Category: crochet

The Purple Spider – Crochet Spider Plush

~ Vanessa Walilko ~ Leave a comment
I was so moved by this story–of a trickster spirit helping children in multiple generations of a family–that I designed a Purple Spider crochet plush. You can download this crochet pattern by clicking this sentence.

It’s perfect if you need your own gentle guardian. Or if you just love spiders and want a cute spider plush on your couch

A cute crochet purple spider with long legs
A cute crochet purple spider with long legs

Memorial Mandala for my Aunt

~ Vanessa Walilko ~ Leave a comment
When my aunt passed away in 2018, she left behind a ton of yarn. She was an avid crocheter and loved Caron’s Cake yarns. She taught me to crochet chains when I was about 6 or so (she tried to teach me more, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around it). I went through various skeins and started separating by color.
I wanted to do something to honor my aunt with all of that yarn, and when I found Crystals and Crochet’s Mandala Madness pattern, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Here’s part 1.
Initially I liked the lavender, diverting from the project’s prescribed colors. But I changed my mind. So I tore it out and re-did part 1, and added part 2.
Part 3 was a joy because I love reds and oranges, plus she added crochet motifs I wasn’t familiar with.
Part 4 ran into a complication because I didn’t have a pale yellow yarn to work with, but I think the beige worked.
I was pretty good about taking photos after finishing each section, but I was so wrapped up in working that I forgot– here’s part 5 and the beginning of part 6
Part 8. What I loved about this piece was working on all of the different types of stitches I either didn’t know or normally didn’t use. I also loved the rows of purple yarns.
Detail of Part 8 shows the long stitches and extra long stitches. Getting the tension right was an undertaking.
I finished parts 9 and 10 and didn’t really know what do. I was running out of my aunt’s yarn and couldn’t make it bigger, even though the pattern went on for another 8 sections. I had thought of making it a meditation cushion, but it was too big. I also had to face the fact that while I love the idea of meditating, I’m not going to do it. I’m the anxiety queen.
Cut to several months later. I’m rearranging my furniture because of the COVID-19 lockdown and I realize that my couch is the exact size of the mandala.
So now the mandala lives on my couch, and I get to imagine my aunt is with me whenever I watch murder mysteries. She had the entire Columbo series on DVD. Seems like the right time to watch them.