Adventures in Mama-Land

"With colour A, chain 166." There's so much despair in those words; so much hope. In case you’ve never crocheted, I’ll fill you in:  almost every blanket pattern starts the same way – by telling you to make a chain - a long, long, long chain, in this case, 166 stitches long. (Unless it's the kind of blanket where you make squares and stitch them together, in which case what you have isn't a blanket pattern but a square patterns.) You can't mess around with this chain, either, because it  will eventually be the width (or length) of your blanket.  So don't make those stitches too tight or you'll have a scrunched-up weeny blanket.  Or too loose, or you'll have a flopsy blanket with no structure. I never used to know anything about knitting or crocheting.  It’s possible, like most people I encounter, I assumed they were the same thing.  Now I know that there are many differences.  If you want to know if a person is knitting or crocheting (at the ve

There’s a feeling when you’re crocheting and your yarn gets tangled.  Even if you don’t crochet, you’ve probably felt something like this.  A moment when everything mounts into impossibility and you want to scream and give up. I’m sure you’ve felt something like that. It’s a feeling of frustration.  You just want to stash the entire project.  It’s a feeling of disgust.  You never want to look at it again.  It’s a feeling of pointlessness.  Snipping the yarn would be both so easy and so wrong. But more than that, it’s a feeling that you’re all alone in the world. It’s your ball of yarn.  It’s your crochet project.  And it’s your snarl. Ultimately, nobody cares if you untangle it or not.  How depressing is that? If I stashed the project – no-one would know. If I threw it away – I doubt anyone would notice. If I snipped the yarn and carried on past the tangle – for sure, nobody but me would know about that. But it’s a tangle, and there’s something both depressing and important i

Chanukah presents for my sisters, as modelled by Ted (and yes, I’m Canadian, so 2 L’s really IS the correct spelling!): 1) Shark mitts for Sara.  These were going to be elephants, hence the grey, but then I remembered that she’s kind of sick of elephants.  Like if somebody figures out that you like orchids, say, or salt-and-pepper shakers, then they’re going to get you nothing but orchids or salt-and-pepper shakers for the rest of your life.  She’s probably not really sick of elephants, but I figured a new animal would be a nice change of scenery.  So… what else is grey?  After pondering sheep for a while and yawning tremendously at the idea of sheep mittens (cute, but blah), I realized that sharks were the very thing.  There was also a matching grey hat, but I don’t seem to have gotten a picture; it’s exactly the same as the one I made for Abigail in the picture below.  Oh, and I slipped a little elephant into one of the mitts – a quick project ( Percy the Elephant Amigurumi pattern

I don’t want to inundate this blog with crochet projects… but on the other hand, I really do feel that crocheting complements our homeschooling, because it makes me less fidgety and better able to sit with the children and IGNORE them while they’re doing their work.  It sure beats moving across the room to use the computer, which – as any classroom teacher can tell you – is a recipe for inattentive kids (“heck, if the teacher’s not paying attention, why should we?”). So while they work, I sit and crochet.  Today, while Naomi and I were doing school during GZ’s preschool class at a local recreation centre, I made these miniature turtles… here they are, frolicking in their bed of yarn. They took about 45 minutes each – would have been far less if I wasn’t actually helping Naomi with her work. Then, later on this evening, a few “finishing up” type projects I’ve been putting off… This hat was completely finished over the summer (June?) – and then I ran out of yarn just before I start

My friend Sara has made quite a name for herself online crafting this sweet little Tiny Toy Torah (instructions  here ; rather nice copycat here ), and being full of envy and wanting my kids to have a “different” plush Torah for simchas Torah, I just went ahead and crocheted one instead. One side is thicker than the other so you can roll the rectangular piece onto it and still tuck it into its case. (I have rolled it up tightly to hopefully “block” some of the wibbliness in the rectangular section.) What case, you ask???  Well, it’s more of a cloak, and it’s a work in progress.  Hopefully finished by motzaei Shabbos, because we don’t crochet on yom tov, so that’ll be my last chance.     It looks a little wonky in the pictures, but I think it’s rather sweet… blank klaf and all. 

So Gavriel Zev has this little friend named Frankie that he’s been running around with for over a year now.  He adores Frankie, who is a goofy little alien guy with big bug eyes and three wibbly things sticking off his head.  He was part of a set of baby links which have long vanished, and a few months ago, GZ removed the huge plastic links from Frankie’s hands, so now he’s just a regular doll.  Here’s a picture of a brand-new Frankie with some of the linkie things he came with when brand-spanking new. With his ever-cheerful (but not too cheerful) expression and perpetual willingness to get into and out of bizarre scrapes and difficulties, Frankie has become part of GZ’s hardcore group of “friends” (including Spot and a couple of monkeys) with whom he plays constantly – they have unbelievable adventures together.  You can see that these adventures have “aged” him significantly, but because he’s made of some type of polyester thing,  he’ll probably outlive us all. While he was playi

Sure, they’re small.  Okay, they took so little time they can’t even be called a project.  But these two little loops attached to my oven gloves are going to make my baking life so, so much happier. Is there a little thing making a BIG difference in your life this week???

ok, so I'm going a little nuts out here in the wilderness... crocheting like crazy, yay!  there is something so snug and cozy about sitting her bundled up in my cottage while the kids make mudpies with ted on the dock.

I’ve made myself several hats since learning to crochet back in January , but this is a new design and I’m particularly pleased with it.  Although it’s double crochet, I used a thicker yarn than usual ( Lily Sugar & Cream Solids in Hot Blue ), which means it actually covers my hair.  I normally keep my buff headcover (tichel) on under hats, so it’s not a problem, but this feels light and comfy so far, so it’s nice to have options. Here’s a link to the free pattern on Ravelry , in case you’re interested. And here’s a picture of me, giving my best “I know you are up to something” grimace.  I’m sure you’re NOT up to something, but I was peeved because I handed the camera to Ted, he took an awful picture of the back of my head, then handed it to me and walked away, leaving me to try to photograph the back view.  So this is more like the gaze of disbelief after my unpaid craft photographer has up and quit on me. The photographs were not just for vanity, but actually also a kind o

Sunday afternoon, I realized the kids were leaving without a gift for my wonderful mother-in-law in Calgary ( here are my pics from her garden, 3 years ago).  The sad part of losing touch is you never know if people are into the same things as they were way back when… but when I saw this froggie prince, I thought it might be perfect.  After many years single, she’s married to the princeliest frog (or froggiest prince) you could ever hope for, a gentleman, linguist, artist and “Grampa Mikey” to my kids since YM was about 1. He was a quick project, really just the afternoon and part of the evening:   The side and top views are a little strange, but shown here so you can see the gorgeous workmanship. ;-)   Actually, I wasn’t sure if she’d like him, so took extra trouble to make him baby-safe so he could be passed along to a younger relative if she preferred.  That mostly involves sewing the eyes instead of buttons or doll eyes, plus sewing back and forth extra times to secur

Okay, so I know this isn’t a crafts blog, but it’s MY blog, so bear with me here as I brag for a second about this little guy, who turned out to be a bit of a pain to create.  It’s supposed to be a sleepy-eyed triceratops, but kind of looks like a deranged mouse.  This is a baby gift for a baby who isn’t born yet, don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, but who needed something a little out of the ordinary. Here’s the pattern , but I wouldn’t really recommend it.  I have no idea why the head, body and tail were separate pieces; I’ve made patterns before that just did everything all in one piece, and I think I’ll stick with that next time, because I don’t love stitching them together.  Also, the horns are a little wonky because there’s not much room on the face (okay, also because I’m not very good at this sort of thing, and lost patience and just kind of stuck everything together any which way).    Remember, if you’re looking for genuine crafty, check out my friend Decemberbaby’s blo