Emergency Winter Woollies

Recently, my depuartment acquired a new staffmember from the other end of the country.

Crossing all those latitudinal lines in a hurry causes a small problem.

It is  MUCH cooler down here and they're just not used to it yet.

(There is a reason why we call out-of-town students 'Scarfies'. They're almost never seen without 2m of wool around their necks.)

Bored and itching to do some colourwork, I offered to make this poor, frozen northener a woolly welcome gift.

They asked for black and red.

Black and red?

But. . . Those aren't Warriors colours. . .

. . . you sure you want the Canterbury colours?

But. . . but. . . THESE ARE OUR BOYS HERE!

Do I really have to use our Arch Rivals colours?

. . . Welcome-to-town present; so yes.

Yes I had to.

At least it turned out looking moderately Goth instead of screamingly Cantabrian, so I feel like a little less of a filthy traitor for using red and black.

Hopefully they'll keep our poor northener from freezing to death before spring ^.^;

The patterns used were the Waffle Stitch Fingerless Gloves and Snowflake Slouchy Beanie from Ravelry. They're very fast knits, I was able to knit both hat and gloves up in 3-4 days while catching up on some reading.

Both patterns knit flat and sewn up later. In my opinion those gloves would be excellent for stash-busting and stockpiling for Christmas gifts. The beanie would be excellent for a first colourwork project. It's got a nice simple chart and you don't have to wrap stitches very often. (Wrapping while purling=DISLIKE)

I have a sneaking suspicion that the colourwork bug has not been fully satisfied. . .

This can't be good.

~Topaz



(Also: Thankyou SuperXV for the rugby booty photos)

A Tasty Trainwreck

I've broken a 20-year Cake baking drought with an utter monstrosity.

My partner wanted a chocolate cake for his birthday, so I obliged.

I may or may not have needed to make an emergency supermarket trip after discovering that we were missing about 40% of the ingredients. . .

Please note that I have no idea how to do that "pretty" icing thing. I just grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer and started slopping it on there.

Then when I was tidying up the mess I made, I saw that we had sprinkles.

In the words of The Doctor:

Um. . . yeah.

By the time I was done both the cake and the kitchen looked like a complete disaster area.

A disaster area as delicious as it is ugly.

Mmmmmmmm.

~Topaz

Puffy Woes

So, you know the Beekeeper quilt, right?

That one that started the Hexipuff craze a few years ago?

I kinda jumped on the wagon because they're quick and easy to make and I feel REALLY FRICKEN' ACCOMPLISHED if I finish more than one thing in a day.

And it's really really easy to make more than one hexipuff in a day.

Being able to churn out a few puffs while you're watching something is a great excuse to justify spending an entire day watching Marvel movies or going through an entire season of Doctor Who in one sitting ^.^;

Coz I definitely haven't done that.

Nope, not me!

*Ahem*

ANYWAY

I was keeping my puffs in a big glass vase before I moved house, and during the move they got a bit lost in the small mountain massive pile stack of my 'craft stuff' boxes.

Well the other day I found them again. Yippee!

I shall now chronicle the adventure of the puff rediscovery for you, using a combination of photoshop and the Doge Meme.

Please note:

1. I will be doing this badly
2. The word 'Billions' should be read in the voice of Carl Sagan.

So, I found my box of hexipuffs:

Excited, I tipped them out to admire my handiwork.

Wondering how big the blanket would be if I started joining them together now, I started to lay them out.

Pretty soon I encountered a problem.

The pile seemed to be shrinking faster than the blanket embryo was growing.

I didn't have quite as many puffs as I thought I did.

Feeling very let down, I put them back in their box and sulked for a bit. As you do when you're sleep-deprived enough to regress to the maturity level of a small child.

While hexipuffs are fast to make, they don't exactly reproduce like rabbits if you put a couple in a box and leave them alone for a few months. For some reason, I had kinda expected them to do so.

Note to self: Hexipuffs are not Tribbles.

~Topaz

Tempestuous Yarn

There is a quintessentially American treat that doesn't make it's way down here, most likely for the same reason McVitties have problems exporting Jaffa Cakes with any regularity.

From what I've heard, they're just too damn tasty to last long enough to make it out of the country.

The treat in question: Girl Scout cookies.

In New Zealand we have Girl Guide biscuits, but they aren't quite the same. While they're also incredibly tasty and can be used in a bunch of different recipes, they don't have quite the same range of flavours.

Thin Mints, you say? I gotta try me some of these!

So: I'm putting together a bunch of bribes to see if I can convince a certain someone to send me Girl Scout cookies.

Because bribery and corruption is how friendships work ^.-

The Certain Someone is also a knitter, so I figured handspun yarn would be a good place to start. The fibre used was a lovely bag of pre-dyed merino sliver acquired at the Milton Wool Mill's factory shop.

The colours didn't show up very well there >.< It's a foresty green and golden yellow with a touch of white.

Here is is mid-spin:

The full bobbin against an imperial-style ruler for an idea of the thickness of the single:

All plied and setting the twist! (Please ignore the hoops)

Finished and ready to be used as bribe material!

Time to move on to the next part of the bribery materials. If Girl Scout bikkies are anywhere near as good as they've been made out to be, it's gonna take more than this to get me some!

~Topaz

Mini Mitten Dump!

I've gone on a minor mitten-knitting spree.

Just a bog-standard mitten pattern from Ravery, made using 4.0mm and 4.5mm DPNs with a few modifications

My Sister from Another Mister has been complaining about having to use her nose to operate her phone this winter, as it has been too cold to take her mittens off a lot of the time.

Touchscreens, oh joy.

It also turns out you can even lick them if you get desperate enough! Talk about incentive to keep the screen clean D:

So: Mittens in Elle Rustica Chunky with handy dandy holes in the thumbs for ease of phone operation.

I got a little carried away on the thumbs after casting off and on again for the holes. . . I guess they'll make a good place to keep peppermints or something o.O

They also feature extra-long cuffs to tuck way up under jacket sleeves to prevent those annoying drafts that happen when your pocket pushes your sleeve up.

Our beloved Deli Manager decided to leave us, so I made her some mittens as well.

Because winter is coming and she also gets really cold hands.

And I'm on a roll with this mitten thing.

Same needle sizes, same yarn, different colour. Elle Rustica Chunky in 134 Mauve.

Gah, this yarn is so soft and snuggly warm it was hard to give these away.

No thumb holes this time and standard cuffs. She has other people to do her texting for her XD

Have a wonderful crafternoon!

~Topaz

*Shrugs*

Yeah, shrugs.

Also known as "adventures in knitting sleeves for those too lazy to make the rest of the jersey"

^.^;

Hey, the pattern was lying on the top of the $1 pattern box at Knitworld when I was between projects.

Impulse shopping is so very, very evil. . .

I got the pattern and ended up making two shrugs.

The first one is ALL MINE MUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA *ahem* the large size made with King Cole's Mirage.

I'm already regretting the choice of yarn a bit. While it looks utterly lovely all knitted up the halo is kinda scratchy and it pills like an absolute beast.

Blargh.

Knitting with Mirage can be a bit of a pain as well. It is basically a DK-thick single, meaning you have to manage the twist as you knit. Because of the way I knit mine tended to wind itself into an overspun state so every now and then I'd have to stop knitting and un-twist my yarn so it was puffy and relaxed again.

Even knowing all that it looks so good I'd probably use it again if I found the right project.

Shrug Number Two was made with Patons Rainbow 8ply (Colour #249). This yarn comes in truly ginormous balls so the small size shrug only needed one of them, opposed to the 1 2/3rds for the large in Mirage.

The final result came out a lot better than the Mirage, all thick and soft and squishy. If the arms were longer I would definitely keep it.

This one is going up to England to keep my Sister-From-Another-Mister warm in the chilly winter wind, so I'm going to have to wait to see if it really is as snuggly-soft as I think it is.

The almost even colour-banding on this was a complete accident. I'm still not sure how that happened o.O

I hope you are well and not dying of overheating or turning into a giant iceblock.

~Topaz

Blanket Case

Since I hear that Canada and North America are currently being subjected to some mind-bendingly hostile winter weather, I thought I'd share a very small collection of warm fuzzies.

By "Warm Fuzzies" I mean a few photos of Dralion with a crocheted blanket.

Last year The Long Thing got ripped up and reincarnated as a Yarn Eater Blanket, and the first time I put it down Dralion staged a hostile takeover.

I kid you not, this cat wastes no time at all when it comes to warm objects -.-;

It's still growing slowly whenever I can pry it out form under her, which honestly isn't very often because she just looks so darn CUTE I can't stand the thought of waking her up.

Stay warm up there in the frozen north!

~Topaz