My hands hurt

On a whim, I decided to make a little doily.  A miniature doily, about 4 in. in diameter and fashioned from regular sewing thread on a size 1o/1.3 mm crochet hook:

Would it work as a tablecloth in a dollhouse?  It needs a round table like the kind you see in pointless hallways, but I haven’t figured out how to make one yet.

Happy Pi(e) Day

A three-course pie binge for March 14.

I got distracted by the wood grain:

Ok, these are tartlets, but they count for Pi Day Dessert.

The Real Power Bar = Chocolate-Covered Bacon (updated)

It looks disgusting, it sounds disgusting, but dammit, it’s making me hungry for more:

This has been the easiest “dessert of the week” I’ve made for work. And it actually lives up to the hype. I was expecting to prefer the bacon by itself but the chocolate and it make a nice duo. You can read all the blog posts out there and hear people rave about it, but you just have to taste it to see for yourself.

If you’re thinking of trying this with a minimum investment of time and energy, here’s what I did (so easy that it’s not much of a recipe):

1. Cook bacon. Baking in the oven for 10 minutes at 400 degrees and got slices that were firm but not crunchy. Of course, adjust for your preferences and the kind of bacon.

2. Melt chocolate. I used about 2-3 ounces of chocolate chips and just microwaved them.

3. Coat bacon in chocolate. I used a table knife to get a hearty enough layer on both sides and made sure to munch on a slice while the chocolate was still gooey.

4. Refrigerate till chocolate is set.

The most entertaining part was customizing a couple for my office comrades:

I had a tiny bit of melted chocolate coating the bowl–not enough to coat another strip, but too much just to wash away. So I made it into a lovely hot chocolate infused with the power of bacon. The perfect accompaniment to thoughts of world domination.

Of the brave souls who tried this at the office, about half loved it and wanted more. Of the other half, none said that it was bad; but the reaction was a confused “I don’t get it.” More bacon chocolate for me, then!

Branching Out

The commute’s got to be used for something.  Here ya go:

On the bus ride home, a bump jolted the stitches off my needle once.  I’m not too happy with the evenness of the edges so I may try to reblock it.

More Crinkling Paper

A lesson in origami biology: start with two cranes, and you get this:

I love the sound of crinkling paper

It started when I saw a piece of odd-sized paper that had been sitting on the scratch paper pile at work.  That rejected sheet became my first paper crane in years.  It met another crane, and the cranes started a family.  Of over fifty baby cranes.

They’re all at work at the moment, so the visual will have to wait.

But I wanted to give my coworkers something else to comment on.  Hence:

My first, rumply “rose.”  It sprouts from the hardwood, because the leaves and stem are enough for another day’s challenge.  I gave up on other, much more complicated-looking patterns before sitting down to conquer the simple, four-petaled rose (is there such a thing in botany?).

My happy origami landfill:

It’s Been a Month

Hello.  I am alive, but my laptop is not.

The Noro scarf…is in a coma.

I miss drawing and playing with yarn.  Please knit scarves and crochet shawls and build miniatures enough for two!  For now, house-hunting and bacon-earning (oh yes, and laptop-shopping) will keep my hands away from fibery bliss.  I hate to let any of those pursuits get in my hands’ way, but for now, this will have to do.

FO: Simple Tricolor Scarf

I have something for you.

After deciding that this scarf’s previous incarnation just didn’t appeal to me, I opted to try this simple pattern from Tata and Tatao: http://www.tata-tatao.to/knit/e-index.html.  I’d been avoiding the 1×1 rib because the switching between knit and purl sounded slow.  But man…the smoothness of the baby alpaca and the mindlessness made this project a pleasant accompaniment to catching up on old anime.

After only my second day at work, this is rather close to how I feel:

Droopy, relaxed, just out of the shower and looking forward to shape up for a new day.  Let’s hope I don’t shed as much as the alpaca…

Boo!

It is a minor misery when you have a blog but nothing to post…The truth is that I haven’t even touched yarn except to pack it for the flight back from LA.

So instead, I will share with you some crochet items in my wardrobe that someone else made.

First, a skirt:

Would you look at this:

I’m usually not a fan of scallopy shapes but it works for this edging:

Then we have a jacket:

The shaping on this one really amazes me.  It also wouldn’t occur to me to combine those simple different stitches into a pattern.

I love the shadows cast by this:

I’m hoping that some day these stitches won’t be such a mystery to me.  I guess crochet will be a nice homework assignment to do during the commute to the new job.

The Long and Hectic Vacances

Still floating. Job hunts and yarn seem to be stuck at the moment, as is a little comic book I was working on.  I’ve been itching to build minis but haven’t gotten to in a while.  So to ease the sorrow of idle hands, here’s to a little dusting of an old project:

A balsa [tea?] house from high school days.  Balsa, Xacto knife, glue, and a little bit of rice paper.  That’s it, nothing fancy.  Oh, and I’m a sucker for inlaid wood/marquetry, so the wall pattern comes from a bunch of balsa slivers assembled together by a masochist crafter.  ‘Tis my favorite part of the house.

The ridiculous stairs I don’t worry too much over; for now let’s just say they’re intentionally discouraging unwanted guests.  Purely decorative.

This photo was supposed to illustrate how each side has a different pattern, but instead goes to remind me how individual photographers leave their own telltale marks. (I know this one wasn’t mine; the house looks as though in the shadow of a neighboring highrise!) And would you look at that, you can tell I didn’t have a file nor enough balsa to finish…Let us get outta here.

But before that, a bonus peek at the back.

As with any miniature I do now, I intended it as a setting for a story forming (incidentally, the same story that’s idling on my desk right now). The difference now is that my pencil hovers over paper while the Xacto lies still. Maybe I should just scrap the calculator and go back to improv building like this. As for the buildings I’m currently planning, the CADing and the drafting are stifling both the houses and the stories “on location” there.  Because, really, who cares about the buildings in a comic book?

…Well, I do. I have such a house fetish .