FO: Lots Of Love

I spent an hour or so making a few cards, some of which were for upcoming occasions and some for no reason at all but which were basic designs handy to keep in the little occasions cupboard we seem to have put all of the wrapping paper and other festive sparkly stuff in. These cards feature one of the simplest shapes and yet most recognisable symbols of affection, a basic heart. Using an arrangement of three hearts which I had actually seen elsewhere and noted down, because I liked the way all three hearts peeped off of the edge of the card, I made four similar but quite distinct cards.

The first is perhaps the most romantic use of the heart, with a backing paper in red with an almost damask-style design on it, it would make a perfect valentine if you could wait that long to send it, but is perfect for anyone who just wants to express their love, and who needs a reason or special day to do that?

I then made two cards with a sheet of spotty pink backing paper.

They use the other half of the same sheet of textured card used on the front of the first card. This sheet of card went a long way as the hearts cut out from two of the cards were stuck on to make the other two cards, so the hearts stand out positively from two of the designs and show through the cut apertures on the others. Excellent in both time and thriftiness, I think. There is no planned use for these two cards, but they would be perfect for a good friend's birthday or to welcome any new arrivals of the smelly, screaming kind.

The last card is slightly different in style, but only through the use of the very graphic backing paper with the dark contrast and a bit of artist's pastel dust which I have rubbed over the edges of the hearts for no other reason than that I saw them laying there and wondered what would happen if I used a paintbrush to brush some dust off of them and onto the card.

I really like the simplicity of all of these cards, though there is room for little sentiments or greetings on the fronts if needed in the future. I have left the ones that weren't being given immediately blank for the meantime, ready for any message once and appropriate occasion comes along.

WIP: Super Luxury Slippers

I have had a knitting project sitting in my bedroom drawer since we moved in last December. It is perhaps half complete, might be just about finished - I'm not sure as I can't remember what it was supposed to be, but it sits there waiting for somebody to work on it. I can't remember when I cast it on, but it must be over a year ago now.

As it was clearly not going to knit itself and I have no way of remembering what it was, I decided it was a shame to leave such lovely yarn sitting there without a proper use, so why not use it? About ten minutes of pulling at the beautiful Mirasol Sulka yarn and a trip around the Jumbo Ball Winder later and I had a nice new cake of yarn to feast upon.

I then decided to knit myself a real treat for my feet using this beautiful merino, alpaca and silk mix yarn. I have consistently cold feet, no matter what the weather. Since I was a child my complaints of cold feet have been met with 'well put some slippers on then!' but I cannot stand slippers as I like to curl up on a sofa and tuck my feet under me.

So here's the solution I have decided upon. A pair of soft, really luxurious slipper shaped socks that will keep my feet warm and feet squishy and soft underfoot.

I have done a little experimenting with the shape and I am finally happy with the perfect fit I have achieved. It feels fantastic alone but also really comfortable with a sock underneath as it is so squishy and warm.

Now I have come to the difficult part of the project - do I leave the  slipper as it is or give it ears and features to make it into a bunny/panda/bear/cat slipper? I will use my pattern notes to check the knitting of the second slipper and provided everything is correct i will publish the pattern hopefully some time next week. A simple pair of slippers to knit in a couple of hours would be a great choice for anyone looking for a last minute gift idea, I think.

Provisionally Casting On With A Crochet Hook

I love a good provisional cast on and use them often, especially when making turned sock cuffs for the ultimate in stretch and flexibility as well as good looks, but also in many other projects where the knitter is required to knit one way and then carry on the knitting in the opposite direction (such as when knitting a lace scarf from the centre outwards, to ensure both halves match perfectly).

I use a few different provisional cast-ons when knitting, but two get called upon most often. The first may not be a 'true' provisional cast on, but it works as one when I am in a pinch and without any tools. I simply cast on the required number of stitches with waste yarn in a contrasting colour, knit three or four rows and then continue my knitting as usually. When it comes to take the waste yarn out I cut it off a row away from the edge of my 'real' stitches and pull the waste yarn carefully away. It isn't elegant, and it can be messy (with lots of snipped yarn fibres everywhere) but it works when I have forgotten my knitting bag.

My Favourite provisional cast-on, however, is the crocheted-on-to-needle cast on.

I love this because it is neat, elegant and so easy to remove when needed.

Using a piece of smooth, contrasting yarn the same weight as your working yarn, tie a knot in the very end of your yarn (you'll find out why, later, but just ignore it for now), then:

1. Make a simple slip knot.
2. Chain four or five stitches.
3. Place your knitting needle in front of your yarn, to the left of your crochet hook.
4. Bring the crochet hook over your needle to grab the yarn from behind it.
5. Draw this yarn through to create your first provisional stitch.
6. Take your yarn around tot he back of your needle and repeat steps 4 & 5 for as many times as it takes to create all of your provisionally cast on stitches.
7. When all of your stitches have been cast on chain four or five more stitches before breaking yarn.
8. Draw the tail of the yarn through the last stitch to secure.

Now all it takes is to simply knit away using your working yarn and you can merrily forget about the provisional cast on until it is time to remove it.

Removing this cast on is a piece of cake, and this is where that little knot comes into play. The cast one will only unravel from one end, but which? Well it is (k)not the one with the not in! OK, it's just a little fun mnemonic of sorts, but it's saved me a lot of headaches in the past.

Free up the yarn tail that you threaded through the last stitch when securing it and gently pull on that end (remember, it is the one without the knot in it). The chain stitches should unravel one by one until you reach your piece of knitting. Slowly pull the yarn tail to free up the first live stitch and slip this to a knitting needle. Repeat this, taking it slowly until all of your stitches are safe and secure.

Simple, fast and elegant.

Now, those few stitches cast on in the pictures above are actually the beginning of a new project of mine, so hopefully I will have a new WIP to share in a day or two.

Geeky Birthday Crafting and Sewing/Quilting Gift Tags

I've been making loads and loads of cards today, which I shall photograph and share another time, but for now here is a single card I put together yesterday, for a friend's upcoming 30th Birthday.

It features the cake icon from the Portal game series, which is a fitting symbol for a 30th birthday, even if it is a lie.

The icon was drawn in reverse on a piece of green card with faint yellow text printed on it, then cut out using a massive trusty Stanley knife (I always read crafty folks refer to their 'xacto' knives - what are these wondrous things) and the surface was then rubbed with the dust from a few old lumps of green artists pastels. The green card was then layered onto a piece of blue card printed with rust stains, or something like that. I don't know, they are just bits of random paper I have laying around, so I'd love to be more precise but cannot. I wrote out a couple of messages to stick on the top and voila! Top geek in 20 minutes.

In more papery goodness, I have done as requested and created a sheet of care labels and gift tags for quilters and sewers.

As with the knitting and crochet versions, these gift tags have room for a message plus any spare thread/buttons inside, a witty sentiment to convey all of your hard work on the front and care instructions on the back, and they are available to download freely. The file is very large due to the quality, so please allow a few seconds for the file to load before printing.

In Stops And Starts

They say bad luck always happens in threes. Well, failures of tool and technology also always seem to happen in runs of three with me.

To begin with, one of the needle tips I was using to knit my lace shawl broke in the middle of a row, so leaving that temporarily to one side I decided to put a bit of time into my other current WIP and knit the heel to my rose pebbles socks. I had come to the point where I wanted to knit the heel in solid contrast yarn that accompanied the main variegated skein, but first I needed to weigh the contrast skein to see how much yarn one heel used up, to determine whether there would be enough to knit two heels and two toes in the contrast colour. The technology demons had other ideas, however, as the 'on' button on my miniature scales had jammed and run down the batteries, and I had neither any spares nor a re-charger to put any power into the run-down rechargeable cells.

As I couldn't work on either of my projects it left me with no progress to document on my blog, so I decided instead to write and bemoan the broken scales with a few pictures of my sad, unattended knitting. So I snapped a few shots and toddled off to the complicator to transfer them from the SD card, but my SD card reader had broken.

So, I have had a thoroughly un-crafty weekend, which is OK once in a while, especially as we had company and there was beer and videogames to make up for the deficit. Now, however, the sun is shining and this is the start of a new week in which I have a replacement needle tip sent by the lovely Suzie of It's A Stitch Up after one of her needle tips in the same size had broken. Together we have made a working pair!

And through the marvel of technology  and a bit of creative thinking I have managed to harness the pawer of the cordless telephone as a make-shift battery charger to re-charge my miniature weighing scale batteries.

Is 23.4g of yarn enough for two short row heels and toe identical short row toes? At least now I'll know ahead of knitting the toes! And thanks to eBay I have a 99p SD card reader to put all of these photos onto the blog.

The one little thing I did manage to get made was another panel for the incredible multi-media wall-hanging of win, as the third level icon was completed with every stitch perfectly in place.

Thank you for all of the needle advice to everyone who offered it - I am jealous of those who wrote to tell of their Addi Clicks that never let them down, and those that had (miniature heart flutter) Signature Needles. When I win the lottery I am going to but Mr Awesome a different Ferarri for every day of the week and then buy myself a set of Addi Clicks and a whole range of Signature needles. For the time being, though, I shall have to do with my Knitpicks/Knitpro set and if I ever need a new size tip I think I will find myself buying them in the metal rather than wooden variety.

Pennydog has asked if it is possible to make a version of the Gift Tags Of Appreciation for quilters, so I'm going to draw those up today and will upload them tomorrow. They should, I think, be fine for both quilted and general sewn items, for all of you crafty gift-givers.

Gift Tags With Care Instructions For Crochet

After yesterday's gift tags for knitters, here are some similar gift tags, but this time for crocheters, at the request in yesterday's comments from melsdaisypatch.

The gift tags can be downloaded for free from here. 

Note about download: The above link leads to a large, very high quality PDF file, which due to the size of the file may take a while to appear on your screen for you to print. Please be patient in allowing for it to download, but if a problem persists, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

New Knitters' Gift Tags Of Appreciation

A few years ago when I very first started knitting I created and shared a few gift tags that I had made to adorn my hand-knits, with care instructions and room for a message and any spare buttons or lengths of yarn or thread to be attached. At the time I thought that I was on to a winner and that I would knit all of my gifts from that point onwards. That idea has now gone by the wayside, simply because I am more understanding of just how much time and effort goes into creating every hand knit, especially now that my standards as a knitter have improved.

Still, I do want to make the occasional hand-knitted gift and like to hope that they might be appreciated. To help ensure that they are, I have created these new, more realistic gift tags.

They are not only useful and a great way to make sure that all your hours of hard work are not shrunk to a 30% facsimile of they former selves in a single ill-fated trip to the washing machine, but also convey all of the effort that you have put into the creation of something handmade and unique in fun, tongue-in-cheek slogan form.

The knitters' gift tags can be printed onto normal A4 white card and folded down the centre line. The reverse has a number of fields for you to fill in that will help the recipient of your gift to care for it for years to come. The inside is left blank for your own message or additional information, and there’s room for you to stitch a spare button to the inside of the card if you have used any on your knitted item, so that spare button and care instructions can always be found together. Matching gift tags for crocheted items are available to download here.


The gift tags can be downloaded for free here via Google docs. The original, perhaps more traditional gift tags are also still available to download. Please feel free to link to these knitters gift tags, but please respect my copyright and give credit where appropriate. Enjoy!

Note about download: The above link leads to a large, very high quality PDF file, which due to the size of the file may take a while to appear on your screen for you to print. Please be patient in allowing for it to download, but if a problem persists, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

WIP: Scrambled Eggs Shawl

I had the chance to put a few more rows into the Devilled Eggs shawl I am knitting, so thought I'd take the chance to document a bit of a WIP update.

It doesn't look like I am that much further along, but I have now completed the first chart in the pattern, and have knit my way through the first repeat of chart B and am into the second repeat of two before the stitch pattern changes. The growth of the shawl in the pictures would be barely noticeable if it were not for the changing colours of the wonderful Zauberball yarn, though.

However, it is safe to say that I am not as far along with the knitting as I had hoped to be. I haven't much felt up to lace knitting these last few days, neither in terms of comfort nor concentration, but slow steady progress is OK by me, just as long as it doesn't come to a complete stop.

Did you spot it in the top picture, astute reader?

Oh. Dear. I'm actually mildly irritated by this as I was hoping to get a few rows knitted this evening, but that won't happen now. The needle broke right in the middle of a row leaving me with stranded stitches hanging precariously in mid air and no way to knit further on.

I improvised by forcing a 3.5mm needle onto the cable in place of the broken 3.25mm tip and finishing the row knitting really uncomfortably off of that, the stitches taught and strained. I knit with a relaxed tension, so it wasn't s if I had some kind of death grip that caused my needle to break, but I have had another Knit Pro tip break at the needle collar before now and wonder if this is a weak point along the length of the needle.

I have attempted to superglue the needle back together, but it seems clear that this just will not work, so it seems like I am going to have quite some wait before I can continue this shawl. When I do eventually manage to buy a replacement set of tips I was wondering if I should get the Knitpro Nova metal tips a try instead? I haven't any experience of these, but I'm worried about the wooden tops breaking again and (importantly) ruining my knitting, but then I love that the wooden finish gives that little bit of grip so handy with slippery lace weight knitting.

In a brilliant moment of foresight and self-generated providence, however, I happened to insert a lifeline only two rows before the breakage occurred, so if I hadn't been able to catch all of the stitches I wouldn't have found myself weeping among a frothy pile of unravelling lace.

I'm going to be honest now and say that I really only put the lifeline in so I could post the picture of the lifeline and what a good idea they are on this blog, and now it turns out that it might well have saved the project. I may unravel the last two rows, anyway, just in case I missed a stitch or two when the needle broke. Lifelines, eh? You should definitely use them.

A Rainbow Of Stitches

I was hoping to have a shawl progress update to post today, but I haven't been too well these last couple of days and can't summon the will to either knit nor take any photographs, so instead I have a few poorly taken photographs that I shot in bad light the other day. But overcast days are known for their rainbows, and with a link as swift and seamless as a daytime TV presenter 20 years in the business, I present to you my favourite (OK, only) cross stitch and embroidery book:

A Rainbow Of Stitches was first brought to my attention by knitting chum, cross-stitch extraordinaire and former blogger, Mooncalf, who spoke highly of this wonderful collection of over 1,00 cross stitch and embroidery motifs, each worked in a single colour. It was this use of one colour for each motif that most appealed to me because I think this strong graphic style looks very fresh and modern, and very different from the twee cross stitch projects of a few years ago, with fussy details and worked in sixty four different shades of identical. The fact that I am lazy and can't be bothered to re-thread my needle eighty times for a single motif has nothing at all to do with it... Ahem.

I like the book so much that when I moved and didn't bring it with me I really missed it, and as my pre-Christmas hinting schedule was obviously too understated for Mr 'Look, unless you bring the thing up to me and say buy me this I'm not going to pick up on your subtle female eyelash flutterings' Awesome, it was only a couple of days ago that this finally made it's way to me by way of the friendly postman.

The sections of the book are arranged by colour and then sub-divided by theme, but among the pages you can find motifs for cross stitch patterns such as skiers, peacock feathers, fish, slices of cherry pie, matryoshka dolls, ants, teapots, umbrellas, pears and mopeds, along with just as many motifs for simple embroidery projects.

I'm currently stitching a few simple motifs for future birthday card projects, as I am attempting to make all of my greetings cards this year, and it's always handy to have something you have pre-made to fashion the cards out of. Plus, cross stitching is a handy and light crafty pursuit when you are not feeling tip-top.

I do hope to be feeling up to knitting again very soon, as I don't want to lose sight of how beautifully my shawl is coming along, but for now having to concentrate on long rows of lace will just have to wait, and I'm grateful for little mini-projects like this to keep me going.

WIP: The Incredible Geeky Wall Art Multimedia Project

Do you know what these are?

They are the level hazard icons from the videogame series 'Portal'. Two of a set of ten icons designed to alert the player to what risks might lay ahead in that level. Mr awesome likes this particular game muchly, and it is one of the first games that we played together, so I thought it would be fun to stitch the entire set of ten icons and mount them in a long frame, in two rows of five, to hang in the bathroom of the flat I very briefly lived in with him last year, before we moved.

I put the idea to the back of my mind until recently. The bathroom is no longer the place for these as we have no extractor fan so it gets too steamy in there, but the idea is still a sound one, so I have started up my stitching. The original plan was to make it as a total surprise, but the amount of stitching in secret involved would mean that I never got to see him as I'd have to shut myself away for ages at a time, so I decided instead to show him what I had completed so far to see if the idea appealed to him and whether he'd want this piece of geek art hanging up in the flat anyway.

Of course he does! That's great, as quite a lot of stitches have been made just for these first two icons, and secondly because if he said no I would shoot him with one of those turrets.

So, it turns out that this is a really exciting project for us both, and Mr Awesome is enthused. really enthused. I mean, what if it wasn't just the icons, but the whole level wall display!

Hmmm... That's be a LOT of stitching, thinks I, especially with that HUGE number that is cut off the top of the picture there. Still... it would look pretty spectacular. I can do the Aperture Laboratories logo in cross stitch, but I may think of another way of making the progress bar and level number. I'm not sure yet. It could be a simple case of finding some large format black card stock and a bit of deft work with with a craft knife, or maybe something else I have not yet thought of, but either way I will make it happen, and it will be marvellous. Marvellously geeky, but awesome.

FO: Giantmonk's Tank-oo Too Top

Many readers of my old blog will no doubt remember co-star, wonderful model and sometimes knitter, Giantmonk, my partner in craft and giver of all the cuddles in the world, absorber of sadness.

When I moved last year he was one of the things that I could not bring with me, and easily the one thing that I missed the most. I am not ashamed to say that I got a tad upset every time someone inevitably asked 'but you have Giantmonk, right?'. No, I did not and I missed him terribly. Mr Awesome would listen and understand this, and didn't mock me for it. He asked me a few times if I would get another Giantmonk. No, I couldn't because it wouldn't be the same if I bought myself another. A good amount of time had passed and I missed my Giantmonkey cuddles so much, when one day last week I walked into the bedroom and saw someone sitting on the bed.

He was holding (or chewing, I'm not sure, as it was in his mouth) a letter:

Dear Mimi,

I heard that you were missing my friend and cousin Giantmonk very much, so I wondered if you wanted me to come and stay with you for a while.

We used to play together when we were growing up, so I'm very good at giving hugs if you ever feel upset.

Of course, if I remind you of the other Giantmonk too much then you don't have to keep me around; but I'm here if you need me.

Yours,

Giantmonk

xxx

One of my favourite things about the letter is that he uses a semi-colon. I have no idea what they do.

Giantmonk couldn't be any more welcome here. He is full of all the cuddles and asked for only one thing, that I might make him his very own Giantmonk tank top, like the one he had seen a picture of Cousin Giantmonk wearing, taken in January 2010:

So, I had a look through a few part-balls of Stylecraft special DK I had and we worked out a nice colour palette of greens and browns, and I set about making Giantmonk a Tank-oo Top of his very own.

Exactly as with Cousin Giantmonk's Tank-oo Top I didn't pre-plan the colourwork but just made it up as I went along. Keeping to a six-stitch count motif made this really simple, making elements of five, three and one stitches line up with a spacer stitch as I went along. The tank top uses the same 120 stitches around as the past grey yellow and red tank top, and fits just as perfectly. The resulting tank top looks quite different due to the choice of colours and motifs, and I absolutely love it.

I absolutely adore knitting stranded colourwork designs, and I'm a lucky knitter that doesn't seem to have any tension issues in this regard (which is a good thing as I was working with acrylic and so my knitting sins would not be all that easy to sort out with that branch of the dark arts known as 'blocking').

Hopefully Giantmonk will enjoy being even more cuddly in his super warm tank top and will get to show it off when he pops up on this blog once in a while. I wonder if he's any good at modelling? Giantmonk, a classic Grattan's catalogue pose, if you will? What about shielding your eyes to the sun as you look to shore on the deck of your yacht?

It's a classic pose, and it looks as if he will be a fine, fine model. Welcome aboard, Giantmonk x

Pattern: None (improvised)
Yarn: Stylecraft Special DK

FO: 15 Minute Bouquet Greetings Card

I saw a cute little greetings card on the internet which features a few different shaped flowers in pink, and thought it would make a quick and simple Mothers Day card. The original card called for punches and stamps and all sorts of fiddly card-making equipment which I don't have, so I improvised a quick way around it.

I created a leaf template from a piece of scrap card folded in half with a shallow 3cm curve  cut along it to give a simple symmetrical leaf. I drew around this leaf a few times with a fineliner pen with a dashed outline, and added some 'stems'.

Next I cut a few simple flowers from scraps of pink and patterned papers. I used various flower shapes to create the flowers, cutting them free-hand, though you could make a template in a similar manner to the leaf template and use that as a guide.

I stuck the flowers down, gave some of them a dotted inner border, and added a few pink buttons to the centre of some of them. I'd use UHU or a PVA glue for this usually, but as I couldn't find it (I think it is in the hall cupboard, but I am not tall enough to see into or even reach up to feel around the top compartment) so I used superglue. I also found a couple of pre-cut flowers in pink so used them as a little extra decoration, though you could just cut more flowers. A simple written greeting on the front finished the cards off in about 40 minutes for all three, and that included the time taken to find my pink paper scraps and sort through them for the pretty ones.

It's a perfect simple card project for adults and children, and fantastic for anyone who might have forgotten that it is Mothers day this Sunday, but will also make a perfect Birthday card.

Lost FO: Graceful Hat

I said goodbye to a number of my things when I moved, things I was unable to collect, and the hand knits I lost were among those that I do miss.

This hat was one of the items that I never got chance to blog about, and it's a bit of a shame because it was a blinking good hat, and I designed it and never got the chance to publish the pattern. I could re-knit it and publish it, but the design looked so very lovely in the Louisa Harding Grace hand-Dyed yarn that Vivianne had so kindly sent to me that I just don't want to knit it in something that doesn't have that sheen and liveliness of subtle hues.

The hat was made with a subtle lace border and a stockinette top. I used an optional ribbon detail to give a little bit of extra detail to the hat, but it also looked beautiful without. The hat sat lovely on the head, with enough extra room not to squish delicate hairstyles, but at the same time having enough stretch in the hat band to make sure that the hat stayed put on the head. It was an amazing hat. *Sob*.

New Works In Progress

There are a number of new projects on the needles here at Castle Awesome, after a terrible case of startitis broke out at the end of last week.

It Seemed only right that I should have a lace project on the needles after finishing my lace socks, because... Well, just because. So, I thought I would cast on something pretty with a beautiful Lace Zauberball in the 'Cranberry' colourway.

This wonderful yarn is a laceweight version of my absolute favourite yarn, the amazing Schoppel-Woolle Zauberball, with 800m to a 100g ball.

I didn't really know what I wanted to knit with it, but it of course had to be lacy, and beautiful. I made use of the Ravelry pattern search to weigh up my options. I decided I wanted to knit a shawl (14,177 patterns for shawls on Ravelry), that I wanted to knit it with laceweight yarn (2,687 patterns for laceweight shawls) and that I had 800m of yarn to use (1,003 patterns for laceweight shawls using between 0-800m of yarn). I then decided that I wanted the shawl to be either circular or semicircular, which left me with 99 options. Looking only for patterns that were available for free or available to buy online reduced this to 83 shawls, and I finally remembered to specify knitting which then resulted in a choice of 79 choices, from which I finally settled upon Omelet.

I then promptly lost the link to the pattern as I didn't realise that Americans spelled the word 'Omelette' differently to how we spell it in the UK, which follows the French word origin. So I had to retrace my pattern narrowing steps until I found the shawl again, (which is why I remember the route to finding the shawl so well).

I'm on to the second chart now, and my work is so far small and uninspiring, but I'm hoping it will be spectacular when it is finished.

My second new work in progress is a piece of colourwork.

Again, I didn't feel guilty about the spate of new things cast on because this is so very different to all of the other things that I am knitting (being a piece of colourwork), so I think it is very reasonable to be working on so many things at once when they are clearly all so different. I shan't give too many details of this second new project as it is for a very special purpose, which shall be revealed soon...

Fork Bows - How To Tie A Bow Using A Fork

Yesterday I posted about how to use a fork to make pom-poms to decorate your knitting and craft projects. The next instalment in my cutlery embellishment series brings you Fork Bows. Using a simple four-pronged dining fork you can tie easy miniature bows which look perfect every time.

1. Gather a fork and a length of ribbon about 6"/15cm long and hold around the left side of the fork.

2. Take the length of ribbon that passes around the back of the fork and pass it over the other end at the front of the fork and between the centre two tines of the fork.

3. take the other end of the ribbon and pass it between the centre two tines of the fork over the top of the bow.

4. Pull both ends of the ribbon tight.

5. Turn the fork over.

6. Tie the two ends of the ribbon in a single overhand knot, pulling tightly.

7. Slip your bow from the fork.

8. trim ends into single or double points to finish.

9. Admire your bow and make more!