Epic Hats

It is that time of year again, time for the Staff Show.  This year I found myself scrambling to come up with something.  Although I have been busy all year crocheting enough to have made a house cozy, I realized that none of it seemed Staff Show worthy.  As I racked my brain trying to come up with something, my Darth Vader bust stared forward in silence, shrouded in a second Gilgamesh hat (the original was given as a gift to my sister).  Sure the Gilgamesh hat was all well and good, but there was something lacking...a yinless yang.

When I was a child my family would vacation in DC.  We frequently found ourselves at the Museum of Natural History where my sister and I would enjoy a little stop motion film in the Ancient Cultures section.  The film was an adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.



It made an impact on me, and I assume my sister, who seems to share my brain waves in frequently erie ways.  I was impressed by the idea of the love that grew between these two men and the beauty of a story of transformation that ends with the bitter sorrow of loss.  It spoke volumes of the human condition...which has remained true for as long as we have shared stories. 

The Gilgamesh hat needed a companion, and so the Enkidu hat was created.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?

As I lay in bed one morning I thought, "I know, I'll make a Hamlet doll".  I had earlier attempted an Ophelia scarf, which ended up being a crochet fail.  I'm not sure what was missing, or what might have saved Ophelia (so to speak).  The scarf was ultimately dissected and repurposed for other projects.

At any rate, I set about to create Hamlet at the point where he discovers Yorick's skull in the graveyard.  I did not follow a pattern. He stands in my living room, contemplative and melancholy, keeping company with other crocheted sculptures born of my ennui.  

Baby Craft Project 4: Berry Baby Hat and Booties

This Baby Craft Project just might make my head implode from cuteness.  Number three nearly killed me, but when I finished the booties for number four I wanted to scream until my throat bled, they were so damn cute.  I have never made booties before, and now, its pretty much all I want to do.

This particular pattern was found in Crocheted Gifts: Irrestible Projects to Make and Give.  The book is edited by Kim Werker, but this design was by Chloe Nightingale.  The pattern is found on pages 31-35. 

I chose a fairly chunky purple for the "berry", I might venture to say that mine is a bit more eggplant than berry.  Regardless, it is still cute.

Baby Craft Project 3: Little Bo Sheep Hat

An over abundance of naps, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the excitement of completing part three of my Baby Craft Project kept me up to the wee hours of the morning.  This one came from the Sept/Oct 2011 issue of Crochet Today magazine, pp 82-84 and was designed by Noreen Crone-Findlay.

This was the first issue of Crochet Today that I received.  I thrill at its arrival, and wish it were more frequent.  This particular issue had Halloween items, and this baby hat was a particularly adorable one.  I did not have the right size yarn, which altered the gauge, and instead of a toddler hat it came out an infant cap.  That's ok,  a fuzzy white coat of sweater and baby is a little lamb.

This particular hat found a home with a dear friend, and her little lamb.

Baby Craft Project 2: Li'l Monkey hat and matching blanket

This second piece derives from Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'n Bitch: Happy Hooker and can be found on pages 274-279.  The pattern is credited to Carmen Watkins.

I'm not sure how I feel about sock monkeys.  I think they might be a little disturbing, and my suspicions were not helped when as I was working on this piece my roommate asked if I was going to give this to a baby that I hated.  He went on to note that the monkey looked less like the beloved sock monkey and more like a screamin blood-mouthed monkey with tiny sharp fangs.  Suffice to say, while I am generally pleased with the outcome of the piece(s) I am not as confident about it not giving babies nightmares.

I don't know, I think I would still give it to my own baby (if I had one).  It is kind of cool.

Baby Craft Project 1: Cupcake Bib

The first installment of my Baby Craft Project was the Cupcake Bib, which arrived in my latest issue of Crochet Today Magazine (Sept/Oct 2012, pp. 79-81).  The pattern is credited to Linda Permann. 

It was cute and easy to make, when I showed my roommate he worried that it might strangle the baby, so I was pleased to demonstrate that the strap was attached with a button.  I'm not sure how functional it is, since I have no toddlers to test it on, but at the very least it is cute.   I think that perhaps on a largers scale (by increasing the gauge) it might make a cute top for an apron.  If I were to make more, and I very well might, I would use Sugar 'n Cream yarn.

The Baby Craft Project

Sometimes I find it difficult to go to work where there exists no yarn or hooks and I have to spend 8 hours not crocheting. Oh sure I do other things that are more useful to the operation of my place of business, but let's just say that if I had a novelty t-shirt on right now it would read "I'd rather be crocheting"

Right now there is a baby blanket at home that begs to be finished.  It is part of an ongoing project.  The project began as an attempt to complete a pattern from each publication of patterns that I own.  It fell apart after the second pattern book provided little inspiration and an unfortunate crochet "fail" (granted I did pay all of $1 for it at a going out of business sale,and it does have some of the ugliest sweaters I have ever seen). Making sweaters is hard work, and so fussy. I finished most of it before I realized that I had miscounted, wrongly sized and so on. I'm also trying to use up my current supply of yarn, and the only color I had enough of was cream. The entire time I worked on the sweater I thought, this color should be used for doll heads...why am I wasting it on this lousy sweater?


So the project was altered.  Given that nearly 20 friends and acquaintances have or will have babies this year, and baby items are naturally small and completed more quickly (nearly instant gratification) I have decided to create at least one baby pattern from each publication.  I'm already on the second publication, and eager to start on the third.  Most, or all of the items will be for sale at Signifying Nothing.

Signifying Nothing

I am delighted to announce that I have finally listed items on Etsy at my shop: Signifying Nothing.

Many years ago my dear friend and I collected some handcrafted items and some trading cards (mostly of the Star Trek variety) and set about to sell them at craft bazaars across the countryside.  I'm not sure that we ever managed to sell any product.  Of course our product may not have been well matched to our audience. I had in all of my youthful creativity made jewelry with bizarre themes, most of which I've forgotten, although I am told the one piece that sold was a hair clip resembling flies on shit, and that my partner's mother bought it (bless her).  The fun of it was actually all in the time spent with my friend.  We would spend hours talking and and laughing, and I would set up a canvas and work on oil paintings in the the downtime, and there was nothing but downtime.

One bazaar had music piped throughout it.  Well, music, after a fashion.  It would be more apt to say that it had the song "Achey Breakey Heart" piped through it.  The song repeated a maddening number of times, until we were downright giddy at the absurdity of it.

The name of that shop had also been Signifying Nothing, a name we agreed upon because we were properly dramatic teens and appreciated Shakespeare's Hamlet and all of his dark brooding.  I was also a huge fan of Steve Martin and had watched LA Story many times, and anyone who has seen this film knows that he repeatedly references Shakespeare, claiming that he was originally from LA.

"Sitting there at that moment I thought of something else Shakespeare said. He said, 'Hey... life is pretty stupid; with lots of hubbub to keep you busy, but really not amounting to much.' Of course I'm paraphrasing: 'Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.'"
 
At seventeen or eighteen I felt that pretty much summed it up, and I guess I still feel that way, just the like would still find true happiness sitting at a flea market craft bazaar listening to "Achey Breakey Heart" and laughing with my friend.

Covering the cushions on Grandma's chairs

For as long as I can remember these chairs have been a part of my grandparents living room.  Grandpa sat in one every evening, when he wasn't sitting on the bench which was placed over the hot air vent.  He helped me with math homework from this chair.  He was so quick with math, it was like watching a magician.  He would also retreat to one of these chairs during particularly chaotic family functions, and it was always a relief to be able to excuse yourself as well, to go sit with Grandpa.  As a child I would sit in this chair and place a board over the arms to play solitaire.  I particularly liked the board that my mother had illustrated with pictures of poodles and little girls, back in the 1960's.

Recently my mother asked if I could make cushion covers for the chairs.  Those too had not changed, in all of my memory and were showing the wear of possibly 40 years of derrieres.  So I set about to fulfill my mother's wishes.  She chose the colors and purchased the first round of yarn.  Ultimately it was a few months and many more trips to the craft store before I was finally finished.  I think they turned out ok.  I imagine that Grandpa would have appreciated them, too, if for no other reason than the fact that I made them.

I felt your pain

Recently a friend mailed me a needle felting tool.  I have been almost exclusively a yarn craft kind of gal, so this was a new concept.  I immediately appreciated the applique aspect of it, but have yet to grasp the intricacies of needle felting soft sculpture.  It is difficult to find time to do all of the crochet projects I dream up, to add a new craft altogether seems insurmountable.

That being said, another friend requested assistance with a project involving finger puppets.  So, felt, scissors, and needle in hand I went to work on creating prototypes and experimenting with what I can could come up with to answer her request.  The result being two finger puppets which seem just a bit muddied (or fuzzy) to me.  Apparently the needle felting pulls the color through to the back side, which can create a problem when two colors are used.  So, prototype one is done, but the work goes on.  Clearly I've not yet mastered this particular art form!

After completing the two puppets I felt like I had just helped a friend move to a new apartment.  Silly how exhausting close work can be.  To relax I began making flowers for my Ophelia scarf (five pansies and a briar rose, so far).  Crochet feels like going home, and I was happy to be able to tuck into my corner of the couch and do something I felt comfortable with.