The Milky Way Nap Sack

I know Mother's Day isn't until next week, but I finished this today and took photos and got them resized and uploaded so here it is a bit early. (Images are clickable for enlargement).






It's a baby's sleep sack with a breastfeeding symbol on one side and "The Milky Way" on the other.

I am entering this in a contest over at Craftster.com. The topic for the contest is anything food-related. So, I googled "feeding" and found this absolutely wonderful icon here. The symbol is the winning design in a contest they held for a breastfeeding icon/symbol. The article states that the designer of the symbol signed over the rights to public domain so anyone can use it for anything.

Ok, on to more photos of the making of the nap sack.






I actually took photos while making it this time since it was for a contest and I didn't know how much they expect you to show. This is showing how it's all one piece. I started at the top of the Mommys head, worked down the graph to the bottom, then, (after graphing the words at a Celtic graph generator here, I worked from that graph from the bottom on up to the top past the word "The". I hope that makes sense to you-all. LOL! You can see in the photo by where the hook is I hadn't gotten to the word "The" just yet.

I used a long H afghan hook.

Ok, once I finished making it with the graphs, I had to weave in all the loose ends. These next two photos show the backs as I joined the sides together with single crochet.






I used a regular H hook for the joining. The yarn is Red Heart Periwinkle and Caron One Pounder in white.






Then you turn it right-side-out.

Once the sides were joined, I thought it would be nice to put a fluffly cloud-like border around the seams. (It was a bit "puckery" in places. So I used two strands of a yarn by Moda Dea called Chichi in "baby blues" color. This yarn is so incredibly soft! I went up the sides and then around the top three times. This is where it would touch a baby's head/face so it's nice to have such soft yarn there.






Here's two shots of the inside. I decided not to line it. The H hook made an extremely tight stitch and it is very warm and snuggly. Plus a baby would probably have a sleeper on.






And finally, (not having any babies here to model this for you), here's two shots with a raggedy Ann doll to give you an idea of the size. She is 14 inches across by 18 inches tall. Once it's folded over and done, the nap sack is 14 inches by 19 inches long.
If you've made this doll kit of Ann you know it's about the same size. I put her in and her arms are still extended out and she fits just perfect. But I had to pull her head up so it would be out of the sack because the sack is longer than her. I don't remember how long a baby is, (it's been a while folks LOL!!!), but I imagine it's about the right size.

Anyway, Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers out there!

Jesus Is Just Alright With Me, Jesus Is Just Alright - Oh Yeah! - Afghan

My version of a portrait of Jesus Christ

(Images are clickable for enlargement)

I started this on Easter and finished it yesterday. I ran out and took pics before the rain came.

My hubby had been asking me to do a Jesus afghan. I'd been keeping my eye open for a really good picture to use. I finally found a web site here which was very interesting. It's about the Fibonacci Numbers system in Nature. "(The sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers is known as the Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, ... (each number is the sum of the previous two)."

And the website goes on to show different things in nature which use or have this particular number sequence in them, (such as shells), and of which we find pleasing to the eye.

Then it talked about the human face and how a graphed mask designed by a former plastic surgeon, Dr. Stephen Marquardt, was created using

"the golden section", (The ratio of successive pairs tends to the so-called golden section
(GS) - 1.618033989 . . . . . whose reciprocal is 0.618033989 . . . . . so that we have 1/GS = 1 + GS),
(don't ask me what all that means I have no idea; I'm just a mom from Indiana. LOL!!),

that enigmatic number that has long stood for beauty, and some of its relatives to make a mask that he claims is the most beautiful shape a human face can have.

There was a link to this portrait of Jesus here with this explaination of the portrait. "An artist's impression of the face of Jesus
based on the Shroud of Turin and corrected
to match Dr. Stephen Marquardt's mask."

So, ANYWAY, before I bore you-all to death, that is the picture I used to create the afghan.






It doesn't matter where you stand, the Jesus picture will be looking at you. This shot was taken from the side.

I used a size J cabled hook.
The yarn I used was the same kind as I used in my Purple Squishy afghan, that is TLC's Amore yarn in Celery and Dark Sage and Red Heart's version of the same type of yarn in black.
The yarn is very crinkly and has the feel of terry cloth.
The whites of the eyes are not the same type of yarn, however. For that I used the same Fashion Knit off-white yarn I used in Dobby's afghan.

This afghan was very hard for me. There were so many color changes and the yarn was difficult to work with for the tunisian stitch.







Once again is a front shot and then a back shot too.

Oh, and thanks to the Doobie Brothers for letting me borrow a line from one of their songs for the afghan's title.

Iron Eyes Cody Afghan for Earth Day

Ah, Sunday and the sun is shining! Finally!! I was able to go out and take photos of this for you-all.

Iron Eyes Cody

Image is clickable for enlargement)






If you are a child of the 60's, or 70's you will recognize this man. He is the one who became known as "The Crying Indian" from a "Keep America Beautiful" ad champaign released on Earth Day, 1971. It was titled "People Start Pollution, People Can Stop It."
(It went on to become one of the most successful and memorable campaigns in advertising history.) (I'm sure now-a-days he'd be called "The Crying Native American" but this was the early 70's after all).

Thanks to youtube, you can view this public service ad here... Keep America Beautiful
I hope that link works for you. If not, there are a few others with the same ad on that site.

Anyway, before making the afghan, I watched the ad many more times myself to try and get the colors right.

It reminded me how, when I'd seen it originally, it made me want to run out and just start picking up poptops and cigarette butts and trash I was now noticing for the first time everywhere. It's really a shame that we seem to have just accepted the trash around us now as an all-too-common, yet, unpreventable happening.

In fact, during the time I was making this afghan a couple of months ago, I was eating in my car outside a Wendy's restaurant and watching a Goodwill parking lot across the street. I saw a man leave the store with whatever he bought in a bag, walk to his van and open the side door, lean in for a while, then, take out the now-full bag. (He'd obviously just cleaned up his van and used the bag as a garbage container). He walked a short distance to where the parking lot ended. There was a steep drop to a water-retention pond below. He hurled the bag over into the water! I was shocked!

We need more campaings like this. We need to keep reminding the public that this is unacceptable and everyone needs to act responsibly.

So, anyway, now I'll talk about the making of the afghan itself.
It is the tunisian stitch crochet done with a size J cabled afghan hook.
I wanted to use all earthy tones. The background is Caron's Rainbow Omber called Earth Tones. His face is done in TLC Heathers yarn called Oatmeal. The black is Caron One Pounder in black. For his feather, I used Caron Feathers yarn. (It's a Peacock color.) The whitish area which is around his neck, (I'm not sure what to call that he is wearing) is Red Heart's Aran Fleck. (I always laugh at that color title. It sounds like a person's name. I'm sorry, have you met Aran Fleck? LOL!!!) For his clothes, I chose a maize sort of yellow. (I had a few old Berella skeins I got at Goodwill.) There's no color name on these, just a color number of 8870. I couldn't find this particular color on-line anywhere. I'm not sure they make it anymore. The red for his hair ties is a sort of fuzzy, fluffy yarn called Carmen Wine Red from Patons. And finally, (there are a lot of colors in this afghan), the most important part of the afghan; the tear. It is Red Heart Ocean. (Yes, an ocean of tears). It is a variegated yarn and I chose a section where it becomes turquoise - ish. It really stands out and I think, as he is a Native American, the turquoise is very appropriate.

Whew! That's a lot of boring yarn talk. LOL!

Once again I'll remind you why you're reading this...





The front and then the back of the afghan. The afghan measures 32 inches x 32 inches. Wow, a perfect square. That never happens.

Here's a link to wikipedia where they have some info about Iron Eyes Cody. He's even got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame now too. At wikipedia it says "He was born Espera De Corti, the son of Sicilian immigrants Francesca Salpietra and Antonio De Corti. He was not born a Native American, but he claimed to be part Cherokee and part Cree." Isn't that funny? Well, at any rate, it's what his face has become to symbolize that is the important thing, right?

Happy Earth Day (April 22nd) Everyone!

Dobby Afghan

Many people requested to see a house-elf doll or afghan. So, heeeeeeere's Dobby...
(Images are clickable for enlargement).






It reads:

"Dobby is used to death threats, sir. Dobby gets them 5 times a day at home." JKR

I have no idea who originally drew this picture of Dobby. I found it at a stencil site and I've looked and looked for it's original source but found nothing. I don't think it was made from a photo of dobby from the movie. If it was, they sure did a great job. Anyway, if anyone knows who made this drawing of Dobby to begin with, just send me the info so I can give them credit for drawing it. (My e-mail address link is at the bottom of this blog).

Dobby looks so sad in this picture I knew I couldn't use the quote when he receives Harry's sock from Lucius Malfoy and shouts, "Dobby is free!"
It was going to have to be a sad thing that Dobby said, (and I think this was the most poignant thing he's ever said too), (for me anyway.) I know I must bore you all with my occasional serious side to some things, but I'll just say that when I read the quote the first time; it made me think of a child living in an abusive home. It's something an abused child would also say if they could speak the words.






Here's a front and a back shot of the afghan.

I used my cabled J hook again. The portraits are smaller and the stitches are tighter.

Yarn used was Caron dark purple, Red Heart medium purple, and a yarn called Fashion Knit by tma yarns which actually has been treated with aloe to "soothe your hands as you knit". (Well, I don't know if that helped my hands at all, but I liked the color.) It's called off white but it's more like cream and it looks really nice with the purples. Oh! and the eyes are a Red Heart green. (I checked in the book Chamber of Secrets to make sure, and his eyes are definately green.)







The afghan measures 40" X 30". It would be easy to mount to a board and hung as a portrait.
Hope you enjoyed it!
I'm really looking forward to July for the next movie and, most importantly, the last book!!
I'll probably be a basket-case before and after I read it!

edit: Oh, this is so funny! Happiness, (that is her username), over at Crochetville noticed that the "r" in the word threats is missing! I'm going to fix that straight away. Did anyone else notice? Sometimes, just like Neville, you have to stand up face-to-face with your friends and tell them they are wrong! Thanks so much to Happiness for setting me straight!