Jo's Presents

For my friend Jo, a very cute perky goth girl with a job that drives her crazy, I made two things. One is a purple and black double knitted pirate flag, for those times when she believes that she is, indeed, the Black Pearl (usually a bottle of rum or so after she should have stopped drinking!). It's smooshy fleecy yarn, so if she passes out on it it will be comfortable:

Having only just managed to assimilate her into our knitting cartel, she's making amazing progress and has even started designing her own patterns. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does with this! :-)

Christmas Makes! Eek!

There are a lot of them, so I'll give each one a post of its own. I started in September, and had a great time making everything. I love being able to give my friends something I've made myself and is personal to them. Most things I designed myself, where I didn't I'll give credit. I'm looking forward to doing some making for me now, but still have all the patterns to write out!

Companion Cube

As soon as I completed Portal, the first thing that came to mind was obviously, 'I must make a Companion Cube'. Somehow, this totally inanimate object has captured the hearts of every gamer I know (and I know a lot of them!). So I immediately set to working out patterns for it - with the main hindrance that I can't felt anything because I'm allergic to animal fibers. So I found some cheapish yarn to experiment with, and knitted and ripped and crocheted and ripped and so on until I got something I liked. This one is a mixture of knitting and crochet - knitting for the main piece, crochet to add the dimensions. I know it's missing the central 'bumps' - that's coming in the next revision, and it's a little rounded, but it's very smooshy and I keep having to pat down my friends as they leave my flat because they keep attempting to smuggle it out. That's a sure sign of success to me ;-) I'll put the pattern up as soon as I've got it right :-) I tried doing a knitted flat one - so I can give out the chart for that, but I didn't like it not having the dimensionality of the cube itself. So here you are - some really crappy pictures - will get better ones as soon as photographer boy stops playing Guitar Hero ...








Hope you like ... will post updates as it's revised....

Many updates coming!

I have so much to update! Going to do it all over the next few days....

In the mean time, here's some fun ;-)

Defying Gravity!

Here is the very first ball of hand-dyed yarn I've ever made *grin* It's pure silk, unbelievably soft, and beautiful. It's a very shiny blue/green/silvery mix and is stunning. We call it Defying Gravity, in honour of both its colours and witchiness, and that it represents a new period of creativity for Elana and I, and we're breaking out of traditional 'workaholic or invalid' modes and trying to find our own path. Wish us luck!

With the flash, the shine was quite intense, so it's a tiny bit darker than it looks on the light picture, but a lot lighter than the one without the flash :-)





Here's to many more!

My first illusion knit!

The dyed silk looks fantastic, but am waiting until I have my ball winder before I post pics of it ;-) While untangling a mess of yarn waiting to be dyed, I decided to make Elana a fleur-de-lys illusion knit - it'll feel nicer than the brand she wants..

I started last night and finished this afternoon, while watching a marathon of Grey's Anatomy and 24..





She liked it :-) Shame it was in pink instead of black and gold, but I needed yarn that was the same and for some reason only had it in shades of pink (?!).

Was lots of fun to do - I can totally see how it works but it amazes me that someone figured it out. I think a Dark Mark scarf for Jo is calling...

Woooo! My first attempt at dyeing...

So, finally bit the bullet and, since I am cursed with an allergy to wool and so can't use cheap dyes like Koolaid and food colouring, I bought a bunch of Procion MX dyes and the related bumpf. I found a really pretty pattern the other day that I wanted to make in silk, so I bought out the silver Debbie Bliss Pure Silk sale stuff from John Lewis.

Here it is soaking:



Elana and I took turns soaking it, cause it just didn't want to not float (silk is a witch, apparently). Then we mixed up Turquoise, Ultramarine and Emerald Green :



And then the fun part! Splashy Splashy!











Here's Elana and I looking slightly mental with our rubber gloves, while poor Doug had to leave his SSC raid to come take pics for us (I'm on the left, please excuse lack of make-up and bra ;-)).



It's now wrapped up like a sausage in the bath, and will be washed out tomorrow... wooo!