And spring means...

Flowers

And butterflies

And insects

It's spring!

Yes, spring!


J and I took a walk on Saturday. It was one of those guide-book walks with tidbits of information that you have no recollection of after.


As per usual we enjoyed the architecture.

A cemetery was part of the walk itinerary. Supposedly there were some mildly famous people's graves in this cemetery, but we didn't go searching for them. Instead we pondered the meaning of life, and thought about how at one point in time the local gravestone salesman must have been pushing obelisks:



And I took more pictures of flowers.




We also visited the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh.


When I got home this felted bracelet was dry.

It's made of dyed merino, the white streaks are bamboo fibers I added.

Right now I'm working on some felted flowers.

They aren't done yet. I'm still not sure what they'll look like when they're finished.

A felted vase with a rolled brim. I'm quite pleased with the brim (had to needle felt that).


I'm also now caught up with the crochet along. I tried to follow Rocky's advice and stick with one color range. And I think it helped a bit. But it still looks like it's been hit with the ugly project stick.


And, to top off the nice weekend, I just made some shortbread (bakealong).

Ugly, weird, and nice

I'm glad I'm doing the National Crochet Month Freeform Crochet-Along (CAL). I haven't done crochet in a while it feels like, and I'm learning some new stitches (I really like the crochet rings for March 9th).

Only thing is, the scrumble is turning out really ugly.

Now I ask you, what am I supposed to do with that? There's still 20 more days of the freeform along left, but I'm kind of doubting my ability to make it pretty in those remaining days. Perhaps there'll be a rip-out along on April 1st?

I took another felting class on Tuesday, we did felt pods this time.

We're doing 3-d objects next week, so maybe soon I'll have an insect or bird or something to accompany the pod.

The studio where I'm taking the felting classes also has a spinning wheel, so I've been going into the Wednesday drop in hours and teaching myself to spin.

tah da. This is from my second try at a spinning wheel. Hopefully in two more weeks I'll have a bit of plied yarn to show off.


Two weeks ago I tried to make a cloth headband, but failed completely. I blame it on the fact that I don't wear headbands. I put interfacing on it. That was a mistake because it didn't want to lie flat on my head. I also had measuring problems, and had to sew on more lengths of fabric to make it longer. I also didn't have any elastic in the house and thought I could just use a snap. Nope, bad idea.

Then I made this.

A bit of sheer ribbon, on the back is some black elastic (learned my lessson). The blue part of the flower is wet felted, with the middle needle felted on.

If you're interested in wet felting Felting Lessons has some excellent beginner videos. And check out how she organizes her the wool (in the background)!

Along (s)

This month is National Crochet Month. I was considering crocheting some amigurumi, and I will probably still do so, but then yesterday I saw on ravelry the National Crochet Month Freeform Crochet-Along (CAL).

I had a little bit of catching up to do this afternoon, but I'm now caught up with the pattern until the 6th, and I'm ready for the "along" part.


Another along, a cheesecake:


Made for the Bake Along on the Let's Cook ravelry group, though it remains to be seen if anyone else was really interested in this week's project.

I think I've made a cheesecake before, back when I was living in SF over 5 years ago, so I don't really remember the process. I did however feel a bit silly buying 5 packets of cream cheese at the store. The cheesecake turned out good, despite the fact that the recipe and reviews/hints stressed to not overmix, which resulted in a few (small) blobs of egg whites amid the cheesecake goodness.

On Saturday I went to IKEA for the first time in over ten years. They have everything there! Including an English breakfast, and I was very amused that the occasional loudspeaker announcements about store products were done by someone with a Swedish accent. Is it like that in American stores as well?

Just in case you were wondering what an IKEA looks like over here:

Felted Flowers

Yesterday I took a felted flowers class. The teacher has a studio near my flat where she works on her projects and teaches classes. Her website is called mixingfibres.co.uk.

I made a trumpet flower:


And here is what it looks like in the back.


And this green one.


I know I could have done some flowers on my own, but sometimes I just want to be shown what to do, ya know.

She also has a drop in time where people can some and use her tools for a set fee. And, she has a spinning wheel in the studio! I don't think she really knows how to spin, but I'm going to go tonight and see what fiber havoc I can start.

Aint bad

Two out of three medals aint bad, I think.

Though ravelympics isn't technically over, there's no way J's gloves will get done.

My wrist started hurting late Friday night, so I threw in the towel, but not literally, because that would hurt my wrist. I don't have carpal tunnel, and I'd like it to stay that way.

So I took Saturday off of crafting, and this evening I made my first wet felting. I had checked out Felt by India Flint and Toyko Sugiwaka a few weeks ago from the library, but had been so devoted to knitting that I hadn't tried anything up until now.





The book had instructions for the flower, and for a gadget cozy, the holes for the screen and sensor were my modification. Not bad, I think.

I also made scones.


Scones are this week's bake-along over on the Let's Cook group on ravelry (cookies were last week). One of the members suggested this recipe. I was a little afraid that it wouldn't turn out since I don't own American measuring cups, and several websites had different conversions for cups to grams, but it turned out really good.

Anyone else do ravelympics this year? How did your projects turn out?

Can I make it?

The nice ravelympics volunteers have processed my Owl Cowl, so now I have another medal. Horah!

Two days ago I was certain that I wouldn't finish J's gloves in time, but I was able to more or less successfully withstand the call of social networks and the internet yesterday, and the prospects are looking a lot better now.Even more so because the rain and snow has come back to Scotland, so I might not want to go on my errands this weekend (art supplies, cheese, cabbage, you know the basics).

Owl cowl has eyes

I got my first ravelympics medal for the mittens today. Woohooo.

I ended up choosing a blue button for it, but decided to only put a the button on the right hand for a fully functional mitten, and keep the left hand button free because I think it looks prettier that way. So the best of both worlds, I think.

For a cookie bake along this weekend I made fortune cookies.
Yumm. The first batch didn't work out so great, most of them cracked and crumbled as I was folding them, but the second day's batch turned out much better, I think it's because the batter thickened overnight.

Next week's bakealong is scones. If you're on ravelry feel free to join in, you are on ravelry, aren't you?

M cowl owl is finished. The knitting was finished a few days ago, but and it was a very quick knit, but it was also in dire need of blocking. I put the eyes on just an hour ago.

My third and last ravelympics project is to finish a WIP, gloves for Jessamy. I've never made gloves before, and this is going sooo slow. The cable pattern is from Cookie A's book, Sock Innovation.

I hope I can finish them in time!

Just call me destructo

I used to think that invisibility (being able to walk in and out of rooms without anyone noticing) was my superpower, but now I'm thinking I have a knack for breaking knitting tools. Late last night, as I was completing the EZ sewn bind off for convertible Bella's Mittens (just found out that they aren't technically "glittens" because they don't have mitten-like fingers) I did this:

*

Broke a tapestry needle.

This is the third time in as many months that I broke a knitting instrument.

On Christmas day I broke my first 2.0 mm needle, but I was determined to continue knitting and succeeded in gluing it in such a way that it wouldn't catch on the yarn. Perhaps I was overly tense that day and knit tighter than normal, who knows. Last month though I broke my second 2.0 mm bamboo by accidentally leaning on it with my knuckle. I took the hint and bought another set of needles.

*I didn't actually realize until I took this picture that perhaps I don't have to save those broken needles.

Thankfully I have some metal tapestry needles, and was able to finish weaving in the ends. It's not completely done, I still need to add the buttons, which I'll probably do this weekend, but I'm glad to be moving on to my next ravelympics project, The Owl Cowl.

Different cities

My main reservations when I arrived in Edinburgh were
1. it was cold
2. i didn't know my way around
3. i couldn't find one of those stores that sells cheaply made things for cheap prices.

But now that I've been here for over a month I've realized ...
1. ya, it is cold, so I better just get used to it and buy better gloves (and knit some mittens)
2. finding my way around has a nice way of sorting itself out over time, with a fair amount of wondering around
3. it might just be a wonderful thing that those cheap stuff stores are a bit out of the way.

Edinburgh has a lot of neat, independent stores, and I'm wondering if it's partially to do with reason #3.

In Newcastle there was no place in the centre of town to buy fresh bread from an independent baker.

But this morning, I walked three blocks from my house and bought this:
Bread from The Manna House. I've already been there a few times for sweet treats.

In Newcastle, if you wanted non-acrylic yarn you had to go to a department store, or get on the metro and leave the city centre.

But today I bought these needles at a yarn store 5 minutes walk from town.
And this
is from a neat little store called The Treasure Trove. A charity shop that sells hand-made items. Tablet is a traditional Scottish sweet made from butter, milk, and sugar. I haven't yet eaten one, so I was very happy to see it at the store.

And now I should go back to ravelympics and knitting my warm glittens.

Day 3 of Ravelympics

Valentines Day 2010 has come and gone. And my lemon cake was baked ...

but is not yet entirely gone. But we did manage to eat about half of it last night, and I managed to not eat any of it today until the late afternoon. I'm sure we'll manage to eat the rest of it tonight. It was a simple recipe pattern, requiring mixing a bunch of ingredients then baking for an hour. It may not have tasted as superb as an expensive, pre-made one at a bakery, but it tasted sweet and was still warm, right out of the oven.

I'm into my third day of ravelympics. I finished one glitten around 1pm. Also known as a convertible mitten.

It's now 6 and I haven't started on the second glitten! I blame social networks and almost by extension random and interesting links (like this one about saving the gansey). I'm afraid that the wondrous thing that is the internet, without which there would be no ravelympics, will lead to my poor ravelympic scores.

Day 1 of Ravelympics

It's 10:30, nearing the end (at least for this time zone) of day one of the 2010 Ravelympics. This is my first year doing it, and I've had fun. Lots more projects and pictures and knitting in general to see on ravelry and twitter.

The first project I'm doing is the Bella Glittens, taken from Mariamaria's modification of Bella's Mittens.
Not bad progress I think considering I did some errands in the morning (so I could stay inside and knit all day tomorrow - woohoo), didn't start until noon, and spent a lot of the day tending to Jessamy, who has a cold.

I'm hoping to have this one finished by tomorrow, and the project done by the end of Monday.
Go TeamTARDIS!

From pieces into a whole

My latest sewing project started off life as

The interfacing (my first time using it) and the fabric became this

The embroidery thread, with the help of the bobbins, became


A little bit of thread became this strange embroidery


Then I combined them together to make a very amusing project.


I've already washed some dishes with the now clothed (and I'm sure much warmer now as well) dishwashing liquid. And it really did make washing dishes a lot more amusing. I used these instructions for making the apron.

In Tune

I finally bought a tuner for the ukulele! I am very happy about my purchase because I was having to tune the uke using a YouTube tuning video about once a week, really annoying and time consuming and probably not very accurate. I've been trying to learn my first non-folk song, the ukelized version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, though I think I'm several weeks away from a sharable video.

Only one finished project this week - a lunch box for J. I still can't sew straight, but it didn't really matter for this project.

Almost finished that sock I started last month, in fact I would have finished it at the time of this writing, had I not realized sooner that I went about an inch and a half past the point where I needed to do the toe decreases.

And the last bit of news, twice this week I made baked tortilla samosas.
The original idea for tortilla samosas came from a guest on a fun British cooking show called Hairy Bikers. I made these using a combination of these two recipes.

Organic

We had beautiful weather this weekend. Cold, of course, but sharp and clear and lovely.

Perfect weather to finally visit the Edinburgh Farmers Market. It was actually bigger than I thought it would be, though different from outdoor markets that I'm used too - a large portion of stalls being meat-related. Game, venison, boar. And although I'm cooking meat in my new cooking class (today's meat was bacon), I'm still not ready to buy from a specialist meat monger.

For the complete opposite reason (knowing I'd go buying crazy) I also wouldn't let myself get close to the cheese stall. We did however buy a few veggies.

I love photographs of plants.

I like photographs of architecture too, but even the interestingly-shaped, non boxy type of building and monuments don't look as ...

organic as a cabbage.

Plus, you could spend a long time taking pictures of a Gothic Revival church, but you can't take it home and cook it. And I'm a fan of practicalities.