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.

I made a thing

This should not surprise you. I make things. Not as many lately as usual, but still a decent number of Things get Made. In this case, I made a cowl.

I had been considering making one of these cowl things lately. San Francisco is an excellent place for the wearing of scarves, shawls and cowls, so I thought I kind of owed myself one. But nothing really seemed to come together. Then one day I was in Michael’s looking for cheap Halloween baking stuff, and of course I wandered through the (nowhere-near-the baking-stuff) yarn section, and happened upon sparkly yarn, and that’s how this cowl was born. The pattern is the Scalloped Cowl from Lion Brand, because I wanted something with a lace pattern.

Before we go any further, let me just note that this cowl indicates that I may be losing my mind. I’m not sure what got into me that I made a random impulse purchase of bulky, mohair-containing yarn with sequins. I don’t like any of those things, normally. Yet here it is. And so now I have a cowl that I am actually rather fond of, yet which I am allergic to, that I can only possibly wear on a mountain when it’s freezing outside over a turtleneck. Luckily it’s only 18% mohair, but my fingers itched and turned red for the entire three nights it took to make this. I really ought to block it, but I’m going to have to wait until it’s colder again, so I can bear touching it!

I think I might make this pattern (I liked it) again in a not-so-bulky yarn, perhaps the fuzzy Rowan Alpaca Cotton I found last year that I’ve been dying to try. It’s the only “haloed” yarn that I’m not completely allergic to, and I would love another cowl in maybe a nice soft gray.

Meanwhile, life continues here. We’ve been sort of alarmed/interested by the Occupy Oakland protests going on just a few blocks from our house. It’s gotten a little messy since this past weekend.  I’ve seen both the San Francisco and Oakland versions of this now, and they are very different from what I can tell, even down to being essentially about different ideologies and problems. I do wonder how long this is going to go on – who will get exhausted first?  The protesters or the police?

Halloween fast approacheth, and I have no costume this year. It’s true. I’ve just had too many other things that I’m worried about. I am making gingerbread this week, and the pie filling I made went off well. My carved pumpkin met an untimely end when it essentially collapsed onto itself, as hollow pumpkins will do. I also went to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival a weekend or two ago, and got my fill of junk food, craft booths and giant pumpkin carving contests, so that will have to do for this year!

Hopefully I will finish my the chevron-baby-blanket-that-will-not-die soon, and I have made a couple of surprise gifts that I’m dying to show, just because they amuse me so much.