90 Minutes to Princess Leia buns

Commentary at the end.

Supplies
6mm/J hook
brown yarn, worsted weight
fiber fill
needle

Headband as base--30 min
Make foundation chain of 10 (or a multiple of 3 ch plus an extra 1 ch)

FOUNDATION ROW: 4 ch (counts as 1 dc and 1 ch), *skip 2 ch, (1 dc, 1 ch, 1 dc) all into next ch; repeat from * to end

ROW 1: 4 ch (counts as 1 dc and 1 ch), 1 dc into ch sp between first 2 dc, *(1 dc, 1 ch, 1 dc) into ch sp between next 2 dc; rep from * to end.

Repeat until length is ~1.5" or ~4cm less than circumference of the head.

sc ends together to form a band. Tie off and leave a 10"/25cm tail.

Bun--30 min each
Each bun is formed by making a tube, which is filled with fiber fill to make a snake, which is then wound to make a bun.

Start with 4 foundation single crochet, 1ch

sc in a circle down one side of the foundation single crochet, 1 sc in the end, sc down the other side of the foundation single crochets (should be 9 stitches).

Continue in a spiral with sc into every stitch which will form a tube. Every 2"/5cm add some fiber fill loosely. Continue until snake forms bun of desired size.  My snakes were 10"/25cm long.

Snake tails are formed by adding a decreases: 2 sc together, every 4 sts until the point comes together. Tie off and leave 10"/25cm tail.

Putting it together
Roll snake into a bun with the tail on the outside. Using a yarn needle and the extra yarn at the end of each tail, sew the tail down. Pass the needle and yarn through the fiber fill to the inside of the roll. Run the needle in and out anchoring the inner rolls of the snake to one another. Tie off and trim excess. Repeat with other snake.  

Lay the band seam out (not against the head), and place one bun over seam. Using the left over yarn from tying off the band, anchor the bun to the band in 3-4 places that are not all in a straightline.

Repeat with other bun using a 12-14"/30-35cm piece of yarn. Done.

COMMENTARY--generalization and optimizations
So this project needed buns and something to attach the buns to it. The buns get kind of big and heavy. So any kind of headband would work, ie a simple band made of sc or dc rows. But I recommend a width of 4"/10cm. I also recommend that it be fairly snug which is why I recommend measuring the head and subtracting length to account for the stretch in the yarn. Even more stable would be a beanie and there are many patterns available for that.

Because I was aiming for speed I used a large hook. The tradeoff is that the fiber fill peaks through the holes in the buns. A smaller hook would produce a tighter weave that would keep the fiber fill in better.

All in all a fun simple project for a last minute Halloween addition.

Not too weak (or whiny) for God

Last week, my devotional presented an odd passage from Judges 6. I say odd only because I don't venture off to read Judges much. Zepheniah might be less read, but only just.

But I have been totally captivated by this little interchange.

The set up is this: Moses walked the people of the Israel around the wilderness for 40 years; Joshua leads them in victory to the promised land flowing with milk and honey. But after Joshua dies, generations pass, and no one remembers what God has done and they start doing their own thing. So during this time of the judges, the people of God run amok; God sends them a judge to deliver them; they run amok; God sends them a judge to deliver them. Rinse and repeat OVER and OVER. Here we're reading the calling of the next judge, Gideon.

12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
14 The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
16 The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.” ~Judges 6

I love that in 13, after the angel calls him a "mighty warrior", Gideon starts off with a "pardon me". I don't know if this is what the translators intended, but I'm picturing a 17 year old, sunk-chested nerd.  In other words, not a mighty warrior.

But what I could hug him for is the next line, "...but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?" It's stuff like this that makes the Bible stand out as literature over the millennia. I had an old teacher who liked to quote Ezra Pound saying, "Great literature is news that stays news." Through the ages, who hasn't felt this way in times of trouble?

Gideon, if you read the opening of the chapter, is threshing wheat. But instead of doing it in the open, he's hiding in a wine press. The bad guys, the Midianites, have taken over the land to the extent that crops are being destroyed and people of God are living in caves. Gideon can be forgiven for his incredulity. Everything in his experience points to being abandoned by God. Wherever God is, He's not with them.

And the response is equally awesome. We find out a few verses later that Gideon's own dad has set up altars for several other (non)gods. The one, true God could have played His own abandonment card. It's not like His people were being faithful to him. Instead, Gideon is commissioned and affirmed in 14.

But nerd boy won't have any of it. God says, "Go in the strength you have...," and Gideon answers, "What strength?" Gideon has a very clear picture of his circumstances--he is personally weak, his family is weak, his nation is weak. There is no defeating Midian; it's not happening.

The reality of Gideon's circumstance does not, however, phase God. The God equation in 16 is "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive." It's as if it would take a thousand pounds to crush Midian, and Gideon's got a toy hammer. But God does not care because He's going to bring a monster truck to the party.  All Gideon has to do is get in the cab and put the hammer in the glove box.

I love this story of what I imagine to be a pimply, weakling having a very unheroic discussion with God. We live in a culture at-large and a church culture of strength and success. But weakness is common, and here we see that it isn't off-putting to God.

Tough times

This past month's hiatus was intentional. We have been navigating a painful family crisis, and internet space wasn't where I planned to process anything. We're out of the acute, immediate, fighting for each day phase, but unwinding all this will take a while.

So here are some general reflections on the past month:

1. Choosing to not hide allowed us to experience a lot of love and grace from many directions.
2. I did not always know what I needed, but I was needy.
3. The crisis was big enough to be clearly not fixable, and this was freeing.
4. When the abiding presence of a loving God was all I could hold on to, it was enough.