Merry Christmas! Oh, wait...

I missed it!  Well, in real life I didn't, but in blogland I completely missed blogging about Christmas and all the stuff I made.  I guess that shows how much fun I was having :)  But tomorrow I go back to school, one "real" class and one practicum, so who knows how much time I'll have to make stuff to post here.  I'd better post now while I've got the time...  Picture heavy.  Very.  You have been warned.

My Christmas inspiration came mainly from Tim Holtz this year (link in the side bar).  I got a little bit addicted to his 12 Tags of Christmas.  And all his fun products.  He and Michelle Ward are like art crack.  I just can't stay away from their blogs.  (And let me tell you, as soon as Michelle's new rubber is out, I'm gonna be stamping everything in sight... also, her link is in the sidebar)  Anyway, Tim's techniques are easy for me to do in my tiny little workspace, so I went ahead and made gift tags for everybody this year:


Ta-daa!

My faves, close up:

teh Man


Dad


Mom


Big Brother

And of course, I had to do a big Narnia one. I mean, it's me. It's wintertime. What do you expect?


"Carrie, where did you get that fantastic rooted lamppost stamp?"
"Why, I cut it myself, thank you for asking!" :) 



Present-wise, this year saw the march of the Triangle Shawls.

One for my sister-in-law:

Manos Silk Blend. Yum.

And one for Zingala (once again, sidebar):

Rowan Summer Tweed. If yarn were peanut butter, this would be crunchy. And delicious.

I think winter is messing with my brain.  Hopefully I'll be able to crochet and knit enough to warm it up and thaw it out.  Cross your fingers for me!

The Chronicles of a Narnia Scarf

I promised this last week, and it didn't happen. And I was going to post it yesterday but didn't have the chance. So now on my lunch break I finally bring you the scarf you've all been waiting for! Warning: gratuitous amounts of pictures.

I was rather pleased when I finished the knitting.


It needed to be washed, though, to bring up the fuzz and soften the yarn. So I prepared a bath for it with a bit of Eucalan, and set it in nice and easy:


Swooshed it around a bit, hoping that a teensy degree of fulling would bring the fuzz up more:

(I told you the pictures were gratuitous)

It rather enjoyed its bath, and managed to look its very best while underwater:

(Okay so I just liked the way the color showed in the water...)

So after letting it soak a while and squeezing it out very carefully, I laid it out to dry:

Looks a bit more like a banner than a scarf, no?

The wait for it to dry was agonizing. Except for the part when I was asleep. That part I didn't notice. But I waited all day through work to come home to:

Hmm. That's awfully flat.


I see fuzz, but no defined columns of slipped stitches. Hmm.

The feel of the scarf is fabulous. I love it. I just am a bit disappointed in how it washed. The stitch definition was perfect before I washed it; after the wash, not so much. The slipped stitches just settled down next to the regular knit stitches and refused to stand out. So after wearing it for an evening, I gave it another bath. Swooshed it around quite a bit in hot water, by hand (just a teensy amount of fulling, but not significant) in hopes that it would tighten it up a bit and thus (in theory) squish the slipped stitches out from between the plain old knits. And instead of laying it flat to dry, I put it in the dryer on the no-heat, air-fluff setting to dry. Plan backfired. Still rather flat. With more wear, the slipped stitch columns are showing a little bit more, but it's still not the movie look I was going for.

Very elegant, though.


Very soft and comfortable, too. I just wish it had turned out looking the way I had wanted. And who knows, maybe it'll gradually spring back to its un-blocked state. And maybe Aslan will appear in our world. Don't want to end on such a negative note, though, so I will say that it's fabulous to wear and I will definitely be ordering from Stansborough Fibres again. And I will be wearing my Tumnus scarf to the midnight showing tomorrow night!!!

Handspun FOs!

I have been remiss. I finished a project last week and didn't post it. In fact, I finished it exactly one week ago. Bad Carrie.

But, as it is made from my own handspun and I have nothing new on bobbin or spindle (and I'm sure you don't want more pictures of the same roving in varying amounts on my bobbins), I feel that it is appropriate for Handspun Monday. Ladies and Gentlemen (are there any?), I give you -- the Ocean Waves Boteh scarf!





Actually, I've been on a roll with the handspun this week. Because on Saturday I started -- and Sunday I finished -- another long-planned, never-executed project. This one is from the roving that I bought at Stitches East in 2006 and spun on my first Golding Spindle (I've since started a collection). The roving caught my eye because the colors reminded me of the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean, and I eventually decided I would make a moebius wrap out of it. Sadly, some of the color washed out in the finishing bath, butit still makes me think of that beautiful sunrise. So about a year after finishing the yarn, I finally sat down and made the moebius. If I don't just decide to make it happen, it's not gonna make itself, right?


The color in the picture is off, unfortunately, but that's what I get for having such yellowy lightbulbs in my room. I'll try and get a more true-to-color pic. Since the color is really what's important about this piece. *sigh*

I've spun half of the Earth & Sky roving, and I need to ply what I've spun and get to spinning the other half of the roving, so that I have more handspun yarn to play with!

Science!

She blinded me! With science!

When I saw this yarn from Storm Moon Knits, I knew it had to be mine. Just based on the name alone.

And I knew it had to be armwarmers.

And so it is.

Blinding Armwarmers.


Scientific armwarmers. (Well, mathematical at least. Can you find the Fibonacci sequence? Look carefully, it's subtle...)


This yarn is definitely awesome. Twilight Sock in "She Blinded Me With Science" = Awesome. Which means that, yes, these armwarmers are in fact made of Awesome.


Hellz yeah.