The Starshine Cowl

I have a friend in the UK whom I would totally adopt as a sister is I could.

Since I can't, I like to randomly send her things.

Autumn and winter are not her favourite seasons, so I wanted to make something to bring some colour into the greyness and make this year a little brighter for her.

I took the first two skeins I made on a spinning wheel, and came up with a cowl pattern which would hopefully be bright AND warm.

These are the yarns I used. I'm still such a n00b when it comes to spinning so they're not the most even bits of string in the world but they definitely meet the requirements of bright and colourful.

Grabbing a big circular needle, I cast on and began to do a large moss-stitch pattern. This provided a bit of visual interest and shows off the colours in the yarn without driving me insane from boredom the way a plain garter or stocking stitch cowl would have done ^.^;

I did one repeat of the green/yellow yarn on the outside of two repeats of the purple/blue one, and this is what it came out like:

Hopefully it does the trick in staving off the Winter Greys for a wee while.

Keep calm and cast on!

~Topaz

A Ballsack for my Boyfriend.

Last year I decided to make my Partner a sneaky Christmas gift - He knew I was knitting him something but he had no idea what it was.

I'm horrible at doing the whole "keeping secret gifts secret" thing. I get all excited about the project and want to talk about it all the time >.<

My partner is a qualified Sparky who has a mild obsession with juggling and also works as a clown and juggler/stiltwalker. (Yes, I'm dating a party clown.) I'd already gotten some of Opal's "Electrician" sock yarn for him, planning to somehow measure his feet without him knowing and make him some socks for Christmas.

How on EARTH do you measure someone's feet without them knowing? Ply them with strong drink or chloroform?

. . . Yeah, no. Not going there!

About the middle of last year he was complaining about not having anywhere on his costumes to easily stash his juggling balls, and he also had an accident where his best contact-juggling ball fell out of his pocket and cracked when it hit the ground. About the time he was most vociferous I had this book out of the library:

Inside this book there is a pattern for an item called a "belt purse", a long tube-shaped bag that has a slit opening near the top and also a loop to enable you to conveniently hang it from your belt.

The gauge for this belt purse meant it could be knitted up with the Electrician-coloured yarn, which is a very bright and clown-like colourway. (If you stretched your imagination to a clown who happened to like grey, blue and fluro yellow)

BINGO! Christmas gift idea required.

That pattern as written in the book was a little too small for juggling balls, so I checked the dimensions of the finished bag against the diameter of his favourite set of juggling balls and discovered that all I needed to do was double the pattern in every direction.

My problem was that all the patterns are in a really really fine gauge, since the most commonly used knitting needles in the Andes (according to this book) are made from the spokes of bicycle wheels.

That blew my mind.

I'm not a fan of tiny needles and lots of stitches. When I saw the final count of rows I'd need I nearly cried! Thank goodness for Opal's colourways and their shorter sections of colours that stopped me from dying of boredom.

The bag is made in one piece and knit in the round. The only sewing I had to do was to reinforce the edge of the hole and to attach a tassel to the bottom of the bag.

Ta-dah! I gave you the finished Juggling Ball Bag!

The loop at the top. You cast on and knit a strip, then pick up along the cast-on edge and begin knitting in the round to create the loop.

The final decreases and tassel.

My inept reinforcing of the hole. (I'm not a terribly good hand-sewer.)

That's it from me for today. Have a great weekend and happy crafting everyone!

~Topaz

Oooh Baby, Baby!

Right now I am really sick of knitting baby stuff.

Each year my workplace raises money (and knits baby stuff) for the NICU at Dunedin Hospital, so two months or so a year are dedicated to making teeny-tiny preemie-sized hats and booties.

I don't mind doing them. They're adorable and easy and a really fast knit, so you feel like you're achieving a lot in a short space of time. (Even though weaving in all those ends quickly becomes a right pain in the behind!)

However this seems to be the point in life when ALL my friends and family have started having babies.

Cue expectations of gorgeous handknitted baby gear.

Since I'm both practical and lazy, I refuse to make baby gear from yarns that are difficult to wash and care for. Why make a garment that a tired, stressed new Mum can't just biff in the washing machine when it inevitably gets dribbled/puked/spilled on? Fussy high-maintenance premium yarns may seem like a nice idea at first, but very few new Mums -or even experienced Mums- have time to carefully hand-wash selected items of clothing every other day.

My knitting time is also rather limited at present. I don't want to put weeks of my scarce knitting time into a gorgeous little jacket that will be outgrown in a few weeks. (Because tiny humans don't stay tiny for long!) I'd rather put that time into a pretty blanket that they'll be able to use in various ways for at least a year.

Who says a cot blanket can't become a pram blanket, toy blanket, winter-leg-warmer or long-car-trip blanket?

After all that grousing, here is a small selection of the baby gear I've made over the last year. The hats are preemie sized and the booties are a standard newborn-6months size. I've mainly used Magic Garden Classic Prints, because they have a gorgeous line of pure merino in positively edible colourways.

Lots of pinks, because I now have a lot more adorable little nieces.

I hope you have a wonderful crafternoon!

~Topaz

Did I Just Break Physics?

Dad is one of those people who are difficult to knit for.

Aren't most guys?

He's fairly easy to buy for, but I honestly haven't had much time to go poke around in the shops thanks to extra shifts at work.

Thankfully Cat Bordhi came to my rescue, with her wonderful Moebius cast-on tutorial:

Dad is obsessed with motorbikes, his beloved Harley Dyna has pride of place in the garage. Colours were most definitely NOT an issue: H-D Brand colours of Black and Orange in Ashford's Tekapo 8ply. Very warm and very thick for maximum wind-breakage if he ever deigns to wear it on the bike.

Oh yes, I punned that!

Due to time constraints the scarf came out a bit on the narrow side, but that's not much of a problem since it's supposed to loop around the neck twice.

What I like about Moebii is that you don't have to worry about them blowing away if an end comes untucked or the problem of doing head-checks with a ton of bulky fabric jammed just inside the neck of your jacket.

I'm quite ridiculously proud of myself, even though knitting it felt like I was somehow breaking physics. It is darn weird to knit an object whose shape you can't hold in your head.

The usual colourwork problem of having to designate a "Right side" and "Wrong side" for your work was completely eliminated by this type of object only having ONE side. Trying to work out how you would go about giving it a right side ad a wrong side to look all neat and pretty nearly made my head explode.

My brain is obviously made for strictly Euclidean physics -.-;

Happy knitting!

~Topaz

Colossal Sook

Yeah, I know we've just had a really mild winter and Spring officially starts in less than a week, but. . .

I'M STILL COLD!

So I made a cover for my hot water bottle.

If I can't grasp it directly in my icy cold hands then I'll be able to resist the temptation to warm the hands too quickly and risk a late-season crop of chilblains.

(I hope!)

Here it is, just finished and sitting on my messy couch waiting for the jug to boil. Dralion was trying to steal the camera. Little brat!

Simple garter stitch in an unidentified 8ply acrylic from the NEV Knitting Squad Yarn Bank (I deposited bright 8ply for people to make Christmas Angels out of so I felt less guilty at appropriating this yarn when I really need to stashbust). It's a little big, which is all to the good because it's very snuggly and if I accidentally shrink it somehow then it'll be a perfect fit!

Happy crafting!

~Topaz

Adventure in Bad Planning

This week I have been attempting to make birthday gifts.

Key word: Attempting.

So far they've all been an utter bust.

The first failed gift was a hot water bottle cover for a nephew who has recently moved back to a Dunedin winter after a year in the sunny North Island. I've never really bothered with gauge swatches before, but since I was working with an unfamiliar pattern and some unidentifiable acrylic from my stash. I figured that I had better try swatching it up to make sure I had the right gauge.

Five changes in needle size later and it's still too big! Laurie got a bag of shiny new colouring gear and assorted  stationary for his first week at school, while the hot water bottle cover remains unfinished and in dire need of girth reduction.

Sigh.

Gift two is intended for Dad's birthday next Wednesday. I figured a nice, quick garter-stitch Möbius/Moebius scarf would appeal to a fifty-something sometimes-nerd.

What nerd WOULDN'T want a monosurface knitted object for their birthday??

But. . .  I screwed up again.

I didn't check the length of circular needle required to knit a Moebius before going to get the yarn.

*Facedesk*

I already have a circular needle of the appropriate diameter for the yarn, but it's less than half the length required to properly knit a Moebius. I could probably use it if I could break the laws of physics, but alas I'm not that awesome.

As I work weekends, I'm going to be unable to get into Knitworld to purchase a long enough needle before Monday, which would give me about a day total of knitting time to it finished around work.

A Klein Bottle hat would also be awesome, but I'd prefer to make something that there is a chance of him actually wearing.

Time to prepare for a marathon knit of non-Euclidean garter-stitch madness.

Good luck for all your gift-intended projects!

~Topaz

Where Did The Time Go?

Wow, it's August already?

And I've been neglecting this blog since WHEN?

Oh my.

Time to make a 2/3rds Year Resolution (New Year's Resolutions are so 1999) to breathe some life back into this poor blog.

Be warned, it'll probably only start staggering around and groaning "Braaaaainsss", but it's better than nothing, right?

I wasn't wasting the time spent absent by not crafting. As soon as the winter's crop of chilblains cleared up enough I finished Mum's Birthday Socks.

Opal's "Fisherman" colourway and the Sunday Swing pattern from Knitty. Have a horrible inside-light photo:

No I didn't block them. I don't know how!

I adore Opal's sock yarns and this colourway is absolutely delightful. It reminds me of a fishing trip out to the Mackenzie Country with Grandpa where we caught ONE salmon in the entire week of sitting beside lakes and canals. Oi!

I'm still a very slow sock knitter, so these were about 1.5 months late ^.^;

All the best gifts are a little late, right?

~Topaz