Monday, November 22, 2010

On the wings of a Japanese butterfly

My favorite recent crochet project is a lace butterfly from my newest, most awesome Japanese crochet book, Romantic Lace in Emmy Grande Herbs (エミーグランデハーブスで編むロマンティックレース):


This book is filled with all sorts of treats for the avid Japanese crochet enthusiast.  Alas, I need to use up some of my stash before I can buy more thread yarn for these scrumptious patterns.  In the meantime, I will see what I can do with purple, green, and brown (my current palette).  Here is my lovely little mariposa (butterfly):


I still have to block it since it's a bit wavy, but I couldn't help but share it now.

It reminds me of my college days with my sorority, Delta Xi Nu.  We were a brand new multicultural sorority (after all, where does a half-Greek, half-Texan fit in?) at a pretty conservative southern campus.  Those were the good old days of trying to promote cultural unity (more good karma stuff).  It was a great organization and taught me a lot about leadership.  But back to the topic at hand... our symbol is the butterfly.  So, needless to say, everything was plastered with butterflies from age 21 to about age 23 when I began to puke a little in my mouth after seeing each new butterfly.  Gladly, I have recovered from my overexposure and can now thoroughly enjoy butterflies again, although in moderation (and not in my tummy).

And hence, the Japanese butterfly will be crowned "Multicultural Mariposa" from this day forth.  Maybe next time I will make it with multiple colors!

2 comments:

  1. I love this! How can you translate the patterns? I would love to try some japanese patterns, but I think I would just stare at the page going, "duh?!"

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  2. I wrote a post on how to "attack" Japanese crochet patterns here: http://siatex.blogspot.com/2010/11/for-love-of-japanese-crochet.html

    They use charts which makes it a lot easier - you can learn to read the charts and then you don't need to figure out as much of the Japanese. :)

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