Beguiled

Seducing Reality from a Dream

Credit: meredithskye DeviantArt

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The dream descended like a wispy veil upon the sweet sigh of my final slumbering breath, in the early morning hours of July 4, 2024. It’s befitting that such an entrancing vision would come to me on that, our United States Independence Day, because this dream represents my most ambitious brainstorm to date and possibly parallels the heart stopping decisions our revolutionaries made to Go-ALL-The-Way for a new life in a new world under a new God-fearing form of government, almost 250 years ago.

What I dreamt of was a sunset melting into the soft, supple surface of a lake edged by grasses and flowers and giving up it’s secrets in the silent passage of a small, slow stream; the vision reminiscent of a rain-soaked window pane, with details distorted into a literal dream-scape. I captured it with colored pencils on paper a day later, at which time I was struck by the lightening of design fever luring me to turn it into a custom art blanket hand-made from yarn scraps assembled to appear as a blended painting.

This (ugly) annotated ‘copy’ of my dream on grid paper is all the pattern I have to begin this journey. This is the birth of my design-along series, first mentioned in the ‘look behind the wizard’s curtain’ I shared in - Is Your Brain Abby-Normal? I encourage you to take 5 minutes to read that post, linked at the end of this article, as a prelude to this story.

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Let the games begin.

In the Abby-Normal post, I shared the 3 elements of my design process - Color, Texture, and Industry. Color is the sub-atomic particle of this design. It is so vital, so essential, that to proceed without careful rumination is to effectively white-wash my dreams for this dream. It’s unthinkable. And, lest we forget, color is ‘governed’ by industry, whereby I use only yarn I already have on hand. To do so for a project of this magnitude is painful. I’m a veritable Schrödinger's cat, trapped within my own constraints of frugality when I want, no need, to achieve ‘the dream’ at all costs. I’ve already decided I will make this once with scrap yarn, true to my design elements, and a second time with whatever magnificent colors and textures will truly do it justice. This picture shows about 40% of the yarn I’ve scraped together to accomplish this blended artwork. Notice the different sizes, colors, styles, and variegation within this pile. From this variation I will manifest texture.

This won’t be a sensual feast of smooth, soft, lush sensation but a practical outpouring of dirt, grass, trees, water, and the melted wax-like setting sun. You see, I plan to capture yarn colors and bulk, stitch types and quantities, and make note of all the challenges as I go with the intention of unveiling this as the second custom pattern I’ve designed and the first I’ve designed to sell. The alpha version of the piece will be practical, the beta will be divine with all the perfect colors and textures, industry tossed in the dumpster in favor of beauty and possibly commerce.

Here is the work in it’s infancy. I am 4 rows in of what will be 65-70 rows, not counting 12 total rows of border (6 per side) with which I typically frame my large pieces.

Crochet is worked from the bottom up, so this represents the stream, flowers, grasses, dirt, and tree trunk on the bottom 2 rows of boxes (each row of boxes represents 2 rows of needle work).

Challenges I’ve encountered so far include learning the popcorn stitch, which pushes the ‘flowers’ up off the work looking like clusters we might see in nature. Another challenge is not having enough yarn for uniformity. For example, when it’s all said and done I will have to use 3 different yarns to fulfill all the flower squares in the bottom half of this pattern. Another challenge is yarn bulk. The stitches will not line up properly across each row if I don’t get the bulk (thickness) of the yarn about the same for all stitches. To aid in bulk uniformity I am doubling some of the thinner yarns, crocheting with 2 strands on my hook instead of one. This in and of itself presents a challenge - the possibility of running out of a key yarn before the project is complete.

That’s all for today. I’ll check in from time to time with updates and new photos. I hope you’ll follow along.

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