Piglet

Distraction, thy name is knitting. Actually, thy name is distraction. And if it wasn't then it would be Making-Knitting-Patterns. Which is way too long.

Anyway.
Point is that (despite not having knit him up yet) Tigger is looking lonely. He needs a friend. My next favourite Hundred Acres Wood resident is Piglet. So here is Piglet, all illusionated so he can hide in the background when he wants, and say hello when he wants. (Piglet .... is a boy right? Somehow this detail is not something I had considered before. Oh well)

Pattern on scribd : Piglet Illusion

Now back to the chocobo.

The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers!

As usual, I got distracted.

Honestly, I am knitting the chocobo. But, well. We are redoing our internet, so I'm being sociable in the living room, and the chocobo is upstairs. So I got tea. That's always a good plan. Now for a song I think:

The wonderful thing about Tiggers
Is Tiggers are wonderful things
Their tops are made out of rubber
Their bottoms are made out of springs
They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy
Fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN!
But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers
Is I'm the only one
The wonderful thing about Tiggers
Is Tiggers are wonderful chaps
They're loaded with vim and with vigor
They love to leap in your laps
They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy pouncy
Fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN
But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers
Is I'm the only one.
Tiggers are wonderful fellahs.
Tiggers are awfully sweet.
Everyone elses is jealous,
And thats why I repeat...
The wonderful thing about Tiggers
Are Tiggers are wonderful things
Their tops are made out of rubber
Their bottoms are made out of springs
They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy
Fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN!
But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers

............................................................................... is they hold your tea.

You now understand the link between all these things and how my train of non-thought ended up here, with a Tigger illusion to add to my collection of other illusions.

I have the attention span of a gnat.

For a selection of reasons (most of which I don't understand and the ones I do are basically that I fail at internet) I am now using a totally different scribd account. Which totally doesn't matter to you lovely readers. Here's the link: Tigger Illusion

If you knit it - send me a pic of the completed thing please! I can put it on ravelry then :)

Finally - a breather.

School is one day off finishing for Christmas. Oh wait. 2.
But the last ones just pantomimes.

Soo relieved its not even funny.

Knitting is not something I've had time for all term. Just so busy planning lessons, marking and simply making it through the days. I now get some time to put my feet up, drink tea, and knit.
Its awesome.

To celebrate, here is a Christmas tree scarf illusion thingy.
Just a chart to be fair, but so very  easily extended to a scarf that I'm calling it a scarf.
And when I manage to find my needles I will totally knit it up for my Dad.

My brain died with my final lesson.

Pattern:
Christmas Tree Illusion Scarf

Michael Jackson seems to be popular. Who knew?

So the person who asked me to do the first Michael Jackson illusion got back to me like a week ago and asked me to do another one. I .... um.... ignored all that sensible lesson planning stuff I really should have been doing and made one today.
Its actually quite cool.
I like.
I know I would think that cause its my pattern, but basically its CoR's design, I just put it into a pattern format for her. And even that may be stretching the point. Its a photo that I've illusionated. Which is not a word but will be soon. Or should be.

My housemate is playing Tekken3. It keeps making inane comments. Like hai ya. And K.O. And Round Two. Fight.
It may possibly be driving me insane.
I'm not sure.
I'll keep you updated.

Cause I'm sure you are just dying to know.

Whatever.
Where was I?

Oh yeah.
So now I have 2 illusion patterns for Michael. And there is a third on the way. Its not that exciting I know, but it does keep me from dying of boredom planning how to teach year 7s pie charts. Which I gave up on cause I think they probably already know.

Tra La.

The pattern, you will be surprised to learn, is over on scribd, link on my illusion knit page. And the first MJ pattern is also available on ravelry downloads. Hilariously (to me if no one else) this got downloaded 11 times today. This is a new high. Previously my most downloaded pattern was Discworld Death of Rats. At 2 in a day.
Lol.
Just me?
Oh well. I can amuse myself at least.

He stopped playing Tekken. The voice has gone.
But I'm out of stuff for this post anyway.
And looking at it again, most of it was inane babble. It's a good thing I don't have to pay for this blog in any way really.

Or something.
Back to lesson plans. Bye!

WANTED: UNDEAD OR ALIVE

So. I finished the Barbossa charts. Spectacularly this actually did happen legitimately AFTER the other things I said I would do, and a selection of other things that I did in a sensible way.
I know. Shocking.
Anyway.
Point is that they are finished, on scribd, and all is well in the universe. I am even ambivalent towards any and all Steves at this stage in time.
(Thats the sign of a good day by the way)
Tra La.

I have nothing to say in this post. I wonder why I bothered to write it?
Meh. Whatever.

comissioned illusion

Stranger things have happened than someone offering work. But this, for me, is a first. Someone on ravelry contacted me recently to ask me to do a particular illusion pattern for them (Robert Pattinson/Edward Cullen). Lol. Random.
I'm working on it though. It's actually really not that hard a process for me, turning an image into an illusion pattern, but it does take a little while. On which note, I'll go do something about it, and continue the blog post later.

And I'm back (like a week later). I've made up three versions of the illusion. There's a medium and super huge version of Edward Cullen, and a medium Robert Pattinson. At some stage, when the guy is relatively happy with the patterns, I will put them onto ravelry, but for the moment at least they are uniquely his. Well. I guess they should be mine, but I really can't be bothered to knit that big of an illusion of a person and/or character I have no interest in, as I have a queue of things I do want to knit. So I won't. But I do think the patterns will work. In fact the super huge one should be pretty good, if a pain in the donkey to knit.

It's been fun though. I really enjoy making the patterns, and still find it funny that I was asked. Funny in a good way. In a whoa!-I-have-a-skill-that's-in-demand-when-on-earth-did-that-happen way. You know?
No?
Me either.
Me and words - we fail.

Captain Jack Sparrow if you please

Tum tee Tum.
Another pattern uploaded. Another thing I really really shouldn't have done at this point in time. Oops.
But it's cool, and I am getting way better at making these charts. (Ok, so I haven't actually tried it out yet, but still. it looks just the same as the ones I'm using for another project, so I'm pretty darn confident of its effectiveness)
Plus, Sparrow is cool.

Coming soon will be Jack Sparrow's mutinous first mate Barbossa, in both living and undead forms. After I finish Emma's birthday present. After.
Right.
When pigs fly.

-Jack Sparrow isn't it.
-Captain Jack Sparrow if you please sir.
-I don't see your ship, Captain.
-I'm in the market, as it were.

Warthogs are cute. Also tasty.

So. That whole thing where I promised not to start any more knitting patterns? I have decided that that does not specifically forbid the making of new charts. Even though it probably should.
Oh well.
It's not like its a big pattern. I mean. One Warthog. Not a major project.

I love these guys. They're awesome. When we were staying in Zimbabwe our hotel used them as lawnmowers. And then to show the appreciation they felt towards their fuzzy employees, they the served them up for dinner in the hotel restaurant. Pumba steaks are awesome.
Sorry Mr Warthog!
Anyways. The chart is over on scribd, link on colour work page. I will probably get it onto ravelry at some stage, but for the moment it's here.

Rincewind Revised

At least something has been.

So I decided to knit up the luggage illusion from the chart yesterday, and immediately regretted sticking the old version online before having knitted it.
It sucks basically. It is just about possible to see the luggage, if you really want to see it. I know that this is often true of illusions, but more than normal.
So I have now revised the luggage and Rincewind charts, and well... they look far more promising. I've left the old ones available, but largely for comparison. I'll knit up these new charts when I get a second, but that won't be till later.

Damnit. I've run out of blogstuff to do.
I really must go revise ANT now.

Rincewind up

Cause obviously this is far more important than the exam I have looming.

I finished of Rincewind illusion earlier, and decided that he would do well as a scarf end. But one end of the scarf having something awesome on it and nothing else would be a bit lonely really. So I tried for a little while to make a chart for WIZZARD; Rincewind's most famous title in case you don't know. I failed. I mean, it could look like the words if you squinted and stuff, but compared to the guy that made the POLICE BOX chart it was just a bit awful. So I abandoned that. But still Rincewind would be lonely!
Then inspiration! (potentially way too strong a word, but let me have it) Who could accompany Rincewind but his faithful retainer, the Luggage! Ok, so again retainers just not the right word, but I can't be bothered with subtleties of the English language right at this moment.

So yeah - my Rincewind illusion now has an additional Luggage illusion, which can helpfully finish the second end of the scarf. TADA! I have finally designed something that could theoretically be classed as clothing!

As per -  its on the Illusion knit page

Getting ahead of myself

It's still exam time. Warwick has a really hideously long exam time. Half my friends at other unis not only went back later than us, but have also finished. Which is really awesome for them and all, but jealous!
On the other hand, those that now have nothing left and so have almost-graduated.... EEeeeeK! They now have to pretend to be adults! Anything more scary?
Well. Probably, but this will do for the moment.

In any case, this stupid long revision time (and the fact that I tried using my finger as a chopping board and that hasn't healed yet) mean that I have done nowt all in the way of knitting recently. But since I am insane in this particular department (and many others that I won't add here) I have been continuing with the illusion patterns. I still haven't even made it to the fuzzy/not-fuzzy elephants to find out if they're fuzzy or not in Great A'tuin. On Great A'tuin. Definitely not in. Quite clearly standing on his back. Not sure what I was thinking of there. Made it sound like the Great Old Turtle In The Sky had starting eating elephants (fuzzy or not) for breakfast.
Demonstrating the madness oh so well today huh?

Um. point. I had a point.

Oh! yeah. that I get ahead of myself.

It's not that interesting, but again its exam time and knitting is Not-maths, so I guess I'll tell you anyhow. I've been happily looking for other things to illusionate, and particularly looking for stuff to illusionate that would lend itself to other colours - largely cause I'm out of double knit black. So this lead me towards the Matrix. Obviously needs green right? Or blue if you're a purist who doesn't acknowledge the sequels. Minor issue that it really should be green and black, but whatever.
Neo Matrix Illusion knit pattern is the result of all this rambling, and revision-evading.
Again the pattern link is over in the illusion knit page.

I've also got a couple of discworld things to put online shortly. They're not that great, I mean I haven't tried them (gasp if shocked here.... no one? me either) so they could still potentially turn out amazingly, but the lack of detail was semi-deliberate. These ones - Nac Mac Feegle and Rincewind - are actually in dimensions that could easily turn into scarfs. They could in fact be something other than a panel of time consuming knitting! Success!
And coincidentally, clearly a present lined up for my discworld happy mother! Woot!

Anyways - enjoy the patterns. Bet you someone else gets through with one before I do :)

Tis the Season to Procrastinate, fa la la la la, la la la la!

Ring out the bells: Exam Season is HERE!!!
Joy.

Just so much joy.

Have you ever noticed that when you need to revise you end up spending at least as much time procrastinating as revising? Ok, in my case its more like double the time procrastinating as revising, but you get my point. Its boring. And in addition to needing to do all this work theres the sense of massive guilt you get whenever you are not doing work. Oh you gotta love a good old revision revision revision EXAM!!!!!!!!!! season.

Oh wait. You don't.

Anyway. Rant done. My point is that I have been doing loads of knitting recently, but at the same time feeling really guilty about it. Hence even though I'm spending more time than usual knitting, I can't get into any big projects. I think it seems like too much of a challenge, and just looks like too much time. So instead, all the little things I was going to knit for friends as listed in last post are getting done - which honest to goodness is a great thing, specially since I've only just noticed its May, and that means a new round of birthdays. Why can't I ever keep track of my life?

Back to the point, what I really want to be playing with in the knitting department is more illusion knits. I really really enjoyed doing the Death of Rats, and actually I made my own rose illusion too. I didn't bother to share that with anyone cause there's lots of that sort of pattern about on Ravelry, but it was just fun to do it from scratch myself. So I decided. I've made the pattern for another discworld illusion knit now, and will get around to the actual knitting of it later. Well. Actually. I think I'll start it off now... and just feel really guilty whenever I knit more than 5 ridges at a time. That could work.

The patterns over at scribd again, but here's the original picture I was working from. I'm not so confident with this one as with DoR, cause this one has a lot more detail and is far less line drawn. I think I've got good definition on Great A'tuin and the disc - but the elephants look a little on the fuzzy side on the chart. It's impressive how much you lose just from going over to greyscale; using only three colours makes things just a bit difficult to see.

It may work out perfectly. Thats the hope anyways.

Illusion of DEATH!!! (for rats)

So mother's day is coming up. Great starting line for a blog post with DEATH!!! in the title right? Well. I like it. There is even a point, and more shockingly a connection. Which you never know I might get to, but first a side-ramble to explain the rambly nature of this post. It is in honour of my mothers manner of speech, in turn in honour of mother's day.
My mum speaks in a kind of random walk. She'll start a sentence, and then there'll be a 50-50 chance that the next word will arrive at a sensible time or that a gap will appear. This process is then repeated until either the sentence finishes or more likely she forgets what she was trying to say and stops. Then shortly afterwards, chances being regardless of any response from those around her, there will be another random event: this one with options of silence, response that follows the conversation, or another sentence starting with the word also, and then being about something that is just not connected. On the surface anyway. Apparently to her it all makes perfect sense, but some of the conversation she's having wasn't necessarily shared with the rest of us.
Bah.
So in that vain, also I've knitted a Death of Rats illusion.

I've decided I like illusion knitting, except for the minor issue that it involves a LOT of stitch counting, which removes it from the mindless category of knitting. I haven't done much of it (till now), only about a third of a Dr Who pattern I got off Ravelry, and the rose thing I gave my Rev mortal this term. I wanted to do something different, preferably something I made up for myself.
I found a site that gave a tutorial of how to make up your own illusion knit patterns, and decided that Death of Rats (from Terry Pratchett's Discworld for those unfortunate enough not to instantly know) would be awesome.
It took a surprisingly long time to make up the pattern, but I was so pleased with it, that I just had to start the knitting of it instantly, interrupting the five or so other knitting projects I have on the go. Woops. I really have a short attention span when it comes to knitting - everything is too cool, and I want to knit it all NOW!

So anyhow - using the tutorial I turned this:

into this:

into this:

Cool huh?



btw: the connection between DEATH!!! and mother's day that I left out a while ago is that my mum keeps stealing bits of my knitting to show off to others - she apparently thinks its something special. I disagree, and though I do really enjoy knitting it all, its kinda weird when she steals stuff just to wave it in peoples faces. Thus I thought for mother's day I'd give her something knitted, allowing her to show it off if she really wants to, and saving the rest of my knitting from being stolen. She also really likes Discworld, so I though the Death of Rats would be cool, and I just like the whole illusion thing.
See. It all makes sense.
Honest.

Ok, it doesn't, but I don't care very much. :)

Stress city

I finished Eeyore!

I can't think of anything else knitting related to say.

Basically I am a giant ball of stress with ( I hope ) a small centre of a sane Kate. I am not very convinced any more however. The further through life I get the less sane I seem to be. Oh well. 7 months left of Uni, and only 3 months left of Focus presidency. I can totally make it through.

Oh I know.

Eeyore.
Technically this is a pattern I created myself, and would therefore put on the my own patterns page I'm gently trying to accumulate stuff to, but there is an issue. Basically I don't know what the pattern was. It started by being a messed up garter stitch elephant, but then the head I made for it was a bit rubbish, and so I chopped it off. This made Steve really quite irritated. Apparently decapitating Eeyore was even worse than ignoring Eeyore while trying to do some maths. He may have a point. So then I knitted a new head, which was sufficiently good to be acceptable, and then ears and a tail and hair and a bow for the tail. And I have no clue as to how I would do any of this again.
But Eeyore is complete, and it works!

Yay.
Now back to the rest of life.

No way could I make life easy for myself

It could be said that the worst part of getting a maths degree is having to do the maths involved. In fact it is said. By me. A lot. But.. I could do more to actually make my life possible. Say, only doing one or two things at a time, rather than trying to juggle about 17.

An example would be today. I went in for a 9o'clock, which was fine. I didn't understand the stupid thing, cause I've had to miss the last two lectures for various reasons, but on the other hand at least I didn't fall asleep. Then I had to skip my 10o'clock to go to some stupid piddly little meeting with the SU about the Focus weekend away (shock horror disaster nothing was wrong with the form (actually there was but I wasn't exactly gonna point that out was I) and we can go) which lasted all of 3 -count em- 3 minutes. I then went to the chapo, and discovered the kitchen was sufficiently disgusting that I spontaneously decided to clean it. ALL of it. All the washing up, all the surfaces, the lot. I am an idiot. That took over an hour. Then last lecture (which btw was a win, cause I didn't fall asleep in that either!) and home.
Then the ever present choices: clean kitchen, clean room, do useful work that's due in soon, do useful work that is never due in, or knit.
Hmmmm. Clean kitchen. Did I mention I'm an idiot?
Next.. Hmm. Work that's never due in. .... .... 5 minutes later. Yep: bored. NEXT!
Hmm... Knitting.
At this point we see the entry of more stupidity. Instead of continuing one of the many projects I have on the go, or starting one of the ones that I really want to do soon, I started a totally new project! Yay! Emma put the idea of knitting Eeyore into my head, and ravelry had failed me. This is kind of where the issue came in. If I had found a pattern then the whole thing would quite happily have been put on the back burner and added to the queue. But they didn't, or at least not for free. And I'm sort of against paying money for a pattern I can work out myself given time. Time. Yeah. One commodity students are supposed to be rich in, and I'm totally skint. Meh. ANYway, it led to me knitting Eeyore instead of doing the silly assignment that is in fact due in in about 13 hours time now.
Again. I am an idiot.
And.. I'm OK with that.

(I ended up snubbing Eeyore by hiding him under the table in order to persuade myself to do the maths. It's OK though. He doesn't know I'm snubbing him. Although, that is largely because I haven't knitted his head yet.)

Tory's Gecko Completed!

My first ever pattern-that-I've-made-up-myself done! AND its really awesome! I love it!
I basically made up the pattern as I went along, starting at the tail and working towards the head, and knitting the legs separately. When I was done I decided to cartoon-ise him, and modified part of the Dalek pattern to make massive eyes.

The pattern is approximately:
Starting at the tail end of main body piece,
CO4
*K4
P4
Repeat from * until piece is the length you want the tail to be (more or less)
**K1 inc1 K2 inc 1 K1
P row
K row
P row
Repeat from ** until there are 16 stitches.
increase 4 stitches in each of next 2 rows.
K row, P row until the piece has sufficient body length
decrease 2 stitches every other row 4 times.
decrease 2 stitches every row 3 times
K row
increase 4 stitches in each of next 2 rows
K row
P row
decrease 2 stitches every other row until 2 remain
P row
BO2

Legs, make 4 the same:
CO8
Work in I-cord for 16 rows, or until leg is in proportion with body piece
Place 6 stitches on holder, continue working in I-cord on remaining 2 stitches for 6 rows to create a toe.
BO2
Pick up 2 stiches from holder, work in I cord for 6 rows.
BO2
Repeat for final two rows.

Eyes, make 2 the same:
CO1
KPKPKP into that one stitch
KP into all 6 stitches, making 12 stitches in total
K row
K row
K2tog 6 times
K2tog 3 times
K3tog
Pick up the original cast on stitch, K2tog
BO

Sew up the main piece of the gecko from nose to tail, pausing at some point in the belly to stuff. Attach legs and ears.

And - you have a Gecko! Yay!

Tory, her Gecko, and the yrrytatyon of Crochet patterns

I have a very lovely fryend named TorY. She ys Amerycan so must be forgyven the fact that she cannot spell her own name, and ys yn fact declaryng herself to be a Conservatyve the whole tyme she ys yn England. Y once had a really long argument wyth her and her boyfryend Rob about her to spell Tory, whych resulted yn the current weyrdness of usyng 'y's all over the place.
Anyways. The poynt ys that Y myssed Tory's byrthday yn September, to be fayr she was yn Amerycaland so yt could have been worse. Tory loves geckos. There ys happyly an obvyous solutyon to thys problem: knyttyng Tory a gecko.

Unfortunately Ravelry users do not thynk that knytters want gecko patterns, only crocheters crochet geckos. Thys even more yrrytatyngly went double for google knyt pattern search, so Y'm now left wyth ynventyng my own pattern for knyttyng a gecko. Thys could take a whyle, especyally gyven there ys no tyme to guylt-free knyt anymore...

The one good thyng about myssyng someones byrthday by a month already: Yt no longer has any relevance how late you gyve them a present.... provyded yt's before Chrystmas anyway.

Yt surely won't take that long, wyll yt?