A relaxed weekend

Spiderweb Crochet Shawl from StepbystepUA

I love when I see posts like "Share how many crochet WIPs you currently have! I have 5, it's so many!"

Like, girl, I have unfinished projects from over a decade ago that I refuse to frog on the off chance I decide to finish them. I've found years-old projects I forgot I even started and will impulsively just finish it on the spot. I've started three different projects in the last 2 months, including one I started yesterday, that I already know I may or may not finish within the year depending on motivation.

The number of WIPs I have is infinite.

@dapperclassic wearing a Kent Wang shawl collar cardigan

New Sprezzatura

Today's tea: Celegorm's blend is...better than I expected, since pu erh and rooibos are both teas that I don't like much on their own. The pu erh certainly adds some earthiness to this one, but not too much with the raspberry balancing it out. Probably not going to be one of my favorites, but definitely drinkable!

Today's knit: So, the Maleme Cardigan is nearly dry - except for the sleeves which had to be kind of balanced on top of the rest of the sweater to fit on the drying rack. Until I did this:

Which hopefully won't stretch the sleeves out too terribly.

In the meantime I did the gauge swatch for the Mallorn Shawl. It was a bit harrowing, as I misread the instructions for a special stitch that is supposed to basically bind off at the tip of each leaf rather than leaving a stitch there from the K3tog for the next stitch to grow out of, so I was ending up with too many stitches on the next row and having to adjust what the chart said to do to account for that and still have it look like leaves. But now I (theoretically) know what to do so the shawl itself should go smoother. XD The pattern has you make this swatch and then do WAY more math than you generally end up doing for any pattern that you are not yourself designing, just to calculate how many repeats it will take to make the size shawl you want and how much yarn you will need for that and how many beads, if you're incorporating beads into the leaf-stems as is optional. Having weighted my swatch, though, it turns out that buying yarn by the yardage given at the start of the pattern was not nearly enough. :-( I think I will just start anyway and see how far the three skeins I have actually go, and skip ordering beads for it.

Swatch close-up in yesterday's afternoon light; amazing how many different golds this yarn can adopt depending on the lighting:

these are my reluctant cult leaders, these are my murderous mothers, these are my seemingly shy girls who go HARD on the weird shit

they’re popping tendons, they’re slicing throats, they’re holding hearts in their bare hands, they’re EVERYTHING TO ME

when WHEN they share a tender kiss after making a terrifying blood sacrifice you will NEVER STOP HEARING FROM ME

Ace colored shawl 🤍🖤💜 (pepperpot shawl)

A “sister post” to the one where i discussed my objectives with Craft Mausoleum…this one is to show some things I myself have made! My knitting pictures are just ripped from my Ravelry account lol. I made a separate one for sewing, here.

From top to bottom, left to right: Reykjavik Soft by Meiju Kallio; Robinia Sweater by Anne Ventzel; The Witching Hour by Hannah Mann; Auri Shirt by Johanna Schutz.

Other knitting: The Doodler by Stephen West; Heirloom Quilt Cardigan by Katryn Seeburger (WIP); Alder by Faye Kennington; and a cowl I made using stitch pattern #7 from Hitomi Shida's Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible.

"Not idly do the leaves of Lórien fall"

- Aragorn, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

A relaxed weekend

When you're running a J-fashion Bring & Buy with your local lolita community but feel more like wearing mori kei on the day... mori lolita it is!!!

Morning temperature was 12°C, so I wore nylon tights, a knee sock for my bad left knee, a white lace cardigan and my newly thrifted pastel green jacket and a golden scarf. Was chilly but okay.

When I left the subway station on my way to the event two goth girls approached me and squealed over my outfit and how adorable and cute I was! They were even fellow fat girls. That was so precious!! Made my day from the start! I got an insane number of compliments that day! So much love!! Thank you everyone! That sure does wonders. Someone on insta commented "you look like a lovely flowery breeze of spring". They have a way with words for sure!

I bought the wrist cuffs at the bring & buy because they matched my outfit so well (and are very beautiful!). Also bought a red bonnet by Angelic Pretty and can't wait to style it with my little Red Riding Hood Cape (I've converted an old school Baby the Stars Shine Bright skirt into that cape). Both have lovely red velvet! A match made in lolita heaven! Couldn't resist the cute pins and lovely flower resin charms either. But hey, I have new work and more money to spend! So I'll support my local artists!! As you should.

Kent Wang

New Sprezzatura