DADA: Pimp my Bible

It just struck me how appropriate this particular project is for a class called Defense Against the Dark Arts. Bible accessories vs. Dark Arts. Nice.

The February assignment for DADA was:

Expecto Patronem: Make something having to do with your patronus. Extra points for explanations of what your patronus is, and why.

I was a bit slow to figure out what my Patronus would be. Last month's Charms assignment also had to do with Patronuses (Patroni? Sounds like a really tasty pasta), but I never made it past the association with purple. For this month, though, I wanted to work on developing the idea of my Patronus a little bit, since this assignment focused more on the Patronus itself, rather than its effects.

I went back to a name I'd been given previously. There's a whole story about fire names, rooted in the tradition of summer camp, and it feels a little silly to talk about it outside the circle, as it were. Essentially a fire name is a descriptive name that represents something about your character.

I was given the fire name "Unyielding Granite", which I have since decided is something like calling once-Cardinal Ratzinger the "papal bulldog" (only a bit more Protestant). I like having conversations about religion and matters of doctrine, but I'm also pretty unmovable on the things I'm convinced of. Luther said- reportedly- "Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders," and I'm of much the same mind.

So I got to thinking about what animal might best represent this aspect of my nature, and I arrived at the obvious answer: the Ox.

Well, it was obvious to me.

I have other associations with the Ox, too: I was born in the year of the Ox according to the Chinese zodiac. Also, the ox, in the Bible, is associated with those who teach the Bible- fitting, I think, for someone who wants to work in Bible translation.

Having settled on the identity of my Patronus, I took a longer time trying to figure out what project I could possibly knit to tie in all those meanings. The ox is not the animal most likely to be represented in knitted form. Cue inspiration number one: The oxo cable.

I knew that the project had to be small, because I wanted to knit it from the leftovers from last month's Charms project, which was two-thirds of a skein or less. And it had to look good in purple.

Finally, two weeks into the planning stage, I put together the meaning of my Patronus with its function, worked out the sum, and found its form: Bible accessories! (Is there anything more Sunday-school-Protestant than Bible accessories?)

Introducing the Purple Patronus Pen Pocket:



...modeled by the lovely ESV Journaling Bible (the best investment I ever made. Seriously. Dead useful). I had been keeping a pen tucked under the elastic strap that holds the book closed, but it kept falling off or poking me or flipping around at inconvenient times. I think the pocket will be much less likely to cause injury. (Plus it looks prettier. ^.^)

The PPPP is the latest upgrade in a series I'm making to this Bible. The very first thing I did was make more bookmark ribbons, because one bookmark isn't very useful at all. Next up, I think, will be adding a little accordion file-ish pocket for the scrap paper notes that are currently sitting free inside the front cover and fall out the instant they get a chance. We'll see.