Knitting, Sci-fi and other stuff...

I tried to get a better picture of my DRK Everyday Cowl, but yesterday was a blustery, cold but very sunny day.  Despite the look on my face I do really enjoy the cowl. I made some more progress on my Killer Queen.  I stayed up a little too late working on it last night.  I feel like it's going a little faster than my first one, even though I keep making minor errors.  I have to pay very close attention to each row instruction or else I get off by a stitch.  I find the wording in some places to be counter intuitive, at least for me. My swap package arrived yesterday.  I received an absolutely wonderful package.  It also included Original Peaches and Creme yarn, back from when it was produced by the Elmore Pisgah mill in the US.   I plan to start using the project bag immediately.  The next Mal March project I'm going to start is a stash buster.  I'll be using some Sock leftovers from Find Your Fade and a full skein of Eggplant to ma...

      I finished the DRK Everyday Cowl on the 28th, steamed it and got it posted to Nerdopolis before midnight GMT.  I'm glad I read other peoples notes and decided to go with the adult large.  It's got a good amount of space to slip over my head but is still nice and snug around my neck.  I need to get a better picture of this one.        I spent all yesterday and most of today sewing project bags.  I made two for the swap and two for me.  I always say, oh I'll make a bag for myself some other time, then never do.  I used similar fabric combinations for my bags, but they're not identical.  Since I haven't sent my swap package yet, I'll just show off my bags. Open Wide by Noodlehead Inside of Open Wide This was the first time in quite a while that I had inserted a zipper, which did a good job of reminding me what a pain in the butt they are.  This one didn't turn out the best.  The zipper pull doesn't s...

     I haven't been up to much on the crafting front in the last two weeks.  The kids were on winter break from school so my daughter had her best friend over for several days.  I spent most of last weekend cooking.  Liara's birthday is today so having her friend over was part of her birthday celebration.  We had a birthday dinner for her with my parents on Friday.  I was hoping to get some sewing done but got sidetracked.  I whipped up a toddler sized hat for my pregnant co-worker.  Her last day was today, so we threw a baby shower/send off party today at work.  I made a  Windschief , in the smallest size.  I've made it a couple times now.  It's a great straight forward hat with a little bit of interest.  The smallest size should fit her son when he is toddler sized.  I wanted to do something a little bigger so she'll have something for later.   I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes left over from a...

Last weekend got away from me and I forgot entirely to write a post.  I washed and blocked my Unicorn Cowl.  I've been wearing it since it dried.  I like it overall.  The alpaca has a fair amount of guard hairs so it's a little itchy, but not terrible.  I've been plucking them out whenever I see them.  I even took a nice action shot when wearing it the other day.      I've been working on a project a coworker requested me to make.  She wanted it out of acrylic for easy care.  I very rarely work with acrylic anymore.  It causes all my issues to flare up because of its non-elastic properties.  I've been working slowly to minimize my back and wrist pain but I have a deadline.  I just finished the ensemble.  The pattern is okay, probably not something I'd knit again.  I used the free pattern from Lion Brand  Holding Hands Mitts .  The decreases in the franken mitt are a little wonky in my opinion....

I finished my Unicorn Cowl last evening.  This was a fun pattern and one I'd have no problem knitting again. I've woven in the ends since I took this picture.   I had a pretty normal week.  It was stormy at the beginning of the week and very cold for the remainder of the week.  We have a warm front moving in.  It was a balmy 29 degrees F when I left for work this morning.  After experiencing negative digits earlier, near "freezing" is a veritable heat wave. We've had three new people start at work all within the last three weeks.  It's great to have some more staff, but training can be very tiring.  Thursday and Friday we're busy and I felt like I was pulled in all directions; especially Friday.  I'm looking forward to the future.  We have a lot of changes coming to this lab and I'm excited about them.  Just gotta get through this little sludge patch. Until later.  Happy crafting. -Q

    I started a new project on Monday.   I've been working on  Unicorn Cowl  by Casapinka this week.  I'm using Cloudborn Fibers Alpaca Sport as my base yarn and Passion Yarns sock minis for the contrast colors.  I got the Passion Yarns when I attended the CNY Fiber Fest back in 2023.  The pattern calls for 7 contrast colors but I decided to use only the minis I had and not any other left overs.  I didn't think I had anything else bright enough to go with these, so I'm modifying the pattern to account for three contrast colors instead of seven.  I also went down a needle size to compensate for the Alpaca Sport being sport weight instead of DK that the pattern called for.  So far I'm very happy with the way its coming out.  It's a nice simple pattern repeat and I like the way the colors are playing together.  So far the most tedious part of the pattern was casting on 300 stitches.  Even doing five rows of the cont...