The Shadows on My Wall Don't Sleep

Just a quick little knit

Sat, 24 Dec 2022 22:12:11 GMT

A bit of distraction from my other knitting, all of which is either boring or frustrating depending on the project.

The yarn is something I reconstructed from Red Heart Super Saver in "coffee" and "fall". I split 10 yards of each colorway, joined the resultant singles into one long one via drop spindle, and then plied it back on itself.

Needles: US 1 (2.25mm) and 4 (3.5mm)
Doll: Resinsoul Mei in light tan (coffee) cast in 2009

Her funnel neck shell, cardigan, and wig are also knit by me.

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Buttercup Miniatures 2020 Advent KAL

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 21:09:16 GMT

Buttercup Miniatures did an Advent knit-a-long and I decided to join in using Lionbrand Amazing Lace yarn and US #0 (2mm) needles. I had no idea if the finished item would fit any of my dolls but I was sure I could send it to a friend with more varied dolls if it didn’t. I don’t have any male dolls at this scale so it was a gamble from the start.

I basically crossed every cable other than the center panel wrong but didn’t want to start over when I noticed it and just kept going. The ropes should have been snakes and the outermost cables should have been Xs and Os but I still like it. Maybe I will knit another with the cables done right… well at least with the Xs and Os, I prefer the ropes actually.

Seaming was a mixed bag of simple and nightmarish. Setting in sleeves is never going to be something I enjoy, but doing it with a cable at the edge of one piece and no selvedge stitch? ARGH!

It fits my Bobobie March like she stole it from her boyfriend. The armhole depth is very long for her and the sleeves could be one rope cable crossing shorter.

The fit on Wild Hearts Crew is great! I was impressed that the neck stretched enough to get over her head.

It even went on a curvy Barbie Fashionista easily.

I would love a Made to Move body for this girl. I bought her specifically to model that crochet flamenco dress she has on under the sweater, so articulation didn’t matter, but then I fell in love with her face. (Not in love with the glue head I deal with and the “look at it funny and it floats” static prone hair.)

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The rest of the mini sweaters

Sun, 06 Sep 2020 22:06:23 GMT

Wayfaring Yarns does a mini sweater KAL every August and I finally finished the last of the patterns and blocked them.

Sweater #2 (pinky/coral/rust) was knit as written except I mirrored the cable on the second sleeve. I used the twisted German/old Norwegian cast on and the Icelandic bind off since they look nice with garter stitch.

Sweater #3 (blue) knit completely as written, again using twisted German cast on and Icelandic bind off. This pattern really needed blocking and is why I delayed posting until I blocked things. I may add a button to the neck, but I have decided if it will be a snap with a button over it or if I can get a button between the stitches to fake a buttonhole.

Sweater #4 (green) was really fun because I basically said "nope, not going to seam this thing." The pattern calls for casting on the first cuff and working flat, you cast on for each half of the body and divide from the neck and when all is said and done you have to seam the sleeves and sides. I knit with a long-ish circular suitable for magic loop ,so instead I cast on and joined in the round. When it came time to start the body I did a figure-8 cast on using the needle for the side I was currently knitting and the cord for the other. From that point I was knitting flat like the pattern called for, but in a U thanks to the closed side "seam". When I reached the other side I cut the yarn with a tail long enough to graft the side seam (in pattern) and rejoined at the under arm to knit the sleeve. I used the twited German/Icelandic combo again but half way through I kicked myself since I could have used the alternating cast on and grafted bind offs with the seed stitch hems on this pattern.

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Mini Sweater #1

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 03:52:22 GMT

Wayfaring Yarns/Sweater Sisters is doing their annual mini sweater KAL again this year so I knit up the first pattern using Lion brand Summer Nights yarn and US #1 (2.25mm) needles. My only changes to the pattern were to do some decreases in the first round of ribbing for the cuffs and hem so that I could use 2x2 ribbing to match the neck (and also get the cable to flow into the ribbing).

The fit is surprisingly good on my Bobobie March. There are some things I would change for a better fit/cleaner lines if I knit another, but I’m happy enough with it.

That excess fabric is from the extreme increases in the yoke and I would omit about eight of them in the back section and add them back in as waist/hip shaping. March has booty, so while I could shave a few stitches off here and there in the sleeves and upper torso I would need all of the torso stitches to cover her butt.

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It started out simple

Wed, 27 May 2020 21:12:25 GMT

Just a crocheted circle worked a bit tight so it would cup slightly, and a pair of openings for ears.

Then it needed some decorations, quite a lot of them.

( More photos under the cut. )

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Finishing more old stuff

Tue, 19 May 2020 00:22:34 GMT

Finishing more old stuff

Sometime last year someone on one of the knitting discords posted a link to the Shusui Shrug pattern. The designer was thoughtful enough to post a video on how to get the thing started and I just had to try it….

Now, before I show the back, let it be known that my Knit Picks needles decided to betray me and the cord came out of the needle right in the middle of the two color brioche portion and dropped a couple dozen stitches.

Let it also be known that acrylic crochet thread doesn’t actually like to be knit with all that much and wants to be straight. Yeah. But! I did get everything back on the needles, and after several attempts even sort of got everything fixed!

Just please ignore the horridly uneven tension that remains even after attempts to fix it and blocking. And that one strand that ran on the RS instead of the WS that I didn’t notice until I was pinning it out to block, okay?

Bernat handicrafter #5 crochet thread

US size 3 (3.25mm) needles for body/upper sleeves

US size 1 (2.25mm) for sleeves after the body division

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Things you do to avoid other things

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 22:35:15 GMT

While I was procrastinating about blocking the sweater I posted I knit something else.

Inspired by a pattern called Tanrenga, which I liked because it made me realize I could turn a top down triangular shawl into a vest if I wanted to. So I looked for shawl patterns and then said screw it and improvised with the old classic feather and fan, like the original used.

Fingering weight yarn (Lion brand Summer Nights) on US size 1 (2.25mm) needles. Lightly steam blocked. I tried out the Channel Island bind off (Icelandic variation), but I think if I have to match the CI caston I will do a type of sewn bind off with doubled yarn.

Her tank top is what happens to uncomfortable footie socks. It’s pretty bad hand sewing (I hate hand sewing) but it does the job when I need a layer to put under an open lace vest, yes?

The doll is a Dollzone Feilan on body b45-002. Yes, her wig needs a little TLC but I’m kinda terrified of screwing it up.

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It only took 3 or 4 years...

Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:36:04 GMT

In my defense, the project bag got eaten by stash and I only found it again when I had to deep dive because of the Stay At Home order. I know that’s not much of a defense.

Anyway, back when the Hunger Games was The Thing and Catching Fire was about to open, knitters kinda lost their minds over Katniss’ sweater (and that one arm cowl/vest thing). I poured over every high res promo shot I could find and knit my version of the sweater for one of my dolls. Then, probably in 2016 or 17, I started another from my notes on the first.

So when I was stash diving I found what I had finished, the side panels, tail, and bottom hem. About half the sweater was already done so I knit the sleeves and then in the fiddly bit to fill in the torso and finish the yoke.

This doll (Dollzone Mo on body b45-012) is a bit taller and slimmer through the shoulder and bust than the one I made the original for (Featherfall Elf Iruhi on Resinsoul Rong body) but I think the fit is okay, as long as you don’t mind flashing a bit of belly (the low rise pants don’t help; yes I knit those too).

My version was knit before we had a shot of the back of the movie sweater, and from what we could see of it I had assumed the side panels were square and met in the back. The real sweater is more boring so I didn’t even consider restarting when I saw the back was different.

Knit with Aunt Lydia’s Bamboo Crochet Thread (discontinued, dammit) on US size 0 (2mm) needles.

That’s one more thing out of the WIP pile. I might even finish the rest if the SaHO keeps being extended.

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Now with Socks

Mon, 16 Mar 2020 16:08:55 GMT

I did indeed lose at yarn chicken. Knowing it would be possible, however, I stopped the first sock with just the graft at the toe left and used the other end of the ball to make the second sock.

I ran out of yarn so I ripped back the first sock a few rows so I could get the second knit to the same point. Then I split some dark grey worsted yarn down to single plies and used those to do the last three rounds (holding the tail of the original yarn and the new yarn together for the first half round to blend the two on the top of the toe) and graft the toes closed. Since she's using her high heel feet the mismatched yarn is all under her toes when she wears the socks so it's good enough for me.

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Close enough

Sun, 01 Mar 2020 02:46:55 GMT

So I had a wild hair last month and started swatching an idea…

And after a few variations, I stated knitting… and ripping and re-knitting. Until I ended up with this (unblocked):

The wine/maroon neckline is sort of fail, but by the time I knew how it would look I had finally managed to get the grey neckline/yoke area sorted out and I was not ripping it again.

I had knit the sweater to go with the skirt I had knit previously, so then of course I had to knit a hat to match.

Now I just need to knit her some socks. Unfortunately I am thinking I might not have enough grey yarn, which is a horrible thing to think when you are nearly finished the first sock.

I’m hitting the end of my enthusiasm for this project, so she might go sockless if I lose yarn chicken. Maybe I will get back to one of the ideas I have had for making her some boots instead.

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Nearly Sugar Free Black Forest Bars

Sun, 30 Dec 2018 00:31:29 GMT

Bar crust:

1 box sugar free devil's food cake mix, minus 1 cup
1/2 cup melted butter
1 egg

Filling:

24 oz frozen raspberries, partially thawed
1 cup granulated Splenda
1/2 cup flour

Topping:

1 cup cake mix
1/4 cup Splenda
1/4 cup softened butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup sugar free chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Grease a 13x9" pan.

Reserve 1 cup of cake mix for the crumble topping.

Combine remaining cake mix, melted butter, and egg to make a stiff dough. Pat dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan; set aside.

Combine partially thawed raspberries (you want them to be wet), Splenda, and flour. Spread evenly over the crust.

Combine reserved 1 cup of cake mix, 1/4 cup Splenda, softened butter, and cinnamon into a thick paste. Crumble evenly over the raspberry filling.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a tooth pick inserted in the center has no cake at the tip. Remove from the oven and immediately sprinkle with chocolate chips, if you are using them. (You could also add them about 5-10 minutes before baking is complete.)

Cool completely before cutting.

Makes 24 bars.

There are 28 grams of sugar in 24 ounces of raspberries so these bars can't legally be labeled sugar free (since they have more than 1 g of sugar).

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Crochet Shawls

Fri, 14 Dec 2018 23:28:15 GMT

I finally took photos of the two shawls I blocked. They aren't great photos, outside modeled shots are for when it's not all snow and ice outside, but at least I can document them now.

Pattern: Taiga shawl by Johanna Lindahl (Mijo Crochet)

I was given two skeins of Simply Soft Paints in the Charisma colorway last Christmas. There wasn't quite enough for this shawl so I used Simply Soft in "Bone" for the very start, all the dc-ch1 rows, and the edging.

Pattern: Wendy Summer Shawl by Girlie D. de los Reyes

I wasn't able to make this one full size because I was using one ball of yarn I picked up on clearance for $1.32. The pattern suggests you can stop after any row 8 and do the border but this is not true. You must have a multiple of 6 + 2 dc clusters in your last row 8 before you start the border.

Blocking did a lot in terms of making this more a shawlette rather than a small kerchief thing, but I'm not sure how likely I am to use it. I'm a large woman and this is a very deep triangle, so my usual point down in front wearing for small triangles and crescents doesn't really work. This might end up gifted or donated.

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A little bit of doll knitting

Thu, 06 Dec 2018 05:35:43 GMT

I did finish up some human scale knitting, and blocked some human scale crochet, but I don't have photos yet. So instead you get to see more of Fiona.

Hujoo doesn't use s-hooks in these dolls, so until I get around to restringing her I can't just take off her head to dress her like I do with my other dolls. Because of that, and the fact that I am not a fan of bulky fasteners like snaps and velcro (which is not great with knitting anyway), I had to come up with a neckline that would allow me to dress her feet first. However, I didn't want the neckline to be super large and open either. I think I succeeded with this design, which has "tabs" on the front and back that overlap in the shoulder in the sleeve cap area. At this scale the overlap is kind of like having a shoulder pad in there, but I think it looks okay.

I'm going to knit another to streamline the process; picking up for a tiny sleeve in the round while overlapping bits was fiddly to say the least. After that, maybe I will write this one up as a pattern for sale. We shall see.

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Feeling crafty

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 23:02:09 GMT

While I have been knitting and crocheting right along all year, I haven't really been doing much, or finishing much, for my dolls. I fixed that this past weekend.

First, the craft project that kicked things off.

( More photos and other projects under the cut. )

And that's it until I either update with the finished human scale things from this year or I finish more doll things.

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Not a knitting update

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 03:23:30 GMT

Because it's not knitting, and an update at this stage would be huge. It's too close to bedtime for that much effort anyway.

Just a quick little headband for Fiona, my Hujoo Phoebe Mouse girl. The bangs are a bit of boa/eyelash yarn that I tucked under the edge.

Crocheted with one ply of vintage Red Heart Lustersheen on a US #7 (1.65mm) steel hook.

I've been working on a wig for her but the first attempt stalled at the bare wig cap stage due to engineering problems. I'll probably finish it up eventually, but she will need a head bang to keep the bits in front of her ears down I think.

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Two Ingredient Bagels

Fri, 15 Jun 2018 02:37:10 GMT

However, if you are like me you don't keep self-rising flour on hand, so it's really four ingredients. Also, I made disks rather than tori with them, to better fit a bison burger.

2 cups plain Greek yogurt

2 cups all-purpose flour (or use self rising and skip the baking powder and salt)

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Additional flour for kneading / adjusting texture.

Optional: Egg-wash and topping sprinkles. I used a salad sprinkle similar to Johnny's Salad Elegance.

Preheat oven to 350°F (325°F if using a convection oven).

If you aren't using self-rising flour, mix the baking powder and salt into your all-purpose flour.

Mix the yogurt into the flour. After a point it will not mix well, so turn it out onto a floured surface and knead it for a few minutes until everything is well mixed; dust in additional flour if it gets too sticky.

Divide the dough into 6-8 pieces and shape as desired.

Place on non-stick baking sheet and brush with egg-wash and sprinkle with topping mix if you are using it.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Cool completely before cutting.

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London Fog

Sun, 10 Jun 2018 03:59:49 GMT

The drink that is. I just decided to try making one based on instructions I found on the internet, but lazier.

Required:

1 good sized mug
1 Earl Grey tea bag (or loose and a tea ball, if that's how you tea)
boiling water
almond milk
vanilla syrup (I use sugar free)

Not in the original, but nice: a splash of half & half. You could use vanilla creamer instead and skip the syrup and dairy.

Drop the tea bag in the mug, half fill with boiling water. Let steep 5 minutes.
Shake your almond milk really well and fill the rest of the mug, leaving a bit of space for vanilla syrup.
Add vanilla syrup and stir vigorously. Taste and adjust as needed.
Decide it could be warmer and microwave 30 seconds.
Decide it could use a bit of creaminess and add a splash of half & half.
Enjoy.

In the future I will steep a bit longer, I like a stronger tea flavor, but this is Very Nice.

ETA: Steeped for 8 minutes when I made it again and liked it much better.

Originally posted on my new Pillowfort blog.

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An update on sugar free cake

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 16:08:27 GMT

Pillsbury's Sugar Free Devil's Food Cake Mix can be improved significantly with these simple changes:

Use an extra egg
Use butter instead of oil
Add one packet of sugar free cook and serve chocolate pudding mix

We have jumbo eggs, and sometimes they have two yokes. This particular cake therefore had four eggs in the mix with five egg yolks. The texture turned out to be just what I want in a devil's food cake.

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Well worth $20

Thu, 22 Mar 2018 18:49:37 GMT

I have been pulling the hard drives out of dead PCS, ones that I could not boot and do a full reformat and install on, and then recycling the rest. As a result I had a stack of hard drives that I didn't know what to do with. I couldn't just throw them out or recycle them intact, there might be information I didn't want someone to be able to retrieve on them. So after some thought, I went looking to see what could be used that cost less than a "convert an internal hard drive to external" kit. This is what I found, and it works great.

It's not pretty, there's a wall-wart power supply that you hook to your drive, and a dongle that attaches to the ribbon cable connection of the drive that plugs into a USB 3.0 port on your PC. Set the jumper on your hard drive to master or single, attach the power, turn it on, wait for about twenty seconds and then plug in the USB. Wait for windows to find the drive and spin it up (this is not instant, it takes a bit) and then use file explorer to do what needs to be done. The drive just hangs out there naked and on life support while you rip out what you need, but it does the job.

It's a bit of a trip looking at the contents of these old drives, not just for what is on them but also for how tiny they are. I have 64GB USB drives because they are cheap these days and I could fit the contents of all but one of my stack of old hard drives onto one of them, and the last drive on another with four gigs to spare.

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Experimental Pickles: Baby Carrots

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 20:28:17 GMT

Into a 1 quart jar put:
1 pound baby carrots (or whatever amount will fill the jar)
1 Tbsp dried dill weed

Into a sauce pan put:
1.5 cups water¹
1.5 cups white vinegar²
1 Tbsp lemon pepper salt³
2 bay leaves
a bunch of dried sliced garlic, about 3-4 cloves worth maybe?

Bring to a boil, cover and simmer 10 minutes. Pour over carrots and dill to fill jar.

I'll test them in a week to see how they turn out.

1. I actually used one cup each of vinegar and water and then had to heat half a cup of each to top off the jar. In the end I think it took more like 1 and 1/3 cup each to fill the jar but this will vary with how many carrots you pack in the jar to start with.

2. Apple cider vinegar would work as well, but white is what I had. Since this a refrigerated recipe and not canned a less acidic vinegar like wine vinegar or rice vinegar would work too.

3. I didn't have any pickling salt on hand and no whole peppercorns so this was my compromise substitution. Ingredients listed on the bottle are: salt, citric acid, spices (including black pepper), onion, sugar, garlic, modified corn starch, lemon extractives, and FD&C yellow 5 lake.

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Yay and Foo

Wed, 23 Aug 2017 19:11:50 GMT

Had to get my passport renewal in the mail, which meant a photo. Which of course meant my skin decided to break out. :P But! I managed to Do The Makeup well enough to make my skin look clear, so it is probably my least UGH! mug shot to date. So net result... yay?

Then, since I had make up on I figured I'd get some use out of it and not just go home afterward. I was the most over dressed woman returning cans at Meijer, but it gave me nearly $10 to browse with, No joy on the takoyaki flour front (foo!) but I found sugar free chocolate chips (yay!) so I bought two bags, a bag of sugar free Reese's cups, and still got almost $3 back. Another net yay from that stop.

Then I went to Payless. I don't really have a need for new shoes but I like to see what they have. I wouldn't have found those knee high boots a couple years ago if I hadn't after all. I walk in and... NO size 13s. FOO! I mostly take 12w, which they still had a few of, though not many of the 12s were also wide, but the complete lack of size 13 is dispiriting. Sure, they do let you order on the site for delivery to the store where you can try on and get a refund, but it sort of misses the whole point of being able to browse and try things on that you might not have considered (like those boots of mine). It also requires you to buy the shoes just to try them on. So no impulse shoe purchases anymore, which may be for the best, but it does kill what little fun there had been in shoe shopping these last few years.

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One less tooth

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 15:30:29 GMT

Opted to have an infected molar extracted rather than pour money and painful time into killing the infection and having a root canal and crown. As the dentist put it, missing one tooth won't bother me and putting the money into restoring the other teeth would be money better spent.

I just wish anesthetic and painkillers didn't metabolize so fast with me. I wasn't even out of the office before the gaping hole where the tooth used to be started itching and aching.

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New Layout

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 05:55:28 GMT

It was time for a change, especially since this is now my main journal and not just a mirror. I wasn't up for doing a lot of customization but I did tweak things a bit, mostly font faces and sizes, making page navigation more visible, and recoloring the navbar.

I should probably think up a journal title and subtitle to help fill up that big horizontal bar of darkness across the top, but I am really bad at that sort of thing.

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My early LJ years were full of quizzes

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 05:34:20 GMT

And depression. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Anyway, the only duplicates left should have comments on them.

I'll figure out what I'm doing with LJ now that I don't need to keep it for importing purposes. I'm leaning toward deleting the content, putting up a "find me on Dreamwidth" post and just keeping it to read communities and people that just will not move.

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There will be duplicates

Thu, 06 Apr 2017 18:08:39 GMT

In preparation for leaving LJ I'm importing my posts and comments from accounts there. The doll related posts from Spiraling Deeper have already been imported (there were only about five; archived things from other sites) and the main account of TephraLynn is in the import queue now.

Unfortunately, I have been using Semagic to crosspost to DW, LJ, and IJ since created my DW account. This means that all posts from that date forward will be duplicated here. I plan to go through and delete any duplicate with no comments but there will be duplicates remaining that have comments from both sites. Unless DW comes up with a way for me to merge those specific posts the duplicates will remain.

On the upside, now that I won't have three sites to sync I can choose to crosspost from DW to IJ if I wish.

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