Another Baboon

This past week, I crocheted a new baboon. This time, I used very coarse wool, produced by Bedouin women in the Negev Desert. Traditionally, the wool is used for rug weaving, but I decided to give it a try in crocheting.

It has many advantages, since it is very strong and stable, and in the sculptural crochet technique I use, it easily holds a 3D shape, even on a larger scale. This wool is thicker than the other types of yarn I usually work with, so I get the large shapes much more quickly as well, and most of all –  I like this wool's crude appearance.

There is one major disadvantage to using it in crochet work: It is thick and stiff, so it requires much more effort of the hand muscles, which causes some pain. It became much more difficult when I had to crochet the smaller parts, such as the fingers, and I had to take increasingly longer breaks between crocheting each finger.

As I was eager to get on with the work and see my baboon fighting the tigers, I was looking for an immediate solution, and it was right in front of me – I always have some discarded fabric bands on my desk, which I use in my wrapping technique, so I just wrapped the crochet hook until it was so thick that I didn't have to bend my hand while holding it. I can't say that it solved all the problems, but it was much more comfortable to crochet that way.