Flora

I think I learned to crochet around age eight or nine, and since then I’ve gone through periods of crocheting a lot or not doing it at all. It’s something I know well enough that I don’t have to focus energy on how to do it; the skills and knowledge I have just flow outward through the intention and physical motions. It feels like a kind of superpower.

People ask me if it’s hard: not usually, but words like that don’t really apply. They ask me if it’s hard to learn and I say adults tend to over-intellectualize things. The basics are not complicated and for most projects all you need to know is a couple of different stitches (often only one) and how to read and count. The rest is muscle memory and learning how yarn and crocheted fabrics feel in your hands: what feels right, what needs adjusting. I’ve seen people try to learn to crochet and get frustrated because they can’t do what I do after a couple of hours. Well, it’s not the kind of thing you learn with your brain in an afternoon, especially if you have little experience with handiwork. You need to give it time and attention. (Ah there’s the real challenge.)

I say this like I have some kind of superior knowledge. Of course I don’t, at least outside of crochet. I make the exact same misapprehensions in other areas of life.

The other thing that is funny is when people ask me how I have the patience to complete a project. I don’t need patience for the things I enjoy; I need patience for the things I don’t.

I get it though. Crochet is not instant gratification, at least not of the sort where you go shopping and have a Thing in your hand immediately. It’s a slow drip of gratification. Which is healthy for me, as I quite like instant gratification and I need to practice an alternative.

I have to say though, the internet has stimulated my recent increase in crochet, and that’s partly by increasing the instant gratification factor, thanks to Etsy. I avoid Ravelry, due to the social media aspect. But I love Etsy for finding patterns. Being able to instantly find high quality patterns has made me more excited about crocheting, and more likely to complete projects and move on to new ones. I am ok with this. I don’t mind spending a small amount of money to support other creators, who are women much like me making a little extra money on their small businesses. Not everything needs to be or should be free. And the patterns I buy are really wonderful and have been put together with such care. I would much rather pay for an excellent pattern than struggle with a poor one.

People also ask if I make up my own patterns, and the answer is yes I can, but it takes a different kind of energy. When I’m improvising I often have to re-do things that don’t quite work. Sometimes I’m in the mood for that, sometimes I’m not.

My latest project involves a pattern is from the wonderful Ukrainian designer Galina Veremeenko, and you can explore her work here. When I followed her pattern to the letter, this was the result:

I created this doll for a silent auction last January. She did her job of parting people from their money and has gone to her forever home with one of my lovely classmates. I thoroughly enjoyed this project and had a bit of separation anxiety when she was done, so I knew I wanted to create another doll.

So this spring I re-visited the pattern but did some modifying and improvising. I wanted the look to be reminiscent of the costumes our adult group wore this year for our repertoire dance.  See here for a photo of our costumes.

This is my hot rod:

I changed the embroidery on the blouse to resemble the flower embroidery on our peasant blouses, and I added crocheted lace to the collar and cuffs. I kept the poppy headdress as it is so beautiful and iconic and makes the doll immediately identifiable as Ukrainian.

To create the poyas (sash), I experimented with a six-strand braid. I made some mistakes but was happy with the result and decided to not be a perfectionist.

I couldn’t exactly recreate the floofy skirt and crinolines we wore with this texture of yarn. But, I added a lace trim to the petticoat.

The skirt happens to naturally curl up in the back, offering a peak at the lace and resembling how our skirts would fly during our dance, which is perfect.

I also added a bun in place of the braid on the original pattern

Now what’s in her basket?

This is all my invention. All of our dances this year involved something to do with baskets, either going to the market with a basket or taking presents to a wedding in a basket. So I had to give my doll a basket. In it are two items: a scarf and a bunch of radishes. Scarfs were featured prominently in the dances, and I had to practice throwing a scarf dramatically (not so easy haha). I created this mini-scarf from  a granny square template and just kept adding rows and alternating colours.

The “radishes” are a little pun on our group name: an in-joke only the ladies would fully get. I had a lot of fun figuring them out:

So, that’s my latest, and now I just have to figure a way to display her, which is still a conundrum. And last but not least, the name “Flora” was chosen by my eldest daughter.