Crocheted floret hat

A few times a year, I join some other moms from an online discussion board in an anonymous, international craft swap. This round, I was matched up with a Canadian mama who has a pink-loving four-year-old girl. Ontario winters may be cold, but wool can be pretty.

5 dress

My older girl, Self-Possessed Tot (aka Math Geeklet), designed this dress for her upcoming 5th birthday. She ignored my suggestions of a tasteful pink floral and marched confidently to my fabric stash, made selections according to criteria known only to her, selected a button to top it all off, then held out the pile to me with a decided, "Here." She arranged the little scraps herself, asked me if it was okay if they overlapped, then satin-stitched them together. She asked for a pocket with a buttonhole, a prominent 5, and a halter dress style to be cool enough for summer.

She seems happy with the result. Phew.

Perfumed flower bracelet -- small but sweet idea

It turns out that if you sit in a playground full of kindergartners and knit or crochet, inevitably you will attract a crowd of big-eyed onlookers.

Earth Cup owner Natasa put in an order for coffee cup sleeves and I was making crocheted flowers to embellish them. My preschooler and her classmates discovered my flower stash and spontaneously decided to tie them around their wrists as bracelets and offer them up to teacher Lisa Horowitz to sniff ("Smell my pretty flower!"). Ms. Lisa suggested that the flowers could be spritzed with perfume and then they really would smell nice. Genius. We sprayed a light grapefruit scent onto my kid's and she's pleased. I suppose essential oils would do well, too.

Here's my kid wearing her "coffee" (er, steamed milk) sleeve as a bracelet, and a friend wearing her flower.

Knitted coffee cup sleeve

Today I offer thanks for coffee, the merciful potion that blesses me with the clarity to be present for my children. The best in Philadelphia is from Earth Cup at 45th and Pine streets. Owner Natasa (pronounced NAH-tasha, with the stress on the first syllable, like "Anthony" or "Jennifer") has concocted an eponymous house blend that I once compared to a giant bell that hits all the notes, resounding and stately and deep. The americano, too, is worth a trip for its own sake, not the strange apology of a drink you might find elsewhere, but an intriguing, sultry brew.

No ordinary yarn would do for the cup sleeve for this sacred nectar. At the Spruce Hill May Fair in Clark Park, I found this playful "Sparkle and Fade Fuchsia" metallic merino from String Theory, a West Philadelphia fiber artist who hand-spins and hand-dyes her own yarns. (She brought her spinning wheel to the fair!) Quite rightly, her yarns are not cheap, so I splurged on a hank and promised myself to save it only for the most special projects.

On teaching myself to knit (Harry Potter-themed scarf)

In preparation for the talks I'm giving at a Harry Potter conference this summer, I've been delivering shorter talks at Potterdelphia's monthly meetings, including April's about reading the series as the mother of a one-year-old.

I've also given in to the knitting craze that is widespread throughout Potter fandom. Knitting is mentioned frequently in the books, and many fans knit scarves, socks, and sweaters such as the ones that appear in the series. I decided to teach myself knitting through such a scarf, in queer-themed rainbow colors, the whole 10" x 70" length in garter stitch for discipline and practice.

As human nature would have it, I quickly lost interest in unvarying garter stitch. Sort of reminded me of being 7 years old and having to play interminable Hanon finger exercises every day before anything melodic or fun. Once I gave myself permission to experiment with different stitches, my speed and eagerness picked up dramatically. I kept wanting to do another row, and another, to see how the pattern would resolve.

I thought, oh, this is like writing. Word by word, stitch by stitch, line by line, patiently, until the motifs come around and build on each other and repeat until you can see the picture, and whether it works. I never thought this in my 19 years of quiltmaking because quiltmaking isn't linear. The construction of quilts is always modular, with lots of diagonal thinking, even if what you're making involves rows. You can work on something for a long time and then have a sudden moment when the project moves into the next phase, all comes together, pays off. But working a rectangular scarf row by row is a lot more like writing a story.

Horsies on a hill

Hmm. My first attempt at an amigurumi-bearing hat looks just like a first attempt. Next time, I will make the stitches tighter, and make a more supportive hat and add the green eyelash yarn on top of it, instead of constructing the whole hat out of the fragile eyelash stuff. Still, I think the hat does have a hopelessly homemade, lopsided charm of its own.... And I'm still hugely amused by my friend's idea of making one's head look like a grassy hill. I may attempt this again but add crocheted dandelions or something instead of heavy figurines.

I'm almost done with a custom order for an octopus hat in super-girly pink and purple with sequins for suckers. My next plan for a character hat is a Harry Potter-themed one featuring wee figurines of Hermione and Professor Snape (in calico, I think, to avoid the heavy stuffed amigurumi issue) peering out from inside a cauldron.