Too much inspiration

Way too little time!

I think it may have been a bit too long since I've done anything like this. Either crafting OR a list of inspirational links.

I had no idea fruit-carving is a thing.

Can't read the language, but love this project.

I get SO inspired by AI crochet. There are so many fake amigurumis floating around the internet (with drooling crocheters clamoring for patterns) that I would just love to make. And publish free patterns, of course!

I'm thinking this is great inspiration for a snowflake tree skirt. Don't you think???

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Unchocolates

My Bronco cup is full.


My valentine candy box is empty.


Tiny bits of leftover natural-dyed cotton are beginning to amass.


Add a little glue, a few eyeballs or sequins, some hearts, and a free crochet pattern, and oh, my goodness, did I renew my Honey's valentine!!!


You may do whatever you'd like with amigurumi you make from this pattern, but you may not sell or republish the pattern. Thanks, and enjoy!


Materials: Worsted yarn, size G crochet hook, stuffing (I used my quilt and sewing remnants, shown above in the Broncos cup.)

Simple Amigurumi Ball Instructions

Make magic ring.

Round 1: 6 sc in ring; do not join on this or any of the following Rounds. Pull magic circle tight.

Round 2: 2 sc in each sc around for a total of 12 sc.

Rounds 3-4: 1 sc in each sc around.
If you're not reading this pattern on Snowcatcher, you're not reading the designer's blog. Please go here to see the original.

Round 5: 6 sc dec around for a total of 6 sc, stuffing as your work, including stuffing in the starting tail; bind off. Weave finishing end through each of remaining 6 sc and pull tight. Weave in end.

Finish: Glue crocheted ball onto heart for feet if desired. Without feet, the eyeballs can make the balls top heavy, and without feet to stabilize, these balls will roll around, but that could be a good thing, too. After fighting with my amigurumi, trying to keep them still for pictures, I used wooden hearts leftover from projects from previous Valentines Days to make feet, but crocheted or padded felt hearts would work, too. Use your imagination!




Pompoms, cotton balls and felted fiber balls would work instead of crocheted amigurumi balls, too.




Glue on googly eyes, sequins, beads or felt eyes, or draw on with permanent markers. I used glow-in-the-dark googly eyes. Use your imagination!


Insert Unchocolate Cuddlies into empty valentine candy box, and either keep for yourself or give away. Then smile for making the world a better place by brightening someone's day without adding calories while making the world a better place by reusing, recycling, renewing and creating!

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Doubled Up

I've been wanting to learn double knitting for several years now. The Marathon Scarf Project to wrap international participants in this year's Boston Marathon in love was just what I needed to push this goal up a few notches on my priority list.

I wanted to chart this scarf and make it in blue and white or lavender and gray. When the call went out for blue and gold scarves, I knew what I had to do.

I went to a free wifi cafe and watched about two minutes of an eight-minute double knitting video tutorial. I went home and dug out blue and yellow yarn from my stash. Within about half an hour, I had about an inch on my needles! I was doing it! I was double-knitting!!! (It's just like ribbing, but with two strands of yarn instead of one.)




This wonderful discovery came the same day I taught myself to make curved double-pointed arrows in an electronic document at work.

Learning something new is so much fun and so invigorating!

Of course, I improvised the original Team Sweden scarf design a bit to make this project totally unique. I didn't want it to be an exact copy.

I've included charts here below, just in case anyone else wants to make one of these scarves. The initial chart is just half of the scarf; when you get to row 195, you turn around and go all the way back down the chart (without repeating Row 195). I've also included a whole chart, just in case, but that will print very, very small on 11x14 paper. I printed two halves on 11x17 and taped them together for my next scarf. For the initial scarf, I used regular graph paper, and I taped that together. Each graph square is nearly actual stitch size when working with worsted weight yarn. So my graph paper chart (for half the scarf) is 4 inches wide by nearly 3 feet long!


For the scarf, I cast on 21 stitches holding both strands together, then knitted the first row in double knit: knit blue, purl yellow, knit blue, purl yellow. On the next row: knit yellow, purl blue, knit yellow, purl blue. Finished whole scarf size using worsted weight yarn on size 6 knitting needles is 6 inches by 6 feet, which is what the Marathon Scarf Project requested.

I've also included two logo scarf charts below, just in case...

For all of the charts, click the image to biggie size. Save the image to your computer, and preview print landscape (sideways) instead of portrait, making sure to click the box that says "Scale to Fit Media." (Some programs do not give you an option to control printing if you hit just plain print or Control P. You must use Preview Print or Print With Preview.)

This is the second time I've ever charted knitting in my entire life. My first attempt was just out of high school. I was knitting a flamingo sweater in pastels. I decided I wanted pink hearts instead of pink flamingos, so I recharted the entire sweater. I wish I still had the sweater. It would be fun to show off now!

Why did the Marathon Scarf Project resonate with me?

Until more than a decade ago, I ran Race for the Cure every year for more than 10 years in support of a friend and co-worker who'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. I have never run a marathon and do not expect to ever be able to run a marathon. However, one of my co-workers is from Boston, and her brother runs the Boston Marathon. Both of us watched the news in horror as it unfolded last year. A couple of that day's photos remain permanently scorched in my memory banks.

Another of my co-workers on a different floor has run the Boston Marathon seven times. It's not like the marathons in Denver; you don't just pay the entry fee and show up. Runners must pre-qualify by finishing a number of races prior to the Marathon, and they must finish each within an allotted time. They can't be slowpokes like me. So just to run in THE Boston Marathon, in my opinion, is a gigantic honor, similar to what it must feel like to qualify for the Hawaii Iron Man or even the Olympics.

I participate in a number of cycling events with a finish line. What happened last year in Boston made crossing any finish line just a little more... poignant. There has not been a finish line for me since last year when I didn't think about what happened in Boston as I rolled across, trying to smile for the official photographer. Smiling will come easier this year, but I'm certain the memory of what happened in Boston will always prowl deep in the dark corners of my mind, just like September 11.

My race now is just a little different than those who will be running. I don't know if I will be able to finish my Boston Marathon scarf by April 5, but I'm going to give it my best shot. It would make me feel on top of the world to know one of the runners is wrapped in this scarf on the anniversary.

UPDATE: Check out this awesome post-marathon wrap-up of the project by a scarf maker and volunteer at the church!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Photos from scarf distribution!





Half Scarf Chart


Whole Scarf Chart


Boston Scarf


Sweden Scarf

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Every Rose Has Thorns

Mother's Day has not been one of my favorite days. I spent too many years trying to become a mom, only to discover I could not be a mom. Then I cheated. I adopted. I adopted older kids because I didn't want to be on a seven-year waiting list for a baby. The kids grew up. Things aren't perfect. And Mother's Day often has been a difficult pill for me to swallow.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE my mom. I try to make my own personal Mother's Day hers, even if we cannot be together. (We live far apart.) Sitting in church all those early years while other women who got to be moms got roses was just about the most painful thing I could imagine, at the time. That was before back surgery. I've since decided I think I'd rather sit in church and not get a flower.

Then the adopted kids went on unauthorized field trips, leaving a wake of pain. This was worse than never being able to have a baby. This was worse than back surgery. I'd rather have back surgery than... well, I've always said I will not spread my kids' challenges in the wind like dandelion seeds. They have enough issues of their own without me publicizing things. Suffice it to say I'd rather go through ten surgeries than live through 2002 and 2003 again.

So I ditch church on Mother's Day. It's a tradition now. Even though most churches now try to be sensitive to those in the congregation who may not be as Mother's Day-blissful. One of the ways I've seen it handled is to give roses to ALL women in the congregation, with no mention of the M-word. I did try that one year. I stood. I accepted a rose. And then I cried. Long and hard. So I gave up on Mother's Day for me.

I try to go somewhere with no reminders of the day. Total wilderness. No cell signal, no billboards or commercials, no phones. That way, I don't sit by a phone all day, wasting precious time, waiting for a call that isn't going to come. And I'm not disappointed when it doesn't.

I am married to the most incredible man in the world. He understands. He lets me call the shots. He makes sure it's okay to "celebrate" before he "celebrates" and knows I don't feel forgotten if I ask him to "skip it" any given year. (I'm addicted to flowers and plants, and it has taken a while, but, thanks to him, I've learned gifts of flowers can be a miraculously healing thing!)

(Oh, and BICYCLE PLANTERS!!! Even better than flowers!!! Mama mia!!!)


I read a suggestion once for women like me, women who don't get the chance to be birth moms. If Mother's Day is too painful for us, we should try focusing on our own mothers or grandmothers or even a friend we love who is a mother. I do that, and I try to do it well in advance so I can ignore the week when the holiday arrives. Just pretend it never really happened.

Until Mother's Day night.

My mom understands how I feel, too. It has never felt okay to skip her. Even though she knows how I feel and talks to me before and after, it doesn't feel right to miss that connection with her on what is a very special day for her. As a result, over the years, I've grown more... mature, I guess. I enjoy getting home from wherever in time to call her and hear about her special day. On her special day.

Then something happened that forced me to stop thinking about me on Mother's Day. My husband's brother died. Losing a child that way is on a whole different playing field than a child running away.

My mother-in-law gave birth to just two children, her two sons. It would be unfair of me to keep her surviving child away from her on a day that already is difficult. I have not lost a child to death, but my mom has. Two of them. I do not know the pain of a child dying before the parent. But I know the pain of a younger sibling dying before the older sibling. Twice.

So... I still ditch church on Mother's Day, but I don't ditch Mother's Day. I'm very grateful my mother-in-law brought my husband into the world and raised him to be such a considerate companion, and I look forward to showing her my gratitude.

Actually, I'm grateful God continually gives me opportunities to think of someone else instead of myself.

And that's what moms do, right? Moms like me.

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Coming Back to Life

This was my two-year-old pepper plant at the end of May. I thought it was a goner. I was going to dump the old soil and plant something new in the container. I set the container on the porch, fully intending to get back to it the following day.



The following weekend, the formerly bare pepper plant was sprouting tiny leaves. Now it's loaded with more than half a dozen peppers. My lovely plant will be coming back inside before the first overnight freeze, and hopefully it will live to see another summer!

This is what most of my garden looked like when we returned from Ride the Rockies. I spent the entire next day replanting, re-aerating by hand, watering, trimming, pruning, nurturing...

This is what my garden looks like now.



This is what I spent the next five weeks doing. Mostly in bed. Because I couldn't move the day after all the garden work.

The pain grew steadily, just like the garden. My doctor took me in on an emergency basis. He put me on all kinds of medication, which I couldn't take at work because it put me to sleep. When I wasn't working, I was sleeping.

Finally, test results were delivered.

An injury of old has come back to life, perhaps aided by a little bike wreck back in March. Possibly fueled by inadequate training for a hard six-day, cross-state ride. Likely pushed on by too many hours spent sitting at a desk at work sans breaks and stretches. Oh, and with legs crossed: "No, no, no! Feet flat on the floor!"

And by golly, no more lifting. "You hear that, Young Lady?!?"

Do you suppose I should tell him about the company softball game??? The one they asked me to photograph for the company newsletter, the one we would have to forfeit if they couldn't find/convince one more female to play? ("You did WHAT?!?") ("Hey, I hit the ball! I didn't make it to base, but I hit the ball!")

We likely will never know precisely what ignited this outburst, just as when the bone chip came out of nowhere in 2004 to floor me and result in a two-inch scar in the middle of my lower back. What we do know is that it robbed me of my 17th month in my 60-mile-day streak. What we do know is that it rendered me incapable of wearing my prized High Roller jersey this summer.

A disc is an insulator to the nerve bundle running through the spine and a shock absorber for the vertebrae above and below it. It's 80 percent moisture at birth. It dries out as it ages. It suffers upon impact or trauma. And sometimes, it rebels. Angrily.

Because no blood flows to discs and they don't receive fresh oxygen and nutrients, they cannot heal or repair themselves. A disc can, under certain circumstances, be replaced with plastic parts. In most cases, the body balances itself out by about age 60, and the injured disc isn't as much of a nuisance. Otherwise, there is no cure.

But I refuse to roll over and play dead.

I've been yoga stretching and walking every day for three weeks. I'm keeping my feet flat on the floor. I'm getting up from my desk often, even if all I get to do is walk around my chair.

And last weekend, I got to sit in the saddle again for a test ride. It was short, but rewarding.

The bears in my dreams came to life. Well, one of them did. And he put on one heck of a show for me. About 200 shots' worth.







"I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life."
-David Gilmour, Pink Floyd

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