Bofur's Fingerless Gloves

And here's the pattern that was inspired by Bofur's fingerless gloves in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

You will need:
50-60 grams of bulky weight yarn
US8 (5.00 mm) circular needle, long enough for magic loop or traveling loop. Mine was 29 inches. You can also use DPNs if you like.
Row counter (optional; I didn't have one, but I wish I had)

Gauge: 5 stitches = 1 inch in moss stitch

Pattern:
Cast on 23 stitches on US8 needles. Divide to join in the round, being careful not to twist
Round 1: *Knit 1, Purl 1, repeat around from *
Round 2: *Purl 1, Knit 1, repeat around from *
Repeat rounds 1 and 2 six more times, for a total of fourteen rounds. Repeat round 1 once more.
Turn work and repeat Round 1 eight times, knitting flat so as to create the thumb hole.
Rejoin in the round
Rounds 24, 26, and 28: Repeat Round 2
rounds 25 and 27: Repeat Round 1
Bind off loosely. Weave in ends and wear with subtle nerdy delight!
Please do not copy this pattern.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

When I heard that they were making three films out of the Hobbit, all interest in seeing the movie left me. I mean, three movies out of one book? But then my best friend saw it and told me it was great... and told me a few of the funnier parts of the movie... and said that the dwarves are really, really cool... and slowly I got more and more excited to see it. Not that slowly, considering it only came out last Friday and I've already seen it and love it. 

At about three hours in length, the movie does get a little dull at moments, but in general it is action packed and enjoyable. Though it's true that most of the dwarves' characters are underdeveloped, this is entirely understandable when you have fourteen new characters to introduce and almost all of them are dwarves. So they did a good job developing the characters of Bilbo (well obviously), Thorin, Kili, Bofur, Balin, and sort of Fili. 

I couldn't help but notice that several of the dwarves wore some rather fetching knitted things... and I've already knit up some of Bofur's moss stitch fingerless gloves. 

Bofur is my third favorite dwarf, after Kili and Thorin. Firstly, because he has pigtails like Pippi Longstocking, topped off with a fantastic hat. Secondly because he has fingerless gloves that I can so easily copy. I've also noticed that he has a nice garter stitch scarf in long stripes of dark orange and browns and grays that I may be replicating someday...

But here are the gloves I made to copy his. They obviously aren't exact, but how far can you stray when you're given a picture of simple moss stitch fingerless gloves? 

All A Bit Harry Potter

I think that it's in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that the Christmas trees are decorated with live golden owls. Of course, this may be in all the books that include Christmas at Hogwarts, but I read the Goblet of Fire most recently so that's probably just what I remember.

Well now our Christmas tree has a little owl, though when I made it I was not thinking in the slightest of Harry Potter. I was probably thinking more along the lines of The Hobbit (which I haven't seen yet but am hoping to either before or shortly after Christmas) or Merlin, or possible Artemis Fowl, the audio book of which I was listening to while I knit. He's sort of supposed to be a barn owl- you know, the ones with the heart shaped faces, but heaven knows I'm terrible when it comes to knitting fair isle hearts. They always turn out sort of wonky.

The exciting thing about this owl is that it gave me the excuse to learn to graft stitches, i.e. take two unfinished edges of knitting and graft them together so it looks like a continues knit stitch. I tried and sort of failed to snap a good picture depicting this, but I rather liked the one I took anyway.

If you can see, where the green ribbon is sticking out of his head is where there would be an ugly seam had I not grafted the stitches. 

I used sport weight yarn and US2 needles, and I used the magic loop method (just so that the knitters who want to make an exact replica of this owl know what to do). I'll also put the chart for the heart on my ravelry project page hopefully tomorrow. 

Not A Moment Lost

Guess what everyone- I finished my Christmas knitting! Well, mostly. There are always a few seams to sew, ends to weave in etcetera, etcetera. But I finished enough to start a 'big' project for myself.

By big, I mean Saroyan, which I've had my eye on for about a week, give or take a day. I had the perfect yarn for it: 19 or 20 balls of Bainin Tweed, an Irish yarn that only has 16 projects listed on its Ravelry page. I received the yarn from our friend Cindy at Jacob's Reward Farm, when my mom and I went to the farm last Friday to help clean out the Little Red Barn. (What more explanation need be said-  we went to a sheep farm and cleaned out a barn that's little and red. Can't get more to the point than that.) Cindy had been in possession of this yarn for quite a while and as thanks for helping at the farm, she passed it on to me.

So today I took 4 of the 20 hundred-yard balls and cast on my very own Saroyan. I began at around three o'clock. I have now nearly finished the six increase repeats.

It's very pretty, if I do say so myself (I have no problems admitting how amazing my knitting is, apparently) I had to stop then because I ran out of the first ball of yarn, but I'll probably do a bit more before I go to bed- hey, it is the first Friday after the winter break started, I can stay up late. 

I just love those little leaves. I could knit this pattern all day. (Oh wait, been there, done that). I am also loving how the yarn is working up. The little drops of color against the green yarn makes me think of a Christmas tree, even though it's the wrong shade of green. And the wrong kind of leaves. 

Goodnight!

Elf!

I've spent the better part of the day with my needles clicking and churning out this little elf. Tell me he's not the most adorable thing you've seen all day. 

I designed the pattern as I went, and unfortunately made no pattern notes so if I want to recreate him I'll have to use my memory and where that fails look to him for help. But it's all pretty straightforward, so were I to wish another one into existence it wouldn't be too difficult. I did it once, right? 

I'm very proud of his feet. I did a little heel and everything, and I've never even knit socks. And I only had six stitches to work with. And look how neat my stitches are. Oh, I'm so happy with him!

I used boring old scratchy Red Heart yarn, mostly because it's the only worsted weight yarn I have that isn't being used for a Christmas knit. I knit most of him on size 7 dpns and the ears and belt on size 4 dpns. 

Gosh. I still can't believe I made something so incredibly cute. 

I've found that I like knitted toys a lot more than crocheted ones. I just like the look of stockinette more than that of single crochet, no offense to lovers of crochet. Knitting looks so much tidier to me- perfect for a little Christmas elf who likes to hide in stockings. 

Early Easter

Last April, shortly after Easter, my mom bought some Easter egg dyes so that we could dye some of our white wool roving. April was a very long time ago, and we still hadn't gotten around to dyeing wool yesterday. So I was asked if I could just dye some by myself, since by then I rather doubted we were ever going to dye our roving.

I looked up a couple of tutorials online, and found a youtube video that covered it all pretty well. You can find it here. I soaked my roving in water and vinegar for half an hour, and while I was waiting I set up my workspace. I spread newspaper and plastic wrap on the floor of my sister's bedroom (she ripped her carpet up a couple of years ago and her floor remains to be constructed of paint-splattered concrete) and I mixed up my dyes. I had four colors: turquoise, gold, indigo, and brown. I laid my well soaked wool out on the plastic wrap and got dyeing. It took about ten minutes to actually paint the wool. Then I rolled it up and put it in the microwave and let it cool and rinsed it out and laid it out to dry.

When I put it in the microwave, I had a lot of dark blue and gold and brown. After it dried:

Pastel shades of green, pink and purple instead of dark tones of blue and gold. I still think it's gorgeous, and can't wait to spin it into what I'm planning on being a double plied sport or worsted. 

Overall, an excellent dyeing experience, but I'm excited to try some other dyes and techniques to get darker shades. 

Snowflake Tutorial

A beautiful Christmas decoration is paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling on nylon thread. For what seems like all my life, we've hung snowflakes to the ceiling every year and taken them down when winter is over.

However, these snowflakes were made mostly by small children who weren't particularly gifted with scissors, so the snowflakes weren't very pretty. A few years ago, my talented sister Mary Margaret discovered a snowflake formula that never fails. Last night, we had a snowflake making party, and we're going to replace almost all of our old snowflakes (which are by now yellow with age as well as inartistic) with new pretty ones.

I was inspired by our party to do a tutorial for a perfect snowflake, so this afternoon I set out with paper and scissors and a camera and got cutting.

What you need is a piece of A4 paper and a pair of ordinary kitchen scissors. 

 Fold the paper like so and cut off that chunk at the top so you have a triangle that's folded in half...

 Then fold that triangle in half.

 Now you have to fold it into thirds. Just make an estimation and fold both sides in so one is on top of the other and it's more or less folded in thirds. You want to make it as exact as you can.

 There you see, you've just got a couple of things sticking up and once you chop those off you have a triangle that's folded into thirds.

 See?

 Now it's time to get out of the origami stage and onto the snowflake stage. I drew some shapes on my triangle and shaded in what I was going to cut out so you could see, but you don't have to do that, I usually just wing it. You want to cut out blobs that have no specific shapes. And don't forget to give your snowflake a decorative edge by cutting the top of the triangle fancily. The trick is, you don't want it to look beautiful when it just has the blobs cut out of it, you want it to look boring. You also want to leave as little paper as possible. but don't cut out the center or it'll just sort of flop about and not be too snowflake like.

 And then you open it up and....

 You have a beautiful snowflake! yep, that gorgeous piece came from that boring little triangle. It's a lot of fun to unfold them and see what you've created.
Here are some of the ones I did last night:

 I couldn't resist doing a nerdy one. This one isn't particularly pretty but it does have little Tardis' all around the edge so it's awesome.

Have fun making snowflakes! 

Christmas Mitts Free Pattern

Hope you enjoy this pattern! These gloves are perfect for a number of things: opening presents on Christmas morning, sipping hot coco with a little peppermint schnapps stirred in, or taking a walk in the snow! They work up in just a couple of hours and are excellent for a last minute gift! The rib pattern is simple to make but exciting enough to make all of your friends marvel at your great skill.
Please do not copy this pattern. You may sell the mitts you make but please give me credit for the pattern. Thank you!

What you need:
35 grams of worsted weight yarn
US7 double pointed needles

Gauge: 5 stitches= 1 inch in stitch pattern

Note: These gloves are made with a very stretchy rib stitch. Mine are quite snug, but if you prefer yours to be looser, increase the stitches by 3 for a bigger glove.

Cast on 21 stitches and divide evenly between 3 dpns.
Rounds 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9: *knit 2, purl 1, repeat from *
Rounds 2, 4, 6, and 8: *knit 1, purl 2, repeat from *
After completing nine rounds, turn work so as to begin working flat, creating the thumb hole
Rounds 10-21: *knit 2, purl 1, repeat from *
Now rejoin in the round for rounds 22-28:
Rounds 22, 24, 26, and 28: *knit 1, purl 2, repeat from *
Rounds 23, 25, and 27: *knit 2, purl 1, repeat from *
Bind off loosely 

Out With A Whisper

My Nanowrimo word count hasn't moved an inch in the last several days. The thing is, my novel's health deteriorated with mine over Thanksgiving, and though I'm much better now, the story has yet to recover. And I'm just going to give it time and wait for inspiration to strike. Perhaps it never will. Perhaps the novel will be finished in fifteen years after a lengthy hibernation.

Last year, Nanowrimo was a breeze. I finished a couple of days early, my novel was great, and it had another 30,000 words to be added on in the two months following. But this year, it took a decidedly nasty turn. My novel didn't want to be written. It was very shy this time around, and while it seemed to be going wonderfully its appearance was deceiving and it was slowly retreating into the cave of unfinished novels (I have quite a few residing in there). It came to a sudden stop and I was happy to let it rest.

So I'm going to lose Nanowrimo. Or rather, I'm not going to win. It doesn't seem to be the sort of thing you can lose at. But it's okay. Just remind me not to take part in it next November. Really. Do not let me participate in Nanowrimo in 2013. 

So What Is Merlin?

I seem to be getting requests by the one these days. My cousin asked me what exactly Merlin is... so here goes.

Merlin is a BBC tv show that started in 2008. It's a retelling of the Arthurian legend, with some definite twists. Firstly, Merlin is about 18 in the first season, with Arthur the same age. Guinevere is a servant who has a crush on Merlin, and Morgana is the King Uther Pendragon's ward and one of the sweetest people in Camelot. And of course nobody knows that Merlin is a sorcerer, because magic is outlawed and punishable by death so if anybody ever found out Merlin would be executed, which would kind of put a damper on the show.

So yeah, they messed up a few things with the legend. But it's still awesome. And it just gets better and better. The first season is pretty good, but not excellent. The characters are a little shy and awkward, the stories aren't fabulous, etcetera. But then season 2 is a little better, particularly the finale, and by season 3, they've got all their stories sorted out. Morgana is evil, Gwen is in love with Arthur and vice versa, and Merlin is... well, he's not as stupid as he was in the first season, anyway. 

It really is in season 3 that the show starts to get really good. The episodes are better and there are more characters than just the original four (Merlin, Arthur, Gwen, and Morgana). They also start to bring in the Knights of the Round Table (though there's no Round Table till the end) 

Elyan, Gwaine, Merlin, Arthur, Lancelot, Leon, Percival

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is, I think, the most famous story about Sir Gawain. Gwaine (they spell it differently in Merlin) is my favorite Merlin character. Firstly, because he's the handsomest in Camelot. 

He also has the best sense of humor. It seems everyone in Camelot finds his incessant chatter annoying, but it's one of the best things in every episode he's in. 

The knights are some of the best things they did to Merlin. I've already talked about Gwaine of course- but then there's Sir Leon. Sir Leon started in season 2 with one little line, but people loved him so much that now he's like the main knight. Sir Leon survives everything. Seriously, there are always these battles where every single knight dies- except for Leon. 

Those are the two knights who are really really awesome- the others are just okay. Except Elyan. I just find Elyan kind of annoying. 

Now, that's seasons 3 and 4 taken care of. you've got your knights, you've got Arthur and Guinevere, you have Morgana being purely evil, and you have Merlin saving the day. Every day. 

But then there's season 5, which is airing right now- and they brought back Mordred. Mordred first appeared in season one, played by Asa Butterfield, and he was like awesome. A little druid boy who steals the affection of Morgana, and then leaves and comes back several years later and gets knighted. 

Mordred. Is. Awesome. I love Mordred so much. 

And that just about covers it. So I may have lingered a bit on the knights- they are like the most important part of the show. 

(And don't even get me started on the Nice Druid Man who appears in 3 episodes and is possibly the coolest bloke ever.)