Friday, October 24, 2014

A Little More Who...

My latest attempt at a new pattern. The 1st Doctor scarf! Well I'd made it through the 4th Doctor's scarf so I figured why not? I'm doing it in segments that will be seamed later in mattress stitch...






Wish me luck, if it turns out well enough the pattern will be up for sharing soon. :)

Knitting in Texas

After a long recovery from knee surgery and a subsequent move to the lover 48 I have safely made it to Texas. I have since taken part in the 8th annual Yarn Crawl. Much fun! A friend bought the entry fee for me, and in return I'm making a surprise scarf for her...


It's in Whisper Lace by fibra natura. I hope she likes it :)


Monday, July 07, 2014

Easy Bulky Raspberry Cowl

I'd been dieing to knit myself a cowl that could easily function as a hood for quite some time, I'd also been jonesing to do more knitting with bulky yarns as projects made with the stuff knit up so quickly and give you that buzz over finishing up a project that much faster, and lastly, I'd been wanting desperately to come up with a project for that lovely Black Raspberry Charisma yarn by Loops and Threads I kept seeing at work. So... I decided to satisfy all three urges at once.


It works nicely as a hood, or a neck warmer...



 And it can even snug down over the shoulders nicely.


So if anyone is interested, here's the pattern.

Easy Bulky Raspberry Cowl

Knit flat

2 skeins of Loops and Threads Charisma in Black Raspberry

Size 15 US needles

Cowl is knit using two strands of yarn, both skeins used at the same time. I tried to line up the two strands so that the color changes occurred at the same time.


Gauge: 8 stitches over 4 inches


Cast on 62 stitches


Do 5 rows in stockinette stitch, starting and ending with purl rows.

Then knit the next 47 rows in stockinette stitch starting and ending with purl rows.

Then knit the last 5 rows in stockinette, starting and ending with purl rows.

Sew a seam up the side in mattress stitch, from purled end to purled end. Weave in ends.



Thursday, June 12, 2014

Adventures in (Needle) Felting

Felting... I've done it. I've done it with hats and it was quite fun.

And when a friend told me that he needed some gloves for when he was out working his trap lines (nothing fancy he said, just thick, warm, and functional) I figured a felted glove would be just the thing. So I knitted up and felted the gloves. But much to my surprise...


You'll note that despite my knitting them both exactly the same, try as I might one felted up with a larger thumb.

Note to self: difficulties may arise when felting down sets of items rather than just a simple, single object, like say for example, a hat.

So where my washing machine was failing me I decided to give my felting needle a try. I've done needle felting before, it's fun, felting little animals, cute little frogs ect... Surly it must be possible to needle felt a wool thumb down a bit.

What follows is the way that I handled the problem, I'm not sure if it's the right way, but it is how I dealt with it and I think it turned out quite well.


I snipped the thumb once...

Then quartered it...


Then thinned the layers a bit.


I then put the thumb over the handle of a broomstick, overlapped the quarters and needle felted them together (It helps if the broomstick is the kind with a hole in the handle for hanging up the broom, this allows you do get a bit more depth with the needle).



I then turned it inside out and needle felted the inside along the thumb's edge.


Then I added in some extra wool by throwing a few stitches in there with a blunt tipped needle, and washed the glove again. A little more needle felting and...


Done and done :)


Much better


The final result, with my husband lending man hands to the modeling of the gloves :)





Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Spring Tips

Made my first batch of spruce tip jelly of the season...


...and I still have enough juice left to make another batch! :)

Now I know what you're thinking, jelly that tastes like a spruce tree? Why on earth would I want to eat that. Well if it were just ordinary spruce needles I was throwing into the jelly pot you'd be absolutely right. With all the secondary compounds found in conifer needles I doubt anyone would be able to keep the stuff down. But this jelly isn't made from just any old parts of the tree. It's made from the delicate light green tips of our local spruce that only appear in the spring and must be harvested (in June) while they are still that pretty light grass green in color. All the new growth for the season pops out at the tips in tiny light brown husks and once the husks fall away they are soft, light colored, light flavored, little tips that pluck off the branch quite easily.

Now I don't know how this recipe translates with other types of conifers in other areas but I'll give the recipe below for anyone who'd like to try it. 

Collect 9 cups of spruce tips, tips on harvesting them can be found here.

Remove the husks if any, clean them, and put them in a large saucepan and add water until the level is just below the top of the tips. Bring to a boil and boil for 1 hour, then turn down heat and simmer for 3 hours. Strain the tips through cheese cloth saving the juice and throw away the tips.

Spruce Tip Jelly

In a large saucepan combine 3 cups spruce tip juice and 1 packet of powdered pectin, stir to dissolve completely. Measure 4 cups of sugar in a separate bowl and set aside. Bring juice to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Add the sugar, stir and boil for 1 full minute. Remove from heat, skim off foam and pour into prepared jars.

This is NOT like a fruit jam or jelly and should not be used with peanut butter. This jelly goes well with meat, cheese, cream cheese and crackers. I like it best with cream cheese and crackers myself. :)

Enjoy!
 

Friday, February 28, 2014

The Robin Hobb Birthday Game... additional visual clues

Just a little something I put together to go with the present I'm hiding. There's another little toy in there with it too ;)


It's a steampunk nature themed piece made with Czech glass, amethyst, and millefiori flower beads. It has the clasp right behind the bee so no annoying little clasp to get hooked on clothing or tangled up in hair. The bee is particularly apt due to a prominent feature of the place the gift is hidden.

Now on to the visual clues...





Monday, February 17, 2014

Uses for the Extra Doctor Who Scarf Yarn






Looking good. I made some garter stitch fingerless gloves : )