Spinalcat's Crafty Adventures

I designed this hat to match my Eureka Valley Mitts worked in the worsted weight version of this yarn. Really, it was just an excuse to work with the Chunky Mochi, which had been calling my name from the shelves for several months. It uses 2 balls, and works up in just a few hours. The pattern is available for $5 in my Ravelry pattern store or my Etsy shop .

You may remember my free pattern for Silk Garden Lite, the Snowflakes on Mulberries Hat . Here it is- Soon after finishing that project, I learned that Silk Garden Lite was being discontinued! Earlier this fall, I fell in love with this lovely Halloween-y colorway of the worsted weight Silk Garden and I decided to rework the pattern for a heavier gauge. It works up super fast in 1 skein and the 6-fold symmetry of the decreases makes it just a little bit special. I tweaked the decrease rate, so there's no tendency toward looking nipple-y whether the hat is being worn or not. Ravelry pattern page here .

So here's the recipe for the pumpkin bread pudding I made for the spinners. I used a mix of pumpkin and butternut squash puree made from veggie box contents. I used about half normal baguette from Whole Foods and half cranberry/currant baguette. That weekend, I also made this hazelnut pumpkin pie, which was ok but mostly the hazelnuts were distracting. I think it would have been better if the nut mixture was sweetened. I used the crust from this butternut squash pie recipe which is still the reigning champion. (Though this caramel pumpkin pie from Gourmet magazine is great if you have time for the extra steps.)

I'm working on this Effortless Cardigan (pattern by Hannah Fetig of Knitbot ) in Misti Tonos Worsted (alpaca/wool blend). Here's what it looked like when I started writing this post like 3 weeks ago. It's been a while since I made a long sleeve sweater in something other than fingering weight, so I thought it would go a little faster. Not so much. The huge fronts make this basically a sweater and a half. The yarn is so yummy, I'm really enjoying even the tedious parts. Since I took the first photo exactly 2 weeks ago, I've finished the body and started one of the sleeves. Um... since I wrote that and took the 2nd photo, I've finished the whole thing! You can come visit it at Yarndogs starting at the end of the week. It's so warm and comfy and perfect! So... I'm at least 6 months behind on my Ravelry friends' blogs. (Hint: If you post it to Facebook, I'll probably see it.) I want to see what everyone's been working on! I'm goi...

I participated in the awesome Zombie Apocalypse Swap in the Phat Fiber Ravelry group earlier this month. The fibery portion of the package I received from Dawn of Dawning Dreams was this chunky art batt I spun it up into these singles- Not sure what I'm going to do with the yarn, but I'm sure it will be just perfect for something or other someday. :)

Did I trick you? The 2cats are still 2 and not 3. I'm talking about my brand new Kitten drum carder from Fancy Kitty ! I got the 120 cloth for fine fibers. The maker suggests that only people who are making batts of mostly angora or maybe suri alpaca need the 190 cloth. I love it! It's not hugely different from the Pat Green I was borrowing from Rachel , but it's more compact and I like that. There's a Ravelry group for the carders and the maker answers questions all the time. These blog posts from The Painted Tiger are incredibly helpful and drool-worthy. I've made a few batts by now, and I can easily get at least 2.5oz of fiber using the brush to push the fibers down the teeth. I haven't been fastening the brush attachment in the down position, just pushing it down with my hand for a few turns now and then. This is one of the batts I made for the Phat Fiber October steampunk theme. It's a blend of merino, camel, and silk based on the character ...

I haven't been doing much other than dyeing and knitting samples lately, but I managed to finish 1 batt of this fiber (Black Pearl batts)from fellow Phattie By Rebekah With Love The fiber content is Merino, carbonized bamboo, tussah silk, mulberry silk, firestar & angelina. 2.2 oz each batt Going back to the Etsy listing to get the fiber content, I just realized she uses the same drum carder model that I just bought. She sets a pretty high standard- go check out her shop! It'll be a lace or fingering-ish 2ply for a triangular lace shawl, most likely. I'm really looking forward to making more time for designing soon (I hope!). I have a few garments sort of stalled out at the grading stage, but I hope to need test knitters soon.