Brain Corals

Not really brains, not really corals. They’re adorable brain corals!

I decided to make these after my visit to the exhibit at the National History Museum. When I saw the exhibit, my mind exploded, to put it mildly. I also wanted to jump into the display and become one with it. The nice lady wouldn’t let me do that. (aww)

This is the first one. It was so adorable I had to make many many more.

This one was nearly impossible to photograph. Too much white. It’s also less fluffy than it looks, even though I used the softest yarn ever.

This one is really coarse despite being made of chenille and eyelash yarns. It’s also nearly a perfect sphere (under these conditions).

My dad asked for this one. I need to do some in other bright colors.

The camera washed this one out really badly. It’s as saturated as the sunburst above, just not orange.

And I made some kelp. Kelp are lame and not really kelpy.

I created these by making a four or five chain loop, doing as many single stitches through the loop as I could, three or four double stitches through each of the singles, and 3-5 doubles through each of the previous doubles, and 3-5 singles in those doubles. The second row of doubles OR the outer row of singles can be optional. It really depends on the density of the yarn and how much time you want to spend on these. I’m a very good crocheter, so I can do one of these in about 20minutes, but if you’re a n00b or haven’t crocheted in a while, they could easily take an hour. They also use up a LOT of yarn, so they’re great for using up scraps from old projects.

They are quite similar to the beaded hyperbolic flowers I made a while ago, because of all the same reasons.

Synthetic Dreads v.1

I’m trying to figure out how to make synthetic dreads out of ‘ziggy’ yarn because I’m too lazy to get real synthetic hair. I regret that I don’t know the proper name for ziggy yarn, only that ‘ziggy’ is the most descriptive phrase that I can think of for it (which also, when googled, returns results for something completely different).

The general procedure goes like this:

• get a bunch of strands of something together. Yarn- 14-whatever strands. Synthetic Hair? I dunno, but a fistfull…
• backcomb the bejeezus out of it.
• dip in really hot water to seal it

When using ziggy yarn for single ended dreads, the procedure runs more like this:

• cut yarn to twice as long as you want it, plus some
• remove the spinal cord and and the largest spinal thread from the yarn
• fold in half and put the loop around something that’ll hold it
• backcomb, backcomb, backcomb, backcomb… Occasionally rotate the dread so the sides and back get attention too!
• tangle and twist the strands while you are backcombing. Try for a cylindrical effect rather than a flat braid effect.
• at this point it is a a Giant Fluffy Thing that is weirdly warm to the touch. (I need to look into the insulative properties.)
• microwave water until it’s hot but not hot enough to burn/boil/hurt
• dip sections of the Giant Fluffy Thing in the water and squeeze the water out
• hang to dry

Regards spinal cords and threads: the  ‘zig’ in the yarn is created by twisting the poofy yarn about a cord (the spinal cord) and then squinched together with a number of threads (spinal threads) in a variety of weights and strengths. The cord is an actual cord and must be removed. The heaviest threads must also be removed. Clumps in the poofy do not. They will comb out.

Regards the strength of these: Natural/synthetic hair comes in long strands. The poofy of the yarn is a large number of very fine shorter strands (about palm length). This makes tangling the strands harder and less secure. However, if you’re being cheap and/or practicing, this might work.

I haven’t figured out how to keep flanges and bumps from appearing in the sealed dread. It may be my backcombing method.

Here’s what I’ve produced so far, oldest to the left, newest to the right:

The white one has the fewest strands in it and is very light and weak. When pulled, it comes apart.

The long green one also has that problem, only to a much lesser extent.

The two short green ones are very difficult to pull apart.

A detail of the combing. The two on the left were only back combed and then sealed. The middle right one was backcombed and then backcombed and twisted while being sealed on Ani’s advice. It produced a swirly knotty effect that might be interesting and useful if different colored yarns were used. The one on the right was tangled during the backcombing and then sealed. I regard that one as the best because it is the most even and strongest.

The ironic part is that I can’t wear these because my hair is ridiculously too long for synthdreads to be even remotely effective.

A tutorial from someone who appears to know what they’re doing with synthetic hair here.

Corduroy Hexapod

Every year the clarinet section does Spirit Bags for dome. Every year, I make a small stuffed animal for the sad person who gets something from me because small adorable animals are more awesome than candy.

Creative process

• What do I want? Adorable, no bigger than two hands side by side, easy to make.
• What makes things adorable? Big eye spots, fuzzy, looks like it wants a hug, non scary teeth if any, warm or bright colors… (felt, yarn, soft/stretchy corduroy or denim, contrasting threads, lotsa arms/legs)
• Easy to make means two flat pieces that get sewn together around the edges with no shaping at all- but also means the pattern is slightly more complex to take into account the warping the fabric will undergo when the animal is stuffed.

Step 1: The pattern-

Armwarmers

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Armwarmers. Making thereof. Because the internet needs another horrible how-to!

Materials and skills and times:

• yarn of the normal knitting sort. I used a ball about the size of two fists together and had a little bit left over
• double pointed needles, one set (4) in size 5. Or as close to that as you can get because they are hard to find any bigger than 3 or 4…
• a pair of straight needles that are the same size as the double points
• crochet hook of the large sort or whatever makes it easy for you to crochet eyelash yarn.
• Eyelash yarn that matches the other yarn
• skillz: ability to knit and crochet
• time: a car ride to PA and back and a few hours of continuous knitting while in PA. For people not taking long car rides and have a life, this might take you a few weeks

I can hear the panic all the way over here… but I can’t crochet! The crocheting part can be omitted. The armwarmers just look less cool.

These are knitted from the finger end to the elbow end and have a thumb hole but not a partial finger for the thumb.

1- cast on 30 stitches. ten per needle works.
2- knit one purl one all the way around for 2 rounds. Try to wind up back where you started.
3- knit one or two rounds. The amount knitted should go from your (what is that joint called)- the joint where your fingers split off to where your thumb splits off
4- transfer the knitting to the straight needles. (This is a fumbly procedure.) You should wind up with all the stitches on one needle with the point coming out where you started.
5- knit back and forth this way, creating a flat thing, until it goes comfortably around your thumb. For me, this was about 12 rows.
6- put the work back on the double points. The ~5 stitches on either side of the thumb hole should be on one needle and the rest divided roughly evenly among the other two
7- knit a round to restore it’s circular shape
8- the next 3-5 rounds, reduce so that the shape of the armwarmer follows the shape of your arm. If your needles are the way I said, the reducing should be on the point of the triangle created by the needles opposite the thumb. It will be incredibly awkward to do the reduces. HOWEVER, it is even more awkward to do the cable stitch going up the arm from the thumb on a divide. Oh, yeah, there’s a cable there. the cable turn frequency was about one turn/six rounds. The cable can be omitted.
9- Do a whole bunch of rounds. Remember the fitting to your arm thing? It’s time to increase in these rounds ’cause your arm gets bigger. Not too much at once, and do them on the same side you decreased on.
10- an inch or two below the elbow, do a few rounds knit one purl one, then cast off.

Taadaa! you have an armwarmer! The knit one purl one sequence is necessary, do not omit, because otherwise the edge curls. My left one does not have this (I found this out the hard way –_–) and there is a ribbon sewn through to fix this, but it does a very poor job.

11- Now go find the crochet hook and eyelash yarn you lost and do a couple of rounds around the elbow end of the armwarmers. The exact number and the neatness of these rounds is not important because no-one will be able to tell. Do try tie the end of securely though. It does not do to have to restitch one’s apparel during dinner with relatives.
12- go find some people and brag about how badass you/your armwarmers are.

piccies!

Oh man I totally did NOT REALIZE how huge this post got…

Hair Falls

…a howto…

Hairfalls are things that go in one’s hair to look neat, pretty much.

I did a bunch of reading on how to make them and decided that I would be a lazy bum (what a surprise) and do it the easy way. They’re made by tying yarn around a hair tie and trimming to be the length of one’s hair. The trimming can be done first if one feels confident. I’ve read that they can be either looped around hair already tied to pinned up underneath hair that is down (that makes getting the right length difficult).

What I did was to find a bunch of yarn in roughly the same color scheme and tie it onto a hair tie and then string beads that I found in my bookbag onto some of the ends and then tie it around pigtails.

There’s the two of’em.

The attachment. It’s nothing fancy and will probably pull out when it gets stuck in my hair. Eh. The second one is of the beads in the ends. You can’t see them because they are mostly small, purple, and translucent. Those beads make a nice clacking noise when they hit my mask when I lunge. I should probably not wear these to fence anymore?

And a picture of them in. THEY MATCH MY HAIR ISN’T IT GREAT

(photo courtesy of my father.)

Webbed Room

I’ve wanted to do this for years…
(pardon the picture quality scanner+sketchbook slightly bigger than scanner=FAIL)

The perspective is from sitting on my and looking out over the room ’cause that was the only way I could get most of the yarn in the picture. Not Pictured: /all/ the stuff on my floor and some of the stuff on my walls and yes that is an alphabet on my wall and yes I made that too…
I feel like a ninja when I can get through without touching any of the lines…that almost never happens though.