Yes dears, Yarnival. Yarnival! The dear Julie at Fricknits (thank you thank you thank you ) is editing the next issue, and she wants your submissions! Submit your favourite post from the month of November at this link right here. That’s a good knitter.

Braided Mittens, started September 27th, 2006, finished October 4th, 2006
Pattern: My Own
Yarn: 100% merino wool from a men’s sweater. The yarn is cabled and the colour is heathery, which makes for very interesting texture.
Needles: 5.0 mm DPNs
Dimensions: The perfect size for my hands!
Pattern Notes: This is a basic mitten pattern with a few cables tossed in. It’s the first time I’ve ever knit a thumb gusset, but it worked out quite well. I think I may have cast on a few more stitches than necessary at the beginning, but it fits well. I’ll have to remember next time to cast on 6 stitches less than my common sense would suggest. My plan right now is to knit a little sleeve inside the mitten to keep the wind out and bulk it up a little bit to make it tighter around my hand. I’d rather do that than line it with fleece, because if I’m going to knit something in merino, I want to take advantage of its non-sweating properties, darnit.
Would I knit it again? I may end up offering this as a free pattern, so I may knit it again to test it. I usually only need one pair of mittens at a time, but maybe after Christmas I’ll knit another pair as backups.

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I’m switching my RSS feed over to Feedburner, so if you’re a subscriber of mine you can point your RSS reader over to http://feeds.feedburner.com/NeedleExchange. Yay! Web 2.0!

The main reason for the switch is so I can keep track of the number of people who are reading my blog. It also makes it easy to maintain compatibility between browsers, mobile phones, etc. Plus, when you navigate to my feed it looks pretty! As we all know, prettiness is the driving force of technological progress.

Yay! My second pledge for the Pretty in Pink Contest is finished. I can’t enter this contest because I’m running it, but you can! And will. Right? I’m extending the deadline until the end of November, so that you, like the wonderful batman here and the Montaguedinal Arlette there (entries 14 and 15!) can enter for delicious sock yarn prizes. Don’t you love sock yarn? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Pretty in Pink Scarf, started November 4th, 2006, finished November 11th, 2006
Pattern: Standard Ribbed Scarf
Yarn: I lost the ball band for this one. I bought it a few years ago and loved the colourway, but I’m not a variegated scarf kinda person so it sat around until a week ago. UPDATE: I found the yarn! It’s Bernat Softee Chunky in Country.
Needles: 5.0 mm straights
Dimensions: 8 inches wide and as long as I could get out of the ball.

Here’s a nice big list of some dragon patterns I’ve found on the internet.

Knit Dragons

• This seems to be the only knitted dragon, and I find it’s a bit too big. I may attempt some crochet instead, or make up something with some really fuzzy yarn.

Amigurumi Dragons

• These three dragons here make me want to buy Kuschelterie häkeln by Beate Hilbig. I’m still on the lookout!
• If I were more confident with crochet I would try making this dragon.

Inspiration (no actual patterns):

• Amigurumi
  • This is my favourite: a Cerulean dragon
  • Etsy is down right now, but when it comes back up you’ll be able to see Yarnigans’s Cerulean dragon, UnaVanora’s Soft Crocheted Dragon, concertinapieces’s Water Dragon, and seeparis’s Green and Yellow Dragon for sale.
  • A beautiful baby blue Green Dragon found at Crafty Pants (I love it that some breeds of dragons are referred to by colour so you can say things like pink Green Dragon and purple Green Dragon.)
  • A purple dragon; don’t think that’s a breed but I wish it was.
• Needle Felted
  • Needle felted dragon #1
  • Needle felted dragon #2!

I was biking this morning, tried to take a too-steep turn and wiped out right in front of my house. The worst part about wiping out is the bruises afterwards, but second place is having say, “don’t worry, I’m okay, it’s alright” to approximately 500 concerned gentlemen. That’s a bit of a stretch, there were only 2 this time, but it was still embarrassing.

I wrote my GRE this weekend (690 verbal, 790 quantitative!) and I’ve had a bazillion things to do so I haven’t been blogging much, but I did get some knitting done. I’m halfway into my sixth repeat on the DNA Scarf for my aunt. It’s looking pretty nifty, but I am SO ready for a different project. I want to start working on a stuffed dinosaur dragon for my other aunt, so if anyone knows of any good knit or crochet dinosaur patterns, post a link in the comments! I’ve got a couple links of my own, so I’ll put those up tomorrow along with your suggestions.

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This is a fantastically amazing, perfect idea and an excellent tutorial. I love it. [Via crochet by faye]

Side note: the blue pin cushion on the right reminds me of the famous and ignorantly-named Chinamen Puzzle.