Friday, January 27, 2012

The elephant in the room

I have some ivory beads a friend gave me some time ago.  If anyone knows me well, you know that I am lucky enough to have many people just donate crafty items to me.  So I know this is how I got them, but don't know exactly who gave them to me.  So if you are reading this now, please don't think I don't appreciate the things you give me.  If I can't use them, I send them on to their next home.

Anyway, I've had them for years now, and have tried and failed to use them many times.

I've never felt right about them.  Call it weird energy.  Not super duper bad energy, just troubled and spinny and not positive.  I've never wanted to just throw them away, or give them away either, but I want to move them out of my house.

Ivory in general doesn't work with my energy.  In fact, I think it at best distasteful unless it's harvested honestly and we all know that's just not the case, and there's no way to figure that out anyway so....

Good, clean, energy is what I'm bringing into my home, call these beads a dust bunny.  A really big one though, that's been sitting innocuously under the bed gaining sentience and growing teeth.  It needs to go.

Now to the point.

If they are ivory, I feel like I need to dispose of them respectfully, and am interested to see what my lovely friends of fabulously varied backgrounds have to say on the matter.

How would you do it?

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Some of the latest projects!!

I won't even apologize for not updating this blog more often, and I won't promise to do it more often because we all know I won't.  Plus my kids are obsessed with Minecraft and I have next to no computer time anyway so...

You get the general idea, add flower as needed
Down to business!  Below I'm posting the directions for the granny style childs cloche hat that I've been working on lately.  It seriously stumped me for a bit, just because I didn't have a valid child model(my sons head is enormous!!), so once I got it worked out I thought I'd get it up before I lose yet another handwritten pattern to the gaping maw of the recycling basket.  Plus I ended up with 2 or 3 infant sized hats as well, win/win.  It can easily be adapted to an adult size, too.  I got this on request from a friend who sent me a picture of a hat that's super cute, but since I had to work out the pattern myself I figured I'd post it here.

Ok, here goes, and if I blew it, please let me know so I can fix it.

Shell--4 dc
inc shell--3dc ch1 3dc

Round 1:  ch 4 to make ring, join.

Round 2:  Ch2 and 11 hdc in ring, slip to 2nd chain of beginning ch.
Ch2 (counts as 1st dc), 3 dc in same stitch, ch 1, skip 1 st, shell in next st, ch1; skip one, inc shell in next space, ch 1; shell ch 1[twice], inc shell ch 1, join to second ch of beginning ch.

Round 3: slip stitch to first ch 1 space in previous round.  ch 2 (counts as 1st dc), 3 dc in same stitch, ch 1. inc shell ch 1, shell ch 1 [3 times], inc shell ch 1, shell ch 1 [twice] slip to 2nd chain in beginning dc.

Round 4:  slip stitch to first ch 1 space of previous round.
Ch2 (counts as 1st dc) 3 dc in same st.  Ch 1 *shell ch 1, inc shell ch 1 from * to end, join to 2nd ch of beginning.

Round 5:  slip stitch to first ch 1 space.
Ch 2, 3 dc in same stitch, ch 1, shell, ch1 all the way around, slip in 2nd ch of beginning.

Rounds 6-11:  slip stitch to first ch 1 sp.
Ch 2, 3 dc in same stitch, shell in each space from previous row.  **You will not ch 1 between shells in this part, unless you are making an adult hat in which case you will want the extra room.**
slip to 2nd chain in beginning, cut yarn, weaving in ends.

Working in back loops only, sc in contrasting color all the way around, do not slip to first sc, but keep on going, making a spiral effect.  After 5 rows, slip stitch in 2 stitches (at the same spot you originally started) and cut yarn, weaving in ends.  

Pick 1st color again, sc in previous row, shell, sc all the way around, slip to first sc of this round, weave in ends.

And that's it if you are just doing the hat.  You can add a crochet flower right where it looks funky from the contrast color join, covering the weird spot, Put any flower you want here, you are only limited by your imagination.  It's all smoke and mirrors baby!

I hope this isn't confusing and if I totally blew it, please let me know.

And there we have it, thanks for your patience dear friends, now I relinquish the computer to the children.