Mystery Project 4...COMPLETE!

I have finally completed my last mystery project to gift. I actually finished knitting it up while watching Dr. Who: A Christmas Carol Christmas Special. I was knitting away while the parentals snoozed on Christmas Day. :)

It was a nice pattern in its simplicity but still challenging enough to maintain my interest. The brim was a practice in the skill of folding the pieces and knitting them together. I've done three such "hems" and two without provisionally casting on the first edge (such as this one). I do prefer doing without the special cast on. It makes for an ultra warm brim.

The yarn was surprisingly easy to knit with. I wanted something bright and soft. Especially as it is intended as a running hat for my BFF. She complained a while back about being cold when running. I asked if she wore a hat, to which she replied that no she didn't have one. So this was my solution. It's also bright so she can be seen.

I liked the pattern itself for the quality of the purl-knit pattern repeats that made it scrunched and warm. I think it will hold heat well so she stays warm even when wearing tight running gear. :)

I know the pattern, wurm by katushika, is meant to emulate a worm and be a play on words; which makes me giggle and think of the blue and white worm from the David Bowie 80s movie Labyrinth. But in this obnoxious purple it really reminds me of a cupcake.

Owlies

Back in August, when I was attending my cousins wedding, I met several of my other cousins' children for the first time. Most notable was when I was standing in the kitchen talking and one of my cousins' wives came in carrying their little girl. When they got close she leaned forward, as if wanting me to hold her. However, her aim was my shirt. I was wearing Threadless' Doctor-Hoo shirt. She pointed at the owls as if counting (I think she's two...maybe?). Her mother said that she simply loved owls. It was really adorable. So because it was amusing and cute, when I came across an Owl pattern to knit in Kate Boyette's KnitWit book, I knew there was something a little extra going to their house this Christmas. I knit the owl up and stitched on the face so things couldn't be pulled off and swallowed. I think it turned our pretty good if I do say so myself. :)

Owls are so interesting. We had a Great Horned Owl that lived in the woods in the backyard when I was growing up. I haven't heard him in ages though. :( Mum collected them for ages and I still think they are neat (we have dozens of them around). Now with Harry Potter's popularity and the use of owls in the series, was it any wonder they are still really neat. I also love the train, so when I saw this pattern pop up today on the Ravelry side bar adverts, I had to click. Titled the Hogwarts Express but is in fact a shawl with owls?! Awesome! Don't know that I really talked about it too much in the post-letter receiving Pottermore post, but I "bought" an owl. Just seemed more fun to the experience over a toad or cat. I don't think I ever really determined a name for him, but still like Priestly. :D

When I was rooting around the internet for Halloween things and came across the Gleeful Things crafting website, I discovered a little Etsy shop, Mini Tidbits, that makes great owl pillows. There are tons of them all over Etsy, but i really liked the look of that shops, especially that Halloween on featured on Gleeful Things in October.

Tentacles Ahoy!

I did not always have this fascination with the octopus. It is a recently re-discovered interest that has been cultivated by my re-invigoration with knitting. When I was first looking at patterns and geeky things I came across this little guy. It took me a while, but I found the pattern and vow to knit him one day!

I blame my random trip to the zoo, for the inital intrigue. I was attending a conference downtown when the lecture room was declared too full and any further participants would make it a fire hazard. So to not waste the trip, I walked over to the zoo...in February. It was early morning and I discovered that the zookeepers were feeding many of the animals. So wanting to go ahead and see as much as I could, especially when it was inside, I wandered over to the invertebrate house. Here I discovered an octopus named Rachel. I learned some amazing things, such as, they change colors and they can fit through any space as long as their beaks can. That is most fascinating.

Needless to say, this fascination expanded when I discovered steampunk. I can only deduce that the octopus is part of the genre due to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Jules Verne. However, even with the confusion, that doesn't make them any less awesome.

So as I mentioned before, I've been knitting up this pair of mittens. I finished them after getting a bit side tracked due to other projects, the holidays creeping up, and general busyness with classes starting up and work.

I love how the colors turned out. I wasn't sure if they were going to work, and they actually photograph better for the contrast, but I really love how they look. It's almost like the octopi are mid change and blending with the seaish color of the background. ;D The yarn feels amazing, and they are toasty warm.

This was the first pair of full mittens I've completed. I've started two pairs in the past, but frogged due to size and not liking the color combination. I'm so pleased with these. Even if I occasionally felt like this guy while knitting them.

Something else I started with this set and the recent knittings I've been working on. I was looking through projects for a fellow Raveler and saw they listed what they'd audiobooked or watched while knitting, so I've decided to document it myself. I don't really remember much for the first one mitten of this pair other than it was Thanksgiving and there was a brief MythBusters marathon while I was finishing it up. The second one was knit in the car with music and Neil Gaiman's Stardust on. I still have a good chunk of the book to listen through. Love it (even if I've read it three times)!

Finally, in honor of the octopus and its eight tentacle glory, I found some fun and amusing little odds and ends on Etsy.

From a mountain of chunky yarn, Bellissima accessories...

A while ago, when I was renewing my interest in knitting, I stumbled upon a fun knitting book. That book is Vampire Knits by Genevieve Miller. Most of the contained patterns have something to do with Twilight which I could care less about. But a few of them are awesome in spite of that book series.

However, the pattern I was knitting up before, is a direct inspiration from Twilight. I was gifted yarn for my birthday, tons of it in fact, in a really neat blue. So when I decided I wanted to knit up the Bellissima Mittens, I pulled out that yarn.

I really love the length of them. They are floppy and big going over the cuffs of my coat well. If I was to knit them again, I would use a solid color so that the cables were really visible. With this yarn they are a bit hidden and I really do like the large link cable that goes up the back of the mittens.

Since I had lots of yarn left, I went looking for a hat pattern. I figured there had to be one out there. And low and behold, I found one. It took me a few hours to knit Bella's Hat which was pulled together from various Ravelery patterns of the mittens from the movie.

Yes, I got a little foam head to put things on. Partly for modeling hats, since I am horrific at taking pictures of myself; partly for my blue Coraline wig.

But whatever the reason, I like being able to photograph my hats at any angle. This doesn't really show the big link cable to well, but it looks neat paired with the mittens.

I actually wore them together on an excursion where it was quite chilly. While wandering about, I decided I would need a scarf too. And since I have a good chunk of the yarn left I would like to make it cabled and long.

Perhaps I'll get to the scarf one day, but for now the mittens and hat will have to do. 

Rainy Day Productivity

My days off have been days full of rain and dreary weather. The solution? Knitting comfy things and catching up on tv. I've been knitting mittens (for me!) and watching Castle. Days of Nathan Fillion, yarn, and soon to be awesome things are wonderful.

I started off working on some funny fair isle mittens. I found these gems of mittens with octopi on them. I feel very steampunk about them...though I don't think that was the intent of their creation. I came across them and found some amazing yarn from the suggested yarn. Dragonfly Fibers. I love the feel of this yarn. And the colors. *squee* I'm so pleased with how these colorways are knitting up together.

As a break from the stranded fair isle knitting. (It can get exhausting knitting with two colors and both hands to tension the yarn.) So I was browsing Ravelry and came across Bella's Mittens. And while I deeply loath Twilight, I do like these mittens. They look so amazingly comfy and warm. A cuddly blanket for the hands!

The color for these is really off since pictures with flash really washed out the blue. I decided to make the mittens with the yarn that had been gifted to me by my BFF's family for my birthday. I have enough that I'm planning to knit this hooded cowl with the same yarn.

Overall, the yarn is soft and cuddly, but very splity when knitting with it. The pattern is knitting up fairly quickly, so we shall see how soon I have these suckers knocked out. ;3

I also may or may not have had the Sailor Moon English song, Rainy Day Man running through my head...

Coraline Craftings

A while back I had an epic day of crafting that included making a few Coraline inspired things. Things that I made in massive preparation for Halloween. I also broke down and bought the mini-me, but went scavenging for the panther beanie baby.

I also tried the weekend of Halloween to tye dye strip a shirt orange and pink. The dye didn't go completely through, so I will have to try again at a future date.

I haven't strung the ghost children soul pearls or the seeing stone (as you can see) but the button skeleton key held up ok. I will have to continue to fortify it with crazy/gorilla glue to keep it together.

I cast on for the sweater a while back, but I've gotten caught up in other projects for other people, so I haven't made much progress. But it does look nice with what I've done so far. :D

The blue cotton is super soft and I think it'll be really comfy. The silver threading is really subtle and pretty. I'm also excited to be using the Supernatural inspired stitch markers I made. Though since all of them went to marking this project I want to make more with the charms I have left over.

I'll have to be sure to work in some major knitting time for the sweater. *nods*

Periodic Table Elements of Awesome

I like Chemistry. It is difficult and challenging and geeky. :) So when I came across this little gem of a duvet, I knew I would have to eventually make myself one. So on to the queue of projects to make it goes.

The creator has a listing on Craftster that I will likely need to reference. This would of course be helped along if I rocked at sewing...or was at least marginally better than I am. But it might be a nice project to improve the sewing capability. It also might be a good project to wait for an embroidery machine for so I can embroider the element info on them...printing (as she did) seems like it wouldn't last. However, either would be fun as I would still end up with a Periodic Table Duvet!

I think it would fun and entertaining (and because I don't match in most of my life except in clothing) to make the squares in the random one of yards of fabric. I would definitely have to plot it out and do color scheme ideas for the bigger sections, but again...loads of fun! I would likely put it all on black too, not sure if both sides would be black or if something zany fun would be cool too.

In light of this little wonder, I went browsing on Etsy as they fill my geeky heart with glee.

And yes, I bought a GeNiUS mug...in palladium purple. :3

This little treat of fun also makes me want to cast on the awesome little chemistry geekery hat I found many moons ago. What's better than a hat with the important structures of penicillin, serotonin, caffeine and theobromine? I don't even know. XD