Random Crafting

I just realized I have been fairly crafty in the last couple of days, which warrants some pictures!

First up, an amalgam of craftiness. First, an empty box with the lid flaps razored off! Hoorah! This is intended for a box weaving project. Inside the box is some carded raw alpaca fiber... which gave me a horrific allergy attack Tuesday evening when I processed it! I was sneezing and had red eyes well into Wednesday. The alpaca fleece shown here varies a lot in color. I never pulled it entirely out of the bag to check where the colored spots might be, but there are definite differences. I learned a lot from carding it on the drumcarder. Specifically, that I shouldn't use the drumcarder for this. Using the flick carder on individual locks was much kinder to the fine hair, because I noticed some neps started to form on the surface of the alpaca fiber when I was carding it.





Today, after Crossfit and picking up a pair of zip-off hiking pants I had ordered on sale at REI, I stopped in at the Weaving Works. I picked up a set of weaving cards, a stick shuttle, and the two most recent issues of HandWoven. Should make for some interesting reading! :)



Finally... my Hemlock Ring blanket is finally (almost) done! Can you see the cast off edge at the bottom of the picture?

For the size of the blanket, I went almost to the end of the chart that Brooklyntweed created. I knit to just before the final increase round in the chart (not the final round he used, which is somewhere in the middle of his chart), and then began my binding off.

I am using the basic idea for the picot-edge bind-off that is shown in the original pattern, except instead of making a yarn-over and then turning and making 5 stitches into that yo, I am just doing a backwards-loop cast on of 5 stitches when I turn the work to purl the two flanking stitches (which are k2tog in the initial bind-off row). It makes a bigger picot edge, but I think it will block out fine. I hope it doesn't look cheap! ...It feels really good to be almost done with this blanket. I can't wait to block it and send it off to the recipients!

Yes, I know it looks like a big blob right now, but just wait and see what judicious blocking does to this thing!