SH3: Anthos Root

While I am travelling around this summer you might also take a gander at my new side instagram feed for my new little mandrake root named Anthos, made by The Beast Peddler (etsy, tumblr).
Follow them at @anthos_root.

Made a cozy burrow to hide from the winds today!

A photo posted by Anthos (@anthos_root) on Jun 9, 2016 at 7:48am PDT

It's just a nice silly way to get me to learn to take more photos, use my camera and be a little creative. It's not a terribly revolutionary idea, as there a quite a few feeds of people taking pictures of things like small totoros in places too... but I'm having fun. Although I am a little worried that the first picture above is also the best one I will ever take...

Stop and smell the peonies.

A photo posted by Anthos (@anthos_root) on Jun 10, 2016 at 4:04pm PDT

We just got back from a trip to New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, but we have plenty more travels planned this summer. Hope you are having a good one.

Update: There are now over 80 images of Anthos doing silly things and I'm contemplating making a book.

SH2: Music

So, one of the things I miss most from being in college is being exposed to my friends music tastes. I would have not ever listened to Guster had I not had a roommate who loved them. Same with working from home and not with co-workers. I had a coworker who introduced me to a lot of music like Thirteen Senses on our trips out to lunch.

Here in DFW there is a local station, 91.7 KXT, which I call the weirdo station. It's a mash of odd, popular, alternative, older music, and local new bands just getting their start. So they will play the Cure, then Radiohead, followed by some reggae and then a top 40 song. So my current tastes are cobbled together from my husband, this odd station and whatever else happens to come through.

What does that result in? Well it's kind of a mess. But my iTunes has always been a bit odd.
Anyway you can find my 2015 playlist as well as a work in progress 2016 list on my Spotify page, if you have one too. The last random band I really got into is called Valise from here in Dallas.

Please share if you are currently in love with a band or have a song you just can't stop listening to!
Now to find some tunes and get to work.

SH1: Good Books

So I know I'm on haitus, but I have a feeling I might want to pop on here and say something over the break, as is the case today. I've read two really good books these last few weeks and I want to make sure you all know to get on it!

We have an Audible account, and have had it for a long time. As of right now we have over 200 titles in our audio library. With the app on my phone, it is perfect for listening to while driving or cleaning, or anything that only requires half a brain to do. (Never drive with half a brain, kids, it's unsafe.) Bottom line, I really love having the account and if you don't have an one you can sign up and try any full first book for free.

Anyway on to the books:

1. The Martian by Andy Weir
Ok look, I gotta be honest, I dislike Matt Damon. Like really. And no, I did not see the film. I'm an art person, which does not usually mean I would also like science things, however lately I am super into Astronomy and science. I did take Astronomy in college and loved it and was pretty good at the subject too. I have seen every episode of Crash Course Astronomy, watch every SciShow and now subscribe to Phil Plait's blog.

But here's the cool thing, even if you don't like all that science, this book is pretty darn amazing. Unlike Contact, which I read when I was 13, it walks you though the science in ways that are pretty approachable. The whole book sounds pretty darn accurate and you can feel the amount of research that went into the book, without need to strictly understand everything perfectly. The main character, Mark Watney, is just so dang likeable too. His personality alone makes the book compelling. It's funny and smart and tense all at the same time. It's so good, I might actually watch the movie, even with Matt Damon.

2. Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
This is kind of off in the other direction from the Martian, being that it is about centuries old tech, that being bookmaking, typography and codes. I picked this one up after someone mentioned it in a video on youtube. I had no real idea what kind of book this would be when I listened to the audio sample, but I really liked the narrator and the main character seemed to tick all my boxes. Snarky, young, does design work, good sense of humor, curiosity. I had a vague idea that it could involve the supernatural and I still feel like it kind of does.

I guess you could describe this book like an exploration of the world of books, scholars and paper vs the world of tech geeks, programmers and Google. Plus as someone who really enjoyed a series of bad novels based around dragons (The Pit Dragon Chronicles by Jane Yolen) as a kid too and someone who still plays D&D, the references in the book were great. It's got a weird old store, a weirder old owner, a mystery, a cult, artists, a little romance and more. It's a good sign when I finish a book that I want merchandise related to it to exist. Unfortunately I haven't found any yet.


Other audio books that are fantastic to listen to:
The Harry Potter series read by Jim Dale is an absolute must.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, read by Martin Jarvis, is my go to book to relisten to when I don't have something new. Probably my favorite book.
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher read by James Marsters (of Buffy fame) is also just a super fun series.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, also read by Jim Dale, which I have now relistened to about 5 times... each time it gets better, more lovely and more sad.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, fun fact, he reads all his audiobooks so I recommend them all.

Obviously I could go on, but that list alone is something like 26 books, which should be more than enough to carry you though a yearly subscription should you decide to join us. Which you should.

Summer Haitus

It's gonna get real here for a minute. I'm swamped, both mentally and work wise.

As some of you may know, I took a part time contacting job in September, in addition to my full time graphic design job, to create the yearbook for the high school my husband works at. As the yearbook program has dwindled in both time and student aid, the deadlines have all passed and it is now down to crunch time with me making it a solo effort. What time I don't spend on my day job gets spent on the yearbook. And what time is leftover goes to keeping the household from exploding in dog hair and dirty laundry or dishes.

As such, I haven't picked up a hook for more than an hour over the last few weeks. My buffer of posts has run out. I hate to say it, but sometimes you just need to take a step back in order to move forward.
Crochet is for sure taking a back seat again here.

I hope to be able to pick this blog back up in August or so, but for now I need to let posting every monday go. My apologies. In the meantime, keep up with my pictures on Flicker or Instagram if you like.

Thanks for reading.

Iorek's Armor

So last week I made a polar bear named Iorek as in the armored polar bear from the Golden Compass. As it would be fun and challenging to make actual armor for him out of crochet, I went for it.

I debated using felt and sewing together the armor, but that is a bit cheating I feel. The plan was to make armor plating using the crocodile stitch and free form shapes and squares all sewn together. I picked out a mottled brown that I think is Vanna's Choice in Barley that I had on hand.

The first thing I did was make two sets of two scales, vertically for the shoulder pads, as this was a pretty easy thing to make. I used this good reference by Crochet Chiq for the vertical chains of scales.

collar piece, shoulder scales, triangle scale chest and half circle chest piece

For the front I worked a triangle shape of scales, starting at the point then making a row of 2 and a row of three on top. I used just the first few rows of Bonita Patterns's Triangle shawl pattern that I purchased and used a while back to get how to make this. I then made a super large half circle shape that spanned the area across his chest to affix the triangle scales to.

For the back I did a longer set of 5 vertical for the spine sort of armor.  For the back I also made two half circle shapes for the shoulder plates and one more half circle which I then lengthened to go under the spine plates.

front side assembly with shoulders

After all these bits were made I needed something to affix them all to, to hang off his shoulders right. So I did a simple circle of three rounds of single crochet like a large collar and started assembling the armor by sewing it onto the collar.

backside assembly with shoulder plates, back plate and spine

After that I thought he needed a helmet. This was a bit tricky since I wanted his ears to stick out. Sure I could have just made a helmet and sewn the ears on, but no. So I started with a small circle and then just sort of eyeballed out a widening wedge for the back of the helmet. Then I left a few stitches free on each side and worked front side panels of about the same length as the back. Then I added a small ridge on the front with a picot to give that little triangle point in the center of the eyes. After that I made a single crocodile scale to add to the helmet.

Flat helmet piece and its single scale

I used the tails from the sides to sew up the helmet leaving openings for the ears to poke out of and sewed the scale on to the front.

Once the armor was all assembled I realized that I made it sort of samurai-ish... I wanted it to be a but cooler though so I used a bit of leftover super thin Madtosh gold to add swirl filigree to the flat front armor, the back shoulder plates and on the back of the helmet. To keep his armor nice and snug, I threaded a piece of yarn between the shoulder pads and the chest piece like a shoelace and tied it under his arms.

front

backside

feet and bear butt

Overall the armor probably took another 3-4 hours to make, and one more for the filagree.
He's just so dang cute, fierce and cuddly.

Iorek the Polar Bear

As I mentioned before, for my birthday a friend gifted me some yarn from her stash. I actually love to see what yarn others have collected, as it is a sign of their own tastes.

Two of the four skeins she gave me are Araucania brand yarn in Nature Cotton in white. The yarn of course has since been discontinued, but it is a really nice cotton yarn that is super soft. It is classified as bulky, but as bulky yarns have become super popular lately, that classification is not really super helpful anymore as anything from a little thicker than worsted to something the thickness of rope can fall into the bulky category. It is somewhat smooth, but has a hand spun look to it with variations in thickness. Those variations are really disparate, being super thin at some times and puffy at others. Made for an interesting time while working up the rounds, and I am hoping he ends up looking a bit rough... more bear like I guess.

some bits thin, some pretty loose

For some reason I looked at it and thought polar bear and set out to find a pattern for one I liked.
I decided to go with Leopold, the Polar bear by Amourfou. I just really liked his bowling pin shape, super cute ears, and off center nose. The pattern does not specify how much yarn he takes to make, but I'm just going to go for it and hope I have enough. Also, I decided to make mine a little larger than hers, since she used worsted and a 3mm hook and I am going to go with my bulky yarn and a I/5.5mm hook.

I started with the body to see how the yarn would look in a large area and see how it worked up. It was a bit tricky and the shape isn't as perfect as it would be if the yarn was a consistent thickness, but I thought it looked pretty good. Some places where it thinned, there is a larger gap in the fabric than there might otherwise be, but yeah, cute.

Since the body is still open once you complete the legs I was able to then make the snout, stuff the body, sew it on, and place the safety eyes, making sure that it was centered to the legs. I like the way the legs are finished, with a disk and sc around, as it lets him stand a bit easier on his own, but I think I might have made them a bit longer so they are more pronounced. As it is, they kind of blend into his bowling ball shape, but that's part of what makes him so cute.

he has legs there at the bottom, hard to tell though.

The arms were a cinch and I set them a bit low just like shown. Love how cute it makes him.

I worked up a simple scarf with some leftover blue acrylic yarn. I gave it a tiny bit of texture with two ribs, and then added a fringe at each end. Once I actually got it around his neck, I realized it was pretty short to do any cool ties or anything, so I just knotted it for the photos. If you are wanting to make one and do cool scarf knots, I would recommend making it doubly long and perhaps use baby weight yarn and a 4mm hook.

Double Ribbed Scarf (for toys) (with 5mm hook, worsted weight acrylic yarn)
Chain 100+1 to turn,
R1. Work 100 sc along length, ch 1 and turn.
R2. Work 100 slip stitch along, ch 1 and turn.
R3. same as r1
R4. same as r2
R5. same as r1, bind off
Cut small strips and loop through ends to make fringe.

Personally, I felt that just making a polar bear was pretty boring. So my sister in law had a good idea: make it an armored polar bear! Hence his name, Iorek, named after the armored bear in the book the Golden Compass. Next week I'll show you his armor.

Iorek took about 6 hours to make, stuff and assemble. Scarf another hour and a half.
Size: About 10" tall
Difficulty: Easy

2016 Fiber Fest

2015 was the first time I attended Fiber Fest at the Irving Convention Center. With the closing of one of my favorite local yarn stores, Madtosh Crafts, I was hankering to browse some beautiful yarns.

Before I went on Saturday, I took some time to look through my Evernote crochet folder, Ravelry, my own notes, and Etsy, for some ideas of what to work on next.

After the success of my Granite Cape sweater, I've gained some confidence and am still wanting to work on a more fitted sweater. I shortlisted two that I've had in my notes for a while now:

• The Araucaria Cardigan needs about 2500 yards of dk 8 ply yarn
• The Aruna Cardigan needs about 2000 yards of worsted 10 ply yarn

The only trick here is finding that much yarn in the same dye lot at once. Usually most stores recommend ordering it directly from the maker. So really I needed to browse to see what I liked for these. As I would want to modify the Aruna quite a bit (to make it longer), I was leaning towards working on the Araucaria one first.

All kind of yarn and people at the show. If I had a dollar for every not standard hair color...

As I figured, I didn't actually get any yarn for a sweater...most of the yarn there is hand dyed and I did not feel like spending close to $400 in yarn for a sweater I may or may not like. Got some really good advice on perhaps using just say three skeins of some hand made yarn for the detail edging and doing the main body in a commercial yarn though.

It was good to get to talk to professionals who also understand my limitations and budget. And I really loved her yarns and colors. Next year perhaps I'll be a bit more bold.

Wandering the vendor hall, it was so hard not to just buy all the Madtosh yarn in my favorite colorway, Mandala, but as I had no project in mind, I moved on...

large area to just sit and knit in the middle of the hall

I've also really wanted to make something gigantic...like a huge plushie of some kind. Again, that would require quite a bit of yarn. Not sure why, but I keep coming back to this giant sleepy cat thing by Nekoyama named Amari-san. Apparently he's a large version of a smaller cat toy named Amineko by the same designer. Based on the finished projects (I was especially looking at MrsDanvers' as it was so nicely photographed) it looked like I would need about 900 yards if I wanted to use a worsted of some kind. Unfortunately, Miss Babs Yarn wasn't there this year, from which I had planned to get a few of her giant skeins for this cat.

In the end I did get some yarn, but for another project altogether. I've been wanting to make this Juliette Shawl for a while, and so kept my eye out for a set of ombre yarns in a color I liked. I found it in this set of yarn called Teal Deer by Vice Yarns. I also went out on a limb and got a small bag of clear silver beads. I am going to try to add a few beads to the last couple of rows just to give it a little shine! Keep an eye out for a post on this shawl in the future.

Last but not least, you might have noticed a little silver item in that picture as well. It is a shawl pin made of white bronze and cast from a piece of grape vine from a brand called Jül Designs. I love how organic the shape was and I had to have it. Figure it will look lovely on my pineapple shawl and anything else I use it with.

Till next year!