Deviant Dispatches

I'm quite pleased with the results of my latest knitting project: a pair of mittens, modeled after a scene from my novel. The waves are the only part that I used a pattern for; everything else (including the general mitten shape) were my creation. I'm especially pleased with the turtle and the mountain skyline. I nearly ran out of yellow, but found another ball of it in my stash. (Hooray stash!) There were so many ends to weave in when all was said and done, but it was worth it. As these are acrylic, they're not the warmest mittens ever, but they will do for now. I've decided that I love making mittens, so it won't be long before I make myself another pair in wool.

I made a beautiful baby blanket, and I decided this is how I'm making all my blankets from now on. I used Tatamy Tweed worsted-weight yarn, which is 40% cotton and 60% acrylic - nice and soft, with a lower likelihood of shrinking. Starting from the corner, I made one central cable and added a new stitch every time I started to get bored. It kept me entertained, let me practice cables, and went pretty quickly on size 8 needles. I love this yarn, too. There are little flecks of color scattered throughout, so while the main blanket is in blue, there is also yellow and red and green in there. When the little one is old enough to get lost in little details, I imagine this being a delight for him. The border is a simple single-chain crochet. I had planned to incorporate the dark grey into the blanket more, but after one row of it, I saw that it was far too dark. I like it as part of the border, though. The light blue corner has a special purpose: once Joe and Kaelin a...

Happy Monday! Are you the big goat or the little goat? This morning, my head felt like the little one. I'd love another day off, but that would be greedy of me. I had a great weekend, with lots of reading, knitting, time with Spousal Unit, and a few hours of wool carding at the farm. "You're not allowed to have better facial hair than me. C'mere, let me nibble it." This is one of the sheep I helped shear in the spring... ...and this is the resulting wool, cleaned, dyed, and ready for carding. I made seven rovings, which can now be turned into yarn! I really like the cotton candy one. And the blue, purple, and green one. Arranging the flower box cornucopia, just like my mama taught me.

I finished a new project! I'm so happy for me, even if the finished product has ... issues. As with all the items I've been binding off lately, I began this set of Norwegian-style snowflake/flower leg warmers quite a while ago. I think I finished the first leg last winter. So when I started the second leg, I only had a rough memory of how the pattern went (these are self-designed, based on a pattern from The Knitting Stitch Bible by Maria Perry-Jones). At first, it seemed to be going quite well. I knitted loosely, because I have problems with stranded knitting being too tight. I figured that if the second leg was a little looser, all the better - the first was tight enough to be a circulatory aid. I bound off the project with brandy on the rocks and excitement in my very strange mind. Unfortunately, I learned too late that I had likely used the wrong size of needles. I'd debated at the start whether I'd used size 6 or 8 for the first leg and just couldn...

There are some gorgeous things out in the world that you need to see. I follow The Creative Crochet Collective on Facebook . They are constantly posting the most creative, beautiful projects, and this morning is no different. Check out this shawl by millicurie on Ravelry. It's called Venus Transit . Perfect. A friend shared this beautiful book art with me. Elaborate paintings were discovered on the edges of 19th century book pages, visible only when the pages are fanned out. More book paintings This gorgeous vegetable medley was in the CSA box yesterday. This is how it looked after  I removed the spinach, and basil, and herbs. A rainbow of delicious. Here are the tomatoes we received. I had trouble fitting them all into the fruit bowl. Sauce is upon us. (Not literally. That would be gross.)

Lately, I've been reading The Once and Future King by T. H. White. Much like knights of olde, I've begun a quest: to finish my in-progress knitting/crochet projects before I begin something new. I tried to start a new project recently and discovered that all the needles I could have used for it were occupied. Needles shall be my jousting spear, the projects my opponent. I've already finished a scarf and TSTUD . (Edit: I was in a rush this morning and didn't post scarf details. This is Echarpe Tranches de Melon by Louise Robert, translated by lapawlow . I used M1R/M1L instead of yarn overs. The yarn is Watermelon Patch by Universal Yarn , in their cotton supreme batik line, and I loved working with it. More pictures will be posted here shortly.) I've also finished a washcloth and a little drawstring bag (it only needed half of the drawstring finished). Those were the easy projects (excluding the sweater, of course). Four down - eight to go.

Well, I finally did it: I finished knitting The Sweater That the Universe Denied. It has a front, a back, and two far-longer-than-necessary sleeves. You may notice the look of terror on my face. I was afraid this was also possibly a pre-mortem shot.  The next step was to cut the sleeves, by crocheting stays into place. One tutorial suggested sewing by hand - but this yarn is so piece-y that I worried it wouldn't stay in place. I found another tutorial that suggested a crocheted steek, which sounded perfect. I added my steeks, and carefully snipped one stitch at a time. It went perfectly, and I'd begun to stitch the cuffs when the cat nabbed a loose strand of yarn: the one for the steek. It was almost entirely ripped out. "Did you expect finishing TSTUD to go smoothly?" Spousal Unit asked. (He has a point.) The evil little culprit.  I pulled out some heavy-duty quilting thread, doubled it over, and did a kind of paranoid back stitch/whip s...

Source 1. They both like to smack each other around. 2. The highest point in the vicinity makes them king of the mountain - even if it's only two feet higher than everything around it. 3. I might also be allergic to mountain goat noses. I have no reason to suspect this, but hey, it's possible. 4. They will eat (or try to eat) almost anything I leave lying it around. For all I know, a mountain goat might also decide to regurgitate something it has eaten in a mysterious corner of the house, staining the carpet a weird shade of blue. 5. They  look legless  when they curl up on the ground. 6. Their feet can inflict a great deal of pain. 7. If there is one in my apartment, chances are it won't take long to destroy something of mine - like my sweater (story coming later this week).

Part I Part II Dear The Universe Something somewhat miraculous happened this weekend, and I give you absolutely no credit for it: I started working on The Sweater That the Universe Denied (henceforth referred to as the STUD) again, for the first time in two and a half years. I'll probably be able to finish the knitting within the week. I am earnestly cringing in anticipation of my smiting. Each time I've worked on the STUD before, I've been thwarted by you, The Almighty Universe. I have a healthy respect for your mysterious thwarting ways - you've been nothing if not creative in your attempts to needle-block me. Therefore, I am wholly vigilant this time around. Of course, there is still the problem of the six-foot sleeves. (You remember those , right? The ones I spent countless extra hours of my life knitting because gauge was/is my evil enemy?) But I have a supposedly simple solution: first, finish the knitting at hand. Then, watch a dozen tutorials ...

In this little bag that I made (with size 2 needles) are two garters that I also made (with a size 7 crochet hook): one for wearing and one for tossing. The bag is a mohair blend, and the garters are bamboo and alpaca. I had a blast making this little bag, especially the picot and bead edging. This weekend, my sister Rachel is getting married, and I'm so glad I was able to make something gorgeous for her. I'll share pictures of the garter with y'all, but only after her soon-to-be husband, Max, has seen them. I think that's a fair trade.

Apparently the cats are big fans of modern art. And installation pieces. It's not like I was unaware of this; they've made smaller installation pieces before, but always with yarn that wasn't attached to a project. Whoever made the sock yarn piece was much less imaginative about it. Luckily, neither of my projects were damaged, and the yarn isn't too terribly tangled. Unfortunately, I was apparently very inspired by their work, and decided to make some installation art of my own. There's a lot more to this piece, but it's hard to photograph against the white linoleum.

Ladies and gents: the Neverending Quilt, in its almost-full glory. It's a whopping 49 squares in size, and covers our queen-size bed with ease. It's a good extra blanket in winter, and will make a solo appearance in summer as a more lightweight covering. I'm quite pleased to have the worst of it over with, especially since I've been working on it for more than two years now. But alas, there is still more work to do: an edging all the way around. It will be black, but other than that, I have no clue what I'm going to do. Seeing as the quilt is now functional, I think it will take me a while to get around to that. I'll still aim for having this thing completely finished by the end of summer, but in the meantime, I have something else to worry about. Socks.

Click to view larger   I designed this shawl for a friend who's been dealing with health issues lately, and I did so while listening to the audio version of Lord of the Rings, read by Robert Inglis . (He is amazing - reads with great voices and even sings throughout. Listen to it.) When I began the project, I had no idea where it was going - I had just picked the color based on what I thought the friend would like. But as the opening pages of the book rolled by, it became clear that this shawl was the embodiment of the Shire. It only took me about a week of working on it every evening to finish. Using a double strand of yarn and a size N hook really moved the project along. This shawl is adjustable, too. I'm very fond of how the project turned out. The shawl is six feet long, heavy, and utterly comforting to wrap up in. Piggy likes it, too. The Shire Shawl Materials 6 skeins Berroco Comfort in color Maine Woods (9839) Size N crochet hook Main Body Ch 51...

For all the knitting and crochet projects that I finish with flying colors and immense pride, there are 20 others that see light for a moment on the drawing board and are hopelessly crushed. I often have trouble figuring out what I want to make, what to make it with, which craft to use, and what pattern to follow (or whether to use one at all). Most of these attempts are unraveled (frogged) before long. I use the same yarn to create something worth working on, something that will satisfy my momentary desires. Unfortunately, some of those end up getting nowhere, too. You know a couple of them by name: the Neverending Quilt and the Sweater That the Universe Denied . It's been ages since I worked on the quilt; it's been longer for the sweater. Here are a few others. They may not have been sitting around for four years, but they certainly have been collecting dust. I started this topsy-turvy watermelon scarf last summer, when it was warm and gorgeous and this yarn was y...

I made bread from my new Pillsbury Healthy Baking Book . This particular recipe was for refrigerated yeast dough that can be used in four different recipes. I made herb biscuits. One set, I shaped with my own personal method: roll till they're round.  The other, I shaped using Julia Child's method: pull extra dough to the bottom, so that the bottom looks a little weird and lumpy, but the top has extra tension. (She explains it better, of course.) Skip to 51:50 for the segment on creating surface tension for dough. Among other things, I recently discovered awesome tree roots. I started a crochet project. I photographed some flowers. I photographed some sister. And I made a card for my niece's birthday. The swan decal comes from an old book poster that I cut up and saved, knowing Sophia would love a pink swan card when she got older. The "love" bit at the bottom is from a set of stamps. She is now five, which makes me...