Queue: Yarn Villages

So, for Tuesday here’s another example of random stuff I’ve been meaning to get around to.

I don’t know if anyone knows this, it seems to me to be something of an embarrassing secret, but I have a secret fondness for miniatures. It comes across mostly in a fascination with villages made of yarn.  You know the kind of village, I’m sure. Many of our grandmothers or parents have a cute little Christmas village they take out every year and set up with fake snow and tiny trees, and maybe even lights in the houses. Well, it’s those exactly, just the yarn versions of them.  And not just crochet houses, but plastic canvas.  I have no idea why I have this fascination, but there you go.  Maybe I just like houses?  I’ve always been fascinated by architecture … Sometimes they remind me of the town my maternal grandparents live in, I guess. Maybe I just like tiny things?

I own the following patterns.

This one is Hometown Villages from Annie’s Attic.  I like the variety of houses, and the fact that the roofs (rooves? nah) come off.  It’s plastic canvas.  Every tiny village needs a variety of houses, right?

This one is a set of plastic canvas kits from Mary Maxim.  They are <ahem> musical. I seriously doubt I would make them musical, however, it does include a gazebo and a covered bridge, and a flower shop. I doubt I could bring myself to make a pink church. For me, this village is a confusing yet appealing amalgam of childhood memories of Iowa and New England.

I’d also like to add a gingerbread house to my collection. I’ve seen some nice crochet versions, and I particularly like this one from the Crochet Today website by Carolyn Christmas (is that her real name? doesn’t seem likely).

Finally, not that long ago I found this Treasured Heirlooms Crochet website. I was looking for some of the crochet patterns my paternal grandmother used to make – she crocheted really elaborate doll clothes. I found those patterns, but I also found these. They’re both from the vintage crochet patterns page (i.e. out-of-print) and since I bought them they might not be there much longer unless she has multiple copies.  The left one is crochet houses – don’t much like the tissue paper in the chimneys though.  I really like the example on the right, the thread crochet village. It’s pretty neat all in white like that, and it’s an entire tiny little village. The roof detail is really neat.

So there you have it. It’s an addiction. Have I mentioned I also am fond of (but have NO space for) dollhouses and miniature furniture, too?  And elaborate birdhouses? It really is not just limited to villages made of yarn. I would make miniature houses out of any material you gave me. For example, I also have sitting somewhere these two magazines with birdhouse and miniature needlework patterns that I have yet to make.  Piecework did several pieces on miniatures in their September/October 2009 issue.  Slightly further back is the beautiful birdhouses from Cloth Paper Scissors in March/April 2008.

OK I’m going to stop there before I really embarrass myself with this addiction and bore you, because there’s much more evidence of it lying around my house.

Sweaters in the Queue

Continuing with the theme idea, Tuesdays I’ve entitled In the Queue.  These are all projects I’ve wanted to do, but have never gotten around to doing, or perhaps at the time didn’t have the skills to complete. I have many, many, many of these. Some of them are other people’s designs, some of them are my designs but they all rest sort of tidily somewhere, awaiting my attention.  Today I have two sweaters for you that I’ve always wanted to crochet. Since I just began crocheting wearable items, these have waited until I could figure out the whole fitting thing a little bit better.

Floral Fantasy Pullover

The first one is the Floral Fantasy sweater I saw quite a while ago on the Lion Brand website when I was first looking at more complicated patterns. I really love the lace floral design, and I’m fond of the color. It looks lovely for winter.

This example was crocheted in a yarn (now discontinued) called Romance. I wouldn’t have been able to use it anyway, because it’s a bulky mohair blend. I don’t care much about the fuzziness of the sweater, so I just needed to find a suitable bulky, same-color replacement.

I found replacement yarn in San Francisco in August (remember me in that yarn shop? That’s what I got there) that’s just this color. I love periwinkle. I think it will be a beautiful substitution. It’s hand-painted yarn, so the color is a bit varied, and it has great drape. I’d show it to you, but in this packed-up mess?  Who knows where it might be.

Boho Blocks Cardigan

The other sweater is the Boho Blocks Cardigan, originally published in Interweave Crochet, Fall 2006.  I guess I like things I’d describe as “updated hippie” like this. I’m mostly opposed to the term Boho (can we not spell out bohemian? Must we always reference SoHo?). I mean, it is made of conjoined grannysquares, right? But in a nice, non acrylic-fuzzy-blanket way.

I like the heavy-looking drape on this sweater. I think I’d stick to two colors, though. The difference between chunky afghan squares and nice drapey squares is the yarn choice.  The pattern uses a laceweight yarn of blended silk, which makes all the diference.

The yarn is  Lorna’s Laces Helen’s Lace yarn in mother lode, Douglas fir and camouflage. Since it’s a  wool yarn I won’t be able to use it, but I think another laceweight silk blend would work fine. Maybe a nice alpaca/silk like “Silky Alpaca Lace” from Classic Elite? I’ve heard alpaca is good for allergy-stricken folks. Maybe bamboo/silk? I don’t know yet. It’s not like I’m starting this project next week.

So those are the two projects that have been in my queue the longest. I do intend to make them one day. When there’s time. Which I have to find more of.

California and other stories

So what I was doing three weeks ago before things in my life got sidelined, derailed and permanently altered was trying to relax. Ironically enough. I was on vacation in California, seeing what there was to be seen and visiting my brother. Although I’ve been to 42 out of the 50 US states now, I’d mostly missed CA except for one trip to San Diego, but I was too young to really remember it. It turns out that California has a fair amount of spectacular in it, kinda like this:

If that’s not your cup of tea, perhaps you’ll like the quiet coastal lighthouse wreathed in fog just down the road.

I mean really, who wouldn’t like this sort of coastline? Even though I grew up near Texas beaches, there’s no comparison with this. The truth is that many Texas beaches are rather smelly, sad and dirty affairs due to all the offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. They don’t look like this. Or smell like this. Have I mentioned the gigantic and pungent eucalyptus trees near the coast? And the pine trees? It seemed like no matter where we went, it smelled like awesome.

Anyway, we went all over the place from San Francisco to Felton to Santa Cruz to Monterey to Big Sur and back up to Nevada City and Truckee and Lake Tahoe. We encountered quite a bit of wildfire in our travels, first the Lockheed Fire and then the Yuba Fire. I spent half the week with ash falling on me and smoke in the air. This, for example, was what I saw north of Big Sur near Carmel-by-the-Sea (cough cough hack hack).

Big Sur is beautiful and dramatic and slightly nerve-wracking, but overall much of that stretch of Highway 1 is quite peaceful, and there’s more farmland along the coast than I expected. A lot of beautiful vegetables that really made me want to cook quite desperately. When we got to Jeremy’s cabin in the Sierra Nevada, I cooked quite a bit, just to relax, because by that time we knew Audrey was really sick and we were upset at being so far away. In the end, I left my brother food for a week I cooked so much. The news also made me quite weepy about all animals, like this snoring/barking sea lion. They are really more like watery dog-like beings.

So did I mention Lake Tahoe is spectacular? My brother sat out and contemplated it one afternoon.

We did also spend time in San Francisco proper wandering all over the place from the Mission District up through the Castro then up Market to downtown, and up to the wharf and stuff. We treated ourself to Greens restaurant one night for some fine vegetarian cooking, which was quite easily the best meal I’ve ever had in my entire life. When down in the Castro, after having some extraordinary coffee at Philz we sort of stumbled upon ImagiKnit, whereupon I purchased six skeins of Pima Fresca yarn (bulky pima cotton) from Queensland Collection in chambray. I wasn’t planning on that, but it was sooo pretty, and on sale … and as you can see, by that point I was weak. You see, ImagiKnit separates plant and animal fibers, and also labels stuff very clearly instead of just stuffing it all in. Usually I end up with itchy, red hands from picking things up to see what they are, and it was so enjoyable to go to a yarn shop without having an allergic reaction from handling wool.

It was great to see my brother, who I’m very close to, and neat to see his job. He does utility pole inspections in various guises, part of making sure the electric infrastructure in parts of California is operational, that they’ve cleared stuff out to avoid more fires, that nothing’s going to fall down and kill people or leave them without power. It’s neat. If sometimes dangerous for the enormous ants, unruly ranch animals, cantakerous rural folks, occasional cliff hiking and of course, the Very Large Splinters. Like this one.

I also got to see my nearly-three-year-old cousin, and her mom my first cousin, and her husband, and they are all very lovely and exuberant people who live in a lovely seaside community that most of us would give our left arms to live in. We just haven’t figured out places like this exist, and that you can really live there. They fed us, and sheltered us, and I’m afraid we were very upset and poor guests one night, so we’ll have to make up for that later.

So that, in a nutshell, was my vacation, which went awry halfway through, but was still quite memorable for both Jeff and I.  I’m sure it will pop up in future art/craft projects. And now I leave you with one last classically-Californian-sunset-but-seriously-it-can’t-really-be-that-pretty picture. Because really, it is that pretty.