The scarf for my sister is not only off the loom, but finished, packed off, and sent in time for her birthday. I hope she likes it.

She is off the loom, and I am now twisting the fringes!

Made a bag with my favourite Night Vale quote

I found cross stitching pattern on pinterest and adapted it for plane embroidery (sorry, whoever have done it in the first place, I don't know your name but you are my hero). Then sowed together the bag and now I have the perfect thing to carry my laptop in.

Little bit of the process:

Thinking about making some the mechanisms stuff next, who knows

One of the things I do when I'm sewing is when I'm trimming and removing loose threads from a garment I for some reason go to put it in my mouth?? I don't know if this is an ancestral thing from primates or if I'm just weird.

knitting/chrocheting while hanging out with friends is so funny like everyone shut up for a few minutes i have to count to 115. twice

ⓘ A sewing machine is a device that provides a several-fold increase of the speed at which you can make mistakes

So at the beginning of this week, I kind of decided that the part of knitting that is actually appealing* is finishing things, plus if I finished some socks I’d have new socks, so I finished up a couple of pairs of socks I had around (both stuck at about the heel-turn of the first sock; I’d moved the grey pair from the heel turn to the second sock last time I got ambitious) and another project pod. Finishing things to wear immediately is great; I want to do this all the time.

*Although, I mean, the specific example I was thinking of was that tiktok cardigan older guy, and I think it is valid to say that the skill/accomplishment would not come across if there were no finished sweater to cut to while maintaining the dramatic intensity of the Look, but it has also crossed my mind that most of you know exactly what I am referring to with “tiktok cardigan older guy” and it would be pretty funny to do a parody where you employ the same intense eye-contact with the camera, hold up your skeins, and then cut to like, you in the same pose looking hapless in a pullover that ends right under the arms because that’s where you’d solved all the interesting neck/shoulder/armscye problems and got bored and simultaneously intimidated by the idea of grading a finishing piece to multiple sizes. Anyway, all of this is to say that I definitely wanted to say “the sexy part of knitting” and couldn’t bring myself to. Let’s not speak of it. Hey great news, I got new socks!

OH MY GOD (x)

taught myself beading over the last few weeks and have been making these little pins with designs inspired by weaving patterns

handmade trilobite bandanas now listed in my shop! printed and dyed by me

There aren't yet my professional photos of the final costume outcome, but these are the ones I took on my phone and I'm so fucking delighted - thank you to everyone who's been following along with this!! This is the first full costume I made for my degree and I'm endlessly proud of it

Not knitting or crochet but I've been working on some lino cutting to print onto fabric for my university work and wanted to show it off here

A little infographic for choosing sock yarn for your hand knit socks. You can read the full blog post here.

(Text for the infograph below the cut.)

Sock Knitting 101: Choosing Yarn

"Sock" Yarn: Sometimes dyers or brands will specifically label one of their fingering weight yarns as a "sock" yarn. This means is that the yarn is in the fingering weight category and has been spun with nylon. But even if the name of the yarn doesn't specify that it's a sock yarn, check the label. Standard yarn content for sock yarn is 80% wool and 20% nylon, or 75% wool and 25% nylon. A more luxurious yarn sock yarn is 80% merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon.

DK Weight Sock Yarn: Socks can also be knit in DK weight! DK socks are fantastic, especially for beginners, since the yarn is a bit thicker and easier to work with. The socks will be cozy, comfortable, and they knit up super fast. You can check to make sure a DK weight yarn is suitable for socks the same way you would with fingering weight- look for the nylon content.

Some yarn is sold in 50g skeins, while others are sold in 100g skeins, so make sure to double check the yardage when buying. Generally variegated colours work bests for simple designs, and tonal or solid colours for complex designs.

Shopping for Sock Yarn: There are more expensive options and more accessible options available for sock yarn. Sisu from Sandnes Garn is one of my favourite more accessible sock yarns, and has never let me down in durability. Hand-dyed yarn is usually more expensive, but since sock patterns almost always use only one skein, this can be a way to enjoy luxurious yarn without going bust on your budget.

Versa Cowl

This one was a pretty fun knit, though the broken seed stitch can get kind of tedious after a bit. I'm really happy with how it turned out though!

I did modify the pattern slightly. For the broken seed stitch section, the green was always the seed stitch rows and the gold was always the knit rows, rather than switching MC and CC every little bit. I also skipped the ribbing, did a provisional cast on, and then kitchener grafted the cast on edge to the top edge to make a double thick cowl, rather than one that was super long.

Pattern is the Versa Cowl

Yarn is leftover Lion Brand Wool Ease

Bonus close up of the broken seed stitch section, which forms a cool honeycomb looking pattern:

Finished gradient scarf! The colourway is Hard Coral from the Blue Brick which I bought at a fibre festival because the girl in the booth said it was my colour. which was correct.

F.O. Friday

Sweater thing! This has been on the needles since September. My knitting is much slower right now due to starting Grad School last fall. Idk how many large projects I'll get done this year.

Pattern is the Slava Ukraini Sweater by Zanete Knits. Yarn is Miss Babs Intrepid.

Bitches be knitting (it’s me, I’m bitches)

A few weeks ago I discovered a thing called "stick weaving", where instead of a warped loom you weave the weft through sticks. The warp threads are looped through the bottom of each stick, and you pull them through your woven weft as you go. As I've been moving around a lot lately and don't have space for an actual loom, portable hand-held methods like this are a lot of fun!

Of course, having never done this before, I decided to pair it with kilim-technique pattern weaving, where you wrap the weft threads around the warp, leaving a gap where the different colours meet and creating sharp geometric patterns (which I've also never tried to do before lol). It looks absolutely baller with a high contrast dark base and bright colours, and of course the red-blue-yellow combo is always a winner XD

I ran out of the red before I ran out of warp and switched to purple, but at this point I'm just using this piece for pattern experiments. I've already ordered a medium weight yarn instead of the fingering-weight jumper yarn, which should compress less once off the sticks, and have ideas of doing several long repeating "panels" that can be sewn together at the selvedge to make something bigger.

The best part, it tucks into a bag and needs no other tools besides a tapestry needle and something to cut the yarn!