Knitting Books

by Kelly


Books! One that I purchased at near cover price (gasp) and 2 others from a library sale.

Yes, I'm getting overconfident again. I'm dreaming of a lovely, warm, knit sweater that won't break the budget because I made it myself.

But I do know my limitations, and I can see at a glance that Viking Patterns for Knitting and The Celtic Collection are out of my league. Ah, but look at the eye candy inside:

The Celtic Collection

The Celtic Collection

Viking Patterns for Knitting

Viking Patterns for Knitting

Meanwhile, the Debbie Bliss book has patterns that are still beautiful, and might actually be attainable one day:

Celtic Knits

Celtic Knits

I love, love that dark blue sweater above. And once I get past the basics of sweater construction, that's the first one I'll tackle.

Meanwhile, it's time to go to the closet and break out the simple sweater project that has been reproachfully falling on my head lately, and calculate what I will have to do to make the gauge. (*sigh*) Where did I put that calculator?

Chicken Scratch Skull and Crossbones for Talk Like a Pirate Day

by Kelly


Arrr...so, me mateys, today be Talk Like a Pirate Day. Landlubber that I be, this one would have slipped right by, but I be married to a pirate, you see...and we have the cutlass to prove it.

via Wikipedia

No, not THAT kind of cutlass! THIS kind of cutlass...

But this be a crafty blog, and the prize we seek is always handmade. So behold, all you scurvy dogs...and cats, if there are any...a bit of craftiness for this special day :

A Chicken Scratch skull and crossbones? Aye, that's right! It was either that or sing the 'yo ho, yo ho' song again...or show you a few things I learned from The Captain (*picks up cutlass*).

Aye...that's what I thought! You're welcome.

Local Wildlife

by Kelly

I thought I'd post some pictures of the local wildlife, since it's fall, after all, and some of them will be leaving for the winter.

I've been putting out peanuts on the back patio for a few weeks now, and I have attracted a whole gang of these guys:

Tufted Titmouse

I was originally hoping to lure in a few of the thousand and one squirrels that live around here, but they're too busy to be bothered. But that's okay, I got a photo anyway.

I also cleaned and filled a hummmingbird feeder this morning and look who came by for an afternoon snack.

Ruby-throated hummingbird?

This feeder has been out of order all summer, so I didn't expect any results at all, let alone such a quick response. I queried the mighty Google and am guessing that this is a Ruby Throated female, but I am far from a hummingbird expert.

Oh, and here's one more native creature, that I caught on the fly:

That's an Assisi work deer that I made. And how did I do multi-color Assisi embroidery? I'm afraid that's a trade secret :)

I got the inspiration for this from my FIL, who saw a white deer in our shared backyard a few years ago. I wanted to make an embroidered deer running against an autumn background, but I couldn't find any patterns that I liked. So rather than design my own, which was way too much trouble, I decided to try Assisi embroidery, because that's just one color of floss used to outline an image. Of course, then I got bored with working just one color and anyway the deep autumn red that I chose really started to bug me, since I thought it was too purple, so I came up with a new technique instead.

The funny thing is, my FIL is a hunter, so naturally when he told me about the deer I asked if he was going to get out his bow and try for it. He looked at me as if I were crazy, and said, "You don't kill a white deer."

Oh.

So you'd think that, over time, if everyone felt this way, the white deer would become extremely common, since they were the only ones who had a truce with the hunters. Strangely, they're still really rare. Must be some genetic thing.

This particular white deer is listed in our shop. It's going to be really rare too, because I don't think I'll take all that trouble again. Next time, I'll just get out the graph paper.