CrafTBQ

In case you missed the updates on my LJ, BGAL now has its own blog. My perfectionist nature is still twitchy about some aspects of it, but I’ve decided to throw people at it and see if it breaks. Right now we’re still doing sign-ups. Sometime soon I’ll update with a start date and what have you. (Down, perfectionist nature, DOWN!)

Speaking of alongs, I thought some of y’all might be interested in The Summer of Knitting Naturally (more info to be found here). I’d probably join in myself but with enough knitting and crochet projects on my plate one of the ways I can reduce my impact is by not buying more than I need to. I am fascinated by those links, though. I may chat more about them when I get through Knitting in America which references one of the yarn sources she talks about.

Finally, lest you think this too texty for words (…is that a pun?) I give onto you pictures of the infamous zill holder:

This was a project done by me to basically give myself practice working with size 3 dpns. I modified the pattern based on the bag you can see on the cover of Last Minute Knitted Gifts. The modification was very easy once I guesstinated my gauge. At which point I have promptly forgotten just WTF I did. This is where my knitting journal would’ve come in handy. Whoops.

The yarn was sock yarn that was given to me by Zortified (I miss that LJ code whem I’m blogging). I assume it’s wool. I used it since I liked the colors. On the whole it was a quick and easy project once I got past the point of ZOMG this size 3 wooden octopus is going to stab me in the EYE!!

At some point I’ll make another one so I can recreate the pattern. I’m also contemplating doing further modifications like adding in cables. I suppose one modification could be to use larger yarn and needles, but at that point I think it’d miss out on a lot. Plus the holes might be too big to make it useful. I use this for zills but nothing’s saying you couldn’t throw other weetiny things in there.

As for the question of “WTF are zills?” here ya go:

Which is admittedly a better picture of the holder to begin with, IMO. Anyway, hence my desire to make more. Not only do I stubbornly wish to recreate the pattern just because it’s driving me nuts that I forgot it, but this could make for a very easy but still nice gift for my belly dance instructor. Hence why I ponder ideas like fancying it up more with cables or even beads.