speedwagons-glorious-mane
Call Me Speed
22 • She/Her • Australian • Fibre Artist • Fanfic Author https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speedwagons_Glorious_Mane
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One of my posts keeps getting reblogged with hashtags like
It's funny because a while ago, I made a few KNITTING patterns that purposefully look like CROCHET.
I call it faux-chet.
Off the hook shawl - yes, it's knit.
Some of you may find these patterns interesting, they're all I cord based stitches. I know that most of these would be basic projects to crochet, but not everybody knows how. I designed these for people who want the look but don't have time or the desire to learn a new craft.
Loaded Taco Shawl
Another advantage of these faux-chet patterns is that they use a lot less yarn than crochet. The taco above uses i cord like chain stitch, it only weighs 85 g. The boardwalk wrap and top below mimics fillet crochet openwork.
All of these faux-chet patterns are made with a technique that I call the lattice stitch. I made a YouTube playlist of the basics and sometimes teach classes on this topic.
I named this pattern Definitely a Knit Shawl to avoid Ravelry mods relabeling it AND included photos of it on the needles to prove that is actually knitted. I have had arguments with people who think that I just crochet poorly and that's why my stitches look funny.
If you think the stitch is interesting, you should definitely check it out. The YouTube videos are free and I have plenty more patterns on my Ravelry page that use this technique.
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(Long post, sorry y'all)
A little more than two years ago now, my grandmother passed away. She and my grandpa had moved down to my home town a few years before so we could take care of them. I brought them groceries once a week, helped them write checks, fixed tvs, and found lost things. I was really close with my grandma.
In addition to her hilarious personality and dry wit, one of my favorite things about her was that she was a painter and a crafter like me! She used to crochet, and I took her to the craft store a couple of times so she could get more yarn and books on crochet. But her arthritis and the shaking in her hands kept getting worse, so she eventually had to stop.
She kept her most recent project, a granny square blanket, safely packed away in a plastic bin. She told all of us she was going to finish it one day.
Her hands never got better, and when she got sick, and we found out it was cancer, she rapidly deteriorated.
After she passed, I went to work helping my mom clean out my grandparents apartment so we could move my grandpa in with her. In our frantic cleaning, I found that bin again:
DOZENS of granny squares, dozens of half used skeins. I asked my mom what she wanted me to do with it, and she said she didn't care. I set it aside and later took it home.
Maybe a month later, that tumblr post about the Loose Ends Project was going around. It felt like a sign--I was never going to learn to crochet in order to finish my grandmother's blanket. But they might be able to help!
So I filled out the interest form. They got back to me SUPER quick. And maybe 2 weeks later, I was paired with volunteer in my state (only 2 hours away!) and the box of yarn, granny squares, and my grandmother's crochet hook were in the mail. That was at the end of January this year.
Over the next couple of months, my "finisher" emailed me regular updates on her progress, and asked me questions on my preferences for how she constructed the final blanket.
At the end of August, the blanket was done!
I had always intended the blanket to be a gift for my mother. So I cleaned it up, put it in the only bag I had big enough to fit it, and drove to my mom's. I gave the blanket to her and she was gobsmacked. I explained to her all about Loose Ends, and how someone volunteered to finish the piece for us. She was speechless. (I was quite pleased with this, because I am not the best at giving gifts, so this was a pretty exciting reaction!)
She said that it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever been given. She said "your grandma would love this". To which I replied, "yeah, I know she really wanted to finish it a couple of years ago". But that was when my mom dropped the bomb of a century on me--she told me that my grandma had started making those granny squares OVER 30 YEARS AGO. She had started the blanket when my grandpa was staying in the hospital, but that was back when my mom was younger than I am now! My grandma had packed them all away, planning on finishing it, when my grandpa was sent home from the hospital. Then it went from house to house, from condo in Chicago to their apartment in my hometown. All that time and my grandma had wanted to finish it, but couldn't. First because she was busy, then because she forgot how to do it, then because of her arthritis, and then because of the cancer. My mom said she had given up on expecting my grandma to finish it.
She said I brought a piece of her childhood with her mom out of the past.
And really, all of this is to say, if you have seen or heard about the Loose Ends Project and have an uncompleted project or piece from a loved one who has passed away--these are your people. They were so kind and treated my project with such care. That box probably would have been found by my own grandkids one day if I hadn't heard about Loose Ends.
Five stars, absolutely worth it!
(From what I understand, you can sign up to volunteer too! If you have time to share, it might be worth checking out!)
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Finally got around to blocking this shawl! This is my first time blocking anything, and I didn't have a proper foam base to pin on, so I improvised with my sofa and some towels. The pattern is Golden Orchids and it has these lovely beaded flower motifs at the border! I used white pearlescent beads on white mohair-acrylic yarn, so they unfortunately aren't too visible.
Here's a close-up, before and blocked. Looks so much cleaner! If you have any tips on blocking, leave a comment!
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Finally got around to blocking this shawl! This is my first time blocking anything, and I didn't have a proper foam base to pin on, so I improvised with my sofa and some towels. The pattern is Golden Orchids and it has these lovely beaded flower motifs at the border! I used white pearlescent beads on white mohair-acrylic yarn, so they unfortunately aren't too visible.
Here's a close-up, before and blocked. Looks so much cleaner! If you have any tips on blocking, leave a comment!
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4,700-year-old ball of yarn found near Lake Bienne. Lüscherz, Switzerland, around 2700 BC
More: https://thetravelbible.com/top-artifacts-from-the-stone-age/
Source: Facebook
Museum of Artifacts
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I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.
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and are these jobs hiring trans people for a diversity quota in the room with us right now?
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Technophobes need to apologise for "just put it in plain English you stupid machine!" because, well for one the decline in accurate error messages in favour of simplicity has contributed to the rise of tech illiteracy, but also because now whenever an "app" has a net connection error it will pop up a box saying something like "oo ooopsie! Your super duper feed went poo poo. We'll try again soon!" which having said to me by a corporation is about 8 million times worse than having to hear the word "network".
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One of my least favourite dialogue tropes is when a man tells a woman, “You can’t do that” or “I wouldn’t do that if I were you” and she says, “Why? Because I’m a woman and therefore too weak to handle this/can’t take care of myself?” or something to that effect and the guy replies with, “No, because everyone who tried that ended up with a bullet in their brain” or something equally reasonable and not gender-specific that paints him as the rational not sexist guy and the woman as an irrational paranoid feminist who searches for sexism in everything. This whole scenario is built on the idea that sexism is over and women’s fears and suspicions don’t have a leg to stand on. It’s also self-congratulatory pseudofeminism bc it’s supposed to make the viewer/reader/listener feel that in this specific work of fiction women are treated respectfully and as equal with men.
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purge of 2002? of 2012? what ARE those?
Oh, how quickly the past is forgotten.
They are part of the reason A03 is a thing now. Not the whole reason, but part of it.
The Great Purges of 2002 and 2012 are when ff.net got a wild hair up their ass about THINK OF THE CHILDREN and nuked any fic posted on there that was explicit. Thousands upon thousands of nc-17 smutfics were lost.
It’s what led to the creation of alternate hosting sites for smutty fic…AdultFanfiction was the one I went to…but thousands of fics would never be recovered.
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I am super against light pollution, and have been for decades
but I am also super annoyed by the way it's framed as "without light pollution you can see how beautiful the night sky is" way more prominently than it's framed as "hey, did you ever stop to think of how much energy/resources/money are literally wasted by having so much light shine up into the sky?"
so people get the idea that light pollution can only be remedied by eliminating all night-time light, which would make being outside at night very inconvenient, instead of by making night-time light shine only on the ground where, y'know, the people who need it are
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Lovesick Boy Prays by Keaton St. James
(patreon)
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Suddenly struck with a need to explain to you how boat pronouns work (I work in the marine industry).
When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".
When the boat is still being built, your say "it".
When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".
When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".
When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.
If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").
If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")
If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").
If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.
If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.
I hope this has cleared things up so that you may not be in danger of misgendering floating objects.
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