Showing posts with label ravelry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ravelry. Show all posts
Saturday, 16 August 2008
Quixotic
Ravelry icons
Our favourite knitting site is a host for many wondrous things, one of my (many) favourites being the quixotic nature of some words... (I use this in its 'whimsical' and 'fanciful' sense.) If, when conversing on the forums, you type the words 'cup of coffee, cake, killer rabbit (there's a long story there, but not for the telling right here) and ice cream, to name but four, the magic of Ravelry then depicts the words in a delightful little icon which follows your text. It is very amusing, and the 'cake' especially has come to mean a lot to the members of a certain CPaAG...
I decided I liked these little symbols so much that I'd try to turn them into 3D knitted representations... I found patterns that I could adapt for three of them, and so determined was I to make the fourth, I made it up myself!
But I run ahead of myself...
Firstly, may I present unto you the ice cream:
um, ice cream...
Notice the waffle cone and the blueberry and strawberry scoops! Heh! This is from the marvellous pattern by Marcie Nishioka, called 'Scooped' of all things!
Next we have some cake. This is a very important part of the 'Very Longest Thread' in the 'Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Group' on Ravelry. Newbies are asked for cake when they post for the first time and it occasionally incurs a bit of confusion along the lines of:
Next we have some cake. This is a very important part of the 'Very Longest Thread' in the 'Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Group' on Ravelry. Newbies are asked for cake when they post for the first time and it occasionally incurs a bit of confusion along the lines of:
"Cake?"
"How can I bring you cake?"
"Oh. I see."
"When I type 'cake' the icon turns up and you all get Rav cake..."
"D'oh"
etcetera...
(There's a small possibility that I'm re-living my first postings on the VLT for your delectation right here and now...)
Childish? Well, yes, but good, clean childishnessy-type fun!
And so: cake.
cake (like you'd never guess it by now...)
Now, I don't know exactly what kind of cake the Ravelry cake is supposed to be - it has a cream-coloured sponge, pink icing and filling and some cream on the top edge... For me, I think I shall go with a Victoria sponge with a strawberry filling and fresh double cream piped around the edge of the pink icing on top. And now I'm getting slightly peckish... This cake is only slightly altered from the 'Let them knit cake' pattern by Hannah Kaminsky.
Then we have the killer rabbit. Um. Well. How to explain... It involves cake, or the lack thereof...
Once upon a time in a Ravelry Land not far away, cake stopped being followed by its icon. Gnashings of teeth, howls of frustration and tears of despair ensued (indulge me, people, I'm writing a story!) causing an outpouring of grief on a main board. The multitudes were uneasy, scared and lonely for the lack of the pretty pink frosted cake but were delighted to find out that in fact the cake was being guarded by a killer rabbit. I think Casey, one of the founders of Ravelry and the code monkey, was drinking rather too much coffee that day. But anyhoo, the killer rabbit and its cute little bunny icon made it onto our pages, and therefore onto my knitting needles...
Then we have the killer rabbit. Um. Well. How to explain... It involves cake, or the lack thereof...
Once upon a time in a Ravelry Land not far away, cake stopped being followed by its icon. Gnashings of teeth, howls of frustration and tears of despair ensued (indulge me, people, I'm writing a story!) causing an outpouring of grief on a main board. The multitudes were uneasy, scared and lonely for the lack of the pretty pink frosted cake but were delighted to find out that in fact the cake was being guarded by a killer rabbit. I think Casey, one of the founders of Ravelry and the code monkey, was drinking rather too much coffee that day. But anyhoo, the killer rabbit and its cute little bunny icon made it onto our pages, and therefore onto my knitting needles...
watch out for the fangs...
This little beastie was designed by MeganAnn and called 'rabbit'. (And I shall hug him and squeeze him and call him George...)
Lastly I decided I wanted to make a cup of coffee, as... well, it's as important to me as it is to the list of icons... But could I find a pattern? Um, well, yes actually, I could, but it was a crochet pattern, and I can't crochet my way out of a wet paper bag... So I searched again but to no avail. Well, thunk I, maybe I can just do one myself... It can't be THAT hard, right? RIGHT?
Lastly I decided I wanted to make a cup of coffee, as... well, it's as important to me as it is to the list of icons... But could I find a pattern? Um, well, yes actually, I could, but it was a crochet pattern, and I can't crochet my way out of a wet paper bag... So I searched again but to no avail. Well, thunk I, maybe I can just do one myself... It can't be THAT hard, right? RIGHT?
cup of coffee (oh, for a latte icon!)
Actually, RIGHT! Heh. 3 stitches cast onto 3 dpns, m1 on each stitch for the first round, and k1, m1 for the next few, a couple of purl rows for the base of the cup, then k1 and m1 whenever I thought it needed to curve out a bit more... Then a length of browny i-cord for the coffee part and a small i-cord for the handle and Bob's your Daddy's Bro!
And so you have it. My own quirky versions of some Rav icons...
Actually, RIGHT! Heh. 3 stitches cast onto 3 dpns, m1 on each stitch for the first round, and k1, m1 for the next few, a couple of purl rows for the base of the cup, then k1 and m1 whenever I thought it needed to curve out a bit more... Then a length of browny i-cord for the coffee part and a small i-cord for the handle and Bob's your Daddy's Bro!
And so you have it. My own quirky versions of some Rav icons...
huzzah for arty-farty shots!
(Ah, pants - Q could've been for quirky...)
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Hmm, hope the title of this post doesn't sound blasphemous... But really, I am overwhelmed with the socks formerly known as just 'Brigid'. It may be because they're my first socks evah, or it may be because they fit like a, um, glove... It may be because by the second sock I'd figured out the hell turn. (Sorry, the spelling is staying like that now.) It may be because they're cute and cosy. It may just be because I feel like the proud new mother of twins...
But anyhoo, may I present my first pair of socks...
But anyhoo, may I present my first pair of socks...
Cute, eh? (Feel free to say yes!) I took them on their first visit outside yesterday and they behaved very well indeed. I'm going to stop the baby analogy now to add that they were boot fillers so they didn't really see the light of day, but my tootsies were cosy and comfortable, which means they fulfilled their requirements!
Now, of course, I want to make MORE socks... You have to have a look at this wonder from the Tsarina of Tsocks. It's called 'Firebird' and I almost dribbled with sock-lust when I saw it for the first time. But I have to wait a while before it makes it out of the sock club and becomes available to the general public. Ah, me...
And talking of Ravelry... (There's a perfect logical explanation for the subject change in my head. Should you wish further commentary, then my head will be happy to help.)
...What an interesting few days it has been on the forums. There were some strops beheld and a business flushed itself down the tubes on one. There was a part of me that felt sorry for the person at the centre of the complaints, but it all came down to (IMHO) very shoddy customer service over a long period of time from the business in question.
It seemed it was a day of bad karma all round - full moon? Um, no - waxing crescent at the moment. Maybe a mass biorythmic energy flash? A sun-burst in Earth's direction? Maybe an international coffee outage? Who really knows, but on another forum a fire was flamed under a reputable small business owner, started by someone new to the forums. This was very quickly extinguished, as although the OP had a valid-ish complaint, he/she hadn't actually checked whether it was still valid. Which it wasn't. It all smacked rather distastefully of witch-hunt inciting. But then, if one was, wasn't the other? Perhaps, and I have to admit I'm not the one to judge, even if I am writing about it here... But it did make it a car-crashingly interesting day. Too interesting, really, as I think I spent most of the day on teh interwebz. Icanhazcheezburger.com has a lot of time absorption to answer for aswell.
Maybe I need to get a proper job?
But, knitting-wise, it is now time to start the Aoife (pronounced 'Ee-feh') jacket thingy that I've been drooling over since I saw the pattern on Knitty.com a month or so past... Oh, and Coco is still on the go, as are the mary-janes... Want to start a bag for my sis (but not naming it here in case she looks!) and maybe another bag for me... (Hah - I say 'maybe' like it's not already a certainty!) And there's that wire I bought up in Holland and ALL those pretty beads...
I'm just going to bask in the glory (and warmth) that is Saint Brigid for a bit first...
Now, of course, I want to make MORE socks... You have to have a look at this wonder from the Tsarina of Tsocks. It's called 'Firebird' and I almost dribbled with sock-lust when I saw it for the first time. But I have to wait a while before it makes it out of the sock club and becomes available to the general public. Ah, me...
And talking of Ravelry... (There's a perfect logical explanation for the subject change in my head. Should you wish further commentary, then my head will be happy to help.)
...What an interesting few days it has been on the forums. There were some strops beheld and a business flushed itself down the tubes on one. There was a part of me that felt sorry for the person at the centre of the complaints, but it all came down to (IMHO) very shoddy customer service over a long period of time from the business in question.
It seemed it was a day of bad karma all round - full moon? Um, no - waxing crescent at the moment. Maybe a mass biorythmic energy flash? A sun-burst in Earth's direction? Maybe an international coffee outage? Who really knows, but on another forum a fire was flamed under a reputable small business owner, started by someone new to the forums. This was very quickly extinguished, as although the OP had a valid-ish complaint, he/she hadn't actually checked whether it was still valid. Which it wasn't. It all smacked rather distastefully of witch-hunt inciting. But then, if one was, wasn't the other? Perhaps, and I have to admit I'm not the one to judge, even if I am writing about it here... But it did make it a car-crashingly interesting day. Too interesting, really, as I think I spent most of the day on teh interwebz. Icanhazcheezburger.com has a lot of time absorption to answer for aswell.
Maybe I need to get a proper job?
But, knitting-wise, it is now time to start the Aoife (pronounced 'Ee-feh') jacket thingy that I've been drooling over since I saw the pattern on Knitty.com a month or so past... Oh, and Coco is still on the go, as are the mary-janes... Want to start a bag for my sis (but not naming it here in case she looks!) and maybe another bag for me... (Hah - I say 'maybe' like it's not already a certainty!) And there's that wire I bought up in Holland and ALL those pretty beads...
I'm just going to bask in the glory (and warmth) that is Saint Brigid for a bit first...
Thursday, 14 February 2008
I love the concept of the Ravelry group 'ABC-along 2008' - the purpose of which is to post a photo which is a "reflection of you and things that are meaningful to you" every fortnight of the year corresponding to a letter of the alphabet (fortnight 1 - A, fortnight 2 - B etc etc). I may be too late to join officially, but I'd like to play along anyhow! Here are my attempts to catch-up...
A is for:
A is for:
Angels.
Found on a tomb in Tours Cathedral. I like the play of the shadows.
B is for:
Bee!
Taken in my parents garden in Scotland.
And C is for:
Ceiling
The stunning frescoed ceiling of the Piccolomini Library in Siena Duomo.
Ah, me! I need a better camera as my one is starting to die and is eating batteries like there's no tomorrow, but the dear wee thing has served me well so far!
But back to the knitting. I *must* try to stay away from the internet for long enough to learn a cable cast-on!
Percy says hello.
But back to the knitting. I *must* try to stay away from the internet for long enough to learn a cable cast-on!
Percy says hello.
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