Free Comic Book (Craft) Day

The first Saturday in May is Free Comic Book Day. I made sure to go out and celebrate with my fellow Bucks-based-nerds at Dead Universe Comics in Friar's Square (Facebook), then I came home and started planning for my fiancée's epic Heroes and Villains barbecue birthday party.

I'm something of a magpie for craft materials; I buy things when I see them and find a use for them later! Rummaging in my craft box, I came across some coloured twine I bought from The Works, and two 1.5m samples of Marvel wallpaper from B&Q. The project that presented itself was obvious: bunting.

The height of the flag is also 105mm

I started with working out how widely-spaced the holes on my hole-punch are. Then - aiming for five flags on each width - I settled on 105mm width and height, and laid it out. I didn't refer to where the design is in relation to the flags, because it would have been too much of a headache, and I wanted to reduce wastage. If you wanted to, you could obviously draw the triangles out on the front to get the ideal images.

I cut all the flags out, and punched holes in the top, then strung them along the twine and secured with tape on the back. My bunting is one-sided; to make it double-sided, cut the same number of flags again but don't put holes in. Then glue the un-punched triangles onto the back. The length of twine on the reel wasn't labeled, but I think I had 4.5-5m. With about 20cm left at each end and 6-7cm between flags I had 30 flags on my bunting. It's not an exact science, of course, I decided not to be over-accurate.

I think it took me an hour (about half of my Bob-Hoskins-tribute viewing of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) and looks better than I expected. Hurrah!

A footnote: The cross stitch in the picture is this kit, which we bought from Hobbycraft. It was The Girl's first embroidery but she's very good at the detail and - unlike me - always gets projects finished.

Pay-It-Forward 2013

In January this year, one status dominated my Facebook news feed:

2013 Pay-it-forward
The first five people to comment on this status will receive from me, sometime in the next year, something handmade. There will be no warning and it will happen whenever the mood strikes. The catch? Those five people must make the same offer in their FB status. Go. Create.

I can't resist pay-it-forward, and part of the fun of the challenge for me is in making something for people I don't know well or see often. My girlfriend is driven mad by the time I spend checking things out with her, trying to scope ideas, but I always know the answer when I find it!

I only managed to get photos of four of my five projects this year, but here they are, in no particular order:

Totoro

Pattern by Lucy Ravenscar, related blog post here.

Totoro, pattern (c) Lucy Ravenscar

 This little chap was a gift for my friend Franki, who is epic and adores the film. He keeps watch over her patch in Yorkshire; it's a long way from the forests of Japan but a loyal Totoro does what he must.

Fashionably pastel headband

Pattern from knitty.com, winter 2006.

Calorimetry, pattern (c) Kathryn Schoendorf

My cousin Milly has an epic fashion blog - Fashion Launderette - and awesome pastel-coloured hair (lilac in this pic, but it changes). She loves anything that looks like 'unicorn puke' and this yarn from Ramshambles in York fit the bill perfectly. What I love about this pattern is how easy it makes it to have great hair in winter, without worrying about what a hat might do to it.

Crazy Cat Lady

Pattern from AManicMonday's etsy store.

pattern (c) AManicMonday

A present for Diana, and Tino the Cat. The biggest difficulty with this instant-gratification project was finding the right frame. Cargo came through for me in the end, and I'm really chuffed with how it looks.

Pink mitts 

Pattern from knitty.com, summer 2006.

Fetching, pattern (c) Cheryl Niamath

These are for a school friend who is living in the north of Scotland with a young baby. I love fingerless mitts, and thought they would be perfect for springtime walks with a pram. They are made from a very soft, warm pink yarn (which I remember being a DK-weight merino bought from I Knit London) that I had been waiting for the perfect project to use.

Fluffy grey scarf

I don't have pic of this, but it was a really easy crochet; it took me about an hour and a half using a single hank of fur-trimmed ruffle scarf yarn and a 6mm crochet hook. The scarf was about 1.5m long and really, really warm. Annoyingly in my haste to post it, I forgot to take a photo or make a note of the details from the ball band! I think the yarn was by SMC.

Have Yourself a Nerdy Crafty Christmas

Finally, I can show you the fun things I've been working on lately!

I obviously don't want to blog about my girlfriend's presents, but I was really keen to share with you her two dice bags.

Zombie Eyeball

This disembodied eyeball is functional and good-looking. With all the vitreous gel wrung out of it, it perfectly holds Zombie Dice with room to really get your hand in and have a rummage. Even better, it can be tied off with the use of the handy, loose blood vessels.

Cthulhu

For many cultists, bas-relief clay just isn't enough any more. To really drive them crazy, this craven image in wool can also be used to store everything you need to drive your rivals mad.

Hooked on crochet

I've been a knitter for my adult craft-life. I define myself as such and seek out likeminded yarnies (what can I say? - tribalism suits me). I have attempted to crochet before, but never got far beyond basics and got bored.

Recently my yarnie-side has been horrified to discover that not only is crochet easier than I thought, it's actually really fun. I needed a project to take on a plane with me, and my hit-rate at getting knitting onto airlines is pretty hit-and-miss at the best of times. I was flying into the US and generally didn't like the idea of trying to explain to the TSA that they didn't need to confiscate my hard work and lovely needles, because Denise interchangeable needles are certified airline safe. So, grudgingly, I thought I'd give crochet one last chance.

One conference and two sets of bunting later ("My First Bunting" and "Big Gay Bunting"), it turns out I really love the instant-gratification feel of small crochet projects. They seem to work up faster than their knitted equivalents and use less yarn.

Grey Totoro Amigurumi
pattern (c) Lucy Ravenscar

Naturally, I progressed to amigurumi, which has been the one craft area where I have never felt knitting really cuts it. My Neighbour Totoro worked up with a lovely, dense fabric, really easy to stuff.

In my charity knitting endeavours, I have been teaching people to do yarncrafts as part of a social group. The vast majority find crochet much easier than knitting. We've made Attic24's striped wristwarmers and Crochet in Color's mitts to get people used to various stitches and the difference between working in the round and on the flat, as well as teaching about gauge and making the existing pattern man-hand-sized. Not bad for the first month at a new craft!

pattern (c) Crochet in Color

The joy of having both crafts in my arsenal of yarny goodness is that I can pick and choose. Some projects just look better in one than the other. Amigurumi is a great technique for a sturdy cuddly toy, but I prefer the knit look for clothes. If I've learned one thing from my great crochet binge, it's that flexibility is a good thing. Binarism is so passé, let's transgress some yarncraft boundaries!

Nodavus!

(That's what a knitting spell would look like if I wrote Harry Potter.)

Of course, even Molly Weasley doesn't have a knitting spell. That would take all the fun and the little imperfections out of handmade goodies.

I've been crap at finishing Kirsty's Weasley Sweater but there's nothing like a broken leg to get the knitting juices going. So here's the finished object!

I charted the K myself, you're welcome to use it for your own Weasley Sweater or K-project.

A note on the intarsia: I started off knitting 3 and then wrapping the yarn each time, but because the leg of the K is long and straight that meant that the wraps started to pull on the front and were visible. So I started wrapping at any point between two and five stitches of the contrasting colour and it sat much better.

I've also finished another sweater for Joshua, this time in Opal sock yarn. It was lovely to work with, but took a little longer than I expected. He hasn't quite grown out of it yet, thankfully.

This is his "no, really, I love it" face.

Originally posted on RowleyPolyBird

The Safest of All Occupations

I was browsing the wonderful xkcd on 'random' today and I came across this:

I thought I'd double check and, as expected, the number of results for blogging accidents is now 17,100 but I have done diligent research and can confirm that this is because bloggers love xkcd and can't help referencing it at every opportunity. This is a relief, because I don't think I can be bothered to work out the %age increase represented by 17,098. It's a lot.*

Just to reassure myself further I ran a quick check on "died in a theology accident":

That's a relief!

So this confirms my plan for the rest of the evening:

1. Finish this blog post,
2. Continue researching the theology of John's Gospel,
3. Knit myself a hat,
4. Sleep

Sleep, I admit, is the most perilous of these tasks but on a quick, informal risk-benefit analysis the chances of me having some kind of Hulk episode tomorrow if I don't sleep are higher than the chances of me dying in my sleep tonight. I'm knocking on wood as I type this, of course, just in case...

*I know it would be easy to do the maths but I'm leaving it to the first smart-arse who decides to comment on this. Because, basically, I don't like maths. 

Originally posted on RowleyPolyBird