WIP Wednesday: Tom Baker Scarf

Aka, The Fourth Doctor Scarf. Also, a sneak peak of my finished yarn bowl in action --I'll post bigger pics on Friday of the finished bowl.

I got the yarn online, which I do not recommend unless you are using the exact recommended yarn brands and colorways from the pattern. I am also using sock yarn instead of worsted weight, so it won't be quite as ridiculously humongous --especially since my 12-year-old daughter has claimed ownership. If I even make another one, I guess I'll either use the yarns they recommend, or find the colors in person. It's just straight knitting with a slipped stitch at the end of each row, so it's great to do while catching up on my DVR queue.

Yarn Bowl (Part 1)

Last night, I took my daughters with me to an event at Painted Earth that was organized by my Stitch n Bitch group. We painted yarn bowls. A yarn bowl is a bowl that has a slit or hole in the side. You put your working ball of yarn in the bowl, thread your yarn through the hole if it's a new project, or through the slit if it's a work in progress, and it helps keep the ball of yarn from bouncing all over the place or from rolling away as you pull more yarn from it. Click here for some examples of lovely yarn bowls.

Being the Doctor Who fan that I am, I attempted to paint the Exploding Tardis that was painted by a fictionalized Vincent Van Gogh in the episode, The Pandorica Opens.  Part of the problem, aside from a severe lack of formal art training, is that when painting on ceramics, the paints appear to not only be much lighter before they are to be fired in the kiln, but often a slightly different shade. So, here is the before shot of my yarn bowl:

The front of the bowl. Notice the slit with the hole at the end. The hole is supposed to be at the center of the explosion.

Aaaaaand, here's the back.

My daughters painted mugs. We are supposed to come back in a week to pick up our finished products. I'll post more pics then.

Work In Progress Wednesday - The 4th Doctor Scarf

The colors looked closer to the correct colors when I was ordering the yarn online. This is why I don't like to order yarn online. A few days ago, I posted a pic of my yarn that had arrived (scroll past the mug pics). The colors look closer to how they looked online in the photo, thanks to lighting and my flash. For some reason, I ended up having to edit this one just to get it close. So this is my scarf so far. I'm using fingering/sock weight yarn instead of worsted weight and size 2 needles instead of...well the pattern suggests size 5 with worsted weight, but I think I'd end up using size 8. I cast on 66 as the pattern suggests. It is still going to be a fairly wide scarf in spite of the lighter weight yarn. I am pretty sure I'd cast on fewer stitches if I was using a heavier weight. I almost used a size 5 needle with this yarn, but my daughter, who will be wearing this scarf, preferred the tighter knit. 

Look What I Got!

First, my mug that I ordered through The Bloggess arrived today:

They let you customize it on Zazzle, so I changed the color of the handle and the ring around the lip from black to red, you know, 'cause it goes with the blood. The other side of the mug originally said "Weird and Proud," but I changed it up a bit with a drawing I did for DrawSomething 2's Daily Draw. The word of the day was "Costume":

Yep. Ralphie from "A Christmas Story."

And...Saving the best for last, at least, in my opinion. My yarn for THE SCARF arrived from Knit Picks!

I used their Palette Yarn
And that's Y A R N even thought it looks like Y A M.

As soon as I finish my daughter's fingerless mittens, I'll start on the scarf.

Where I Want To Be

Ceana's Doppelgänger?

Below are pictures of Caitlin Blackwood. She plays young Amelia Pond on Doctor Who.

Now, I'm not saying they are identical twins separated at birth, but tell me what you think when you compare pictures of Ceana: here and here. Ceana says they don't look alike at all. Ceana's dad, who spends a considerable amount of time with his daughter, said that if I showed him the middle photo where Caitlin is wearing the blue scarf, and told him it was a photo of Ceana, he would believe me.

Caitlin Blackwood is Scottish. Ceana is of Scottish ancestry (she is also of English, Irish, Welsh and German ancestry). Without initially realizing it when we chose her first and middle name (Paisley) we chose Scottish names for her. When I did a search on the name origin and meaning, there was some dispute as to name origin. One site says Ceana is of American origin, meaning "God is Gracious." Another site claims her name is of Irish origin, also meaning "God is Gracious." However, her name also appears on a site actually called, "Scottish First Names."  There is little dispute however about the origin of her middle name, "Paisley," which is a town in Scotland. 

Regarding how to pronounce her name (we chose to pronounce it, "See-AW-nuh."). Apparently, there is as much disagreement as to whether one should pronounce the "C" as a "K" or as an "S" as there is with the word "Celtic," (personally, I think "Celtic" should be pronounce as a hard "C" unless one is talking about the  Evil Boston basketball team [GO LAKERS!]). I managed to find an entire web page dedicated to this discussion. It was almost enough to make me reconsider how we have been pronouncing her name, however since we have been spending over 10 years trying to get other people, (including her grandfather--hi dad!) to pronounce it "correctly" it probably wouldn't go over too well to go back and say, "Oh well, now we are pronouncing her name, 'Key-en-nuh.'"

So, what do YOU think? I mean, about the physical resemblance. Of course you are free to comment on anything else in this post if you wish!

Cheers!

Is There a Doctor in the House?

NaBloPoMo's writing prompt for the day: Which character would you most like to meet?

Here's my answer:

And just to make things perfectly clear:

Clear enough?