Apple of my Eye

Finally, the stores is opened. I'm glad to inform that I have opened an online store for babies, toddlers and girls. https://www.facebook.com/Puruseyourhobby?ref=hl. People wishing to present the new member of their family or their loved ones something very special, you clicked the right page.

FOr products click my page APPLE OF MY EYE

 Wish you all like my page and encourage Apple of my Eye by buying our products.

Jingle bell

As Christmas is nearing, made this cute little bell. About a week back little lives were taken. All those little hearts would have for sure had some Christmas wish. This little ornament is my dedication to those little hearts.

Snowman

Plush toys are always my favorite. But most of the time making one is not that handy for me. So when I wanted to make a snowman, I came across this awesome video which gave the satisfaction of doing something like a plush toy yet not really a plush kind.

With all the necessary colors available, started making these beautiful snowmen.

 VIDEO TUTORIAL

Christmas time

The minute I think about Christmas the two colors that come to my mind are RED and GREEN.

My friend was asking me to make something for her and she also sent me a package. It had various colors and the primary ones were green, yellow and red. I never knew it will have such a lovely coincidence. But this has happened. I crocheted her a scarf and was completely left with no time to make a cap that I planned for. Last minute, I started crocheting in the train and finally ended the night before I met her. Crocheted continuously for 5 hours and the lady sitting next to me appreciated that I have a lot of commitment ( blush blush).

The interesting story was, when I was crocheting my hat,  the lady who sat next to me ( she owns a documentation company) used to knit 20 years back and stopped due to professional commitments,  told me that she is for sure going to brush up her attic and get all those left over yarns and start knitting again. I was really happy hearing this.

Now for the pictures.

CAP

SCARF

Pattern: Both the patterns were simple.  The stitches were used completely according to my imagination following the rules for the regular patterns.
SCARF
Chain 22 stitches
Puff stitch next 22 rows.
DC  next 70 rows.
Puff stitch 22 rows.
Bind off.

CAP
Chain 4 stitches.
Join and chain 1
Row 1:SC 8 stitches.
Row 2: 2 SC on each stitch ( 16 stitches)
Row 3: *SC on the first chain and 2 SC on the next stitch* . Continue till the end of the row.
Row 4: *SC the first two chains and 2 SC on the third chain* continue till the end of the row.
Row 5:*SC the first three chains and 2 SC on the fourth chain*continue till the end of the row.
Row 6: * SC the first four chains and 2 SC on the fifth chain* continue till the end of the row.
Row7: DC
Row 8: Change color and Puff stitch
Row 9: 2 DC
Row 10: Change color and Puff stitch
Row 11 :Puff stitch
Row 12, 13 : Change color and Puff stitch
Row 14: Change color and DC
Row 15,16,17 : DC
Row 18: Reduce the chains by half. hold 2 chains together and DC.
Row 19,20 :DC
Row 21 : crocodile stitch.

Festival and Lights

With the days getting busier and busier, I am simply loving it. This time is going to be there only till Feb and all the festivals and celebrations for next year is going to start only after August. So I want to take full care to make my festivals special.

Yesterday was Karthigai Deepam and I have a very special reason to love this festival. The house is completely filled with Deepams (Diyas) and the light gives a very beautiful touch and feel to the house. The hand damped in oil for hours arranging these deepams and decorating the entrance with traditional rangoli. Yes, traditional rangoli where the rice is soaked for hours, grind to paste and fill the front entrance of the house with our own imagination. This time, I chose the concept of deepams as a border for my rangoli.

Following the entrance, the entire house will be decorated with deepams. With no noise, pollution, or disturbance to the environment, this festival has its own goodness mother nature. Lighting the deepam I decorated gives an extra happiness. So I love this festival a lot.

Colorful granny square

I always love  splash of colors on my walls.  When it is a rented house, you have a lot of limitations. So what, there is always an alternative to make it colorful. So I decided to crochet a granny square wall hanger with lots of colors. Now I am happy that my wall is filled with colors.

To add, for my love for flowers, I crocheted little flowers and attached to my wall hanger.

Now granny squares are very easy to make and this project is a complete beginners level project. How to make a granny square

Deepam, Diya, Light

For only one more week for Deepavali (Diwali), the festival of lights, I purchased these diyas from a street shop and painted it to my taste.

These are very simple DIY projects and everyone can do it. All you need is some paint and paint brush.

How to do it?
Soak these mud lamps in water for atleast half a day and dry it completely, The next day start coloring.

The deepams at different stage of drying

Colors are something which everyone can play with and on deepams (diyas), they look even pretty and beautiful. These are just a beginning and I am going to collect even more designed deepams (diyas) and going to decorate my home.

In our tradition deepams (diyas) are lite more during the tamil month of Karthigai (sometime from mid of Nov- mid of Dec) than Deepavali. But for me, all I need is reasons to light these beautiful lamps :).

So friends who read this post, this is a simple DIY project. So do it and enjoy your Deepavali (Diwali).

Have a safe, prosporus, colorful, pattaka filled Deepavali.

From
Pursue your hobby

Goodie bags for this festival season - ON SALE

Navrathri, Diwali, Thanksgiving and many more. Festival season here we come. Would you like to gift your little friends an innovative ethinic goodie bag?

Well how about small knitted ethnic jari goodie bags which can contain all the little gifts you want to give to your friends. These bags come on various sizes and designs according to the interest of the buyer.

A sample of bags that I designed this Navarathri for all the little kanya girls invited to my Gollu.

Pattern will be sent via email once I receive the payment. Please leave a message on the comment section too.

Knitting and Crochet

For all Bangaloreans interested in learning Knitting and Crochet. 

 

For details contact pursueyourhobby@yahoo.com

Banana bread with choco chips

I always love to have a biscuit or cake for my cuppa tea/filter kaapi.. So decided to do a banana bread. Have been having in my mind for sometime now, I can't stop myself from trying this today morning. Also, I am little concerned these days for having more buttery sugary items. So, I tried my best to go less with fatty items still do not want to miss the moisture content. After giving some thought, tried to do it this way.

5 small bananas mashed

1/2 cup tightly packed light brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup milk

2 small quail egg

1 tsp butter

1/4 tsp salt

Mash the bananas and add sugar. All I used was a fork to mix. I did not use a beater this time. Mixing of banana and sugar release some water. Beat the eggs and melt the butter. Now to the sugary bananas add the melted butter, milk and eggs. Mix well. Mix the dry ingredients separately and slowly add in batches. Keep mixing well. 

Finally pour the batter to the pan and throw some handful of chocochips on to the top. I really like the taste of chocolate in my bread. 

Now bake at 375 F for 45mins or until the bread is completely cooked (use a tooth pick to test).

The bread tasted yummy, moist and delicious.

Mini cake pans

When I first saw a picture of a mini cake in one of my favorite baker's page, I simply couldn't stop myself from knowing more about it. After searching for a while came up with full details and went straight to Micheals to buy my new pan set. Very happy to buy my own mini cake pan sets and didn't stop there.

I tried a deliciously awesomatico cake. A vanilla cake with vanilla frosting in the center and completely covered with  yummy chocolate frosting.

Black forest cake

Few years back on an usual weekend, my bro took me to Sathyam Theater, chennai to watch a movie. It was he who first introduced me to a black forest cake. I had no idea what kind of cake it was. All I knew was, it tasted yummy.. 

Now, after I started learning baking and made a few cakes for trial, it was time to surprise my hubby. He was out of town for a conference for about one week. So that weekend, when he was returning home, I tried to bake a Black Forest cake for him and it came out pretty well. 

A busy week

Masala bun

Plain White Bread

This week has been fantastically busy with new things to try. Its always make me stay positive when I do something new and it comes out decently or pretty awesome. Be it food or knitting or any other hobby of mine, I really feel positive when the result is good. Now, this week started with baking a bread and knitting a baby set for my dearest friend. The bread became a cake and the baby set came out pretty decently. Last night, I tried to bake the bread again. It was a huge success. I also baked a masala bun which also came out pretty yummy..Now I feel accomplished.

Baby sweater and cap

Yummy Coffee chocolate cake

Call it a evil devil or dark magic or whatever cake, I simple loved my coffee chocolate cake.

Came across the recipe over allrecipes.com and wolla, my heart just fell for the name coffee... This cake has a very special ingredient - freshly brewed coffee. I have a special love for a perfect madras degree kaapi and finely ground Ethiopian coffee. So my mad love ended up in mixing an authentic madras kaapi powder with finely ground Ethiopian coffee beans. My everyday morning starts with this coffee for sure. So having some brewed coffee, the cake was ready to make(bake). For finale, I just topped the cake with Nutella. The cake just melted in my mouth.

As said earlier, you can check the link for the recipe above.

The funny part was the shape of my cake. I always try to wrap my pan with foil in order to lessen the cleaning, the crumbles and crushings on the foil really gave a funny looking cake.. :)
I always trust one say, any good presentation can make a simple dish look great, but tasting great is purely in your hands :).. Enjoy..

Eggless Ragi cake

"Eggless" tag is something I always wanted to try from the time I started baking. Never had the guts. Always felt nervous to try something without egg ( I really donno an exact reason for this fear). So finally threw all those silly fears only after I came across this recipe. I really wanted to try it once I saw this name "Ragi". I knew the starchy stuff will for sure give a good shape. So tried and tasted.

For recipe, click this link http://litebite.in/ragi-cake/

Indian butter biscuits

I never thought one of the things I would miss after coming to US would be the tea kadai butter biscuits. Every time I land home, the one thing I crave for is these biscuits. I completely spoil myself but eating packets and packets of this biscuits with my everyday coffee/tea. I try to compensate all those days of not having this biscuit. Yes, back at home we call these biscuits and not cookies. Finally, I can prepare some in my oven, I am simply loving this.


For the recipe please check the link below.
http://edivyaraj.blogspot.com/2010/05/nankhatai-indian-butter-cookie.html

Chocolate Pine nut cookies

My first from the scratch cookie. Not a bad idea!!

Everytime I buy one of those ready made cookie powders and bake them. I always wanted to try it from the scratch. Most recipe mentioned brown sugar as the "sweet" ingredient. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy brown sugar. Instead I used these
1/3 cup of powdered jaggery
1/2 cup of sugar
2 tbs of sweetened condensed milk.
I love all these three source of sweet ;)

Or simply use 1 1/2 cup of tightly packed brown sugar.

After watching so many baking shows, I learnt my first lesson. Always mix the dry and wet ingredients separately. Then mix them together in batches.

Dry ingredients
1 3/4 cup of all purpose flour
3/4 cup of Hersey cocoa. ( I chose the bitter one)
3/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 cup of sugar

wet ingredients
1/2 of powdered jaggery competly dissolved in 1/2 cup of water.
2 tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk
1 egg
3/4 cup of oil
2 tablespoon of milk

Make sure the jaggery is completely dissolved. Remove the excess lumps of jaggery before mixing all the wet ingredients to the dry mix.
Beat the wet ingredients to mix well.
Now in batches, add the dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Mix well without any lumps until the entire dry ingredients are completely blend.

Do taste you mixture for sweetness. This will help you to know how sweet you want your cookie to be.

I prefer medium sweet.
Finally to add a little crunch, I added a hand full of pine nuts. You can add almond, walnut or cashew nuts too.

Now baking time.
Preheat your oven to 375 and raise it to 425 bake for 10-13 minutes to have your cookies little crispy. If you want them soft bake for just about 8-10 minutes.
Remember not to pour too much of you cookie on your baking sheet. Else you end up getting pancake sized cookies. :)