The Scarf of DOOOOOOOOOOM

Okay, so, I keep yarn scraps in my desk at work. So far, I've used them about six times. Lifelines, just need a bit of color, whatever. It's been useful, I tell you!!


(Stop looking at me like that.)

Anyway, I keep lots of yarn scraps. Half-balls of this, tiny smidges of thatk, and while I do use them from time to time, their numbers have been increasing at an alarming rate, and some of it... well, some of it looked unlikely to EVER be used.

Enter the Scarf of Doom.

Step one: at 9pm on the night before you're gonna knit, grab five random things out of your stash.


I grabbed a few more, since the thinner yarns needed to be held triple. And I had no idea I had blue-purple-pompom-with-black-eyelash yarn in my stash until I pulled it out of the Bag O' Scraps.

Then, the next morning (at a suitably hideously early hour), cast on:



Then you've got 2.5h to knit as much as you can. This is about an hour in:


Now this was all started over on WhoDunnKnit.com, home of the amazing Deadly Knitshade. Well, the spreading through the internet was started there. The actual tale that spawned the Scarf of Doom can be found on her blog here, complete with link to the pattern so you can make your very own Scarf of Doom, and there's some follow-up here, and all together, it's a bunch of knitterly awesomesauce!

Oh, and just so you know I finished, here's mine:


Here's a close-up, so you get a good view of the actual fibers involved. 100% synthetic, I assure you!


It's gonna be the other valance in my craft room. (The first valance being my over-seven-foot-long Clapotis. If I'm not going to wear it often, it might as well be out where I can see it!)

Ailment

I'll be back tomorrow (well, I'm back today, but without content). Been sick since last Wednesday night, doing OK now. Yay? Yay!

High-Visibility Owls

Got an unexpected badge for Detention this month (the One Fish, Two Fish)! If I'd been paying more attention, I would've seen that there were badges in addition to the 10 points, but I wasn't, so it was a really nice surprise.


I also got this badge:


... for making a Highly-Visible Owl Cup Cozie. (Yep, I had a small ball of high-visibility yellow sock yarn that I scored... years ago, with the plan to make something Usefully Visible out of it. And since I keep losing the cup cozies I make, this just seemed PERFECT.) Also works as a wrist cozy!

And then, to my surprise and delight, I recieved the coveted Truly Terrifying badge for my Tale of Knitterly Horror:


The tale that goes with it is just Too Scary to relate here. A fairisle sweater purposely unraveled by the recipient was involved.

*shudder*

When I grow up, I wanna be...

For the Second Challenge in Quidditch, we were supposed to answer the question "Where do I see myself five years from now?" I decided my answer was "As a Master Knitter in The Knitting Guild Association!" I'm on Level One now, and have been for two years - because I keep getting stopped by The Dreaded Hat. So, time to get over it and just make the hat once and for all. So, I did!


I haven't measured it for gauge yet. It should be spot-on, but I'll have to do it again (that'll be the fifth attempt, although this is still the first FINISHED attempt) if it isn't. But it looks okay, and it fits well, so it should be good. I also like the way I was able to fold the i-cord loops so each one folds over the next one - sorta Celtic-knot-ish.



But it's done!! I found my swatches; I just need to block everything, finish a few questions, and finish my blocking report, and I... *gulp!!*... will be ready to send it off to the Examiners!!! Eeeeeeek!!!

Long Weekend

A brief photographic list of things that make me happy:

Glow in the Dark Knitting Needles:

Yarn on Shelves:


BUNNIES!

(adorable wallpaper from wallcoo.net)!
If today is part of a long weekend for you, I hope you have some time to curl up and knit/sew/crochet/whatever!!

DOOOOOOOM GOAT!!

First, the Doom Goat Illusion Chart:


Now, the class turn-in for Charms, where Illusion Knitting was an option...

Name: CraftyGryphon
House: Slytherin, Sixth Year
Option: 1 - Illusion Knitting
Project Page: Hearts' Illusion Mitts
Yards: ~105 yds.

Hello, Professors!

I decided to try knitting a pair of illusion mitts. Now, they look like nice matching mitts from most angles, but they don't actually match at all. If viewed at just the right angle, different pictures will appear!


The right mitt has little hearts front and back (very small hearts - possibly too small). The left mitt has Doom Goat, the Snake Pit Mascot, on the back, and a checkerboard on the palm side. The resolution on Doom Goat isn't great - it's supposed to be Doom Goat's head in a stylized flame.

right mitt



left mitt
  
The chart I created for the Doom Goat side is set up for knitting in the round; if you're doing a flat piece, then the stitches on the even-numbered rows would have to be reversed. (purl if it says knit, and vice versa) to make it work correctly.

History of Magic - Done!

This is mostly turn-in post for HoM, because I had a lot of fun with it.

Name: CraftyGryphon
House: Slytherin, Sixth Year
Option: 1 - Research a Wizarding Family Tree
Project Page: Sybil's Slytherin Scarf
Tag: sqwin12
Yards: 289


Hello, professors! While flailing about in the library, I stumbled upon the case of Professor Salomons, who was (is?) the daughter of a pure-blooded wizard who chose to live in the Muggle world.

Sybil Salomons (b 1844 - d _____), second daughter of Sir David Salomons and Lady Laura, nee de Stern. David, orphaned at a young age and raised by Muggle relatives (the senior branch of the Salomons in our world being aged two at the time, and quite unable to guard a much-older nephew easily), was a writer and inventor, and interested in astronomy, chemistry, civil engineering, geology, geography, meteorology, commerce, physics, military, inventions, archaeology, law, statistics, zoology, botany, agriculture, electrical engineering, photography, microscopy, and "self-propelled traffic". He became Sir David upon the death of his uncle, and remained in the Muggle world. Of his five children, only his second daughter, Sybil, possessed any talent for magic, and at age fifteen "died" in the Muggle world, becoming permanently a part of the Wizarding world.

Sybil, with her unrestrained curiosity "about everything" and a burning ambition to discover why she, and none of her siblings, was a witch, was sorted into Slytherin House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She excelled at Herbology and Potions, becoming, briefly, one of the youngest Potions Professors in the school's history. In addition to teaching a very popular set of lectures, she spent whatever spare time she had researching the origins of magic in humankind, and how it differed from that found magical creatures. During her research, she is alleged to have discovered the "patterning key" that causes magical ability to express in a child. As a true half-blooded witch (Sir David being a pure-blood able to trace his ancestry back to Alhambra and across to The Island, her mother's family having had exactly NOTHING to do with magic for at least fifteen generations, before which records were lost), she chose to experiment on herself to see if she could activate and deactivate the patterning key. The spell involved was (of necessity) complex, convoluted, and, sadly, irreproducible. Sybil did, indeed, succeed in activating the key; as such, she became a being of pure magic, and unable to communicate with her fellow teachers or students. After much trial and error, she was able to re-form her essence into that of Grimoire, with her knowledge written upon its pages in hopes that someone would read her research, and be able to reverse the spell.

The book is made of strong leather, dyed a deep green, with interlocking silver bands which lock along the top, sides and bottom and two elaborate double-Ss on the front cover. Many who have seen the Sybil Grimoire have mistaken the "S"s to mean "Slytherin" or the interlocking to represent snakes; this is, clearly, not correct, as they are simply Sybil's initials, although why they appear in duplicate is not known.


The book cannot be destroyed or stolen, but is passed along, seemingly at whim, to the "next person that needs it," which seems to be, in actuality, "the next person who might be able to deactivate the key". The book is periodically returned to the Restricted Section of the library at Hogwarts; it tends to vanish shortly thereafter.

Sybil, or, rather, the book that is Sybil, was most recently sighted in a small curiosity shop outside of Turnbrige Wells, in the company of a tall carroty-haired gentleman. Her current whereabouts are unknown.

In Professor Salomon's honor, I have made a scarf reminiscent of the book that she now is, green with double silver bands. The bands are too thick to be mistaken for a typical Slytherin House scarf, but close enough to hint at the Professor's ties to the House.


I will wear it with pride!

And, just because it's cool, I was totally justified in putting the TOTAL amount of the three skeins of yarn down for yardage, because this is ALL I had left when I was finished!!

A spontaneous seasonal dishcloth happened.

Oh, hooray! I found something to make with the almost-the-rest of the giant ball of dark red cotton yarn, and it went into my queue almost a year ago!! And it was really, really fast as dishcloths-with-patterns go, because all the "pattern" is on the front - the back is just edge-purl across-edge.


Plus, it's great for helping make cookies with little hearts on them. It just kinda goes with the theme!!
Woohoo, 15 more points for Slytherin!

The red one is a Valentine fish.

The House is doing another mass turn-in in detention. The theme is "fish" (insert your favorite Carp joke here). Not sea creatures, else I would have made an awesome little orca, but fish. So, I found directions in either Japanese or Chinese (I think it was the latter; I haven't been able to easily distinguish between the two for a decade or so now) for little crochet fish.

I did a gray one, then I did an ecru one. Then I found some leftover blue cotton, and then some red cotton (go figure, given I just did a cup cozy out of ecru, blue and red)...


... and then it became glaringly obvious what the title of this project really HAD to be. Yep, you guessed it:

One Fish	Two Fish
Red Fish	Blue Fish

Really, I had to.

Random Internet Things...

First, some Slytherin Rules. And also, Slytherin Rules! 33 Crafting Commandments of Slytherin House

If you haven't seen it yet, you should totally check out Handmade Ryan Gosling. There's related twitter feed, @HandmadeRyan, and a somewhat-related twitter feed more aimed at knitters, @KnittingRyanG. This is my personal favorite from the images site (so far):


(There's also a version of Ryan for writers, @GoslingLitAgent.)

And there's more, just different. Say Game of Thrones was crossed with Downton Abbey. (No, really.) You'd get Abbey of Thrones!!

Yes, I make charts.

This is my offical chart of Planning for Classes for this (and last... and next, I suppose) month. Part of the SS1stClass is making sure to take every class offered during the term at least once. Assuming I finish everything I want to THIS month, I can take any six classes next month with no worries I missed one.


So far, I've finished Gerald the Groundhog, the TARDIS dishcloth, the Tiny Redskins Sweater:


Started the Slytherin Scarf, the Hooty Hat, and the Illusion Mittens.


Not sure it's working... sigh.
I've got my One Fish, Two Fish ready to turn in next Tuesday, I'm doing OK on my OWL and my Order Mission. The Bunny Nugget Army is growing apace. I should have the finishing done on the TKGA Hat done soon, too.

I was originally going to let the big crazy take the form of the Illusion Things:


Yeah, that's for elbow-length illusion gloves done in laceweight yarn on size 0 needles. I managed to talk myself out of that, and go with worsted-weight wool on size 5s - should be finished this month. I really need to stop listening to the crazy knitting voices...!

Since it's Friday, have a bunny!!



More pics of the Mitts That Don't Quite Work

>

Radiance Shawl progress

So, last weekend, I started my Order Mission, the Radiance Shawl!

As of last Monday (and a hella lotta knitting over the weekend, lemme tell you!!), I made it to row 105, aka 20%. The were then up to 250+ stitches, and taking a lot longer to knit. And there is NOTHING tricky about this pattern - it's knit, purl, yo and k2tog for the most part (there might be some ssk later). It's designed to go quickly, which is why I figured I'd be able to do it in the six to eight weeks proscribed by an Order Mission.


Here it is today... and not too terribly much further along. I'm totally blaming Detention, and all the classes that got posted last Wednesday that I totally had to start knitting ASAP, as evident from my Gerald the Groundhog last Thursday.


It's at 30% now, exactly, and I have six more weeks for it. (And the OWL. And the classes. And all the Quidditch. GAH!!)

TARDIS dishcloth

A bit of geekery today. There's a really cool TARDIS dishcloth pattern out there. Specifically, it's here, if you're interested. Anyway, our HoH made one last month, and I saw it, and I squealed. So, I made one.


My deviation from the pattern is doing a garter-stitch edging, because I'm used to doing that on my dishcloths. I just couldn't believe I had a nice blue bit of cotton yarn left over from (gosh... flag dishcloths, cup cozies, fish...) to make it! For class, it just had to be made from leftovers from previous projects - the yarn was orignally obtained to make this, which evidently never got on either Ravelry OR my blog, which I just don't understand (must've done it when I was between cameraphones, maybe?)


and was also used for this last month:


So that should count, right?

More things started, less things finished

It wasn't just panicking about the TKGA hat this weekend, no siree! I almost comletely finished a Little Redskins Sweater for Stitchlove's grandson; she's a killer-good crocheter of tiny things, so I decided to stick to knitting for that. (I'm doomed once I teach her to knit!). I've done all the finishing but putting on the buttons, which I hope I'll get to tonight.


Got about halfway on the Hooty Hat. Oh my Bob, the cluster-crochets take up a LOT of yarn. My yardage on this one project is going to be INSANE. It's also going to be very, very cute. And I'm calling mine a Gryphon hat, and I'm going to change the eyes a bit so they look like the cartoon Gryphonkits I draw. Hopefully, this will get finished during the week as well.


I started my Hearts' Illusion Mittens. This is the leftover yarn from my TKGA hat, since I decided doing the Broncos mitts on size 0 DPNs will look amazing and totally qualify as a BROOM just based on the number of stitches plus the fact they're going to be to-the-elbow mitts out of laceweight yarn. I mean, they'll be amazing, but no way in HECK will they be happening in three weeks! I used Hello Yarn's Generic Norwegian Mitten Blank to chart out the illusions, remembering to actually have four rows per thing. Can't see anything yet, since I don't even have one "heart" (16 rows) done, but soon!!

Now I need to get back to my OWL and Order Mission!