Sisters of the Holy Fiber -Episode 19- A Hermione Moment

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Projects of the Moment: WIPs Report

TinyKiwi picks her Granny Rose Square Triangle back up after two three weeks of neglect and vows to finish the horrible thing.

RambunctiouSky plugs away at her Shawl of Doooooom Evenstar Shawl, while her second pair of Socks for Terri are in time-out.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Finished Objects! (2:44)

RS’s FOs: Starfish Bottle Topper/Cat Toy~!

Preemie Hat

TK’s FO: It’s a Slouchy Hat! More importantly, it’s done!
*******HAT PIC TK!******
Accidental Brainy Moment, where TK teaches that you can cast-on over two needles if you’re a tight knitter (then pull one out when you’re done casting-on) and it helps keep your cast-on row from being too tight.

Brainy Moments (8:27)

TK made the long-promised tatting video, but hates it, so will re-do next week.

RS reminds us, if you don’t know how to make something, just ask! People won’t bite your head off, we promise.  By the Power of Raverly vested in me, we can help you make a bobble.

Hyperventilate (13:19)

RS geeks out playing the old-school version of Zelda. Much wandering around and dying ensues!

TK worries about the quality of the upcoming TV show Constantine and the upcoming Maleficent movie.  Fingers are crossed, but breath is not being held. Maleficent has been one of TK’s favorite villains for as long as she can remember, so the new movie makes her very anxious.

Books to Stick Your Nose In (18:34)

Book of Stitch Symbols [Crochet] {Japanese Vogue’s Golden Series Basic Book}: Well understood basics in the first person …Sorry if my translation is a bit wonky.  I’m by no means a proficient translator, but I content myself by usually being at least a smidge more understandable than Google Translate.
編み目記号の本 かぎ針あみ (日本ヴォーグ社の基礎BOOKゴールデンシリーズ) はじめての人にもよくわかる基礎の本
Lovely book though.  Very helpful if you like to make amigurumis or work off of Japanese patterns.

I Spy (21:04)

TK gets too excited. She sees a Red-Tailed Hawk, American Crows, a Phoebe, House Sparrows and Finches.  Interrupting TK is interrupting to remember she also saw sheep and goats. So cute!  TK learns from the British Goat Society that the little dangly bits from the chin of the goat are called tassels or toggles.  Now you know! She also saw a mostly-intact lizard skin.  Crazy!

RS sees a Red-Headed Woodpecker crossing the road.  She doesn’t know why he’s crossing the road, but our investigative reporters are getting right on it. She also see lizards and wishes to see snakes.  We then start making snake-alluring sounds of a dubiously alluring nature.

Ear Party (30:00)

TK’s been enjoying Elliott Smith and is bummed to learn he’s passed on (I’m always late to the party), but it makes the suicide scene in The Royal Tenenbaums make more sense, as they used Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” song and Smith was a known suicide risk who eventually (most-likely) took his life in 2003. Stop killing yourselves angsty singer/songwriters!  TK is currently addicted to his song Alameda.
She also listens to Liszt (here’s a link to Miserere du Trouvère de Giuseppe Verdi played by Stéphanos Thomopoulos) and we talk about the craaazay people who play Liszt.  Take care of your hands people!

RS talks about how the best place to find classical CDs is thrift stores, ’cause nobody wants them (except us apparently!) and they’re cheap! So there’s your brainy tip for the week. 😉

RS listens to her favorite clarinetist Sabine Meyer. Our hero(ine)!

Walks in the Urban Wilderness (35:40)

RS went on one hike.
TK gets a long day of gardening one day, plus extra gardening days and one walk, so she feels like this week’s goals are met.

Then we wander into Random Remnants (37:00ish)
And we talk about how we hate buying shorts, but it’s on the docket.

RS cleans trumpets! 15 years of unwashed student trumpets is apparently really, really gross.  We can imagine! Our sympathies!

Sisters of the Holy Fiber – Episode 11 – Kiwi Monocle

Sisters of the Holy Fiber Episode 11 <Click here to listen to audio only.

Projects of the Moment: WIPs Progress Report

RS works on some striped vanilla socks. Sleeves are done and pieces are sewn together on her Sashiko Cardigan. TK is knitting the Fibonerdy Shawl. The Color Affection Shawl is everywhere. TK is making more buttons with vintage fabric and turning them into rings. Very pretty!

Brainy Moments (10:12)

“Jogless stripes” blog post from Tech Knitter. RS is using Traveling Jogless Stripes for socks. TK makes a container for holding needle files out of a glass jar, a piece of crochet fabric, and a plastic drain to keep tools handy and organized.

Shiny! (17:37)

RS shows a few of the different skeins of 2,000 yards of organic heathered gray bulky wool yarn for a future blanket. One of the blanket patterns RS is considering is the Knitted Garter Stitch Blanket by Elizabeth Zimmerman and she mentions Umaro. TK went crazy at the craft store and returned with skull beads and little black felt hats. We mention Lolita style.

Books to Stick Your Nose In (27:55)

TK continues reading the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs.

I Spy! (28:21)

RS went to the beach and saw a sea lion swimming in the surf, an invertebrate (probably some kind of snail), a large black fish, and a snowy egret. The Oak Titmice are the ones that make the “tweetweetweetweetwee.” TK saw great blue herons nesting in palms, a flyby pheobe, squirrels, house sparrows, a red tail hawk, hummingbirds, and lots of pill bugs.

Ear Party (33:29)

TK listens to the blues with Billy Holiday singing Pennies from Heaven and Ma Rainey.

Walks in the Urban Wilderness (36:21)

RS gets her walks in, including walking to work, but no yoga. TK got her four walks in AND is working out while volunteering in the garden!

Random Remnants (41:10)

RS relates a story about teaching loud and soft to first graders and students relating to the material through monster trucks. TK discovers some new cds in a car junkyard. Score! TK makes her own Ravelry “Hello My Name is” button. We make a vow to go to Stitches someday. TK shares her Kiwi Monocle.

Sisters of the Holy Fiber – Episode 10 – I Learneded It Good

Sisters of the Holy Fiber Episode 10<Click Here to Listen to Audio Only

Projects of the Moment: WIPs Progress Report

TinyKiwi works more on her Fibonerdy Shawl, and despairs of getting it finished by the end of the month.
TK tries out a scrapbooker’s glue on her potion jar earring stoppers. Hopefully it works!
She then also shows off some of her patterned fabric stash, most of which was originally intended for purses, but TK’s trying to get rid of purses, not make more…so she’s trying to think of something else to do with the fabric.

Rambunctiousky makes good progress on her Sashiko Cardi! Sleeves are cast off, but yarn isn’t cut until they get blocked to make sure that they fit. If not, math may be in her future!
RS also works on a washcloth! The ubiquitous washcloth…
As follow-up from last week, there is also progress on her kiwi cross-stitch bookmark–it’s over half-done now, although RS now remembers that cross-stitch always takes longer than one thinks it will, and fights her need to make her stitches perfect. Sneaky cross-stitch!

RS finally casts on socks for her partner Terri in Knit Picks Stroll. Cast on one cuff. We mention Terri’s previous socks in the Herringbone pattern from Around the World in Knitted Socks by Stephanie van der Linden.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s FOs! (12:34)

TK has one small finished object this week, which is kind of a continuation of last week…but we’ll let her get away with it. She took the shank-less button she made from her grandpa’s shirt fabric scraps, and hot-glued an adjustable ring shank to the back of it. Voila! Instant vintage fabric ring.

Brainy Moments (16:23)

RS talks about wet blocking vs. steam blocking, and shares a link that she’s found useful to a video on youtube about steam blocking your knits. She’s going to use steam blocking for piecing together the parts of her sweater.

Shiny! (20:14)

TK gets new potions jars, including some weird…memory capsules? She’s not quite sure what to do with those guys, so if you have ideas or a link to a pinterest idea, do share!

She also gets  more “cotton crochet thread” to finish up some wristers/wrist-warmers based on a section of the Tracery vest pattern by Kathleen Sperling out of the Unofficial Harry Potter Knits magazine

RS shares the tip that using wool for stranded knitting is better, ’cause the scales of the wool fiber help keep things in their proper places, but as TK’s weaving in as she goes, this property is not as important.

Hyperventilate (29:25)

Murder She Wrote TV series with actress Angela Lansbury. RS talks about episode 2.5 “Sing a Song of Murder.”

Books to Stick Your Nose In (31:50)

TK reads the 5th book in the Mercy Thompson series, called Silver Borne, by Patricia Briggs.

She also reviews One Yard Wonders by Yaker and Hoskins, and shares the errata for the book (of which there’s a lot!) This book has so many mistakes that it’s really better as an idea book, more than a pattern book.
TK also shares the tidbit that interfacing is best when washed, as well as shares a link on the importance of washing (certain kinds) of interfacing, from the sewing blog Male Pattern Boldness. She also talks about pre-shrinking your interfacing by steaming it with the iron (like when you steam block) to keep it from being bubbly when you attach it to your pattern fabric.

Here’s a link to the Japanese book of simple bag patterns that TK talks about: (基礎からていねいに) 手づくりバッグレッスン  “From the ground up, handmade bag lessons” with it’s lovely pictorial instructions. ❤

RS requests a WIP bag that’d hold two sweaters.  TK may comply or might get lazy! There’s a 50/50 chance!

I Spy! (44:12)

TK hears a Flicker/Woodpecker, and sees a Kestrel, House Sparrows, Hummingbirds and some Red Tailed Hawks having a disagreement of sorts.

RS lures in Juncos and a mystery bird…perhaps a Towhee?

Ear Party (50:02)

TK recommends the CD “Dark of Days” by Bourbon Princess, a sort of lo-fi slowed down alt-rock/funk/jazzy group that’s kind of hard to pin to a genre. The lead singer Monique Ortiz has a deep smokey voice and plays the bass, with saxophone, drums and guitar filling up the rest of the sound. TK usually feels sax makes a piece sound very dated, and that it’s often an overpowering sound, but for some reason I dig it in Bourbon Princess (and Morphine.)

She’s also been listening to Fitz and the Tantrums’ “Out of My League”

RS is still digging on Kasey Musgraves, (not Musgrove as we thought last week! Sorry Kasey!)  We worry a little about the hyper-sexualization in her videos, but without knowing the intention, we try to avoid passing judgement.

RS is a sneaky teacher using “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg from the Peer Gynt suite to introduce musical concepts to her students.

Walks in the Urban Wilderness (56:58)

TK falls short of her goals, with only 3 sessions this week, but as she busted her buns gardening on Tuesday, she’s not really sweating missing the mark a little.

RS gets her two walks and a (questionable) yoga session in!

Random Remnants (59:31)

We start tangenting talking about yoga, and the benefits of doing something aerobic in a class, as it forces you to work harder for longer in a way you don’t on your own.

TK expresses her disappointment that the fabric paint she got is just Puffy Paint in disguise.   She’s still searching for an easy way to do something similar to silk-screening.
TK also talks more about the iron-on letters from a different episode, and her trepidation with working with them, but thankfully she found a tutorial, so hopefully she’ll get working with them soon.

RS makes cream-puffs and dreams of her own chef knives! She tries to convince TK to do a knife-sharpening demo…which really just depends on whether or not TK remembers!

And that’s all for this week, folks! Thanks for watchin’/listenin’!