Yoda in the Pagoda

**This post is still under construction - it's been a long time since I ventured onto blogger, and I've just about forgotten how to find my way around this place.  But it's a decent way to share a crochet pattern, and since I know some friends are wanting to get this in time for the holidays, I'm going to publish this in all its rough draft glory.I've never written a crochet pattern before, and the week before Christmas is not a great time to learn something new.  If you find errors, please do let me know in the comments.  Feel free to make your own adaptations.  And, I'd love to see pictures!**

Stone temple pilot.

Move over Elf on the Shelf, there's a new sheriff in town.

This started as a Christmas ornament - no need to make appendages, just wrap the head and body in a robe, stick it in a pod, and hang it from your tree - but it was too tempting to add arms and legs, and pretty soon there was a naked green baby running around the house.  The pattern has instructions for it all, but make it as simple as you want - the head and ears alone would make a cute ornament.

Now Joseph needs a Mandalorian helmet

Baby Yoda Crochet Pattern

Materials:

-Worsted weight yarn in pale green, grey and beige

-size F crochet hook (3.75mm)

-yarn needle for finishing

-fiberfill for stuffing

-solid black safety eyes, 8-9mm

Abbreviations

sc - single crochet

hdc - half double crochet

dc - double crochet

sl st - slip stitch

st - stitch

inc - increase

dec - decrease 

2sc - single crochet twice into same stitch (=increase)

2hdc - half double crochet twice into same stitch (=increase)

sc2tog - single crochet two stitches together (=decrease)

hdc2tog - half double crochet two stitches together (=decrease)

General instructions:

This is the perfect project to use up those little bits of yarn in your stash… but if they come in a variety of weights, you may need to adjust the pattern for the robe and the pod to better fit your baby Yoda.  Only use one type of yarn for the doll to maintain correct sizing for features (I used Sugar N Cream cotton) Crochet the baby Yoda first, then for the robe and pod, measure it against your doll as you go; you may need to cast on more or fewer stitches for the robe, or expand or shrink the pod by an increase row.

Head

Row 1 - sc 7 into magic circle and tighten (7)

Row 2 - hdc around circle, inc in each stitch (14)

Row 3&4 - hdc in each st (14).  Start stuffing the ball and insert eyes between rows 3 & 4, with 3 stitches separating them.

Row 5: hdc2tog 7 times. (7) Continue stuffing

Row 6: sc2tog 3 times (4).  

Leave the remaining stitch unworked and fasten off.  Use a yarn needle and the tail end of the yarn to close the hole.  Weave in end of yarn.

Ears - make 2

Chain 6

Starting from 2nd loop from hook, st, hdc, dc, dc, hdc

Finish off and sew to sides of head with tails, about at same level as eyes.

Body

Row 1 - sc 6 into magic circle and tighten (6)

Row 2 - sc around circle, inc in each stitch (12)

R 3 - sc around circle in back loop (12)

R 4 - sc around circle (12

R 5 - dec in each stitch: sc2tog 6 times (6)

Stuff and finish off, leaving a tail to use to sew to head.

Arms - make 2

Chain 5

In 2nd loop from hook, sc, then sl st 3X to end in first cast on loop.  Finish off with tail to sew to each side of the body just below where head and body join

Feet

Chain 5

In 2nd loop from hook, sc, then sl st 3X to end in the first cast on loop

Chain 4

In 2nd loop from hook, sc, then sl st 3X to end again in the first cast on loop.

Finish and sew to bottom of body.

Robe

Using beige, chain 20 st.  

Row 1 - hdc down the chain (20).  Turn

Row 2 - hdc across row (20).  Finish off, and using remaining yarn tail sew into a circle with slightly overlapped ends.  Weave in ends

Pod - version 1, which opens and closes

Make 2, using grey

Row 1 - 7 sc into a magic circle and tighten

Row 2 - hdc around circle inc in each stitch (14)

Row 3 - *hdc, inc hdc* around circle (21)

Row 4 - *hdc, hdc, inc hdc* around circle (28)

Row 5&6 - hdc around circle (28)

Row 7 - sst around circle.  Finish off and weave in end of one and leave tail of another to sew two pods together rim to rim for the width of 4 stitches

Pod - version 2, which does not close - more suitable for hanging ornament

Make 1 half as above, then make a “quarter sphere as follows:

Row 1 - 4 sc into a magic circle.  Turn

Row 2 - increase by working 2hdc into each stitch 3x, then hdc.  Turn (7)

Row 3 - *2hdc, hdc* repeated 3x, then 2hdc.  Turn (11)

Row 4 - *2hdc, hdc, hdc* repeated 3 times, then 2hdc, hdc.  Turn (15)

Row 5 - *hdc, hdc, hdc, 2hdc* repeated 3 times, then hdc, hdc, hdc.  Turn (18)

Row 6 - hdc along row.  Turn (18)

Row 7 - sl st along row (18)

Finish off, and use long tail to sew the straight edge (opposite to the last finished row) to half of the bottom hemisphere.

Upcycled Hummingbird Feeder

 

 

My grade 6 teacher, Miss Crossley, was a wonderful woman who introduced me to, among other things, the fascinating hobby of bird watching.  It was a difficult year which ended with a move to a new province following my parents' divorce, and birding became not just an interesting distraction, but a way for me to acclimate to a new place and start setting down roots.  For each subsequent move, and there have been quite a few (Utah, California, Massachusetts, Florida, and now Washington), friends of the feathered variety have been some of the first to welcome me and help me feel at home.

 

When we moved to the Pacific Northwest this summer, we were enchanted to find our garden frequented by Anna's hummingbirds, a species that not only breeds in the area but also overwinters here.  Tiny but territorial, our one feeder was not enough for all the hummingbirds I could hear in the trees, so we found a way to make a few extra to hang up throughout the yard, out of view from each other so as not to spark too many turf wars.  On freezing mornings when we bring out the feeders after keeping them indoors overnight, they are so eager to get at the nectar that they will come and take sips while we are still holding them up to hang.

 

 

 

I got the idea for the feeder from a Youtube video tutorial but made a few modifications so as to use supplies I had on hand.  You'll need:

 

• a glass bottle
• a lidded plastic tub (no more than 8oz size, and the shallower the better
• something to cut the plastic with (knife or scissors)
• a hole punch
• twine
• red tape, spray paint, foam, etc. to attract the birds

 

 

Start by tracing the bottle opening on the plastic lid.  The goal is to make a hole large enough to fit the mouth of the bottle through, but small enough that it gets caught by the widest ridge on the bottle neck.  The plastic will stretch a bit, so it's safest to start small and trim off more if needed.

 

 

Cut a criss-cross in the center of the traced circle and then cut around it with scissors

 

 

With a hole punch, make a few holes around the lid, about midway between the edge and the cut circle.  These will be the feeder ports which the hummingbirds access the nectar through; you can enlarge them a little by punching several times close together.

Try it on the bottle for size.  It should be very snug, but barely possible to get over the widest ridge on the bottle.  This lid will be supporting the weight of the nectar in the container when it is hung, so a good tight fit is important.

 

For the hanger, I knotted some twine in a pseudo-macramé way to make a hanger that would hold the bottle securely.  Start with two 3-4 foot lengths, and near the center, make two overhand knots spaced far enough apart to fit the neck of the bottle but not so far as to let the body of the bottle slide through:

Take one strand from each side, and join them with another overhand knot so it forms a triangle about a third to half of the way down the bottle:

Here's a close-up of that overhand knot:

 

Repeat on the opposite side, so they are symmetrical:

 

 

Separate those two strands again, taking one from each side and knotting them together to make a diamond shape:

 

 

Repeat this on the other side.  Depending on the size of your bottle you may want to make yet another set of knots (another diamond-shaped layer); for this root beer bottle this was enough to hold it securely.  Then gather all your strands and knot them together securely in one last overhand knot.

 

 

Now back to the lid.  Since humming birds are attracted to red flowers, having some red around the feeder holes is probably a good idea.  If you have a plain lid, this is easily done with some red plastic tape around the holes (or, as in the green-bottled feeder above, cutting flower shapes from a sheet of red craft foam, punching holes in the center, and gluing it to the lid).  Since the only container I had was a cream cheese tub, I thought spray-painting the whole thing red would probably do the trick, and they had no trouble figuring it out at all.  They're smart little birds and likely don't even need the red to help them figure it out, especially if you are hanging it somewhere they are used to feeding.  But the red paint prettied it up and at least clued in my human visitors on why I'm hanging up cream cheese containers.

 

 

To fill the feeders, put the lid on the bottle, fill the bottle with a solution of 4 parts water to 1part sugar (see this Audubon post on some instructions and tips for feeding hummingbirds).  Then snap the bottom of the container onto the lid, and invert.  The nectar will fill the tub to the level of the mouth of the bottle, about a half inch from the lid (you can see this in the photos of feeders with clear plastic tubs).

 

 

Then hang it up on a nail, and wait for the birds to discover it.

 

 

 

Happy birding!

 

Overrun by Fairy Critters

The last couple of mornings in our house have started something like this:

Little Brother (of course he's in our bed by 6:30am):  Let's go see where he is!
Baby Girl (on my other side): Ok!
Me (urgent whisper to Man-of-the-house): Dmmt I frgt t mv it!
Man: Huh?
Me: I frgt t mv it!!
Man:  What?
Me:  Wo wang le! (translation:  I forgot! -in Chinese)
Man:  Wangle shenme? (translation:  Forgot what?)
Me: IT!  (because both kids know what E-L-F spells and I have no idea how it translates to Chinese and neither does he)
Man (finally catching on):  Oh.  OH.  Wait kids, you can't go downstairs until you give dad a big hug and a kiss goodbye.  No, that wasn't big enough, no, another one, BIGGER HUG...

...all while I careen down the stair case to move that damned elf from his last perch.

I'm not here to write about boycotting the evil genius of marketing and fable-making that brought this false tradition of lying to children and inspiring un-Christian faith in idols that undermines parental authority.  There are plenty of posts on that, and you can find your angst elsewhere.  We have an elf, and until the little ones stop wanting him around, he will probably keep showing up on December 1st.

We got our elf last year when the kids came home from kindergarten and preschool with stories of all their friends' elves, and the classroom elf, and asking why Santa wouldn't send an elf their way to see how good they were being, too.  Then they figured out that you have to adopt them, at, say, Target (for a mere $29.95 adoption fee, what a steal for your OWN ELF!)  And while I thought the elf was creepy, I remembered a similar elf from my own childhood, which sat on my tree looking creepy too, but clearly I turned out ok, so what was the harm in indulging this wish?  Maybe I could locate the old elf, and then we'd have our own vintage elf, which surely would make up for any crass commercialism behind this whole elf on the shelf thing.



Me and my elf, circa 1979

I checked with my dad to see if he could dig up the elf in his storage - I hadn't seen it since the divorce in the mid-80s - and he looked among his things, but either too many years or too much storage had contrived to misplace this elf.  (I haven't given up hope, since my dad never throws away anything of sentimental value, and it hailed from a factory in Hong Kong that he worked at in the early 60's, that made toys destined for US markets.  One day I will go and personally dig through his garage myself.  But I digress).  No vintage elf.  So we caved in to peer pressure, and bought adopted one.

But I'm really not an ideal adoptive parent to anything this high maintenance.  The kids' friends, their moms would scour Pinterest for ideas and set up little scenes of the elf drinking syrup in the fridge or taking mini marshmallow bubble baths or fishing for goldfish crackers.  I am the kind of mom that on more occasions than I care to admit has woken up to a tearful child sobbing "She never came!" and has had to walk him back with a dollar tucked in my hand, saying "Are you sure you checked everywhere?  Oh you checked inside the pillowcase too?  Well maybe it fell, let's check in the frame of the bed, here under the mattress, oh look! Here it is!" 

And Elf on the Shelf?  It's like being the tooth fairy... for Twenty. Four. Days. In. A. Row.

Give it up, then, you say.  A friend suggested having the dog eat it...and I bet he would. (Good dog).  And the Man-of-the-house came up with the idea of hanging the elf by a noose outside of Primrose's house, and letting the kids come to their own conclusions.  And possibly scarring them for life.

I don't quite have the heart to do it.  How many more years do I have before logic robs them of their passport to fairyland?  Besides, thoughts of the elf gets Little Brother out of his bed, happy, at 6:30am in this cold dark northern clime, a feat that so borders on the miraculous that I am willing to cut the elf some slack.

Which still doesn't solve the problem of my actually having to move it every night.  Until, in the midst of griping, I suddenly came up with a solution.  What if I gave myself an incentive to deal with the elf every evening?  I have no use for cute Pinterest scenes, and besides, that just sets the stage for raising expectations to the point where mom has a breakdown, collapses among the bottles with the elf, and elf-shaming begins (you can look that one up for yourself, too).

But setting up tableaux of his untimely demise, playing with my camera and tripod, thinking up Godfather references, this would be fun, and I would remember to put the elf back in a new place after my evening entertainment, and the kids would never know the difference.

And so I give you:

 

Good Parents Gone Bad*

 

http://hellontheshelf.tumblr.com/

I keep my sanity, the kids keep their fantasies, and the elf lives to see another day.  Win-win-win.

*No elves were harmed in the making of this scene.  I don't have $29.95 to throw away every night.

Dealings with Fairies

Tending her fairy house

Almost every day, Little Sister asks me why we can't move back to Florida so she can be with her best friends again.  It has been 3 months since we moved to the Pacific Northwest, and while the rest of the family has adjusted wonderfully well (and I am almost giddy with the thrill of being surrounded by woods and water again), a preschool-classful of new friends here do not make up for the ache of missing her dear ones left behind.  And talk of dad's job satisfaction or the proximity of extended family is no match for a 5-year-old ego.

But when I ask her whether there isn't one thing, just one single thing that she likes more about living here than back in her old home, she does admit that here, we live in a house with a real live fairy (named Primrose) in the backyard.  And that would be hard to give up.  And while she hasn't yet seen Primrose, she does see her hummingbird friend, Calliope, at the feeder all the time, so you never know, she might yet catch a glimpse of the fairy that replies to Little Sister's notes and flowers with teeny tiny letters of her own, and gifts of ripe berries and sea glass.

So today I am grateful for the fairy folk that make this island their home, and want to share with you an easy way to make your own fairy house so you can invite some more magic into your yard.

 

From fence slat...

... to fairy hut.

Much of the cedar fence surrounding the back yard is old and rotten and in need of replacing if it is to have any hope of standing up to a 75 lb dog with a curious nose.  After attending to the worst sections we had a dozen old fence slats that were just soft enough for a 7-year-old with a coping saw and a penchant for building to cut through.  Our first house was held together with hot glue, hope, and a haphazard nail or two, and while beautifully irregular and charming, it didn't stand a chance against that same dog in chase of a squirrel.   

So we came up with a way to put together somewhat more regular houses, held together with a few more nails, that are hung up on trees and thus a little less likely to get trampled, with rope ladders for those rainy or windy days when a fairy might not want to fly.  And because rope ladders are just plain fun.

Start with a fence slat so old and rotten you really can't put it to any other use.  The fairies really wouldn't have it any other way (and if you need some, come on over, I have a pile of them).  It'll be so soft that you can score it with a pencil or a screw driver to give you some guidelines to cut by.  First, cut off two rectangles about 7 or 8 inches long for the roof.  If you are a obsessive enough that asymmetry will bother you, make one of them 1/2 an inch longer than the other:

Then, nail them together at right angles to each other, nailing through the longer piece into the end of the shorter piece, like so:

...and you've got your roof.  You can dog-ear the corners if you'd like; of course the ends of some fence slats are already dog-eared.

Using the roof as a template, make some score marks on the remaining fence slat so you can cut a back that matches:

and cut it straight across the bottom to whatever height you'd like your house to be.

Before you nail the roof to this back, though, it's best if you put the sides and bottom on it first, since it's easiest for little helper hands (not to speak of adult helper fingers) to hammer into something that can be set firmly on the ground.  So holding the roof in place as a size guide, score lengths of fence slat for each side of the house:



...and then hammer the sides onto the back piece (here this helper decided he wanted to make a shelf of one of the triangular scraps).

Do the same for the bottom, setting it in place to measure the length you'll need, and then scoring it for a line to cut by (ignore those angled score marks; that was where we'd initially scored the roof lines before we realized that this end of the fence slat which had rested on the ground was so rotten it couldn't even hold nails, so we started at the other end of the slat):

Nail that bottom into place with a few nails through the side walls...

Then finally, affix the roof by nailing through the back into it:

And you have yourself a fairy house:

For a rope ladder, gather some twigs, about 1/2" diameter or wide enough to drill holes 1/8" holes through, and cut them into 2-3" lengths with some pruners.  You'll also need a couple of lengths of twine, each piece at least twice as long as you want the finished ladder to be.

Drill a hole through the twig about 1/4" from each end, then thread the twine through (this is easier if you use a large-eyed yarn needle for the twine), making an overhand knot on each side of the twig to hold it in place. 

Make another overhand knot about an inch away, then thread on another twig, and secure it with a second overhand knot.   Repeat until you have a long enough ladder for your purposes.  Then repeat this threading and knotting twine through the holes on the other end of the twigs.

Hang your rope ladder from a nail in the floorboard, then drill a hole in the back of the house to hang it from a tree:

And then comes the best part... putting in some furniture and decorations and love notes, and waiting for the fairies to come.



Little Brother left some roses and Little Sister some pictures, which they later found Primrose had tacked to her walls with rose thorns.

Last week, when I showed Little Brother how to pick a thorn off a rosebush to pin up another picture for Primrose, he gasped and asked me, wide-eyed, "Mom, did you used to be a fairy?"  Because, he said, I knew how to pin things with rose thorns, just like Primrose did.  I just smiled and left that unanswered, so glad that she has sprinkled a little fairy dust on me, too.