End of the Month Meta

-Horrific Knits did hit 350 followers earlier this week. I’m in the planning stages of what to make for the next giveaway. The giveaway should with any luck be up by this time next week, so stay tuned!

-The next round of Inspired Weekends will be up tomorrow so stop by and link up!

-This has been pretty quiet on the blog. I’ve been busy with offline obligations, plus I’m still dealing with that chipped tooth. I think that what is giving me pain isn’t the tooth though which may or may not be a good thing, I’m not sure. I made the appointment though! Anyway, the blog should pick up again soon.

This month’s Pinterest activity-

-The crockpot bread post I published this summer is still the most popular pinned post.

-The post with the greatest number of new pins was my blood orange jelly for Can It Up.

Baba Yaga-Part 2

Baba Yaga set the girl to spinning and the boy to hauling water. The girl cried as she spun and her tears became mice.

Your grandmother gave you cookies, they said. And a slice of ham. Give us the cookies and the cat the ham and we’ll both help you.

The girl gave the mice the cookies and went looking for the cat. She found her brother sobbing next to a sieve and a vat of water. He had been told to fill the vat with the sieve-a completely hopeless task.

A flock of birds flew by and sang,

Give us crumbs and we’ll help you.

The girl scattered crumbs on the ground and the birds sang,

Clay and water, water and clay, these two things will save the day!

The children, realizing what the birds meant, packed the sieve full of clay and soon had the vat filled with water.

Searching for the cat, they found him sitting near the door of the hut. The girl fed him the ham her grandmother had given her and begged him to help her.

Steal a towel, steal a comb. When you run from Baba Yaga drop the towel and it’ll turn into a river. If that’s not enough to stop her, drop the comb and it’ll turn into a forest.

Mercury (Gussetless Fingerless Gloves)

I took a commission earlier this winter that asked me to knit fingerless gloves without gussets or thumbs.

I know that some people do prefer mitts that way, and I’ve found that this is a great pattern for modifying with cables.

These are a very fast, easy knit so if you’re trying to learn how to knit in the round without worrying about increases, this may be the pattern for you. If you’re interested in a pattern with gusstets and thumbs, please see University.

When worked plain, each mitt is worked the same. If adding a cable you want to mirror the thumbs, so one is worked at the beginning of a round and the other is worked after.

Mercury

For sizes small (large). Instructions that are not bracketed are for both sizes.

Large takes a little over 100 yards, small takes a little less. Add slightly more yarn when adding a cable.

size 6 dpns

CO 36 (40) stitches over 3 needles. Join, place stitch marker and work 15 rounds of k1p1 ribbing or desired ribbing.

Switch to stockinette stitch (knit every round) and work 23 rounds or to desired length.

Next round-work 18 (20) sts, BO 9 stitches in patt, work rest of the round.

Next round-work 18 (20) sts, CO 9 stitches in patt, work rest of the round.

Work 5 more rounds of stockinette or to desired length.

Work 5 rounds of same ribbing as cuff or to desired length and BO in patt.

Work other mitt the same way.

Modded Versions-

Linked To:

Lady Behind the Curtain    Simply Sweet Home

Craftionary     ClaireJustine, on Fridays

I Should Be Mopping the Floor

Baba Yaga-Part 1

A man lived happily in Russia with his wife. The gods were happy with them, and blessed them with children-a boy and a girl.

However, as sometimes happens, the man’s wife caught ill and died. The man was left with his two children to raise by himself. Eventually, the man thought that it would be best for his children to have a mother and so he courted a local woman to be his bride.

The man, his children, and his new wife settled into life together. The gods were pleased again and his new wife gave him more children. However, all was not well as the new wife slowly became jealous of her stepchildren, whom she feared were taking attention-and inheritance-away from her own children.

Eventually the stepmother could stand it no more and told the boy and the girl,

Dear children go into the woods and seek out the house with the chicken feet. The woman who lives there is my grandmother. Tell her I sent you and she will treat you kindly.

The boy, thinking there was no reason to distrust her, wanted to go straight to the chicken-legged hut. The girl, sensing danger, brought him instead to their father’s mother who exclaimed,

That evil woman is sending you straight to a witch! Baba Yaga lives in the chicken-legged hut. You must go there but I fear for your safety!

But I do have one piece of advice-no matter who you come across, do well by them, be kind, gentle, and helpful. Harm no one.

Having eaten the children set out to the forest. They soon found the hut-and it was not hard to miss-the hut sat on chicken’s feet. The children cried,

Let us in! Let us in!

And the hut lifted on its feet and turned so the door faced them. Inside rested the witch. Sensing the children, she demanded to know why they had come.

Our mother sent us to help you,

Came the reply.

Fine, said the with. But be warned-if I am pleased with you I will treat you well. Anger me and I’ll eat you.

Rainforest {Selfish Knitting}

I keep wanting to call this yarn Amazon, but the color is actually called Rainforest.

I’m not sure I actually like this yarn. It knits up much more to a sport weight with my normal gauge than a worsted weight and it has a vaguely strange, brittle hand to it. But I do like how the colors work up.

I wasn’t sure how the colors would work with my skin tone because I normally do better with warm tones than cool, but I think the greens shift yellow enough that it works.

And yes, for the record, I did pledge APO (F05, EN).

Anyway, I think the only thing that I would have done differently is that where Selkie has enough length that the top flops a little even if I’m covering with my hair down (like in the photo), Rainforest sort of sticks up in the back. It doesn’t do it if I’m going for a full cover with my hair pulled up and all it takes is a little arranging so the floppy bit stays down.

Linked

Be Different Act Normal     I Should Be Mopping the Floor

Create With Joy     ClaireJustine

Sunday Legends-The Beautiful Ones: Tam Lin

How about an actual fairy tale for this installment of Sunday Legends?

Tam Lin is actually one of my earliest loves in the ‘faerie’ tale catagory. This was one of the first ‘dark’ faerie tales that I heard-the Brothers Grimm did a lot of dark work but I didn’t grow up with them. It was Disney for me all the way and even as a kid I wanted something with a little more teeth.

And teeth this one has in spades. The story of Tam Lin is a traditional Scottish ballad, though the imagery isn’t limited to Scotland. Janet, a beautiful young girl, is warned to stay away from Carterhaugh because a certain male elf (or faerie or magick man or what have you) has a habit of doing what he pleases with any woman passing through that area. She goes anyway to seek out a rose (or other pretty flower). Tam (the Tam Lin of the title) finds her there and demands to know what she’s doing in his woods-wherein she informs him that they’re actually her woods.

Returning home Janet discovers she’s pregnant. Knowing exactly who’s fault this is, she goes back to the woods looking for Tam. Finding him, she pronounces that she’s not leaving without him-except there’s a problem. Tam was originally a knight who caught the eye of Queen Mab. And what the faeries want they get.

Challenging the Queen Janet is told that she can leave with the father of her child if she’s capable of holding onto him for an entire night. In some versions he’s the seven year sacrfice and Janet has to hold him throughout the Wild Hunt. In others, she has to bed him all night and keep holding him. In any case, the Queen forces him to change form from wolf to boar to tiger.

Janet however is a stubborn creature and in the end goes home with a new husband, released from the faerie queen’s bond.

Inspired Weekends #4

Inspired Weekends #4

I am 1 (one) follower away from my next giveaway goal! Watch the blog for info coming shortly about my next handmade giveaway!

Inspired Weekends #3 Featured Posts

Crafty Journal’s Sweetheart Angel

Good Girl Gone Green’s Coconut Macaroons

This is a free for all style link up-there are no rules! The only guideline is that each entry should be your own content-but feel free to link up round ups, link parties, giveaways, diy, recipes, tutorials, favorite entries from your archives, recipes, anything that you would like to share!

Click on the button that looks like a blue frog at the bottom of the page to view the collection.

Please link to entries, and not your blog main page.

Click around the list and leave a few comments!

I’d love if you would follow Horrific Knits on Facebook, Twitter or by email-it’s not necessary, but once my WordPress count (on the sidebar) hits 350 I’m going to host a giveaway!

(Signing up puts you on a list for an email notification of future rounds. Please respond if you would not like to receive notifications either now or in the future. Thanks so much!)

Dante’s Inferno

This is not the inferno you are looking for.

With my interest in all things Inferno, watching another version seems pretty obvious.

This one, animated and backed by EA Games, is actually an interpretation of an interpretation. EA Games released a video game based loosely on the poem, and this is based loosely on that. There are some surface parallels-the drive of the main character to find his Beatrice is a large one.

But be warned. It’s a surface connection. Dante’s Beatrice would be horrified, as the symbol Dante created, of what the Beatrice in this film engages in-in the name of love or otherwise.

It’s interesting though, because I feel that there’s a lot of half-developed symbolism running through here. Accidental symbolism, but I feel that if someone were to write the Inferno now, it would be a much better version of this. Especially considering that the writers do attempt to make the connection to the modern sins-there’s allusions made to World War 2 and the Gulf.  The Inferno is still successful because its themese are universal, but this film may be closer to the way that the modern viewer relates to them. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a ‘deep’ film. This is about as far as you can get from deep, but it’s about as childish as Watership Down. I’m not entirely postmodernist, but it’s interesting to find places where the social symbolism shows up in accidental ways. Is earth an extension of hell and men are its demons?

But there still a lot of weirdness to this film. Beatrice seems to loose her clothes in every other scene. The movie seems to forget that it’s supposed to be about the Christian hell and the Inferno and takes a turn into the Greek pantheon and starts play-acting at Hades and Persephone (but hey, it’s all the underworld, right?) Dante (because you know the main character can’t be not named Dante) gets…prettier as he wanders his way through hell (…he has better hair than I do, which is pretty impressive whilst running around the third level of hell). Satan is either the ultimate deceiver, or my sophomore philosopher professor I’m not sure which. And I’m fairly certain the scythe Dante starts dragging around is a metallic stand in for something more bodily.

Cold Remedy Jelly (Blood Orange Honey Jelly)

I can’t take cold meds. They do horrible, horrible things to me. So I drink gallons of this cold remedy tea stuff all winter.

I’ve gotten so sometimes I drink it just for the taste. When Can It Up was announced as citrus this month, I knew I wanted to do a riff on that theme. But why do lemon when you can use blood oranges?

I don’t know why you wouldn’t use blood orange in everything you can. Price Rite sells blood orange juice-100%, no sugar added blood orange juice. If you don’t want to use blood oranges, use a -good quality- orange juice of your choice. Or lemon juice.

If it doesn’t set, use the syrup in baking. Or make old fashions with it. When I did my freezer test, the top note was the honey, then the citrus rounded out by the spices. It wasn’t overly sweet, and I think this will be amazing with wheat and cream cheese.

Blood Orange Honey Jelly

3 cups blood orange juice

1 cup honey

1/4 tea each ground ginger and cinnamon

3 table powdered pectin (this amount of pectin made a very soft set jelly for me, which I was okay with. Add a tablespoon or two more pectin for a firmer set).

Bring honey, spices, and juice to a boil. Add pectin, stir to dissolve, then bring to a hard boil for 1 minute. Lower heat and simmer for five. Fluid should feel thicker.

Fill prepped half pint jars and process in a water bath for 10 minutes.

*That much undiluted, unsweetened citrus juice should be more than acidic enough to can on its own. If you would feel safer, add 1 1/2 table bottled lemon juice.

Linked

All Four Burners     Lady Behind the Curtain     Mandatory Mooch

Little House in the Suburbs     Simply Sweet Home     Too Much Time

Winter Beauty Routine

My beauty routine changes drastically in the winter. During the hotter months, I wear little to no make up because I hate the feeling of sweat mixing with cosmetics.

Gross to describe, gross to feel.

I kick into cooler weather beauty once my skin dries out enough that I need to moisturize every day.

This is my routine-

-Water. Water water water. Water. Drink lots and lots of water.

-I start out with a layer of moisturizer, I like the St. Ives collagen moisturizer, I’ve used it for years.

-Then I mix foundation into more moisturizer in the palm of my hand and apply that as a tinted moisturizer. Sometimes I follow up with a layer of Tarte’s mineral powder.

-If I have time, I dust with E.L.F’s color correcting powder.

-I prime my eyelids with Monistat chafing gel. You read that right. It’s the best eyeshadow primer I’ve ever used.

-Then comes mascara-normally black-brown or brown. Normally just my top lashes, I don’t have the patience to deal with the bottoms.

-Eyeshadow is generally E.L.F. from one of my trays. Normally neutrals for work unless it’s casual days, though lately I’ve been wearing orange or pink.

That’s it. I’m too nearsighted and shaky to do eyeliner comfortably and I hate reapplying lip stuff so that goes bare. And I feel ridiculous wearing powder to cut dow on redness to then turn around and wear blush.

Skin care-

-Like I mentioned I use St. Ives in the morning and then after I wash my face at night. Once or twice a week I’ll oil with coconut or olive oil as well.

-If I’m windburned I’ll use diaper creme. Seriously. It’s a tip I got from skiers. And it works wonders. I use Nivea on my face if it gets horribly dry between oilings.

-Three or four times a year I’ll oil my hair as well. I soak my dry hair with coconut oil, let it sit for 20 to 30 minutes and then wash it out.

-I do use facial wipes. Ahem. I know, not frugal or green but I won’t wash off my make up otherwise. I do wash my eye make up with remover lotion or coconut oil on cotton balls.

-Once a week I use apple cider vinegar as a toner.

Honestly it sounds like a lot but I have it down to where I can have it done in less than 10 minutes. And this is assuming I’m going to work. If I’m going in on an off day, all I do is moisturize and use powder. If I’m not going in at all, all I do is moisturize. I don’t put make up on when I’m staying home.

Linked

Simply Sweet Home     Too Much Time