Crafting for weddings (part 2)

I am Canadian, and therefore I talk a lot about the weather. This last week, winter has really decided to flex its muscles in Toronto with whopping lows of -20 C and lots of snow to go with it. Despite the fact that I grew up in Quebec, I've never really appreciated the cold. As I was walking down the snowy street towards the subway station, pining for the warmer weather, in the meandering way my mind works, I was reminded of all the weddings I went to this summer... and I realized I had never finished blogging about all the crafting I did for said weddings! Well then. That had to be rectified.

So here we are, in the middle of January, reminiscing about some cool stuff I made waaaaaaay back in August and September. You might recall my first post about wedding crafting, where I mentioned that I had something ready for an upcoming wedding, which, at the time, was coming up in a few days. Well, this was the wedding of a very dear friend of mine, in fact, the brother of the wife in the happy couple we saw get married last year. For him, the boyfriend purchased an epic drinking horn. He enjoyed it very much at the reception...

For his lovely wife, I decided to make something slightly more practical, and yet incredibly nerdy... A Tardis shawl! I know the both of them are huge Dr. Who fans (I remember him watching the entire series from the beginning back in undergrad), so I figured it would be appropriate. I used the Bigger on the Inside pattern by Kate Atherley, and I absolutely loved working it. The "time vortex lace" was a little boring after a while, but the Tardis pattern, even with the super long rows, was incredibly addictive.

It blocked out to about 6 feet wide, which was almost too big for my blocking mats and also 2 feet longer than it was supposed to be. Whoops! Oh well, it's a beautiful scarf anyway.

The yarn I used was Cascade Heritage Solids in a perfect Tardis blue colourway (actually, the colourway is called "Marine"). This yarn is also a joy to work with! It's great for socks (I'll get to that in a later post), it's soft, it's sturdy-feeling, and it also comes in a wide range of solid colours (pretty rare for a sock yarn). I'm a huge fan, and I'd definitely use this yarn again.

The final bit of wedding crafting I did let me return to my wedding-crafting roots... I made a pair of potholders. It was for the boyfriend's sister's wedding, and shortly after the wedding, they'd be moving to Switzerland together to start a new life there. I decided to crochet these, since it was a bit of a last-minute decision to make them, and since the boyfriend and I are a little obsessed with molluscs of late (you should check out the boyfriend's band), I decided on a snail theme.

I actually combined two patterns for this one. I used the Snails Chart by Stephanie Law for the main design and then this Bluebird Potholder pattern by Doni Speigle for the general design. It's double-sided, so super sturdy.

The yarn is a Lopi which a friend brought me back from a trip to Iceland. It's kind of scratchy, but works wonderfully for colourwork. I'm looking forward to making something neat with the rest of it.

The Annual Christmas Knitting Post (Part II)

After spending a week in sunny Long Beach, CA for a conference (you know I just said that to make you all jealous), here is instalment number two of the Christmas knitting! It was actually a lot of crochet too, you know, to be fair to the craft which inspired this blog's title.

This first project was actually finished before I left for the holidays, despite deciding to make it at the last possible minute. I created it for the new baby of a couple with whom I have played many many games of Settlers of Catan. It therefore seemed fitting to create a Catan blanket for their new little bundle of joy:

This little blanket, which is approximately 3 feet in diameter (I didn't actually measure), only took me a week to crochet. I thought I'd get super bored of the repetitive hexagon pattern, but it was actually kind of addictive. I'd be willing to entertain the idea of doing a grown-up sized version in the future, potentially as a stash-buster.

I would love to tell you that I used up a significant portion of my stash crocheting this, but I would be lying if I did. The red, light green, grey, and tan hexes were made from yarns I already owned, but I ended up buying some big balls of Mary Maxim yarn for the rest of it. Bulky acrylic is all I remember... nothing noteworthy.

I couldn't really find a hexagon pattern I liked, so I made up my own. Here it is, if you're interested:

Ch 6 and join into a loop.
Rnd 1: Ch3, dc into loop, [ch2, 2 dc into loop]x5, ch2 and sl st to join to top of first ch3.
Rnd 2: Ch 3, dc into next dc (from previous round), [dc into ch2 loop, ch2, dc into ch2 loop, 2 dc into next 2 dc, dc in next ch2 loop]x5, ch2, dc into final ch2 loop, sl st to join to ch 3.
Rnd 3: Ch 3, 2 dc into next 2 dc (from previous round), [dc into ch2 loop, ch2, dc into ch2 loop, 4 dc into next 4 dc, dc in next ch2 loop]x5, ch2, dc into final ch2 loop, dc into next dc, sl st to join to ch 3.
Weave in ends.

Next up we have a ridiculous sheep hat created for a toddler that ended up way too big.

I've been told it fits the child, though I probably could have given it a lining to make it a snugger fit. I started with this Sheep pattern by Alexandra Cohen, but soon discovered that the kiddie has way too many toys. Easy! It's a hat now! I just kept increasing the body part until it looked roughly hat-sized and kept crocheting straight until it was roughly hat-length. Then I added earflaps (which I more or less made up on the spot and can't remember now) with super cool ties and tassels. Here's my mom modelling it and pretending to be a sheep:

Finally, we have one final silly project, this time knitted. I had originally planned on making a huge Appa (from Avatar: The Last Airbender) stuffed toy for my friend Ed, but I ran out of time and motivation, so instead went for the next best thing: an Appa toque! Because it's not fair to only have silly pictures of my mom, here I am modelling it:

I used the pattern Yip-Yip by Lesley Brownlee, only instead of the intarsia arrow, I opted for a sewn-on felt one (mostly because I didn't have the right colour yarn on hand). It's a pretty cool pattern, but I think if I were to do it again, I'd change the crown decreases because they were a little abrupt. Also, the toque doesn't quite cover my friend's ears. He's nice enough to wear it anyway.

And that's it for the Christmas knitting this year! Quite a bit of it for having only planned one project...

The Annual Christmas Knitting Post (Part I)

Happy New Year to all! Despite my blog silence, I've been extremely busy on the craft front. This year, I only decided to knit for one person, my dear old dad, for Christmas. And then, at the last minute, I realized I hadn't gotten anything for my friend Ed, nor my friends' new baby or his older sister. Whoops! And so the madness began, a mere two weeks before Christmas.

The one hand-crafted gift I had planned in advance was a pair of guitar socks for Dad. The reason was that the pair I had knit him a couple of years ago, through bad planning, had shrunk a bit and were unwearable. They had always been tight because of the method of construction (the top part is knit flat and sewn together, and the yarn choice was not optimal for socks (Knit Picks Palette), since it felts easily.

So this year, I actually got the right foot measurements (instead of just his shoe size), I went with a pattern I know will work (toe-up), and I bought a yarn that I know is machine-washable (at least according to Ravelry). The result, if I do say so myself, was perfect...

The yarn is Spud & Chloë Fine in the Green Bean colourway, which is a wool-silk blend that feels absolutely lovely both during the knitting and knit up. Instead of my regular short-row toe, I went with the toe-up cast on featured here, casting on 12 stitches on each needle, I believe, and increased two stitches on each side every other row until I had a total of 72. I then did a short-row heel with 12 wraps on each side and finished off with a 2x2 ribbing and Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind-off.

The guitars were added using duplicate stitch using some left-over Knit Picks Palette. I discovered that I actually really enjoy duplicate stitch. It doesn't always look as perfect as when you do colourwork in the pattern, but it's always much stretchier, and I had learned my lesson from the last pair of socks. Here's the chart I made up, in case someone else ever wants to use it:

He seemed pretty pleased with them! (What a goof!)

Speaking of gifts for my Dad, I also whipped him up a hat, which I called a late birthday present. The last hat I made him, way back when I had my first crafty Christmas, was (again) a bit too small. So I picked up some Patons Decor at the local yarn store (Lennoxville has a LYS! Rejoice with me!) and whipped up a suitably manly hat. I used Claire Nordlow's 2x2 Rib Hat pattern, which is quite excellent, and did the ribbing for the whole 10 inches so that he could roll up the brim. I just love that simple little triangle on top!

Dad was quite happy with this one too. It's super cozy.

I think that's enough for the moment. Be prepared for some sillier gifts in Part II!

55 Cancri in the Skies with Diamonds

I was recently considered as an interviewee for Radio-Canada (I knew being fluent in French would pay off someday!) to be the "expert" about a recently characterized "diamond planet". I did a lot of research on this new discovery, but I didn't end up doing the interview. Since I hate letting good research go to waste, I thought I'd talk about it here!

Artist's concept of 55 Cancri e - Credit: NASA/REUTERS

This extra-solar planet was first discovered in 2004 (by McArthur et al.) orbiting around the star 55 Cancri A, a sun-like star about 40 light years away in the constellation Cancer. It has the designation "A" because it is in a wide binary system with a much smaller red dwarf companion. McArthur and company discovered the planet by the radial velocity method, that is, by looking at the Doppler shift of 55 Cancri A due to the wobble caused by the gravitational pull of 55 Cancri e. Sort of like this:

Image stolen from Wikipedia

The radial velocity measurement gave astronomers an approximate mass for this planet, and also the orbital period, but it wasn't until recently, when, in 2011, 55 Cancri e was observed transiting its host star (by Winn et al.), that we were able to determine how large this planet is. The transit measurements, by the way, were taken with the MOST satellite, which is the only Canadian Space Telescope. It looks kind of like a suitcase:

Image stolen from UBC's MOST website

Anyway, based on the transit and radial velocity data, it was determined that 55 Cancri e is eight times as massive as the Earth, and its radius is twice that of the Earth's. That would give it a surface gravity about twice as large as on Earth. In addition, its orbital period (or year) is only 18 hours long, which would give it a surface temperature of over 2000 degrees Celsius! We shouldn't go around calling this a second Earth any time soon... it's hot and heavy over there!

The most recent development, which made the news last week, is that astronomers (Madhusudhan et al.) now think that this planet might be made primarily out of carbon. That would mean that it would have an iron core, a layer of diamond (which might be 3 times as massive as the Earth), and a molten graphite surface. Previously, it was hypothesized that 55 Cancri e might have a rocky core like the Earth's surrounded by a layer of super-heated water. That assumes, of course, that it's made of the same sort of rocky stuff as in our own solar system which is primarily oxygen-based.

Fig. 1 of Madhusudhan et al.

The plot above shows the radius versus mass of several extra-solar planets, including 55 Cancri e as the red and blue dots (these represent two different measurements). The different curves represent various models based on the composition of the planet, and a primarily carbon-based planet seems to make sense in this case. It helps that the host star appears to have more carbon than our own sun, and that a superheated water layer would be extremely volatile. More measurements, of course, will help determine the exact composition of the planet.

This is the first extra-solar planet that is thought to be made of diamond (unless you count that "diamond planet" I talked about last year), and if 55 Cancri e turns out to be carbon-based, it would revolutionize how we think of planet composition. We usually think of planets being composed of mostly the same stuff as in our own solar system, but there's no reason why some planetary systems couldn't be made up of slightly different stuff!

Summer dying

Well, fall is definitely upon us. I can no longer get away with wearing my flip-flops without freezing my tootsies off, I have had the requisite seasonal cold, and the leaves are starting to turn shades of crimson and gold. Fall is a beautiful time of year (and it does mean pulling out the woollens!), but I do miss summer already. I thrive in the heat and sunlight, what can I say?

And this summer has been a particularly good one for me in terms of improving myself and learning new skills. I learned to run, I lost almost 30 lbs, and in the craftier department, I learned how to hand-dye yarn! This was several months ago, but I thought it would be worth sharing the process with you all.

First, we soaked the roving...

We used Dharma Acid Dyes, which were what Joanna had on hand. They worked quite well, I thought, though one of them ended up being grainy when mixed with vinegar and water.

Of course, all the special squirt bottles had to be labelled, since they weren't going to be used for anything else (at the risk of poisoning someone). We put a little vinegar in the bottle and then a bit of the dye we were going to use.

And then I went to town! Next time I'd probably try to saturate the roving a bit more with dye, but I'm pretty happy with my colour choices.

The final result was amazing. Here it is getting a rinse:

And then hanging out to dry:

Joanna also came up with a pretty colour combination:

And remember that yarn I tried to dye with Kool-Aid over a year ago? Into the pot it goes!

It came out a lovely shade of emerald green that I much prefer to the robin's egg blue it was before:

We tried many more things, and this was the final haul of the day. So many colours!

And now some glamour shots:

Playing catch-up: a summer of knitting

I haven't really been a dedicated knitter this summer. Much of my knitting time during the school year is while on public transit or sitting through seminars. I've been riding an e-bike around since March, and so have only had to take transit a few times, and the seminars are much less plentiful during the summer. Still, I've managed to complete a few projects over the last few months while watching TV shows with the boyfriend, or during a much-needed break from coding or paper-writing. Here are five projects that I've neglected to write about over the summer.

Besides the wedding knitting from the previous post, I've mostly been working on small quick projects because I haven't had the attention span for much else. One of these, my Jayne Hat from the show Firefly, I actually finished in just one day in March. I used the Knitting Ninja Edition of this pattern by Allison MacAlister. The yarn is Cascade 220 held double, and I still have enough yarn to make another one, so that's totally happening. This is the first hat I've made that the boyfriend would actually be happy to wear, so I'll have one for each of us! How cute!

Next, these socks, which I actually finished in December, but never got around to blogging about. They're simple toe-up, short-row heel, knee-high socks with calf shaping, using the same basic pattern as for my Lightning Socks. The yarn is Knit Picks Felici in the colourway Botany (now unfortunately discontinued), which is quite lovely and soft.

After knitting those Mario Mushroom Mitts for Ellie, I figured I was capable of making some gloves without a pattern, and believe it or not, I succeeded! I used the leftover yarn from those mitts, and then, of course, ran out of yarn, so I had to finish the fingers on the second glove with something else... figures. Anyway, I didn't let it phase me too much, and I'm calling them my patchwork gloves.

For Christmas, Joanna had given me a couple of her knitting kits, and I finally got around to knitting one of them in February (ok, still not summer, but I hadn't gotten around to writing about that either). This was one of her cupcakes from the Cherry on Top pattern. It's actually a whole lot simpler than it looks, and the entire thing is knit in one piece, except for the cherry on top. It only took me a day to make. Mine is a chocolate cupcake with strawberry frosting!

Finally, another pair of socks that I really enjoyed knitting. I'm always interested in interesting sock construction, and when I saw the Carousel Socks by Louise Robert, I knew I had to make them. I also just happened to have the perfect yarn from my recent Etsy purchase! The colour changes in Green Progressions Dye's End worked perfectly with this pattern. I think if I were to do it again, however, I'd try to modify them with calf increases so I could have knee socks.

And now I've finally caught you up on all my finished projects! Next time, some adventures in dying (the good kind)!

Crafting for weddings

I've reached the age of weddings... I was invited to four weddings this summer, and at least a couple more are happening within my group of friends which I wasn't invited to (because they were in a different country or whatever). Well, I turned 26 this year, so I guess it's not totally unexpected. (Just don't ask me to get married...)

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you probably know that I've made it a tradition to knit potholders as wedding presents (see here, here, here, and here), but somehow I've managed not to knit a single one this summer. Instead, I've been focusing my crafty energy on more lacy and delicate endeavours. So far I've completed two crafty wedding gifts, with a third one on its way (but the wedding is this coming weekend, so it must remain a secret for now).

My first bit of wedding knitting was for a good friend who got married in England on July 1st (so this falls into the "weddings I didn't attend" category). She wanted to have something to cover her shoulders that wouldn't cover up her dress, and that was less likely to fall off than a shawl. The perfect garment? A lacy shrug! I sent her some pattern ideas, and she ended up going for I Do by Jody Prival.

She didn't want the bell sleeves, so I modified it to be the same width from beginning to finish, which actually made the knitting a lot easier. The colour had to match the groomsmen's ties, which were a dark purple plaid. We found the perfect colour of yarn: Cascade Yarns Ultra Pima in the Regal colourway. I didn't have much time to take pictures of the finished project, partially because I had to pull an all-nighter to finish knitting and blocking it before she had to get on a plane the next day. Fortunately, the blushing bride was able to take a few shots for me the morning before the wedding:

The next wedding craftiness came about when I was invited to the bride's bridal shower, and I hadn't bought a gift (I should have known better). As a compromise, I told her that I would make her wedding garter.

I used the Crochet Lace Wedding Garter pattern by Melisa Darnieder. I liked working it a lot, and I think it'll be my go-to pattern if I'm ever asked to make a garter again. The yarn was Patons Kroy 3-ply, which I found in my grandmother's stash, and which I'm fairly sure isn't sold any more.

I made the little crochet rose suggested in the pattern, and finished it off with a little Swarovski crystal in the centre to give it a little bling. Joanna was kind enough to let me raid her ribbon stash, and I found the perfect grippy transparent elastic and a nice wedding-y ribbon. This actually fell under the category of something old, new and blue because it was old yarn, a new thing, and a blue thing. (I could have asked her to give it back for it to be borrowed, but I figured that'd be a little much.)

As per tradition, the bride threw the garter for all the young men to catch, and the above fellow was the lucky winner. I didn't actually get any pictures of the bride wearing the garter, but here's a nice one of them during the ceremony...