Borderlands of the heart

As my regular readers know, I have been working to bring order to and consolidate the various crochet spaces in my house.

I started with my office and managed to get it pretty much in order, the most visible indication of which is this table top:

my office table
My finally cleared office table

Among the things I unearthed while clearing the able was a stash of partially completed boho hearts like the ones I made for this as-yet-to-be-completed mandala:

crochet hearts crochet mandala
The boho heart mandala with all of the pieces joined

The hearts were (and are) in various stages of done and undoneness, so I decided to start with weaving in and trimming the ends that needed weaving in and trimming.

Using my trusty Clover bent-tipped yarn needle, I got to work, weaving in one end and then another. After an hour, the hearts were finally ready for a group photo:

boho crochet hearts
Boho crochet hearts in various stages

But as none of the hearts were completely complete, I still had work to do.

So I pulled out an assortment of yarns — along with a 4.5 mm hook — and resumed work on the hearts, adding a second round of crochet to seven of the heart centers before I had to put my hook up and run errands:

seven boho crochet hearts
Seven more boho crochet hearts with the second round completed

Another thing I unearthed while clearing the table were the pages of my master’s thesis: Borderlands of the Heart and Other Stories.

I had decided to publish the collection of short stories as an ebook so that I could have a record of what I had done those many years ago before I knew how to crochet. After scanning the pages of what had been current technology, I read (and reread) each story, making corrections where the scanning had made odd changes and reasonable (but not correct) interpretations of the text.

Stories, unlike crochet, are not easily frogged and reconstructed, so I resisted the urge to change the stories in any material way.

So if you are looking for a collection of love-gone-wrong stories, this collection might be the perfect thing for you. Otherwise, you might want to keep your crochet hook handy, so you can craft whatever your heart desires.