Slytherin Houndstooth Scarf

May 2015 in Review

Since I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks, I thought I’d write a quick post re: finished projects and activities.

Finished Projects

Draft: Houndstooth
Loom: 15″ Cricket Table Top Loom
Reed: 10 dent
Warp Stats
- Yarn: 150 yards (including loom waste) of Knit Picks Capretta in Platinum and 150 yards (including loom waste) of Cascade Heritage Silk in Pine
- Loom waste: 31 yards
- Total Warp Ends: 110
- Ends Per Inch (EPI): 10
- Warp Length: 100″
Weft Stats
- Yarn: 153.6 yards Knit Picks Capretta in Platinum and 142.8 yards Cascade Heritage Silk in Pine
- Picks Per Inch (PPI): 10 – 12
- Width in the Reed: 11″
Ravelry Project Page

I didn’t write a post about finishing this scarf, though it’s appeared in several WIP Wednesday posts (January 22, February 4, March 25). I had to finish it so that I could weave the Dr. Who scarf on my rigid heddle loom! Since this is the fourth Houndstooth Scarf I finished (see the posts on Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw Houndstooth scarves), I felt like I didn’t necessarily learn anything new on this project. I did apply the lessons learned on the prior Houndstooth scarves, so the Slytherin is the most consistent of the four.

Cotton Candy Corriedale

Wheel: Kromski Fantasia
Spinning Twist: S (clockwise)
Plying Twist: Z (counter-clockwise)
Ratio: 8:1
Singles Yardage: 978 yards
Fiber: Sassy Bee Corriedale in Cotton Candy
Finished skein:
- Ply Structure: 420 yards 2-ply; 46 yards n-ply
- Weight: 4 oz
Ravelry Stash page

This is another project that I’ve been working on for a while and which has appeared in a couple of WIP Wednesday posts (February 4, February 18). As of February 18, I’d finished plying and had wound most of the yarn onto a niddy noddy. It then sat around, still on the niddy noddy, awaiting washing.

Dr. Who Scarf

I did write a blog post about this one!

Felted Cat Bed

Pattern: garter stitch
Yarn: 440 yards Patons SWS in Geranium
Needles: US 13 / 9.0 mm
Pre-felting dimensions: 23″ wide by 40″ long
Post-felting dimensions: 11.5″ wide by 19″ long
Made for: Pepper
Ravelry Project Page

I whipped out a new cat bed to line the bookshelf where Pepper likes to sleep. Although she wasn’t very co-operative re: posing for the picture, she loves the bed. It’s now her favorite sleeping spot.

Semi-finished Projects

These projects are “semi-finished” because I’m making multiple dishcloths from the same patterns, as part of my ongoing Dishcloth Advent Calendar (details in my 2015 Plans post) project. I’ve finished at least one individual item, but am still working on making more. I need to make 18 dishcloths in each pattern, and will write blog posts with all the project details when I finish all 18.

Heart Illusion Dishcloths

I finished 9 of these in May.

Bias Knit, Crochet Cotton Dishcloth

I only finished one of these. Even with two strands held together, it took about 3 hours to knit one of these, and I didn’t even make it as big as the pattern suggests. It’ll take me a while to make all 18 of these, but I do like them.

Activities

I participated in three demos with the Weavers of Orlando. I’ve written blog posts about two of those: St. Johns River Festival of the Arts and Arts at Audubon Elementary. The third demo was just this past Friday, and I’m working on writing a post about it!

I also traveled to New England to attend my cousin’s college graduation. While there, I visited 12 yarn shops, including WEBS! I bought yarn in all the shops, and will be writing multiple blog posts about the experience. I needed to take pix of all the new stash for the posts and to update my Rav stash. I’ve been working on it and I’m just about finished. I will be posting about these shops throughout the month of June; I plan to get all the posts up no later than June 25 since several of the shops I visited are part of the 2015 I-91 Shop Hop which starts that day.

WIP Wednesday: March 25, 2015

I thought I hadn’t done much crafting in the last week, since I’ve been working with my husband on making tools for weaving. Then I took the pictures for this post and discovered that I’d done more than I remembered!

Dishcloth Tree

I finished all the leaf-shaped dishcloths. I thought I had woven in all the ends, but when I was assembling them for this picture, I found one end that I’d missed. Usually woven in ends = finished for dishcloths. However, these leaves come out a little bit concave in the center and the designer recommends blocking them. I’m going to run them through the washer and dryer to see how they come out. If they don’t flatten out in that process, I’ll block them properly. Since these are part of a present, I think they are worth the extra attention!

Slytherin Houndstooth Scarf

I got quite a bit of weaving done on this scarf. I’m just about finished with it.

It’s so hard to show progress on woven projects because the working surface always looks the same. I tried taking a picture of the finished cloth wound onto the cloth beam. I still think it’s hard to see the progress!

I didn’t notice until I posted the picture that you can see both my spinning wheel and my floor loom in the background of this picture. Yes, my world is made of fiber!

Liquid Silver

This continues to be the project I work on at Wednesday knit nights. I only got through 1/2 of a repeat tonight because I was chatting so much. I discovered that I was doing something wrong on the double yarn overs. Turns out I’ve been wrapping my yarn overs the wrong direction around the needle. I did it right before. I’m not sure when or why I changed my wrapping direction. You can clearly see the difference in this picture. I was going to keep on knitting, but looking at this picture, the obvious difference is bothering me. I do believe I’m going to frog several inches of this project and reknit it correctly.

Travel Planning

Last week, we found out that my husband has to go to India in April for work. And I’m going with him! In the last week, we’ve renewed his passport, made our plane reservations and hotel reservations. I’ve filled out paperwork to participate in the TSA Pre-check (I’ve been meaning to do that anyway) and Global Entry (this allows for faster processing when coming through customs upon our return). Both programs require in-person interviews. I’ve booked the TSA Pre-check interview and am waiting for preliminary approval on Global Entry before I can book the interview. I’ve researched visa requirements, done some online research to see what is in the area where we will be visiting, and through Ravelry I’ve made contacts with local knitters. I seriously love the internet.

We’ll be in India for two weeks, home for one, then in Chicago for a week. Chris comes home from Chicago, but I’m flying from Chicago to New England to attend my cousin’s college graduation and visit friends and family. Since I only have a week at home between trips, I’ve got to have everything arranged for those trips also. I still need to book flights from Chicago to New England and New England back to Orlando. I’ve got to weave the Dr. Who scarf for my cousin’s graduation gift. And do taxes. And get immunized for Hepatitis A and Dengue Fever. And so much more. Most importantly of all, I need to plan my travel knitting! It’s 25 hours of travel from Orlando to India and 31 hours of travel from India to get back home. That’s enough time to knit a couple pairs of socks (although I guess I’ll have to sleep some in there).

The trip to India is scheduled at the same time I was planning to be in Indiana for The Fiber Event. I already had a plane ticket for Indiana, and I’m still planning to go at some point. I need to change that ticket once we figure out new dates. Oh, and I registered to attend the TKGA Conference in July. I haven’t made travel arrangements for that trip yet, and need to do so ASAP. The first room block already sold out and there’s a limited number of rooms in the second block. It’s going to be a whirlwind around here for the next few months!

WIP Wednesday: February 4, 2015

As expected, I haven’t had a whole lot of crafting time over the last two weeks due to office rearrangement. I finished rearranging the furniture and I set up the new computer. I’m now sorting through all my files, throwing away as much as I can. This is step 3 of household organization using the method Marie Kondo describes in her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I read that book last September and have slowly been working my way through it. I had three file cabinets in my office. One was already empty of files, but being used for storage. The second was half storage and half files. The third is all files. I’d like to get two of them out of my office entirely, in order to make room for yarn and fiber storage. My yarn is currently in my bedroom. Some fiber is in the bedroom and some is in my office. I’d like all my fiber craft tools and materials to be in my office. I expect to have the office totally finished by the end of February! In addition to working on my office, I have been crafting three projects.

Yesterday was a busy day around here and I did not get a chance to blog my WIPs for the week. Better late than never!