More projects...

In my work to have fine hardwood Dassenplanks produced to sell, I’ve also started thinking about accessories to sell with them. It’s a natural progression. And one of those accessories is a carrying case for the Dassenplank with room for yarn and a possible skein of on-the-board knitted material. Maybe a few pockets for crochet hooks and knitting needles and accessories too. Then I started thinking about fabrics, and themes and silly things, so I spent the better part of last night working on these:

Spin-A-Yarn ~ Cartouche

Spin-A-Yarn ~ Scroll

Spin-A-Yarn ~ Scatter

I call this series Spin a Yarn. Miss mouse is steadily knitting away, and Ladybird is not being very helpful, batting the ball of yarn about. The little cartouches hold themed items like baskets of knitted material and yarn, a work-in-progress and a smirking Ladybird. The scrolls and cartouche frames are supposed to be golden yarn. :)

So these are my fabric designs (so far) for Spoonflower. I’ve already uploaded these two, I’m also working on a solid with much tinier prints of Ladybird and knitting paraphernalia and a stripe made of a single continuous piece of golden yarn.  That will be tonight when I get home, hopefully.

I might start messing around with different colour configurations for this series. Try different themes, maybe a darker background, maybe one that looks more like toile. I had no idea making tessellated designs could be so much fun.

Knitting/Dassenplank totes.

Anyway, it’s a start. This is the basic idea for the bag. I’ve made something similar before from outdoor yard-furniture canvass; a little striped carrier for my tiny netpad computer. I lined it in fleece which I quilted to a thick (weird feeling) felty-cotton batting to give it more stiffness. It turned out really cute, except I didn’t really work very hard to center the pocket on the front and it looks uneven.

Anyway; this is a rough sketch. They will come in three sizes to accommodate the 1-foot, 2-foot and 3-foot Dassenplanks.

Monday goings-on and grumblings.

[update: Image from work... rainy puddly duckness]

I love rain. I always have. It promotes this desire for cozy snugglings by flickering fires and lots of drinking of tea. It doesn’t however, match well with sitting in one’s office gazing out at the bleakness of the day after having to drag oneself out of a warm, snuggly-blanketed-curled-up-warm-doggy-and-purring-cat bed (yes, they were piled on me like cordwood and I was not objecting). I truly, absolutely ABHOR Mondays. And I do not look forward to a whole day of it. And this morning is already shaping up to be a gloomy and icky one. Outside the kitchen window I see only sodden trellis, with the occasional sodden chickadees hunched in the little diamond-shaped gaps. I’m still in my Jammies when I should probably already be dressed and getting ready to head out the door. Motivation? -0-

Back in January, my husband started doing the Weight-Watchers program. I followed along for a bit, but he insisted I needed to get my own calculator and figure out my own points system... so I did. I started it last week. Hubby’s already lost over 23 pounds on the program (damned men and their fast weight-loss!). We’ll see how I fare. Weighing myself regularly is really depressing. I have about ten less points than he does a day; and so far I haven’t had too much of an issue staying within the daily limit and have not felt deprived at all—except maybe for a burning desire for a huge freakin’ burger and a pile of crunchy fries, and lobster and chocolate and more fries (I grew up in Belgium, remember? Fries are essential...) and now that I mentioned Belgium, I want to make up a batch of Belgian waffles to boot! GAH! Instead, I’m forced to weigh every slice of Tillamook cheddar I eat (gads, cheese is fattening!), and measure out the cereal and milk with my measuring cups and calculate the damage a slice of turkey meatloaf and saltine crackers can wreak.

We had a break from the pinching and measuring on Saturday night. We went to a nice little restaurant called Nel Centro in Portland to celebrate BFF Steph-II’s 25th birthday (she’s a youngun’). She had a long table set up and a bunch of friends and family there. It was hella (yeah, I said hella, live with it) fun. We got to hang out with Miss Charlotte and her husband Patrick, who turns out to be a really affable and excellent guy; and I laughed until my makeup raccooned around my eyes as it always does. I had lovely lamb-chops and chocolate crepes. Since it was a decent restaurant, the portions were not so large as one could feed a third-world family on for a week... they were quite moderate and tasteful. Less decent places tend to prefer quantity over quality and heap on the slop like they’re feeding hogs.

One of the funniest parts of the night was when we were all walking out onto the street and Stephanie II asked me: “Hey, did I by chance leave a pair of shoes at your house?” I paused to think and replied... “Am I wearing them?” and S-II glanced down at my feet and exclaimed: “YES!” to which we all burst into laughter. I had no idea I was wearing S-II’s shoes. I found them in my shoe-bin. I have had a shoe-addiction problem in the past and over the past few years, I’ve been winnowing down my huge collection of heels that I never wear into a manageable and modest assortment I can choose from for the occasional special event. However I only have mostly super-tall heels. When I was getting dressed to go, I found these cute twenties-style black shoes in the tumble of my other shoes. They had a small heel—which is what I wanted, and I thought they would do nicely. They looked familiar, were within my personal taste levels, so I figured I’d bought them and forgot I had. They were a smidge big, but quite comfortable. As soon as S-II mentioned it, I realized they were probably hers, because she has a particular style, and they were exactly the sort of shoe I’d imagine her wearing. It was pretty funny.

I woke up Sunday morning with a double zit right on the very tip of my nose. Makeup makes me break out... now I look like a female WC Fields with a danish-pastry nose. I HATE ZITS. I have this almost irrational unease with the idea of anything gross accumulating underneath my epidermis. I am almost obsessive-compulsive when it comes to blackheads and white heads. Gross. The perils of makeup. That's why I don't wear it often.

In a few more days, I will be going on to the Lupron. I am not looking forward to it, and I have apologized to my husband ahead of time several times to insure he knows that my irrational, crazy behaviour is not voluntary. A friend of a friend shared that she’d been on Lupron and she’s surprised she’s still married. I am officially scared. My blog might also reflect this Sybil-like transformation if it does occur. I might start blogging about my newfound affinity for attempted homicide and public nudity (be afraid!). If my blog goes silent, I very well might have been arrested or locked in a loony-bin for the duration. You never know. Just saying.

Work on getting my Dassenplank developed is marching forward very nicely. I think I might have stumbled on to an excellent partner and he has really great ideas to make the dassenplank even better than my original one. I am also working to create a custom fabric with some office-specially style artwork through Spoonflower so I can make custom carrying cases for the dassenplanks. We (Brad the magical-I-can-build-anything man and I) also talked other possible collaborative projects. So exciting!

Anyway, that’s the Monday update. Not quite so bleak.. but yet, I haven’t left for work yet... so I don’t know.

An indecent proposal, bad office special & happy Friday!

I am not quite a coherent speaker am I?  "I have it in my pocket so I might as well give it to you..." ::Facepalm::  He had my ENGAGEMENT ring in his pocket... Gawds.  I'm such a dork. He was going to propose at dinner. FAIL on the communication Steph. :)

Yes, it's terrible. I confess... But it was hurried. :)
Happy Friday all.

On the update side: I am looking into having some dassenplanks made of fine hardwoods to sell in my etsy shop. I will be offering three sizes, small (1 foot wide) for scarves and such, Medium (2 feet wide, like mine) and large (3 feet long).

Yay!

Casting off the Dassenplank

The Dassenplank has been freed from its knitted burden! How'd she do it?

I have graced the world with another of my wooooonderful videos (okay, slightly sarcastic here).  It only took me three months to knit together five small skeins of yarn into a rectangle.  The type of yarn I bought has apparently been discontinued, so going back to get more of the same type is no longer an option. But I decided to finish it anyway... it would have taken less than two or three hours of total knitting time if I didn't put the project down after two courses of knitting for weeks at a time.  But, finally, I knitted up the five yarn skeins and it's time to cast off.

I know, my voice is soft, but since the project is cast-off, I can't go back, undo it, put the loops back on the pegs and start again, so sorry. Just up your volume as best you can I guess.  It's probably for the best, because as usual, I just can't shut up.

The video shows the finishing course of the knitting, the casting off process and the final tying off of the yarn to finish.  As I said in the video, I have this rectangle of knitted stuff just sitting here... no idea what the heck I'm going to do with it, so if you have project suggestions, please feel free to comment.  I'm thinking an eclectic looking laptop case?  A tote? Pillows are overdone and with my dogs it will look like my knit blanket, with pulls scattered on it and dog-hair all over it.

I am also going to repost the dimensions and the yarn looping guide that I added to the last Dassenplank post just in case. :)

Using a Dassenplank Knitting Loom

Measurements below (and a threading guide)..

Made of nice quality hardwood with rounded corners and a simple, plain clear varnish. I forgot to mention that the board's thickness is a little under 3/4". The distance between pegs is measured on-center. The thickness of the pegs is hard to measure with what I have... but they look to be arounnd 3/16" and the ball 3/8".

 Please disregard all my ums and errs. ;)

My Dassenplank Fix

Years ago, when in the class of the irascible Mrs. Pamay, 5th grade teacher extraordinaire, we used a device to knit ski hats for our class ski trip. It was a square of thick cardboard about a foot square, with a head-sized hole cut in the center of it. Then, dowel pegs were inserted and glued all around the inner edge of the hole. We would wind the yarn around the pegs and then flip the yarn from the prior row over the new one. We’d end up with these tubes that we would gather at the end, and then tie on a yarn pom-pom we made on another device that had two nails hammered into a brick of wood.

Mrs. Pamay was one of those teachers that just makes an impression that will linger on for the rest of your life. She was really creative, and did projects like this with us all the time. Applied learning. She was great.

Two decades later, my sister, who is a fiber arts maven; sheep-raising, wool shearing, carding, lanolin adoring, wheel spinning, dying, knitting queen of the world gave me a Dassenplank for Christmas of 2000. It is the same principle as the hat circle from 5th grade, except it’s long and rectangular. It is also known as a knitting loom.


This particular one is a fine wooden device with pretty pegs topped with wooden knobs. It was made by the husband of a woman called Pamela from “Pamela’s Homespun”; a fiber-arts. She had a website at some point, but I can’t find it anymore. My sister got both of them at the Black Sheep Gathering—a mecca event for the fiber-obsessed.

My sister had taught me how to knit in 2002, but I always revert to the dassenplank. With this thing, you can churn out blankets and scarves and all other items in record time. When I was present for the birth of my Godson, during my friend’s arduous labour, I sat in her room, knitting away, I started with two inches of product, and when the child finally arrived I had about five feet. No kidding. It’s much, much faster than traditional knitting.

The Dassenplank is now readily available at Michaels in variety packs, made of plastic with a nice groove in each peg for your hook. I haven’t gotten those yet, but they are there for the taking. They are sized for hats, socks and so much more. They are great to have if you really want to knit something but are too daunted by the needle method. There are lots of creative ways to use the dassenplank, and to modify your knit and patterns.

I’m working on a new sofa throw. I have six colours of a similarly styled yarn, I’m just knitting simple panels of three colours, which I will bind together when they are done for a nice lap blanket to keep me cozy when I’m watching a movie or television.

I’d put the project down for a few months, but picked it up a few days ago. I just have one and a half balls of yarn to do now. I’m excited to finish it.

A Youtube Movie of Knitting Loom/Dassenplank basics (they wouldn't allow embedding)

This video is an HGTV segment: