For reasons I'm not going to get into at length, I've been knitting a variety of Hogwarts house-livery scarves sized in the range for beagles and teddy bears, and it occurred to me ...

Would any of you like one? I'd have to charge a nominal amount, to cover yarn costs and shipping, because I'm a broke student with no income at the moment.

Necessary variables: neck circumference and neck-to-knees (or other length metric), in inches, and which house you want.

A beagle-sized (hereafter 'medium') version would cost $5, US shipping included; more for longer, and a little less for shorter (though not too much less, as postage is the fixed cost). I suppose I could even work to human scale, though of course that has a lot more yarn and weighs more to ship.

Talk to me, if you're interested. :->

When it comes to crafts and hobbies, I'm a grand dabbler. I could dabble for our national Dabbling Dilettantes Drill Team, if we had one. I get very excited, do tons of research (this step made easier by the Internet, of course), acquire some tools and materials, maybe even complete a project or two ... and then suddenly get burningly excited about some OTHER hobby.

That said, I've just started to look into bonsai. :->

I currently have four trees 'in training', as they say, meaning I've got 'em in pots and I'm messing with them while trying to pretend I know what I'm doing. I plan to attend a local bonsai-club meeting the evening of May 7th, and finally connect up face-to-face with other practitioners; right now I'm lurking (a lot) and posting (a little) on The Internet Bonsai Club's forums.

I'm hoping I'll be able to actually stick with bonsai long enough to get results (read: years) because it is by its nature an on-again, off-again hobby. Aside from watering them and making sure they're in good health -- and that part is just like houseplants or gardening -- you really only mess with them a couple of times a year, ideally. That gives them time to recover and grow strong between sessions.

I'm not actually hoping to have anything 'show-able' anytime this decade; I'm doing it for enjoyment and the development of my art-eye, as it were. Also, because it really, really amuses my inner control-freak to basically *sculpt trees*.

More later, maybe. I have a bunch of step-by-step photos as I go, since that's really the only way to learn ...

I just recently clicked on my knitting tag, and was shocked at how few posts were there. I knit a lot more than that ... especially recently (i.e. since mid-February). On the road trip to-and-from Toronto for FKO, I knitted like a mad knitting thing. I've finished multiple pairs of socks since the first of the year. And does any of it show in my journal? Just the hat post, which I still haven't gotten around to patternizing. I knit while working my local NPR station's pledge drive, and geeked about knitting with many of my peers there. I even made up a flyer to post around offering to teach people to knit for $25/hr ... and gave a slip from it to Gianofer Fields (when I quit fangirling at her too hard to be able to speak!).

Clearly, I am remiss. However, I need to actually get PICTURES of all those finished objects so I can show them off and babble about them, I suppose.

In fact, I even unvented it, to use Elizabeth Zimmerman's terminology. From this sock pattern. So I'm not sure it's quite kosher to write it up as a pattern 'by me'; I've asked them for permission to do so and we'll see. But meanwhile, here's pictures!

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As the second shot shows, I got two whole hats and a tiny bit of extra out of three balls of Knit One, Crochet Two's yarn called Wick. It's 53% 'soy', whatever that means, and 47% polypropylene, and very soft and slithery-nice-feeling. Splits a bit, but not nearly so bad as some I've worked with in the past.

As is normal for me, the first hat wasn't QUITE right, so when I knit it again I (a) made umptyzillion mistakes I didn't make the first time, despite this being the second try through, and (b) adjusted it just slightly in a whole bunch of fiddly ways nobody but me is ever going to notice, which made it much more what I was aiming at the whole time.

I think I'm going to put the less-optimal cap in the Interfilk auction at FKO.

I was reading emygination's recent entry about being intimidated by lace knitting, and went looking for some patterns to point her at for practice.

Then I realized it might be of wider interest. Plus, there's one on here that I'd LOVE directions for ... it's in Russian. I seem to recall there are some Russian-speakers reading this lj. Hopefully Russian knitting-jargon isn't TOTALLY impenetrable to the layman; if not, oh well, but it'd still be cool.

Basic but neat-looking lace pattern links
• Ace of Spades scarf. Many of these are in the form of scarves, since that's a good way to get a sampler that you can USE later.
  
• Cat's Paw scarf has relatively few holes, if holes scare you. :->
  
• Touch of Whimsy scarf (also available as a hat)
  
• I think this one is called Крупная сетка, if that displays; it's the one in Russian. COOL PICTURE! No chart. Directions only in Russian.
  
• A stable diamond mesh overall pattern, suitable for curtains or other things you don't want to be stretchy.
  
• A somewhat crunchier edging pattern (meaning it's flat on one edge and zigzag on the other, so you can sew it to a central motif) that's from an out-of-copyright lace pattern compendium.
  
• Sue's Clove St Shawl is triangular, and intended for worsted-weight yarn.
  
• Wave and Shell Shawl is a variant on a classic arena of yarn, the 'feather-and-fan' family of patterns.
  
• Middling simple-to-knit but elegant victorian-looking lace shawl from elann, intended to be knit in aran-weight (meaning, I think, dk). Get a row-counter, but other than that this is complex-not-hard, if you know what I mean.
  
• Branching Out was expressly written as a lace tutorial.
  
• FLOWER PETAL SHAWL is a lace pattern for someone confident in stockinette knitting and terrified of going farther. There are relatively few holes in it, and a lot of plain stockinette with increases.

Or at least less crafty. Or less obsessively crafty. Or something.

Fact the First: I am bringing playstation-and-games-and-guitar-controller to Grandma's house tomorrow for Big Family Christmas, and to anach-&-jerusha's Tuesday for general spreading-the-addiction and hanging out.

Fact the Second: I am often very rough on my belongings, and have been since I was small (I went through more than nine backpacks in high school, and the last YEAR AND A HALF was all the same beautifully-durable black pigskin number). Therefore, I worry about damaging my New Cool Stuff far more than most people do.

Obsessively Crafty Deduction that seemed TOTALLY LOGICAL and simple at the time: I should use up some of my leftover not-going-to-be-a-dog-coat (because Ajax refuses to be confined by a coat and freaks out if I put one on him) fabric to make a guitar-shaped-controller 'gig bag' out of, which could even have pockets to hold games and the PS2 itself. Given how small PS2s are.

Actual Result: Six hours of flattening, pinning, cutting, sewing, sewing-machine assembly, and swearing later, I have a bag for the 'guitar'and a padded wallet for the PS2 itself. The next time I propose, cavalierly, combining fabric which is 'stretchy' and fabric which is 'slippery', both of which are hard to work with, in a QUILTED SANDWICH, someone smack me and remind me of this project, 'kay?

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I'd say not much is happening around here, but the same amount of everything is going on; I just don't seem to have much to say about it. I've been spending an awful lot of time half-asleep on the couch. Man, I wish I had time, money, and emotional capital to (a) get back into therapy and (b) get medicated again ...

Failing that, I figured I'd let people know I'm at least not dead. :->

Last night we did a lot of hanging out with John's aunt, who is nifty, and whose house is BEYOND nifty.

The raspberry canes (5 survivors out of 6 planted) are sprouting vigorously; one of the first cohort has even gone the extra mile and popped out about twenty flower-buds, so OMG we might actually have fruit this season. I guess that plant forgot to read the outside of the packaging, where it says 'Only one-year-old canes will produce fruit.' Not that I'm complaining.

Ajax thinks I'm boooooooooring for being so sleepy. Instead of, I presume, chasing him around and doing other Useful, Fun things. Plus, in his view we're starving him. So! Cruel! Also, his butt-glands are filling up freakishly fast, despite our new high-fiber regimen. Stupid glands.

However, we currently have three garments-worth of Dirty Laundry Pile. Yes, total! Mind you, there's also three hampers of clean laundry (two folded, one loose) waiting to be properly put away, so I'm not totally a rockin' housework chick, but I still feel kind of good about it.

I started a variant on the 'Checking' sweater from the latest Knitters' Magazine in plain dark blue acrylic from Midwest Discount Yarns, and *gasp* I'm about 70% done with it (halfway up the sleeves). So of course now I have these horrid urges to buy more yarn, and to initiate new projects. Silly crafter. FINISH. Grr. I did get to help John's aunt troubleshoot HER knitting last night, though, which was satisfying to my 'new knitting project systems analysis' urges.

I also keep getting urges to Do Something Serious with the yard (latest pie-in-the-sky: plant a lilac hedge under the edge of our porch in the back), even though I know it'd take two or three days of solid yardwork to get everything properly Done and Amended, even after the trip to the home center to buy fixins.

I wish we had the money to get the floor properly jacked up and reinforced, dammit. I hate living in a house with structural problems (even if it's not likely to Cave In And Kill Us All anytime soon). I'm desperately envious of John's aunt for being able to just buy and move into a house with only cosmetic flaws. With a big yard. And a REALLY COOL roomful of built-in bookshelves. Mind you, it cost about three times what ours did, so it's to be expected, but I keep getting these dissatisfied little MEH feelings about it.

Also, I desperately miss my digicam, but can't justify the splurge at the moment. Sigh.

But hey, not dead!

My Very First Sockses Ever:

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Knit using the Strong-heel method from the most recent issue of Knitter's Magazine, with a couple small modifications.