a study in mustachios

Fifty done over the last two days, in chocolate and marzipan. tomorrow eyes ears eyebrows hair toque. shoot me please.

mathematical!

Dudes, this sphere attempt was way more successful than the last!

Check it:


Here is what I did:

1. chain 4, create a loopy jobber by chaining the last stitch into the first stitch
2. single crochet into that loop something like 12 times.
3. on the following n rows, where n is a number between 3 and 8 that I can't remember, add an increase on every third or fourth stitch or so by stitching doubly into the preceding row.
4. two rows with neither increases nor decreases
5. n - 2 or so rows with decreases every third stitch
6. lose track and start decreasing willy-nilly
7. stuff with fluff, stitch closed
8. squeeze repeatedly, dance like there's an ass in your pants

I am pleased to report that this week doesn't seem to suck too horrifically so far, so I am hoping against hope that we won't have a repeat of Crappy Week week.

I am cautiously optimistic about my crochet ball. Perhaps...perhaps I will be able to crochet Interesting Things now. Squee!

The subtlety of cephalopods

All right, so I am posting late, but I actually finished this at about 3:15PM. Unfortunately, I only had time to take a picture before I had to run off to a superbowl...thing. My official take on the big game? Most. Boring. Game. Ever. Right up until the last two minutes, anyway.

That said, today I did a bleach-print t-shirt thing. It's something that I heard about from that lovely and talented sister of mine, and I thought it would be a good project to work on while I was waiting for water to boil for the appetizers I was preparing.

Here it is, in all of its squidly glory:



This is when the shirt was still wet--the effect is even more subtle now that the shirt has dried, but I must admit, I am quite pleased with the outcome. As per the sisterly instructions, I used an undiluted bleach spray rather than a 50% solution (which was what was typically called for in the websites I found that described the process). I also had a sink full of soapy water prepared so that I could stop the bleaching process very quickly, and I was certainly glad that I followed that piece of advice. As she suggested, the dynamics of the bleach are not at all linear. In fact, I would suggest that a graph of the bleaching action would be sigmoidal in shape.

If I had to do it over, I would probably make the tentacles thicker so that they would be better retained in the final product, but I have to say, I am looking forward to wearing my newly minted cephaloshirt. Hopefully this is an indication that this week will be better than the last one.

Ok, yes, food is kind of cheating

But I even made the marshmallow, and I'm not finished with my crochet thing. Plus, it is so very pink!

And now for today's thingie

Yes, I made new covers for my throw pillows. I've had the fabric for, oh, ever and now they are on my couch. As expected, my slipcovers now look old and blecky.

I am not much for sewing, so even something like this makes me frown between my eyes with those lines that your mother always told you would stay if you kept making that face.

I need to go look in the mirror now.

Oh no, megaman has fallen into my drink!

tee hee. Ok, here's a non-action shot:
I totally forgot the smell of these things. Serious olfactory nostalgia.

Even the Earth is an oblate spheroid

All right, so I was aiming for crocheting a sphere. Keeping in mind that I wasn't bothering with any of that pattern nonsense, I thought, "okay, start with a little loopy bit, increase, maybe a couple of rows at the same diameter, decrease. Clearly this should be acceptable."

Not so!

Instead of getting a nice sphere (I went for eyeball colors, because, hey, if you're crocheting a sphere that is going to have no obvious purpose, anyway, it might as well be an eyeball, right?), I got this:



Not even close to a sphere. Really, I don't even think it constitutes an oblate spheroid--if anything, it sort of approximates a cylinder, and even that is rather a stretch. Just to avoid people making the same mistakes I did, here is what I did:

1. Chain 3, then loop what would have been your fourth chain stitch through the first chain stitch to make a little loopy jobber.
2. Working into the center of the loopy jobber, make 8 single crochets (or I think that's what they are, anyway. I'm still a little unclear on the terminology).
3. Start a new row by chaining 3 through the first single crochet, then single crochet two stitches into each of your 8 stitches in the previous row.
4. Start a new row, then alternate between stitching once and stitching twice into the stitches from the previous row.
5. In the next row, stitch singly into two stitches for each one you double stitch into
6. keep up the pattern you should see emerging here whereby you stitch singly into one additional stitch between doubly stitched stitches compared to the previous row.
7. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
8. At some point, decide you are happy with the diameter of the thing, do one row where you just stitch once into each stitch from the previous row.
9. Decrease by stitching singly into the same number of intervening stitches as you had on the last increase row, only now instead of having that double stitch, skip one entirely, and stitch into the following stitch. (i.e., stitch 7, skip 1, stitch 7, skip 1, etc.)
10. Stuff with stuff. Tie off and explode head.

I also recommend that you do as I did and work on this at 10AM in a pub on a Saturday while watching your friends watch soccer.

The whole FAIL aspect where the geometry of the thing is concerned has me thinking that I will attempt another stitchsphere later in the month. For now, though, please enjoy (hell yes).