Snail Spirals

It’s been sporadic, but I have been working on the sewing thread Daffodil. After not doing much on it at all for quite a while, I picked it up again for real, and in the past two days I’ve done twelve rows.



That’s 63 rows, 4 ½ inches, and roughly 33 hours of work. The flowers of the daffodils are just starting to show (the double blobs on the left and right sides).

I’ve had a bit of a change of direction with this project. I was originally going to do it as it was written, for a table runner. You crochet the chart once bottom to top then turn the chart around and work it the other way to mirror the daffodils. However, I realized that I would probably never actually use it as a table runner, because I wouldn’t want anything spilled on it. In fact, if I do display it, framed and on the wall will probably be the method. And I think it would look strange to have a framed runner. One of the daffodil clusters would have to be upside down, or they would both be sideways. So instead, I will only crochet the chart once and just finish with the top border.

This feels strangely like a cop-out to me. But really, I’m not out to prove anything by making this project. By doing it this way, I will have a finished piece that I will actually look at and enjoy, rather than just have rolled up in a drawer.

I’ve also been making fan bookmarks.



I used up the last of the blue variegated thrift store thread on a long bookmark, then the next morning went into the living room to see that Emma had been playing with my scissors. The short blue bookmark on the top is in fact the very same one I showed last Thursday. See anything different between the first picture and this one (other than the twisted tassel)? Yep, it’s now shorter. She had snipped the tassel and the base two fans into itty-bitty little pieces. I was extremely unamused. Emma went for a nice long time-out, and I sat down and repaired the bookmark. Because she had snipped the first fans, not the last ones, I had to completely unravel and re-crochet it. I made it with 12 fans instead of the original 14, and cannibalized the tassel from the long blue bookmark to make the tassel for the short one. I think the long one is long enough that it doesn’t really need a tassel, but the short one definitely does.

The purple one is also thrift store thread, #8 perle cotton, worked with a #11 hook. The perle cotton has a much softer twist than crochet cotton, and is a bit of a pain to crochet with, but the finished fabric is nice and smooth and sheeny. I don’t think it will wear as well as a more firmly twisted thread (the blue variegated is a nice firm 6-ply cable), but I crocheted it tight and really, how much wear does a bookmark get?

Lastly, it’s time for an aquarium update. All the fish are swimming, the plants are thriving, and all is well.

• The Amazon Sword (left background) keeps putting out more leaves, though the three oldest have died back. I think these were the original leaves that were on the plant when I got it.
• The tapegrass (far right) has put out another leaf, and I saw today that it is starting a bloom spike!
• The Borneo fern (second from right) isn’t doing much. The leaves are still all there, but I haven’t seen any new ones. I know this is a slow growing plant, though, so it’s probably still just acclimating.
• The Java fern (left foreground) keeps getting bushier, though some of the oldest leaves have died off. It is also producing plantlets from the tips of the leaves, and I detached a couple and started them on the other piece of wood (the one with the Borneo fern). Their roots have attached to the wood, and they’re making lots of leaves.
• The Micro Sword (center background, right foreground) is doing well, though it seems to have trouble rooting in the gravel. I think the grain size is too large- this plant would probably do better in coarse sand. But it hasn’t lost any leaves, and I just keep poking it back into the gravel when it floats out.
• The “lily grass” that I thought was going to die (center foreground, between the pieces of wood) may make it after all. It stopped losing leaves when it had four left, and now actually has a new leaf starting! We shall see.