celebrating heritage

I’ve got some Native American blood in me, so I decided to do a craft which celebrates that culture.  Presenting my first ever dreamcatcher!

Now there is crochet in this — the brown yarn is crocheted around a cheap bangle from Wal-Mart (the whole thing is about 3 1/4″ in diameter).

From what I know about dreamcatchers, they were originally about the same size as this one.  Traditionally there should be 8 points and you should hang personal/spiritual items from it (these beads come from some clothing I used to wear).  Dreamcatchers are, of course, supposed to filter out bad dreams when hung above your bed, letting only the good dreams pass through.  Now I’m not using the traditional leather strips and sinew, but honestly I have no idea where to get sinew and I figured it didn’t matter what the materials were, so long as most of the symbolism is still there.  Old fashioned ones actually become brittle and fall apart eventually due to their materials, which is supposed to symbolize growing out of childhood, but since I’m not a child anyway I figured I could improvise.  I’m excited to hang it up!