Ahoy, Me Beauties! (And Scalawags)

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Arrrrr! Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day! Don't be a lubber...remember that pirates don't say "argh"...that's the sound we makes when some bilge rat tries to make us eats our vegetables, savvy? Now move along smartly and sling some lingo about!

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This PSA has been brought to you by the letter "R". Arrrrrrrrr.....

All The Buzz (but no yarn)

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I FINISHED THE BUMBLEBEE!!!

 

I finally had an hour of daylight to fuss with attaching the wings. I ran into a few problems. First, I had a wing with only one trailing end on one side of the wire. It was impossible to pull the ends of the wings together that way, so I had to anchor another thread on the opposite wire.

Second, I had this idea that I was going to thread the wires to the back and tack them down back there...yeah...not so much. The bulk going through the linen would have been too much. So I clipped the wires shorter (with my giant kitchen shears, of course), and in the process clipped an end off...see "First". The ends are just kind of hiding under that fringe of the turkey work (TECHNICAL TERM: i.e., "fuzzy stuff").

 

After that, it was just a matter of fiddling around with pulling the two ends together/through, and tightening the veins.

 

Sorry these pictures are kind of blurry; I just have a basic point-and-shoot camera (um, maybe I should read the manual? It probably has some fancy settings) and no swanky macro lens.

If I had the wings to do again (OH PLEASE NO), I would reshape them a bit. See how this guy's wings are straight across the top, rather than curved? You know, WING-SHAPED??

Hunh. My camera can take SOME good close-ups.

Also, I'd make the two ends of the wires meet on the organza before cutting out, rather than having an 1/8"-1/4" gap between them that had to be pulled together. Doing that made the wings kind of pucker or ruffle, rather than lying flat.

 

See what I mean? And real bees' wings don't do that. Makes my bee look kind of like a "bee fairy" or something. =)

Still, I'm pretty happy with him!! And very happy he's done! If anyone is interested in the pattern and instructions, drop me a line at heather at lottloft dot com. You'll need more linen, wire, organza and beads, but there is plenty of the Madeira floss left over, and there is a sample of the beads, wire and organza so you know what you need. If I get more than one request, I'll do a drawing at the end of the weekend.

If you're looking for actual yarn-related "Finished Objects", head over and visit Tami's Ami's:

&nbps;

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The Bumblebee is done! That makes a whopping two projects finished from my Crazy Challenge. That's...sad. But YAY FINISHED BEE!!!

War of WIPs Call to Arms #9

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I declare victory!!

 

I have toed the line to de-feet my arch enemy, the Errant Lace Socks!

Nothing can com-pair to the well-heeled campaign that has resulted in my sole finish for the month.

 

Aaaand...that's enough of the bad puns. After waffling on whether to just finish them (due to the CRAZY DIFFERENCE in the pooling or whatever between socks) or totally rip them out, I finally decided to just finish them and move on.

I will wear them with very long jeans.

I have enough Tofutsies left to make an extremely small shawl. Like this, maybe. You know. In a few years. When I run through the rest of my stash. ;)

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Join the battle with us! Visit Revelations of a Delusional Knitter to enlist!

WIP Wednesday (Closer to Bee-ing)

I finally cast on for the front of my Origami Turtle:

 

I'm doing the left and right fronts at the same time, on the same needle, so they look a little crowded. I'm actually a little farther now than this picture, which was taken on a very dark and grey day, so the color is not the best. The directions have you do the same pattern sequence on the left side as the back, but then they SWITCH IT UP FOR THE RIGHT SIDE. Like, the left is 4" of moss stitch, then 3.5" of eyelet pattern, etc., and the right is 2" of moss stitch, then the eyelet pattern. Schwunh??? I don't play that kind of crazy, so I'm making them the same. Otherwise I'd be walking around with one shoulder slumped down by 2" all the time.

The Bumblebee is getting dangerously close to being finished.

 

I trimmed the thorax and cut out a wing. I may have done more than that since I took this picture, and you may want to drop back by on Friday. ;)

Side view of the bee. The thorax is supposed to be a "dome". Well, it's something like a dome, anyway.

 

Again, I didn't want to trim too much lest I create a bee with a crew cut!

Finally, I did make a start on Chocolat, a class I'm taking with Jackie du Plessis at The Attic in November.

 

I have to have 12 more of these motifs done by November 2...I GOTTA GET CRACKING!

For more WIP Wednesday eye candy goodness, head over to Tami's Amis!

Who? What? When? Where? ...but Mostly Who

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Blimey.

I was gone for a while there. My only excuse (besides work) is that we started watching Doctor Who (I've never watched before), and it's nigh impossible to blog while watching Doctor Who. At least, it was while David Tennant was around.

You see, we watched a few episodes at the beginning of the new series (starring Christopher Eccleston). Michael had loved Tom Baker growing up, but I just didn't get it. I was all like, "What? Why? What??" the whole time. After three episodes, I was ready to give up. But I knew a few people who loved it, and also said that David Tennant was awesome.

So we skipped ahead to the end of season 1, and when David Tennant showed up on the screen, I said, "Now that's MY Doctor." Long story short, we then watched seasons 2-4 straight through. I grieved for a day when season 4 was over. I won't say why ("Spoilers!") but I was seriously upset.

Anyway.

Labor Day weekend is always Dragon*Con here, and since we're so close, we always try to go to the parade. We had a couple jerks who decided to stand up in front of us (they'd been sitting on the curb) AND put on giant hats right before the parade, so I don't have any really good pictures. Instead, here are some entertaining ones. =)

In honor of my newest obsession, excellent Blink cosplay, a couple 10th Doctors, and...

 

...well, let's say that's Rose taken over by Cassandra, shall we?

The Harry Potter section was on the weak side, but Luna made up for it with sheer enthusiasm.

 

This guy's always around.

 

Darth Vader begs for snacks.

 

Sure, there were Green Lanterns, Orange Lanterns, blah blah blah. But this Pink Lantern is using the power of love to conjure a martini!

 

If you're ever screamed, "NOOOOO!" at the end of Buffy, Angel or Firefly because of a cliffhanger, you've probably shaken your fist at this guy.

 

Awesome.

Fantastic Halo costumes...some great Reach armor...and a SQUEE-worthy Grunt!

 

SQUEEEE!

Sci-Fi janitors...only awesome if you've seen Dragon*Con TV...which I was shocked to discover is very funny.

 

Michael went briefly on Monday to check out the art market and merchandise market, and he got this shot of a yute being subdued by a Sand Person.

 

Excellent enforcement against shenanigans.

Ashley Eckstein, the voice of Ahsoka Tano in the Clone Wars animated series, conned Michael into buying me a Star Wars shirt...his words.

 

Hilarious. And I love the shirt!

And just so there's some stitchy content here, this is the latest progress picture of Random Thoughts. The color's a bit off; I had to brighten it because we had several days of cloudy, chilly weather and there was just no light ever!

 

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I was AWOL for a while; I watched a LOT of Doctor Who.