Birdcages and freedom

Ideas come to us when we least expect them. A few days ago I was watching a silly little bird hoping along my fence, doing whatever little birds do, it looked so happy and free, when I remember that there are people that have them at home in birdcages! What a horrible thing to do, to deprive an animal from its freedom! That's when I had an idea for my next project, I was going to make a birdcage with a bird in crochet ( after all a crochet bird doesn't go anywhere). This was going to be a challenge, a cage has a rigid structure and I was going to use a soft material to do it.

I thought using a thin wire I could make it work. I was wrong! It turn out a horrible thing that I didn't complete.

 

I needed a different approach.

 

This one I like, it looks like a circus tent birdcage, it has some imperfections but a handmade item will never be perfect. Those imperfections give character to the objects. This is a cute birdcage, makes me smile but it is not at all like the one I had in my mind.

I made another one, this time I kept faithful to my original idea, and

 

I got it, this is it. A birdcage made of soft cotton. It should have made me happy and proud but it didn't, the bird looks sad. Real or not the concept is the same, a bird lost its freedom.

Yes, I know I'm crazy, but I was not happy. What I needed to do was something cute but more bird friendly, so

 

I made a bird house. It's my first one, it needs many improvements but I am now on the right path.

Pretty things

Last week I decided to make a cover for my kindle. Kindles are great but they look a bit plain when they're sitting on a bedside table. When I showed it to M he looked at me and went on a rant, exactly as I knew he would. He doesn't understand the use of a phone case, or kindle cover nor any other type of covers. People pay good money to have a well designed device and then  cover it with a €5 plastic case. He has a point but I argue that cases and covers keep the devices safe. We use them to personalise our phones, to make them unique, to make a statement. But  it's all nonsense, we just like pretty things! We want pretty phone cases or kindle covers, cute key chains and purses and bags, lots and lots of pretty bags. We love to have nice cushions on our sofas and  colourful pans on our hobs. We like to prettify everything and ourselves, we use jewellery, makeup, we're for ever buying clothes and shoes. That's us, women.
Men are different, or is it just him?
M and I  have been together for half of our lives, we share the same opinion on a multitude of things, we understand and support each other, we learnt from each other, we changed and grew together as persons and still he cannot grasp the concept of pretty and cute! How is it possible?! After so many years with me buying useless stuff just because the colour is nice and bright.  Is this inability of appreciating something by its prettiness a male thing or is it only M that was born with a missing gene?
Pretty and cute things make us smile, when we smile our bodies release hormones, one of them being dopamine our pleasure neurotransmitter. It also increases our energy, focus, mood, alertness and libido (there is much more health benefits of smiling, google it and you will be smiling all day long). So, men you should all make an effort to appreciate and smile with daft things.
M, I am going to make you a kindle cover with a smiley face 😉.

Tutorial

Today I have something different. Today it's not going to be my usual rant or hymns to happiness.
Today I have an easy and fun tutorial.

I found a bag on Pinterest with an unusual shape that I thought was really nice and decided to make one myself. This bag requires a Furoshiki folding technique. I have to say that this folding business took me back to my secondary school days, to our paper plane competitions. Mine was always the loser!
As you can imagine, it shook a little bit my confidence, but I took it as a challenge. I was going to overcome another childhood trauma.
So I set myself to work and...

 

 

 

...success!!
It was really easy, all you need is a rectangle with the length three times longer than its width, this one is 30x90cm, and fold its opposite corners:

Fold again like this:

and you have your bag. Easy!
Unfortunately my paper planes still don't fly.

If you want one of these bags but without the hassle, click here, if you choose to make one have fun.

Note, crochet can make you a little crazy, there is a lot of counting going on, to make a chain you count, you count the stitches, you count the rows. The other day I was chopping garlic and counting the slices :/

Tangled

I decided to change my blog's name. Tangled. That's me. I was walking on the string of life and I was caught in a knot! It's not a bad thing, but I will need some time to untangle myself and move on.

My mind moves too fast, it doesn't give me enough time to think each thing through! So I go from one idea  to another, from one project to the next and it feels that I am going around in circles when I could be moving forward.

While I try to untangle myself I am doing some crochet. I found out that I don't like to follow patterns, I prefer to create my own. I also realised that my mind likes to come up with  silly things! Normally when you think of crochet or knitting you think of blankets and jumpers, I think of owls, chicks and deer heads.

 

 I made some cushions, as well, (silly ones that I love very much)

 

 

But the one that I am really proud of is my deer head, it's my own design and it was a big challenge, after all, I only started to learn crochet a month ago.

 

I need to come up with some sort of frame, and yes it's silly but looking at it makes me happy, it brought me many moments of frustration but in the end I got it right. This head is my trophy, is a reminder of what I can accomplish.

 

Have a Happy day!