WhimsyCraft

 Those socks that were almost finished didn't take long to wrap up, and here they are. My friend was very very happy with them, and I got the kind of reaction every knitter hopes for. Also, one of the things I've learned to do in the last few months is bagels, because our local bagel place closed a while back, and when we were going through the 50 pound bag of flour from when flour was briefly hard to find, the bagel phase came after the sourdough phase. As a native New Yorker, I'm pretty picky about bagels, and these aren't as good as the best, but they're not bad. This is the recipe I started with: https://www.sophisticatedgourmet.com/2009/10/new-york-style-bagel-recipe but modified to use mostly whole wheat flour, and make 12. If anyone ever actually reads this and wants the changes, just let me know.  They look like this when they're boiling:  And like this when they come out of the oven: Turns out, Trader Joe's Everything Bagel spice mix is pretty good ...

 Hi! Getting a head start on a New Year's resolution here, to write down some things, so that I don't keep looking back and realize that I have no idea what happened to the last several months. It's really easy to do right now. Here are some almost finished socks for a friend. The yarn is discontinued Felici Sport, which is wonderful, and I have about four pairs' worth stashed away. The pattern is my own basic one, which may get written up someday. The recipient's feet are about one size bigger than my own, so they are measured to be a half inch or so too big for me.

Because of circumstances *completely beyond my control* (that would be otherwise known as an online sale at madelinetosh too good to resist, which turned out also to be too good to be true, but worked out all right in the end, and a local yarn store going out of business and selling everything in their overstuffed basement at $1/skein(!!)) I have way more yarn than I did a few weeks ago, and quite tempting yarn it is.  I've been working on getting it all into Ravelry, and trying to update some of my finished projects there too, but what I wanted to talk about here is the hat in progress. This is the lovely Azucena Hat , made out of some grey alpaca from the aforementioned yarn store going out of business sale. It's almost finished, about to be ready for the top decreases, but the thing that I wanted to mention is the hair tie around the middle, which is a cute little trick that keeps the stitches from wanting to fall off the ends of the double pointed needles nearly as much. ...

A while ago, I promised a beaded necklace to a friend, and I finally finished it. It's a modification of this pattern : I made it shorter by one diamond.

Ever since I saw Marsh a few months ago, I've wanted to make one. Usually I acquire yarn and then decide what to make with it, but for this one I ordered the yarn specifically for this project, and cast on pretty much as soon as it arrived. I'm using Zitron Polo in grey, and even swatched until I got gauge (on needles three sizes smaller than specified - I knit very loosely.) This is about up to the beginning of the second tier of leaves on the back. Another really nice thing about this is that the front can come with me as a mindless car knitting and waiting room project, and the more complicated lace back can stay home for more focused knitting time. I've also added a bit of waist shaping. As written, the back is just a rectangle, and a little shaping should make it hang better, hopefully. No photo of the front yet, it's just an absolutely plain piece of stockinette at the moment.

One of the silliest reasons for waiting months to start your new blog is because you just cannot come up with what to call it. Having managed that hurdle, here goes. This is supposed to be a place to put whatever I've finished lately, or am working on. Since I seem to be incapable of sticking to one craft at a time, WhimsyCraft it is, and let's start with beads. A few months ago, I came across Kate McKinnon's geometric beadwork . The work is spectacular, and the information she provides is comprehensive and deeply interesting. How could I possibly resist giving it a try? I pulled out a few colors of Delica beads and got started. Having not done much peyote stitch before, one of the little hypars seemed like a good start, and I improvised the colors, just to get an idea of how the technique works.   Then I moved on to the Tri-Wing ring, which I made according to the video directions , except that instead of putting the second triangle on I added a green ruffle by putting...