hmm, my gloves need to be tough. a shawl or throw could be good tho. iirc stephen west has some great patterns that are textural but not lacy, i should check.
after browsing west’s patterns a while, an idea came to me: blocks of stockinette and seed stitch, with the increases at the edges of the stockinette rather than the center, so the outer edge is angled rather than square pointed.
Got this pillow that ended up going through the washer a few too many times, for cat incontinence reasons, and one side ended up turning into something like a mesh bag of stuffing, and it looked like one of those needlepoint testers- you know, the kind they make for kids? Come with cheapass yarn and blunt plastic “needle” included? So I decided to roll with that, and fix it with embroidery thread. I like sewing, but I cannot stitch a straight, even line to save my life. (caution: lorge) I am making up for my lack of skill with enthusiasm.
@Re Allyssa , I think you’re right, that looks like it would be pretty cool with embroidery mending and patches. To start out, I’d use your heavier thread and do a whip stitch (*edit* sorry, pressed post early) hem around all the edges to stabilize the fraying, then go back with your embroidery thread and Make It Pretty. Here is what I found when I went looking for embroidery mending how-tos for my mesh-pillow. Assuming you didn’t already consult Google with the same keywords as me, go and see; is v cool. *edit again* Frig, @spockandawe already showed you the thing. Teach me not to read the whole thread including links before posting. (I’ve been having a lot of fun trying various types of back stitching, too. There’s more than one that look like sutures! Look cool, also v strong. You can do them in a straight line like that, or do them in X-es or V-s or unconnected slanty lines. ... There’s probably names for those. I don’t know em.^x^)
I am excite. On the night my niece Sylvie was born, I had a dream where she turned into a tiny bee-pony and flew around the hospital, so I decided that I would make her a bee-pony. Today I embarked upon a quest, and though I haven’t the spoons to share the details at this moment, above you may see the the spoils: Three of the softest, prettiest silvery fabrics from the upholstery section, and a pink-and-flint checked cotton flannel, which is also the softest. For lo, there will be 2 toys; one heirloom, and one edible. (Saturday was Sylvia’s 2-month birthday!) *edit* Here’s a picture of the 3 upholstries in better lighting: thumbnail bc big
I don’t know if you guys have seen this yet, and frankly I don’t have the time or spoons to dig through 75 pages of backlog, but I found this in an old phone and it seemed right up your alley
Watched some tutorials, google-image-searched some stuff, made a pattern for a (chewable/puke-on-able/washable) doggy. (also there’s my feets.)
Among the many many fiber craft gifts I'm doing, I just finished this one for my sis right now and I'm so excited about it Spoiler: ASYNCH DON'T LOOK It's a hand-dyed gradient rolag set, and I'm gonna make notes and name colorways all hobbit themed. Also I made enough of each sub-colorway that it could be spun as two matching gradient hanks, or since they're in rolags my sis could remix into a fractal or self striping yarn or whatever tickles their fancy. About 150g of Manx Loaghtan, originally the brown in the upper right and overdyed and blended by me.
Doggie’s coming along! She is, I have discovered, a Boston terrier, and her name is Pansy (subject of course to renaming and/or re-gendering by the recipient upon transfer of ownership.) This is the test-stuffing. Right now she’s held together entirely with a running stitch, which is fast, but not very strong. Shortly I’m going to turn her inside out again and go back over all her seams with a back-cross-stitch in the softer pink cotton thread, and then possibly go over the whole thing again in the stronger polyester thread and do some rolled seams (as suggested by my mom.)
I finished the doggie! Just in time for Christmas presents! Sylvie was a little too unconscious to really appreciate it, but her dad was impressed; he pronounced it “very dog-shaped.” Later, Sylvie woke up, and I presented it to her officially. She was all like, “The hell am I supposed to do with this?”
So I got Star Wars Even More Crochet for Christmas and here is my first little dude! It's a Jawa and I'm prolly gonna have to make 'em a little buddy later.
I hate starting a new craft and being Not Good at a thing when I spend most of my time on hobbies I am good at, but! I really, REALLY love being so early in the learning curve that I can see myself leveling up row by row :D I think I'm going to abandon this sweater, because this ribbing is as interesting as it gets, and the ribbing is... minimally interesting. So I'll probably frog this soon, but it's been very nice seeing myself go from having to carefully, carefully wrangle every single purl stitch to being able to do it without consciously thinking about it Spoiler: large (for real though, it's so WEIRD figuring out how to Feel the tension when I'm juggling a hundred live loops at once and slipping yarn off my needles between stitches, instead of crochet, where I've only got one loose end at a time and all my tension is right there in front of me)
YEAHHHHH, I always forget how much I really, really like learning new skills. Spoiler: large? I'm probably going to abandon this project too, may or may not frog it, because I've absorbed most of the new skills this pattern requires, and the yarn is too busy of a color to really dig into the other bits. I think tomorrow... I'm going to start knitting the severed horse head. I've wanted to make this thing for over a decade. I used to pass the bookmark from computer to computer while I was still in school, but by now it's just drilled into my brain. What do I want to knit? Easy question, the severed horse head!!! In more serious project work, I think.... next I probably want to focus on fancey colorwork. I think that will be less frustrating than complicated shaping while my fingers get used to this. Or I could dig out my grandma's sweater patterns and have a stab at cables, but I've got limited needles on hand at this point down the knitting pit. Or, I could try spinning, because my parents are FANTASTIC about supporting my weird hobbies and better at following through on them than I am, and they got me the cute little electric eel nano spinning wheel for my birthday. I tried it once, spun some """yarn""", and severely bruised my ego by not immediately being a natural, but it's time to go back in and git gud
ONE OF US ONE OF US (sorry I just get stupid excited whenever someone says they want to learn spinning)
Yeaaaah! Speaking of spinning I finished the Primaveral Winterluxe and have progress shots! These are big, sorry in advance. Spoiler: Finished single Spoiler: Plying Spoiler: Winding the skein And the finished Instagram shot after setting the twist
You guys- and I’ve already been talking about this on the Fantasy Farm thread- I’ve been messaging this person who’s selling eri silkworm eggs on ebay, and they offered to sell me some of their cocoons for $5 per 30 grams, and I just offered to buy $25 worth, which works out to about 5.3ish ounces of unprocessed silk cocoons. Sight unseen of course, so I’m not sure what caterpillar poop situation’s gonna be. I am v excite and also have no more idea what I’m supposed to be doing than I can get from searching Google. I’m thinking of felting some of it and using it to make the mane for Sylvie’s bee-pony. (Do I know how to felt? No! Do I know how to spin? Also no! I shall be doing this anyway!)
