I Heart Crochet

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The purple hearts are done!

Purple, green, blue and pink hearts combine for a giant layered and super colorful heart.

Far more avocado hearts are done than I've photographed (a total of 26 so far), but I've still got three more hanks of thread sitting in avocado pit and avocado skin dye in the living room window. At least three more avocado hearts to come!

Lots of heartflakes have been completed and gifted.

I never get tired of heartflakes.

Pink stretched hearts were an experiment I liked so much, I couldn't stop.

Now I'm tempted to go back and make MORE stretched hearts from all my different shades of solar-dyed hues!

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Heart Strings

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No, not the book!!!

It feels like it's been forever since I began my crocheted heart amigurumi kick. I work on the hearts mostly while Lizard is sleeping. It's something I can do quietly.

I finished the blues back in June. Greens didn't take long because I didn't have that many. That's a hint I need to dye more... But not today.

Pinks took longer, not only because I had more shades of pink than green, but also because life just got in the way. Hallucinations are on the rise, changing seasons means garden cleanup, and there have been a few unwanted visitors in the basement. I might elaborate on that next Tuesday...

Finally finished the pinks this week, and I've had such fun photographing my collection of hearts!

When I create greeting cards (which I absolutely love doing) the most difficult part sometimes is trying to come up with something sweet on the inside, and we're, unfortunately, not talking chocolate. Darn it. Anyway, with all the heart amigurumi photos I shot late Tuesday night, it was time to challenge my brain and get back into the habit of trying to rhyme. (Sometimes...)

I'm about to start the purple hearts. I thought that would be my final batch. Because I do not have many hand-dyed shades of red, orange or yellow. (In part because true red is so difficult to achieve when dyeing.) I might go ahead and combine all three of those colors into yet one more batch of hearts, but that's not a project I look forward to because I don't get as much joy out of working with those colors. Which is why I don't have many of them! (I actually ought to dye more because I do love shades of autumn. Just in photography more than in crochet.)

With all the tomatoes I harvested out of my garden prior to our first freeze last week, I decided it was time to make another avocado salad, one of my favorite garden treats of all. I use my own homegrown tomatoes, onions, chiles (when I have them, farmers market when I don't), cilantro, chives and basil, then add in store-bought pink Himalayan salt, garlic, and Olathe sweet corn, plus black beans I soften and cook from scratch, and the pièce de résistance... store-bought avocados.

Which means... time to dye!!! Which free time I don't have a lot of. But with eight more pits and half a Mason jar full of torn skins, how could I not?!? Now I'm super excited to try to quickly finish my purple hearts so I can make a batch of tiny heart amigurumi with my shades of solar avocado dye!! (I just finished winding the first two new colors, and I can't wait to use them!!!)

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Funny Story

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My pink cosmos are exploding, and it looks like I'm going to get at least another week and a half of beautiful flowers, if the ten-day forecast can be trusted. (Sometimes it can, every once in a while...)

I captured one photo a couple of weeks ago that made me yearn for a smiling flower face. I've done this before with sunflowers, but never with cosmos. I immediately set out shooting cosmos so I would have a wide variety of color

I literally was on my hands and knees and even on my back trying to get just the right angle. I was all over the ground. Four straight days. Every chance I got. I was addicted. I kept going out for more.

I looked for my little open arm spiders, too, because they are so cute.

What I didn't look for or even think to beware of was slithering residents. Last week, while watering my lavender, I discovered a miniature snake.

I carefreely ambled back in the house for my phone, then sauntered back out to snap a photo I could use to try to identify the species. It was just a baby, maybe nine inches long. It hadn't moved at all. I walked back inside to photo search my young guest/tenant. Was not expecting a danger noodle at all. It's been years since we've had nope ropes in our yard!

Just as I discovered I had trouble brewing in the backyard, I noticed my neighbors huddled over my driveway on the opposite side of my house. I stepped out the front door to greet them and noticed a coiled visitor also occupying valuable territory in front of my house. And drawing quite the crowd. Just about all the kids in the neighborhood had to try to get a closer look. (My neighbor carefully guarded the button-tailed visitor to keep young 'uns from getting too close.)

My neighbor was able to gently shovel both reptiles into an orange construction bucket before relocating the twins to a non-disclosed area where humans will not be on the menu. Upon his return, he warned me because, he said, rattler mamas don't typically have just two babies. He told me to be very careful in my backyard. Lots of places for creepy crawlies to hide. YIKES!

Needless to say, I haven't been in the backyard much since then. But that's okay because I have plenty of cosmos photos with which I can play.

One of the flowers had the most beautiful coloring. I couldn't resist creating a greeting card.

That gave me an idea for more Spoonflower fabric.

Which meant I had to create a new cheater panel, too.

I'm going to try to save the seeds from the bi-color flower. It's just so darned beautiful!

Eventually, I'll probably get back outside and shoot some more cosmos. But I'm not so sure I'll be rolling around on the ground anymore!

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Blue is My Love

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Six weeks later, I've finally finished making a heart from each of my hand-dyed, solar-dyed blue crochet thread colors. I remember the days when I could complete a project like this in just a couple of weeks... But, no more bus and/or train commutes for me!

It may have taken a while, but it was a labor of love. Double love, actually. Nothing says love more than hearts! Well, except maybe chocolate...

I think when I first began this project, I was intending to make a necklace of crocheted blue hearts. I got impatient the first couple of weeks, though, and made a five-heart necklace. It turned out okay, I think. I'm not so sure I'm inspired to make another blue heart necklace.

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I took short breaks to make four other blue crochet thread necklaces for my Etsy shop. I'm really glad I did. But now, six weeks later, I'm a little tired of blue. Hard to believe! Never in a million years thought I'd ever grow tired of blue!

(affiliate links to my Etsy shop)

Before I finished the hearts, I photographed what I had so far for a few greeting card images. That was inspiration enough to keep me going to finish the project.

(affiliate link to my GCU shop)

I don't have as many of each color family in the rest of my hand-dyed, solar-dyed crochet thread collection. That makes it a little easier to contemplate repeating the feat with green, reds and pinks, then purples. (There probably aren't enough oranges or yellows to make an Etsy project.) When I first began my blue heart project, I was determined to make a heart from each color of thread I've dyed. Like I did with my little owls back in 2019.

I just remembered I made butterflies from all the colors in my hand-dyed stash back in July of 2018.

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I just realized somewhere there are two or three empty gum Altoid tins full of dragonflies. I never got to finish them. I think that was right before Lizard's total knee replacement, which would be an acceptable excuse for never finishing. Except now I'm going to kind of be craving that...

Oh, my heavens. That made me search. Hadn't planned on that when I started this blog post. But now found. I think the challenge may be effectively renewed now...

Also found was another long-forgotten project in the same hiding place. I don't know if I planned to make one of every color in my hand-dyed stash, but my goodness, they are so darned cute, how can I resist???

I've gifted about half of my little owls in the last year. The kids I teach on Sundays love them. As do my grands. I'm not so sure any of the boys would be as fond of hearts. I can see eye rolls and hear "Eeeeewww!"s and "Ick!"s without even showing the boys. Yet, the yearning to create and photograph never stops surging through my soul. I'll probably do the green hearts next because the new me is driven to finish what I start before I take on anything new. At least that's the goal...

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