And Now... the Daughters of Frya

And Now, the Daughters of Frya (nope, not a typo):

Edit: Who were a hoax. The troll admits it (see comments), and while I suppose it's possible that someone random could have picked up on it and made something good of it, the site's gone also. I've left the rest of this post as-is, it's just ( behind a cut. )

They'd like to swap links with the Hrafnar site--I am disinclined to acquiesce to their request. If someone's decided to make a go of being a Daughter of Frya because reading the Oera Linda Book, more power to them, as they have a few good ideas, but even I--not on the lunatic fringe of heathenry but I can see it from here--would have a hard time accepting what I would classify as an essential monotheism as a Germanic reconstructionist faith.

I Am Trying To Be Nice, Here: one man's religion remains another man's belly laugh, and I don't know that we won't be a laughingstock in one hundred fifty years--but, er, wow. This one's rather large to swallow. That this, according to the all-knowing hivemind of Wikipedia, was a probable influence on Blavatsky, and through her, Spiritualism, really doesn't help.

-- Lorrie

Lacey Scarfy Goodness: Pattern Charts and the CraftingThereof

[Edit: Apparently the pictures weren't viewable to others. Fixed.]

While working on a new felted knitting bag (loosely based on Knitty's French market bag), I found that the yarn I was using had been discontinued, so I had to look online for more.

I got the right make, and right color...but in my rush, definitely the wrong size; I have four skeins of what the English call "4-ply", which looks like midrange, nubbly tweed perl cotton. Only it's wool.

Well, no returns on this stuff, so I'm making lemonade, a different scarf with each skein: one 200-ish yd hank will make a short, summer-weight scarf on my new size 9 bone needles.

The first was again from Knitty.com, their Branching Out pattern--looks a lot like their picture except dark blue with green tweed flecks.

Next is a pattern adaptation -- the central twirly diamond pattern from this pattern, Marnie's scarf. It's a written-out pattern, but I'm finding that my preference is toward charts, especially when I'm only taking part of a larger piece and turning it into a smaller one. But how to do that? Last time I hacked a pattern (those of you with experience in the White Wolf Storyteller system and/or Cyberpunk may have a giggle now; I know I do), I charted with pencil on nonille (nine squares to the inch) graph paper--which, I disclaim, is not as a result of my usual obsessions, but because the pattern was eighteen stitches across.

But I found something better, because I knew there had to be--and yes, there are. Fonts for charting patterns!

There appear to be two significant freeware knitting font authors: David Xenakis and Aire River Design. The main problem with transcribing knitting patterns is that word processing documents flow from upper left to bottom right, whereas knitting charts flow from lower right to upper left (assuming right-handed knitting)--so it took multiple swots to get it right.

Resulting charts, and key, are ( behind the cut )

GIP, Displaying the Lameness of my Photoshop Skills...

My Photoshop LJ-icon making skills are not, shall we say, l33t.

Here, have a slug. 8-)



(dr_beowulf and battleraven know why, although neither may admit it in public)

-- Lorrie

You're All Going to Regret Asking Me to Post More...

Courtesy of dduane--yes, that Diane Duane, 'cos, y'know, Everybody's Got a Blog.

"Camelot", from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, done as a Star Trek: The Original Series Songvid.

Come one, come all, to YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptx98LTGyfE

-- Lorrie