[embroidery] Heavy Metal Guitar

I quickly embroidered a new hankie for Dollar:

I used some basic back-stitching and french knots. The design came from an iron-on transfer from the Sublime Stitching Craft Pad. I have another one ready to start- a cassette tape and I'll add the name of his band onto the label area in the design. 

[crochet] Pretty Pincushions

I don't have any pincushions and I realized that with some recent embroidery that I have been doing and cross-stitching that I want to be doing, I need to find a better place to put down my needles other than on the couch next to me.

I saw some cute patterns on Ravlery and fell in love with Naalepuder. But my Danish is rough non-existant and I can't decipher Google's translation of "killing stitches" and making "a game of real masks". Thankfully, someone did translate the pattern into english. Whew. And you know what?

It's hexagons! Hexa-frikkin-gons. By now I can make hexagons in my sleep!

Crochet two hexagons (I stopped when I had 60 st) and single crochet them together with the wrong side facing out. When I had 5 edges joined, I stuffed and then closed the last edge. Starting from the center, sew to the points of the hexagons and pull tight to the center again, around. Attached buttons with the two ends hanging out from the center.

And wah-lah:

I gave the green one to my sister and I kept the blue one. I loved adding the buttons. I have a small stash of random buttons and this is exactly why everyone needs a small stash of random buttons- you never know when you're going to need a cute little maple leaf or clear blue ball.

I used one ball of Noro Kureyon to make these two (with enough yarn leftover to make another slightly smaller pincushion). Surprisingly, these were a little more trouble to make than I thought they'd be. Some hints that you might find helpful:

- If you're going to use the magic circle to start these hexagons, don't pull the foundation circle tight. Leave yourself a hole the size of a small lentil. It will be easier to sew through and it will be covered with a button on either side when you're done.

- Don't over-fill or under-fill with stuffing. Duh, I know. But the blue one ended up kind of over-stuffed and the green one ended up a little under-stuffed.

- Don't fill it up solid with stuffing. What worked for me was to form my polyfill into a fluffy white snake, pinch the empty pincushion in the middle with one hand and push/poke/fill the filling around the outside of the pincushion with the other hand. Like, I'm filling up a doughnut or something. Avoid getting much polyfill in the middle because it's hard to sew through and you need the negative space to draw in.

- Use a cotton (or hemp or linen or multi-plied silk) to sew the petals with. Something strong. I tried using a double stand of Noro to pull tight and I broke the yarn. When I was sewing the yarn around and pulling tight to draw in the petals, I was pulling tiiiiiiiiight. It probably doesn't need to be that difficult- maybe the pincushion was overfilled or I crocheted the hexagons too densely. Doing this finishing shouldn't be like working out with a Bowflex, I know. Maybe the next time I make these, I'll take a hot bubble bath and drink wine by candlelight first. I need to relaaaaax.

[misc] Murderface Monday

Three little kitties, waiting for food:

Had a good weekend. Went to Basketville and Webs on Saturday and got a lot done around the house yesterday.

I bought a record player for Dollar for Valentine's Day. It was delivered on Saturday and I couldn't wait to give it to him. I don't mean that flippantly, like, "I can't wait to give this to you, squeee!" I mean, I literally cannot wait until a specific date to give him something. I was like, "OpenItOpenItOpenIt" on Sunday morning.

He was SO surprised and SO happy with it. I was pretty pleased, too. It looks all... olde-tyme-ish.

He received some records for Christmas and I asked, "Do... you have a record player?" No. So I knew he would really appreciate this. Plus, it plays CDs. And cassette tapes. And AM-FM radio. And it has an iPod dock. Srsly, it does everything.

We set it up in apparently the most acoustically perfect location in the house (in the foyer that opens up to the 2nd floor) because the music sounds amazing everywhere. From my craft room to the living room to the basement- anywhere in the house.

[misc] Mmmmm, raw eggs.

[playing] Deadwood. Scored this game in a Yankee Swap before Christmas and I've played it 4 times. This is a cute game- you've got a gang of cowboys that go to Deadwood to annex various buildings: the bank, town hall, newspaper, gold mine, casino, saloon, etc. There is some player interaction in the form of shoot-outs. If you don't want to fight and you have a horse, you can skedaddle to the abandoned mine. Players gain infamy in the form of wanted posters (but you better go to the church and get rid of as many wanted posters as you can before the Pinkertons arrive). It's a fun game and only $23 from Game Surplus.

[reading] A Game of Thrones. I'm late to the series but have become so obsessed with the story. It's so well written. It took a little perseverance on my part to get over the fact that bad things happen from the very beginning. Bad things happen to people you like. Bad things happen to people you don't like. Bad situations abound. But it's so. well. written. And compelling. I only get a few chapters in every couple of nights, so I should be done with it by the time the first HBO season comes out on dvd in March.

[cooking] Ice cream. I received an ice cream maker for Christmas and I've made the best homemade ice cream. I ordered the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream recipe book and their sweet cream base is awesome but uses raw eggs. Beat 2 eggs, add sugar, add heavy cream (hurg, this stuff has the consistency of white paint) and milk. Then whatever flavors you want. Then you add it to the ice cream maker to do it's ice-cream-making-thing. When I made my first batch, I told Dollar, "There's eggs in it." He said, "Weird." I said, "Raw eggs. Not cooked. Just... raw eggs blended." He said, "Uh... Oh... kay." I've been pretty careful about only using local eggs when I made this ice cream (from a farm two towns over). I don't know, we eat rare meat and runny eggs, so this can't be that different, right? ... I was a little apprehensive about the raw eggs but the ice cream is coming out so amazing that with worth the threat of salmonella. Also, this might help me to screw up my courage to make some homemade beef tartar with a raw egg yolk on top. Dollar has already told me that he will not eat that. Which is good, because I'll probably need him to drive me to the hospital.

[knitting] I made a little sample for a pillow cover:

Penny! Sigh. Anyway, I did a small test using yarn scraps to get exact measurements. Now I'm ready to cast on to the actual 16" x 17" pillow. I don't often swatch but I do know when it's important to.

[weaving] I hate weaving. What a tedious nightmare.

[crocheting] I can't get the idea of a mega doily rug out of my head. I just think this one is a little too mega. The .5 inch cotton cording that the artist uses appears to make a 1 - 1.5 inch thick rug once you crochet it up. I know a rug so thick and a lacy would be an open invitation in my house to trip and smash your head on a piece of heavy furniture. I think I'd go with 8/32 cotton cording and a slightly less open design.

[cross-stitching] Yeah baby, you know what I need? A new craft. I ordered some books and aida cloth. I am ready. 

[misc] Penny

Penny's napping spot (formerly Murderface's napping spot):

[crochet] Penny... the Panda!

I finally finished a cute little amigurumi panda:

I whipping up the body back in May but never got around to making/attaching appendages. I don't know why, it took less than an hour to make, stuff and sew on two ears and four legs.

Pattern: Penny the Panda from Lion Brand. 

Yarn: Lion Brand Wool Ease (black), Plymouth Encore Worsted (white)

Hook: E (3.5 mm)

The safety eyes and nose came from the 6060 shop on Etsy. 

Santana doesn't seem too interested:

But when I handed Penny (the kitten) Penny (the panda), she immediately started to chew and tried to rip it apart viscously. I quickly scooped up Penny (the panda) and said, "Stop! You're hurting her!" to Penny (the kitten).

I don't know, this might get a little confusing. 

As confusing as a panda riding a horse?

That musk ox definitely looks confused.

[misc] Murderface Monday

Hmm... things look a little different around here. What do you think Murderface?

Yeah, well, I like it. Blogger told me that it was time to update my template. Some of my widgets are gone, so I'll be adding to the right-hand menu over time.

[knitting] Shaelyn

I finished up this shawl last summer:

I was waiting until I blocked it to take pictures. But... it's still not blocked. 

Pattern: Shaelyn by Leila Raabe

Needles: US 8

Yarn: 5 balls of Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca DK.

The pattern is very good- easy to memorize and it works up quickly with DK or even worsted weight yarn. I like the finished shawl- simple but feminine from the lace.

I put the shawl on the floor to take a picture and Penny has to come in and show me how boring my knitting is:

[knitting] Purple Handspun Hat

More handspun knitting! (It helps that I wound 4 various skeins of my handspun all at once- and I can't use them up fast enough.)

The fiber originally looked like:

Fiber by DyakCraft (formerly Grafton Fibers).

I spun it into a bulky single ply:

Love this hat but the rinky-dink pom pom is... unsatisfactory. I used my largest pom pom maker and it only ended up being about 2 - 2.5 inches across. What I really want is a 4 - 5 inch pom pom. The only tool that I found that looks like it fits the bill is this Clover X-Large pom pom maker but c'mon... $11.50 for one pom pom maker. I need to find it cheaper somewhere else...

[knitting] Handspun Zen Mittens

One of my craft-y goals for 2012 is to knit 50% of all my projects with my own handspun. I spin yarn that I love and hold and pet... then I put it into a bag. I have two gigantic plastic zip bags full of my handspun. I keep adding to it but I don't use it. WHY?! It make no sense. So, I'm using it up, one skein at a time.

Here's the crazy, three-ply that I spun last year:

I remember I was more than a little "meh" about the finished yarn. But as I worked up a pair of mittens, the colors really worked together:

And the finished mittens?

LOVE. lovelovelovelovelovelovelove! They aren't twinsies but any means but they are so great- so soft, so colorful. I'm so happy with that quick and satisfying project this is, that I've started another pair of handspun mittens. 

I used the basic mitten pattern from Ann Budd's book The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. I kitchener'd closed the last 8 stitches at the top of each mitten because the pointy top didn't feel right when I had the mittens on.

[misc] Murderface and Penny

Murderface is smooshed to the back of his napping chair because Penny wants to share the spot:

Oh Murderface, you're so accommodating and polite.

[knitting] Another Lotus Hat

I made another Lotus Hat during Christmas break:

This is at least the 3rd time that I've done this pattern but this time I added an extra repeat to add some slouch. Look how slouchy:

Slouch FAIL. Not slouchy at all, just a bit longer. Meh, it's okay.

The yarn I used is a nice 45% merino / 55% silk by Claudia Hand Painted Yarns, called Worsted 55. I bought it as a closeout at Webs a while ago, wondering why this pretty denim colored yarn with a nice sheen was on closeout. Knitting with it, I realized what the problem was: the dye had not saturated all the yarn plies completely, so if you untwisted the yarn a bit to uncoil the plies, you could see that it was white on the inside. No biggie but now it's something that I might pay more attention to and check for in the future.

[cooking] Dinner Rolls

My little mini-Zojirushi bread maker is one of my favorite kitchen appliances (second only to my rice cooker). I use it about twice a week to make dough. This smaller model doesn't take up much counter space and makes a 1-lb loaf of bread.

I wanted to make some pull-apart dinner rolls this past weekend. It was so easy, I felt like I was cheating.

1. Make the dough in the Zo. 2 minutes of measuring/adding ingredients, wait 1 hour 45 minutes.

2. Cut the dough into 8 pieces, form into balls, put into 9in cake pan. 3 minutes of doing stuff, let rise 1 hour.

3. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

4. Eat. 

So, while it takes just over 3 hours to go from "ingredients" to "mmmm bread", it's only 5 minutes of doing stuff manually. I would say "How easy is that?!" but I think Ina Garten may have copyrighted the phrase. Instead, I'll say, "SO F'ING EASY, RIGHT?!"

Here are the rolls after the final rise:

Here they are after baking:

One mini Zo, one batch of dough, in one cake pan- I think this could become a regular thing. I usually just use the dough for pizza but these rolls were the bomb. 

[weaving] Golden Runner

So here's the first for-realsies project that I wove. Weaved? How do I say 'weave' in the past tense? Uh...

Here's my first woven project- a small table runner. ... Or is it a dresser scarf? 

How do I not know how to say what I'm making or how I'm making it?

It doesn't matter because I love it. My woven'd thingie to put on stuff.

Here it is, all tied onto my 24" Kromski Harp. There's only ~60 ends, which ended up being about 5 inches wide.

The paper on the back is nice, thick plotter paper that I was able to nab from work. It's excess cut from a map that I printed and is just the right size and weight for weaving.

The yarn I'm using is Aslan Trends Class, in a pretty golden color. I picked it on in Florida when my sister and I were down visiting our mom. It's a cotton/rayon blends with nice sheen and drape.

After some weaving and rolling weaving and rolling:

Not bad. Not bad at all. My selvedges on the left side were wicked wonky, but I attribute that to my noob skillz and the tension not being tight enough. Weaving is not something where you can go, "Bah! Tension Shmention!" No, the tension needs to be. just. so. OR ELSE.

The finishing wasn't so bad. I cut the project off and tied knots a either end:

The thing that's hard for me to get past is that there's a lot of waste. Or, there feels like there's a lot of waste. All those ends where the project was tied on are cut. And I'm left with ~120 4 - 6 inch short bits of yarn. 

Interestingly, these ends are called "thrums". Which automatically makes me think of thrummed mittens. I guess I could use these yarn ends as thrums for various projects but I usually think of unspun roving for thrums. If I used these leftovers, it would feel like lots of loose ends hanging out inside the mitten. Right?

Currently my plan for the ends (because, yes, I will obsessively keep them and not throw them away) is to use them either:

1. Tie my handspun yarn after I skein it.

2. As stuffing for toys, like these little dumplings 

3. Cut the thrums much shorter, put them out in a cage/mesh bag for the birds to take in the spring to build their nests.

Any other ideas for short lengths of yarn?

The runner in the entryway:

Yay! 

[misc] Murderface Monday

Some recent videos of the kitties. Waiting for supper:

Murderface and Penny playing with a new cat spinner toy:

Penny, chittering at a fly on the ceiling:

[misc] Happy 2012!

Happy New Year! I had a nice, long vacation which I spent doing... uh... doing... what did I do? Not any of the house stuff that I had planned (painting, sanding, staining). I knit a lot and started weaving.

WEAVING IS SO HARD. SRSLY. No one told me that 60 - 70% of weaving is prep work and set-up. The actual weaving, passing the shed and beating it down, is after hours and hours of measuring, threading, warping, drinking, taking a break by watching an episode of Entourage and eating chocolate. You have to ask yourself, "You know what I'd like to do 8 hours from now after non-stop, painstaking fussy work? Weave."

Siiigh. The upside to this is that once you actually sit down to weave, the project moves along quickly. I made a little table runner/dresser scarf and just started a simple scarf.

My new year's resolution (more like a 2012 challenge) is to knit 50% of all my projects with my handspun. My handspun is accumulating and I'm not putting it to any use. So. I started a pair of mittens and they are turning out omg so cute with my own handspun.

It was nice having a week off to hang out with the kitties. Santana, who's the meanest B-word in house, was really sweet and cuddly all week.

Penny's growth makes me sad. I didn't take enough pictures of her as an itty-bitty-stinky behbeh kitten. 

Murderface is a good boy as always. So handsome. So sweet. The best kitty ever.

Got to take pictures of all the recent and current projects...

[crochet] Christmas Coasters Finished

I did finish all the coasters:

It was kind of hard to give these up. I love the little bit of gold glitz in them:

Very festive.

[craft] Christmas Tags

I had to start wrapping gifts this past weekend and all I had in the house was wrapping paper and tape. No tags. BUT I did find blank crafty-type tags and a package of 4 sheets of Christmas stickers. So I made my own tags and I think they're soooooo cute:

I might need to do this every year. It was so fun to make different combinations of the stickers.

It was kind of sad to see people read the tag, open the present, crumple the tag with the wrapping paper and throw it away but, sigh, it's okay. It just a tag. Just a homemade tag. That I made and went "Hah hah, omg, that's so cute" after making every single one.

[spinning] Nightingale Fibers

Spun a true 3-ply with 50% alpaca and 50% merino from Nightingale Fibers (picked up at 2011 VT Sheep and Wool festival, I think).

Ending up being a light worsted weight. 

[misc] Murderface Monday

Murderface, coming to see what I'm eating and whether or not he wants some:



He always wants some. He's Starvin' Marvin all the time because Penny eats her food as OMGfastAsPossible and then runs over to his dish to eat whatever he's still woking on. (Penny knows enough to not try that anymore with Santana.) Murderface tried to bite the air around her head but he doesn't smack her to deter her. He's just too sweet and polite. But then he's like, "Meow I'm hungry! Meow I'm hungry! Meow! MEOW!" Penny, can you not take Murderface's food anymore, please?

 

D'awwwww.

[crochet] Christmas Coasters

Whipping up some sets of coasters to give out for Christmas:

You'd think after making the Catan lapghan/gameboard that I'd never want to make another single-crochet hexagon again. But. I can make them pretty quickly now. 

The yarn is Louisa Harding Cinnabar, which is a mishmash of 30% Viscose, 25% Cotton, 15% Acrylic, 10% Silk, 10% Linen, 5% Polyamide (nylon), and 5% Acetate. I have to be a little careful working with it, because I'm using a smaller hook to make the coasters dense, and there are so many plies of different fibers, they can kind of come undone. But the finished coasters have a nice tweedy look with a little bit of glitz. I am able to make a set of 6 coasters from one ball of Cinnabar.

[knitting] Christmas Hats

Whipped up three hats to give as Christmas presents:

Still need to sew in the ends.

The yarn is Knit Picks Shamrock that I ordered years ago. It's a heavy worsted/light bulky weight. The pattern was just: Cast on 84, k2p2 up up and away until decreases for the crown. Easy. Each hat only took a couple evenings to make.

[knitting] Slippers

Finished a pair of slippers (which are really just a pair of double-thick socks):

Pattern: Nola's Knitted Slippers

Yarn: Plymouth Encore Colorspun Worsted, pink, 2 balls (yarn held double)

Needles: US 9 (5.5 mm)

Notes: These are nice and plush. Easy to make- the pattern is written to knit these flat, then seam them shut. I had to pull out my trusty Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book (this is still my 'desert island' knitting reference book) to make sure I did my garter-to-garter sewing invisible. You really can't see/feel the seam along the foot and heel.

If I were to make these again, I'd probably do the cuff in the round and then work the actual foot flat.

These are nice to keep by the couch. I usually go around the house barefoot, even in the winter. These slippers are nice to pull on when my feet are up on the coffee table and my toes get cold.