Cris's Crochet Mandalas for Marinke + Depression Makeup Tutorial

These fabulous crochet mandalas come from Cris Crawford, a “Boston area polycrafter and art student” known online as QuiltWrapUp. She says,

“I am mostly a quilter, but I was very recently captivated by botanical granny squares. I found out about Marinke while looking for a pattern. It was really by accident that I found out. I was on the Signed with an Owl blog, looking for a granny square pattern, when I saw the news. I thought about Wink all day. My daughters suffer from depression and the eldest attempted suicide three years ago.

“I found one of Marinke’s patterns and made this mandala (above) first using the colors of the flower in my summer garden but then adding in some blue. This is my first mandala, although many years ago I made a few filet lace doilies. Thank you for doing this.”

Cris went on to send many more mandalas to our project! She sent a gorgeous padded rainbow mandala cushion that will be perfect for the crafty corner I want to set up at the art exhibit. She sent terrific mini mandalas that will be gifted to people who need the inspiration. And she sent lots more loveliness. It’s all a treat.

You can learn a lot more about the mandalas Cris made by checking out her own blog posts about them. She shares:

• Her standard mandalas and Picots ‘n Petals mandalas, telling us a bit about the yarn she used, and adding extra fun info like, “I made two of these so I could keep one. The colors are the colors of the front flower garden this year, which was really beautiful.”
• Her package of 50+ mostly mini-mandalas, sharing how she made them, how she packaged them for shipping and more. She writes, for example, ” I decided that three rounds of the simple mandala plus a little picot edge was just the right size, and four colors could be permuted 24 ways. So I made 24 mini mandalas out of the colorful yarn. They are all different.”
• Her set of four bright mandalas, explaining, “I had acquired some nice bright colors for a giant mandala that I was making, but they were a little bulkier than most of my other yarn. So I thought I would make a mandala using only those yarns, plus the cream colored yarn that was also a bit heavier than the rest.”
• Her rainbow mandala, made towards the end of the project with adaptations to color to adjust for the yarn she already had. Great info in here on being adaptable!
• Her mandala cushion including how it was put together. It’s awesome. Be sure to check it out.

I love all of her individual posts and each of these beautiful mandalas.

For the depression awareness portion of this post, I wanted to share The Depression Makeup Tutorial by Amy Geliebter. This is a parody video that succinctly shares what it’s like to face the stigma of depression.

Geliebter told BuzzFeed Health, “Mental health is always talked about in an academic way. I think to be able to talk about it in a way that’s funny and relatable helps more people feel not alone.” She hopes that this is a way to get people talking, to help people who have not experienced depression get a sense of what it is like to live with it and to reach a new audience with information about this important topic.

Once you’ve finished watching it, enjoy the wonderful eye candy of more of Cris’s mandalas:

This post is part of the Mandalas for Marinke remembrance project