Norse Cords

Well school has started by the time this post will go up, but as I write it, graduation weekend is only two days away. One of the many roles my husband plays at his high school is to be Norse Chief of the Norsemen, a spirit group of rowdy young men who cheer at games. They are most recognizable because of their blue and white striped overalls, and the noise...

As I usually attend each game that he does, and have watched over them myself occasionally, as I maintain my Keeping Children Safe certification, some have affectionally called me the Norse mom. It's not a title I take lightly, and I do try to think ahead and about them like their moms might.

This year one of the boys asked me via Instagram chat (who knew it had a chat?) if I would make Norsemen cords for graduation. If you haven't been to a high school graduation in a while, you might not know that various students get pieces of flair that they can add to the standard cap and gown, in the form of colored cords. This is mostly honor societies and things of that nature. I smiled at the thought, as it is both totally in the style of the Norsemen to be a bit silly and to poke a little good natured fun at the prestigious cords of which so many are so proud.

Thumb showing the back side of the cord, front below it.

Sure I could totally just make long chains of blue and white, but that would both look more like a ribbon when done than a cord and wasnt really what I was thinking would be coolest. Luckily a little searching and I came up with the perfect solution.

A crochet i-cord. Yeah I'd never heard of such a thing. I followed the instructions and video from the blog PlanetJune which is in only one color. With a little playing I found that switching colors each row created a really nice striped zig zag look which was cord shaped and totally perfect for my needs. I did also try making larger stripes of color but then it created long strings of yarn marching up the back side which was not too good looking.

It did make it a bit slower going than you might think but each cord only took me about 2 hours to make. They are about 70 inches long and each end has two rows of white to start and end the cords. I did this to give a nice sort of visual end to the cords.

Once I had all five made, one for each senior Norsemen, I also added on tassels to the ends as is a pretty standard style. These really made me smile, and it was nice to surprise the rest of the boys with a little symbol of their time together.

Finished cords.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: 2 hours each

Whale Song

When we left off there was a lot of kindness going on, and I decided to make one more thing to go into the care package to these lovely ladies. A whale. Why a whale? Well my friend, she has her own art studio called Whalesong Arts and I thought it might be fun to make a crochet whales as colorful as the ones she creates in oil pastels and paints.

Eek!!!!! He's done!!! Finally!!!!! #cetacean #studioart #color #whales #whalesongarts #oilpastels #colorfield #

A photo posted by Whalesong Arts (@whalesongarts) on May 3, 2016 at 11:42am PDT

I bought a palette of yarn by Lion Brand in the Happy color scheme as I thought it might look nice with the heart afghan I also made her. I used the free pattern for Richard the Whale by Stacy Trock, which I liked a lot for the texture on him.

Of course I got the fins done and most of the tail when I realized I forgot about the ribbing part... But as my husband pointed out, the color change was pretty cool all by itself and the ribbing might make it look too busy. In the end I agreed with him and kept going. Good thing too since I'm not sure how embroidering on that ribbing would have looked.

The bag of colors made this much whale. 

Working up the body was no trouble at all. There is a large section of the body pattern that is implied based off the previous rows, so I spent a little time expanding those rows out so I didn't have to keep track in my head.

Fins

Something to note... there are more than one kind of pack of these small colored skeins, and it turns out I bought one with 135 yards for this project which called for 150 yards. So I pulled the dark blue out of my leftover yarns and was able to finish this off.

The pattern just calls for saftey eyes, but I really wanted to make this more like her whales, so I added some black embroidery to try to get that signature smile and lines onto the whale. I really like the way it turned out.

It really made me smile when it was done. I mean look at that face...

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: 5 hours
Size: about 10 inches long

Crochet it Forward

And were back!

So just a little reminder, if there is anything I make that you might want one of, please ask and we can talk it over. I'm generally open to taking custom commissions too.

That is exactly what happened in today's post. A friends mom, who has commissioned things in the past, asked I make one of the V for Victory scarves in white for one of her good friends who is doing pushups everyday for Veterans. I can't even do two pushups in a row.

I got a huge skein of Big Twist Rainbow Classic yarn in white which is super duper soft. I also made it a bit longer than the original pattern calls for since I prefer longer scarves myself. These scarves are just so darn quick and easy.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: 3 hours

I used about a third of the skein on the scarf, so I decided to use the rest for another project. Her daughter saw my post about Iorek and his armor, and told me that her mom loves that character and asked if I could make her one. This lovely soft white would make an excellent polar bear. I'm calling this one Iofur, just to keep them straight in my mind.

I decided on this one to make the feet a bit more like real legs since I didn't like on my original one that they kind of got lost inside the body. Other than that I didn't make any changes to the bear.

As for the armor... well I still remembered about how I went about making the first set, but as I had not written it down, I had nothing to follow. That was ok since this bear actually came out a little bit smaller than the first. I had run out of the brown oatmeal yarn that I made the first set of armor in, but I remembered I had about half a skein of Patons Silk Bamboo yarn in a silver color called Stone.

As the yarn was a bit thinner than the brown, I used a smaller hook and I really like the way this armor turned out. His breastplate had more crocodile stitches and I left it unbacked so it felt more like chainmail too. I gave him a full backplate and the spine armor as well as the shoulder pads, all hung off a thinner collar that sits above his shoulders. At this point I was again running out of the yarn but managed to make a helmet anyway. It has a solid top and front nose piece and the back side is made up of interconnected chains so that it also looks a bit like chainmail. I managed to get one final crocodile stitch done and added it to the front of the helmet.

Iorek in the back, Iofur in the front

Difficulty: Bear: Easy, Armor: Intermediate/Custom
Time to Complete: Bear: 6 hours, Armor: 4 hours

Dang do I really like the silver as armor and that new breastplate... I was really happy to be able to get this done for a good friend and her mom. So much thoughtfulness going on here. Good People.

SH3: Anthos Root

While I am travelling around this summer you might also take a gander at my new side instagram feed for my new little mandrake root named Anthos, made by The Beast Peddler (etsy, tumblr).
Follow them at @anthos_root.

Made a cozy burrow to hide from the winds today!

A photo posted by Anthos (@anthos_root) on Jun 9, 2016 at 7:48am PDT

It's just a nice silly way to get me to learn to take more photos, use my camera and be a little creative. It's not a terribly revolutionary idea, as there a quite a few feeds of people taking pictures of things like small totoros in places too... but I'm having fun. Although I am a little worried that the first picture above is also the best one I will ever take...

Stop and smell the peonies.

A photo posted by Anthos (@anthos_root) on Jun 10, 2016 at 4:04pm PDT

We just got back from a trip to New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, but we have plenty more travels planned this summer. Hope you are having a good one.

Update: There are now over 80 images of Anthos doing silly things and I'm contemplating making a book.

SH2: Music

So, one of the things I miss most from being in college is being exposed to my friends music tastes. I would have not ever listened to Guster had I not had a roommate who loved them. Same with working from home and not with co-workers. I had a coworker who introduced me to a lot of music like Thirteen Senses on our trips out to lunch.

Here in DFW there is a local station, 91.7 KXT, which I call the weirdo station. It's a mash of odd, popular, alternative, older music, and local new bands just getting their start. So they will play the Cure, then Radiohead, followed by some reggae and then a top 40 song. So my current tastes are cobbled together from my husband, this odd station and whatever else happens to come through.

What does that result in? Well it's kind of a mess. But my iTunes has always been a bit odd.
Anyway you can find my 2015 playlist as well as a work in progress 2016 list on my Spotify page, if you have one too. The last random band I really got into is called Valise from here in Dallas.

Please share if you are currently in love with a band or have a song you just can't stop listening to!
Now to find some tunes and get to work.

SH1: Good Books

So I know I'm on haitus, but I have a feeling I might want to pop on here and say something over the break, as is the case today. I've read two really good books these last few weeks and I want to make sure you all know to get on it!

We have an Audible account, and have had it for a long time. As of right now we have over 200 titles in our audio library. With the app on my phone, it is perfect for listening to while driving or cleaning, or anything that only requires half a brain to do. (Never drive with half a brain, kids, it's unsafe.) Bottom line, I really love having the account and if you don't have an one you can sign up and try any full first book for free.

Anyway on to the books:

1. The Martian by Andy Weir
Ok look, I gotta be honest, I dislike Matt Damon. Like really. And no, I did not see the film. I'm an art person, which does not usually mean I would also like science things, however lately I am super into Astronomy and science. I did take Astronomy in college and loved it and was pretty good at the subject too. I have seen every episode of Crash Course Astronomy, watch every SciShow and now subscribe to Phil Plait's blog.

But here's the cool thing, even if you don't like all that science, this book is pretty darn amazing. Unlike Contact, which I read when I was 13, it walks you though the science in ways that are pretty approachable. The whole book sounds pretty darn accurate and you can feel the amount of research that went into the book, without need to strictly understand everything perfectly. The main character, Mark Watney, is just so dang likeable too. His personality alone makes the book compelling. It's funny and smart and tense all at the same time. It's so good, I might actually watch the movie, even with Matt Damon.

2. Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
This is kind of off in the other direction from the Martian, being that it is about centuries old tech, that being bookmaking, typography and codes. I picked this one up after someone mentioned it in a video on youtube. I had no real idea what kind of book this would be when I listened to the audio sample, but I really liked the narrator and the main character seemed to tick all my boxes. Snarky, young, does design work, good sense of humor, curiosity. I had a vague idea that it could involve the supernatural and I still feel like it kind of does.

I guess you could describe this book like an exploration of the world of books, scholars and paper vs the world of tech geeks, programmers and Google. Plus as someone who really enjoyed a series of bad novels based around dragons (The Pit Dragon Chronicles by Jane Yolen) as a kid too and someone who still plays D&D, the references in the book were great. It's got a weird old store, a weirder old owner, a mystery, a cult, artists, a little romance and more. It's a good sign when I finish a book that I want merchandise related to it to exist. Unfortunately I haven't found any yet.


Other audio books that are fantastic to listen to:
The Harry Potter series read by Jim Dale is an absolute must.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, read by Martin Jarvis, is my go to book to relisten to when I don't have something new. Probably my favorite book.
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher read by James Marsters (of Buffy fame) is also just a super fun series.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, also read by Jim Dale, which I have now relistened to about 5 times... each time it gets better, more lovely and more sad.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, fun fact, he reads all his audiobooks so I recommend them all.

Obviously I could go on, but that list alone is something like 26 books, which should be more than enough to carry you though a yearly subscription should you decide to join us. Which you should.

Summer Haitus

It's gonna get real here for a minute. I'm swamped, both mentally and work wise.

As some of you may know, I took a part time contacting job in September, in addition to my full time graphic design job, to create the yearbook for the high school my husband works at. As the yearbook program has dwindled in both time and student aid, the deadlines have all passed and it is now down to crunch time with me making it a solo effort. What time I don't spend on my day job gets spent on the yearbook. And what time is leftover goes to keeping the household from exploding in dog hair and dirty laundry or dishes.

As such, I haven't picked up a hook for more than an hour over the last few weeks. My buffer of posts has run out. I hate to say it, but sometimes you just need to take a step back in order to move forward.
Crochet is for sure taking a back seat again here.

I hope to be able to pick this blog back up in August or so, but for now I need to let posting every monday go. My apologies. In the meantime, keep up with my pictures on Flicker or Instagram if you like.

Thanks for reading.