Lucky thirteen

Despite thirteen’s reputation as an unlucky number, I have not experienced it that way; for me, it has been lucky.

Thirteen has a lot of qualities I admire in a number.

Not only is it prime (which I knew), it is a Fibonacci number (which I knew if I thought about it), it is an emirp, a Wilson prime, and happy number (yes, happy) — all of which I don’t know until I read about it while preparing this blog post.

Aside from all that, thirteen has been a numerical leitmotif that runs through my life, marking the date of birth of many people important in my life, as well as being the number of cookies I had to design for the original cookieghan:

cookie crochet blanket
The original cookieghan

So it doesn’t exactly surprise me that even when I am working in an absent-minded sort of way (like adding French knots to complete the tricking out of a small crochet crazy quilt piece) that I would end up not with twelve, not with fourteen, but with thirteen knots:

I add 13 French knots for good luck on what I hope is a lucky crochet piece
I add 13 French knots for good luck on what I hope is a lucky crochet piece

Finishing that small piece with the thirteen knots seemed to generate some much needed finishing mojo, which allowed to tackle the “in medias” tricking out crochet fan, and after getting the as yet unwoven ends on the back tangled up with each other several times, I finally got that done as well:

embroidered crochet fan
I finish tricking out the crochet fan

Which in turn led me to another piece I had begun work on yesterday, then left with a long strand of yarn still dangling — small, unobtrusive piece that I was attempting to decorate with random cross stitches, similar to something I had seen while scouring the offerings of images that are served up when one searches the internet with the word “embroidery.”

I rethreaded the yarn onto a yarn needle I am using, and in short enough order, I had it done:

crochet embroidery crazy quilt
Some crazy cross stitches for the crazy quilt

The variegated colorway I used on the cross stitches (Red Heart Super Saver artist print) was, at that moment, looking to me as if it went with everything, so I tried it out on a crochet crazy quilt piece I had crocheted using Red Heart Super Saver Delft, and I made a flower to what seemed to me to be good effect, and today I finished up with a stem, a couple of leaves, and a sprinkling of French knots:

embroidery on crochet
A few new stitch combinations

That left me with a medium thyme motif that I hadn’t quite finished tricking out:

embroidery flower on crochet
I start work on another textured flower

but the sun was beginning to set, and I had some errands to run that could not be pushed off into tomorrow, so I got one last photo of the group of the pieces I have finished so far:

crazy quilt crochet panel
My progress as of September 13, 2016

There are now just 27 days left to work on this project, and I will have to continue working as diligently as I can: one stitch at a time.

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