Hooked for Life

Hooked for Life by Mary Beth Temple Page B

Book: Hooked for Life by Mary Beth Temple Read Free Book Online
Authors: Mary Beth Temple
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Mohawk purple paint for hair, leather or faux leather scraps for the bodice and cuff, small silver-colored flat beads for studs, tiny silver jewelry findings for earrings, 12 to 18 inches of silver chain, a fine-point permanent black marker for lipstick (and I wish my hands were steady enough that I could have done a tattoo!), and some replica beer bottles I found in the miniatures department of a local crafts store.
    Gauge: 12 sts and 9 rows = 4 inches in dc
    The Skirt (TP Cover):
    Ch 48. Join into a ring with s1 st to 1st ch, being careful not to twist the ch. Ch 3.
    Rnd 1: Dc in each ch around, join with s1 st to beg ch. Ch 3. (48 dc)
    Rnd 2: Skip 1st dc, dc in each dc around, join with s1 st to beg ch. Ch 3.
    Rep rnd 2 until work measures 4 3/4 inches long, or long enough to comfortably cover the height of your chosen roll of toilet paper. Begin your decreases:
    Dec rnd 1: Sk 1st dc, dc in each of next 5 dc, dc2tog, *dc in each of next 6 dc, dc2tog. Repeat from * around, join with s1 st to beg ch. (42 dc)
    Dec rnd 2: Sk 1st dc, dc in each of next 4 dc, dc2tog, *dc in each of next 5 dc, dc2tog. Repeat from * around, join with s1 st to beg ch. (36 dc)
    Dec rnds 3-6: Continue in pattern as established, working one less dc between decreases for each row. End off. (12 dc after rnd 6)
    Assembly:
    If you are going to give the doll a mad hairstyle, it is easier to do that before assembly. I saturated the doll’s hair with white glue, fastened it above her head with a rubber band, and allowed it to dry overnight. Then I chopped off the ends to produce a modified Mohawk and added the purple paint.
    Put the skirt over the toilet paper roll, insert the doll through the top opening, and push her feet all the way down until they touch the bottom of the roll. Thread the yarn tail through the last row and pull it tight around her waist, then glue it into place.
    Cut the leather scrap into a rectangle and glue it down for a bodice—no worries if it’s crooked or ill-fiting; it will fit the style of our tp girl! Then go to town with decorations—earrings, chains, safety pins, black lipstick and nails—whatever suits your fancy.
    Display with pride!

Crocheter, the Silent Majority
    A lthough you may have heard the urban legend than crocheters outnumber knitters three to one, there isn’t much hard scientific data to back that up. Research does exist on crafter demographics in America, but there is a bit of a muddle between who is a crocheter and who is a knitter, and of course many of us are both. Don’t get me wrong—no one doubts that there are more crocheters than knitters; it’s just the order of magnitude by which we rule that is in question.
    Which makes it a little strange to me that certain yarn stores are often not equal-opportunity places to buy fiber, but specifically knitting stores. I had heard about this discrimination, and honestly questioned it a bit, but then I stopped in a few new-to-me LYSs and got a sample of what some of my sisters with hooks were talking about.
    I guess I don’t identify myself as a crocheter when I enter a new store, or as a knitter, either, for that matter. I just tend to wander in andpet what I like, and I have never had anyone question my right to be there. But after hearing some horror stories about crochet-phobes in yarn shops, I tried an experiment. In one particularly well-known big-city store, the crochet books, most of which were several years old, were placed in a dusty rack by the ladies’ room. There were about three crochet hooks, buried at toddler-eye level under umpteen thousand styles of knitting needles. When I asked where the crochet items were, the store owner looked at me with a bemused expression, as if she was waiting for me to say I was just kidding or something. When I didn’t, she pretty much lost interest in waiting on me at all. Needless to say, I didn’t buy anything at that store, and I started to see that maybe my crocheting friends who cried discrimination

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