Helicies

For Arithmancy, we needed to make something math-y. Since helicies were specifically mentioned, and I love cup cozies, and I used to play with DNA for a living, I made a DNA cup cozy. (In high visibility yellow. It really is the best yarn for this for me! And... I think I have just enough yarn to make a third one some time next term.)

On the left, we have the cozy over a small drinking glass, just for shape. Eh, it looks okay. On the right, it's being worn by a 32-oz soda cup (its intended target), and looks much better.

And my hands didn't freeze coming to work, as they are wont to do on brisk spring mornings when carrying cups of ice-cold things. Yay!!

Coeurs et Fleurs Snood

For Charms, we had the option of making something about/for/to do with Fleur Delacour/Weasley - so I picked a Coeurs et Fleurs hat. Since I didn't really pay much attention to gauge, and the yarn was both smaller and fluffier than called for, and I'm pretty sure I just used whatever needles were on hand, what I actually have is a lovely Coeurs et Fleurs Snood. But as a snood, it's one of the prettiest I have!

Got a ball of this stuff ages ago, and I'm sure I was going to do SOMETHING with it, but now it's going to be a Coeurs et Fleurs hat:


See? Here it is! This is a lovely, quick pattern, and perfect for about 50g of this yarn. I wanted something in dark lace that wouldn't drive me completely nuts to test-drive for a later project (you'll see). Success was had! Here it is, blocking on a 14" pizza tray, since a 10" plate just wasn't cutting it:


So, that's three hats in three classes. Yesterday's Dragon Hat was the second, and the third hat is the Yuccalike hat from last week. So, *phew*, my March Hat Trick is done, and I've made Nine Hats this term! Woohoo! A Hat Trick o' Hat Tricks!!

Ear* be Dragons!

Here's my dragon hat WITHOUT ears or horns:


... and here it is all finished:

For CoMC, we had the option: "Make something popular in Britain" - so the following is the blather that supported my wish to make a Toothless hat (from How to Train your Dragon).

Defense of Position: There's the obvious - a dragon on the Welsh flag (which dates back to around 650 AD!!), and there are dragons all over Celtic and Celtic-inspired artwork, historically and today.Two quick internet seraches with british/london dragon revealed a goodly number of pubs around London with "Dragon" in the name, together with the mad proliferation of George and Dragon British Pubs in America - so Dragon is certainly a popular component of British Pub Names. Covent Garden has a Dragon Hall (which has shown the St. George and the Dragon panto). At least one of the boundary markers of the City of London is a dragon:


And then there's this... and we all know that Harry Potter is popular in Britain, and there are definitely dragons associated therewith:


So... I'm going to say Dragons are indeed popular in Britan, and thus I made a Dragon Hat!


Wheee!!



*Joke for the G+ crowd.

Potions: Done!!

My turn-in post for my first class. It was going to be a different hat, but that hat fought back massively - so I ended up making a Divine Hat, with a modified brim. The prompt was to study a potion or potion ingredient beginning with X, Y or Z. I took the easy way out, and used an actual plant - but hey, it worked!

Hello, Professors! I decided to study the potion ingredients derived from the Yucca Plant. The Yucca has various uses, both mundane and magical.

The saponin in yucca plants is the major potion-base constituent. Saponins are a class of chemical compounds, one of many secondary metabolites found in natural sources, with saponins found in particular abundance in various plant species. More specifically, they are amphipathic glycosides grouped, in terms of phenomenology, by the soap-like foaming they produce when shaken in aqueous solutions, and, in terms of structure, by their composition of one or more hydrophilic glycoside moieties combined with a lipophilic triterpene derivative. The saponin has both a water- and fat-soluble end and therefore act like soap. Poultices made from the leaves may be used to treat skin sores, inflammation of all sorts, including joint inflammations and bleeding, to fight dandruff and to prevent hair loss.

Magically, this foaming component can be found in Alia Y-acta (liniment of resolve, a comprehensive treatment for muscle sorness, especially that brought on by overexertion), it forms the base for most bubotuber solutions/washes (lessening the sting of astringent treatments), and is suspected to be the base of Lockhart's Lovely Locks Hair Tonic (reverse-engineering continues, but is thus far unsuccessful). Care should be taken, however, that any potions using a Yucca base *not* be taken internally, as there can be unpleasant lower-gastrointestinal results.


To celebrate this useful little plant, I made a Yuccalike Hat:


Here's a photo of me, and a photo of an actual Yucca plant. You can't really even tell which is which!

Actual Yucca Plant

Me

Thanks, professors! I learned quite a bit this class!
....And if I can just figure out what's in that Hair Tonic...

Hopefully, I'll have a bunch of classes and Quidditch to hand in on Monday - I'm running out of time here!

Really, REALLY bright socks.

Things I didn't buy: Cute handbags with pompoms. Pompoms are fashion now, I guess. (And so easy, now that I know you can make them on a fork!)


Things I did buy: six pairs of eyebleed-bright footie socks. Yes, I know, I could just knit my own, but the eyebleed pack was just too tempting to resist.


Not shown in sunlight, because that might blind you.
This blog entry brought to you by Ross, where you can get stuff for less than you might otherwise pay, and my need of a new pair of sneakers, which I also bought. Along with socks and three packs of the hairbands I like. But, you know, for le$$.