Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Fun lens
My boyfriend just gave me this lens for my birthday!
I am not at all familiar with it yet, of course, and the light is gone now (argh!) but I anticipate much fun :)))
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
A "Fibrehound" fuzzy Molehill
I was extremely pleased when I saw this project pop up in my Ravelry recent pattern activity:
This is a Molehill shawl knitted with the hair of a lovely dog! I cannot say it better than Raveler Karen, aka luvmypony herself:
"This shawl is 100% Turk hair. Turk is my Border Collie x Norwegian Elkhound. He has a lovely, soft coat with little to no guard hairs. I brushed him and saved his hair for spinning. He’s the gift that keeps on giving. I often refer to him as my Fibrehound.
I intended to spin a fingering weight yarn but it came out slightly heavier than that. Then when I knitted with it, it BLOOMED! This shawl is thick and warm.
Fun project, just to see if it could be done and what would happen."
The shawl looks indeed lusciously warm! :) luvmypony has knitted a second Molehill with mohair. I do think the fuzzy yarns suit the pattern.
And this inevitably brings me to the little story of why I started to knit in the first place... I could simply not bear to throw away my cat's fuzz that I was combing out! thinking of what useful purpose to put it to, the obvious one is spinning it into yarn, then... knitting something with it? of course I didn't want to spoil the fuzz with my first attempts at either, so I endeavoured to, first learn how to knit, then eventually learn to spin. Learning to spin seemed the most daunting, and so I still have not gotten started! I started knitting in March 2009, designing in December 2010, and still the cat fuzz is stored safely away waiting for me to learn to spin and finally figure out what to knit with it! A very special, tiny stash of cat fuzz is that I have of my late cat Mino:
Mino was a short hair with very little fuzz, and he hated brushing, which he actually didn't need anyway, so I have a very little amount of it. I do have the greatest amount of fuzz from Iris, she is a longhair with loads and loads of fuzz! she doesn't like brushing very much, but she actually needs it :) and then of redhead Loki, who is also a shorthair but has a little more fuzz than Mino used to have, I also have a little amount. He doesn't mind brushing much, but he just cannot stay still for a second so it is difficult to!
This is a Molehill shawl knitted with the hair of a lovely dog! I cannot say it better than Raveler Karen, aka luvmypony herself:
"This shawl is 100% Turk hair. Turk is my Border Collie x Norwegian Elkhound. He has a lovely, soft coat with little to no guard hairs. I brushed him and saved his hair for spinning. He’s the gift that keeps on giving. I often refer to him as my Fibrehound.
I intended to spin a fingering weight yarn but it came out slightly heavier than that. Then when I knitted with it, it BLOOMED! This shawl is thick and warm.
Fun project, just to see if it could be done and what would happen."
 |
| Turk |
And this inevitably brings me to the little story of why I started to knit in the first place... I could simply not bear to throw away my cat's fuzz that I was combing out! thinking of what useful purpose to put it to, the obvious one is spinning it into yarn, then... knitting something with it? of course I didn't want to spoil the fuzz with my first attempts at either, so I endeavoured to, first learn how to knit, then eventually learn to spin. Learning to spin seemed the most daunting, and so I still have not gotten started! I started knitting in March 2009, designing in December 2010, and still the cat fuzz is stored safely away waiting for me to learn to spin and finally figure out what to knit with it! A very special, tiny stash of cat fuzz is that I have of my late cat Mino:
 |
| Mino in 2010 |
Mino was a short hair with very little fuzz, and he hated brushing, which he actually didn't need anyway, so I have a very little amount of it. I do have the greatest amount of fuzz from Iris, she is a longhair with loads and loads of fuzz! she doesn't like brushing very much, but she actually needs it :) and then of redhead Loki, who is also a shorthair but has a little more fuzz than Mino used to have, I also have a little amount. He doesn't mind brushing much, but he just cannot stay still for a second so it is difficult to!
 |
| Mino, Loki as a kitten and Iris in 2010 |
Monday, 24 September 2012
Grand Place
I have recently published my latest pattern, Grand Place, but due to blog mishaps I could not post about it!
It may not be nice of me to say this, but I love this cowl ;) I finished knitting it last March, so I still had plenty of weather to wear it :) and boy, did I wear it! it is warm (so warm when folded down around the neck!), fluffy and versatile. It deals with everything that annoys me in cowls, scarves and hats! No drafts percolating through the gaps of my looped scarf. No gaps between the bottom of my cowl and the lapels of my coat. No drops of rain somehow finding a way between my hat and my shawl, then down my nape... nice :D
I bought the yarn, which I LOVE, on a whim when I saw it at my LYS, and this cowl/capelet/hood/whateveryouwanttocallit is entirely inspired by it. Or, may I say, the yarn reminded me of the stonework you see in the pictures (taken in the same Grand Place of Brussels that gives it its name), and of cobbles, and I took it from there.
Being as I am a little OCD when it comes to matching my accessories, I knitted a pair of matching mittens with my leftover yarn:
I waited all summer to publish this pattern in more appropriate weather, and finally here it is :) available in Ravelry, as Cowl, Mitts or all together in an eBook. Also available in my Etsy store: Cowl, Mitts. I have also just uploaded all the info to Patternfish so it will also be available soon!
And loving this yarn so much... when I saw these 4 balls in purple in a YS in Germany, I could not resist!
And so I am knitting another capelet/cowl, for a friend. It is somewhat similar, but has a turtleneck instead of a hood.
 |
| More colour-accurate |
I am planning to also release this pattern soon, and I will probably crete an eBook with everything together, so stay tuned!
Blog back on!
I haven't posted in a while... again, but this time I had a reason not to!
It all started with my web hosting company going rogue on me. Word to the wise: if you are considering dh2.net, run, run in the opposite direction like the wind! if you have your website hosted with them, I would say get your domain name transfered to enom.com and back up all your data! Now researching a little online I also found this which doesn't look good at all, does it?
So shortly after paying for renewal of my domain + hosting for another year, my website went down. Unlike other less fortunate people the domain was still at my name with enom (dh2.net is -or was?- their reseller) so I could transfer it to my account with them. Had to pay for it again but at least I didn't lose it!
Meanwhile my files were apparently still hosted ay dh2.net. They still are as we speak. Once my domain name started working again, I could back up all my files via FTP. Most of my website is working over at my boyfriend's server anyway, so once it all goes down, which I have no doubt it will*, I'll just move the rest over there.
So well, in all this debacle my custom blog domain blog.innershelter.net of course stopped working. Once I got my domain up again, it kept not working, despite me trying various settings and following blogger's instructions. I changed it back to the blogger URL (inner-shelter.blogspot.com), then back again... still not working, and then I got slapped with some blogger maintenance that disabled any changes for days... argh!!.
Today I was able to change it back again, finally! and decided to just give up, at least for now, and update my website with the working URL for the time being.
So well that was my little stressful adventure of the last few days! ugh.
A more pleasant post is coming right away :)
*I run my teacher's website focgallery.com which we also had hosted in dh2.net ... and the same thing happened a few days later, of course. This time I knew what to do!
It all started with my web hosting company going rogue on me. Word to the wise: if you are considering dh2.net, run, run in the opposite direction like the wind! if you have your website hosted with them, I would say get your domain name transfered to enom.com and back up all your data! Now researching a little online I also found this which doesn't look good at all, does it?
So shortly after paying for renewal of my domain + hosting for another year, my website went down. Unlike other less fortunate people the domain was still at my name with enom (dh2.net is -or was?- their reseller) so I could transfer it to my account with them. Had to pay for it again but at least I didn't lose it!
Meanwhile my files were apparently still hosted ay dh2.net. They still are as we speak. Once my domain name started working again, I could back up all my files via FTP. Most of my website is working over at my boyfriend's server anyway, so once it all goes down, which I have no doubt it will*, I'll just move the rest over there.
So well, in all this debacle my custom blog domain blog.innershelter.net of course stopped working. Once I got my domain up again, it kept not working, despite me trying various settings and following blogger's instructions. I changed it back to the blogger URL (inner-shelter.blogspot.com), then back again... still not working, and then I got slapped with some blogger maintenance that disabled any changes for days... argh!!.
Today I was able to change it back again, finally! and decided to just give up, at least for now, and update my website with the working URL for the time being.
So well that was my little stressful adventure of the last few days! ugh.
A more pleasant post is coming right away :)
*I run my teacher's website focgallery.com which we also had hosted in dh2.net ... and the same thing happened a few days later, of course. This time I knew what to do!
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