The Giraffe and The Tardigrades

A couple of friends are getting married on Wednesday, and their invitation states that we're supposed to bring our 'own picnic and giraffe'. Where the hell am I supposed to get a giraffe from? It's not like you can walk into the Sainsbury's and get them on offer! Plus I don't have the space or money to take care of one! It's all fine and dandy to make a witty comment like 'bring a giraffe' but sometimes, some people take things way too literally! GAHHAGAH!

So I made one. A little green one. One that doesn't require any feeding because it has no mouth.


I'm still pretty tardigrade-obsessed so I've been making more tardis as well.


The new tardis were introduced to the new giraffe this morning, and they all seem to be getting along fine. I now have a herd of tardis and a very confused giraffe all lounging about on my windowsill. It's a nice place to be.

Ego Boost

Alright, I'm supposed to be doing some research for my other blog right now. You know, that one that actually helps to pay some of my bills? But of course, I'm procrastinating as usual. It's not all that exciting to be reading about carry-on luggage restrictions.

So I took a little break and googled myself. Well, not really myself - I've done that before and it appears that I'm also a millionare founder of a greeting cards company. Instead, I googled my Etsy shop...and lo and behold! Turns out one of my aprons was actually on the Front Page waaaayyyyyy back in March! And here I was, feeling sorry for myself that I've never had anything on the Front Page before.

Here it is!

It's that stripy green and white apron in the second row. See it? Yay!

OK, ego boosted, now back to work!

Tardigrades

Stephen Jay Gould's book of collected essays Dinosaur In A Haystack has been my requisite toilet reading for the last couple of months - which has led to me spending waaaayyyy longer than necessary on the porcelain throne.

This book is also the reason for my current tardigrade obsession. His essay Of Tongue Worms, Velvet Worms and Water Bears features a drawing of a tardigrade (or water bear) shedding it's egg-laden outer cuticle, and is also responisible for sparking my interest in these tiny eight-legged creatures.

So I decided I had to make one.

And one became two.

And two became three! (Very good to know I still retain my elementary grasp of maths.)

They're hanging out on my keyboard now, waiting for me to make more friends to join them. Oh, and if you're wondering why these ones have only 4 legs - it's supposed to be a side-on view, hence the other 4 are hidden.

Once I'm done with the felt ones, I'm off to make a couple of tardigrade softies. Complete with all eight legs.

I'm not too sure what to do with all these little felt tardis, but I might stick a safety pin behind and turn them into brooches so I can attempt to start a tardigrade trend. After all, they've only been waiting for their turn in the spotlight since the Cambrian period.

Tiny Gnome Hat

Or, the litte hat that tried hard but didn't fit because I didn't look at the pattern AT ALL! Complacency is the downfall of the lazy knitter...

When Ari had sent me the pile of yarn about a month ago, she had requested a regular beanie that she could wear everyday, as well as a hat with her boy's footie team colours and a pair of armwarmers for her cold limbs.

'A beanie? That's easy, I've made heaps of them, I could whip one up with my eyes closed and one arm tied behind my back!' So complacent...so foolish.

I looked around for a simple pattern that I hadn't tried before and stumbled upon the Republic Hat by Nicole Reeves. Everyone on Ravelry was doing it, there were loads of photos, and it seemed soooo easy. Garter and stockinette stitch, sew seams, add a button and you're done! Could've knitted it with my feet!

So I grabbed a pair of 6mm needles, cast on 56 stitches, knit in garter stitch for just over an inch, bound off 6 stitches and continued the rest in stockinette, then seamed it and put it onto my head. Or rather, tried to put it onto my head - the thing was too small and would only sit on the back of my head for a couple of seconds before popping off.

Gahddammit! I was supposed to send the package off the Ari tomorrow! ARGHHGGSHHH! There was another one and a half balls of that yarn left so I grabbed some 8mm needles, cast on and knit as furiously as I could. While watching Norwegian gore.

The good thing about 8mm needles is that your project knits up pretty quickly, so beanie version 2.0 was finished before the Nazi zombies were done tearing up the pretty Norwegian ski bunnies.

I'm keeping version 1.0 for myself. It makes me feel like a little garden gnome. All I have to do is steal the Man-creature's pipe and grow myself a fancy beard.

Security!

We get a lot of mail. A lot of them come in giant A4-sized envelopes. (Why? It's not that hard to make a couple of folds in paper! Don't companies have interns - who they don't pay - to do that sort of thing anyway?)

I usually take my so-important-it-can't-be-folded letter out of the envelope, then chuck the envelope into the recycling.

But last week, while waiting for the kettle to boil so I could have some tea (my life is exciting like that), I peeked into one of those A4-sized envelopes and discovered that on the flip side of the white surface, was a whole other world, a world filled with security patterns.

Isn't it awesome how you discover previously unknown things while waiting for a cup of tea? I need to drink more tea. Anyway, I didn't want to throw the pretty security patterned paper away, but I have enough shit lying about the house not being put to use, so I needed to try and make something 'useful' with them.


So I cut up some envelopes, found a pretty vintage postcard, and bound it all together into a nifty A6 sized notebook.

I only had enough security patterned paper for 16 pages, but I wanted a thicker notebook, so I cut up other envelopes. It makes for a cute little pocket-sized 32-page notebook, and the different papers mean you don't get bored with it too quickly.

A tutorial should follow shortly. Maybe in a couple of weeks...I'm off to make some tea now.

Ari The Aviator

If you've been following this blog for at least the last month, you'll remember that my friend Ari asked me to knit her a bunch of items. Besides the Dragonforce gauntlets, Ari also requested two beanies - one for casual everyday wear and one for when she has to cheer on her boy's footie team. Luckily, that team's colours are red and black (Melbourne AFL fans, you probably know what team I'm talking about), quite stylish as far as team colours go. Then again, it could be the repressed teenage emo-goth in me...red and black is pretty much my favourite colour combination ever. Next to purple and pink.

Anyway, she asked me for one that wasn't 'completely bogan', and I tried to oblige. The Amelia Earhart aviator cap pattern was something that I'd been itching to try ever since I joined Ravelry, so after glancing briefly at the pattern, I decided that this was the best pattern for Ari's footie hat. Of course, the pattern states that 'Knitting this cap with a plain yarn of one color shows the knitting pattern best.' A line that I had completely missed/skimmed over/ignored when starting the project. It was only after I'd done about 5 inches that I started getting worried...the stripes were going sideways instead of up, like I assumed they would.


AND I HAD ALREADY DONE 5 INCHES! ARGGHHAHGAHHH!

Way to stubborn to frog it, I decided to complete the whole thing instead and see how the stripes turned out. So I finished it, sewed up the seams, and...well, I reckon it looks pretty awesome! The stripes add some flair to the pattern and make it look like a racing helmet. It's way more stylin' than your typical bogan footie beanie. I added a single crochet row at the front to keep all the knots in place, and also added one black plaited tie/tassel on the right, and a red one on the left, so Ari can secure the hat to her head on windy M-town days.


What do you reckon?