Introductions...

This is Hazel:

She is 5'4", on the thin side (for now), and does not like long walks on the beach because that would be immanent death.

Otherwise, she is pretty normal for a rainbow trout.  I will finish her up soon and then make up a large hook and fly to suspend her from while in installation.  She has an extra pocket in the upper pallet of her mouth, so it should be a painless install.  That seems like it is missing the obligatory sacrifice to the art-gods, so I am sure there will still be crisis and material damages.

Hazel is here to serve as contrast to Hemingway in pattern construction.  This was her pattern sketch (yes, it has turned into scratch paper for other notes and yes,  she is wearing a hat and carrying a purse... as do all fish):

This is my internal interpretation:

As with the coelacanth, I started the trunk with the head, and the head started with the mouth.  However, I made all the appendages, the fins, first.  This was so that they could be stitched onto the trunk (sausage/body) as it was constructed.  I try to put on the appendages as soon as the attachment space has been stitched into creation on the trunk.  It is easier to applique when you have full access to the reverse-face of the base-fabric.  If you were to postpone appendage attachment, you would end up closing up your access holes into the inside and that elusive reverse-face.  Plus, you might forget about what you are doing or lose the limb.  I have done the later and felt like quite the idiot.

Provided I do not lose them, the soon-to-be-attached fins:

Fins attached to the reverse-face of the base-fabric:

Hazel's head en fillet... quelle dommage:

From Pattern to Pieces: Find the Starting Point

Alrighty, there was the pattern, then the break for snacking, misusing philosophy, and now pieces are slowly knitting crocheting together.  Bummer on 'knitting' being an actual activity, est-ce pas?

Also, tailoring and sculpting terms will be used interchangeably in this post.  I am very sorry to be mixing the two, but if one genera more accurately describes the motions or the end-goal, then that was the default.  'Accurate and Obscuring' should be made as a labeling sticker.  Onward!

Pattern:

Starting to form:

How does one pick a starting point?

Well, that is a great question.  I have had some trial and error over the years and many a project on which I am banking that 'it is the thought that counts' and 'my Mom will love it and love me, no matter what.'  Confessions aside, just look at any form and start by separating out the appendages from the trunk.

On the fish, the body/sausage is the trunk and the fins are appendages.  Appendages are joined onto the trunk, so decide what you want to make first.  I tend to make appendages first.  Basically, those all MUST be there and if I run out of yarn/materials, then there is no recourse (unless you are gifting this to a 3-year old who will still love a three-legged wombat).  That being said, if you suspect an impending material shortage as you work on the trunk, then the wombat is more stubby and the 3-year old thinks it is more cute.  We all go home happy.

As you work on appendages, start working on the end point, or what is the solid, plane of yarn, farthest from the joining (the seam) of the appendage to the trunk.  Consider Hemingway's eye:

Facing outward

The backside

It will join (the seam) at the start of the socket and the solid face, farthest away from this, is the cornea covering the pupil.  So, working circularly, start at the pupil, work out to the iris, and finally add on the surrounding, orbital flesh.   If that don't church up acrylic yarn...

Still, this does not help categorize the body segment to be deemed 'the head,' further complicated with a mouth cavity, possibly nostril holes.  Think of the entire form/animal/shirt/whatever as a misshapen ball (a sausage is a rolled-out ball, right?).  This ball has to have a start and an end.  Assign both positions to the mushed ball which is your trunk.  The head may as well be your 'start' end.  But maybe I am just an optimist.

Actually, the mouth is the true start, as it is where, from the perspective of form, the top of the ball, as the head, dimples in on itself and becomes an internal projection.  I guess this is a mobius strip for an intestinal tract connecting to dermal covering.... but I wasn't planning on being that accurate.  So, my mouth has an end/back-wall before things get too grotesque.

Starting point identified: mouth.  Then finish the head and move on back through the trunk.

I am not going to do appendages (fins) first on Hemingway because the Coelacanth has lobed fins.  These lobes make the fins big, meaty parts of the body.  It would look funny if they were clearly attached, as opposed to limbs that seem to ooze out in fleshy protuberances.

I have another fish, a river trout, that I am working on for an art installation.  This has a simpler construction.  It is farther along, but the piecing and seams are simple and clear.  More on that coming...

Welcome to my dojo

Hello there.

Every mountain goat needs a lair, someplace epic.

Perhaps a hollow mountain?

Say what???

Just my size.

Y'all come back now, hear?

This little goat is yet to be named.  He is just a quick, little, commissioned gift.  While it seems illogical, I think working smaller is more difficult than working large.  You end up using thinner yarn and a smaller hook.  So ultimately, there isn't a huge reduction in the number of stitches and it is much more demanding in the whole concentration/motor skills department.  It does use less materials, though.  I actually used wool yarn for this project.  I have a stock pile of uber-small wool skeins (abandoned to me by my mother... who is apparently much smarter than I and knows not to use these yarns for her projects anymore) and I am always trying to use them up.  Even though they are fine quality, virgin wool it is very hard to use.  It is much 'stickier' on the hook .  I guess the friction is good because it holds the knots and stitches together...but I seem to take twice as long on each stitch. 

I am sure there is some wisdom on the merit of these slow stitches that is fitting for a mountain goat dojo.  Perhaps the goat could be a consulting sensei?

We're going to need a bigger boat

The sheep was supposed to be done today.  But then, as always, things happened.

I started stuffing the body and the yarn for the body just kept expanding and expanding (I normally don't use the boucle).  Turns out that the sheep is now to scale and that my support system in the legs is now grossly inadequate.  So I need to rig something else up and I should finish and start accessorising within a few hours.  I think she needs a beret and a scarf.

I am kind of amazed at how big the expansion was.  It seriously doubled in size once it got stuffed.  See:

This sheep is going for a baby gift and it should out weigh the child for the first few years of its life.  While I enjoy giving ridiculous presents, this one was a bit unintentional.  It's like giving someone a killer whale; it's awesome....but now I have a killer whale...

Persimmon Granted!

The first persimmon is now done and I am starting to work on the second one.

Everyone needs a friend.

I ended up stylizing this one a bit and giving it a flat bottom instead of a rather pronounced point.  I figure that the persimmon will be kept standing on end when not in use and so it would stand better with a flat base.  Also, I made the shape more of a bolster so it would be a more comfortable pillow.  I mean, this is a stuffed animal/thing... if you can't cuddle with it, it is pointless.  And so the next one needs to be functionally snuggle-able as well.  I am thinking shorter and fatter, though.  This next one is also going to have an inner pocket (pocket in process in photo) and I think that I will make a little 'something' to go in this one.  Maybe a caterpillar?

I suppose that this is a good time to talk about materials and methods.  I am doing everything in a single-stitch crochet.  I like this stitch for the stuffed animals/veg/mineral/whatevs because it makes a solid sheet and sort of a uniform 'square' per stitch.  This makes it easier to join on other pieces.  I just think of each stitch as a single, square, little unit and each of these units are joined into a plane of set dimensions and then each of these planes intersect to create the shell of the object.  I don't know if that makes any sense, but I find it easier to make things when I am thinking about them broken down into lateral, intersecting fields.  Of course, some of these planes are parabolic and irregular, but this type of thinking is a good starting point when you are working without patterns.  So for the persimmon, it is just a variation on a sphere and so it is stitched in one big spiral.

The yarn that I am using is acrylic.  I tend to mostly use acrylic for a few reasons.  The first is that there is such a huge range of the colors in the acrylics.  Secondly, there is generally no batches and so no variation in color from skein to skein.  Thirdly, acrylic is so freaking cheap.  I would love to go all bamboo/silk/cotton, but the price would be crazy.  And then lastly, wool/angora/alpaca is out for me because I am allergic.  On a practical note, using the acrylic isn't so bad even if you just don't like the idea of using plastics.  It is naturally stain resistant and it is easy to clean.  Besides, even if you have this lovely, organic bamboo shell... the inside is still packed with plastic fluff. 


So hopefully I will be finished in a few days and then I will move on to making that sheep for a baby present.