Slaying the Dragon

I'm done I'm done I'm done.

Blocked yesterday. Here it is.



It's massive. It's huge. I wish I had used a smaller needle.


okay, I'm off to the bead store to find a bead for the eye.

Lyra Sister finished

I thought I'd do a semi-quickie Niebling. Funny, it only ends up being 30ish rows less than Lyra. But this turned out much smaller than I thought (at 65cm squared). I've really admired it since I saw it a while ago, mostly because I like squares a bit more than circles.

This is 418/23 from the Burda Lace Special. It's apparently also known as Hannelore (don't ask me why, I don't know...never saw this name to this pattern except on Ravelry). It was a little knit in that it took me a little over a week, but it wasn't as fun as I was hoping b'cause of the the ground stitches. Ends up this is the same background as Dragone and crossed stitches to boot(which I will show you later once I've got it blocked). So, while instead knitting the edging of Dragone, I knit this up.

Specs:

Started May 15 2008
Completed May 24 2008

thread used: Cebelia #20 in white (1.4 balls)

needle size: USo (2mm) dpn and circs

Modifications: none. Oh, wait, I'm fibbing. I did sort of have to mess with the final bind off a little. I'm not sure if I actually changed the grouping of the loops or not, but the way I did it worked out. (I did a 4-3-5-3-4, unless there was a leaf coming up, then it was 4-3-5-3-3 grouping. And at the corner, I did the 4-3-5-3-4--4 at the corner). heck, if you are knitting this ditty and are confused, email me and I'll draw it out.

I love how the flower is crossed stitches. So very Niebling.

Swirl Twirl

This was a easy knit (once I got over the simple math since I wanted to make a few changes).



2 is the number of balls of Jojoland Harmony yarn I purchased from Stitches West

3 is the size needles I used

21 is the number of days it took for me to make this

80 is the grams of Jojoland yarn used (1.4 balls)

65 is the number of spirals I made

67 is the number of pins I used to block this sucker

1920 is the number of stitches picked up

2760 is the number of stitches I cast on



130 is the number of ends I wove in.

But here it is....



whew. Worth it? I think so...

Happy Birthday, my sweet baby girl!

Why was I not at Maker Faire this weekend? Well, I have a birthday party this weekend for my wonderful little Creature A.

This year, we decided on cupcake cake and a party at the park. And we opted to supplement the store cake w/ home-made minicupcakes. I saw these on this site and had to try them. They are so cute!

Okay, ...I've made flourless chocolate cake from scratch, cookies, cream puffs, English toffee, tortes, tarts, cakes, etc...but I've never made cupcakes!

So, first attempt. Utter failure. I read that you're to fill the cup anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3 full. Yep, I opted for the 2/3 full. Oh, what a mess. (nothing to see here...please keep moving...)

Try II. Went to get more of the mini-nut holders and big box M store did not have any! Did find them finally and made these.

Note how I went the other way this time and filled everything only to half. And the white cake shrank! Ah, well. Trusty intarweb told me that I can add more frosting to compensate. Aha.

Here's what they look like after frosting.

We got a store cupcake cake (only served 14) and you guessed it, only the adults ate the itty bitty cakes. The kids all went for the big giant cupcakes. Anyway, the party was loads of fun, for everyone but you guessed it, little Miss Creature. She didn't feel good in the morning, and napped (very unlike her) in the morning. She was a bit clingy but we put it down to party stress...nope. As we were loading stuff up to go home, yep, there was erpage.

As for the nut holder cups? Went to MickyD's today and they had literally stacks of them...darn, I wish I had known, wouldn't have needed to traipse all over town looking for these suckers. Could have just used the Double Arches ketchup cups.

Okay, back to knitting.