Jane's Journal

This weekend I attended a Wildling weekend (just the group, an SL and one NPC!) in Baarn and of course my Muse struck. On Friday afternoon, an hour before I had to leave, she decided I needed something to keep my hands busy at the campfire.

The clan I belong to has the colours grey and red, which I combined with black for a more variegated costume. As luck would have it, I have some Cascade yarn in a beautiful grey colour that would match. A quick Ravelry search yielded Treads, a fingerless glove pattern I could try my hand at....
After some quick thinking, a snapped picture to Wannabe_Kat, and some more inspiration, I decided against knitting around the campfire with yarn from my stash. Instead, I grabbed my bone needle, watched a YouTube video, bought two skeins of Zeeman tweed wool/acrylic blend and started naalbinding a hat for my IC mate Howl....

It was a weekend well spent, mostly around a hot campfire in a cold but beautiful forest. After two attempts, I have a sort of proto-hat that might work, but in truth will be just as nice as a bag -- which Howl needs even more as his own bag was destroyed upon arrival because it was tainted.

This was a perfect trial run for Booyah next month, when it will be even colder. I had better layers, still couldn't really sit still around the campfire (itchy skin was very itchy!) and need something around my neck and head to keep me slightly warmer still.
So I've queued the fingerless mittens but have completely fallen in love with this hooded scarf and I've got a month to knit it. Should be do-able.

So say it with me: Muse ALWAYS knows best.

After calculating the travel time by public transport to Castlefest, I was very quickly done with the whole festival. It would take us 2½ hours just to get to the gates and five hours of trains and buses is not my idea of a fun day, no matter what else is in between.

This meant that on Friday night we removed my dreads and watched the Lion King and Fantasia and our Saturday was blissedly empty!
So I did some chores that have been lying around for a while. I cut into our bedroom curtains, which have been way to long since we bought them, taking off nearly a meter in length. I re-hemmed them and it's amazing what a difference this makes in the look of the bedroom.

We also put up the klamboe (mosquito net) again, as mosquitoes have been keeping me awake and leaving NoKey well enough alone. Because he's so allergic to them, I don't get stung anymore either and I get more allergic to their bites as well, since my immune system is no longer used to them. The one bite I got a few nights back swelled to a 2-euro coin size bump, and I applied generous amounts of Azaron to help.

Other sewing I did was make two pillows for the cats from a coupon I bought the week before Drachenfest. It's a lovely cotton sateen in white, with blue leaves and brownish vines. It sounds more horrible than it is and because of my awesome colour memory I could see the blue is just the exact shade our couch is. Squee!
(Don't ask me to remember your name, because I suck at names. But colours? Oh hell yeah!)

One pillow is round, for on top of the scratching post where Dusty recently found her groove. The other is in the window sill. The cats were a bit sceptical at first, but in the end Lisa deigned to try one out.



Lots of home-related sewing, but I am very happy how this turned out. I also made drapes (vitrage) for the atelier. They'll keep the warmth in come winter.

And since I have not one but two new holes in my head I picked up nålebinding.
[This is Janey logic. I always say "I need a new hobby like I need a hole in my head" and now that my wisdom teeth have been removed I have two new holes in my head, so I might as well pick up a new hobby...]
This is in part the fault of a Time Guide at the museum, who was working on a piece, and I saw a Nålebound purse in the collection that was uber-cute. The other part is that I ran out of crafts that Lenny didn't yet practice. *wink*

Nålebinding is the Viking's precursor to knitting. It is done with a large, blunt needle and a piece of yarn. It's very satisfying to just wrap the yarn around your fingers and loop the needle around. It's much like knitting in that you use one thumb as a needle, but it's completely different in the way the stitches look. I love it.
I used the Flinkhand description in combination with this guy's video (a guy who makes his own needlebound hats? You rawk!) to learn a basic 3-loop stitch.
Like with any needlecraft, tension is a thing to get the knack of, but so far, so good, and I'm liking it. It's very satisfying. And it's a great way to get rid of some lingering acrylic yarn. And it's like chainmailling in a way, because you just need to figure out how to stick the needle (ring) into the loops.

On my to-do list today: perhaps hang the new drapes in the atelier, and finally finish my Drachenfest write-up. *sigh*