SnarCraft

I finished it! I just want to start by saying that, despite it being two weeks since I last posted (more on this below), I finished that infernal blanket about that long ago, too. I wove in the ends and sewed on the accents and practically chucked it at The Pirates. I also warned Claire that if anything on the blanket broke I wasn’t fixing it for at least 12 months. She understands, she has these feelings sometimes too. It’s why we jiive so well. ;o) Here’s the finished product. It looks more like an albino toucan than a narwahl, in my opinion, but pirates also have birds so it’s still on brand. I’m calling it a win. Remember, I’m not a crocheter, the fact that it looks remotely like an animal, let alone one that I can reasonably argue would fit logically into a pirate family, is a win for me! I think that crochet project zapped me of any knitting mojo I might have had for anyone else. I have a theory that trying to bend yarn in ways that feel very unintuitive for me  (I s...

Baby, you're doing my head in! I mentioned last year about this blanket (at least on Twitter and Instagram, if not here, too) – it's the Stuffed Animal Blanket by Amanda Saladin. I made one for my best friend last year and I was blown away by how easy it came together, how quick it stitched up, and how I remarkably didn't feel like setting the entire project on fire at any time during its creation. (I don't find crochet relaxing, though I do agree it can make some beautiful things.) That  version of the blanket came out  looking like the cutest, dopiest koala and everyone I showed it to wanted to give it a cuddle. THAT  version of the blanket came together in one go, no frogging, no worries. This one? Well... I'm on attempt #5 in almost 10 months and it's still giving me trouble. I should have known I could only get away with crocheting something once before the universe realigned itself. I'm pretty sure it's the yarn. See, it's a silk...

Hello my lovelies! How is your prep for welcoming the Great Pumpkin coming along? (For those who are less interested in the Make-Along talk, feel free to jump below the cute little Reaper divider bar for the other fibre related blather.) Thank you to everyone who was able to join in during the Stitch & Flick sessions the last two weekends! In particular, last weekend’s Casper chatter was a delight. We gushed about how amazing Kat is as a character, reminisced about how we all wanted to be in that slow dance with Kat and Casper, and delighted over Dr Harvey’s Dad-skills; particularly in improvised fencing equipment. I’ve also made a discovery from watching these flicks - Aran sweaters in horror/scary movies are basically Red Shirts. Yup, that’s right, as in the trope of 'if the character is in a red shirt they ain't coming back from the away mission.' It’s really starting to seem that, at least in the 90’s (that’s my data set for now) dudes wearing some form of Ara...

Hello darlings! I’m sorry, with all the road trip bragging talk yesterday I forgot to ask - how was your weekend? Did you get up to any fibrey mischief? I confess I get a bit giddy when travel is involved. The past three years have been very dry on travel and exploring. (For someone who has spent every summer holiday and spring break and even a few university semesters traveling the world, going for more than a few months without an adventure trip is a big change.) My weekend included dinosaurs. I’m not complaining. ;o) I finished a pair of dinosaur gloves for a very special nephew. (Not my nephew, but he’s clearly very special if his Auntie thinks he needs a pair of these delightful things.) I’m damn chuffed about how these babies turned out. The pattern is Triceratops Dinosaur Gloves by Chelsea Nicole Spangler and the pattern is made for ‘women’s glove size 6-7’. I don’t know what that actually means, since I’ve never made gloves before in my life. Yes I do wear gloves some...

Hello darlings, how was your weekend? Ours was...different...We seemed to have crossed into some alterknit reality a couple of times throughout the weekend. Did anyone else find that suddenly weird things were happening around them, too? Maybe some nearby bovine refuge had an excess of heads emerge? More black kitties than usual cross in front of you? How about the just-bought milk in your fridge going sour? Saturday wasn’t too strange. Well, if you ignore the snarky tween who decided that hours before her sleepover was when she was going to refuse to clean her room or set up the lounge to her particular taste for her guest. She still wanted things to be ‘nice’ for her friend, of course. She just didn't want to be the one to do it. Oh, except for insisting that the wool be hidden. She was willing to chuck as much of it as possible onto my bed before sulking behind a book. When she was in primary school the spinning wheel and the fact that I was always knitting something ...

IT. IS. DONE. That's right, you heard it here first! (Ok, actually if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram you would have heard it there first, but let's not be too pedantic just now. I'm celebrating.) That beautiful steampunk/art deco inspired Stephen West shawl I have been slogging away at for over a month? I decided Sunday night that come hell or high water I was finishing those last 35 decreases and it was going to be off my needles. I sat down, I put on some DS9, and I gritted my teeth and whacked out the rest of that damn shawl. then I had a glass of wine in celebration. I also gleefully messaged everyone I could think of to say the fraking thing was DONE! (Sorry to my friends who are less excited about wool than me, but I'm sure you understand on some level.) Here's a photo of the project fresh off the needles. I will get a photo of me wearing it up for you soon. This is going to involve getting someone I trust to take my photo in decent lighting, s...

Well that was embarrassing!  I woke up this morning and checked up on the blog. (Don’t judge me, everyone with a blog/podcast/publication of any sort does this, just ask Neil Gaiman.) Turns out at some point when I was uploading yesterday’s post I managed to tell Blogger to take EVERYTHING down from last month, save for my introduction...Doh! I’ve managed to fix it, and luckily without having to rewrite anything or muck up the blog stats. ( I confess stats aren’t as fun as writing the blog, but I do love seeing where people visiting are from - hey Peru!) If you were here for yesterday’s post go check out the archives, they are entertaining and right now there are only about 10 posts to catch up on! In other news, yesterday evening was a pretty nice time. Youngling managed to demonstrate much responsible-ness by phoning me at two different times, before I got to the point of panicking, that she was needing extra time to finish a school project with her group. The secon...

Hello lovelies, how are you today? I'm sorry for not checking in yesterday, but I have a good reason - I was prepping to see a doctor. Nothing to be worried about! Dr Jodes is not that kind of doctor. Some of you might have heard of her already, if you are fans of The Bachelor (Australia) or were following the #PaceysCreek earlier this year. Ever heard of the book Valentine ? Yeah, that Dr Jodes . I'm not gonna lie, I feel pretty cool by association. (Don't roll your eyes. I don't name drop often, gimme a break.) If you haven't heard her speak or read anything she's ever written STOP right now, go google her, and treat yourself. You won't be sorry. Back to my reason for ignoring you all in favour of prepping for a visit with Dr Jodes. Well, this is a little embarrassing, but when Dr Jodes moved away from Sydney to Tassie I insisted on knitting her some cold weather items because Tassie gets actual weather. She agreed to let me custom make her a hat and...