Showing posts with label crochet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crochet. Show all posts

Harry Potter and the World's Longest Scarf

Labels: , , , , , | at 8:20 PM

Yes, I am still alive! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've had a case of crafter's block, which you may know as granny's square. (I know, I know... lame.) Also, I've spent a lot of time hanging out with my very best friend, who just moved back into the area last week. Gotta make up for six months without him!


And, of course, I went to the midnight release of --- and subsequently drooled over --- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

What an awesome movie. Kudos, David Yates, Tom Felton, Michael Gambon, Evanna Lynch, David Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and whoever that girl was who played Lavender. Kudos to you all.

Anyway, enough fangirl giggling from me.

I've been doing a lot of digging on craft sites (all of which I will link once I've gotten the blogger interface figured out) and I came across a few awesome sites in particular, the first of which is berroco.com. Remember that best friend I mentioned earlier? His birthday is two weeks from yesterday. I'm pinching pennies, so I'm going to make him something. I was on the usual pattern sites for ages before I found this little gem. Highly recommended.

I also found Three Irish Girls. This site is awesome. In addition to having some of the most gorgeous yarns for sale, they also sell dyes and instruction books on how to dye your own yarn with stunning results.

But mostly, I want to draw your attention to Keep The Fleece. This site is many things. It is a celebration of the United Nations declaring 2009 to be the year of natural fibers. There are competitions in which the contestants submit items created of various categories of fibers. But what I'm really interested in is the collaborative project to create the world's longest scarf. Teams from all over the world will knit, crochet, weave, or felt lengths of scarves that are 9 inches wide. The scarf segments will then be joined together at the New York Sheep & Wool Festival on the 17th and 18th of August. The money raised from this project will go toward Heifer International, which will use it to provide needy families with fleece-bearing animals and training to look after the animals so that they can grow the herd's numbers and eventually become capable of supporting themselves financially. The scarf will be disassembled into normal scarf-length sections, and these scarves will be given to those who need them.

When I found out about the project, I immediately registered a team. In fact, in my rush to sign up, I almost forgot to ask the members of my team if they wanted to participate. I took up my hook, grabbed a skein of yarn, and got to work as soon as I'd registered the team. I have wanted for months to do something with this yarn, because it's just so fluffy and pretty. It's black and teal and lavender, and I love it.

I'll keep you updated on the scarf's progress. Hurry, go, register to make your own sections! Or, if you're not able to help with the scarf itself, donate on the site.

Ooh, maybe they'll let me take it with me if I go see Half-Blood Prince again....

Till next time,
Kirsten

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Awkward First Post

Labels: , , , , , | at 9:31 PM

For my first post, I think it's appropriate to have an introduction. I'm Kirsten, and I stink at blogging. I update regularly for a while (if I'm lucky) and then I just abandon the things completely, only to come across them months later. Hopefully this one will be different, since it's actually about something specific, whereas the rest have just been a glorified diary.


So, then, what is the point of this? It's pretty simple. Lately I've been finding new hobbies and interests that catch my eye. With each one comes a new obsession, and they're all really freaking cool. Even better, most of them interact, so I won't lose interest in one when I discover another. How, you may ask, do you keep finding all these hobbies?

The answer is simple. I happen to be looking at something relevant to my interests, and a word or phrase or link pops out at me. Curious, I investigate further, and eventually it leads to the discovery of a whole new subject. You may know it as the Wikipedia Effect, but it doesn't always take place on Wikipedia. I happened to be browsing a handmade shopping site a few weeks ago, looking at what hand-knitted and -crocheted items were on sale to see whether I could make something to sell. As I was browsing, I came across a beautiful knitted top. It cost close to a hundred dollars, so I knew I couldn't order it. But it looked fairly simple. I'm not a knitter, but I could learn. And what was it that the top was made of? Tea-dyed muslin and slub yarn? What on earth was slub yarn? Simple enough to find out, thanks to trusty Google. A slub yarn is a yarn that is intentionally spun with the occasional thick, fluffy imperfection, rather than being spun the same thickness all the way through. I was curious. I hadn't ever heard of slubs before. Imperfection? I finally found a page that explained how the wool had to be drafted before it could be spun, and that the thinner the section of wool, the more twist it would take. The fat parts wouldn't spin very much, and that would create a slub yarn. Before I knew it, my interest in crocheting had turned to an interest in spinning.

And spinning led to dying the yarn and felting.

So now, dear reader, I profess myself to be cursed with arts-and-crafts ADD. That is the reason that I require a place to keep people updated on my current hobbies. And that is the reason, too, that this blog came into existence.

Till next time,
Kirsten

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