Irish crochet and comfort food

I dare say I am pretty proficient with crochet. I have been doing crochet for several years now; using both written instructions ala UK and American styles as well as the schematic diagrams favored by the Japanese.

However, in the course of working on my secret project, I am astounded by the amount of time and effort needed for Irish crochet. Take this motif as an example.

I call it a butterfly because of the curly flick.

This is the third crochet pattern motif called for in this project. It's barely larger than my palm but the first piece took me just about 40mins to complete!

That includes pattern reading, stitch counting, fumbling with the annoying center thread bulk and so on. Hopefully my pace will improve once I become familiar with the chart.

Did I mention that the triangular motif you saw last time takes me an average of 20mins once I gained speed? All that cutting and joining made me embark on a production assembly approach. i.e. I crocheted the center pieces first and then outlined with the Irish crochet work in a separate session.

On a side note, I was so inspired by Deb of Chappysmom's comment of making pancakes. And so I tried out a receipe yesterday morning. Perhaps it was the recipe I used or my limited cooking skills, the pancakes turned out rather flat and blah looking.

So I decided to make pancake rolls instead. I had 2 versions made:

1. butter and kaya fillings
2. orange marmalade

Luckily, they turned out pretty decent! Else they would have headed for the trash bin.

But seriously, if anyone has any great thick fluffy pancake recipes to share, I'll greatly appreciate it!

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Thin

Now that I've got a bit more time on hand, I try to expand my skills in the kitchen.

Here's some cookies I baked on Sunday.

If you noticed, the colors are of different colors. Apart from my yet-to-be-perfected temperature watching skills, I have added cocoa powder to the subsequent batches after I found that the first plain batch came out a bit too sweet. DH insists they taste fine and would pair well with a mug of milk.

Maybe it's just me but I find that I needed to cut back around 1/2 cup of sugar from the last recipe I tried. I'll probably have to do similar sugar cut back for this new one.

See how thin it is?

There are plenty of soft, chewy cookie recipes out there but I was on a quest looking for crispy, crunchy cookies ala Famous Amos. DH and my family members prefer the crunch factor.

They store well -- been in the containers for the last 2 days and are still crisp.

I've been sneaking bites in between my crochet breaks!

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Cracked under pressure

The nail art, that is. It barely lasted a week. My right thumb developed a crack where the acrylic extension was applied.

As you can see in the photo, I have taken to removing the nail art by myself. It's my first attempt and it didn't occur that I needed strong acetone nail remover (acetone-free remover just don't work) to get rid of them.

Technically, you are supposed to soak your nails into it. I thought that's really harmful and decided that I should soak cotton pads and place them on my nails instead.

Obviously, I am not that successful. Hence the pitiful state you see now.

You can also see the severely cut down thumb nail.

From now on, I'll probably stick to simple manicure. Or perhaps a trip back to the nail salon to get proper nail art removal done.

Can I blame my cooking expedition?

This is the meal that I was referring to on my twitter entry in the right column.

As for Deb asking me about eyelash perming -- that's probably a magic trick that every straight haired gals must know. As Asians, we typically have very straight eyelashes. For me, it doesn't help when I have hidden double eyelids.

Now that my nails are less of a worry, I can crochet to my heart's content!

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Once in a lifetime

If you have been following my blog, you will probably notice that I am a rather spontaneous person when it comes to writing.

I have a tendency to get either:

• all overly excited and write several entries within a sitting or a short period of time; or
  
• have a writer's block and in effect resort to a Houdini hiding act, even in blogland.
  

We had very important activity last Friday -- our bridal photoshoot*. A whole day event that was booked & arranged more than 3 months ago but I never felt the urgency until 3 weeks before the shoot day when my galfriends started dishing out well-intended advice.

Hence, a to-do list** that comprises of the following was developed:

1. Hair coloring (I had it done the week earlier so it didn't count but is considered integral to the photoshoot.)
2. A micro-dermabrasion session to slough away dead skin cells, coupled with a facial
3. A body steam for detox
4. Facial threading (but didn't happen...)
5. Brow shaping (ditto...no go too!)
6. A mani/pedi session
7. Eyelash perming
   

Lest you think that I am a hairy monster, I swear I am being goaded into believing that having my face threaded (ala Indian style) makes it easier for makeup foundation to adhere better.

Though I have to admit that my brows are a tad untidy.

But I decided against items 4 & 5 when:

1. My makeup artist told me she would trim my brows;
2. Logic took over when I realized that doing a facial threading a day just before the studio shoot would be suicidal! What if my sensitive skind decides to do a major acne breakout?! (That can happen if you are allergic to the powder they use. Or if your skin pores are aggravated.)
   

To be honest, my eyes nearly popped when my galfriend suggested that I put items 6 & 7 on my list.

Those who know me well, are aware that I am very laid-back casual when it comes to dressing. T-shirts (apart from my own knitwear), paired with capris/jeans and birki sandals is my de-factor dress code. [So if you see a girl with black specs dressed like this knitting or crocheting in the MRT train, that might just be me.]

However, galfriend assured me that this is the time I ought to give myself a little deserving treat. So I spent 2.5hrs in the nail salon. This is what I've got.

Aren't they gorgeous? Hand painted nail art with Swarovski crystals too!

Though those are my real nails (apart from my thumbs which needed extensions as they both had major chips), the crystals really made their presence felt. No matter what I am doing, they just somehow got in the way. Imagine trying to pull the coke can tab or trying to flick open a bottle cap.

Now you can imagine me trying to crochet with these nails for the past few days!

The upside? Hb thinks they are pretty and I use them as excuse to avoid some housework. [grin] But seriously, I don't think I would be doing these often as they can be pretty high maintenance.

Black hair pins

I know, I can be stating the obvious at times. This handful came off from my hairdo even though I told the makeup artist ala hair stylist (it's the same person) that I wanted loosely bundled hair. She said she needed to stick these pins to ensure that my hairdo will withstand the weathers when we trudged outdoors for 3 hours of shooting.

In fact, there were close to 15 hair pins that was removed at the studio as they needed to get my veil off my hairdo.

I am really looking forward to see how the photos turn out!

* Hb & I never really got around to getting a proper bridal shoot until of late & so I feel compelled to blog about this.
** This list is good for anyone who is considering a photoshoot.

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Irony

Still on that secret crochet project. Wiki defines it as "a piece of information that one person or a group of people know, and do not want others (either everyone, or certain people) to know."

Although some of the gals actually know what I am working on, I am reluctant to share further details of what this project is about as I fear the pressure I am subjecting myself to.

See the amount of tails?
I'll have to set aside some proper time to tuck in those.

Yet, I keep pushing myself to blog on my progress as it's the only way to ensure that I'll not lose momentum or abort it halfway. As you can see, I have started on a second set of motifs.

The pace is picking up although I am not crocheting as fast as I would like to. Eventually...

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