I made a lot of progress on Monday. Now, the arms are attached and the body portion is finished.
I did make a couple of mistakes, mostly in doing a stitch or two properly. I didn’t see them until after the arms were attached, and I decided to leave them, since the doll will be dressed at the end.
Now to see if I can get the head done properly!
Sundays are much like Saturdays. Anything that isn’t done on the first day of the weekend has to be done on the second!
I did make some progress. I finished the legs and began the process of joining them and starting the body. I actually got further than it shows here, but first, I did single stitches instead of half-double stitches, so I had to frog* back. Then I kept getting the count wrong… and had to frog back some more!
As you can see above, I didn’t get all that far on Saturday.
In our household, Saturday is “chore” day. We often have a lot of errands to run. I try to get the menu planned for the upcoming week. And if I am lucky, we do the grocery shopping. It’s also the main day to go to the other side of town, if necessary. Arts and crafts are at the bottom of the list, and often get bypassed.
Hello! By now you have seen Tandika's article explaining why it’s been so long since we have posted anything. It’s been a wild three years! Things are finally getting back to normal (although as she mentioned, a new normal.)
This post, as well as the next several “The Artist’s Husband” posts, were written three years ago, when I thought they’d be published. I’ll post these about once a week until I work through the backlog.
One of the things I’m doing to get “back to normal” is to continue learning to crochet. To make sure I have accountability and continued motivation, I’m participating in a “make along”. This is where a group of people work on a project together, with specific goals over a space of time.
In my case, I decide to do a Weebee Doll month-long project. At the end of the project, I will have a sitting, Weebee Doll with a complete winter outfit.
2020… 2021… 2022… 2023…
The Covid Pandemic affected every single person in the world, each, in their own way. For many, it was a matter of being sick, and then waiting… sometimes impatiently… for life to return to normal.
For others, life has changed, substantially.
That was the case for me. I had, truly, no idea how much it would change, and how long it would take to get back to something resembling “normal”.
Last week , I showed a program I was working on to generate deJong attractor images. I mentioned I’d be working on adding some color. I am not there yet! This is a mere stop to take a breather, and to talk about an intermediate step: smoothing the image. Here is one of my images from last week:
While interesting, there are some problems here. I am just calculating points, and as each one is calculated, I draw it on the canvas, even if it has already been drawn.
In my last post , we played The Chaos Game and ended up with a Sierpinski Triangle. It’s quite nice as far as it goes, but there is not a lot of variation and visual interest beyond the initial surpise of finding it buried in the chaos at all. This time around, lets look at the de Jong attractor.
First, some terminology! An Attractor is a dynamic system with a set of numeric values to which the system tends to evolve over time, no matter what state it starts in.
I’m finding that, if I choose carefully, a project takes me about a week to complete. I don’t crochet all day, every day. Just when the time allows. But I’m getting a better feel for how long it takes me to complete something.
So I was cruising around on Etsy, and I found an adorable pattern that looked like it wouldn’t be too difficult, but it would be fun when completed.
Today, we’ll play The Chaos Game! It’s easy to play, and it goes like this:
First, put three points on your paper. These will be the vertices of a triangle (so don’t put them in a straight line!) Any triangle will work, but be sure to leave lots of area inside where the triangle will be to make it easier to see what it going on.
Next, you need a way to randomly choose one of those vertices over and over.
It’s hairdo day for my little doll! I think she’s very cute!
This hairstyle is a wig that is crocheted flat and then stitched together. Next time, I will choose a lighter weight yarn, as this turned out a bit heavy. Fortunately, the “stub” neck style is very sturdy, and the head isn’t flopping over.
I have to say, making the “curls” wasn’t a lot of fun. It was difficult to get the hook through the chain after each section of 2 single-crochets.
I’m so excited! Isn’t she cute!
Her head came out perfectly and, as far as I can see, I didn’t make any mistakes!
That’s a first!
Now, to try crocheting her some hair! I think I’ll make her a dark blonde. Just dark enough to provide contrast to the body, but lighter than brown.
Stay tuned!
I’m taking a short break from the Bina the Bear pattern because I found a cute, crochet doll pattern, for free, on Ravelry . It is Sweet Ami's by Beth Webber.
I only had a minor problem, with the left arm, but I’ve gotten this far without any major issues. I’m much happier with the tops of the feet for this project. They are much better than Bina’s!
Next I have to make the head.
The largest part of this project, the body, is almost done. I did make some mistakes, but about half-way through, I got the hang of it. After that, things got much better!
After a few more rows, I have to do the tail, and stitch it to the body. Then, I can move on to the arms.
Bina is starting to shape up.
Let’s draw some squares!
Last week I introduced Clojure as a possible replacement for Javascript for my generative art pursuits. Clojure has the Quil library that provides many of the same capabilities that p5.js provides to Javascript. Let’s look at a simple example. This Javascript/p5.js program generates an image like the one at the top of this post.
function setup() { createCanvas(800, 800); background(240); stroke(0); let size = 500; let offset = 50; let centerX = width/2; let centerY = height/2; let topLeftX = centerX - size/2; let topLeftY = centerY - size/2; fill(200, 150, 250, 150); rect(topLeftX, topLeftY, size, size); rect(topLeftX-offset, topLeftY-offset, size, size); rect(topLeftX+offset, topLeftY+offset, size, size); } The program is fairly simple: create the canvas, fill in the background with grey, set the stroke (line) color to black, set the fill color, and draw three rectangles slightly offset from each other.
This body is growing. I’ve added stuffing to the feet, legs and part of the body.
It’s fun to see this shape up, but I now realize one leg seems to be a row shorter than the other.
I bought a new row counter, so maybe that will help?
Well, I have two legs and got them crocheted together.
And I’ve learned some things:
I don’t know how to do the invisible decrease properly, I have holes at the top of the feet, where the stuffing shows through. They just look messed up to me.
Crocheting on dark yarn requires good light. I keep messing up the stitch count. I think I may be skipping over a stitch occasionally because I didn’t see them.
I finished the first bug from the Lalylala book. So I feel ready to tackle a bigger-sized project.
I’ve chosen another Lalylala, but this time from her Doll Project. Bina the Bear , appears to be the first one, since it says No.I on the instructions. I figure it will be the least complicated and give me practice with the basic project without any additional things added, other than ears and tail.
I finished all the parts for the blue bottlefly! I am so happy with the way she turned out. And I am happy that I am giving crochet a go. Some parts have been a bit of a struggle, but mostly, it’s been fun!
The wings were easier to make than I thought they would be. I was worried, because there was a graphic “chart”, but the instructions were also written out.