Tigers and Rabbits and a giveaway

February! I'm a little scattered because February 3 is New Year's day according to the Chinese lunisolar calendar, which means that I've got to clean and clean and clean some more. But tonight I have a giveaway for you all! This month, I'm giving away half a set of stitch markers. But it's not just any half set.

You see, normally my stitch markers come in sets of 4. But the February Phatfiber box theme is gems and minerals, so I decided to make a very big set indeed. That set will be an assortment of 15 widgets in five sizes including the rarely seen extra large (12mm) marker. So, half a set will net you seven widgets, and I've thrown in a couple ring markers, too. That's 9 markers total. Here they are displayed on corner of my helical blanket, which will incidentally take up the other part of this post.


Some of the widgets are made with copper this time, which is softer and will develop a patina more quickly. I don't actually know what all the stones are.

For this month's giveaway I'd like a story, true or made up, involving Tigers (for the year we are leaving) and/or Rabbits (for the year we are entering). It can be as silly or as serious as you'd like, and coherence is overrated. I'll accept jokes, limericks, and haiku in lieu of a full narrative.

I'm leaving this one up through Saturday, February 5 and I'll randomly pick a recipient on Sunday. Once again, entering both the blog and the Ravelry group giveaway is fine.

For me, I'd like to mention Hotshot. She was an elderly little dwarf bunny who died of old age last week. I got her in July 2007 from my niece who was moving overseas, and she'd been a grand old lady ever since.

Last winter she became very sick with one of those mysterious rabbit malaises where she went all lopsided and couldn't balance. We moved her inside and made sure she was hydrated and could eat, and she got much better. She was never quite 100% again, but she'd run around on my floor and bother the cats quite comfortably.

Now her not-quite-buddy Squirrel (also a dwarf rabbit and also from my niece) has moved into Hotshot's indoor digs and is getting used to being actually warm. Poor guy usually overwinters outside, but it's just been ridiculously cold. So while I'll miss Hotshot, I'm glad Squirrel will have a more comfortable time of it.

Now it's your turn!

Meanwhile, this was December's Mystery Box, for those who were wondering. 



And below the cut I'm going to talk about my Helices blanket.

Like bubbles in a fish tank

Little thoughts keep rising to the surface. I'm a bit scattered, I've got a festival on Saturday and I'm behind schedule!

*bubble*
If you happen to be in the Montgomery NJ area on November 13th, swing by Montgomery Made by Hand at the high school (1016 Route 601, Skillman, NJ). 10am-3pm, it's a holiday craft fair hosted by the honors society, and there will be 45 vendors in attendance.  Free admission!  Raffles!

*bubble*
One of my yarns was in an Etsy front page Treasury last night. That was a very pleasant bump in views and hearts. Statsy screenshot. I really like the coy little bird print in the top row.

*bubble*
Someone asked a question on the Rav forums yesterday about whether garter stitch or seed stitch uses less yarn.  My gut reaction is to say seed stitch, both from experience and from considering the mechanics of both stitches.  But in a bit of procrastinatory rebellion I also decided to swatch.

Cast on with the backwards loop co, slipped the first stitch of every row, and bound off in pattern. The total number of rows included the co and bo. Each swatch was made with exactly the same length of yarn on the same needles.  Tension differences are sure to influence this, of course.

Now if I can just avoid getting sucked in to figuring out how to adjust for giant holes in one's knitting, like those Swiss cheese holes at the start of the hemlock ring.  For some reason these puzzles are always more interesting to me when I've got a massive pile of other things to do.

*bubble*
In another bit of procrastinatory rebellion, I put together a clip for This Is Handmade.  If you haven't heard about this blog, it collects tedium.  Specifically it collects the tedium of handcrafting (an explanation of the project).  So here is slightly more than 5min of me making stitch markers last night.  It's not a tutorial and it's hard to see exactly what I'm doing, and it's quite dull. But that's kind of the point. YouTube link


*bubble*
And now for something completely different. Some ruminating about cake after the jump.

Blibbering humdinger

I managed to eat half a pint of ice cream without really noticing how it happened, and take and edit some pictures.  So, I updated the shop with some stitch markers.  I think my favorite this round are the agate ones. They glow in the light, and are just so cheerful.


Clicking on the picture will take you to the stitch marker section of my shop.

I'm not sure if I like how that gallery image turned out. It's a little too busy, and consequently slightly crazy making. But I'm going to leave it as it is, because I still have trouble drawing straight lines in Gimp. :P

This weekend is busy busy busy.  Saturday is the first WWKIP day weekend, and I'm going cherry picking on Sunday.  Cherry picking for sour cherries, mind. Which means I'll be canning cherries when I get home.  I missed sour cherry season last year and was incredibly disappointed. This time I added it to my calendar and then started stalking the u-pick about 2 weeks ago. Between sour cherries and local peaches, a few weekends of canning means I have summer in a bottle all winter long. Now I just need to find all my pint and half pint jars!

Stitch marker update

This is a picture of the lawn. See that stitch marker in my hand?  There's one just like it lost in the grass and weeds. This is why I should never photograph my stitch markers outside. Especially when I put the camera down on my board, causing it to tip over and fling 36 widgets into the lawn.

Especially when the widgets are green and brownish red for the May Phatfiber theme of Blossoms and Bark. 

*facepalm*

I found all of them but one.  I finally gave up when I was starting to lose what light there was, as I had to finish the pictures.  Despite this, I did manage to update the shop with more markers, today. I also relisted the custom set since I mailed out the ones from the weekend.  Pics and links after the jump.

Ponderings

I'm sitting here waiting for my turn in the kitchen since it's my turn to cook (chicken braised with tomatoes and onions and some herbs, I think, and pasta, and some sort of green veg). And since I can't get anything significant done in the next 20min, I thought I'd blog. (:P)

First, I wanted to flash a picture of what keeps growing. Namely my in progress Widgets. I assemble them and then they languish like that for a while until I get around to hammering them.

It's never done. *facepalm* I assemble a whole bunch and then realize I've not done the ones I need for the next month and then pull out more beads and and and. Yeah.

And then I wanted to muse a bit on how the Phatfiber Box has morphed from what I expected of it. Namely, I thought that the samples were the thing, you know? The bits of fiber or yarn in hand. But it turns out that the pictures are the thing. There's more to it than that, but I'm just going to talk about a general trend, here.

Widget removable stitch markers

I introduced Widget stitch markers to the shop last night.  I'm really happy with this design. Been pondering it for a couple weeks, and then spent days working on the actual final result.  Since these are removable markers, they're suitable for both knitting and crocheting.


Dalmatian Jasper and non-tarnishing Nickel (large) and Tiger's Eye and non-tarnishing Brass (small); click on the image to go to the listing.

I love split stitch markers. I use them for all sorts of things other than marking my place, and they make great tiny stitch holders.  I really like dual functionality too, so these fit over the needle and can serve as a regular stitch marker as well.