web-goddess

Category: Crafts

Craft projects of mine

MetaQuilter

Last year I decided to try something different so I signed up for a quilting club with some of the fine folks from MeFi. It’s called MetaQuilter, and I’m in the “adventurous” group. Each month a different member (the “designer”) sends out fabric and instructions for making blocks. The rest of us all sew the blocks and then send them back to the designer. I’ve just finished February’s blocks so I thought I’d show off what I’ve done so far:

The first four were for January. The block pattern is called Nonesuch. They were trickier than they look. One of the group members figured out a paper piecing technique that made things a lot simpler. Apparently the finished quilt is going to look something like this. So it’ll be a traditional pattern in some distinctly modern colours!

The other two blocks are called New York Beauty, and they were definitely a challenge. The pointy bits in the arcs were done with proper paper piecing, and at first it broke my brain. I watched YouTube videos; I read tutorials; and I still did everything wrong. My seam ripper definitely saw some use. But then after setting it aside for a few days – it totally clicked! I figured it out. I even made the second one a bit more complicated just for fun. Sewing the curved bits together was stressful but I didn’t do too badly. I can’t wait to see what this finished quilt looks like…

February 28, 2012
PIGEON

PIGEON – A cute knitted pigeon. I was going to leave it at that, but – $64?!!! Knitted out of baby alpaca in Bolivia by a self-managed community of indigenous women?!!! This is Portlandia in real life.

February 28, 2012
Photo post

Achievement unlocked! Paper piecing AND curved seams. I am victorious!

February 27, 2012
QuiltCon

QuiltCon – Hey Mom – You should go to this. It looks neat!

February 23, 2012
Photo post

These damn socks just aren’t growing. #neverending #knitting

February 22, 2012
Plush Tobias Fünke

Plush Tobias Fünke – LOVE IT.

February 22, 2012
“Quiltsurround” by Greely Myatt – Jenean Morrison Blog

“Quiltsurround” by Greely Myatt – Jenean Morrison Blog – Very cool art installation in Memphis involving “quilts” made out of recycled street signs.

February 11, 2012
The TENTH Annual Web-Goddess Oscar Contest

My annual Oscar Contest is now open! If you pick the most correct answers, you’ll win the big prize: The Monkey with the Dragon Tattoo. Yes, I made Lisbeth Salander Monkey. She has piercings; she has a Macbook; she has a golf club; and she has the titular tattoo. I think this is the most work I’ve ever put into a single monkey! (She’s also the first one that’s probably Not Safe for Work, given the slogan on her T-shirt.) And remember, in the event of a tie, the person that entered earlier wins. So don’t wait too long!

Here’s Lisbeth Monkey in profile. Check out that fringe.

Front view. As you can see, she has an eyebrow piercing, a nose piercing, and a lip piercing. She’s also got black spiral earrings and a necklace chain with a razor blade on it. (Special thanks to the Snook, who crafted the razor out of plastic and spray painted it.)

She wears combat boots, of course.

She wears a hoodie over a ripped-up T-shirt. Oh look! She’s hacking on her Macbook.

I wouldn’t piss her off if I were you. Chick has a golf club and she knows how to use it.

If you pull down her T-shirt in the back, you can see her dragon tattoo. (FREEHAND, BABY!)

I told you it was Not Safe for Work.

February 5, 2012
Christmas Craftiness 2011

Christmas Craftiness 2011
I just realised that I’ve made a lot of stuff this month that didn’t actually get documented on the blog yet. For posterity’s sake…

Felt Tree Ornaments
As in previous years, a group of my knitting friends met up for a “Christmas Tea Party” earlier in the month. We always do a handmade ornament exchange. Rather than knit something, I saw some felt tree ornaments online and decided to sew instead. I made a template out of some cardstock and cut out the front and back of several trees. Then I hand-sewed on a selection of buttons to each front. (I’ve got a box of odd buttons.) Then I sewed the pieces together, sandwiching a piece of ribbon at the top for the hanger and leaving the bottom open. I stuffed each tree lightly with polyfill, then sewed the opening closed. I then trimmed the edges with pinking shears and did some decorative stitching with red yarn. They turned out pretty cute! I was very happy to see them go home with Kylie, who has hung them on her mantle. (In a stunning non-coincidence, I got Kylie’s project: a truly amazing knitted Christmas tree!)

Nuts & Bolts and Compost Cookies
Next up was the December meeting of the Inner City brand of the Knitters Guild, and I was on duty for morning tea. I decided to go with a sweet/salty theme and made “Nuts & Bolts” and Compost Cookies. Nuts & Bolts is basically the Australian equivalent of Chex Mix. (Recipe here.) You mix up cereal and nuts with a packet of soup mix and some spices and then bake it in the oven to get crispy. I also add pretzels to mine. This stuff is addictive! The Compost Cookies were famously created at the Momofuku Milk Bar in New York. (Recipe here.) The idea is that you throw all kinds of sweet and salty things in there: potato chips, coffee grinds, candy, whatever. I used dark choc chips, meringue pieces, Tim Tams, Sesame Snaps, pretzels, and sea salt crisps. They were pretty good! Even though I chilled them overnight, they still spread quite a bit in the oven. (Always happens. I still haven’t gotten the hang of the new oven yet, clearly.) Both dishes were a big hit at the meeting.

Caramel Walnut Upside-Down Banana Cake
We got some ladyfinger bananas in one of our FoodConnect boxes, so I decided to turn them into a cake. I’d made this Smitten Kitchen recipe before and the Snook really liked it. I actually divided the batter in two and made two smaller cakes this time: one for us and one to take to work. I still haven’t worked out the trick to getting flipping the cakes and getting the caramel out nicely, but the taste outweighs the messiness of the topping. Everybody at work loved it, and the cake I took in disappeared in about 5 minutes!

Candied Gingerbread Men
I had a wild idea to make gingerbread men for our last day of work before the Christmas break. Of course, the only cookie cutter I own is the state of Michigan (don’t ask), so I had to go on a search for a proper one. Then I had to decide on a recipe. I went with Serious Eats’s Candied Gingerbread Men. It uses crystallized ginger, which I know the Snook likes a lot. He actually did most of the prep for the dough since he was on vacation this week. I cut them out and baked them late Wednesday night. I didn’t have any time to decorate them, but they were still tasty. The shapes were amusingly non-standard, mostly because I suck at rolling out dough and cutting consistent shapes. It was good fun though, and it made the whole house smell like Christmas!

December 24, 2011
Nanner and Boyfriend Socks

Here are my final two pairs of socks for the 2011 “Super Special Six Pattern Sock Club”! First up are the Nanner Socks from wendy knits. These were knitted at the same time on a pair of 2.75mm circular needles. The wool is Knitabulous Yarn Ultimate Sock in “Sorbet”. If my socks look weird to you compared to the pattern photo, it’s because I knitted them incorrectly. I only discovered it when my friends at Sewjourn noticed the difference. It turns out that I had followed the charts exactly… and missed the bit of text that explained how you were to insert a row of plain knitting every other row. Oops. So my lace scallop repeats are only half as high as they should be. My only planned modification was to gradually add in an extra repeat on the leg portion, just to give a bit more room in the cuff. That worked out pretty well! My complaint about these socks is that they bias and twist really badly. I’m not sure whether that’s due to the pattern or due to my error in knitting them. More photos are available over on Ravelry.

These are the Boyfriend Socks from slippedstitch, which I only finished last night. They were knitted toe-up one-at-a-time on a pair of 2.75mm circular needles. The wool is Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett. The photos aren’t very colour-accurate; the green is a lot stronger in person. (This is probably my least favourite of the Kaffe Fassett colourways.) The pattern is interesting. From the photos I thought that the cables actually travelled, but they don’t. Instead when the pattern repeat ends, some knits become purls and vice versa. It’s weird at first, but you get used to it. I eventually had it memorised. I used Judy’s Magic Cast-On for the toe and knitted the heel as written in the pattern. I knitted 3.5 repeats of the cables, then did a couple P2tog so that it turned nicely into K2P2 ribbing. Then I just ribbed til I ran out of wool. They fit the Snook nicely. Again, more photos over on Ravelry.

And that’s it! Six pairs of socks done for 2011. I didn’t do any substitutions; I knitted all the socks as set out a year ago: Shur-tugal, Nutkin, Leyburn, Fox Faces, Nanners, and Boyfriend. I also used up quite a bit of sock yarn from stash, which is always welcome. Yay!

December 12, 2011