Knitting, Sci-fi and other stuff...

Day Four (Thursday 14th May): Bags Of Fun. Time to delve into that most treasured collection of tools, notions and oddments as you are asked to spill the contents of your knitting or crochet bag, caddy or other method of organization and put your crafting unmentionables on display.      I have several bags, bins and totes for all my yarny goodness.  I'll keep this fairly simple and not take pictures of all seven or eight of my huge Rubbermaid totes.  I'll simply explain that I organize my yarn my type or function.  So I have a tote for dishcloth cotton. One tote just for my "real" Pisgah Peaches & Crème yarn and a second for all the other heathen dishcloth cotton.  Currently that second tote is filled with other random things left over from moving.  (I used every available inch of space to cram things into.)  I have one tote for baby yarns.  A couple of my project bags are in that one too.  I have another tote for cra...

Day Three (Wednesday 13th May): Experimental Photography And Image Handling For Bloggers. Every Year Knitting & Crochet Blog Week tries to feature at least one day where photography takes a key role, because it has been proven many times that what captures reader’s attention for the first few seconds to hopefully hold them long enough to invest the time to read your words is your pictures, and so this topic crops up each year, but every year it yields such different results!      This is the one I struggle with every year.  I'm pretty simple when it comes to pictures and picture taking.  I do my best to take my pictures in good natural light, in order to capture colors at their truest.  As far as getting all artsy, meh, not so much.  I do like playing with color a bit so here are two skeins of yarn I played around with.  MadelineTosh DK in Hosta Blue The yarn label says it all.      Then there are the ...

Day One (Monday 11th May): If You Were Yarn. If you were a type or brand of yarn, which would you be? Are you a classic pure wool? Is there extra tension but a bit of bounce in you because of your high twist? Would you be more like a high-maintenance, strictly hand-wash fluffy angora or a ‘bring it on’ acrylic, bravely heading into the world of possible baby-sick laundering disasters knowing that you will always come out bright and unharmed?      If I had been asked this question back in January of 2014 I think my answer would be very different from the one I'm about to give today.  Since that time I have started my second new job and have moved my entire household to a smaller city.  Granted the move was what I wanted, but there has been a transition period for me after leaving everything I'd known and become accustomed to behind after 12 years.  I've made new friends twice, gotten used to different policie...

     Knit and Crochet Blog Week start tomorrow.  I really want post number 100 to be a normal one so I'm doing a quick update.  I've still been knitting dishcloths and I got some more cotton since I realized I was out of purple.  I want to do a rainbow set of ball band dishcloths and its sort of hard to do that without purple.  So here's what I've done: Another Elvish Leaves Dishcloth in the Aloe Vera color.  I'm going to do another in a darker solid green.  I made this one while watching the third Hobbit movie, which was totally a coincidence.  I had to focus on this a bit so I really didn't even watch the movie too much anyway.  This makes a largeish cloth.  I love the lace patterned ones.  The other cloth I made was this one. It's Ball Band Dishcloth .    I use the original Peaches and Crème version.  There are many versions and they're all the same.  I do cut out one pat...

     I'm going to dive right in with this one.  I got the third and final installment in the Mad Geek Tour; Where No Color Has Gone Before.   This month it was four mini skeins of Doolally in Command Gold, Science Blue, Expendable, I mean, Engineering/Security Red and good old black.  All the renditions of the uniforms had black somewhere, boots, trousers or basically the whole uniform into the later seasons...  Which coincidently are my favorite of all the uniforms.  Alrighty... off topic.  This bundle is called To Go Boldy.  Since they came as a bundle I think I need to do something fair isle with them, maybe a hat...  Since this was the end of the tour I also received the Jessalu bag.  It is awesome, as I expected it to be. It of course follows the Trek theme.  I love the caricature nature of the little people.  I immediately turned it all over looking at them and figuring out who...

     Before I get into looking back at 2014 and my knitoultions from last year; it's time to catch up on my last two projects.  I finished and blocked the hat I made from the Bamtastic yarn.  The pattern is Caramel Slouch.   It's a Tincanknits pattern.  They put out some amazing hat patterns.  The recommended yarn is wool based which makes the pattern hold its shape better.  The Bamtastic is 60% bamboo which makes it extremely drapey and loose.  I probably should have knit it at a slightly tighter gauge.  I have not delivered this to the customer yet, so I'm a bit worried she wont like it.  It's quite a bit more open than my usual stockinette.  I would like to knit up the pattern again with a high wool content yarn just to see the difference in fabric.       I also finished the second, adult sized, Sassafras for Christina.  I used MadTosh DK in the Chickory color...

     I caved and picked up some new buttons the last time I was at Wally World.  I was going for both washable and cute since all my items needing buttons are for children.  I then had a little button sewing party on my night off.  In no particular order: I got a whole package of these, flowers are always a good choice for little girls.   I originally got the daisy buttons for just the Solis Entrechat, but the yellow center looked so good with the browns of Piedras, I just couldn't resist. Jordan was nice enough to model this for me.  This is Sassafras   and its reversible! So it can be worn as a slouch or a beanie.  I thought the design was ingenious.  It's a nice easy pattern and very pretty.  Christina had admitted that it does occasionally get cold enough for her to wear a hat and having a matching one wouldn't be too dorky.  I got a second button in anticipation that I could get another skein o...