Transfiguration

Lookee! I'm finally remembering to post something I have done!

This month's Transfiguration homework was in honor of Tonks and her metamorphmagus ability. We were to disguise someone (human or animal).

I chose the ever-patient Sydney. Here is what I submitted for class:


Addreamy, fourth year Slytherin, turning in my completed Transfiguration homework.

Being a Slytherin, I first tried to find a potion to do what I wanted, eschewing “silly wand waving.” I considered Polyjuice, but that is such a finicky potion and takes forEVER to work. Besides, I wanted to transfigure my canine companion, and, as we all know, Polyjuice is only for humans.

Since Potions was out, I decided to brush up on Cross-Species Switches. I decided this called for before/after shots. As the whole idea was to disguise my springer, I realized there was only one thing to do. I chose the LEAST likely of the four houses for her. Sydney, you see, is decidedly a Hufflepuff, although, being officially a Senior Citizen (she is 8 now), she would much rather sleep than be hardworking. She does have some Slytherin tendencies, such as insisting on her own way and cadging around for treats or ordering me off the couch to go GET her water rather than doing it herself. I applaud her Slythernness, even as I shove her off the couch to go get her OWN drink.

The two least likely houses for her are Ravenclaw (i lovingly refer to her as “dumber than a box of rocks”) and Gryffindor (she is afraid of such things as the Ice Machine in the refrigerator and the stairs down to the basement). However, she does definitely have a love of learning, especially if food or treats are involved in some fashion.

So. Gryffindor it was.

Here is Syd awaiting the spell:



and after a little judicious practice, I got this:



(side view to show off the coat and tail)



(CRAP! Blogger has disabled image uploading due to maintenance. i gave you links instead - hope it works!)

pain

i have only been back at crochet for a month and i have been working everyday on something or other. in the meantime, headaches are visiting. two visits to the chiro and 3 chair massages later, i am realizing, i have all this strain in my right shoulder and neck...from guess what?

ssss.

so, i am taking it easier and trying to be very conscious of not curling over the work or twisting too much. hopefully, this will help!

here is a link i found with a bunch of good tips for yarnwranglers.

excerpt:

You are attempting to be a marathon knitter and crocheter. And as such, like any elite athlete, you need to train to be able to knit and crochet with endurance. Too many of you, especially those of you learning how to knit or crochet, or picking up your knitting needles or crochet hook again after years away from the craft, just launch straight hours of work.

Start slowly and build up. As a rule of thumb, you could start by working for 20 to 30 minutes a day, slowly on a sliding scale according to half your age. So for example:

20 for 10 days
30 for 15 days
50 for 25 days
70 for 35 days.

LOL. yeah, right. :p

twisted-like-the-devil

as i am such a baby yarnmeister, i just learned something the hard way. i hate that.

as i have mentioned, i frogged my first attempt at a large crochet project. i blithely balled the yarn for reuse. last night, however, i began incorporating the first of the frogged yarn and discovered it was twisted. twisted as in "twisted-like-the-devil" twisted. i couldn't crochet more than a row and a half without ending up with knots and evilness between me, the piece and the ball.
to rectify the situation, i had to brainstorm. gently twisting it against itself while i worked stitches was futile. i could not simply hang the ball or piece to let it spin out...until i thought of using binder clips to hold the ends of the yarn to prevent unraveling. afterward, i spent a good hour and a half untwisting my yarn by letting the ball hang in midair and spin itself back to normal--2 stinking yards at a time. that...is a lot of twisting in the wind. i balled the yarn, now all nice and well-behaved, and, hopefully, it will crochet without any memory of its evile tortured past.

Cup Work

my ophidian wand cozy features a flip-top head.
(nagini was my inspiration, of course.)
i also turned this slytherin hyperbolic plane
ornament for the arithmancy assignment.

----

also...this little rainbow one simply made of cute.

the rest of my month was all devoted to my big project
and much wank-stalkery. oh, snakey...*eyeroll*

OMGWTFFROG

my current project was half done, when i happened to view the piece from an distance and catch that i made a huge mistake 10 inches ago. it is a subtle crochet texture, so i didn't catch it right away...but there it was: one stitch off. i knew i couldn't live with it, but man, it is so hard to bring oneself to undo all that TIME invested. i discussed it with some knitters at work and decided to start a whole new one first, and then when i felt happy with that one, i could more easily frog the other and feel clean and righteous!

so far, it looks perfect!
go, clean-righteous snakey, go!



*i promise i will post a pic when it is done. :)

more linkypoos

the queen of all things "scrumble" was the late slyvia cosh and i happened to stumble on a set of freeform crochet workshop pages that her fellow artists have shared.

links to pdf files here.


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here is a link to crochet by numbers where crochet artist todd paschall shares his pdf training tools to help grasp to his photo-crochet technique. there is also a ravelry group devoted to todd's technique!

scrumbdillicious

we are off! classes are posted. i am reading through and trying to choose how best to use my time.

last night, mair and i went on a yarn-pr0n spree over at etsy. i was able to walk away without a purchase, but it was hard! today, i spent the last hour tweaking my ravelry pages so i only see what i want to see. then, i loaded RSS feeds from slytherin to my igoogle reader. THEN, i researched freeform crochet AKA scrumbling:



it so beautiful! it looks like undersea corals--so organic and magical! i just want to try everything!

*obviously suffering from an acute case of autumn woolmania*