Spinalcat's Crafty Adventures

Handmade Ornament , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion . Halloween is my favorite holiday because I really can't get enough black cats and bats, but the winter holidays have some charm too. Especially shiny sparkly things with stars. My husband's Aunt Brenda, an avid beader, made this ornament thingie for us. My husband says the stars remind him of Super Mario. I used it as an opportunity to mess around with my new macro lens. 100mm f/2.8! Whoo-hoo!!

Broad Street Mittens , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion . I finished Bryan's Broad Street Mittens just in time for X-más.  I've been corrected- the boyhood Lego sets with the similar color scheme in fact belonged to the 92-93 Space Police II series. The pattern didn't give me as much trouble as I feared.  I wouldn't recommend it to beginners, though, as it's not very detailed about the construction.  I plan on posting some labeled photos to show how the parts all fit together in the final product.   My only real modification was to stop the thumb decreases and thread the tail through the remaining stitches when 10 or 11 stitches were left.  Otherwise, I ended up with a really pointy thumb! The other big clarification is that "K3, INC 1" in the cuff increases means K3, KFB (or whatever you choose), and not K3, M1. I believe I ended up with too many stitches after following the directions for the last round of the mitten flap, but I just did one more decre

Picture 103 , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion .

Great, now I've got 12 Days of Xmas stuck in my head. All I'm missing is something in threes. (And 12-6.) Despite thinking I wouldn't do holiday knitting this year, I've ended up with quite the pile of FOs. I decided to simplify by making a whole bunch of Ball Band Dishcloths. They're super easy, look nifty, and are cheap. Ravelry details I picked up some Euroflax from Purlescence and whipped up some washcloths. At first I was going to copy some hemp washcloths I saw at Whole Foods. They were loose stockinette with an eyelet border on all 4 sides. I tried recreating that effect with the Euroflax and it just looked like ass. I did a little Ravelry research and found the Eight Linen Washcloths patterns, which proved what Euroflax is capable of with a little coaxing. Being very lazy, I put together my own lace washcloths by picking lace patterns out of the 1st Barbara Walker Treasury that only had a few pattern rows. I ended up with Vine Lace, Crest of t

This is mostly for the benefit of my family (and for myself to keep track of things). Amazon wishlist can be found by clicking the button over there ------> That includes the camera equipment that is probably what I want the most. Other stuff I'd like to have someday: Hand cards for wool , and for cotton/exotics . I haven't done much fiber prep so far, and I'd really like to learn woolen spinning. It seems a little harder to find commercially prepared rolags than top. More double-drive bobbins for my Traveler. Cute WPI tool and WPI comparison card . The following items can be found here . Hi speed kit for Ashford double drive wheels. Ashford precision lazy kate. Lace flyer kit for Ashford Traveler double drive wheels. Apparently this has been discontinued. The Woolery doesn't have it, but many e-tailers still have it on their sites (not to order online, though). Anyway, it's rather expensive and I'm not sure it's worth it. I can stick with the much

Ballband dishcloth in Country Side and Sage Green Sugar n' Cream. I've been wanting to knit this pattern for a long time, but never got around to it. Now I've decided to simplify holiday presents this year by making washcloths or dishcloths for just about everyone. And the pattern (from Mason Dixon Knitting) is free online now! I'm using a size 7 needle, which is what usually goes well with worsted weight yarn for me, but the fabric seems a tad loose. I'm thinking that may actually be a good thing? It won't be really hard and scrubby, but I think it would make it better for drying. Ravelry details here .

Pinwheel Blanket from this free pattern . 5.5 skeins of Cascade Luna (100% cotton). I love this yarn! I thought I hated unmercerized cotton, but I just hate cheap unmercerized coton! (The Ballband Dishcloth Pattern is cute enough to compensate, thankfully.) I've been wanting to knit the pinwheel pattern for a long time. It's so fast and easy! This is one of those "duh" patterns that looks so neat but is amazingly simple. I didn't bother with a fancy circular cast on. I just did a regular long tail cast on and joined as usual. I used about 6 rows of seed stitch as a border, and bound off in pattern. It's probably about 33" across. It's going to be a doggie blanket (and a holiday gift) since there aren't any babies in the family. Ravelry details here . Azalea Doily (centerpiece version) from Marianne Kinzel's First Book of Modern Lace Knitting. It looks a lot better on flickr, so please click through. I blocked it a few days ago. L

Lizard Ridge Progress , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion . Friday I bought massive amounts of yarn at Purlescence, Yarn Dogs, and Knitting Arts. They all had fabulous sales even though I slept in and missed the biggest discounts. At Purlescence, I mostly got raw materials for holiday presents. I got some red Cascade Luna cotton for a doggy blanket, and some Euroflax for washcloths. I also stopped by Michaels for some dishcloth cotton. At Knitting Arts, I got a bag of baby yarn that was SERIOUSLY marked down (with a free pattern book that used to be $12)!! And at Yarn Dogs, I gave in and got yarn for projects I've been wanting to do for a long time. I got enough Silk Garden for a Lady Eleanor, Berocco Suede for Cochella, and 4 more skeins of Kureyon for my Lizard Ridge. I've already used up 1 of the 4. I also got my TOFUtsies in the mail from SWTC for some sample knitting I did! Yay yarn!!

Seagull , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion . Over the holiday, we went to Monterey Bay. We didn't do the aquarium or whale watching, so I mostly took pictures of birds. In general I can't stand birds, but I make exceptions for seagulls and pelicans (also pigeons). Bryan and I will go back to see the aquarium and hopefully some whales. We also went to Woodside and drove around the redwoods in the mountains. That was nifty. I plan on going back during the day when the park is open. It was really cool to come down out of the mountains onto Saratoga Ave. at night.

I'm not going to go into the whole Nixon-apologist thing, but I used to think Ben Stein was smart. Then I find out that not only is he appearing in a pro-"intelligent design" movie, but he went on Bill O'Reilly to promote it. (Apparently I was also ignorant of Stein's pro-life activities.) Stein and O'Reilly whine about the persecution of creationists in academic science. Well, that's because creationism/id/whatever IS NOT SCIENCE!! I'm sure most universities would deny tenure to Holocaust deniers in their history departments. It all goes back to the fundamentals of rational inquiry. If you want to examine something "scientifically," you have to stay within the boundaries of what is testable. Outside those bounds, I suppose you can believe whatever you want, but don't expect to get it published in a scientific journal. I'm never going to get a paper published in Nature on the creation of life by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a

I discovered this on my husband's former officemate's LiveJournal, then my husband did it. So I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Age you will be at your next birthday Place you would like to visit Your favorite place Your favorite food Your favorite animal Your favorite object Your favorite color Town where you were born Town where you live now Name of a past pet Nickname or screen name Your first name Your middle name Your last name A bad habit of yours Your first job Your grandmother's name Your major in college

Thanksgiving Dinner , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion . This was my first Thanksgiving to do all the cooking. The only recipe I'd used before was for the pumpkin ginger cheesecake (from last year's Gourmet). Turkey, gravy, and sweet potatoes came from this year's Cooking Light. Brussels sprouts from 101cookbooks.com, homemade cranberry sauce from veganyumyum.com, and misc. sides from allrecipes.com. Bryan requested his mom's corn casserole, but my FIL never got the recipe to me. I found one on allrecipes that turned out pretty much identical. I also managed to recreate my grandmother's Jello salad that I haven't eaten in years and years. I never knew the white layer was sour cream.

I knew I didn't make it into the top 12, but I didn't expect to know about honorable mentions yet. Then a friend from BobaKnit ( Teenuh )messaged me on Ravelry and told me she saw my Nautie in the honorable mention pool on Flickr. I haven't been reading the Knitty blog, so I didn't even know such a thing existed! Sure enough, here's the pool in Amy Singer's photostream. Sally's Knucks are in there too! Thanks to everyone for all the positive comments while I was waiting!

Cascade 220 Sweater , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion . My first adult sweater! And it's totally custom-fit! It's bottom-up, knit in the round, somewhat following Elizabeth Zimmerman's percentage system for a circular yoke sweater from Knitting Without Tears. I'm adding waist shaping and bust short rows using math worksheets from Big Girl Knits, and I've also consulted the yoke sweater tips from Sweater Design In Plain English. The yoke patterns are my own designs, and you'll just have to wait to see them. :) I don't know if I'll publish the full instructions, since I'm not sure how many people are interested in making a sweater in my size, but I'll certainly do a post on custom fitting, and I'll publish the colorwork charts. Oh, yeah. Cascade 220, size 6 for ribbing, size 7 for body.

Azalea Doily , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion . I'm working on another Kinzel pattern, but this one is much less of a commitment than the Rose of England. This is one of the Azalea doilies. The different sizes (centerpiece, place doily, plate doily, and glass doily) are created by working the outer chart different numbers of times. It's actually quite an easy pattern. I'm on the 3rd of 4 repeats of the outer chart and should be finished shortly, though I am a little overextended right now. :) I'm using Cebelia 30 on size 2 needles, same combination as the Rose of England.

T-Shirt Collection , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion . I've been getting a lot of traffic from people interested in stenciling, so I'm sharing 8 t-shirts that I've made. All except the right-hand Darwin were made with contact paper stencils (that one used the Mod Podge "screenprinting" method found here ). I've also made a quadratic equation shirt for my math teacher MIL, a Badnarik campaign t-shirt that's gone missing ("Vote Libertarian And Win A Free Country"), and an adorable walrus sweatshirt with glued-on googly eyes for my brother. Visit the flickr page for more notes on the shirts pictured here.

This is kind of tardy, but I had a migraine for 2 days after Halloween. We went to Santa Cruz to see Tiger Army . On Halloween. I cannot overstate the awesomeness. I really think people should dress up this much for every psychobilly show. The show was totally packed and crazy. We realized this was our first time to see Tiger Army together. I saw them in Austin twice while Bryan was going to school in Pittsburgh, and he saw them once in Cleveland. I went as some kind of devil girl, and Bryan ended up as a zombie. They were doing zombification at his work Halloween party. It was a bit of a surprise when I saw the makeup. Otherwise his "costume" would have pretty much consisted of the skull bracelet I put on him. He went to work as "casual Bryan with a new mohawk." Likewise, my costume was just cape + horns + tail. I sewed the cape from a McCalls pattern and some sweet sheer shiny red spiderweb fabric from JoAnn. I'm very happy about getting my sewing moj

All the cool kids are doing it. There was an earthquake last night centered about 15 miles from us. I was standing in front of the fridge wrestling with a package of cheese. It seemed like I felt the floor I was standing on move side to side. I thought it was just me since I had felt really sleepy all day. Bryan finally pointed out to me that it was an earthquake, but we didn't feel anything else. For us, it just lasted for a couple of seconds and nothing even came close to falling over. The news coverage was hilarious. Some jars fell off the shelf at an Albertson's. Both the reporter and the store employee kept referring to them as pickles, but they were clearly olives!!! One tile fell off the ceiling at a Target, and apparently some alfredo sauce fell off the shelf at another grocery store. I didn't think there were any injuries, but I just read that one person fell down and got hurt.

Revision 10/26/07 : Fixed cuff rib directions. (should be K3, P2. used to say K3, P3) Hi everyone. I've finally finished photography and writing up for my first free pattern. The PDF version is on the sidebar, but I'm including the instructions in this post too. I'd love to get any feedback. Right now the pattern's written at a level assuming some knowledge of sock knitting, but I may add more info and links to basic technique tutorials, especially if requested. The Ravelry page is here . Men’s Sock Pattern By Amy Klimt http://spinalcat.blogspot.com spinalcat@gmail.com Send your favorite rude boy off to work in these subtly checkered socks knit from the top down with a heel flap. Finished Size : 9” foot circumference and 10 1/2” long (customizable) from heel to toe. To fit men’s US shoe size 10 1/2. Yarn : Knit Picks Risata (42% cotton, 39% superwash merino, 13% polyamide, 6% elastic; 196 yd/50g): ash, 3 balls. Needles : Size 1.5

Finished BFL 3-Ply , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion .

Lizard Ridge Kureyon #95 , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion .

Wow! Check out these cupcakes from the VeganYumYum blog! They're topped with marzipan yarn balls and WIPs. There's even a tutorial for making the decorations. I'm definitely bookmarking this blog. Not only does the name make me laugh (my cat's name is Yum Yum), but all the recipes look awesome! The spectacular food photography doesn't hurt. If that's what vegans eat, I want to be vegan. :) (Except that I love honey wayyy too much. And freshly whipped cream. And fish. Oh, well.) We did eat veg tonight- yellow curry tofu with potatoes and carrots. Those little purple potatoes are the most awesome thing ever. And I did eat a vegan cookie at the movies the other night. The snack bar dude was like, "You know those are vegan, right?" as if I hadn't been standing there reading the packaging. I wonder if they had complaints or something. . .

Finished Shirt , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion . Here's a better pic of the finished shirt. The stencil templates are from the Saffron Revolution blog at http://saffronrevolutionworldwide.blogspot.com/ I was going to send in the link to my shirt after I posted this photo, but somebody beat me to it!

Supplies: your image on normal paper contact paper scalpel or exacto knife cutting surface scotch tape prewashed and dried t-shirt scrap cardboard fabric paint (like Tulip brand from craft store) sponge brush (very cheap at craft stores) Step 0: Print out your image. It's best if there aren't any islands. For example, you'll want to be careful with what fonts you use for text. Stencil fonts have a lovely DIY punk aesthetic for protest shirts, but I've also developed a freehand stencil-friendly text style I use for a daintier look. I'll be posting a pics of my t-shirt backlog shortly. You'll also want to consider the amount of detail in the image and the number of shirts you'll want to make. This method creates stencils that are good for one use only. It allows a pretty good amount of detail and crispness, but it's limited by your cutting ability. It doesn't work so well for things like math equations that have a lot of thin straight lines (ask

Beaded Heavy Mesh Scarf , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion .

Heavy Mesh Scarf , originally uploaded by Buxtrosion . I finished the Colinette beaded scarf I made to match that dress with the koi. I didn't think I was going to add the silk ribbon fringe, but I realized I could buy it by the yard (only took 3). It was really fun to make. I forgot how great instant gratification projects are, especially when you get to use really nice yarn. This is a great use for single skeins of silk. Tao is supposedly only 126 yards per skein. I didn't quite use the whole skein because I ran out of beads, but after adding fringe my scarf was only a tad shorter than the store model. It's purely a fashion scarf, anyway. I'll be wearing it with a summer dress.