Green Ruffle Doily

So, I was looking around on Ravelry.com for another doily to crochet, and I could not find a doily that looked like the design in my head. I decided to make my own.

This pattern is great for learning some new techniques, including how to double treble crochet, cobweb stitch, and cluster stitch. Purchase it here. Please leave any questions or corrections for the pattern in a comment on this post.

Hobbes Hat

I love Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes. I consider it, if not the best comic series ever written, then certainly among the top three (along with Charles Schulz's Peanuts and Jim Davis's Garfield). If you have never been entertained by this zany duo, here is a small introduction:

This is the first Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, printed on November 18, 1985. So began Calvin's hyperactive, curious-about-every-little-thing, and fantastic adventures trekking through the woods with his imaginary best pal, Hobbes the stuffed tiger. I've been ferociously reading this comic ever since my second grade best friend Katie Quinn introduced me to this strip:

As a fellow ADD kid sentenced to three years of brain-addling Ritalin, I sympathized with the mischevious, imaginative six-year old. I too dreamed of escaping the dreadful reality of mind-numbing math into a fatastical world of faeries and goblins, wizards, and witches...or crazed aliens like Calvin:

Wow, me and Calvin share a lot in common in our views of our elementary school principles. I can remember copying the handbook of my school in the office; I was being punished yet again for forgetting shoes, being late, wearing the wrong socks...you name it, I got written up for it. My recesses were spent standing along the yard fence, watching other children play. Imagine the inspiration I gained from Calvin, who beat them all with his own imagination! With Calvin, you could go snowsledding, travel through space; even hunt for buried treasure. Check out other fun Calvin times here. For a more in depth review of Calvin adn Hobbes and an interview with Bill Watterson, go here.

On another, slightly connected (bare with me), note, I recently crocheted my friend Lindsey a Donkey Hat. We spotted the hat on a Will and Grace episode one note, and Lindsey, delighted, demanded that I crochet it for her. I hopped on Ravelry.com (check out this amazing crochet site! if you knit or crochet, it is so worth it.) and found the pattern already written up by Angelina Bradley.

 She wrote an excellent, easy to follow pattern, and I made the hat in just three hours. However, I had some trouble attaching the ears. I was thinking over this issue and decided to make another hat to perfect the technique of attaching the ears. I wanted to make the hat my own, so I started brainstorming about other animal hats. I read some Calvin and Hobbes to get some imaginative inspiration. Then it struck me, who better than Hobbes himself? And this is the result:

Pattern coming soon!

Why Crochet?

I started crocheting to relax. I'm still not a very relaxed person, but crochet is still the most soothing activity I can find...besides maybe punching somebody. But that's not soothing in the beginning, only afterwards. But anyway, crocheting is wonderful for calming down. The repetitive motions, the engaging challenge of the stitch, and the slow creation of a woven fabric all combine into a very powerful force of tranquility. You can simply concentrate on the stitches and let go of whatever is troubling you. However, this is not the only benefit of crocheting.

Crocheting is also traditional. My grandmother taught me how to crochet the first time when i was 8 years old. It didn't take then, but I remember sitting with grandmother, watching eagerly as she quickly crocheted up a granny square. I was fascinated at how something as meager as yarn could be transformed into a loosely woven or tightly knit fabric. She was delighted that I would sit still with her for such a long time. Now that I'm older and a bit more dedicated to the craft, I always have a wonderful resource a phone call away. My momo has patterns in her closet dating back to 1940, and She is always happy to dig through patterns with me.

Lastly, crochet is an artform. Though a well-written pattern can be fun to follow, it is always nice to branch out and try something new. Most of my experiments fail, but that makes them fun. I will post some of my more succesful efforts here, and probably discuss where the failures went wrong. I will also post tutorials on how to crochet, and I hope you will stumble upon them and give it a try.

Here's the first; my friend Patrick Lobre helped me put it all together.  Introduction to Crocheting