Optimist Prime or Negatron?

Usually I’m a realist, but in this case I can transform myself.

Yeah, I know, what a bunch of beryllium baloney…

I can hear the Gears and Ratchets turning, but I imagine most of you will already know where this is going… So let’s transform and roll out!

Inkling is about to turn seven (I have no idea where the years have gone) and wants a few friends round for his birthday.

But what to make for a bunch of unruly Constructicons lest they transform into Devastator?

Well, coincidentally, Inklings birthday is also the 40 year anniversary of the classic Transformers Movie (that is no Mirage, the movie is older than me). The same movie Inkling has watched about a hundred times as a small child growing up.

When Engel ‘casually’ mentioned there was a cinema screening of that very same movie on his birthday…well, problem solved! But what to make?

Autobot hats! Cute, practical, great stash buster, and not a lot of sewing etc required. (This is my own basic intarsia hat pattern that lives in my head, just so you know.) But there’s something missing…

For one to stand and one to fall, we need a deception in the mix. And it’s hardly a Shockwave that Felix has claimed this one as hers!

In other news, viking events are picking up so expect to start seeing some of that creeping in!

I also, for full disclosure, had a very weak moment after being given 6 balls of gorgeous wool at an insanely good price, had to go and buy a further nine… Its an alpaca, yak and lambswool blend! Its like energon to a dinobot – me grimlock, grimlock like soft wool… But I have ploughed through a load of wool this week and used up loads of odds and ends and scraps in the hats and a few other projects!

Until next post, stay safe!

…

…

Has to be done: Bah weep gragnah weep nini bong!

Wool Count

Starting total – 841

Wool used – 41 (Up by twelve!)
Wool unaccounted for in my stash – 15
Wool bought – 19 (Up by 9)
Wool given to me – 25 (Up by 6)
Wool gifted to others – 2
Wool handspun – 6

Total – 865 (Net difference: +24)

My goal this year is to break even, it’s the best I can hope for at this rate…

Lets Dune it!

Before I get into the knitting part of this blog, lets do the more sand-imental parts first.

El DiPablo was…very much a ‘Dune not disturb’ type of cat, but with a lot of perseverance, time, treats, patience, the spicy kitty started to accept that humans exist in his space, and they wanted to interact with him, not just throw food and walk away. Felix got the big breakthrough moment of being able to boop his nose with no consequence, just an ear flick of amusement. Or bemusement.

Eh, lets not sift sands on that one.

He is back home and actively engaging in play and wanting fussed, didn’t even take a full 24 hours of getting his pawprints back in his home turf.

Back to knitting and the reason behind these sand-sational puns!

A few weeks ago, some friends and myself went to watch dune. One of my friends who went was Spectral Phantom and much like myself, he enjoys a good pun. And the fact that spice and dice play into that…

“The dice must roll”

Its classic, its funny, and an idea began to worm its way into my mind then onto my needles…

When there is spice, there are sandworms. When there are spice dice (yes, Spectral Phantom also got inspired) there must be a sandworm dicebag.

This crazy dice bag is entirely out of my own head. I picked up the needles, looked at some sandworms, and just let the knitting flow… When it came to the mouth, I had already worked out that running a drawstring through it would give that rippling effect you see in movies etc. Problem was, how do I do a drawstring on a sandworm and make it look cohesive?

Well, when there is spice, there are sandworms, and where there are sandworms, there are Fremen riding those sandworms. And his little ropes and hooks could quite conveniently be the drawstring too. Its just all looped inside to draw in the right way.

I think I can safely say, this sandworm has thoroughly wormed its way into my favourite geeky dice bags. Will I be knitting more dice bags in my future? Well, does the desert have sand?

Until the next post, stay safe!

Wool Count

Starting total – 841

Wool used – 28 (Up by two!)
Wool unaccounted for in my stash – 15
Wool bought – 10
Wool given to me – 19
Wool gifted to others – 2
Wool handspun – 6

Total – 862 (Net difference: +21)

Not tardi-good, tardi-great

Just bear with me on these puns, also, apologies for being tardi last week I was doing a massive amount of clearing out and I was knackered.

But two runs to the recycling center and two runs to charity shops later, and it’s looking good! There’s still more to do (there’s always more) but with a bit of shuffling, we have turned the wool-servatory into a cattery.

We have taken on a bit more than expected with Pablo, now named El DiPablo, as he is nearly entirely feral. Joys. But enough of that, let’s get on to some chaos!

Now, for those who work in labs, you will be aware of a certain kind of madness that settles in over the years. Perhaps naming the machinery, or being sure to sweet talk the equipment and give it a pat of encouragement before turning it on, or becoming aware of all the little critters that mess up your day…

I have worked with the pleasant lab fairies, the irritating gremlins in the delicate equipment, the annoying goblins that make a mess of your work station and leave unwashed beakers everywhere. I’ve had the more site specific creatures of mayhem like the Poultry-geists who move anything and everything they get their wings on, the metal pigeons that tap dance across samples, the crocodile that messes with the autoclave water valves, the guinea pigs in the extractor system… And at the very end of last week, it was revealed to me by a work colleague that she had clearly had tardigrades running amok in her SEM samples.

Yes. Tardigrades. Or waterbears. Or mosspigs.

But after the 20th time saying tardigrades with now multiple people, I had the absolute burning desire to knit one.

No, I needed to knit one. But what colour? And then, I saw it.

And with that, I abandoned all projects and went wool hunting in the wool-servatory.

Amazingly, there was a free pattern for this cutie on Ravelry – Water Bear (Tardigrade) by Luna Adelt, and, small world, she has knitted one of my axolotl patterns! Clearly the love of aquatic oddities is strong amongst us knitting nerds!

In other news, I have borrowed a drum carder from one of the vikes and hope to make good use of it over the coming days and get on top of my fleece stash. I also have some woad and weld seeds germinating so who knows, perhaps some natural dying will be featuring on here at some point in the coming months!

I frogged a project that was given to me unfinished along with someone’s stash years ago and have ended up with my wool count going up by 15, but I have also used some wool too. I’ve finished a few things as well and started a ton more, so the creativity is high in the house right now! Felix has been joining in with cross stitch and painting which has been really lovely. We both enjoy the content calm of crafting next to each other.

And with that, I bid you farewell and to stay safe. After one last photo because how could I resist recreating that amazing image I found?

Wool Count

Starting total – 841

Wool used – 26 (Up by four!)
Wool unaccounted for in my stash – 15
Wool bought – 10
Wool given to me – 19
Wool gifted to others – 2
Wool handspun – 6

Total – 864 (Net difference: +23)

A massive pun-dertaking

This week, I have no knitted projects to share. One is finished, but I haven’t had a chance to get a good photo of it, and I’m over 70% on phase one of another.

Yes, you are being pun-alised with statistics on my knitting progress.

I have been doing a lot of painting at the moment – painting minis not pictures – and finished all the My little Scythe minis. Have my next set already lined up, just need the time to work on them.

And time is were I am falling short. Full time work, full time mum around said work, running and maintaining the house, all my hobbies plus more social things like vikings and gaming. I don’t want to give anything up, each is pun-derful in it’s own way (apart from cleaning, that’s pun-ishment), but yeah… I may actually see through my threat of posting non knitting things on here far more regularly.

So, I pose a question, should I stick to soft crafts (knitting, tablet weave, needle felt, sewing, braiding) or a bit of everything (painting, carving, whatever random things I get into).

The other thing that as of today is now going to eat a lot of my time is I am going to be looking after a colleagues cat for 5/6 days (it’s easier for me to have the cat here than the 40 minute drive there and back when there’s no traffic, at least once a day, every day, over that period of time…) so the wool-servatory / tribble rehoming center is getting gutted. Carefully gutted. I am already creating piles of things to be rehomed to others, but I suspect my wool count is going to go up as I dig through mine and Engels mountains of hobby related items…

So with that, I shall leave you all be until next post.

Oh! Did you all enjoy the pun-derful puns? Or was it pun-ishment? Let me know if they have groan on you at least!

Wool Count

Starting total – 841

Wool used – 22 (Up by one!)
Wool bought – 10
Wool given to me – 19
Wool gifted to others – 2
Wool handspun – 6

Total – 853 (Net difference: +12)

Thistle do nicely

The third and final hiss-terical dice bag for Reyth and my clawesome dice.

Drum roll…

I have knit Reyth their very own Sporran of Holding! (Pattern is based on Sporran by Nick Cox but I made quite a few tweaks).

Lets not crawl, or slither, along, and get to the bit I am most excited about with this project!

Above is a very rudimentary, make shift loom so that I could try a weaving style that has very much caught my fancy a while ago. There is a cloak style called the Vararfeldur, which came up during my Viking cloak search. You weave locks of sheep wool in amongst the warp and weft to create a fluffy texture.

I have been ignoring the urge to make a full cloak in this style, but when I decided to knit a sporran for Reyth…well, I couldn’t not jump at the chance to do a small version! Lessons have been learned, and I know what I would do for a larger scale version, so it was definitely worth doing this way. I wont go into detail, however, if I do this full scale, I will.

And here is a photo of Reyth, dice and dice bags. I have quite the crocodile grin looking at them all!

In non knitting news, it was the Viking Training Weekend just gone, and I am now a qualified Outdoor First Aider for the next three years. Not gonna lie, it was pretty traumatic, but as the instructor said, when things go wrong, they really go wrong, and the injured person doesn’t have time for their first aider to freeze and baulk.

I am, however, really not happy that I am now also the group tick remover. Nasty little things! Lets just hope no one gets them in the places given as an example…

And with that, I shall bid you farewell until the next post.

Stay safe!

Wool Count

Starting total – 841

Wool used – 21 (Up by one!)
Wool bought – 10
Wool given to me – 19 (Up by 12 – wedding anniversary wool hunt, long may they last!)
Wool gifted to others – 2
Wool handspun – 6

Total – 854 (Net difference: +13)

Iguana wait to show this one!

Seriously, dont snake my word for it!

Heres Reyth with dice bag number two! I wanted to make a scale based dice bag the minute I saw the snake skin in the dice, and have them match to an extent. I did colour match initially but didn’t like the contrast I was getting, so went for a softer blue to edge the scales in.

The pattern itself is modified version of my standard dice bag pattern and Dragon Scales Cowl by Debbie West – a free Ravelry pattern – just tweaked the maths a little and voila, dice bag!

With that, I will slither on to other news – Felix’s room is back in order after a lot of help from my friends at the weekend, and all the other things that went wrong this month are back in some semblance of order. Long may it last!

Just a short post as its been a month. Year. The entirety of the 2020s?

Wool Count

Starting total – 841

Wool used – 20 (Up by one!)
Wool bought – 10
Wool given to me – 7
Wool gifted to others – 2 (up by one!)
Wool handspun – 6

Total – 843 (Net difference: +2)

The die has been cast…

I mean that literally! But first…

I was right last week as to what number three was. To fully sort that out a bit of the roof needs fixing and a PIV unit needs installing. In 6 days I had to drop £6K. Not all at once, thankfully, my nest egg isn’t that deep, but it’s now very, very small.

I doubt even the tiny dragons from the other week would want to have it as their hoard!

Subsequently I will be dusting off the commissions info and reopen them. I have lots of projects and things planned, but nothing that can’t wait if something interesting pops up from it.

Now back to the interesting stuff! Things are about to get a little dicey!

This is Reyth, my kobold barbarian pathfinder character. And next to the little guy? A beautiful set of custom dice, inspired by Reyth, even so far as to have my own snakes shedded skin in there to represent the dragon scales… I am in love, not gonna lie.

Here is SpectralPhantoms info, in case anyone feels like perusing the shinies… (He takes commissions too, so if you have a specific idea…). Instagram account. Facebook account.

Now, such precious shinies need a special bag to keep them safe, but what kind of bag?

And this thought here, is where things went awry. Let’s begin with the first, yes, the first layer of soft protection for the dice.

I knit a pentagon (rectangle with triangle on top, nothing fancy) following Princess Franklin Plaid Collar by Franklin Habit (free pattern on Knitty and on Ravelry) with a few minor tweaks to allow for the shape. A little bit of mattress stitch around the edges to add to the ‘this is a woven bit of material, honest’ look and a pretty viking bead and voila!

A little tartan purse for my tartan wearing kobold.

Reyth definitely seems pleased. If you roll on by next week, you’ll get to see the next layer of dice bags!

‘Til then, stay safe.

Wool Count

Starting total – 841

Wool used – 19 (Up by one!)
Wool bought – 10 (Up by eight!)
Wool given to me – 7 (3 Up by two!)
Wool gifted to others – 1
Wool handspun – 6

Total – 845 (Net difference: +4)

I fell off the sheep and bought a bunch of cones of fine machine yarn, just the perfect thickness for tablet weaving. And I wasn’t going to turn down yarny gifts!

A tail of three…dragons…?

Sit back, get comfortable, for this is a tail of courage, bravery and adventure! The scale of this quest is – ok, I’m gonna stop before I get accused of dragon this intro out…

We left off last time, at the very start of an epic quest for my two terrors to find their very own dragon.

They journeyed long and far across the living room, avoiding the terrifying claws of four playful cats – I mean, horrifying beasts – weaving past fortresses (chairs) and scaling mountains (sofa), until at last they reached the plateau of The Great Wooly Servatory.

It was a cruel place, where the young adventurers had to wade through merino, scramble past acrylic, tip toe around a few stray mohairs, and climb the vast mountain of sheep fleece yet to be carded…until at last, they reached their treasure chest.

Fluffy wool, short and long burst from the chest. Red, gold, green, multi coloured and ultramine, scattered around the adventurers feet as they searched for the perfect wool. The wool that would become their dragon.

Some were too sparkly, too rough, too plain, too bright, and then they found it. Base of black, tapering to a bright colour at the tips of the fluff. Felix chose a bright green, and Inkling claimed blue. Then they looked in the chest and saw, by itself, a matching ball of wool, but bright pink.

These warriors had heart, and felt sorry for the lonely ball of wool, so they took it with them, carefully, to see if another was in need of their own dragon…

They climbed down the mountain of sheep fleece yet to be carded, past the many wooly creatures that tried to trip and entangle them, out The Great Wooly Servatory. They passed mountains and fortresses, avoided the terrifying beasts and brought their finds to the Fibermancer who promised them dragons. They explained their reasoning for three, and after a bit of tough negotiation, revealing the adventurers cunning and liberal use of cuteness and puppy eyes, their wishes were granted.

The wool unfurled, twisted anew, shaped and formed by the Fibermancer, until three dragons sat ready to be taken home. Awed, the adventurers accepted their treasure, and took them for many adventures anew.

And what of the pink dragon? That was homed within no time, for it really was quite adorable.

With that, this tail is finished and I bid you farewell and safe tidings.

Wool Count

Starting total – 841

Wool used – 15 (Up by six!)
Wool bought – 2
Wool given to me – 2
Wool gifted to others – 0
Wool handspun – 6

Total – 836 (Net difference: -5)

Today is dragon…

Slight lie there, I genuinely don’t know where the year has gone. However, the tail I am about to tell may end up dragon out a bit as it began a number of years ago…

In the times before the pandemic, three adventurers went in search of wool. The youngest two in the party picked out some sparkly tinsel wool and the elder a maleficent shade of green…for next, they would need to adventure to the lands of dragons…

Maleficent was my 2018 Christmas tree topper. The pattern itself called for fluffy wool for the wings, but for her, I changed it up a bit for a more menacing, less cuddly look. At that time I intended to knit two of the baby dragons listed in the pattern, one for each of my terrors, which was the tinsel wool they picked out that fateful day.

I finally got to them on my knitting list. Yes, I am aware that it has taken nearly 6 years to get to them. So long ago in fact, I forgot what alterations had to be made for Maleficent! To avoid potential sadness, I knitted a test dragon!

As soon as this photo was taken, it was off and gifted. There was a fight with the terrors who both declared it theirs before hand, but I dug out that wool from so long ago and reminded them that they had picked theirs already…

Yeah. Both rejected their choice and went and frolicked in the wool stash instead…really glad I did a test knit and didn’t try and surprise them with the tinsel yarn.

You can see which treasures the adventurers found, deep in the depths of the woolservatory next post, till then, stay safe!

Wool Count

Starting total – 841

Wool used – 9 (Up by two!)
Wool bought – 2
Wool given to me – 2 (got a very special mini skien as a gift – it matches all the different colours in my hair!)
Wool gifted to others – 0
Wool handspun – 6

Total – 842 (Net difference: +1)