Recent projects

My friend Chris keeps frogs, so I knit him this for his birthday. The pattern is Ribbit (Ravelry page here), which is lovely and straightforward and takes no time at all. I used DK yarn rather than aran (James C. Brett Soft and Gentle Baby DK, lovely for acrycic), which meant using smaller needles (2.75mm), which meant I couldn't fit a tennis ball inside, though I think that's an awfully cute touch. I also left out the toes for reasons I have forgotten, but I think they had to do with me being lazy.

I stuffed him using leftover yarn scraps which I've been collecting for exactly this sort of situation. It's a nice solution to my guilt over throwing out anything, ever, rather than recycling it. Jen and the rainforests, BFFs.

The weather has been hit and miss for the last... six months or so, but since today was sunny and not even blustery, I finally got around to taking up a dress I bought in the January sales, and taking webcam-quality photos.

Apparently I tilt. I was not aware of this.

This was an exciting occasion mainly because it marks my first use of the overlocking feature on my sewing machine. I think I used it incorrectly, and I also think I sewed the hem lop-sided, but you have to start somewhere.

I was glad this dress was some sort of jersey fabric, as I liked the pattern a lot, but don't like maxi dresses (I guess you get to feel like a princess, which is fine for swanning around, but what if you need to run away from wolves in that dress, and I always preferred to identify with the dashing rogue in those stories anyway), and given that I am kind of choosy about clothes (plain, but the right kind of plain) it opens my options if I can look at something and think "I wouldn't wear that, but I would wear something very similar to it."

I'm currently going through a phase of being frustrated by how much yarn I have lying around, and trying to knit it it up - to sell, for the Henry Bear Blanketeers - as quickly as I can. There are a lot of downsides here in that it's not fun knitting, and it means that although I have something on the needles all the time, I'll have a few weeks of not having anything interesting to show for it. I'm having a bit of project angst, so if I do some sewing on the side of frustration-knitting it should abate.

That said, I'm not buying any more yarn until a bag of a particular size if empty, and I was already in a state of not buying books until I've worked through the To Read pile. I'm not even sure this can be called living.

FO Friday: Gloves and triangle scarf

I found a mystery-purpose ball of Lamb's Pride Nature Spun fingering weight in my stash - I think I bought it for a commission, settled on a different yarn, and lost the receipt - so I made gloves. There is probably a more efficient way of clearing space than "turn ball of yarn into a garment, have garment take up space in a different bag until purchased", but it is apparently how I roll.

I got the stitch pattern from a book, and I like it an awful lot. On green yarn it looks like vines. The yarn is pure wool, so despite the weight it's the warmest thing ever. It's also more radioactive looking in real life. What's not to like?

I made the Blogathon Lace Triangle Scarf (Ravelry Page here) as a birthday present for my sister. (Her birthday is in June, so I'm doing well with being disgustingly organised for crafts this year.) It's a very nice pattern, which would work for just about any weight yarn. I bought this Louisa Harding Ondine before Christmas with a view to making her gloves, and made a failed start, but then she asked for different gloves which the yarn wouldn't suit. Oh Ondine gloves, you were so beautiful.

Speaking of the fact that there is a dinosaur on my shirt in that photo, I visit an asylum seekers' centre every week, and we bring arts and crafts supplies for the kids who live there. Yesterday I drew a dinosaur for one of them to colour in, which meant that the others wanted dinosaurs too. Another volunteer taught them to trace the existing dinosaurs onto new pages, which rapidly accelerated the rate of dinosaur production. Then they decided to Sellotape them together to make a dinosaur train, which, by the time we left, was twelve dinosaurs long. It's so satisfying to be shaping young minds.

FO: Strawberry stócaí

I finally finished the socks I started a few weeks ago. I'm happy with how they turned out, but that is a long time to be using 4-ply yarn on 2mm needles. I tend to show affection through gestures rather than by being verbally or physically affectionate - I'm sorry you didn't get that job, here's some chocolate! Congratulations on your exam results, I made you a thing! - so if I ever make you a pair of socks, you can take it as a sign that I harbour a great deal of affection for you.

The pattern for these is Mock Cable Socks from Toe-Up Socks In A Box. I used Wendy Happy 4-Ply, which I've not seen since getting it. I think using heavily variegated yarn for cables is against The Rules of knitting, but I think they turned out well in spite.

A photo for This Is Knit's photo competition: a wip or fo in a 'uniquely Irish' setting, though some of this is Irish by context. Here are my socks with my copy of Harry Potter agus an Órchloch, along with my foclóir (because having school-leavers not be fluent in a language they've been learning since age five is an entrenched part of Irish culture), and a bar of Butlers (the most Irish of chocolate) which I bought in celebration of getting an interview for a PhD in Edinburgh (emigration being a proud Irish tradition). Bonus Irishness: The socks are a birthday present for my mother, and there's nothing and no-one more Irish than the Irish mammy.*

The foclóir (a gift, not my school one) even has beautiful old Irish font. Would you ever look how lovely it is :)

 *Dear Americans, the Irish mammy is completely different to the Jim Crow mammy stereotype.

Costumery: Steampunk something!

I went to a Steampunk night in The Sugar Club on Friday! It was lots of fun, and I got to dress up, and if you ever get a chance to see anything with Foxy P. Cox in it you really should.

I didn't leave myself a whole lot of time between deciding to go and the event, I think my costume was a decent effort.

I photograph awkwardly. This was the best one.

I made the blouse + collar from this Threadbanger tutorial. It sits a bit funny because I used a men's shirt, and men's shirts for some reason don't accommodate hips, WHAT IS UP WITH THAT. The sleeves hit my arm at a funny length, but that was the longest I could cut it due to the length of the slit for the cuff to roll up. The collar was loose enough to scoot itself around my neck, too. Perhaps I should have bought a blouse, designed for people with child-bearing hips and stubby little fore-arms. I also could probably have used a few more tea-bags to stain it a slightly darker brown. Overall I'm happy though, I'm going to hang onto it for use in future costumes.

The rest of the costume doesn't have much backstory. I bought the corset in Camden Market two years ago, and borrowed the boots from my sister.

For make-up, I used the Steampunk Airship Pirate tutorial by Hollywood Noir, but chickened out of doing such a dramatic style, and didn't have the right colours for a lot of it, and ended up looking like a non-descript goth. But I think that's acceptable for the circles who'd go to a steampunk night anyway.

Not very good photos because I was running late. I am a walking planning fallacy.

I think it's a good baseline costume, I might try to build on it for Hallowe'en. Threadbanger have a tutorial for making goggles, and it's above my current ability but my goodness, this working robot arm. If nothing else, I now have a just-in-case costume other than "pirate, I guess".

FO: A wee small Eldritch Abomination

This is the very first thing I've crocheted that isn't a rectangle! It's not very good as such things go - certainly not on a par with my knitting - but I made a thing and I am proud.

I used the Cthulhu pattern from Creepy Cute Crochet to make this wee fella.

Surveying all that will one day be his.

Wee small wings.

With a one euro coin for comparison.

I used James C. Brett Supreme Soft and Gentle Baby DK, because I had reams of it over from a hat and I liked the colour. I also used a 2mm hook. The book recommended aran weight and a 3.5mm hook, and for those not into self-sabotage, I'm inclined to agree. I also think the eyes are a bit wonky - polymer clay or even googly eyes would have been better, he looks a bit insect-like as is. I feel a bit guilty about how it turned out as it's a present, but hopefully the fact that it is handmade with love AND the first such thing that I have handmade with love will trump its creepy bug-eyes.

Speaking of inadvertently creepy things, I made a Valentine's card for a friend with my left hand, with a view to it looking like a child had made it and being charming and adorable. The desired effect was not achieved.

All my attempts to show affection just come out terrifying :(

A week (and a bit) of firsts and new things

I started in a new lab this week. I had to scramble a bit for a placement after Christmas, when the position I was meant to have fell through. For some reason I opted to learn Western Blot, about which I've heard nothing but bad things, over carrying out PCR, which I can already do and quite like. The appeal of doing something new was just too great, even if it makes me want to stab myself in the face.

As well as wet lab work, I'll be learning a bit of programming and helping out on a bioinformatics project. I've not done any of either before, so I'm looking forward to getting started on that!

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So far I have a lot of time at my desk reading papers and playing with Linux. I don't like being without something to do with my hands, so I've been getting some knitting done.

I finished my first pair of full-fingered gloves that I've been happy with. I've made one pair before, when I was starting off knitting, but they were a quite a poor fit, the gauge was wrong, and I wasn't happy with them. Worst, they were a present, and I'd told the person that part of their present would be late, so when they were finished it would have been awkward to opt not to give them. I suspect they have lived at the back of a shelf somewhere. I've avoided full-fingered gloves since then, but these ones turned out quite well, I think!

They are slightly too large for me, but they are for someone with larger hands than mine, so it should work out.  I used the Lace and Twist Gloves pattern (which is free if you click through the links and set up a Knitting Daily account), which is very straight-forward and gave me some new thoughts on thumb construction.  I used Debbie Bliss Rialto 4-Ply, which is quite perfect for this level of detail.

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Since finishing the gloves, I've been working on my first pair of toe-up socks, from a... book? book-box? a friend gave me last Christmas. I can be pretty lazy about fudging awkward techniques, so I'm proud of myself for actually taking the time to learn the magic cast-on. Most awkward thing in the world on DPNs, though.

Cables on variegated yarn - I am just a terrible person. I even have the temerity to quite like how it looks. These are going to be a birthday present for my mother. Her birthday is in April, but this is going to be my year of being disgustingly organised with my knitting.

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I started a climbing course this week, and really enjoyed it. It's quite different in terms of pay-off to everything else I do. If I want to be further along on a run, or on a piece of knitting, or while studying a topic, reaching that point requires sustained effort, passing through a number of other points on the way. If I want to be higher up on the wall, I put in a burst of effort, and then I'm higher up. I'm going again tomorrow, and really looking forward to it.

I'm also two weeks into a first aid course. The first week we learned to make normal and elevated slings, last week we learned CPR (which is some work, it must be said) and this week will be baby CPR and the Heimlich maneuvre. I'm doing it through St. John's ambulance, so I might look into volunteering with them afterwards, because free time is for losers and commies.

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This evening I started my first crochet project which isn't a rectangle - a teeny Cthulhu. I've finished the body, but the light was gone by that stage.

I'm using too small a crochet hook because Hickeys didn't have the one I needed, and I wanted to get started in case learning a slightly new technique took two weeks. The head is a little more finicky, and I ripped out my first one, but were I more adept I would have had it finished in a few hours.

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I'm only flying through my project list! I will think of new things and add to it soon.

"I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure."

When there's pretty knitwear in a film, I like to try to work out the construction of it. It's like the opposite of my "But that's not even what DNA analysis -! And evolution doesn't mean -! And you can't -!" knee-jerk, or every scene with computers for programmers, I imagine.

Gandalf's gloves were the easiest-glimpsed knit in The Hobbit! When I went to see it with my family, my mum asked me during the film if I could make them, and my brother said afterwards that he noticed Gandalf's gloves looked like there were made by me. My mum also asked whether the villains in a particular scene were goblins or orcs. She tries.

So I made Gandalf gloves out of leftover yarn! The first time I saw it I thought they were garter stitch, but on second watching I think they were reverse stockinette, so I knit them as such.

They're by no means a perfect replica. They're too dark a grey, but this was what I had (Debbie Bliss Rialto, on 4.5mm needles), and I wanted to make it into something I would get excited over. I also added a little ribbing at the top, to avoid stockinette curl. (I assume no stockinette curl means either machine knitting or a million hours of blocking. It would be awfully sad if Gandalf had no-one to hand-knit for him. :( ) But they were a simple thing that makes me happy in a silly, nerdy way to have made them, and I assume that I now get to be friends with both Gandalf and Sir Ian McKellen.*

Gandalf would have loved crosswords, I assume! (Tangent: I miss Crosaire. I wish they'd recycle his old crosswords. Crossheir has a lot more "Well, I guess it has to be ___. I can kind of see how that makes sense." than "Ohhh, that's clever!" I'm sure he's a lovely person, and he has big boots to fill, and I certainly couldn't write a clever crossword, but Crosaire 4 lyf.)

Other Hobbit-related things:

• When I was younger, I assumed that anything that could plausibly be natural (beards, hair) was. (I thought Christopher Lee grew his hair for years to play Saruman, for example.) If I still believed this, James Nesbitt would probably be my favourite person  in the world. His moustache even matches his hat! (He also had some cosy-looking seed stitch gloves that will float around the back of my mind until suitable yarn presents itself, and maybe Oin's diamond-patterned ones, and I have oddly specific problems.)

• This sequence makes my heart smile. I've never minded having a bad singing voice, but now I think perhaps I should work on it, in preparation for being whisked away on an adventure.

*Can the Queen call on the likes of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart to fight as knights in a battle? That would be the best battle.

Christmas holiday knitting

Not knowing what to do with myself with my Christmas knitting finished, I became briefly fixated on wanting to clear out yarn, or at least turn skeins of yarn into things that weren't skeins, so these came out of it!

A simple ribbed bobble hat. I made two to use up this yarn, and then crocheted a few squares for the Henry Bear Blanketeers with the leftovers. I don't know why I look so sad in the last photo, I think my face just defaults to 'sad' when it's not responding to a particular emotion.

I wanted to use up my decadent graduation yarn, but it was only 110 yards, so that was quite limiting. I didn't manage to take a photo that shows the colour and sheen of the yarn in real life, but you can take my word for it that it's nice yarn. I like this pattern - Swirling Petals Cowl - but I'm not sure that I like the length of it on me, or that the pattern suits the yarn. It also turned my fingers green while I was knitting, so if it does the same to my neck I'll look a bit gangrenous. It may end up frogged and made into something else.

My sister's Christmas gloves, which were blocking last time I posted. I'm really happy with how they turned out - muted colours and cables always strike me as looking very grown-up, and as she's training to be a teacher I thought they might be a bit more fitting than the ones I had planned to make for her, which weren't working out due to yarn weight. Vancouver Fog is a lovely pattern, and I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran.

Fourth Doctor gloves! I've wanted to make these for a while - not for myself, just to have made - and I really like how they turned out. I based it roughly off the Doctor Who Scarf Pattern, keeping the proportions of colours similar, and changing it around when a colour was appearing to much within the block I was working from. These are mostly acrylic, and they're lovely and warm. Weaving in all the ends was a pain in the face, though.

Speaking of Doctor Who, my friend Steph gave me this shirt for Christmas

and got my Doctor right despite not watching the show. If that's not true friendship I don't know what is. (Tennant 4 lyf. You never forget you first Doctor and all, but mainly it's the kindness and joy that makes him so endearing. I agree with the point that he's probably too human for the Doctor, but I also don't care. Also, David Tennant is adorable, and that accent, and that bone structure.)

I don't have space at the moment  to work on my 2013 projects, but I've accrued a few commission in the last few days which will keep me busy. I said to myself that I wouldn't buy more yarn until I had used up at least a third of what I already have, but I don't have the appropriate weights and colours. I don't know why I stay with me after all the lies.

FO Friday: Moone Boy hat, owl gloves, and a scarf

My favourite part of working for free is that they don't expect me to come in if there's nothing to do. I had a day off on Tuesday, so I got a commission started and finished while watching David Attenborough documentaries. A girl in the year below me in my department had asked me to make a hat for her boyfriend like the one the kid in Moone Boy wears. I couldn't find a pattern, so I kept this picture open to peer at and worked away. (Image is from this page.)

The bobble may be too big. It was hard to get no glare off it.

I used Katia Big Merino on 6mm needles for this. I could have made a more accurate hat with slightly finer yarn, but that wouldn't have been as warm, and also, ain't no-one got time for that much fair isle.

Sure it's a nice Christmassy hat, if nothing else. I haven't given it to her yet, so hopefully they both like it!

I can also post my last October birthday knit, since it's been unwrapped! I made a pair of Owlings gloves for a friend who's inexplicably enthusiastic about owls. I really like the subtlety of the pattern. (When I made it it was still free - given the reasons listed for it now being charged for, I'm not sure if I should donate. It was beautiful and I got use out of it!)

I knit these with Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton, as their person is vegan. (I need to stop getting close enough to people with wool aversions that they merited knitted gifts.) It took less than one skein to make the pair, and I knit them larger than the pattern recommended to fit man-hands.

A close-up of the owls. Hey, remember when there was sunshine and vegetation could grow?

I made this neckwarmer yesterday during my downtime at work and when I got home, to sell at a craft fair at the end of this month. I made my first trip to The Constant Knitter on Monday - one of them women recognised me by the scarf I was wearing, as we'd had a conversation about the yarn at the Knitting and Stitching Show the day before! - and bough a skein of King Cole Riot because I liked the colours and wanted to see how it knits and I'll hopefully be selling it at the end of the month anyway and it doesn't count as part of a stash and DON'T LOOK AT ME.

I'm getting a bit wary of how much Christmas knitting I have left to do, but it'll be grand so it will.