Too many triangles?

In my evenings, I’ve been working on crocheted triangles. It took me a couple of tries to figure out a pattern that I liked, but once I did it only took a couple of weeks to churn out 30 of them – all while watching old episodes of Remington Steele, of course. I should write down my pattern for them. About halfway through I realized that triangles would make a quick and fun afghan, also – so I might have to do that next. Perhaps a purple triangle afghan?!

This particular batch of triangles is destined to be bunting.  You see, I found a picture of this really cute and colorful crocheted bunting that Loretta Grayson made, and decided to make some myself. There was no pattern, but when has that stopped me?

This is a fabulous stash-buster project, it does a great job eating through piles of yarn. Since it’s bunting and will be near the ceiling, no one will be touching it. Which means I can use up that crappy, scratchy cheap yarn I bought when I was first starting to crochet – the kind I despaired of ever being able to use. All it has to do for this project is look pretty! This is one way I’m fitting into my smaller craft closet – by using up supplies!

Now all I have to do is make all the tassels and attach the triangles together using some clever chain stitching.

Oh, and the pretty rainbow bunting is one of the handmade things I’m doing for the baby’s room, sort of a ceiling mobile, I guess. THERE WILL BE NO PASTELS FOR THIS CHILD. I don’t like pastels much. Too wishy-washy. Not enough mental stimulation. Babies don’t do well with colors that don’t have a lot of contrast anyway! I’ve never really understood that whole thing where all the baby yarn is pastel. This seems dumb to me.

This is the part of the year where it gets tough to post my projects because some of them are gifts. I try not to go overboard, but I do like making one or two handmade gifts each year. Last year I made a silk scarf for my mom, and in 2007 an afghan for my grandparents, and in 2009 I went crazy with cookies …

Nerdy one offs

There are a lot of things I do because I’m a nerd. For example, I crocheted this little hat for my kid (and one for a friend of mine’s kid). Points for you if you know WHY I made this particular hat. I still think of the episode and chuckle. I looked for a pattern, but in the end I realized that it was just easier to make it up as I went. I made it for an average infant head – i.e. 13-17″ or thereabouts. It’s double crochet, so there’s stretch.

I also made that circular crocheted rattle, which I rate as “meh.” I need to find better toy patterns. I kinda used a pattern for this, but honestly I had no fun with the original pattern, and I don’t want to insult the pattern designer. Mostly I finished it because I felt compelled to finish. The Kid is welcome to drool on it, in any case.

In other news, last week I indulged my inner medieval nerd and went to an Anonymous 4 concert at Grace Cathedral. Anonymous 4 is four women who are known for performing medieval music, aka polyphony or chant. I spent a lot of time imagining medieval music in my head when I was studying how to read and understand it in graduate school. Since very, very little medieval music has been transcribed and recorded, those few times I’ve gotten to actually listen to something ancient that I spent hours translating/transcribing – well, it’s really an experience beyond compare for me.

Plus, the voices of the women in this group are beyond breathtaking. Seriously, they’re amazing. Plus the acoustics of a huge vaulted cathedral like Grace Cathedral are amazing, particularly with the cathedral’s 7-second reverberation. I’ve embedded a video track below in case you want to listen, but you’ll only be able to see it on my website.

Peperit Virgo, 14th c., by Anonymous 4

Laid Up

People’s experiences of pregnancy are vastly different. Some women think it’s the most awesome thing ever. Others can’t wait to get it over with. Most people fall somewhere in the middle.  For me it’s been like trying to live my normal life while being sick for months and months. It’s not exactly been the most magical experience of my life. For example, I have never before done quite so much sitting as I’ve done in the past four months.

For a while there was even doctor-mandated sitting. In bed. I was really, really bored. I am a very active person, always wanting to DO something or MAKE something or GO somewhere. My to do lists are legendary. But there I was, faced with days of 12 hours and almost no activity permitted. That’s when I created the box you see above. It’s my constant companion, filled with enough yarn for about six projects. I figured I’d just dive into the eighties shows on Hulu and my crochet hooks for a while. And I did. I’ve now watched every episode of Simon and Simon, and am almost done with season 2 of Remington Steele.

One weekend after the first trimester was over I actually felt pretty good, so I finally did my tie-dying project. My kid IS being born in Berkelely after all, so what could be more apropos than tie-dye? I bought the cheapest packs of white onesies I could find and a kit. It took a couple of hours, which is just about all the energy I have at one shot these days. For a first-time attempt and some serious clumsiness with rubber bands, I think the project turned out quite well. It was quite satisfyingly messy. I kept forgetting gloves, so I dyed my fingers a few times too.

The colors faded more than I would have liked after washing, but meh! They’re cute. I let them sit for 8 hours, so that was about as much color intensity as I was going to get out of it. I tried doing a couple of patterns with stencils, but the dye ran too much, so I’m going to try again with some fabric paint. Also, perhaps a few iron-ons for little shirts.

As a crafty person, the urge to make stuff for your new small person is quite overwhelming. Actually, as a crafty person the urge to mark every life event by crafting is overwhelming. I’m not really energetic enough to get into some of my time-and-motion-intensive sewing (hence my poor, languishing quilt), but there are lots of things I can do with my hands.

All I can do is hope not to overdo the child-crafting entirely.