quite a lovely saturday

so this morning i woke up early (well, before the tornado sirens went off at least), determined to add to my head covering collection. (as in, hats and head band scarf things ~ see pic ~ i don't know what they're called)

I laid out all the head-related things I still have (i wish I had taken pictures of the ones that I've already sold or given away!!). I'm hoping to get some time with my wonderful photographer (megan!) and some beautiful friends tomorrow to do a nice photo shoot of some of this so I can finally start listing things on my etsy site.

I had some coupons for Hobby Lobby and Michaels (both are right down the street) so I went out and bought some more yarn and some buttons and random scrapbooking stuff that was on clearance. I've pretty much made it a policy to only buy things at Hobby Lobby or Michael's if I can get it at least 35% off, and I've found out that if you go weekly, the sales rotate around enough so that you can buy everything at a very discounted rate! :) Here's the results of my shopping adventure today:

I branched out into a new brand of yarn today: Baby Bee Sweet Delight. I bought 6 different (mostly coordinating) colors and had a lot of fun making this hat. I love the multi-colored yarn, because it's like a mini-adventure making any project, discovering how the pattern turns out as you go. (lol, i guess that officially makes me a yarn geek??) I don't know if this will actually fit anyone ~ I just kept shaping it as I went according to some imaginary picture of a child's head ... I need to get some set of standards for head/hat dimensions so I don't have to keep playing this guessing game everytime. Is there somewhere I can buy a bunch of different sized styrofoam heads? That would pretty much be the coolest thing to line up against our patio window :). {Anyone up for a Paint the Foam Heads party?} For now, I'll have to try this hat out on a few of my friends' kids and make adjustments as needed to the pattern I made up for this hat.

I also began three other things but they all were being a little bit too much uncooperative and frustrating, so I changed gears and decided to write this blog post. I know that at some point here I'll have to pick a few items that people like and just make tons of those, but I haven't quite transitioned into the business mindset yet. At this point, everything I make is still a unique idea (or based on a pattern, but with the goal of learning the basics so I can venture forth into uncharted copyright-free territory). I've come up with a few things that I really like based on requests from friends and family ~ I'm always honored when someone asks me to make something, like an elephant or a baby boy bear hat, b/c it gives me that giddy feeling of theythingiknowwhati'mdoing!!! anyhow, somewhere in the process of manning up to the challenges and being too embarrased to admit that I really am not as talented as they think, I discover how to create amazing things that I never would have attempted on my own accord. So a big shout-out to everybody who has faith in me: Thank you! :D

and one last note and pictures for this post, before I turn back to the rebellious piles of unravelled yarn and half-begun projects behind me. ...

sock yarn!

 I've been tempted to buy sock yarn every time I go to a craft store, but I've held back so far ... well, until my friend took a trip to Portland, OR and discovered an epic yarn store and brought me back the neatest sock yarn I've ever seen. So today I broke down and bought some more to add to the collection and picked up a few patterns and knitting needles. :) that will be another story, I'm sure.



Reasons I enjoy crocheting, and the like

The gentle, lulling, repetitive motion

One loop after another after another … flows into a gentle sinusoidal wave of comfort, erasing jumpy, haggard patterns of stress and anxiety

An imitation of the great act of creation, watching a hat, a doll, a blanket, a mobile slowly emerge from my hands at the impetus of my own will ~ understanding in some small measure the joy and pride of my God, as a mirror humbly beholding and reflecting His creative essence

Projects turn to prayer as a friend, a brother, a joy, a fear is shared with God, my Comforter

In turn calmly crocheting or passionately exploring new designs and dreams, as my mood and energy dictate

I used to struggle with myself over the irony of the apparent futility of creative endeavors. Before I discovered crochet, I used to enjoy making puzzles, and yet I couldn’t quite stand up to the annoying reasoning voices telling me that putting together a picture that has intentionally been cut apart is the epitome of vanity. So I became a closet puzzler, hiding in the recesses of my mind from myself as I enjoyed long periods of piecing together a puzzle, finding irrational pride in matching pieces of cardboard  together and watching dazzling images emerge, even as the voices were saying “you could have bought this picture whole to start with!” As I began to emerge into the mature adult I might become I ventured out into the world of cross stitch as a direct act of defiance to the voices that nagged at me. “Why would you spend twenty hours making something that serves no purpose? Who will ever appreciate this? You could be doing something else to make the world a better place right now. Or you could be sleeping. Who are you trying to impress anyway? Seriously? One stitch after another after another … ?” Sometimes it got to me. I don’t know how to answer any of those questions. There’s no point. But my mom does have one of my cross-stitched masterpieces framed on her wall. And I did find an indescribable peace of mind and heart every time I sat down to add another color, a new thread, an extra element to the picture. When I recently got married and started embellishing my dabbling interest in yarn, I would give voice to all these doubts and questions and often get myself worked into quite a frenzy, crocheting a hat while explaining that I really didn’t know why I enjoyed this (but I did, somehow, in those closets of my mind) because I knew it didn’t matter and I could just buy one and I know I’m not really accomplishing anything that counts for anything and I could be doing something better (or sleeping ~ that’s always an option!) and etc, somehow feeling obliged to side with “the voices” now that I had a sounding board (aka, my “hubband”) who might, just might, contradict me and release me from the bondage of perpetually making sense. Which he did, interrupting me, poking me, laughing at/with me at the absurdity of my sense of sense-making and encouraging me to just relax and enjoy the simple things in life. If you enjoy it, that’s good enough. … oh glorious freedom! J

I realize now that a lot of those downward spiraling thoughts of “this isn’t worth anything, don’t waste your time, what’s the point?what’s thepoint?what’sthepoint??” was symptomatic of a ferocious hunger to be seen, noticed, appreciated … and of a depression that was eating away at the joy of simply living. Since finding my husband I have discovered a precious ability to enjoy life, now that this anxiety to count for something or matter to someone was set right. With a companion to love, one in whose love (because it is growing with the Love of God) I could rest securely and confidently, I was able to face life in a fresh way and not be caught up in a whirlwind of anxiety-driven “dosomethingamazingnowandeverymomentoryou’reworthless”-ness.

I wish I had been able to reach this point earlier, but in my journey, I needed Timothy to set me free to be me and be happy with me. If I have a daughter, though, I hope she can learn to appreciate herself and enjoy discovering life and her own talents in a peaceful way, instead of feeling compelled to throw herself to the wind, hoping someone will catch her when she falls.

And I’ve digressed sufficiently from yarn to esoteric musings on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness so I shall call a halt to this blog post. Blogging. That is definitely an onomatopoeia.

p.s. for clarification sake, I didn’t actually hear voices. And I hope I haven’t offended anybody who does, b/c I can imagine that must be an incredibly frustrating experience, not to be belittled. Seriously.   

I did it!!

Putting pencil to paper can be cathartically therapeutic (is that redundant?); even more so with fingertips (mine) to keyboards (anyone's). Although written expression embodies and justifies, often victoriously, my convoluted and introverted thought processes (processi?) (case in point), the overhanging threat of impending written assignments sends me into frenzies of inactivity, or other-activities to justify my lack of productivity.

Which is all to say that I love to write. But I don't. write.

i know, right?

So, here goes a first attempt at presenting to the (intrigued) universe my recent discovery of a fascinating form of cute-squishy-creative-colorfulness. Of the genus: Amigurumi. Of the species: mine own.

I picked up some books on Amigurumi (the most noteworthy being Amigurumi World: Seriously Cute Crochet and Amigurumi Two by Ana Paula Rimoli) this past summer (that would be 2010, for the sake of my future clientele from the year 2011) and started making everything I deemed cute-cuddly-colorful enough to justify the time expenditure of such creations. My rationalization defenses weakened in the face of storefuls of pretty yarn in every color, texture and price imaginable, and the unending days of unemployment spread before me like a blank canvas (of multicolored synthetic acrylic - read, fake mass-produced plastic stuff for gullible consumers like myself) ready to be made into turtles, bunnies and teapots. I ended up making nearly everything in these books.

Then, in an inspired moment of uninformed excitement, I posted them on etsy, hoping to earn back some of my "investment" in cute yarns and books to appease (please?) my husband who was mildly amused by my rigorous hobby. (On a side note, he has been incredibly supportive of my obsession and handles each new creation with respectful tenderness and impressive-ed-ness.) Upon further exploration of etsy, however, I quickly ran across the author of these books selling the Exact Same amigurumis that I had been making (imagine!) and I realized that she could just as easily run across my site and be equally (but more justifiably) surprised. Would I be in trouble for selling something made according to someone else's patterns? (For the record, they were very well written patterns!) I tried to ask a lawyer friend about the consequences of such "copyright" issues, but he laughed at me. :( I think the potential battles between yarn ladies over stuffed animal patterns did not seem like a legitimate legal issue. (As if big men battling over little bits of green paper is?!) When he saw my consternation, though, he affably offered to research it for me, at the cost of $200/hour. sigh.

So I pulled all my listings off etsy and decided to try my hand at some of my own creations, for which I would assuredly not sue myself for selling. I started noticing some of my friends' baby toys, stuffed animals, pictures, etc. and mulled over ideas of how to create these forms in 3-d crochet. Thus, Theodore and Frank were born. And now I have arrived at the day in my story in which I wrote this story.

The End.

For now.

To be continued.

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Theodore:

Frank, the fish:

Wedding bears for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law-once-removed-to-be. (Chris and Katie, if you see these here before I give them to you, please act surprised still!) These are adapted according to pre-made patterns.

Business cards made by my friend, Cristal. She has been an incredible help to me in designing logos, cards, websites, etc. (Let me know if you want me to connect you with her for help with your own business logos, websites, etc.)

The bunny, Evelyn, in process.

A sample of some of my creations (all done by patterns from Ana Paula Rimoli's books).

Aliens and squirrel up close.

Some of the books I use most often.

Victor's head was too big the first time around. no problem. cut it off.

From left to right: Evelyn, Samantha, Victor. I don't know where these names come from. The animals usually tell me who they are when I'm done with them.

airplaine. with stitched-on windows. my husband convinced me that hot glue guns are to amigurumi what scissors are to origami: bad?

i'll take more artistic pics later of my yarns, but for now here's a pile of some of the cotton yarns I use for most of the animals.

And a knitting toy i found that is fun to use for hat-making.

And more big fuzzy yarns for making hats. I'll post more on my hat making adventures later.

if you remind me.