d'Histoire Naturelle

Project Dates: 1/9/2022 – 8/15/2022

This was a kit purchased online. I was searching for a crochet afghan project. It needed to be something interesting with lots of new and different stitches. This project definitely fit the bill. This project was completed during our morning coffee hour. It took me a little over seven months though it really felt longer. The cool thing about this project is that each section of the afghan is representative of an aspect of the d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. This is the famous natural history museum which is highlighted in the book All the Light We Cannot Seeby Anthony Doerr. I read that book a year or two before starting this project and didn’t realize they were connected until I started crocheting the afghan. The afghan sections represent different aspects of the museum. For example, the very beginning in the center is representative of flowers and hedges found within the Jardin des Plantes. It continues to visit the Entomology department creating bees and butterflies. Next is Galerie de Botanique with leaves. Following the path in the corners is the Galerie de Mineralogie et Geologie with embedded crystal and gemstones. The Grande Galerie de l’Evolution has stunning displays of elephants. The last stop is the Galerie de Paleontologie that houses fossils represented by a border of fossilized bones which also looks like a white-washed wood grained carved frame for an old-style painting. 

This was originally done as a CAL (crochet-a-long) designed by Scheepjes Blogger Christina Hadderingh from “A Spoonful of Yarn” blog (https://aspoonfulofyarn.nl/2020/09/01/scheepjes-cal-2020-d'histoire-naturelle:-an-introduction/). More information is available at the Scheepjes website: https://w ww.scheepjes.com/en/cals-and-mals/scheepjes-cals/scheepjes-cal-2020-dhistoire-naturelle/information/#. Tutorials were made available from Esther from “It’s all in a Nutshell” blog (https://itsallinanutshell.com/crochet/) which proved helpful in several circumstance for the more difficult or nuanced stitches.  Though I did this project after the CAL was done, it was still a complete joy with many fun stich surprises.