New Mantra

I have been reading The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. One task in week 7 uses the mantra, "Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong." The object of the task is to creatively post the mantra in a prominent location. I neatly wrote the mantra on a small, wet-on-wet watercolor I painted when teaching the fifth grade at a Waldorf School. Then, I gathered fallen twigs from our yard, scraped off the bark, sanded them, cut them to size, and conditioned them with a beeswax oil I had made specifically for wood. I used hemp string to tie them together and fashioned a small easel for the watercolor. It now sits on my bedside table along with the rocks I found for a task in week 5.

Amigurumi Jack-O-Lantern

Embracing the season, my second amigurumi project was a pumpkin. I used three colors of yarn, so I could make a jack-o-lantern face and a stem. I made it up and stuffed it as I went along. Like I wrote in my previous amigurumi post, pattern schmattern! It's much more fun to make it up as I go along. I think it allows the project to take on a life of its own and be what it is meant to be.

Amigurumi Owl

As you may have guessed from reading this blog, my favorite "craft form" is crochet. This past Beltaine, two of my dear friends asked me to teach them to crochet, because they wanted to make their own cute little amigurumi creatures. With all of my interest in crochet, I had, of course, run across amigurumi. However, I've never pursued it. Armed with my friends' request, I started researching online and at the library. Turns out, amigurumi embraces my favorite form of crochet: start out with a general idea and go from there. In other words, pattern schmattern! "We don't need no stinking pattern!" As you can also guess from this blog, structure is not my strength. I am at my best when flying by the seat of my pants. So, crocheting cute little creatures with no pattern and no two being the same is right up my crafty little alley.
I was inspired to make a snowy owl as my first amigurumi project. First stop, craft store for some simple white cotton yarn. Next, the Internet to look at dozens of pictures of white owls. Then, it was just me, my hook, and some yarn. I played around with single crocheting in the round making flat, circular, and tubular structures until my owl began to take shape. I cut up some old, clean, white socks to use as stuffing. The body and head are one, continuous piece. So, I stuffed as I crocheted to make sure the dimensions felt right, and so I could easily close the form when I reached the top.
Once the main form was done, it was time for the fun little embellishments. Using more white, cotton yarn, I crocheted wings, a tail, and legs. I added stitches to resemble feathers to these forms going for realistically thick plumage. For the eyes, I used cotton crochet thread and single crocheted in the round. While researching snowy owls, I noticed their eyes tended to be yellow, but a few had uniquely blue eyes. An interesting color that I just happened to have in crochet thread. I wanted to crochet all of the embellishments, but all of my prototypes for talons came out like malformed X's. Going with the idea of "easy does it," I went to my stash of pipe cleaners and constructed talons and a beak. After sewing or twisting on the embellishments: viola! The final product!

The Rise and Fall of the Cheese Wax Gnome

            One lazy April day, I was eating a mini Babybel cheese wheel, and a hat was born from the yellow cheese wax that covered it. I’ve developed the habit of saving the cheese wax, because, as a teacher, it was always handy to have on hand (so punny!) to give restless students something to do in a pinch, especially on field trips when our supply of modeling beeswax was not available. 

            Needless to say, I had enough cheese wax to finish sculpting the gnome that day. Even better, I had two colors of cheese wax, so he was able to rise above your average monochrome red cheese wax gnome.

            That evening, my husband and I left the house briefly for some ice cream. When we returned, the gnome was nowhere to be found. It reminded me very much of when Pirpon the Gnome went missing from Babbette’s garden. However, the ending was not as tidy.

            I was petting Benny, my dog, and noticed some red cheese wax had become tangled in his beard. Shortly thereafter, my husband found the gnome in pieces. I was able to mend him a little. Sadly, I don’t expect a full recovery.

"I don't know anything about gnome"

"My stomach is feeling funny"

"Too...much...cheese...wax..."

poor gnome

Holiday Bookmarks

I designed and crocheted bookmarks to give as Yuletide gifts. I used Bedspread Weight Thread and a size 1 steel hook to crochet bookmarks that fit nicely between pages. The tags I printed and stamped for them include a the background story:

On Tuesday, December 21^st, 2010, we experienced the first full Lunar Eclipse on the Winter Solstice since the year, 1638. I designed and crocheted this bookmark as a gift to commemorate this rare event, which is indicated in the bookmark by images of the sun and moon at either end of the bookmark.

Fir Wreath

We had a beautiful Fraser Fir tree for the 2010 Holiday Season, as I discussed in my other blog. I used the boughs cut from the bottom of the tree, a wire wreath form, some floral wire, and hemp cord to fashion a beautiful, gigantic wreath that we displayed on our door through February. The cuttings stayed fresh and green with no maintenance from me, though I’m sure they appreciated the cool outdoor air. I did keep the cuttings in vases and glass jars full of fresh water until I was ready to use them on the wreath. The wreath outside extended the heavenly smell of our holiday tree inside.

Tying Up Loose Ends

Lunar Theme

According to the Lunar Planner, the focus of the last lunar month (December 5^th – January 4^th) is about “self mastery, personal responsibility, and passageways of change.” My personal lunar theme for the month is “Tying Up Loose Ends.” During this time, most of my energy was spent on crocheting.

Squares Whose Loose Ends Still Need Tying :)

Trusty Travel Basket

Afghan

My surprise (to myself) crochet project was that I finished crocheting all the squares of the afghan that I’ve been working on since June 2008. I had gone to my LYS (Local Yarn Shop), In the Making, to select some nice yarn to take with me to California for my five weeks of Waldorf Teacher Training. I chose Nashua Superwash yarn in Magenta, Light Grey, Bright Rose, and Midnight Blue. It’s such a soft wool, that won’t felt if washed! I elected to make an afghan of granny squares, which made it a nice portable project. After that, whenever I traveled, I carried my trusty little basket with me. My husband, dog, cats, and I traveled home for the New Year holiday weekend (December 31, 2010 – January 2, 2010) and I realized how close I was to completing all the squares. From that point, my ambition was triggered and violá! All 90 squares crocheted! Now, I just have finish clipping loose ends and sewing those squares together.

Random Squares from My Mathematical Pattern of Uniqueness

Seven of the Nine Squares with Midnight Blue

Pattern

For the pattern, I decided that I wanted each square to be unique using the Magenta, Bright Rose, and Light Grey yarns I had chosen (the borders are in Midnight Blue). To make sure I had accounted for all possible designs, I used the mathematical formula for permutations with repetition, which is a fancy way of saying I used an exponent. I used four rounds for each square. Therefore, I took the number of colors possible (3) and raised it to the number of rounds (4) to get the formula 3⁴=81. However, I had made three squares with Midnight Blue in the center and one of each other color in the last three rounds. I was then left with 84 squares, which didn’t leave me with the “squarish” shaped blanket I had imagined from 81 or 9x9. So, I crocheted six more squares with the Midnight Blue in the second and third rows and now have a nice even number of 90 or a 9x10 blanket. It will probably be about 50” x 55”. So, I’ll have more of a throw than an afghan, but I’m ok with that. I have some left over yarn in the three other colors (I’ll be using what’s left of the Midnight Blue to sew the squares together) that I can use to crochet borders and add a couple more inches to the blanket.