My crochet cookies, while humble, owe a debt of gratitude to the artist and astounding crocheteuse, Xenobia Bailey.

I first became familiar with Xenobia Bailey’s work early in this millennium when, after listening to an art lecture, I did a Google search using the terms “crochet” and “Frank Stella.”

Among the things that appeared in results was the name “Xenobia Bailey.” Curious, I clicked on the link and found myself transported to an entirely different way to think about crochet. I periodically search the internet in an effort to keep myself updated with regard to her work, and today when I checked for updates at her blog, I found that she done so just hours earlier.

If you scroll a little bit more than halfway down this page, you will see an installation of Ms. Bailey’s work that is similar to the work I first saw and which inspired me so many years ago, and today I worked on these half-dozen crochet cookies that were, in some measure, influenced by Ms. Bailey’s work..

Yesterday, I had been feeling something that was a cross between malaise and lethargy, and today I did everything I could to break free of that orbit and achieve the crafting equivalent of escape velocity.

With hook in hand and some notes I scribbled at the time o my first swirl cookie attempt, I made this second swirl cookie:

I then moved to the jam-filled cookie, making one with a deep pink and one with a bright, but not electric orange:

Next, I made sugar cookie bases for three of the six sugar cookie icings I crocheted the other day:

Then I got this group photo:

I don’t know that I have completely shaken the malaise that enveloped me yesterday, but I am delighted with my forward progress and am happy to be one day closer to being able to begin the assembly of the cookieghan.