Off to the Renaissance Faire!

A mere hour before I was set to leave for the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale, I was tenacious in my determination to finish a few more pieces for my outfit. I know, craziness, but it was absolutely going to happen. It should have happened before but life sometimes gets in the way. Plus, I wasn’t inspired like was I was that hour before we were supposed to leave, honest.

I wanted to have a true mermaid necklace, and I already had a table full of shells and beads strewn about so I knew it wouldn’t take me long to quickly piece something together. I already had the shell picked out, namely because it was one of the few that already had holes in it, but it was pretty too and would look perfect as a mermaid necklace.

All I had to do was string some beads. Plenty of time!

Look at all that mermaidiness!

The next priority was a mermaid purse. I obviously couldn’t make one from scratch and I had planned to throw my stuff in my hubby’s bag, but when I woke up in the morning, I had a stroke of genius (or insanity). I remembered my first attempt at a Bavarian square that wasn’t much of a square. I’d had no idea what I was going to do with it but now I knew! The colors were even close, not exact, but close enough. I sewed up the sides and added a handle and voila!

Just big enough for my phone, my comb and some makeup. The rest still went into hubby’s bag. 🙂

I finished it all off before hubby woke up. Score!

And then it was off to the Faire.

I always love going to Ren Faire. There are so many things to look at from the wonderful outfits, the booths, and the fun performances. I’ll post about our trip soon. 🙂

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My Top 6 Best Crochet Discoveries

I’ve been crocheting for a long time and every now and then I stumble across something new that totally excites me, inspires me, or just makes me extremely happy. Here are the top five things that blew my mind when I discovered them. I know these things have been around forever but at one time they were new to me and I’m so happy I found them.

1. Tunisian crochet

I was looking for a phone case idea (a very long time ago) and found a pattern for a really cute one but it looked knitted. I had just learned how to read patterns but the pattern looked completely foreign to me. Even though the pattern said crochet, it wasn’t any crochet I knew. I liked the case and it said crochet so I was determined to learn its language. It said it was done in Tunisian knit stitch so I looked it up and the heavens opened up for me. I was frustrated with knitting and abandoned it but still liked how it looked and this type of crochet was beautiful and allowed me to pretend I could knit. I’ve been Tunisian crocheting ever since and I absolutely love it!

The phone case that started it all!

Crocodile Stitch Cloak in progress

I have been plugging along on my crocodile stitch cloak and it’s growing so slowly. I work on it for a few hours every night. I’m finding that my right hand is getting crochet carpal tunnel and crochet elbow (I made those terms up but I’m very confident they apply). I’m very sad that I can’t work as long as I used to be able to on projects. I don’t know if this age related or project related or hopefully just a fluke. This particular stitch can be very demanding and is creating a lot of strain on my hands. But in the past, it was never a problem. I remember when a dear friend of mine told me she was developing carpal tunnel from knitting and my first thought was how glad I was I didn’t have that problem. I love crocheting so much I would hate to slow down because of something like that. And now here I am too. I take many breaks and stretch my hands periodically. I even bought these crafters gloves. They didn’t help me much and made my hands hot. I felt they got in the way more than they helped.

As the cloak is growing (albeit slowly), I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth the effort. I keep debating with myself if I should abandon ship and start over. I could find a different stitch that would look just as nice and still look like dragon scales (I definitely want it to look like dragon scales) and that would go much quicker. I could do a lacier design that would be lighter and cooler. But then I argue with myself (it’s not pretty) and I tell myself to just finish it. Then I think it might look cool but will it just sit in a drawer somewhere never to be actually used? Am I spending all this time on a fail? I already finished the hood and I’ve already spent so much time on the cloak part. I’ve set it aside for a few days contemplating it’s fate. I’ve committed so much time to it already I hate the thought of abandoning and consequently unraveling it but I’m not so sure I’m in love with it anymore. I probably will finish it (I can’t bring myself to undo that much work) and if I don’t like it as a cloak, I’ll keep it as a cozy afghan 🙂

Crocodile Stitch Cloak

Now that I am done with making all the dolls that were in my to do list, I was floundering around wondering what to make next, if anything. Instead, I decided to attack all the other little tasks I was supposed to do this summer and actually finished some of them! I can become obsessed with tasks sometimes and I ended up spending days organizing my photo files on my computer. And I do mean days. I was at my desk non stop for days! DAYS! Then I cleaned up my computer files in general. Then I went and organized my physical prints. I cleaned my office and craft room and reorganized that too.

Then I found myself back where I started. What to make :-). Working on the cape for the Anna crochet doll reminded me about the cloak I started and never finished about two years ago. The one I was going to wear to the Renaissance Fair two Renaissance Fairs ago LOL. I had lofty goals back then. I had just learned how to make the crocodile crochet stitch and fell in love with it. I wanted to make a mermaid skirt for Halloween and went searching for the perfect stitch that looked like scales. I made my skirt and then had the bright idea that a hooded cloak would look awesome with that stitch. I imagined a cloak that looked like I had killed a dragon and wore is at a cloak. Very nerdy but I was going to make it happen. I envisioned this shimmery, goldish, greenish cloak that wasn’t too hot (Ren Fair happens in the summer and it can get very hot!). I sadly didn’t have enough yarn in my stash that fit this description so that meant I would have to buy something. This would get pricey! Instead, I figured I should make a prototype before I went and spent all this money on something I didn’t know how to make. I didn’t want to run out of yarn in the middle of the project so I went with something I had a lot of that I didn’t mind using in the experiment. It was a gift from my sister and I’m not sure what kind of yarn it is but it seemed fancy and felt nice.

It’s pinkish in color (I suppose there could be a pink dragon somewhere) and I started the hood. I realized right away that I didn’t make the hood big enough or wide enough so I added a fringe in this Boucle yarn I had (bought with a coupon). It was a variegated white and blue. It reminded me of snow. I thought the two yarns looked good together. I had finished the hood right away back then and only did about two rows of the cape when I set it down.

I’m not sure why my desire to finish it petered out. I think the task ahead seemed daunting and I just kept putting it off.

Well, the time for my cloak is now! I will finish this cloak and it will be ready for Ren Fair next May. It won’t be goldish and greenish and shimmery but it will be pink and snow blueish and whitish and it will be hot but it will be pretty 🙂 I have already finished a few more rows and am looking forward to meeting this new cloak and maybe it will inspire me to go out and find that perfect yarn for the second cloak 🙂