Crochet Scrumble – Goldilocks

This crochet scrumble started life as a single ball of Lion Brand Landscapes self-striping yarn. This type of yarn has many colors that gradually change in the same ball. If you look at the lower left motif of this scrumble, you can see how the turquoise blue gradually morphs into blue grey, for example.

The most interesting feature of this yarn is that most of the colors are a mystery. They are hidden inside the ball! The turquoise blue was a surprise, as was the vivid gold. Sadly, there was very little of the deep purple color.

The tight gold curls made me think of the children’s story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Or maybe the whole thing looked a bit like porridge… not the traditional porridge, but the modern version with an “ancient grain mix of steel cut oats, quinoa and millet simmered in almond milk. Topped with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, bananas, toasted almonds and hemp seeds.”

There is a modern version of the Goldilocks story too, written by the satirist James Finn Garner. It can be found in his book, “Politically Correct Bedtime Stories“.

Through the thicket, across the river, and deep, deep in the woods, lived a family of bears – a Papa Bear, a Mama Bear, and a Baby Bear – and they all lived together anthropomorphically in a little cottage as a nuclear family. They were very sorry about this, of course, since the nuclear family has traditionally served to enslave womyn, instill a self-righteous moralism in its members, and imprint rigid notions of heterosexualist roles onto the next generation. Nevertheless, they tried to be happy and took steps to avoid these pitfalls, such as naming their offspring the non-gender-specific “Baby.”
– James Finn Garner –

My other scrumbles:

Whiteout

Vegetable Garden that didn’t Grow in Straight Rows

Pinkly Purple

Red Hatters at the Berry Farm

Denizens of the Coral Reef

Snails and Pacman with Octopus Tentacles

Snails Lost in a Flower Garden

Whiteout Scrumble

Every kid goes through the same process with the white crayon. Pick it up, color for a second, stare at the paper with a confused look. Try it again. Chuck it back in the box. Make a mental note to never use that defective crayon again. I mean, what’s the point of coloring with a crayon when you can’t even see what you’ve colored?
– Story of This Life, blog –

So, OUT with the white – but is that the same as Whiteout? Nope. Whiteout can mean:

– a blizzard that severely reduces visibility
– the correction fluid that was once widely used for fixing mistakes when typing on a typewriter. It is still used by people who do bullet-journaling, hand-lettering, and similar paper crafts.
– the name I gave to a crochet piece (scrumble) that took me all winter to stitch.

The title of this piece is ‘Whiteout’.

Renoir said once that nothing was so difficult, and at the same time so exciting, to paint, as white on white.
-Ambroise Vollard, French Contemporary artist, 1866-1939 –

White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.
– Stephen Sondheim –

I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
– Mae West –

As white light contains all the colors of the spectrum, it’s an inclusive, impartial color, favoring no single hue and refusing to take sides.
– Kate Smith –

My Other Scrumbles (no pattern, rhyme, or reason):

Vegetable Garden that didn’t Grow in Straight Rows

Pinkly Purple

Red Hatters at the Berry Farm

Denizens of the Coral Reef

Snails and Pacman with Octopus Tentacles

Snails Lost in a Flower Garden

‘Rona #33 – Goodbye Restrictions, Hello Summer Heat!

Covid Be Gone!
Good News here in Alberta. All Covid restrictions were lifted on July 1, in time for Canada Day! (Some municipalities and businesses will still have mask and/or social distance mandates and masks are still required on public transit, in taxis and in ride-share vehicles.)

Covid Virus – Spike and the Variants
In early May I wrote a post about ‘Spike and the Variants‘, likening them to a really terrible rock group. I’ve used my drawing of Spike and the group to make some thank you cards for the people who have helped us maintain our sanity for over a year now.

I also used the Spike zentangle drawing to make a dimensional paper tole picture. Using four printed copies of the Spike drawing, I cut and pasted successive layers, removing more of the drawing each time.

Here is the picture from an angle, to show the layers.

I mounted the finished paper picture on a glazed ceramic wall tile. The Car Guy built the frame, which I painted a semi-gloss black. I finished this project just a few days before the restrictions were lifted – good timing!

Heat Wave and Canada Day
Our part of the world had a week of unseasonably hot days, with temperatures peaking at 36.3C (97.3F) on Canada Day. Fortunately, our celebration this year was low key compared to Canada Days of the past. Some years we have hosted up to 40 people for a BBQ, but this year we opted for a small brunch with two close friends. Good choice. The temp by brunch was 30C (86F) with winds gusting up to 43 kph (27 mph or ‘umbrellas used with difficulty wind’.) Also, a wasp nest under the deck, directly under the shaded area I planned on dining at, was sending up swarms of attackers. We moved the brunch indoors – much easier to do for a table of four!

That night the city nearest to us had a half hour fireworks display which we could see and hear from our back yard!

The Heat Wave is over
… for now. We’ve had several soaking rains with more in the forecast. My garden is much happier. The Car Guy and I didn’t suffer as much as the plants did. Our 40 year old house was well built to withstand cold and heat. The original owners also installed an air conditioner. We normally only use it for a day or two each year. For the past week it has been kicking on like clock work when the outside temperature peaks at about 3 PM. Kudos to Sears for a reliable workhorse.

Perhaps after the past 14 months, we’ve learned and grown, and now that we’re once again free to do those previously mundane activities coronavirus took from us—hugging one another, crowding into concert venues, fighting a stranger for the armrest on airplanes—we’ll be so grateful to be back to our old ways. We’ll be walking around aglow in appreciation, utterly unwilling to go back to taking such basic everyday freedoms for granted.
– Clay Skipper, msn –

What denied ‘mundane’ activity have you resumed doing with a feeling of freedom and happiness?

Literary Origami – Well, That’s a HOOT!

OWL book folding, OWL quotes and OWL jokes! Read on!

Book Folding – I’ve done two Owl books. The first one is a stylized ‘HOO’.

This is the pattern I used for the ‘HOO’ book. In retrospect, I think I would use more pages to make the letters ‘H’ and ‘O’ and fewer pages to make the owl.

I am both a night owl and an early bird. So I am wise and I have worms.
– Steve Carell –

You can’t hoot with the owls and then soar with the eagles
– Hubert H. Humphrey –

For my second owl book, I made just the owl and added some ‘fringe flower’ eyes and ‘paper curl’ ear tufts and wings.

The Owl pattern

I have learned that one of the most important rules in politics is poise – which means looking like an owl after you have behaved like a jackass.
– Ronald Reagan –

The wife and I dressed as the iconic Peruvian owls for Halloween.
We were Inca hoots.
– Author Unknown –

A devoutly religious cowboy lost his favorite book of scripture while out mending fences one day.
A few weeks later, an owl walked up to him carrying the scripture book in its beak.
The cowboy couldn’t believe what was happening. He took his precious book from the owl’s beak and raised his eyes to the heavens.
He said, “It’s a miracle!”
“Not really,” said the owl. “Your name is written inside the cover.”
– Author Unknown –

These are my other Folded Books:

Skull

Goth Girl

Decorated ‘M’

Angles

Paw Print

Angel

Cat Paw Print

Scrumbling – Crochet Run Amok

Scrumbles (Freeform Crochet) is a word that describes small crochet ‘patches’. When the patches are all joined together, they are called… I don’t know, maybe Many Scrumbles? It is a good craft to do in the car when we travel between Alberta and Arizona because I don’t need a pattern and I don’t have to count stitches or rows.

These are my newest two Scrumbles:

Pinkly Purple

Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
– Regina Brett –

The Vegetable Garden that Didn’t Grow in Straight Rows

My other Scrumbles (with links to the post they are featured in): Red Hatters at the Berry Farm
Snails lost in a Flower Garden, Denizens of the Coral Reef, Snails and Pacman with Octopus Tentacles

Red Hatters at the Berry Farm

Snails Lost in a Flower Garden

Denizens of the Coral Reef

Snails and Pacman with Octopus Tentacles

Literary Origami – The Dark Side of Book Folding

I folded this book into a Skull for my daughter – for Halloween. I should have used a thicker book and made some cross bones too.

I live inside your face.
– Author Unknown –

Why is the human skull as dense as it is? Nowadays we can send a message around the world in one-seventh of a second, but it takes years to drive an idea through a quarter-inch of human skull.
– Charles Kettering –

I folded this book into a Gothy figure (for the same daughter) – for Christmas. I was going to embroider some dark skulls to decorate the cape and body, but that was going to take more time than I had. Instead, The Car Guy made some black epoxy resin snowflakes!

I had choosen the path of the black sheep rather than that of the unicorns and puppies.
– Magenta Periwinkle, Cutting Class –

I turned my bedroom into a bat-cave of band posters, dark curtains, and the occasional skull. I think by now my distraught parents were seeking advice from their pastor. Andy, meanwhile, calmly remarked, “I like how you’ve found a way to use Halloween decorations year-round.”
– Molly Ringle, All the Better Part of Me –

The Daughter loved both books – she is a nurse. If you have a nurse in your family, you know that their interests, stories and sense of humour can sometimes be – different.

Or maybe it is day shift explaining to night shift… either way, it was probably a ‘shit’ show, as they say.

If you know a nurse or a doctor or a person who works in a medical facility, be sure to let them know that you appreciate what they do! And when they get to telling you the story about the patient who… well, I won’t go there. So just listen and nod and smile, like they do, when you talk about gardening or other such things that don’t involve body parts and fluids.

Christmas Tangle 2020 – Carrot Noses and Glitter

My Annual Drawing: Christmas Tangle 2020. Inspiration for this years tangle came from the Golda Rader blog.

This:

What the Snowmen know to be true:
A person is snown by the company they keep.
Boldly go where snowman has gone before.
Dance like snowbody’s watching.
Keep your ice on the prize.
Mother nose best.
Snowman is an island.

That:

I don’t want Christmas season to end, because it’s the only time I can legitimately indulge in my particular addiction: glitter.
– Eloisa James –

The Car Guy is a man of many talents – one of them is wood-working. Recently he has branched out into projects using pieces of wood inlaid with epoxy resin.

In order to keep down the costs of epoxy trial and error, he bought a few small molds to make snowflakes. Then he discovered glitter… We not only have enough glitter snowflakes now for a small avalanche, snowflakes have been slipped into every Christmas card we have sent out. Glitter has been added to epoxy drink coasters too.

I have fond memories of the Glitter phase that our children and grand children went through. They all grew out of it. I expect The Car Guy will too – until next Christmas.

The Other:

I’d like to end this post by wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

If, like us, your government has decreed that you cancel any  ‘gathering of the clan’, I hope you find a way to make this Christmas a good one anyway.  You might want to consider purchasing some glue and some glitter.

Literary Origami – Book Folding the Letter ‘M’ and Fringe Flowers

The Marvelous letter ‘M’ at work:
My mother makes a mouthwatering mincemeat muffin.
Most monsters make messes.
Many merry maids milked many moody milk cows.

How many ‘M’s can you use in one sentence?

The Letter M – one row up, one row down, one row up, one row down!

The Letter M with curls and flowers

Directions:

Height of book: 9 inches
Number of pages used: 234 Pages (117 leaves)

First 12 folds:   1.5 inches from bottom
Row 1:   24 folds starting at bottom; first fold 1.5 inches from bottom; remaining folds .25 inches from each previous fold
Row 2:   23 folds starting at top; first fold .25 inches closer to bottom than last folds in Row 1; remaining folds .25 inches from previous fold
Row 3:   23 folds starting at bottom; first fold 1.5 inches from bottom; remaining folds .25 inches from previous fold
Row 4:   23 folds starting at top; first fold .25 inches closer to bottom than last fold in Row 1
Last 12 folds:   1.5 inches from bottom

Fringe Flowers:

There are quite a few web sites with instructions for fringe flowers. This is one of them: Exotic Fringed Flowers.

 

Crochet – Red Hatters At the Berry Farm

This is my latest crochet Scrumble – I call it Red Hat Ladies at the Berry Farm.

The project started off with a few red yarns. That got boring real fast. So I went shopping – but all the red yarns were fairly close in colour to the yarns I already had. Time to rethink the Red Theme. Green seemed like a logical addition; purple a bold choice. Pink and gold just crept in, uninvited, but reasonable choices, as it turned out.

When the project was finished – and I have no idea how that is determined – the piece  announced it was Red Hat Ladies touring a berry farm.

You’ve heard about the “Red Hatters” haven’t you? The Red Hat Society is an international social group for older women. The inspiration for their attire (red hats and purple clothing) came from the poem Warning, by Jenny Joseph.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
– Warning by Jenny Joseph –

Do you have a Red Hat? Do you ever wear Purple?

Literary Origami – As the Month Unfolded I Folded Easy Angles

We’re at the Bland Beige House in Arizona now. The weather here has been much better than Alberta – where the temperatures turned brutally cold soon after we headed south.

I haven’t been feeling at my best for a few months – interesting how life can throw you a medical curve ball and recovery takes more time and effort just because you are older!

The up side of feeling down is it gives you more ‘down time’. I spent some of it folding this book, which is the easiest book fold project I’ve done so far. I call it Easy Angles.

I ‘spruced it up’ by adding a black paper background on the two end pages, and some curls (See ‘How to make curly hair’ at Book Fold Angel.)

Instructions:
1. My book was 9 inches high. (22.8 cm) I used 176 pages, which is 88 book leaves.

2. The design consists of 4 ‘rows’. Each row takes 22 leaves.

3.The first fold (bottom fold) in each row is 1.75 inches (4.5 cm) from the bottom of the page.

4. The second fold in each row is 2 inches from the bottom of the page. (If you prefer to work in metric, pick a nice round number for each dimension.)

5. The third fold in each row is 2.25 inches from the bottom of the page.

6. Continue in .25 inch increments for the 22 folds.

7. When you have completed the 22 folds of the first row, start the second row… then the third, and then the last row.

8. If you want more rows than 4, then you either need a book with more pages or…
you could make fewer than 22 folds per row.

9. If your book is less than 9 inches high, you can either make fewer folds per row or…
you could make make each fold less than .25 inches from the previous fold.

Easy Peasy, right!

Do you know where ‘Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy’ comes from? In a 1970’s British TV commercial for Lemon Squeezy detergent, a little girl and an adult use Lemon Squeezy detergent to clean a stack of dishes quickly. At the end of the commercial the girl says “Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy”.

My Other Book Folding Posts:

Book Folding – Literary Origami

Book Folding 101

Folded Book Angel

Book Fold Angel – Decorated

Book Folding 202 – A Paw Print

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