Charm Making

Inspired by the Game Piece Necklace.

Too bad I only had one of these blue chips, just two red blocks and no
more bright yellow daisy buttons. Yet that's what makes this assemblage
and artmaking so special--- it's nothing that I could have foreseen and purchased.... thanks to Nervousness.org and Pequad
for providing the occasion! What's most amazing is that my stash is far away and these are just from a couple of jars and containers
gifted by new acquaitances made this spring in this apartment building for the
elderly and disabled. I miss my many tools and materials yet I am so affirmed to be able to discover and make relationships with the comparatively little that is on hand.

Designing, Discovering

Felting did not yield quite what I wanted…
For some flowers the densification was a muddying

For the bud and sepals, a caressable object that suggests an organism was formed.



I’ve tormented myself searching for a solution to my flower scarf. I wanted it to be flowers and leaves. Then I thought of oversizing the leaves, then the ever challenging for me question of color.





Especially now when I do not have my stash, my “fiber office” as my second niece, when a baby, so aptly named the room that was the library and yes was filled with books, but whose closet and diaper station turned into yarn shelves, and floor spoke of fiber use.

I see my table top loom there on the floor by the fronT facing window. O lord let me walk again..please!

Back to today’s narrative which is about design and my limitations. I feel it like a craving like a hunger that can’t be sated until it is enumerated, articulated, clearly defined, spelled out.

My next flower pattern set was to be Akua’s Fabulous Furled and Fluffy Flowers which I so thouigth that the wool felting would improve but no… To be fulfilled in felt the design owould have to be amended as the furled petals hardened and were wayward and the fluffy petal, so dependent on stitch construction for their loft, deflated.

I saw two commercial flowers that I dug.


http://www.cardsandcraft.co.uk/embellishments/405-big-crochet-flowers.html/1418.jpg



http://www.meimeicrafts.com/images/flowers



One took more work than my nature-mimic multilayer rose and it is flat, but the spoke rays of it are energetic and while my color pallet is more winter than n summer, the stretch and size of it gave me some new thoughts about the flower scarf.









Then I found this flower and loved loved loved the spiral and was reminded that a simple embelishment of the crochet hook and yarn itself could be used to enhance the flower.
At Gourmet Crochet













This Bolivian scarf showed an oversized direction but it's not integrated....
http://thestripeysheep.co.uk/index.php?itemID=161&jump=navbar#navbar
http://www.rosylittlethings.com/scallop.html-- $68 ?!
http://www.imaybeknittingaranchhouse.com/archives/2006/10/a_free_scarf_mo.html
between this and this

I knew there was an easier way:
http://heidisknittingroom.com/BoleroCrochetMotifs.htm

this suggests joining as you go:

(http://www.oaktrees.org/blog/?page_id=119)

and that's just what I've developed for this very greengold or browngreen--everything else made it look heavy. and the makeflowers sew two together was too much sewing and I did not to be another mere.near doily flower maker. I remember thinking about interlocking rings, so that's what I've designed: interlocking flowers, one open and the sme motif with a densified center, making it slightly larger.... I wonder if I want a their flower, but it's so wonderful that as I complete a flower, it's complete!

Looking, Learning, Designing

I've been thinking about leaves and scarves and developing a (new for me ) leaf pattern.
It's a maple leaf. I've got a new flower in process, too. I'm working on a leafy, viney scarf
pattern, but I'm tugged toward freeform.


Amazing as I completed objects to be given away, I got a gift... a wonderful box of yarns, hooks, candies and needles and angels from CA in Montreal. Merci mille fois, ma chere! I've been dining on these felt creations
http://www.feltfaction.fi/ENG/hats.php?page_num=1&showimage=yes&img=74

Elina Saari is so compelling--- I want everything I see and the pictures from her workshops are
so exciting. You can tell they worked with souls alighted there, the energy leaps out of the pictures
http://www.feltfaction.fi/ENG/process.php

I've been working on a reindeer and then saw this and was annoyed at my own literality
http://www.feltfaction.fi/ENG/other.php?page_num=1&showimage=yes&img=6
http://www.feltfaction.fi/ENG/other.php?page_num=1&showimage=yes&img=19

Re/Purposing

I was given a huge white Granny square and its accompanying white yarn. A neighbor's mother saw my sign asking for stuff and brought in her mother's? sister's? hooks and this one square and white yarn. She looked to young to be his mother and I was so touched when he asked if it was me who had posted the sign and introduced me and she explained how this person was no longer able to think/pay attention enough to make anything. So this repuposing is a wonderful arc of giving.

I made the square an envelope/pouch and picoted all around it.

I liked the efficiency of this pattern the best. Seamless:
http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/quick-bootie.html

I read several patterns that suggested using worsted and G hooks even this said I or J!
I think I ended up with the right size using worsted weight and an E. I did all the sc in the back loop because I think someone on the All Crafts for Charity list said that gave the bootie some elasticity.

I amended it a bit more by adding two rows of my favorites picot:( sc,ch2,sc in the same stitch)
http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/tinybooties1.html

I also thought this was a great pattern, too!
Also seamless,it just seemed to work up a bit too big for preemies....


I made a simple white hat that also has this picot edging.
So gee, a set is made!

It occurs tome that this is something that this troubled city might do more of-- maybe there's a way to organize people to make things locally--- and the Red Scarf campaign in January--- red scarves for orphans at college --across the U.S,
sounds wonderful... but it would be cool to teach some young folks to crochet and make things for themselves and make things to give to needful others, the poor preemies, the homeless---but I'm still struggling to find a niche for my work, and a way to again create a way to make money. but oh, I'm not going to let go of this glow just yet,

Flying Hooks, Healing Heart

My crochet hooks and yarn are my glass of wine. And they are what they are and they are also stand ins for the many things I got to make so easily, now out of reach. Though today, 65 degreees in November, the apartment just aglow with painterly light, Garrison Keillor's skewed crooning like a familiar friend, like my father and family just singing around the house and not caring how good it sounds, ahhh Garrison, thanks for telling the world to sing just because it makes peace more possible....

I digress, becuase I wanted to write about creating, such as it remains for me. After a long wait, the inexpensive wire cutter arrived... a three-week wait for tools I already own, (bad E-Bay seller!) but no longer can bound up stairs to get,,, my heart calls out to my tools, stay ready for me, wait for me, I want to use you again.

I am vetting my flower pattern. I second guessed myself and realized I had it right the first time, but then created a variation on the flower: 10 petals. this crowds it a bit, but it increases the twirl.

And now I have at last 3 hats to keep my head warm and attractive and it's up to 60 something! No complaints, it's easiest to wheel through sunshine and warmth than it is snow and rain.


All praises for winter not arriving until December 22,





for light filling the shortened day. For the kindness of strangers who included me in their vegan Thanksgiving family gathering which was so so so exquisite and heartful and warm and fun and delicious and o! what joy to be able to and desirous of eating every good and dleicious thing offered!!!It's been over a deccade since I've had ice cream and the soy turtle and vanilla bean with pumpkin pie almst made me sob with gratitude. How I misss being able to cook, I was so good at
plaeasing mine and others' palates and since being stricken, I've starved for decent food, having lost over 50 pounds at last reckoning, because I refused to eat drek in the nursing home. This was food to give thanks for.

My gratitude to those who wrote me about the blue flower, after so much tapdancing on my head, I cherish every kind word and the affrimation that I can add value to the world, despite my limited circumstances. I am amamzed at how limitless I once felt "bigger than my body gives me credit for" (that yummy song by John Mayer) and I guess I still am. Thank you!