I had a lovely weekend, and as part of that weekend loveliness, I managed to keep up with my African flower hexagon crochet meditation.

Here here is hexagon ten:

here is hexagon eleven:

and here is a photo of all the hexagons completed so far:

In addition to keeping up with my crochet meditation, I also got a start on a Christmas gift for one of my children.

In June of 2010, my son Simon sent me this photo of a crocheted beard and beanie that had had found while surfing the internet:

The crochet beanie and beard are the work of crochet designer Taralee Duffin who describes herself at twitter as “a SAHM that loves fashion, cooking, gardening and crocheting!”

In addition to the more traditional beard and beanie pictured above (and available for sale at her etsy store: taraduff), Taralee Duffin also designed a pattern for the folks at Eisenbrauns.

Founded by Jim and Merna Eisenbraun in 1975 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Eisenbrauns is (according to wikipedia) “an international academic publisher specializing in the ancient Near East and biblical studies,” and while the topics of interest might, on the surface, seem to be a bit dry, the Eisenbrauns are not without a sense of humor, as evidenced by the “Our Silly Side” tab at the company website.

Now the reason I learned any of this is that in searching for a beard to crochet for my son, I came across this pattern for an Assyrian helmet and beard — a masterpiece that was designed by the same Taralee Duffin who designed the beard and beanie featured in the image my son shared with me so long ago.

Once I found the pattern, I wanted to get started immediately, and because it is my stash down challenge month, rather than going out and purchasing the recommended yarns, I ventured into my yarn annex to find something suitable, and in very short order I emerged with a tweeded gray from the Red Heart Super Saver line to use for the helmet:

and this vintage gold from the stash I purchased in late October of 2011:

Although I didn’t finish the helmet over the weekend, I was anxious to get a start on the beard with all of it’s wonderful texture stitches. This is how far I got with the beard before the sun set:

And here is how the partially completed beard looked with the partially completed Assyrian helmet:

And should you dare to make this helmet and beard, please take not of this disclaimer from the Eisenbrauns:

We’ve done our best to make these directions accurate. How- ever, we cannot be responsible for typographical errors, human errors, variations in work by individual crocheters, or angry vassals who may mis- take you for an actual Assyrian warrior. No one said crochet was risk free.