Practical crochet, Part I

I asked for timber floors.

More specifically:

Three to four months ago when I was about to begin searching for a home to rent, I made a list of attributes I would like said home to have. They ranged from "sensible" (safe neighbourhood) to "practical" (close to train station and/or bus routes) to "what are you doing asking for something so non-essential, especially in the price range where you're looking?" (timber floors).

I got what I wanted -- much more than I wanted -- and now, months later, still can't stop giving thanks for it. But the thing with wishes granted: you then have to look after them. Make sure they stay in good shape while under your care.

I had all this furniture, a combination of new and second hand but with the common denominator of potentially scratchy metal legs. That beautiful shiny floor needed protecting.

I did have an initial solution, but it was neither practical nor stylish.

And my toes were getting cold.

Enter my  not-yet-one-year-old crocheting abilities. Chair socks! I thought. The perfect plan: custom fitted, and more understated than mismatched adult human socks. A basic square, then a few more rows around the square, taper towards the top...

"Too much time, ah?" my sceptical (and also quite lovely -- they helped me move, unpack and assemble various articles) friends asked when they spotted the first sock in progress. "Wouldn't it be better if you just went and bought rubber feet from the hardware shop?"

And I did consider it, putting crochet hook and yarn aside while I went about finding more places for my various possessions.

But then the very same day I read my favourite crochet blog and lo, her latest post was all about how she'd gone about protecting her hardwood floors from chair scratches.

With chair socks.

So I plunged back in, and soon...

I was eager to test them out straight away, and was rather pleased with the result. Not because they look great; I don't think anyone would even notice them unless I pointed them out and got the person to bring their heads close to ground level for a good look.

I'd like my guests to return for subsequent visits, so I don't think I'll be doing that.

No, I think what I found most satisfying about this project was the small escape it provided from the lifestyle of assuming that everything must be bought ready made, that if you want something you go right out and plunk down money and get it right now.

There are times when I don't want to be instantly gratified.

And I also saved myself the cringe that inevitably comes when I open yet another non-recyclable package of mass produced something and generate more feed for the insatiable landfill.

(Yes, I do realise that I procured the yarn for this project by going to a shop and plunking down money for it, but it's still more sustainable than manufactured rubber feet because if my need for furniture socks ever winds down I can always unravel them and re-crochet them into something else. Rubber feet will always be rubber feet, until age takes over and they turn into rubber flakes. Also, the only packaging on the yarn was a recyclable cardboard band and, for what it's worth, this yarn is purportedly ecologically sound. Natural dyes, pesticide-free cotton or something. I take such claims with shovelfuls of salt.)

As if the square cross section did not provide me with challenge enough, I decided to also make a set of socks for my metal shelving unit. How to make right-angle corners?

Mitre them!

It worked, but the end result looks as though it stretched out into triangles unless you peer very, very closely. I repeat: I would like my guests to return, so don't say I made you do it. All in all, I'm pleased with the result.

I quite like how it feels to evade instant consumerism.

It's tomorrow!

Poster from Made On The Left

Looking forward to a creativity-feeding Sunday afternoon amongst others who make... on the left.

Behind every dark cloud

Lies a primitive graphic representation of happiness.

I don't know why I allow my craft-less times to stretch so far apart. We need to meet more often, felt and I.

Trust, stem stitch, and a garden

I watched an old friend playing with his son in the garden.

Over and over again, he tossed the boy in the air and caught him. The response each time: a gurgling belly laugh and demands for "More! Again!"

I watched them, and thought how much fun the little boy was having.

Wondered whether he realises what a privilege it is, being able to do nothing but share a moment of delight with one's father.

Reflected on how the game is only fun, and only goes on, because my friend catches his son every time. Dropping him, by accident or on purpose (and yes, I've known that kind of parent, too), is simply not an option.

I stitched this a few weeks ago, as an exercise in refreshing two skills that had begun to wane: embroidery; and the word I set out to embroider.

My earlier stitches were uncertain and uneven, but by the time I reached that last "t" I knew where the needle should go and how tight I needed to pull. The motion and skill had been dormant all these creativity-less years; I only needed to awaken it. So, too, with trust. Something I thought I had been doing, and doing well, for years... and it turned out my stitches had been shaky in that department, too.

I sewed that last stitch at least a month ago, but I feel as though the work was only completed this past weekend, across the country in my friend's garden. Watching as a toddler exulted in the secure arms of his father, I was reminded that I have a trustworthy father, too. One whose presence I delight to be in. One who is infinitely infallible. One who also loves to toss me up and watch me soar.

And whose arms are there to catch me, every single time.

Crochet cats and creativity

A few weeks ago, I came to the sudden realisation that I had again been starving my creative self. I am not pleased with how the earnest pursuit of survival frequently causes me to forget that colour even exists.

I needed a quick remedy, so the following day I set aside an extra couple of hours in the city en route to church, to sit in the craft section of the Japanese bookshop and absorb ideas.

Which is how I came to make the acquaintance of:

Hello My Name Is Amineko: The Story of a Crafty Crochet Cat by Nekoyama.

It's a hybrid of photographic storybook and pattern/idea book, with full instructions for making your very own amineko (Japanese contraction for crochet cat) and its accessories.

I love cats; I love miso soup. I all but giggled when I opened the book to the sight of the blue neko with perpetually closed eyes imbibing. Yes, I'd been that deprived.

And yes, I know. I have a whole collection of my own photographs of stuffed animals in various poses and settings. It's just nice when I find myself in company.

And if, like me, you have no craft book budget at present, fear not. Nekoyama's original pattern is available for free here. You don't get the patterns for the other items; no glossy pages full of quirky amineko tableaux (such as black amineko hard at work "crocheting little ones")...

But hey, you can still crochet your own amineko to pose anywhere and any way you want. Whether or not yours turns out to be reproductively minded, it looks like fun. Wonder if I'll ever get around to it. Probably sometime after I learn to crochet.

Healing

So many have been deeply wounded by nature in recent days.

May beauty return to dwell in these places, and within the ones who are learning to live once more.

What happens in Newtown

Not that I mean this to be a guide for what would happen if you went to Newtown. That, you'd have to tell me.

What happens in Newtown, when you're me, is this.

You walk up King St for an hour, and then change directions and walk for another hour. Along the way, you stop in many of the shops selling indie fashion and handmade accessories.

Somewhere around the second of those shops, the introjects you have been carrying around of your mother and grandmother pop up.

Just as you're picking up a pair of very cute bobby pins made out of yo-yos (the fabric ones, not the ones that keep coming back to you -- but oh, how I wished these would come back with me!), fastened with tiny buttons, Mummy's voice pipes up.

"Aren't those just circles of cloth with buttons on them? I could make those!"

And then you wander over to a wallet with an applique owl on it, and out comes Mama. "Aiyo. Look at that. It's just a simple machine applique. I can do that!"

And so, on you go, the two generations chattering along on either side of you while the yo-yos stay on the shelf, their siren calls to you unanswered. For now.

(I'm fully aware that my mother and grandmother are not really in my head. Just so you know. But, you know, a good Chinese mother always makes sure that her voice stays with her descendants long and loud. There are some parts of Chinese motherhood to which I don't necessarily aspire.)

For the rest of your time in Newtown, you may be enticed to enter a second-hand bookshop on the sole grounds of there being a Lat book in the window. The Good Introjects of Newtown will not keep you from buying everything you pick up there, because they cannot write, illustrate, lay out, print and bind a copy of Leunig's When I Talk To You for $5. And so, you will leave with books.

And you will start for home, but all the way on the bus and on the other bus you will think, "But books aren't everything." They're something, that's for sure, but you can't pin them on your hair and look cute, or use them to dress up a plain cotton tote.

By the time you reach home, you will wish more than anything that your needlework supplies consisted of more than four colours of embroidery thread and two metres of plain cheesecloth. Your fingers, even the sore one with the mysterious bruise that has kept you out of 2.5 days' work, will itch to do, to snip and stitch and join and make something.

And then you will remember that last week, you discovered two of your dresses had buttons that were falling off, and decided that it was easier to get rid of all the buttons than to secure the loose ones. And while you kept the cute, oversized buttons in a safe place, you thought, "Someday I'll find something to do with them."

You'll even remember that you have a dastardly habit of saving every bit of fabric that comes your way, even the canvas size tags that come with some brands of jeans.

And, by the end of the evening, the introjects will be patting you on the head with great pride, saying, "See? You would have paid far too much if you'd bought something like that just now."


And you will think, maybe that's true and maybe it does give you a sense of satisfaction, knowing this is the fruit of your creativity... but that doesn't mean I'm not going back to Newtown soon.

And I will leave the voices where they belong: with the owner (grandma) and in the past (mother), respectively. And oh, what fun the yo-yos and I will have.

Beauty in the mundane

The tedious act of filing long-neglected client notes, brightened by the sudden recognition of an old motif friend hiding in full view.

Hello, stripes. Lookin' good, as always. I feel like lengthening you and printing you across a shirt.

The things I'd do...

Funny, the things you learn about yourself from browsing old pictures and journals.

I found this in my picture archives.



I once made this stuffed bacteria as a medical client's birthday present. I kind of miss those days of sewing happy, functionless objects.