For the Kitties at WARL

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My friend Robby volunteers at the Washington Animal Rescue League in Washington DC. She talks about it often and naturally when it came out we would be crafting for our own chosen charities this term, I thought of her immediately. So for my quidditch contributions to HPKCHC, I crafted lots of catnip toys for the kitties at WARL! I've been trying to explain to my kitties, these toys are not for them. They are for the Shelter Kitties waiting for their forever homes. You can just see Orion's face in the picture with the cat nip elephants.

My turtles are even being featured on the pattern page now! To keep them safe I have them in a shoe box with two rubber bands around it! Boots actually managed to steal a purple mouse before it had ears! So I had to craft a new one of the shelter kitties so there would be three. I hope they are enjoyed!




The Swallow Tail Shawl

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Around the beginning of July I finally finished the Swallow Tail Shawl for Mom. This is the shawl that became known as the Shawl Of Doom. I had such trouble with it. This is the 4th attempt at this shawl. It was a gift for Mom's birthday - IN MARCH - but alas took me a wee bit longer to complete. I do have to say though, I am absolutely chuffed at how it came out. It's beautiful! I learned a bit about lave weight yarn. The mere fact it is lace weight makes it that much more difficult to work with. I am actually willing to try this shawl again, but I think it will be with fingering, or better still worsted weight yarn.

Some people have asked what I did to make my Swallow Tail so much larger than the finished one in the directions. I went up several needle sizes. That is all. For this term in the HPKCHC we needed to swatch our OWL proposals even if they did not require a swatch. I am glad they did because I swatched it on a few different needle sizes and found it looked better and better as I got larger. so I went with size 8 needles.

It ended up taking just over 1 skein of yarn as I ran out during the last chart. But on even slightly smaller needles this would have been a one skein project.











Convocation Badges

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Now that the term is over, it is safe to show the achievement badges I designed for the Convocation of eagles in Ravenclaw House. I am very proud of these. They were a lot of fun!


Goodies for the Eyes!

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It's been a while since I have posted! I have actually been busy however. A sampling of what I have been up too.

OWL progress

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And now to show you all how I am faring with my two large projects. These are the ones that must be completed by the last day of July. Whew, it's going to be a busy month.

The Back of Sylvi


The Sleeves of Syvli


Swallowtail Shawl - It looks all bunched up here because my lifelines are short and pulling it together.

Lifeline = A separate thread run through live stitches while they are on the needle and fastened off to itself. This holds your place basically. Then if you make a mistake and need to rip the stitches back, they won't unravel all of the way back to the beginning.

June Projects

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It is once again time to show what I have been working on in the month of June. There will be one project not shown until sometimes later however. I try not to show gifts until they have been delivered after all. :) So without further ado, this months objects, and the Harry Potter inspired stories that accompanied them to class.



Do NOT Look at the following website if you have issues with seizures.

Inspired by this language in the omniglot. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/alfakinetix.php

Specifically by Libo (thousand) and Laksa (10,000).

Dear Professor,

Silverwing26 of Ravenclaw Tower submitting this months assignment.

You charged us with studying another language form the Omniglot this month. When I happen to stumble across the Alfa-Kinetix writing system developed by Frederick Victor Paredes Añana. It is based on the Baybayin alphabet both of which are used to write the language Tagalog. Tagalog is a language spoken by approximately 57 million speakers in the Philippines. Tagalog means Resident Beside the River. However, now, the actual Baybayin writing is used only decoratively as the Latin alphabet is used to write Tagalog now.

The Alfa-Kinetic alphabet takes the same principles of Baybayin and adds motion. Each of the symbols has characteristic movement of some sort. Most of the letters have a dot that moves around the symbol or as part of the symbol, while numbers and punctuation deal more with blinking lines and symbols such as squares.

I have chosen to represent the language by two of its symbols. The symbol for 1000 is a circle with a line moving through its center. The symbol for 10,000 is a circle with two lines moving across its inside.

According to the creator of the alphabet, Frederick Victor Paredes Añana, his goal has to been to save his dying language. The Baybayin writing system has become almost extinct. Since he is of the Philippines himself, his goal is to make the language more complete by the creation of his alphabet. He sited how the Chinese alphabet has changed over time to make it more complete and he reasons doing the same for his own language will help preserver it.

He does point out, his only goal is to modify the extinct language and not the ones still in use. This is quoted from his site where he talks about his E-Book and the creation of the writing system.

“My goal is to modify only the extinct Baybayin variants and not those that are still surviving. The Mangyans (Buhid & Hanunuo)of Mindoro and the Tagbanwas of Palawan are still using their ancestral script. So let’s not meddle with their writing system. I’m not sure if they”ll allow someone else to modify their script.”

Thank you for this chance to learn a little more about the way other people speak and write.





All finished, stuffed with catnip, and ready to go off to the needy kitties at WARL.

Dear Professor,

Silverwing26 of Ravenclaw turning in her Herbology assignment! For an assignment based on food, I took a walk down into the Hogwarts garden. I do believe I have spent this entire month inside and around the place! I decided to create something from the garden for my assignment. Also, taking a page out of the classroom as it were…

Leaping Toadstools - or - Dude, You Gonna Eat That?

I decided to create something I don’t eat very much off. On that note, I present to you…. RADISHES! Yes radishes. Lovely little red white and green bundles of goodness… that I don’t especially enjoy. However, these radishes will be dearly loved. LOVED I tell you. And now I shall tell you why. These radishes are simply STUFFED with catnip. Each one has been stuffed full of this herb that drives cats mad. At the end of the term these radishes shall be winging their way to Washington DC to some kitties that have not yet found their forever homes and are still living at the Washington Animal Rescue League (WARL)






Dear Professor,

Thank you for making us study the marvel that is the Mirror or Erised. Sometimes being faced clearly with your desires, gives you a new perspective on how to go after them.

Silverwing26 of Ravenclaw turning in her assignment. When faced with my most coveted desire, I was not surprised to find an image of hubby and I with our first child. This desire has been eluding us for several years now due to several factors. However, it is my most desired wish to have a family of my own. Faced with this, I am working harder than ever to attain this.

While I won’t get into all of the sordid details, part of the assignment was to think about how one might attain such goal. Well some of my obstacles are health related. So I have, this year, been working on a healthier living lifestyle. In celebration of this class and chasing my desire, I vow to become more accountable to myself.

And so I have something to remind me of this and keep me going on the days when I am not feeling strongly that I can do this, I have created a two (a pair of) miniature baby booties. To ensure I can take them with me wherever I go, I have fashioned them into earrings!







Dear Professor,

Silverwing26 of Ravenclaw turning in her Charms assignment. When you charged us to explore the relationship between light and dark, my mind immediately went to nature. After all, magic is a natural force and is best studied under those conditions. While I was contemplating how to best show how light and dark could live harmoniously together, a large bumble bee went zooming past. Clearly the bee exhibits such properties of light and dark as its bright yellow and black stripes coincide together on its fuzzy bumbley body! I followed the bee around all day noting how it gathered it’s nectar from the beautiful flowers blooming in daylight and then took it back to the dark hive it resides in to turn it into beautiful golden honey that I will store in a dark dark cupboard!

However, I spent so much time examining the bee, I completely lost track of time and found myself alone in the dark near a bee hive.

This is how I stumbled onto my potions assignment Professor!

Silverwing26 of Ravenclaw Turning in Potions! This month we were to demonstrate something that lights the way. Boy did I ever need something to light the way as I was lost in the dark next to a bee hive! I didn’t want to draw my wand and cast lumos. What if I woke the bees up!? Are they light sleepers? Would I suddenly be chased through the darkness by a million groggy bees!?

But just then, I noticed a gentle glowing. It appeared first near my feet, and then along the bark of the tree that the hive hung on. Soon the shrubs, grasses and air dance with small twinkling lights. For here and there flew Lightning Bugs! Yes, cute adorable bugs with blinky butts I could follow back to the castle! Some of them floated about in the air trying to attract mates, and some landed on the ground to lay their eggs so the next generation could come forth and save poor lost witches and wizards from the darkness! Thank you little glowy butt bugs!

Stitch Markers

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I found these little charms on Clearance one time and absolutely fell in love with them. I am glad I bought an extra set so that I could have one, and give one away. This set is for Margie in the HPKCHC. I am sending her a little something because she wasn't eligible to win the prize for the may Flowers competition. It was entirely my fault. I host the competition and I left her off the list entirely. So, in light of spring, June and Flowers... I made here this growing, blooming, beauty, thriving, sprouting set of stitch markers. These are really neat actually and I am hoping to find more of these findings soon in different sizes. These probably won't fit needles above a 9 or so. But they make complete closed circles, however they can be opened if you should accidentally run your life line through one. They won't just pop open on you however though. I really like them. I hope she does too.

What do you think?

I hope I can find more of these. I would love to put some of these on Etsy.

Sylvi

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I am currently working on the Jacket called Sylvi.

This is what it looks like. Mine will be in green, and in an extra large. This one I think is probably the extra small. It is the largest project I have ever undertaken. It is also the most complex cable work I have ever attempted. Now, I finished the sleeves with relative ease. I had a small freak out from not understanding the instructions, but the 'Claws straightened me out. I have also been going along merrily on the back and getting through all of those cables and enjoying myself. And then I hit the decreases. The decrease section of the back is so ungodly confusing. Maybe if you are used to raglan decreases it makes sense to you, but for me it's like it's written in Greek. No worse than that. I was translating the Greek that is working from charts. The decreases are like being written in cuneiform!

It took probably 10 hours yesterday from me to get from row 100 to row 109. That's more than an hour per row folks. The most frustrating part is if a few sentences had just been written into the pattern to explain some of the directions, I wouldn't have been in such a mess yesterday trying to figure out why it wasn't working.

What is the point of having a chart if the stitches you are actually knitting don't match? Why then wouldn't the information be presented in written form which is so much easier to understand! (for me anyway) The part that exploded my brain last night was that k2tog are marked in the chart with this symbol '/', So you k2tog and continue on with the pattern as written. Once you get to the dec rows, the symbol appears to k2tog just as normal, but you somehow magically need to know that you now need to SKIP the next stitch as it is written. You don't do it later, you just SKIP the thing. HOW IN THE WILD WORLD OF SPORTS are you supposed to know this?

Fortunately my husband is very mathematically minded and after I completely lost it with this pattern he sat down with me. He had me explain all of the stitches and what they did and then he worked on the pattern mathematically. He is the one who figured you that you need to skip the next stitch. OH and to make it more fun, you also need to skip the stitch BEFORE the SSK... fun eh?

And to think... I am actually thinking ahead to making another one of these? At least I will have been through all of the crap first!