now hiring gorns and tribbles
Now you can spice up your knits with a little Dalek action. Add these guys to any stockinette fabric that is a multiple of 10 stitches.
Use adorable, fun colors to emphasize how adorable we all know Daleks really are. 
Daleks Marching
You can queue it up on Ravelry, and add it to your Google Docs.
French Press Felted Slippers
Pattern: French Press Felted Slippers by Melynda Bernardi
Yarn: Pattons Classic Merino Wool, 2 skeins, color “Grey Mix”
Needles: Clover US15 9″ bamboo
This was my first real foray into felting. And I’m quite happy with how they turned out! My parents’ washing machine spins even with the top open, which made it easy to monitor the status of the felting. I threw in a tennis ball and a pair of shoes to help agitate. I kind of want to make a million more.
Happy holidays to those that celebrate, and happy winter solstice to everyone. I’m home in Chicago and it is cooooold here. And snowy. Perfect conditions To wear my panda hat.
Panda Hat
This is from that same Short & Sweet Earflap Hat pattern, and is inspired by the designer. I crocheted the ears as follows:
1: ch4
2: turn, skip first ch, 2 sc in each ch to end.
3: ch1, turn, 2 sc in each sc to end.
4: ch1, turn, sc in each sc to end.
ears
I left a tail of about 18″ or so and sewed them on. And naturally there is a sc edging around the hat using the black yarn. I also used one strands of the black in the braids.
I’d write more but I’m of to get Thai food! Peace out!
If you know one thing about Doctor Who, that thing is probably that some crazy looking dude at some point in time played the lead role and wore a super long scarf.
Do me a favor. Google “Tom Baker”. Right now.
Okay, did you do it? What’s the first image that came up?
For me, it was this:
Tom Baker
One of the most iconic images in the history of a storied British television programme. (Hell yeah I put in the extra letters. British people love putting extra letters in words. That’s why they always win at Scrabble.)
Over time many people have tried to replicate the scarf, using wonky yarns, inconsistent striping, and totally off-kilter colors. However, one tireless woman has spent the better part of her life hunting down scarves, measuring stripes, counting stitches, matching colors, taking pictures under an Ottlight, in the attempt to recreate this iconic scarf as faithfully as possible.
Her name is Tara Wheeler, and she is the real deal.
Tara's TARDIS Tattoo
(Yes that’s a real TARDIS tattoo with a scarf underneath. I was there and witnessed the whole thing. She even brought in paint chips for Jon Reed to match colors with. She is that badass.)
This isn’t to say that she is the first, or the only, person to attempt recreating the Fourth (yes, he was the fourth) Doctor’s scarf. Or, make that scarves. Nearly each season had its own unique scarf. Stripes were taken out, holes burned in, colors slightly altered. We even got a brand new scarf made with acrylic “suede” yarn (yikes) for his last season on the show.
And Tara, because she is that awesome (and that geeky) has hunted down original scarves all across the UK, using her amazing connections through working conventions to get close to the goods.
Now, this isn’t to say that others haven’t made great scarf resources and done their homework. Chris Brimelow, moderator of Doctor Who Scarf dot com, provided one of the first places on the internet for intrepid fans to go knit their own Fourth Doctor Scarf.
But Tara has taken what Brimelow accomplished and taken it to academic levels (like graduate level work in terms of geekery). She even recently discovered that the first scarf, from season 12, had minor alterations, making it the missing link between seasons 12 and 13.
Her tireless work has provided Doctor Who fans that knit (or know someone who loves them enough to knit 15 feet of garter stitch) with an unmatchable resource for recreating the scarf. She even has fantastic tips for finishing, blocking, care, and wearing of the scarf. You just can’t find anything better.
In fact, her scarves are so good that two of them (yes, two!) were on the Doctor Who themed episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Chris Hardwick even gave her a shout-out. Booyah.
So if you’re in the market to make your own Fourth Doctor scarf (for fun, not profit, seeing as the scarf is intellectual property of the BBC) go to Tara’s site and bask in her awesomeness. You won’t regret it. Accept no substitutions.
Chantillon Cowl
Detail
The Chantillon Cowl is a pattern I made up for the Head & Shoulders pattern booklet released at Hill Country Weavers for the Hill Country Yarn Crawl this year. The booklet was a handout for yarn crawl participants; each pattern included is made to use one skein of Cascade Soft Spun, which we also gave to yarn crawlers.
The patterns are currently rolling out on Ravelry, and the booklet will eventually be for sale as an ebook on Ravelry. For now, you can queue up my pattern here:
And you can check out the rest of the patterns as they become available here.
About the name: Nothing fancy really, just a contorted version of the French word échantillon. If you look it up you may gain some insight into my design motivation. 