The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [71]
In ancient Greece and Rome, circles of ivy, laurel, and olive branches crowned the victories of athletes and marked as excellent the pursuits of scholars, artists, and soldiers. As the ancient Greek playwright Euripedes wrote in The Bacchantes: “Come, let us crown your head with ivy.”
Ivy crowns are incredibly simple to make, too. Ivy has large leaves and long, thick stems. Start with a piece of ivy many times the circumference of your head. Mark off the size you want and then start twining the ivy around itself, until the crown is full. Tuck the end under and don your new headpiece.
God’s Eyes / Ojos de Dios
OJOS DE DIOS (oh-hoes day DEE-oes), or “God’s Eyes,” are yarn and stick creations traditionally made by the Huichol Indians. The Huichol, who live in the southern mountains of Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental Range, call their God’s eyes sikuli, which means “the power to see and understand things unknown.” The design, created by yarn wrapped around the intersection of two sticks at right angles, forms the shape of a cross that is meant to symbolize the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. When a child is born, a sikuli or ojo de dios is made by the father; every year on the child’s birthday, another one is woven, until the child reaches the age of five. The ojos de dios are bound together and are kept throughout the person’s life as a means of guaranteeing health and well being.
An ojo de dios can be as simple or complex as you like. Create one using different colored yarns; attach feathers or other decorations on the ends; or make two and combine them to form an eight-sided god’s eye.
To make a basic four-sided ojo de dios, you’ll need:
Multi-colored yarn, or different colors of yarn
2 Popsicle sticks, or other sticks (chopsticks, wooden skewers that aren’t sharp—you can even use toothpicks to make tiny ones)
Glue
Take your base sticks and cross them over each other. If glue is handy, a small dab on the sticks helps to secure their intersection.
With your yarn, make a knot and tighten it where the sticks intersect, to hold the cross shape. (Don’t cut the yarn from the skein—you can cut it later, when you determine whether or not you’ll be switching yarns or weaving until you reach the end of the sticks.) The knot should face the back side of your ojo de dios.
Wind the yarn in a figure eight around the intersection, up and down, then from left to right, to stabilize the sticks and cover the middle.
Once you have the intersection of the sticks covered and they are secure, weave the yarn by bringing it over a stick, then looping it around, and continuing the same over-around pattern on the other sticks.
You can continue in this pattern until you reach the end of the sticks. However, you may also mix things up by reversing the direction—if you’re weaving in a clockwise pattern, switch to counterclockwise after a few rows, and vice versa. This provides a varied texture of recessed and raised rows.
If you wish to change yarn colors, make sure to tie the new yarn to the previous yarn so that the knot is on the back side of the god’s eye. Clip off any excess yarn only at the end, when you’re done.
When you are about a half-inch from the ends of the sticks, cut your yarn, leaving about 8 inches of yarn at the end. Tie a knot in the yarn close to the stick to end the weaving. You can use the “tail” of yarn to hang up the god’s eye when you are done.
If you have feathers, bells, charms, or other decorations, you can glue or tie them to the four ends of the sticks.
Writing Letters
WRITING GOOD OLD-FASHIONED letters has somewhat fallen out of style, with the advent of technology and the tempting immediacy of email, instant