Narcissity

I have long hair, and I’ve decided to grow my bangs out. They just haven’t looked as good as I’d like for a few months. About the only way to grow one’s bangs out at all gracefully is to wear hairbands, but I have a problem.

I have a fat head.

On top of that, my head is really pressure sensitive. Oh, it’s not changing weather that gives me a headache, it’s anything squeezing my head that does it. It’s instant - I can feel the headache coming on within a minute of putting on too small sunglasses, which is all of them. I can’t use headphones that are connected to a band, only the ones that clip over your ears individually. (Earbuds are excruciating to me, too, so they’re no help.)

So buying hairbands is hard for me. Most of them are too small, which means they squeeze me into an instant headache. Sometimes I can stretch them out enough that they work for a while, but doing so inevitably pops some of the stitches, and they don’t last long after that.

Clearly, the solution is to make my own. Clearly I have to make them using my most recently acquired crafting skills, in this case, knitting. Clearly I can’t follow someone else’s pattern, because then it wouldn’t be all about me, and I would seem less cool as I told you all about how I did it.

Tell me, do I seem narcissistic, or am I really that good? ;)

Design Notes: The sizing for Narcissity is determined by actual length, rather than by stitch gauge. (You’ll need to keep a ruler or measuring tape handy.) It can be made in any yarn with needles appropriate to the yarn, however, the thickness of the yarn will determine the width of the band. Sock yarn will produce a very narrow band. A thick-and-thin yarn will give you an uneven band. A band made from bulky yarn will serve as an ear warmer, too.

A yarn with some elasticity will fit and stay on your head better than 100% cotton, linen, or silk.

You should be able to get at least two Narcissity hairbands, possibly more, from one average sized ball or skein of most yarns.

The main decoration in Narcissity is a simple 2x2 cable, so you’ll need a cable needle, as well. This is a good project for your first attempt at cabling since the cable is so simple, and the project is small enough to not be heartbreaking if it doesn’t come out well the first time.

NB: I don’t care for the purl bump that the standard knit-front-and-back gives, especially in a project this small where every detail makes a difference. I have discovered that knitting the back loop first, then the front loop, gives me a smooth front surface, with the increase looking more like natural growth than cut-and-paste. The notation I have used for this increase is kbf.

Terms and Stitches Used:
co = cast on
RS = right side (front of fabric)
WS = wrong side (back of fabric)
stockinette = fabric that shows only knit stitches on the right side of the fabric. When working back and forth on flat fabric, this means that you will alternate rows of knit and purl stitches.
k = knit
p = purl
kbf = knit back and front (see NB above)
p2tog = purl two together

If you don’t know how to perform any of the stitches, just do a search for them on Google or another search engine. There are lots of good tutorials for knitting on the web. Searching for “knit front and back” should help you understand my “knit back and front.”

Measurements are given in inches. To convert to metric, remember that one inch is approximately equal to 2.5 centimetres.


INSTRUCTIONS:

FIRST TIE

Co 4.
Work in stockinette for 6”, finishing with wrong side (WS) row.

INCREASE SECTION

Row 1:(RS) k1, kbf twice, k1 (six stitches)
Row 2:(WS) purl across.
Row 3: k2, p2, k2
Row 4: p2, k2, p2
Row 5: k1, kbf, p2, kbf, k1 (eight stitches)
Row 6: p2, k1, p2, k1, p2
Row 7: k2, p1, k2, p1, k2
Row 8: repeat row 6
Row 9: k1, kbf, p1, k2, p1, kbf, k1 (ten stitches)
Row 10: p2, k2, p2, k2, p2
Row 11: k2, p2, k2, p2, k2
Row 12: repeat row 10
Row 13: k2, p2, kbf twice, p2, k2 (twelve stitches)
Row 14: p2, k2, p4, k2, p2

MAIN (CABLE) SECTION

Measure the length of your Increase Section. Subtract this length from 20 inches. Work Rows 15 through 18 until your Increase and Main Sections combined measure this amount, or as close as you can get, finishing with Row 17.



Row 15: k2, p2, slip next two stitches from left needle onto cable needle, and bring to front of work. K next 2 stitches on left needle. Return stitches from cable needle to left needle, and knit them. P2, k2.

Row 16: p2, k2, p4, k2, p2
Row 17: k2, p2, k4, p2, k2
Row 18: repeat row 16


DECREASE

Row 19: p2, k2, p2tog twice, k2, p2 (ten stitches)
Row 20: k2, p2, k2, p2, k2
Row 21: p2, k2, p2, k2, p2
Row 22: k3, p1, k2, p1, k3
Row 23: p1, p2tog, k1, p2, k1, p2tog, p1 (eight stitches)
Row 24: k2, p1, k2, p1, k2
Row 25: p2, k1, p2, k1, p2
Row 26: k3, p2, k3
Row 27: p1, p2tog, k2, p2tog, p1 (six stitches)
Row 28: k2, p2, k2
Row 29: purl across
Row 30: knit across
Row 31: p1, p2tog twice, p1 (four stitches)


LAST TIE

Work in stockinette for 6”. Bind off. Block as needed, but leave the ties alone to curl.

Thanks go to Rogue at Rogue Knits for testing my first ever knit pattern. You rock, Girlfriend!

If at first...

Okay, so I didn't meet my 2010 goal of one post-of-substance per month. Oh, well. As my husband says, "If at first you don't succeed, keep on suckin' 'til you do suck see-" uh, er, maybe I should paraphrase that: just keep trying.

So, yeah, what I said back here? Ditto for 2011.

Wish me luck. :)

Ta-daaa!

Mixed Berries and Raspberry Truffle.

No, I Didn't Die.

I *dyed* two 96 yard hanks of cotton yarn (good ol' Cream n Sugar) today, with my friend Andrea's help. They're closed up in plastic bags, sitting on folded paper bags to absorb the excess dyes and keep them from running all over and turning the yarn muddy looking. Tomorrow afternoon, they'll get rinsed (and rinsed, and rinsed some more) then put in the dryer. I can't wait to see how they turn out. Don't worry, there will be pictures. :)

Make Your Mark

(Dateline: April 98th, 2010 ;) )

My dad and I recently learned about letterboxing. It's an informal treasure-hunt sort of game, similar to geocaching, that began with a gentleman's calling card left tucked into a bottle near a remote English pond in 1854. In the modern version of letterboxing, one follows clues left on a website to find a secret stash containing a rubber stamp and a logbook. The adventurer brings their own signature stamp and logbook along, stamps an image from their signature stamp into the letterbox's book, and takes an image of the letterbox's stamp away in their own logbook.

While there's no rule against using a store-bought stamp, either for your signature or for the letterbox, it's so much more personal to create your own design. Indeed, the vast majority of letterboxers use stamps of their own design. They may have the stamps custom made by a stationery company, or carve them themselves from rubber erasers. Being somewhat uncertain of my ablility to carve a rubber eraser, and displeased with the small size of the erasers I found, I went looking for an alternative material. I found it in craft foam sheets.

You will need:

One sheet of adhesive-backed craft foam
One sheet of 6 mm thick craft foam
A craft knife
A cutting surface
A stamp pad with a raised surface, or a watercolor pen
Your stamp design


Your design can be quite detailed, but you should probably try not to get too fancy with your first attempt. You can hand draw your design or use a graphics program to create one. Consider the size of your image carefully. It should be small enough to fit on a small logbook page, but large enough to be easy to cut out of the foam. I chose a daffodil design that I use elsewhere as well, and my dad created a simple radio tower design, alluding to his ham radio hobby. We decided that three inches in the largest dimension of our designs would likely fit well in most logbooks.

As you work with the adhesive-backed foam sheet, be careful not to press your fingernails into the foam. It will take impressions from your nails rather easily, and your stamped design may have small crescent-shaped voids as a result.

I found that carbon paper refused to transfer to the foam, so I cut the designs out of their paper print-outs with the craft knife, then used them as stencils to apply the design to the foam. My daffodil design was already created in a stencil-like negative image, with the pieces of the flower cut from the background. With the finished stamp, the background would be printed, while the flower remained the white of the paper. My dad's radio tower, however, was a positive image with crossbars that needed careful handling in cutting the transfer stencil. I left thin bands of paper between the crossbars and the uprights on the paper stencil, to hold the design together. I would later cut through these lines when cutting the design from the foam sheet.

Place the stencil on top of the adhesive-backed foam and ink through the stencil with the stamp pad. (If your design has letters or any other element that requires a certain direction, make sure to put your stencil down backwards.) I had a little trouble getting all the smaller parts of the pattern inked, and by the time I did, there was a good bit of ink bleeding through the paper onto the foam. I think a smaller, dauber-type ink pad or a water color pen would have worked better, but I didn't have either of those, and I was able to see the design clearly enough on the foam to cut the design out.

With your craft knife, cut the design out of the foam. There are a couple things to which to pay attention as you cut. The first is that you don't undercut the edge of the stamp. It's best to angle the blade of your craft knife away from the piece at the point of the blade, so as to ensure adequate support to the edge of the foam. The other is that you either start at one side of the pattern and work across, or start at the center and work your way out. This is so that the piece you're cutting always has as much support from the surrounding foam as possible. On my daffodil, if I had cut all the petals first, then cut the trumpet out, I would likely have broken through the lines as the lack of support allowed the foam to stretch and flex.

If your image has several separate pieces, and their exact placement on the stamp is important, don't just cut the pieces out willy-nilly. With my dad's radio tower, I chose to cut the tower out first, as the anchor of the design. I stripped the paper backing off of the adhesive back of the tower, and placed it on the 6 mm thick foam sheet. Then, one by one, I cut a lightning bolt, but did not remove it from the surrounding foam. Instead, I removed the paper backing from just the lightning bolt, fitted the surrounding foam around the tower on the 6 mm thick foam sheet, pressed the lightning bolt down, then removed the surrounding foam from the now-adhered bolt.

Once you have all the pieces of your design adhered to the 6 mm thick foam backing, cut the stamp from the rest of the sheet. Cut off any excess backing that isn't supporting the image. Doing this will help prevent accidental stamping of the edges of the backing. Ink your stamp and make a test imprint on a piece of paper. If you use watercolor pens, you can color different parts of the stamp different colors for a multicolor image.

Congratulations! You've made your very own personalized stamp. Now, go gently clean it with water and an old soft toothbrush. The ink will never completely dry on the foam, so cleaning it off will reduce accidental stamping on your clothes and furniture, as well as prevent a buildup of residue that can reduce the quality of your impressions.

Not only are craft foam stamps easy and fun to make, they are incredibly cheap! Having a 3" x 3" custom stamp made professionally costs about $25. Both the self adhesive foam and the 6 mm thick foam were a mere 99 cents per sheet. I made two stamps, and have enough foam left over for at least another four stamps of the same size. This means that each stamp used about 30 cents worth of foam. That's what I call thrifty!

Happy stamping!



For more information on letterboxing, visit the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterboxing .

Summertime Tea-ser

Happy Independence Day, America!

One of my favorite treats for summertime (and 4th of July barbeques, naturally) is suntea. The gentle warmth of the sunlight coaxes the flavor from even the cheapest Lipton's knock-off, without drawing out the bitter taste that boiling water stews from the leaves. Plus, there's something so relaxing about setting the jar of cool water and tea bags out, finding just the right sunny spot, then going about my business for an hour or two. With hot-brewed iced tea, I always worry that the container is going to either melt or break when I'm pouring hot tea over the ice, and it takes so long to cool to drinking temperature. Somehow, I associate the act of boiling the water for the tea with being in a hurry, and then the hurry is frustrated by the cooling time. Suntea never gets hot enough to threaten the pitcher or jar, and will often cool enough for drinking just in from the sun by pouring it over ice in your glass.

So, why am I talking about sun tea in a craft blog? Well, food can certainly be craft or art, completely aside from decorating or garnishing. Any foodie will tell you that. It's how the food tastes that really makes it art. Sculpting mashed potatoes into a bust of Beethoven would certainly be impressive, but if the potatoes taste like paste when they're served up, the dish is really a "bust."

While simple black tea makes a perfectly satisfying iced drink, I like to enhance the flavor by including a few bags of a flavored tea blend in the jar. Most often I choose Earl Grey, which is my favorite flavor of tea for drinking hot in cooler weather, but sometimes I fancy mint instead. (I also sun brew mint alone from time to time. Mint and black tea together are a wonderful hot drink, as well.) There are both peach and pear flavored herbal teas that are lovely added to a black suntea. If you like the flavors of flowers (some don't), try adding rose petals, lavender buds, or jasmine flowers. Just make certain the flowers are food grade, or from a garden that doesn't use chemical pesticides. Muslin bags for loose teas are available at most whole foods stores with the bulk teas, so you don't have to strain your tea to remove the flowers. If your black tea is loose as well, you can use a muslin spice bag, which is made to hold herbs and spices for flavoring a clear stock. The flowers or loose flavored tea and the black tea can go in the same bag.

My basic "recipe" for suntea is this:

1 gallon of drinking water (some folks get good water from the kitchen tap, some don't.)
8-10 bags of black tea (or 8-10 teaspoons of loose black tea in a muslin spice bag)
2-4 bags of flavored tea (or 2-4 teaspoons of loose flavored tea in a muslin bag)

Your jar or pitcher can be glass or plastic, and should be clear or translucent. A decorative print on the container is fine, as long as it still lets the sunlight through.

Fill the container up with the drinking water, and add the bag(s) of tea. If the cover for the container is screw-on (like a jar lid), try draping any strings from the bags over the edge of the container opening, making sure that the bags can still hang down into the water deep enough to submerge them. You should still be able to screw the lid on, and this will keep you from having to fish the sodden bags (and paper tags!) from the bottom of the container later.

Find a spot outside (or in a window sill) that will receive bright sunlight for at least a couple hours, and set your container there. Find something else to do for those couple hours until the tea is nicely colored. Remove the teabags and serve over ice.

I don't sweeten my tea in the jar anymore because I want others to be able to drink the tea with the sweetener of their choice, or with no sweetener at all if they prefer. Most manufactured stevia-based or artificial sweeteners dissolve pretty readily in a cold drink with just a couple stirs. Good old-fashioned sugar, on the other hand, likes to settle in a gritty, too-sweet pile on the bottom of the glass.

If natural sweetness is your preference, make a simple syrup. Combine a cup of granulated sugar and a cup of water in a pot over medium-high heat. Bring it to a boil, turn the heat down to just over a simmer, and stir for a minute until the sugar all dissolves. Take the syrup off the heat and let it cool to room temperature. You can either stir this directly into your jar of tea to sweeten the whole gallon, or keep it in a syrup pitcher for folks to sweeten their own glasses of tea.

Ahhhh. Tea. :)

In the Temple of the Marshmallow Kings

Oh, I am a mad, mad craftwoman! Finding myself unable to procure the flower-shaped cake decorating sprinkles that I had so foolishly declined to purchase just the previous day, I turned to other methods of decorating an Easter cake. Powerful methods. Terrible methods.

Sugar-coated marshmallow methods.




Behold, the Temple of the Marshmallow Kings:



MuwAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAcoughcough, ahem....



Marshmallow priests encircle their two-faced god, while worshippers bring more offerings of jelly-bird gems.



Those who pass within the temple walls find respite in the pastel splendor of the cakey sanctuary.



The cake itself was made using the method (but not the recipe) found at Omnomicom.