Key Cap Sadness

So, want to make the spare store key instantly recognizable to whoever has to bring it to me. Found this: 

Perfect!! And sold out. 

So, I found this:

Possible. But not my favorite.  Then found this:

OMG! Even more perfect!!!

...and also sold out. Sigh.

I'll just knit one myself.

The dangers of working at a yarn store

Posted without further comment:

Knitted Peter Rabbit

I have GOT to find this pattern!

Owl Canvas

So, what's it like to work at a yarn store?

Working at a yarn store is, unsurprisingly, a LOT of fun. Plus, yarn!!

Dream in Color Classy Superwash 

Socks Yeah!

Uptown Worsted

Fyberspates Vivacious

Marble Chunky

Yeah. And this is just what's arrived the last two days!! (Managed to NOT come home with one of everything.)

Universal at VKLive

Universal Yarns had some pretty amazing stuff on the runway at VKLive. As in "I must hunt these down and knit them". More available on their tweetstream! 

I'm hoping designer names and patterns will be available soon!

Another random assortment of things I'd like to make someday:

I keep almost getting this kit...	A Tiffany Peacock Window CAKE!!!
HP Swithplate	Make your Own Snitch
Just to freak out the neighbors	Star Wars snowflakes

A magazine to track down...

I need to find this today, I hope it's still where I can get it:


... and yes, it's not been a needlework productive week. Hoping to have something more interesting for Friday!

Lovely new Brooklyn Tweed pattern(s)

Jared Flood has a lovely new hat, the Seasons Hat, available in the new Spring Thaw collection. I'm pretty sure someone at Fibre Space mentioned that it was in stock. Will be buying the book... and probably some Loft (if there's any left!) to make the hat.


(SO not my photo. This is Jared Flood's photo of his amazingly lovely hats.)
In less-famous crafter news, the crafters now have closet space at work.


Yep, that's right, my workplace has an Emergency Yarn Stash. Seriously. There are enough knitters/crocheters that any spare yarn will eventually find its way into a project for someone!!

Extreme Double Knitting!!

I also got obligatory knitting magazines. (Seriously. I haven't gone on a magazine binge for months, you expected me to stop at two?)


Interweave Knits kinda suckered me; while I do read most of the articles, I was most interested in this, which I caught out of the corner of my eye during a cursory flip-through:


Turns out neither it - nor the techniques involved - are actually in the magazine. They're from Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork by Alasdair Post-Quinn, which is now available for preorder from CooperativePress.com. I'm getting this book, since it's one of the techniques hinted at during Melissa Leapman's double knitting class at the TKGA conference in Greensboro (she had the COOLEST hat done this way). And you can get a digital edition, or a digital edition AND a book! So, the magazine is forgiven for having a lead on a really, really cool book.

I also swiped my copy of the Vogue Knitopedia, finally:


It's a great resource for All About Knitting - and it really does try to cover EVERYTHING. To wit:





I'm going to have a lot of fun curling up on a cold winter weekend morning and reading it front to back!

Awww.... Quidditch in Real Life!

So, finished Ancient Runes, where we were studying some actual Icelandic Staves - magic sigils. Kinda scary, those ancient Icelanders... but I managed to find a fun way to interpret one of the staves, and get some double-knitting practice in at the same time.

I chose to craft a representation of the stave for Opening Hills. Now, anyone who travels Underhill is probably really really going to want a way BACK OUT at some point - so I opted to double-knit my stave so it’s two-sided. The dark side gets you IN; the light side lets you OUT. Just slap it on a wall, hit it with a stick (your wand will work), and viola - instant gateway! It can also be used as a hotpad, to protect tables and such, but be sure not to tap it with a wooden spoon or somesuch while a hot cup of tea is on it - someone on the Other Side will not appreciate being doused with soup or boiling water!

It's also useful for quick exits by those who tend to wander in caves and/or underground corridors and/or kitchens - although be careful. Being returned "to the light" without the proper amount of concentration can result in things like that regrettable incident with the food dye and the artichokes atop Ravenclaw Tower yesterday. (Sorry about that.)

In other news, I'm so proud of my alma matter!

---

Bunnies... bunnies, it must be BUNNIES!

OMG... when I have bunnies, one of them may be a Show Jumping Bunny.


(Daily Mail article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1381464/Bunny-rabbits-compete-jumping-course-Dressage-set-world-storm.html

Bunny Dressage!!

OMG... when I have bunnies, one of them may be a Show Jumping Bunny.


(Daily Mail article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1381464/Bunny-rabbits-compete-jumping-course-Dressage-set-world-storm.html

Have you seen...?

Have you seen the "Starsky & Hutch" tea cozy? It's a little tiny S&H cardi for your teapot. No, really. And I want to make one... but don't want to buy yarn. So, I dipped into the Frog Pond:

Before, a partially-completed Braided Ball for Failed OWL Attempt:


After, a nice, happy, guilt-free ball of yarn:

And Ta-DAH! yarn that's hopefully about enough for a cozy sweater for a little teapot. (Now I just have to actually buy the pattern!)

Knit + Stitch = Bliss!

Glad everyone's enjoying the vicarious Yarn Crawl!!

So, the Thursday of the Yarn Crawl, after work, I hit another yarn store. Originally, I'd been thinking of going to Fibre Space, but decided to hit Knit & Stitch since Thursday was its Late Open Night.

When & Where: Thursday, April 14 - Knit & Stitch = Bliss

I used to hit K&S when it was The Needlework Loft, and dealt primarily in cross-stitch and painted canvas. The market for those crafts has been falling - they're not cheap hobbies! - and more stores have added knitting (like In Stitches) or switched entirely, like K&S. When I worked at the tippy-top of Georgetown (Glover Park, really), I could take a bus to the Metro, Metro to Bethesda, Walk to the Needlework Loft, and get back in just under an hour. Now that I'm on the river, it's an hour just to get there... so I haven't been in ages. The shop looks about the same, with a few cute differences (or at least I think they're differences?) on the way in. The new sign is 3-D, which is cool.


And the sheep crossing sign is adorable. (It's possible that was there before, but I can't remember.)


Then, the two prints - a sheep turning into a sweater; yarn turning into a cat. I LOVE THESE PRINTS. They are so cool!!




If anyone knows who did EITHER of those prints, and knows where I might be able to get a copy, drop me a line please. They're adorable!

I did manage to find some things to buy, of course. (And I'm still in the database. Come to think of it, I'm in the database of every yarn store I went to on the Crawl. Like you may have guessed - they know me.) Once again, I got something I was looking for - the last of the Elizabeth Zimmerman books that I didn't already have:


And, since I had to go by the sock yarn shelves to get to the book shelves, soem Claudia Hand Paint sock yarn kinda jumped out at me. I almost got the Chartreuse as well, but decided that two pairs of eyebleedingly bright socks would be sufficient for my Evil Plans. (Trust me, said plans are quite diabolical. And involve wearing said socks in bright sunlight.)


The OMG-What-Did-I-Do? purchase of the entire yarn crawl was this:


Yep, that's a skein of Cashmere/Bison. Yes, I'm still allergic to Bison - but not as badly as I expected, due to the cashmere, most likely. This is, officially, the most I've ever paid for a skein of yarn. (No, I'm not telling you the price. It was half the total of what I paid. Do your own math.) I have NO idea what I'm going to make with it, but whatever it is, it's going to be (a) spectacular and (b) most likely a gift for someone else that isn't allergic to large quaduped fibers. (And yes, I knit stuff like this with gloves on. Won't be the first time, won't be the last. Yes, I'm a bit crazy like that.)

So, a nice haul, despite my inexplicable weakness when faced with a lovely soft skein of Cashmere/Bison. (In my defense, it's from Prince Edward Isle, which is just far enough away and exotic-sounding that it struck some sort of "Titanic" chord or something. And yes, I know most of the Titanic victims are actually in Nova Scotia. But still, it's the only explanation I've got!)

Care of Magical Creatures - Done!

Well, it's the end of the month. so this week, I'll be showing you the rest of the classes I turned in for February assingments. First up, Care of Magical Creatures - here's my turn-in post. We were each given a Fwooper (a lovely, bright-colored bird with a harsh/earsplitting cry - don't worry, they were under silencing spells before they were handed out to the students) and we were to make something beautiful, ugly, brightly colored, or an aid to hearing-loss prevention.

Hello, Professors! This is CraftyGryphon, Third Year Slytherin, turning in her assignment. I have opted to do a combination of options one and two; I have crafted brightly colored objects that I think are really, really beautiful. They are the Spirogyra mitts from Knitty, and I've wanted to make a pair forever. When a ball of MiniMochi landed at my feet (literally, it fell off a shelf!), I took the cosmic hint, and made the mitts I've wanted! Here they are:


It took 190 yards of yarn to make these lovely mitts (since I have 5 yards left from my 195-yard ball, this qualifies as "math even I can do".

I hope these mitts are acceptable, Professors. I really love them, as does my little Fwooper. Can I keep her?

Here's some closeups:




I think this was the first pattern I queued in Ravelry; I know it was the first "I MUST MAKE THOSE!" pattern I saw in Knitty. So, now I have them. Yay!!!

And now, a break from knitted objects...

My new favorite thing-I-want: Interweave CD Collections. Seriously - I've missed issues from the past 8 years of Interweave Knits, and certainly lots from past 5 of Knitscene. Instead of the Hell known as eBay and tracking things down that way, I can now get a CD with everything on it! I am SO there - I was going to digitize a lot of my favorite patterns - now I won't have to, I'll just get the CDs I need!

Of course, everything isn't on CD yet... these are two books I wouldn't mind getting my paws on:




Still going through the three (!!) books I received from the fabulous rockinsticks, though, so I should be able to keep from buying anything anytime soon.