Molly Fyde Scrapghan Block

I know what you're thinking.  Woohoo!  No more neon!  Right?  Well, it was about time I get back to some crocheting anyways!  So today I'm sharing with you another block I made for my Scrapghan, which was inspired by a planet (yes, you read that right), in the incredible Molly Fyde series by Hugh Howey (the same author I talked about here).

After devouring his first five Wool books, I immediately started the Molly Fyde books, and read them every waking moment I could.  Sleep?  Who needs it.  Food?  Whatever I can eat while still reading.  Anyways, it's an excellent sci-fi series that you should definitely check out!

When I was reading the second book, Molly Fyde and the Land of Light, I loved the description of the planet Drenard, and how the physical make up of the planet affected the philosophy of the Drenards.  One side of the planet is always in darkness and is extremely frozen, while the other side is at the other extreme, being very hot.  Thus, the Drenards "live on a line" between the light and the dark, on the only livable strip of land.  Even the aliens' perceptions and philosophies are reflections of their home planet.  Symmetry is a big part of their culture and references to light and dark, hot and cold are made in their everyday lives.

For example, one of the Drenard characters describes one of the human characters' personality as having a hot and cold side.  He compares him to living on a line like the Drenards as he's always trying to keep a balance between his anger and patience.  I just really enjoyed that entire passage because it gets you thinking about how your own physical environment could have had an influence on you.

So after having read that, I drew up a picture to represent the planet with blue for the frozen side, red for the hot side, and the line of green for the livable land.  For the background I went with black, white and grey, which are the typical color analogies when referring to philosophical things...  

With my simple little drawing I was able to crochet up this square on a car ride to get my sister from the train station.  I'm becoming much more confident in my wing-it/make-it-up-as-I-go skills!  Yes, the block came out exactly how I pictured it, but it didn't really end up very practical!  Because there were so many color changes, there was a butt-load (i.e., a lot) of ends to tie in.  The back looked like a shag carpet.  Really.  It made my skin crawl a little.  Good thing I only needed to make one of them!  But I think I may be able to play around with the pattern I came up with to make something a little easier to work with for future projects. 

However I am super happy with the fact that I was able to crochet something based solely on a drawing.  Not that the pattern ended up very complicated, and there are probably similar patterns out there, but there was a sort of satisfying "I did it!" when I was finished.  

And now you should probably go out and read the books!  I know I'm going to go start the sixth book in the Wool (Silo) series...