Common Names and Regional Terms
Other Alternative Names
- Grandfather’s flute
- North American flute
- Pe-be-gwun (Ojibwe/Chippewa)
The hobbies-interests blog refers to it as the “American Flute” as music played is not Indian music. The music is fun music, Christmas music, and hymns.
How is the NAF different from the silver flute? The native American style flute is a two-chambered (slow air chamber and bore) fipple designed flute whereas the silver flute is a side-blown or transverse style flute, which requires you to practice embouchure to create a sound.
After some time, the moisture will form little droplets of water that enter and obstruct the airflow underneath the block, and your flute will feel “choked” and lose its clarity. This problem will get worse until the flute eventually stops playing all together. Extensive playing can be done by having more than one flute or drying the used flute.
After playing, remove the flute’s “bird” and wipe its underside and sound holes. Wipe off any remaining moisture with a soft non-abrasive cloth and let the flute completely air dry before storing.
Playing Native American flute will also cause a meditative brain state, increasing alpha and theta brainwave patterns. Using your breath will naturally provide relaxation for your mind and body. At the same time more rhythmic and expressive sounds can exhilarate your brain.
Crochet is a versatile needlecraft that uses a single hook to interlock loops of yarn or thread, creating textiles like blankets, clothing, and amigurumi plushies. It is beginner-friendly, with popular starter projects including scarves, coasters, and simple stuffed animals.
Common Beginner Projects
- Amigurumi: Small stuffed creatures, often made with kits.
- Scarves & Cowls: Simple, repetitive, and quick to make.
- Coasters & Dishcloths: Small, square projects perfect for practicing tension
Common Materials
- Yarn: Acrylic is durable and affordable, while cotton is great for structured items.
- Hooks: Available in aluminum, wood, or bamboo, with ergonomic options for comfort
Popular yarn choices include Red Heart Super Saver, a durable 100% acrylic option, and comprehensive kits like Hearth & Harbor.
Common Crochet Techniques & Styles
- Amigurumi: The art of knitting or crocheting small, stuffed yarn creatures. It often uses single crochet stitches in continuous rounds to create dense fabric.
- Tunisian Crochet: Often described as a mix of knitting and crochet, this technique uses a long hook to keep multiple stitches active at once, creating a thick, woven texture.
- Filet Crochet: A grid-like technique using chains and double crochet to create patterns. It looks like filled and unfilled squares, forming pictures.
- Tapestry Crochet: A method for working with multiple colors of yarn, carrying the unused color along the row to create intricate, multicolor designs.
- Corner-to-Corner (C2C): Projects worked diagonally from one corner to the opposite, creating a textured, pixelated effect often used for blankets.
- Hairpin Lace: A technique requiring a special hairpin-shaped tool to create long strips of lace that are later joined.
- Broomstick Lace: Uses a very large needle (like a broomstick) along with a standard crochet hook to create open, airy designs.
- Freeform Crochet: A creative, unstructured form of crochet that does not follow a pattern, allowing for organic, artistic creations.
- Irish Crochet Lace: A delicate, traditional form of lace-making that creates individual motifs that are then connected.
Common Project Types
- Granny Squares: Small, decorative motifs usually worked in rounds, which are joined together to make blankets, bags, or clothes.
- Motifs: Individual shapes (like circles, hexagons, or flowers) created separately and joined.
- Doilies: Detailed, intricate lace projects usually worked in rounds.
- Overlay Crochet: A technique adding decorative stitches on top of previous rows for texture and color.
Crochet is a relatively modern textile art that likely evolved from 16th-century French embroidery techniques (“tambour”) and 19th-century “shepherd’s knitting”. While early forms used hooks to create lace, crochet became popular in Europe and Ireland in the 1840s as a famine-relief industry. Tambour: Precursor techniques involved “tambouring,” where a hook was used to create chain stitches on a stretched fabric base. Later, this became “crochet in the air,” removing the base fabric. In 1829, the first crochet pattern was written by Mademoiselle Riego de la Branchardiere. The daughter of a French father and an Irish mother, she is known as the mother of crochet and said to be the creator of the Irish crochet style! At 18 she published her first book about fiber and needlework.
Key Historical Influences
- Nålebinding: Considered an ancestor to both knitting and crochet, this is an ancient, single-needle looping technique.
- Shepherd’s Knitting: A 19th-century,, often rural practice that used a hook for slip-stitch work
Some Crochet Sites:
https://www.ravelry.comhttps://www.lionbrand.com/collections/crochet-kits
https://www.allfreecrochet.com/
Sewing is one of the oldest textile arts, originating in the Paleolithic era (approx. 20,000–50,000 years ago) using bone needles and animal sinew to create protective clothing. The craft transitioned from essential hand-sewing to mechanical production with the invention of the sewing machine in the mid-19th century and the development of commercial paper patterns in the 1850s, democratizing fashion and transforming sewing into a popular creative pursuit.
The major sewing pattern companies have bought one another up and consolidated, but they still tend to have their own individual “personalities.” Vogue, Simplicity, McCall’s, and Butterick are known as the Big Four.
The hardest things to sew include garments requiring extreme precision, such as tailored suits, wedding dresses, and corsets, along with projects using difficult fabrics like silk, chiffon, and velvet. Complex, 3D items like structured bags, shoes, and heavily beaded fabrics are also notoriously difficult due to their slippery nature, weight, and the need for specialized equipment.
Changing your sewing machine needle every six to eight hours is recommended. Sewing machine operations cause needles to become dull, bent, or damaged after continuous use, making them less efficient in pushing aside fabric threads. Most sewing machine issues can be resolved quickly by replacing your needle.
The hardest fabrics to sew are typically silk velvet, silk chiffon, Charmeuse, and slinky knits due to their extreme slipperiness, shifting nature, and delicate handling requirements. These fabrics move under the needle, stretch out of shape, and are difficult to cut accurately, often requiring advanced techniques like hand-basting or specialized feet.
Some sewing sites: