Paw Prints

Fancy Fur Collar

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

A stressful weekend was ameliorated by working with the “fancy fur” — an eyelash plus boucle yarn. The stitches are impossible to see in the riot of yarn, so it was impossible to be a perfectionist.

And as evidence of the imperfection comes to light, i tuck the loose loops back in.

I wanted something that would keep the chill off my shoulders when i read in bed. It’s a somewhat shaped piece, fanning out over the shoulders and then fanning down from the yolk that the shoulder pieces made.

This photo is shows the results from two skeins of Lion Fancy Fur in “northern lights” with a big hook. (The red one. Hmmm.) From almost two skeins of the “purple passion” i made a very simple scarf.

I just snagged eight balls of sage green suede yarn on sale for a dollar. Woo!

http://www.crochetme.com/sweet — pattern
http://www.crochetme.com/blog/amy — Crochet Along
http://skamama.blogspot.com/2006/09/its-up.html — deeper V

http://dawnscraft.blogspot.com/2006/09/crochet-along_27.html#links

I made yarn from plastic bags and old clothes. It was rather time consuming — especially the cutting up the jersey and then rolling the strips up into balls — but i think i feel good about it.

I also made collage packs so i could close my collage box (but i forgot the silk scraps – sigh).

Finally, i started a LMAO.

So all of that felt creative — finding cool way to package the collage packs in some cases, matching colors, etc — but none of it really made me feel accomplished.

I’ve started another crochet project with the recycled jersey yarn (CR2006.08): a rag rug for the bathroom using Sylvian Circles from Kooler’s Encyclopedia of Crochet. I couldn’t get the eightfold symmetry to fit, but instead have a sixfold symmetric pattern.

So it goes.

(One of the folks taking a collage pack has an interesting project at : http://websites4ever.com/members/world/mkshatto/Touch.shtml. I’ll have to check in next week….

On 3 May, i got some distracting news at work. it’s really where my mind is. Meanwhile, Grey-Cat.Net crashed. It’s where i host my images, and the image data is OK — i just need to rebuild some things from backup.

I sprained my wrist on Thursday doing a stretch with my cat, not at all inspired by purr-fect yoga. I’m assuming it’s mild and that my crocheting off and on this weekend isn’t too stupid.

I’ve a good deal of photos from last Saturday’s visit to Yosemite to process. Christine has her seven minute video of the visit to Mariposa Grove pretty cleaned up, already.

The last weekend in April i experimented with painting on the inside of a cereal liner with acrylics. The paint, unmixed with water, adhered fairly well to the plastic. I wanted to see if i could paint, fold the plastic in half and have the paint laminate the two sides together (with the colors of the paint visible through the plastic). The laminating process did not work because there was no way for the paint to dry. This may indicate an interesting use for palette protection. The HDPE does seem to provide an interesting surface for applying the acrylic. After a reasonable drying time, the acrylic seemed well adhered to HDPE. I’m not sure what to do with it. If the lamination had worked, i’d find the ability to sandwich the painting within the plastic compelling. I suppose i am still curious how the plastic sews up.

I did a little crocheting at Meeting for Business today on the blanket. (I also worked on the blanket just downstream of Yosemite Falls, thinking of weaving in experiences as i crochet….) On Saturday, i experimented with cutting up knit jersey material and crocheting that. I made a ball for a friend’s dog. It does seem one can cut the fabric into a narrow strip in a spiraling manner (with corners) and have it be “interesting” and not too raggy looking. The 90° and 180° turns left “tags” of fabric that would occasionally stick out. It does seem that for toys the strips will have to be pretty narrow. For a rag rug (or a dog ball), inch wide strips are OK.

Pauline looks out the window

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

Pauline, named after a character in a Charles Williams novel, was created yesterday and today. She’s from the Crochet Me Amigurumi “Dude” pattern with a slight variation in the neck. The arms are four sc in a ring, then slip stitched to length. The thumb is a sc, slip-stich back; the hand chain 3 and sc back.

She’s worked in Y3, a Red Heart medium weight acrylic, and I/9-5.50mm hook. Her (squashed?) head is about 5″ in diameter, and she’s 6″ tall.

Embellishments: Moda-dea Eden hair in earth. Eyes are recycled glass beads with black seed bead pupils, lips and heart are miscellaneous glass beads, and a bouquet for V.

She’s stuffed with shredded paper, which seems to do quite nicely.

One of my first finished objects in crochet! CR2006.07