microsoft Teams (elder) or recorded classes via the school website (younger). Naturally, we have cut down TV time to after 7 pm and Prime only on the weekends, just like school time. What with the transition and new routines to plan and implement, my creative output suffered. But this week I got back in the groove.
Back in February, I had written about a tapestry crochet bag that I was making. The original design was for a tote that had handles that wouldn't take any weight. So I changed my project into a backpack, but found myself in uncharted waters. I had to create a flap, sturdy straps, affix these correctly to the body, attach a magnetic clasp, make a lining, and make pockets for the lining. I was in creative overwhelm. The new things needed a lot of fermentation time in my head, so I put the project aside and completed a crochet scarf and made a few masks.
Proceeding in baby steps, I first found a very sturdy, double-layered crochet stitch for the straps. I made a smaller version for a loop that would serve to hang up the bag, then attached them to a crocheted rectangle and then sewed and crocheted the whole on to the back of the bag.
Once that was done, I turned my attention to the flap, which I needed to taper to a point. Crocheted a few rows each day, gave it a contrasting border and and ta da!
Next, I hunted up a salvaged magnetic clasp from a dilapidated wallet and attached them with the help of some denim fabric because I didn't want to attach the prongs to the crocheted part.
The sewing of the denim patch on the flap wasn't as straight as I would have liked it to be as you can see from the picture below, but hey, I am a recovering perfectionist and the job was neat enough. The opening is of course the drawstring that I designed by myself.
Finally, I found a length of cotton in my stash that had complementary colors and sewed the seams before hand-stitching it to the bag. For the pockets, I used the back pockets of a soft, stretchy jeans that I had massacred to make masks.
And here is the bag with some books in it for ballast, on Ani's shoulder.
On the whole, not a bad job for a first-time bag-maker, hey?
When I was finished with mask- and pocket-making from my old pair of jeans, the only part left was the waist band and the front pockets. So I made this...
My "house uniform" of salwar-kameez has a great drawback. It doesn't have pockets. At Karthi, you can often hear me requesting people to find my phone, because I leave it all over the house. This "belt", worn over my salwar, now keeps my phone near me all the time. The only problem is that my brain has not yet registered that this is my phone's new home. Yesterday, someone called as I was cooking and I searched the whole kitchen for my phone without realizing that it was safely ensconced in my pocket!
As for our garden and yard, the monsoon rains have brought out the grass and weeds in full force. I have been subduing them with my weed-trimmer. I hated the thought of taking out my trimmer, because it has a bad habit of flooding very often. I always followed the correct procedure, using the choke sparingly. But after a couple of sessions, it would flood and respond to no amount of persuasion. Earlier, this meant a 30-km drive to the nearest Stihl service center to get it firing again. This month, determined to fix it myself, I searched and found a YouTube video and learned how to do it. If air was solid, it would have had several holes in it from all the punching I did the day I restarted the flooded engine by myself! So now the grass will not get a chance to grow higher than a couple of inches around our home.
In pandemic-related news, each Saturday when we go out shopping, we find more and more people out on the streets, mostly wearing masks and giving wide berths to each other. But things are more lackadaisical closer to home, with neighborhood boys playing together outside and even elderly people wandering around without masks at our nearest junction. At Karthi, we are still in full vigilant mode. The kids have been so understanding of conditions and have adjusted much better to the lockdown than I had ever expected. That is something that I am very grateful for. DH did go to the office a couple of times to see what it was like. But he missed the hot tea and snacks that I provide at his table even if he is in conf calls. Both days he came back home hungry and crabby! So for now, he prefers working from home.
That's all from Karthi for the time being. See y'all next week!
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