craftlog

* Bernie the worm

Posted on June 21st, 2005 by maitreya. Filed under Knitting.

Bernie, my dad, used to draw cartoons for me and my sisters when we were little. They mostly featured the adventures of Bernie the Worm, an orange, smiley worm. He had some friends like stick and rock and Carlos Castaneda. So, since I haven’t mailed his father’s day gift yet, I made this to throw in with it. Made on my new 6-nail knitting spool with more thrifted yarn from my sister and a little pipe cleaner inside for posable worm action. I didn’t notice until I’d already made it that it conveniently doubles as a Month of Softies bug.

9 Responses to “Bernie the worm”

natasha fialkov Says:
June 21st, 2005 at 11:25 pm

he looks like oscar the grouch’s worm, slimy. so very cute!! i always see the icord knitting dolly’s that are so cute…and i stink at making icord.

Fiona Says:
June 22nd, 2005 at 6:16 am

I love Bernie - he’s so cute!!

jenny vorwaller Says:
June 22nd, 2005 at 8:55 am

bernie! you are adorable! do you want to take a little side trip on your way to meet dad? i live on the east coast…call me! :)

(p.s. i love your adorable tree background!)

kelly Says:
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:13 am

Oh, Bernie is adorable! And he does bear a resemblance to Slimy… perhaps they’re related!

ariel Says:
June 22nd, 2005 at 12:34 pm

he needs a piece of velcro on his side not facing us, and a cool background to stick him too, so we can make stories. and then you need to make all his friends. and then we need to take it on the road.

Cassi Says:
June 22nd, 2005 at 5:48 pm

He’s so cute, I love that he’s orange! I’ve been wanting to try those knitting spools again, I remember doing them when I was little.

Christy Says:
June 23rd, 2005 at 6:30 pm

I love him. He looks so friendly, too! Your dad sounds cool (drawing cartoons with smiley worms and rocks).

Bernie Dunham Says:
July 3rd, 2005 at 7:37 pm

“The Adventures of Bernie the Worm” were about the teachings of the Worm Way of Knowledge, which he learned while living under Carlos Cast-a-Shadows’s shack, where Bernie the Worm overheard Don Juan transmitting the ancient wisdom. I started writing the stories in 1971-72 when I was an English/Children’s Literature Major(Comparative Religion/Elementary Education Minors) at Western Michigan University. The stories were Beatrix Potter meets Don Juan, although Bernie the Worm’s dialogues with Flower were more like The Little Prince meets Hegel/Nagarjuna (a Buddhist dialectician).

A couple of years ago, during a Christmas visit, Maitreya, Ariel, and Radha made Femo versions of the Bernie the Worm characters, including Rock, Stick, Sun, Flower, Bird, and Cloud. The small Femo sculptures bring me great happiness. I used to keep the Femo characters on my bookcase next to my tiny clay Buddha and Krsna statues.

Sean Says:
March 23rd, 2006 at 8:54 pm

Wow. Bernie is cute. I want to hear the stories of his exciting adventures! I wonder if any of these stories are around anywhere?

Comments RSS

email

maitreya[@]craftlog[.]org

other sites

books I'm in

like lately

Blog Friends

creative commons

craftlog is under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial license. That means that you are all welcome to take and repost my photos, replicate my projects, remix my ideas, whatever you want as long as you give attribution (a link is fine) and it's noncommercial. Thanks!