Monday 19 November 2012

Weekend crafting

My free time has been spent with my hands busy, given that Christmas will be here soon.  I've been machine sewing, hand sewing, stuffing, crocheting, and felting. 

Here's the latest to come off the crochet hook - a chainmail hood inspired by a little knight in my life.  The free pattern can be found here.


I am very new to crochet - so new that I found out while watching YouTube tutorials that the few attempts I had made earlier were wrong!  Well, not wrong, just not what I had intended.  The main challenge I faced with this pattern was working in the round - knowing where to stop, where the slip stitch to join was to go.  I also struggled with adjusting the sizing to work for the little one I had in mind.  For while the picture looked like it would fit the child I had in mind, in reality what I had created would be on the large side for my husband.  After a couple of attempts, I found the right size, and then it was a cinch to finish.

Today, as I finished off the hood, I smiled at the progress I made.  Sure, I grumbled about having to pull out some of my work.  Sure, I wondered aloud what to do to alter the pattern, because I didn't know how altering it early in the pattern would impact other alternations later on - I've never altered a pattern before.  But then I took a breath and everything just worked.  First, I experimented to find the right size for the top of the hood - I had lots of volunteers to help me.  Then, I put my brain to work to think through the future adjustments, which required just a smidge of effort.  And while it isn't perfect, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  And I'm delighted that our pace of life allowed me the space to take a few dances with failure without getting to stressed out about it.

No comments:

Post a Comment