Last year I subscribed to a year-long mystery-a-long as a birthday gift to myself. It was really a great thing to do, though as I’ve mentioned I didn’t keep up on the last quarter. I haven’t finished, but I figure this is the sort of thing that should be split into two posts anyhow, so … Continue reading
The Ravelry queue system seems pretty simple: if you see something you’d like to make, you put it in your queue. Then later, when you’re ready to make a new thing, you look through the queue, choose something, and away you go. But… how do you decide what goes in? Do you ever take stuff … Continue reading
This year’s Rose City Yarn Crawl was something of a disappointment to me. Not because it wasn’t a good weekend, but my husband booked a conference on top of the crawl (after promising not to do that, he looked at the website before it was updated properly and got the wrong dates, so it was … Continue reading
I made myself an “art project” on Instagram, so I’m cutting and pasting here because I want a copy of my own data. This was supposed to go out the same week I posted the pictures, but I accidentally locked myself out of the web server with the WordPress app and then we all got … Continue reading
I had a great time with last year’s Tosh Shawl Club yarn subscription from Jimmy Beans, but decided to try something new this year rather than renewing. This is https://www.yarnindulgences.club/. My first shipment finally arrived on February 21. (It shipped on Feb 11, I subscribed January 1st.) When it arrived, my first thought upon seeing … Continue reading
I’m not what one would call a monogamous knitter: that is, I don’t do one project at a time. But things have gotten a little out of hand because I start a new project with every trip, and I’ve had a lot of trips since the fall with not enough time in between to finish … Continue reading
Cutting your knitting is scary, but I did it and survived! I tried out two other new things in the process: Studio Donegal “Darnie” fingering” which is an Irish-made yarn that was perfect for this. So many rich colours, really “toothy” for nice colourwork. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d like it, because it’s a bit … Continue reading
I think these past few years of setting fiber goals has been fun, so here’s what I’m thinking for this year: Learn steeking. I’ve already signed up for a class in January so hopefully this one will be easy! It’s been on my to-learn list for a while. Document better. I haven’t been good about … Continue reading
Last year, I set myself some fiber goals for 2018. So, how did I do? 2018 goals: Use more of my project kits More amigurumi! Spin the neat fiber kit Kathy got me Organize the stash 2018 Results: 1. Project kit success! I made up a beanie bag, started a cowl kit (but haven’t finished … Continue reading
Advent calendars aren’t a big part of my childhood, but I liked the idea of getting little presents all through December, and since I’d intentionally cut back on gift knitting, I had time to do a mystery-a-long, so I bought into Jimmy Beans’ Craftvent. It’s a nice kit, filled with knitting tools (including needles and … Continue reading
Here are some stitch markers I made to go with my 5 shawls in 5 days, because sometimes I like to have new pretties for a project. These are simple to make if you have the right tools: snip off a short bit of thin necklace wire, curve in half, place both ends through your … Continue reading
Yup, you read that right. I have a Glowforge laser cutter/engraver that had so many delays in manufacturing that it wound up arriving when I was 9 months pregnant. So it hasn’t gotten quite as much use as I’d planned, but I did use it for some holiday presents! And then I forgot to take … Continue reading
Day 5 is the pi shawl, which I’ve always kind of wanted to try because of the name, but I hadn’t gotten around to it until this day! After the square shawl, I decided to try a circular cast on with a crochet hook. It felt a lot like magic loop for knitting, and I … Continue reading
Day 4 was a square shawl. I don’t think I’d done a piece from the center like that, and I didn’t like the giant hole left by casting on 4 and joining, so I tightened it up some after casting off. I did this on double points which was pretty finicky especially with a sleeping … Continue reading
Day 3’s shawl is an asymmetric triangle shape. I like this one’s particular slip stitch/yarn over edging. Yarn: Rowan Colorspun. This is a mohair-wool-polyamide blend, also from the Feb 2016 beanie bag and I hated it so much. To me, it felt like I was getting splinters in the sides of my fingers while I … Continue reading
Day 2 is a crescent shawl, a familiar shape with an increase that’s unusual for me, and I’m not sure I’ve ever used it in an edging like this. The garter tab looks jarring on such a small piece, though I hardly notice those on larger shawls. Unblocked: I added an icord bind off because … Continue reading
I’m trying out the 5 shawls 5 days challenge as a way to practice some shawl construction, since I had to experiment a bunch in a hurry when I was designing the flax shawl for my sister. Also, this is a nice excuse to use some of the yarn samples I never tried from my … Continue reading
I didn’t do much gift knitting this year because I didn’t have much time with an infant, but I always try to make something for my Grandma. I know she appreciates that I’m thinking of her, not just in the moment of gifting but in the weeks or months that it takes for me to … Continue reading
I made this necklace for my sister’s birthday. It was a bit of an in-joke present: We play Guild Wars 2 together, and last year she decided to get us all to do a challenge really intended for a much larger group. Long story short: she spent months gathering in-game flax, with the rest of … Continue reading
Earlier, I posted about how I did on my fiber goals for 2017. Overall, I’d say I was pretty successful! I’ve been thinking a bit about what I’d like for this year, and here’s my list: Use more of my project kits. I still have quite a few Beanie Bags I never got around to, … Continue reading
One of the ravelry groups I follow had a thread on fiber goals for the year, so I chose a few that I thought would be fun. Here’s how they went! 2017 Fiber Goals Knit a “seamless” sweater this time (My Acorn Trail/Cardipalooza cardigan was pieced) Try some new types of needles. Knit more handspun. … Continue reading
Turns out, in a surprise to no one, it’s a lot harder to blog with a baby! I’ve traded my “real” SLR camera for my phone 99% of the time, and my laptop is sitting neglected and whining that it hasn’t had backups for 57 days, which would be scary if it actually had any … Continue reading
It was mostly too hot to spin this summer (and I was too tired due to pregnancy) but I did get one nice ball spun up. In case you were wondering, there is also a skein that I spun for myself that hasn’t appeared on the blog yet. It’s a white silk-merino blend and beautiful … Continue reading
Pattern Willamette Falls Shawlette by Shelia January from the 2015 Rose City Yarn Crawl collection. Note that there is errata for this one. Unblocked: My project My project on Ravelry I added another section just before the end so that I’d use more of the gradient, because it seemed a shame to finish it early … Continue reading
Here’s another project that’s become a new staple in my wardrobe! The fuschia looks glorious with black or grey, and since a lot of my free tech shirts come in those colours, it works out to upgrade my look without replacing too many clothes. (Of course, I wear it with other colours too.) Here it … Continue reading
This was my second rainbow for pride month, because once you’ve accidentally started such a great theme you might as well stick with it! Here’s the two projects together: Yarn Bling Bling Sister, a sparkly rainbow gradient from Alexandra’s Crafts. Probably acquired at the Oregon Flock and Fiber festival. You can’t see the “bling” in … Continue reading
I wound up knitting rainbows through pride month, which was fun. This one was an accident (I just like rainbows) but once I realized I did go out of my way to dig out a rainbow ball for my next project. 🙂 Blocking is magic. Hope you're not all sick of rainbows. ??? 🙂 Pattern … Continue reading
I’ve actually *just* as of September cancelled my Big Beanie Bag subscription, because I’m anticipating a busy fall and my projects have piled up to the point where I need a break. Still, I have managed to knit some of them up! April’s Bag looked like this: And here’s a photo summary of what I … Continue reading
My current projects are gifts, which means this is a great time to catch up on some backlog projects! This was the Mystery Crochet-a-long from the Rose City Yarn Crawl 2017. They do their mystery-a-longs as 4 clues, spread out over the time before the crawl starts, and I loved the 2016 Crochet mystery-a-long so … Continue reading
I wrote a pair of blog posts for work that came out last month! Many developers don’t feel qualified to make security decisions. In many ways, that’s a perfectly healthy attitude to have: Security decisions are hard, and even folk with training make mistakes. But a healthy respect for a hard problem shouldn’t result in … Continue reading
Back in February, I keynoted at Pycon Pune in India. I decided to start with one of the questions that comes up frequently when I tell people that my day job is in open source security: “Is open source software really more secure?” Here’s the video! Hopefully one of these days I’ll get the slides … Continue reading