CrafTBQ

Or both? Yesterday I baked a four layer (aka two layers cut in half) yellow cake with chocolate frosting. It’s for my dad’s birthday, which is today. Here’s how it looks all frosted and yummy:

Yesterday I also finally finished the Go Gremlins scarf that I’ve been working on using a pattern made by airawyn. As you can see, it is an illusion scarf. The pattern was good: just enough changeup to keep things interesting, but repetative enough that it could be TV or SnB knitting. On the whole, I am pleased. It’s 7 ft. long including the fringe.

I finally got off my butt and uploaded pictures of my first finished BGAL project. You can see pics of the ribbed scarf I made over in the BGAL blog.

I finished the ribbed scarf that I was working on.  As you can see, it is not your average ribbed scarf:

It’s a little hard to tell from the photo but that’s about eight rows of box stitch at the end.  I wanted the end of the scarf to have a little texture to it.  Little did I realize that the ribbing would be far more elastic than the boxing, which is one of those things that’s really obvious in hindsight but not so much during.

I like how it came out, though. It’s a little different, and it does fulfill my desire for the end not to be boring.  The scarf’s about five feet long. I could’ve made it longer but I reached a point where binding off was more important than extra length.  I’ve got an extra skein of yarn that I’ll use to make a hat, possibly a plain ribbed one to match it, possibly a cable one. We’ll see which design wins out by the time I have brainpower enough to cast on for something new.

I’m fond enough of the way this combo of stitches stretches that I’d love to try designing a sleeve with that as the end. I think it’d be pretty.  Then again, what do I know about sleeve design?

Turns out it wasn’t that I forgot to charge the batteries in my camera, it’s that the batteries aren’t holding a charge. I’m trying again just in case I did it wrong, but in the meanwhile I loaded some regular batteries in and was able to take some pictures. First, the scarf I am currently working on:

I realize those are two very similar photos, but the first shows the color and the way it hangs better, and the second shows the actual - whaddyacallit- ribbing.

There is more to the scarf but you must wait and suffer with not knowing until I’ve finished it. In the meanwhile simply admire the beauty of those basic ribs, the soft yarn, the exquisite gauge! Also the cute left hand which belongs to me, obviously.

Other things worked on of late include this:

Which is the cheesecake I made as a combo Mother’s Day/Happy Anniversary present for my Mom and Dad. It contains Oreos, chocolate chunks, it’s topped with ganache and it was quite yummy. I got the recipe out of some magazine I have no idea how long ago, and this was the first time I had a chance to try it out. Very easy to make and totally worthwhile.

Okay, so I took like a billion pictures of this thing. I was all artsy and put it over the rails on my four-poster bed and had the sun shining through to show off the pretty stitch detail, you name it. I was going to bore you with all the pictures I had!

Turns out only two of them came out worth a damn. Phooey.

But! Pictures! Herein lies the scarf I’ve been working on for the past few weeks. It’s a Herringbone Faggot stitch (…dirty?) knit on #7 needles with two balls of KnitPicks Ambrosia in lavendar. I was originally trying for the Purse Stitch scarf but apparently I purl way too tightly because it was such a pain in the ass to do. So I frogged that before I got more than a few rows in and switched to the HF stitch, which is like the Purse stitch, but you’re working knits all the way. I also added in 4 rows of garter stitch at each end plus 2 knit stitches at the start and end of each row to give it a border.

The end result was 6in x 43in, which was smaller than I thought it would be given that KnitPicks was able to make the Purse Stitch scarf with two balls and include fringe besides. I think what happened, though, is that I cast on four extra stitches for the border and that slowly ate up the yarn.

Still, it’s a fine enough length for warmth or decoration and it knit up like a dream. Here it is stretched out on my bed (sadly without artsy fartsy lighting):

Here it is a bit closer (and still without sunlight shining through, woe!) so you can see the stitch detail:

You may notice two lines running across it. Though they may look like times when I totally screwed up the pattern, you would be wrong to assume so. Those are actually very special lines that I added to the design. I call them the “Hot damn, Colin Firth’s in it!” stitches, and they get made when you try to knit and rewatch Pride and Prejudice at the same time. Don’t ask me how to make them other than to try to knit a Herringbone Faggot while Colin’s in a soaking wet white shirt. Somehow these special stitches just happen. It’s magic.