No proper Friday Focus this week, as I will only be properly posting those when I have thoughts on something that moves me. And I don’t think I made that clear… oops.

But moving onward: as promised, updates on my chess set!

I’ve mostly written and tested the pattern.

I’ve finished typing up the edits, but need to knit a few pieces again to test the changes. The knights need to be given manes and ears, and as I retest pieces I need to photograph the process for the pattern.

And, of course, I need to finish the set, which means another knight, and couple more bishops and rooks, and about a baker’s dozen of pawns. Current, this is more-or-less what I have:

But at least they’re all standing!

Also, I need to finish the chessboard.

This is my first-ever intarsia piece. I’m writing the pattern as I go, and it’s pretty simple. Really, it’s the best place I could start for intarsia, as it’s simply big blocks of colour.

Finally, I’ve decided to work out a checkers piece as well—might as well make the board multi-functional! So… how many checkers are in a set?

Tags: chess set,knit,projects
Categories: knit, projects
No Comments »

Phase one of the finishing hibernating fibre projects is complete; I have finished the chocolate bunny!

I’m mostly pleased with this, though it has some flaws. My ssk’s are not as good as my k2tog’s, which means that any left-handed shaping is bumpy on the left, and has gaps in the fabric on the right. I fixed some of these by manipulating the already-knitted strands with needles, but that only can help so much—it’s definitely something to be worked on in the future. After everything else is finished, of course!

Also, a quick update FYI: I’m going to be running around for the next week / away from the computer. I’m hoping to at least have the Friday Focus put up automatically, and maybe another entry or two, but it might fail. If so, I’ll run a double-Focus next week.

Tags: knit,projects,the hibernation offensive
Categories: knit, maintenance, projects
No Comments »

I am really bad at finishing things. This is particularly true if I don’t have a deadline. If I have a deadline—say, costuming needs finishing for a performance, or paper needs written for a conference—then I’m usually quite good at getting it (mostly) done. But things that don’t have a deadline languish. Some things I simply forget to do—like drawing. Others get procrastinated on—blogging is one of these.

That’s why I have a spreadsheet that I call “life schedule”. This is a bit hyperbolic, but roughly true. It sprang from my original outlines for my PhD, which it still contains—including a month-by-month breakdown and a week-by-week. But then this past January I expanded it. Knitting, writing, dance, etc.: if it was a creative or academic project, it was put on there (and that sums up pretty much my whole life). Each received a monthly goal, such as writing one-shots, blogging once a week, or filling two sketchbook pages. However, I made the mistake of thinking of NEW projects for knitting / crochet.

You see, by my bed I have a bag that I knitted and felted. Originally, it was to be my project bag, and filled with anything I was working on. Over the last year or so, however, it’s turned into the languishing bag. Unfinished projects were shoved into there to be promptly forgotten, and on a recent review of the contents (when I was procrastinating on something else), I found eight unfinished projects. This might not seem like much, but I don’t know how long some of these have been ignored. Some may pre-date my move across the pond.

So, instead of picking up the needles then and there and haphazardly trying to work my way through the chaos, I turned to my computer. Everything under “knitting” for my life schedule was promptly deleted, and each month was assigned an unfinished project until August. Hopefully by then I’ll have everything finished, and can turn to working through my lovely skeins in a desperate de-stashing attempt.

On the needles first, hopefully finished by Easter?

A stuffed “chocolate” bunny.

Yum!

Tags: crochet,knit,projects,the hibernation offensive
Categories: Arts, crochet, knit, projects
No Comments »

First, apologies for the radio silence—my last two weekends have been full of dancing, and thus I have been too exhausted to blog. I’ll be updating on these soon enough, but first I’ll fulfill my promise and finish chatting on my tribal fusion belt!

Even though I wanted my tribal fusion belt to be as multifunctional as possible, I still made a few permanent additions to the belt base. I decided, as I was planning the belt, that a tribal belt shouldn’t just be another dance accessory. Tribal fusion costuming is incredibly unique: every costume piece, whether it’s a bangle, a hairflower, a ring, or a belt, has a story behind it. Thus I decided that there should be some permanent pieces on my belt, never to be removed, and that the permanent pieces should serve the same purpose as a charm bracelet—it should have meaning and memories. Luckily, there were a couple spots that I wanted to cover on the belt (seams and wearing bits), so I had the perfect place to put these “charms”. The first permanent piece added to my belt was cut from an old inexpensive necklace from Hawai`i:

A turtle, or "honu"

The next was a relatively new item. This past Valentine’s Day my mum sent me a package which had a lovely card with four charms on it. She knew I’d find something to do with them, and as I was in the middle of making the belt at the time, I chose to use the “love” charm on it. This made it on for very simple reasons: I’d like a symbol of my mother’s love with me when I dance. I don’t have a photo of this, as it was added so recently.

Finally, I sewed on what once was a keychain of an elephant opposite the honu. This piece has the greatest significance for several reasons. First, when I was little I grew up on stories about elephants, as my mum was one of the children who donated a penny to the San Francisco Zoo to help them by one of their Asian elephants, appropriately named Pennie.* The keychain itself is from India and a gift from my friend from undergrad, Dia, who taught herself Hindi and amusingly forgot to give me the keychain until I came to visit after I’d graduated. By this point, I’d been taking bellydance for only a few months; however, it’s Dia who introduced me to bellydance. Sometime in my final years of undergrad we ended up in her room and, though Dia does mostly ATS/ITS, she showed me a video of Rachel Brice (not that video, but I don’t remember which…). I thought it was pretty cool and went back to my life. Little did I know a few years later… Anyway, there’s a final significance to the elephant (told you it was important). A couple weeks ago I went on a charity shop trawl with my friend Laurie, who is also performing the choreography. We ended up in an Indian important store and saw a long dangle with several small stuffed elephants on it. Half-serious, half-joking, Laurie suggested that we get it and break it up, and each of the tribal fusion dancers in the choreo put an elephant somewhere on their costume. This has yet to happen, but in case it doesn’t ever, I’ve got a back-up elephant.

Not on my belt but continuing the “charm bracelet” concept: this past week I found that my newly-ordered headpiece was missing one of its dangles! To replace this, instead of searching for a new dangle I used a charm found amonsgt some maille rings I bought off a medieval reenactor. An eagle, it’s shaped in the style of Insular manuscript illuminations.** Also, it’s always nice for an American to stick an eagle somewhere!

And that’s it. I’d still like to find a small cross to sew on somewhere, but these things take time. Anyway, if I keep treating the belt like the tribal fusion version of a charm bracelet, it will never be fully finished! Until I find something new, then, Lysse-bird out.

* Sadly, Pennie died in 1995, and in 2005 the San Francisco Zoo gave the rest of their elephants to the Performing Animal Welfare Society when the San Francisco government banned elephants in the city (no, seriously—they banned elephants). The San Francisco Zoo, however, noted that this move was an improvement for the elephants’ lives, as they have more room now than they ever could have at the zoo.

** Insular manuscripts are from the British Isles during the early medieval period. Examples include the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Tags: bellydance,projects,tribal fusion
Categories: projects, uncategorized
No Comments »

Whoo. After that long post on BD, felt like I also owed a quick seperate post on the other things this blog deals with: actual crafting, and academia. On the crafting side, I’ve two things soon to come. First is my first home-made BD costume, finished last week. Secondly,  and currently “on the needles”, is a knitted bag made with my first hand-spun yarn (it will potentially be felted). Also, the Ravelympics are coming up, which means I’ll be knitting like a crazy person, and hopefully blogging about it.

Finally, a few knitting links. There are two sites that I can’t recommend enough. The first is KnittngHelp, which not only has instructions and illustrations for pretty much all the basic stitches, increases, decreases, and styles of knitting, but has VIDEOS. Wonderfully clear VIDEOS!!! The second (which is linked to at the side) is ravelry, which is a marketplace/database/social networking site for knitting, crocheting, spinning, and other fibre art. You can keep track of your yarn, projects, needles, and hooks, organize a queue of projects you want to do (and buy a lot of the patterns and yarn for them!), and wander about favouriting projects and patterns like a crazy person. Oh, and chat about knitting and your other passions in the internal groups. Which sometimes do secret exchanges. SO MUCH FUN. You have to sign up and wait for an invite to join, but it is TOTALLY WORTH IT.

That’s it. Lysse-bird out.

Tags: knit,maintenance,projects
Categories: knit, maintenance
No Comments »

Whoo! Finally edited the links, though they’re mildly pathetic right now — can’t change TOO much, as I’m syncing my computer with my server.

Craftiness update: the bellydance sock was finished but a bust. My cast-ons and bind-offs are FAR too tight and made it almost impossible to get the darn thing on. Once on, if I stood it start to cut of circulation to the toes.  I’m going to retry the design, but with a cheaper yarn (possibly the stuff I frogged from a charity shop sweater, as that’s about the right weight). In the absence of a successful bellydance sock, I’ve begun a kit that my mother bought me eons ago, called “CAPpuccino” (a kit for a one-skein hat packaged in a coffee cup). Yeah. It’s going quite well, but slowly, as it’s a synthetic yarn. I love the color, but I really prefer working with woolens (and secondly cotton).

Crochet and maille have been bust, since I’ve been working on my novel and my dissertation instead. Ah well! There’s only so much time in a day!

Tags: knit,maintenance,projects
Categories: knit, maintenance, projects
No Comments »