House Graffiti
Once the rooms of our earthen house were defined by walls, I labeled the girls’ rooms, hoping to make more real to them the possibility of having their own spaces.
Inspired by my work, Eva added her artistry to the master bedroom floor. There’s something about spray paint…
I hope my daughters remember these symbols of love under their feet when they walk around in their rooms. And I will think often about the happy home hidden within my happy home.
Crochet Charm Lace Along: Pinning Motifs
It’s a great day when you finish all the motifs for your Crochet Charm Lace project! To me, that’s when the real fun begins: arranging the motifs on the template.
The last of my motifs were blocked on Monday, so that night, while the Texas Longhorns were thwacked by the Fighting Ducks of Oregon, I sat on the floor in front of the coffee table at my parents’ house, arranging and pinning Perspective Daisies. It was a lot more fun than actually watching the football game.
I spread the different flowers around evenly, taking care to avoid symmetry in the design. You might call it “planned randomness.”
The orange flower arrangement looked elegant. “Do I really need to add the green and magenta filler motifs?” I wondered. The finished lace would have more open spaces, but not too many.
The ballgame was over, so I rolled up the fabric template and packed up to go home. Luckily, I had time to think this over.
Today I spread the template out and photographed it with just the orange flowers on it. Then I placed the green and magenta circle motifs and took another picture.
Digital photography is a great design tool. You can photograph your project with different arrangements or colorways, then download them onto a computer and look at all the photos on the screen at the same time. That’s the easiest and best way to make a design decision—with all the choices in front of you.
The green and magenta circle motifs filled in the spaces between flowers, which made the lace seem sturdier. The extra color added richness and made the arrangement look happier and more natural. Okay, okay. Rich, happy, and natural wins over elegant any time.
But you know, that’s my opinion. You are free to make your own choices about arranging motifs, without any thought or fear about what anyone else thinks.
Here they are all pinned! I ran out of safety pins, which are preferable, but straight pins will do the job. Just be careful when you’re working with the straight pins—they can stab! Next step: sew the motifs together.
Crochet Charm Lace Along: Blocking Motifs
Ask any good craftsperson about finishing, and you will hear the same thing: finishing takes longer than you think it should, but finishing must be done, and must be done well. It doesn’t matter whether you’re sewing a dress, crocheting a sweater, or building a house.
That brings us to blocking, an essential part of finishing your work. Blocking is best practice. All the pros block their work.
A reader, writing about crocheted flowers, said “no worries, you can block it into shape!” But no, blocking is not a way to alter the shape of your crochet or to force it into a shape it wasn’t meant to be.
Blocking allows your stitches to assume their intended shape; it relaxes and sets the yarn so the stitches will retain their intended shape.
The stitches of crochet and knitting tend to pull in one direction or another, so they often cause your work to curl. My little Perspective Daisies are so curly they look like nine-legged spiders.
Blocking to the rescue! Here’s how to block small pieces, like flowers. You will need:
- A place to lay out your work to dry and maybe to pin into
- Water
- Pins (possibly)
- Steam iron
- Clean press cloth (optional)
Moisten crocheted piece. You can spray the piece with a mister, or hold a handful of flowers under the tap and squeeze out excess water.
Unfurl and stretch out all the bits that are meant to be flat. I did this for each and every daisy petal. That took some time.
If a piece still curls stubbornly, pin it flat.
You may stop here and simply let the items dry, epecially if your yarn will not take well to steam.
If you are going to steam your pieces, consider turning them face-down. This protects the public side of your piece in case the unthinkable happens (you know, scorching).
You may wish to use a press cloth to protect your pieces. Moisten and wring out a clean tea towel or cloth diaper. Lay it over the crocheted piece.
Bearing the weight of the steam iron in your hand, hold the iron over the pieces and let the steam penetrate the stitches. (The iron will release steam from the press cloth, too.)
Let the pieces dry, remove pins if necessary.
For a thorough discussion of blocking and its various uses, read Lily Chin’s Couture Crochet Workshop.
Watch for “Pinning Motifs” on November 15, 2013.
Paired Leaflet Frond Tutorial
Hello to Jan G. and her Knitting xxxx group! Jan asked for a tutorial about the Paired Leaflet Frond, which is part of the “Trillium and Fronds” pattern (pp. 126-127) in Crochet Garden. Thank you for asking!
The Paired Leaflet Frond’s delicate construction is worked from the top down, opposite of how we know a frond or vine grows. It does have a single top leaf, which you can see on page 16, where the Paired Leaflet Front is featured in the section on Steam Blocking. In the rest of the book, we used it as a stem, so the flowers are hiding the top leaf.
Reminder: In Crochet Garden, when you see a list of stitches, you are meant to put each stitch in the next st of the row below, unless otherwise instructed. For instance,
“2 hdc, sc, sl st” means
“hdc in next 2 sts, sc in next st, sl st in next st”
Once you have made the top leaf, *ch 15, which is the suggested number of stitches for the stem and first leaflet.
To make the first leaflet, sc in 3rd ch from hook, hdc in next 2 sts, 3 sc in next st. Those last 3 sts are going to cause this leaflet to bend back in the direction of the top leaf.
For most crocheters, this will be the left-hand leaflet. Photo A shows the frond up to this point. The arrow points to the st with 3 sc in it.
Now for the second leaflet: ch 6 (see Photo A2), sc in 3rd ch from hook, hdc2tog over the next 2 ch-sts, sc in next ch, sl st in the same st as the 3 sc from the first leaflet. This stitch will be stretched out, so you will be able to see it well.
Photo B shows the completed second leaflet. That last sl st is on the hook.
Here’s the tricky part. You need to turn the paired leaflets so that their base is up, their tips pointing down or toward you. When I rotate them counterclockwise, everything comes out in the right places: the top leaf hangs away from the hook, the yarn is behind the work and the hook in a sensible working position.
Now yarn over (see Photo C, which is at this point).
Pull the yarn through the st on the hook. The new stitch you create will show between the two leaflets (see Photo D, where the arrow points at this stitch). Now your are in the correct position to start again at the * and make as many leaflet pairs as you like.
You can make the distance between the leaflet pairs shorter or longer by chaining less or more than 15 sts at the beginning of each repeat.
Hope this helps, Jan!
Inside Walls and Over Heads
Slabs are tricky. Because you don’t have the usual points of reference, it’s difficult to tell how big (or small) the rooms are.
But by the time the daffodils peeked out of the ground at the end of January 2013, our builder Callon provided those points of reference by framing most of the interior walls of the house.
I wandered around the place, gazing up at the tall walls and feeling that we might someday be able to live in this house.
As you can see in this photo, we moved our breakroom (meaning we moved the lawn chairs) into the library, one of the most eagerly anticipated rooms in the house. The wall in the foreground is one of the two short lengths of exterior wood framed wall. This one joins the library corner of a previous post with the front door corner, which had yet to be finished.
Ceilings appeared over our heads, like this one in the master bedroom. The loblolly pine beams and planks were rough-sawn at a sawmill nearby. We were happy to find out that a 1 x 6″ plank is really one inch by six inches, which is not the case with lumber you buy at the regular lumberyard.
The beams really appeal to the German half of my soul—the part with thick forests, mountain Gasthauses, and Grimms’ legends and fairy tales. I love how the curved edge of the trees shows on the lower side of each beam.
With Callon on the job, events moved quickly. Rachel and I realized we wouldn’t be able to finish building the northeastern walls in time to keep Callon and his crew busy. Did Callon know anyone who could help us? He did, and soon “mud daubers” Fred and Art started working. Rachel and I stayed busy sifting dirt and sand, mixing slurry, and ferrying bricks to the two men. We only worked part time, but Fred and Art worked full time. Those walls got tall in a hurry. Callon even built some earthen wall himself.
Windows at Last!
I love this picture of the library arch, shot from high up on a scaffold in January 2013. The frame for the bond beam was still in place over the arch, but our builder had already closed in the gable and part of the north and south walls. We were still working on the east and north walls of the house, so we had lots of bricks stockpiled.
While all the bond-beam pouring and drying-in were going on, Charles and I waited long and anxiously for a phone call from a limestone quarry in Leuters, Texas. Our window sills were sawn and hewn there. The forklift driver was able to load our first shipment directly into Charles’s pickup, which groaned just a little under the weight.
Not long after that, Charles and I visited the house site and experienced another wonderful moment in our house-building adventure: our windows were installed!
The gray stuff underneath the windows is lead. It will protect the earthen wall from any water that might seep in under or around the windows. Our first experience with lead was when we lived in England. People used lead sheeting to cover the tops of bay windows. They used mallets to bang it into shape.
When the lead was delivered, my dad unloaded the heavy pallet with his tractor and brought it to the building site. The next day, I looked all around for it. I knew it weighed hundreds of pounds, so I imagined a large roll of metal. It was nowhere to be found!
Then Rachel, who was building walls with me, said, “There’s a new pallet over by the trees.” It was the one. The lead rolls were no more than 8″ in diameter. I later lifted the leftover lead (by that time about 4″ in diameter and 24″ wide). It was very heavy. You knew that. I knew it too, intellectually, but the physical reality was a shock.
You can see the limestone window sills in this picture taken from the inside. The sills are on top of the lead, and the window frame is on top of the inside sill. Callon and crew added outside sills later.
Crochet in Glen Rose TX
While our daughter Eva and her friend explored the river in Glen Rose, Texas, Charles and I were freeeeeee! At moments like that I imagine the wind blowing my hair in a beautiful way, as I peer into the distance, ready for any adventure that comes my way. Great rock music is playing in my head, adding to the wildness and freedom.
In this state of wild freedom, we strolled around the town square, where we found a farmers’ market, antique shops, and a local museum. Local museums can surprise you with the strange and interesting items on display. They are staffed by local people, they serve local people, and local people donate the stuff they think is important. Needlework, for instance.
The Somervell County Museum surprised me—a wild, free, and cool author of crochet flower books—with a vintage crocheted flower, complete with typewritten instructions! The flower’s maker and designer are unknown. I asked for and received permission to take photos.
Somervell County Five-Petal Flower
(as written on the paper accompanying the flower)Ch 12, slip st in first st.
Ch 1, 15 sc in ring, sl st in 1st sc
Ch 20, skip last 4 sts, joined dc in next 4 sts, joined trc in next 2 sts, 8 tr, 1 hdc, 1 sc, sl st in next sc on ring
Ch 2, turn, sk sl st and 2 previous sts, dc in next st, (ch 1, dc in next end st) 5 times.
Ch 2, turn, 3 joined dc in last dc, 2 joined tr in next space, (1 tr in next dc, 1 tr in next space) 4 times, dc in next dc, hdc and sc in last space, sl st in next 2 sc of ringRepeat for 5 petals.
In another display case, Mrs. Erie Dewberry’s crocheted collar delighted me with corrugated leaves reminiscent of Irish Crochet lace. Mrs. Dewberry (1881-1966) was a resident of Glen Rose.
Charles was glad to find fossils and photos of old buildings.
Crochet and fossils at the county museum—good times for a temporarily wild and free mom and dad.
Drying In
Last year about this time, the extremely efficient, thorough, and excellent builder, Callon Ratliff, agreed to finish the inside of our earthen house.
Before Callon could start installing windows and framing inside walls, my efficient, thorough, and excellent family team had prepared the house for drying-in. This is why, as related in the previous post, we worked in the cold and rain to finish the bond beam. Callon would soon be free to work on the house, so we had to hurry, hurry, hurry!
The finished bond-beam covered the south, west, and about two-thirds of the north walls of the house. Once it was cured, Jerry and Van attached angled sheet metal to the bond beam and the eaves. Callon and his crew attached M-panel sheet metal to the angles to span the area between the eaves and bond beam. My favorite part was when they closed in the western gable end.
Now the gable end is open.
Now the gable end is closed!
Crochet Charm Lace Along: Arranging Motifs
If you like jigsaw puzzles, you will love the next step in Crochet Charm Lace: arranging the motifs.
In the previous post, we talked about how to estimate the number of motifs you will need by crocheting enough motifs for one quarter of the project and arranging them. This turns out to be a great test run.
I arranged my Perspective Daisies and Ladder Leaves every which way. All the arrangements looked awkward to me, I think because of how difficult it was to point the leaves in random directions. Or they disrupted the roundness of the daisies too much.
Some of you will look at the photo above, the one with daisies and leaves, and say, “That looks good to me.” If you were making this particular project, I would say, “Go for it!” We all have different tastes, and we have to trust our gut feelings about what we like.
The leaves had to go, so what next?
All my Crochet Charm Lace projects so far have had small round motifs or in the case of the Rose Cape, small plain flowers. I crocheted a few one-round motifs of sc, and a few of hdc. The next photo shows how they look with the daisies. Better, I thought.
The green dots were a great improvement over the leaves, but I couldn’t resist experimenting a little further. The orange and green were bright and kind of acid-looking. I tried toning the brightness with some magenta-color dots, which were single rounds of sc and hdc like the green.
That was even better! Though oddly, it looks better in real life than it does in the photos. Weird. Oh, and also, these photos show the flowers facing up, because I could visualize the finished piece better that way. When I pin them to the template, they will be face-down.
By making only enough leaves for a quarter of the piece, I didn’t invest too much time in making leaves. One quarter is enough to test your main idea, and then you can go on to finish crocheting all the motifs!
I’m still working on the flowers, but they’re almost done. On November 11, arranging the motifs.
Bond Beams
The southern wall is the longest earthen wall in our house, so my friend Rachel and I were happy to lay its last brick in September 2012. My brother Van and our cousin Jerry came as quickly as they could, to begin work on the bond beam.
They set up frame boards and ran re-bar along the top of the walls. Our bricks were so sandy and dry that drilling holes for the metal stakes was an exercise in frustration. Van drilled the hole, the sand filled it back up. Finally we hit upon a solution: just add water! Drill, pour water in sandy hole, drill again, wet sand doesn’t fall back in. Yay!
It wasn’t until December that we finished pouring the bond beam for the great majority of the earthen walls. My sister-in-law Kathy joined us on a cold and miserable day to pour the north and west library walls and the bond beam for the infamous arch of a previous post.
The next day, in order to finish the southern wall, we worked in the rain until after dark. Jerry mixed concrete, I carried buckets of concrete and lifted them up to Van, and Van poured and smoothed the concrete.
We had around 40 bags of concrete for the southern wall and we knew we would probably use most of them. We were cold, tired, and sore. I don’t know how Van and Jerry managed. This is the trick I played on myself. I didn’t look at the pile of concrete bags. I didn’t look at the pile of empty bags. If Jerry poured me a bucket of concrete, I carried it; if there were no more buckets, I would know that we were done.
It wasn’t quite that simple—but that strategy kept me going almost to the end, when Van said, “I think we’ll need about two more bags.” At that point, pure relief kept me going, and the anticipation of a long hot bath.
