Linear Yarnblob is Out of Line

The shortest distance between two points is rarely a yarnblob. (You'll notice I'm not exactly toeing the line...)

Barbarian Dice Bag II

Quick! Make your spot/perception check!

A friend of mine recently saw my first "barbarian" dice bag and liked it.  I didn't have enough of the specific yarn to duplicate it, so I was inspired to design another.  I incorporated an asymmetrical slash of color and left the strings long so it would look rough-hewn:

This was made with Lion Brand Homespun in Sierra and Deco, using US9 (5.5mm) DPNs. The tie strings were made with Lionbrand Suede in Desert using a random crochet hook.

Anemone Yarnblob

It's springtime so the anemone Yarnblob spreads its tentacles to attract a mate.

FO: Sparkle Holiday Hat

My middle kid wanted a hat for a Christmas party, so he went into my yarn stash and found my only skein of multi-colored Christmas sparkly yarn. The Christmas party got cancelled, so now it's a Holiday hat that will probably be worn for New Year's:

 

 

Knit in Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn Sparkle Art. 100, color #738 Christmas Sparkle, using US 7 needles and Melissa Leapman's Simple Hat pattern (Cables Untangled, p. 33). The yarn made a surprisingly heavy and warm hat. The pattern didn't call for a pompom, but it looked naked without one.

Entrelac and the Benefits of a Messy Craft Room

This is my first ever attempt at entrelac:

Thankfully, it looks exactly like it's supposed to (go, me!).

I am using Gwen Bortner's book Entree to Entrelac (2010), in which she explains the whole thing pretty well and makes great use of charts and images to help the beginner along.

There are a couple of things I haven't seen mentioned in the book, that I think should be pretty close to Page 1. First, it would be helpful to know up front that the bits that appear to be on the same row are not knitted together like they would be in, say, intarsia.  Second, each bit ends near where the next bit begins, so there aren't any floats like there would be for fair isle.  Both if these things started as questions I couldn't work out until I'd done this first square. Other than that, I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn entrelac.

And just what, you might ask, does a messy craft room have to do with any of that?  I'll tell you.  I was sitting in my chair flipping through the book and wanted to give it a go, but I didn't really want to go hunting through my yarn stash for scrap yarn.  Conveniently, I had the remnants of another project messily stuffed into a basket near my chair, so I used that.  Very convenient.  After all, who knows what other projects-in-waiting might have grabbed my attention if I'd gone through my yarn stash?  I can't be the only one who gets distracted by other potential projects or all the pretty colors when hunting for yarn.

Circular Sculpture: "Needles at Rest"

I was between sections of the sweater dress I'm knitting and thought I'd coil up the circular needles I was using and clip them together with a small holder. While my plan did not work quite as expected, the result reminded me of a sculpture. I call it "Needles at Rest":

Samhain Yarnblob

Samhain Yarnblob: a tiny colorful ghost flying towards unsuspecting victims (note the mouth near the bottom of the photo)...

I'm a little late posting this, but I was frightened...