Rebecca doesn't know how to crochet

Seriously, I don't. But I've never let that stop me from doing anything.

Also...I made my first sale on etsy! WOOOOOOOOO! I should get to making more scarflettes, but I want to make sure that the one I just sold remains one of a kind.

And...for no reason other than that I am obsessed with him, here are some pictures of the dog that I stole from my boyfriend's facebook page.

His name is Rocky, and he is awesome. Even if he does pee under our Christmas Tree.

Biology

I know I've had little to post recently because everything I'm currently working on is top-secret. I don't really think anyone in my family reads this, but there is a link to it on my etsy page, which I've made most people look at, so you never know.

For eye candy then I thought I'd post some pictures from my Cell Biology Lab from last year. I certainly hope that there is nothing wrong with me posting these. My lab partner and I took them, under the guidance of Dr. Malcolm Brown, who is an insanely smart guy. The things I was able to see in that class were really amazing. Its one thing to have access to a picture of something tiny, but another to see it for yourself through a microscope. Although the things I make do have a certain quality of chaos to them, they are very much inspired by the geometric and modular way that nature is made up.

This is a Tillandsia scale as viewed through a polarized light filter with a compensator. Tillandsia is the ball moss plant that you see growing on trees and power lines. If you look closely they appear to be covered in a white powder. The power is actually scales that trap water for the plant. This is what the look like. The colors are representative of the arrangement of the cellulose molecules that make up the scale.

This picture (no, I'm sorry photomicrograph) is also a tillandsia scale but this time treated with GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein--it is what it sounds like) connected to CBP ( Cellulose Binding Protein-- also aptly named). Every once in a while there will be a news story about how scientists have made a glowing green pig, or engineered a blue rose, or something else that seems completely useless to the general public. I'm fairly certain that the glowing pig thing had something to do with GFP, which is probably one of the greatest advancements in Molecular Biology to happen in the last decade because it allows us to see tiny, colorless things so much easier! Its uses in the lab are various and very useful.

This was the most exciting part of the class for me...They let me not only touch, but actually use an electron microscope. This is a T4 bacteriophage virus. I have to admit, I always had my doubts that these guys actually look like the "lunar lander" with their cute little icosahedral head, spiral body and jointed legs. But behold! that is exactly what this looks like in a blurry-electron-beam-degraded-by-the-time-we-could-click-the-capture-button-way.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried to knit/crochet a replica of a phage virus using its genome as a pattern? I wish I had thought about that about a year ago so I could submit THAT to be my thesis topic (I'm in the kind of free-thinking interdisciplinary honors program that just might have gone for it) .

A quick google search came up with this cool virus-inspired cape:

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/MIT/863.07/people/caitlin/knitvirus/knitvirus_2.html

But no actual virus, perhaps I shall attempt one once things clear up...

Oh yeah, and I have a dog now too. I found him in the street a couple of weeks ago. He was hit by a car, but is doing all better now. In fact, he's the best dog ever. I love him.

By the shortness of my sentences I can tell I'm getting tired and must rest. My last final is tomorrow night y estoy muy allegra.

Underwire Purse Handles

For some reason I was lamenting both my disappointment in the available purse handles at the craft store and the fact that my bras seem to last for a very short amout of time. In the midst of this internal complaint I may or may not have come up with a brilliant idea.

Yes, the underwire that was poking me in the underarm all day suddenly seemed like the perfect size for a purse handle. I took off the plastic ends, added some beads, and used needle-nosed pliers to curl up the ends.

what do you think?

Sadly, I don't have much else to share. I realize that I haven't actually finished a project since I started this blog. I'm thinking that that is only because of bad timing. I've been day dreaming alot about just having one job and having the evenings free to knit and paint and maybe learn to spin.

I am working on some cool stuff (however slowly), but it is top-secret. The holidays are coming up!

Arties

I know its been ages (or at least two weeks) since I've written anything, but that's because I wanted this to be a knitting blog...and I just haven't had a free moment to knit a gosh darned thing!

I have temporarily replaced my knitting addiction with an addiction to podcasts because I can indulge in them while working or riding the bus or driving or the many other mindless tasks I do on a daily basis. Escape Pod, the science fiction podcast had a story this last week that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. It was called "Arties aren't Stupid" and it was about a future distopia (ah, but aren't they all?) in which children are genetically engineered to fall into specific, specialized groups. This story focused on the titular "arties" who have an urge to "make", but whose creations are constantly destroyed by the "tinmen". The arties begin to have the ache, as they call it, if there are no supplies around to create with.

I know this ache, I much less delicately call it being creatively constipated. Sometimes, even if it seems like a waste of time, I just have to make something...and then everything starts getting better. I'm sure its a pretty common phenomenon. I should probably state that I don't really consider myself to be a fine artist. I'm pretty comfortable with being a crafter, although I did have a dream last night where I was insisting to someone that I am an artist while he/she (don't remember) assured me that I was just pretentious.

I think that my ache is not so bad at the moment, because even though I'm not knitting or painting, I am working on creating my thesis, for which my WONDERFUL boyfriend taught me how to use autoCAD so I can make some awesome diagrams. Of course I'm thinking of many more ways to use the program for knitting design than for molecular pathway drawing!

Anyway, the story and the podcast in general are wonderful. I also liked it because the arties end up finding and using something that really reminded me of the Spore Creature Creator. I've been wanting to get Spore, but I think it would be way too much of a distraction. I mean, I've hardly had any time to play Rockband 2! My little brother has already beaten it, and I'm still trying to get a sound guy!

MWAH! to everyone!

Celebratory Knitting Pattern

Life is good for PurpleBecca, so I'm going to post the pattern for my dinosaur pattern instead of working on my paper that's due tomorrow!

DINOSAUR! Pattern:

I used 5 size 5 double pointed needles and a somewhat chunky nylon/wool blend

legs-on dpns cast on 6 stitches
-slide stitches to other end of needle, pull yarn around back to knit into first stitch
-Continue knitting i-cord for 6 rows
-Turn and purl across
-Turn and knit across
- Continue in stockingette stitch for a total of 6 rows
-Then push stitches to other end of needle and knit in i-cord fasion as before for 6 rows
-Make two of these

Body- Place the flat parts of the legs next to each other, this will be the belly
-Pick up stitches all along the belly, using one dpn for each side. I was able to pick up 3 in the "front", 6 along each side, and 5 in the back. Any differences will just give your dino its own special personality.
-Knit in the round for 5 rows
- transfer a stitch from each side needle on to the front needle (the one that had 3 stitches)
-Knit across side needle, knit last two stitches together on that needle
-Knit two together, knit 1, knit two together on back needle
-knit two togehter, knit across on other side needle
-Turn and purl across all three needles, but NOT the front
-Turn and knit across side needle, knitting last two stitches together
-slip first stitch on back needle, knit two together, pass sliped stitch over (one stitch left on back)
-Knit two together on other side needle, knit across it
-Turn and purl ( front needle is still left out)
- bind off side and back needles....either by 3 needle bind-off:
=place the two side needles together, with an extra needle (you can use the back one by placing a stitch marker through that last stitch) knit into the first stitches on BOTH needles. Do this again, then pass the first stitch on your right needle over the second. Continue this across, finally knitting and binding off that last stitch that was on the back needle.
-alternatively, you could use any bind off method and then sew up the center


Neck and Head
-Cut yarn
- Knit into five stitches on front needle
-knit as an i-cord (see legs) or on 3 needles in the round
-when neck is sufficiently long, knit in the back and front of every stitch, doubling the number, this will require 3 needles.
- knit around
-Increase stitches to form the "nose" Knit in front and back of stitches closest to the front of the animal.
-Knit around
-Knit two together all around
- knit two together all around
- Cut yarn, and thread end on to a yarn needle, string through all live stitches, drawing the head together.

Finishing:
weave in ends, stuff with poly-fil through the slit left in the belly, sew up belly.
You can also stuff the legs, but I just stuck a marble in each leg so he could stand up.

Que voy a ser, je ne sais pas

I took an undeserved break from thesis research/ stressing out to make this little guy. He's somewhat inspired by the girls over at Bach's Bulletins. Holly's commenting on my blog got me to reading theirs and thinking about what I was like in High School. I was really into drawing funny little creatures, especially winged things. So I thought I would try to knit a dragon. Sadly, he has no wings so right how he's a DINOSAUR!

Sorry, I have a tendency to scream the word dinosaur, which by the way is also the name of our band in Rockband 2. Yes, speaking of undeserved breaks, my boyfriend bought me Rockband 2 yesterday as an early (over a month!) birthday present. It is so much fun, and I am ridiculously excited that there are songs from Bikini Kill, The Silversun Pickups, and Talking Heads.



Is this picture a little too obscene?


The title is from a Manu Chau song that is stuck in my head (Me Gustas Tu)...I can really relate to the combination of spanish and french because I'm always mixing them up myself.

More Leaves

I made these with my green yarn from the last post. the leaves are pretty much knit diamonds, then I strung some beads on the ends to stick 'em together and macramed (is that the correct past tense of macrame?) around the beads. My next plan is to crochet around the whole thing with some black and the purple.

I think that its very appropriate that I'm knitting such planty things because I've returned to my old job making botanical mounts for the University of Texas Herbarium, and my thesis is about plant immunity response. Basically, PLANTS ARE TAKING OVER MY LIFE!!!

Dyed Alpaca

I tried dying the alpaca again with much better results. This time I just used the microwave, which is by far the easiest way to go. Especially because we got a new microwave for Christmas last year that MEANS BUSINESS!! That sucker boils water in no time! Anyways...I think that the colors that resulted are well worth the apartment smelling like vinegar and strawberries for a day or so.

These are the before and after photos. We went from a country blue to a cyanobacteria green and a sort of rusty purple. The green was done by adding some teal and sky blue food coloring to about a cup and a half of vinegar, and enough water to cover the top of the skein (about 3 cups). The purple was created with a package of strawberry Kool-Aide, which is so acidic that it doesn't need the vinegar. The green one is still pretty uneven, it is the same skein I tried to dye green by just using a package of powdered lemonade...I did this in the crock pot, which just never seems to give me good results.

How do these images look? I just stuck the yarn in my scanner. I think that it is the most color-true way to take an image.

Thanks for reading...I totally need to be writing a paper about the Portuguese Empire right now!

Kno Knew Knitting

Life is really getting in the way of my knitting lately....I'm starting my senior thesis this semester, taking two classes and working three jobs! If only I had somehow incorporated knitting into my thesis....If only I had majored in fine arts! OK, enough of the "woe is me!"

So the leafy scarf is doing really well in etsy. It has had more views than the first things I posted! If anyone is interested in the pattern let me know and I will make a post about it here.

I tried to dye up some alpaca that I bought at a flea market. I was blue, so I dyed it with yellow to make it green. This did not turn out how I planned it! Because the fiber is sort of fuzzy and tends to stick to itself, the yellow dye only got into the very outside and inside of the (loosely wound) skein, leaving the inside blue still. I'm trying to think of ways to fix it...smaller skeins....using a squeeze bottle to inject dye into the middle...hmmm.

Thanks for reading!

Leaf scarflet

This is what I made over the weekend. The leaves were the starting point...something I made a long time ago and I had always wanted to do something with them. I think I'll make another like it, out of some alpaca I've had stashed away...for me not for etsy.

Fishy plan

Here is my plan, as quickly rendered in paint, for the fish purse. Rather than knitting up individual fish and sewing them together I want to create stripes that will suggest waves as well as a school of fish. Then I will decorate 1 1/2 "wavelengths" to look like a fish. I'll make some little lace fins, and maybe sequin scales. I knitted up one of these "waves" in Bernat Softee Chunky yarn to yeild the following result:

But I don't think that this will make it into the final product because I really think this would be a good project to showcase my hand-dyed yarn. After so many projects working with it, this machine dyed yarn seems so static to me. Its amazing what a little food coloring and vinegar do for a yarn. I'll try to document the dying process when I get there.

I'm also hoping to post some pictures of the host of purses I have that are in several states of being unfinished...perhaps in hopes of recieving some comments or suggestions on them.

I accidently opened a knitting blog

So here I am with my very own knitting blog. I think I'll use this first post to just upload all of the pictures I have of my work so far.

I need to work on my photography technique. I started a page on etsy.com, and I have noticed that my photos are really not up to snuff...maybe I should start taking them outside.

Anywho...those are the purses that are available on etsy right now, and this is my own purse that I use and has obviously been through a lot. I LOVE this purse though, I don't care how beat-up it gets. Making it and using it were really learning experiences about construction and color choice.

Sadly, I think those are all of the finished projects I have at hand. I've been knitting for about 5 years but really only finishing things for about a year and a half. I really think that the difference for me came when we got an upgrade on our cable services and start getting the diy network. The show Knitty Gitty really had an impact on me even if I never knitted anything directly from the show. Watching it just reminded me how much I loved to knit and wanted to design my own things. Plus just watching other people knit made me feel more confident in my own technique which inspired me to branch out a litttle bit and start playing with the more sculptural aspects of knitting.

I am currently between knitting projects, having just finished the felted wristlet above only yesterday. My next idea was to create a purse that would be a play on tessellating fish. Of course when I did a google image search for tessellating fish I found out that many other knitters have done the same thing but I think mine will be a little different.