Knitting & Crochet Blog Week: Day 2

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DAY 2 PROMPT

“Your task today is to either think of or research a project that embodies that house/animal. It could be a knitting or crochet pattern – either of the animal itself or something that makes you think of the qualities of that house. Alternatively it could be a type or colour of yarn, or a single button. Whatever you choose, decide upon a project and blog about how and why it relates to your house/creature. You do not have to make this project! It is simply an exercise in blogging about how you come to decide upon what projects to make. Try and blog about the journey which inspiration and investigating patterns, yarns, stitches, (etc) can often guide you through. You may wish to make a collage or ‘mood board’ to present several ideas, or even sketch out your own design.”

What embodies a monkey? Something intellegent….something fun… something that is unique and funky?

Something that looks like a banana perhaps?

I love bananas. This is the best house ever. What- this prompt isn’t about food?

Boo!

OK, back to the blogging. The defining characteristic of the house of monkey is to learn and/or try something new with each project. I struggled with this for a bit… I have a million ideas until I am told to write about one. How does that even happen? I thought for sure I was going to have to “forget” the second day’s blog post- but then I realized that I actually already found my starting inspiration….

Remember this? It is a scanned image of a vintage crochet magazine with no instructions or dimensions…. just a diagram on how to put them together and an image of the finished item with a ghost foot in it ( no one wanted to see ankles back then). I mentioned it in my day 1 post because I had never seen this idea and I thought it was cool.

Now, the perfect pair of crocheted slippers is something like a myth in my opinion The sole needs to be durable and comfty, and the slipper needs to be easy to, well “slip” on and off. Obviously it needs to look adorable. Oh- and just because I want it easy to slip on/off doesn’t mean I want it to accidentally slip off.

And ties are complicated. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

And this is a challenge. By that I mean I have tried several patterns for crocheted slippers and I have not had any success at any of them (i.e. only one slipper was created and by the time I finally finished the freaking thing it wound up in the garbage). The two main issues that I usually have are:

The finished project is so thin/flimsy that I might as well be wearing a sock. I am not wasting my time working up a pair of slippers that are no better than socks I already have a drawer full of those suckers.
The finished project doesn’t fit my foot. At all. It looks silly in fact (true story: my last attempt was so bad the hubster laughed and I am pretty sure the pup was cracking jokes behind my back). I don’t care if I am the only one who sees the slipper – I don’t want to waste my time making a Frankenstein of a slipper that will cause the villagers to come at me with torches and pitch forks.

So I am a “tad” opinionated about slippers. These things happen. So – I am very familiar with mood boards, and after ~~playing on pinterest~~ a little research I came up with this mood board (please note on the links below – I discovered all these images via Pinterest and not all the links are actually linking to a tutorial or pattern, these are all just images that inspired my creativity):

The original inspiration, thanks to Time to Craft
Some crocheted snowflakes would look cute on the slippers, and would make sense – my slippers better be keeping snow out!
See how nice and cozy those look?
Double Thick crochet – perfect for durable slipper bottoms. Awesome tut from Miss Abigail’s Hope Chest
Two words: Surface Crochet.Learn it, try it, love it. I dare you to not want to use it on every single project after you try it once.
I love the gray color with a pop of purple, orange, and yellow – with a hint of light beige. Color scheme from Design Seeds
This is a crochet stitch that is thick, cozy, works up fast and looks like knit.

I will be the first to admit – this has got to be my ugliest mood board yet. But slippers are that finicky combination of usefulness and practicability. For example – if you are wearing white slippers you are not being practical. If the sole of the slipper is uber thin and holey – that is not useful.

Why do I feel as though this project is a good one for the house of monkey? Well, lucky for you I will tell you why (numbers correspond with the number on the mood board)

I have never created a slipper with this method – the idea of one giant square as a sole and wrapping around your foot like a hug seems kinda cool.
I have never crocheted a snowflake. Been wanting to (was even planning on making a bunch for our christmas tree but that didn’t happen).
OK- you got me, this was just an image that reminds me of how cozy I want my slippers to be. Nothing new here folks – moving on…
this is something else that is not new, and I have tried making slippers with this type of sole previously. I love this method and it was something that I was apprehensive to try at first but now I can’t think of a better idea for the soles of slippers. Thick, smooshy, awesome.
Surface crochet is something I just recently learned how to do…. and I want to play with it more. Seriously – if you have not tried this technique out you are really, really missing out peeps!
This is not a color scheme that is typically me. In fact – it was hard to even add it to my mood board even though I loved it. Gray is not a color that I typically work with on a regular basis so creating something fun, bright, and cheerful with the main color being gray is a challenge that I have yet to embark on.
I ran across the supposedly easy crochet stitch that looks like knit stitch a while back ago – and have not had a chance to try it out yet. OK, I lied – I have had a chance but I never actually tried it. Time to change that up!!

So over half of the items on my mood board are completely new to me and I am apprehensive to try some of them, but I am usually apprehensive to try new thing. You would think I would have gotten over it by now but you would be wrong.

Everything on the board speaks to me about being comfy, warm, and cozy. I imagine wearing them when I first get out of bed in the morning and there is still a chill in the air. I imagine a patchwork of gray with bright snowflakes and surface crochet bringing them to life.

I am thinking that I will be going through a lot of coffee if I ever decide to actually create them.

I am not sure if I described my “journey” on how I investigate and/or become inspired to create or design something. But, as with everything I do, there are elements of things that I have tried before and trust completely. This helps balance out the other elements that are more like “cross my fingers and hope the coffee doesn’t run out”.

All in all – it is a good time and I love seeing how things turn out.

Is this how you create items? Are there any questions that you have for me regarding my “process”?