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Two Days for Gaeta

I knit up the sock blank that I dyed in 2009, using the middle red and blue one in this photo:

The clever thing with the sock blanks is that there’s two strands of yarn together so however the piece is dyed, both socks end up identical. I snipped the sock blank in the middle and wound it off into the two red halves and the two blue halves. Using the same concept that I used for these socks that I knit before using Noro, except I did leg down and not toe up, figuring the middle mushy red and blue part was more interesting than the plain red and blue stripes that develop as I worked through to the outer edges of the sock blanks, the parts with the more solid colors.

I knit five rows from the red side yarn and then five rows from the blue side yarm, all the way down the sock. Here’s the top part around the leg which came from the center of the sock blank, the idea being that the coloring is more subtle on the part of the sock that tends to show more often.

Working my way down the sock the colors become more pronounces as stripes. I used the blue part to work out the heel (there’s still some dashes of red in the the field of blue over the heel), and finished the toe with alternating one row blue/one row red. I have to say that this whole project was a blast… not only dying the sock blank, but working the yarn interleaved like this to have more fun with the color. Send a note if you’d like more information on this pattern. I don’t think writing it up as a pattern, per se, is worthwhile since the design is coming from the colorwork on a standard sock pattern. But I’d like to hear feedback if anyone else does this sort of thing. It’s over on ravelry as Two Days for Gaeta, done for the BSG FPB game over there. 😉  btw… I should be using a better camera than my iphone for these photos, huh?

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The Doc Cottle Afghan.

In the BSG FPB ravelry group, one amoung us has a husband going through cancer treatments, and I thought it would be a nice knit-a-long if everyone made a 12×12 square to include in an afghan. Well, I’m done putting it all together, and the blanket has made it’s way all the way to Alaska so I can post completed photos now.

Here are the progress photos.

 
   

These are the people that contributed squares:

AbsolutKnitNut
kesten
boringknitter
Carysabel
gbina
airmidm
KnittyFish
femmephoenix
mpamelae
freerangechick
guen001
izzyryu
sammimag
djinnj
Nikoleta
linzibean
KnittyBrotz
wonderfallz
rogue1
LittleLaura
CraftyAndy
Dare2BDifferent
stitchtwister
Teanah
MissAudrey
Ronnica
bobbilicious

And here’s the video at syfy.com… the afghan recipients. This link disappears now and then, if this link breaks just search up “love in space” & “syfy.com” and you should be able to see it.

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Dying Sock Blanks

Never done a swap before, never dyed yarn before… why not combine the two?

I found this dyed sock blank swap group at ravelry.com and jumped in, bought three sock blanks from knitpicks, with the jaquard dye, and had at it one weekend, doing all three blanks at once. Knit picks put together a nice video that they have up onYou Tube to learn how to do it. Realizing I needed more paraphenalia, squeeze bottles for the dye, gloves, a big pot for steaming that will become unsuitable for food after using it for this process… plastic wrap, good ventilation… I pulled out a big piece of scrap wood I use as my can-crap-it-up craft surface… I pulled out a paint tarp after look at my white kitchen. What a process… I had no idea, and I totally get why people use studio space for this sorta project now.

Well, here ya go, my finished yarn blanks.

I did the “eye of jupiter” one first, the one I ultimately sent to my swap recipient. The BSG game people at ravelry have done a ton of “eye of jupiter” motifs, so I figured I’d jump on the bandwagon… realized it ended up looking like the poppy on the Alarm cd back from the 80s, which I also painted on a denim jacket back then. It’s like… I keep painting this motif over and over again, and I don’t know why… wonder if it indicates anything.

I did the bottom one next, I did stripes across and a stripe all the way down (which doesn’t show in this photo), just to get an idea of how the sock blank distributes as you knit it into a sock.

The middle one, I did with the intent of knitting up like my Tori’s Toastie Airlock Socks. Where rows are done starting at both ends of the yarn, so it’ll be red and blue stripes, with it kinda munging together when I get to the end, which will end up being the middle of that sock blank… My big question would be if I do the more pronouncing striping at the toe of the sock? or up around the calf? and do I do equal sized stripes or do I increase as I go? That’s the fun of these blanks tho, it lets you plan and have fun with it.

I also received my sock blank in the swap already… which I thought was nicely done by ‘kaostling’ from ravelry.

I’m mulling over using the Rainbow Socks pattern , , for these, since that pattern is also something I’d like to try.

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Caprica Six Bag

Number Six: Love isn’t about sex, Gaius.

Dr. Gaius Baltar: There’s an enlightened point of view.

Number Six: I’ve been thinking. And as far as I’m concerned, you can have any woman you want. But always remember… I have your heart.

Baltar: Yes, of course you do.

Number Six: I can always rip it out of your chest if I need to.

The Caprica Six Bag, for human hearts.

Knitting chart over here, for the basestars. I kept a record of the bag base, up to the flap… then I stopped writing down what I was doing when I made the cylon headflap… I might be able to come up with it if anyone else wants to give this pattern a go. The colorwork was a beast.

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Caprica 6 Bag for the ravelry.com BSG FPB game

I never felted (fulled) anything before, so I jumped in feet first and did a big complicated color swapping bag for the Battlestar Galactica Fleet Power Battle at ravelry.com.
I started in the beginning of July and have worked on it for two rounds of the game. Here’s the progress in photos…

 

 

So, hopefully this weekend I’ll get the strap done and toss it in the washer to shrink it. It’s been a lot of work… really hoping the washer doesn’t chew this up and spit it out.

The chart I used to do the basestars, and two others I threw together ‘cuz it might be helpful for someone else are here. I love the idea that the basestars make a nice geometric pattern all lined up like that, I’d like to see what other people might do with it.

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Cavil’s Headphone Sleeve

Cavil seems to handle stress well: ”Let me point out that it doesn’t matter if we find Earth in five days, or if we find Earth in five thousand years. We’re machines. We’ll still be around to savor the great miracle. So let them destroy the Eye, if indeed they have it. We have to take advantage of the situation and take down Galactica once and for all… or we could stand here and do nothing.”

His stress relieving secret is his pink Ibiza mp3 player, he just needs some cozy sleeves to keep the frakkin’ headphones from getting tangled up everytime Boomer borrows ‘em.

Using the leftover Noro from Tori’s Toastie Airlock Socks, I’m casting this on today for the ravelry BSG Fleet Power Battle… ‘cuz for nuthin’ else, it’s getting me to finish knitting projects.

“Ah… blessed unentanglement… stupid weak skin and bones, if the creators could’ve added an internal mp3 player like the centurians have, but noooooo, I’m stuck listening to my show tunes with this awkward technology. Thank heaven I can knit!” – Cavil (from scenes on the cutting room floor)