The Chicken

 Last summer, a woman posted a photo on our ward FB page:

I waited a while to see if anyone else would respond.  I had just finished my year-long afghan (which I gave to Teresa) and was feeling pretty confident that I could crochet anything.  When nobody else responded, I told her that I would be willing to give it a try.

Let me tell you: it's a much different thing, following a pattern and creating a pattern.  I had looked so simple in the picture, but as I tried to reproduce it, I had problems.  I put it on the shelf (literally) for months.  Yes, I was so worried about something happening to this family heirloom that I kept it in a Ziploc baggie on a high shelf above my Polish pottery.

A few weeks ago, Amy reached out to me, asking me how it was going.  I can't blame her--I'd had the thing since August.  I determined then and there that either I would have one made by the end of the week or I would give it back to her to find someone else.

Several months ago, my Young Women class hosted an activity on goal setting.  It was a fantastic activity with Isabelle, our president leading it.  She taught us about "watermelon goals" and "watermelon seed goals".  Watermelon goals are the big ones: learn a new language, build a house, lose 50 pounds.  Goals that are typically never ending and which sometimes lead us to feeling bad about ourselves because we can't accomplish them.  Watermelon seed goals, however, are doable.  Learning some phrases in a new language, learning how to use a nail gun, starting an exercise program.  

So when I looked at my daunting chicken, I realized that she was a watermelon--so much to learn--but taking apart the chicken were the seed goals.  I needed to figure out how to crochet the head, the body, and make a pom pom tail.  Then I could take those three pieces and complete the larger goal.  So I took it apart.

I thought I could just crochet the head in a circle, but it left a hold in the middle.  Enter the "magic ring", a way to crochet a round without a hold in the middle.  It took me all of ten minutes to figure it out.  Then, I could make a rectangular body, but I couldn't figure out to squeeze the top row.  It took me a moment to look at the body a different way, like a beanie, with a gathered top row.  Yep.  Ten minutes to figure that out too.  And then I've made pom poms before, so it wasn't hard.  In 24 hours, I had the chicken made!  I couldn't even contain my excitement last night after I embroidered the details and put the plastic egg in.  It wasn't almost identical!

My chicken, and the original chicken

So today I took the chicken to church, and I saw Sister Romney up practicing with the choir.  I held up the chicken, and the look on her face was priceless.  When I brought it over to her after sacrament meeting, she got emotional.  And I felt all those feelings.  She feels like it's a big inconvenience for me, but for me, it's been such a creative outlet for me.  The challenge of figuring out how to make something beautiful has been wonderful.