Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

Another crocheted Mirabel costume

I did mine from January-October 2022, and now Transatlantic Crochet has finished her own, which is also amazing. Looks like she did actual embroidery/applique on it in parts (I did not) and did a much bigger collar/collarwork on the blouse. 

Tiny damn yarn

So.....I have an enormous amount of fancy tiny yarn I've been acquiring at fancy yarn festivals and the occasional shop trip for several years now, most of which I haven't done anything with. I have colorway COLLECTIONS of this stuff.

Neon

I'm not sure what to label this collection, but it's .... pale rainbow-ish shimmery, I guess? Possibly not everything that qualifies in this is even in this shot.

More rainbow rainbow (this isn't even ALL of the stash of that)

And pink/purple/blue (rainbow and pink/purple/blue are my life's colorways).

This is because I want to make more dresses out of fingering yarn, and the tank/tube-style dress I want to make I have (a) not been able to design myself, and (b) the closest pattern I've got doesn't get gauge even remotely with the fingering yarn it supposedly uses, forcing me to recalculate or substitute something else or god knows what. (Other people have agreed with me that the gauge is insane.) i just took a class in recalculating this for another gauge because I come out at about 28 sts/4 inches with size 5's in fingering, or 28 sts/4 inches if I really wank it and use size 8 needles. The pattern's gauge is at 22, which is worsted weight, FFS.

Meanwhile right now I'm knitting with the 28/4 gauge with fingering on the Isabela top. I did the collar and I finished (most of) one sleeve and am on to the next. And you know what? That shit's STILL flimsy AF really. Like, I wanted to make a lightweight summer dress out of these things because it gets to be like 116 here, but if I knit it at that gauge I'll probably still need to wear some other dress under it or else embarrass myself. If you hold it up to the light, it's a bit peekaboo still. The crochet dress is definitely peekaboo, which is why I have clothes under it and have mostly worn it in midseason temps here and there.

Maybe I should just give up and knit 2 yarns together and do it in DK gauge? That uses more yarn (but has awesome color combos that could harmonize, particularly on the neon) and knitting with two seems like a pain, but that might be less of a pain than working in one strand of tiny. I did also find a way to knit with 3 fingerings at once (folding them up and weaving a third strand through...it worked) to come out around worsted/bulky gauge. Works a treat, albeit it was quite heavy fabric and not what I was going for in a "summer" dress.

Argh, I dunno. I still have Halloween costume I'm plugging away on and a portable project and a pain-in-the-ass-I-may-never-finish-it double knitting to work on, plus the vest that is on hold because I got sick of the fiddly lacy hem. So...yeah.

Finally used some yarn from Stiches

66 inches of SUPER bulky yarn from Frost Yarns. Had no idea what to do with it for a year. Finally just made a lei.

THIS IS MAH HAUL

Here's the pictures of what I got at Stitches 2023.

Yes, that's something like....17 skeins, technically? (A bunch of minis on the end). I have been collecting (a) rainbow skeins, (b) pastel mix skeins, (c) purple/blue skeins, and (d) neon skeins, for possible future projects. I shopped like there may be no Stitches in the future, basically. I took a class in alterations, so hopefully I can someday come up with the dress pattern I want for these things.

Other things: shawl pin, knitting board, landscape pendant embroidery kit, Knitters Oracle. And a bunch of stickers.

And the socks on the right.

This is the sample NEWS sweater I made in class.

Oh, and I made the embroidered pendant. (I note that the kit seems to have slightly different color instructions than the picture, so one part of the mountain is light gray.)

Stitches West 2023, day two

Continued from here, also behind the spoiler cut:

Quilling!

I took a class in quilling officially today (after having done this before).

First, she had us learn the various types of things we could do with coiled paper:

This was the project example that she brought in, we were to make a smaller version:

The class was four hours long, I don't think anyone finished gluing their pieces down by then unless they didn't put a whole lot in. I spent so much time filling in the little box and then was all "crap, I'm going to have to take all of this out and put glue in the bottom and put them back in!" The teacher helpfully said we could get clear polyurethane glue spray to finish off pieces/get them to stay in, and also if I ever want to make quilled jewelry, I can use it for that. So after class was out, I went out and got the spray to make sure all the pieces stayed in. 

Here it is outside, drying. I added a sun in the corner, two butterflies and some clouds. Pretty cool, huh? 

The collar on the Isabela outfit is done

Continued from here.

Stitches West 2023, day one

Enormous amount of pictures below the spoiler cut.

Prism skirt is done

So I did this cardigan sweater kit in three weeks, and then had 3.5 balls of this Prism yarn left. I wanted to get rid of it, so I ended up making a matching skirt with what was left (which thankfully came out to a reasonable not-miniskirt length). I did this pattern by Transatlantic Crochet, except shorter and not with the colorwork. Weirdly enough, it took me longer to make this than the sweater by most of another week (started it after finishing the cardigan, finished yesterday), but I am kinda also doing some other things at the same time, I suppose. 

The drawstring and pocket linings are done in a different yarn (left over from the Isabela outfit, obviously) in case I ran out of the original and it was coming out too short (it did not). I actually put elastic in first, but then added the drawstring afterwards in case putting a phone or anything else in one of the pockets made it sag so much it fell off (I note I kind of loosely put in the elastic anyway). But these pockets are great! Actually hold up to having a phone in there!

So here's the skirt by itself:

And the entire outfit together. I would have loved to have worn this today, but the weather sucks, so...next month, I guess. 

I love a good sherbet outfit! 

Learning double knitting

Taking a class on how to do double knitting the next few weekends: Here is my sample:

And she taught us a bind off that alternates the colors on the end:

 

The third tier of the Encanto skirt is done

Continued from here.

The tier by itself was taken at work where I finished it and boy, did that color come out inaccurate (it's really the mauve shade on the left). I am going to have to pin the second tier down further so it looks more layered.

Now the question is, do I sew on the panels to the skirt first or the flowers first?!

Isabela top in progress

Continuing from here. I'll probably finish the third layer of skirt over the weekend, but in the meantime, here's this:

I'm doing the Shapely Tank for the basis for this. Here's the front piece, blocking, and I just finished the back piece. Entire tank done in less than 2 weeks. Then I sew it together and try to figure out how to put the neck and sleeves on...

A book review

Just finished Unraveling, which some of you might be into reading. 

Prism cardigan is done in only 3 weeks!

I got this Crocheted Prism Cardigan kit from Mary Maxim for Christmas this year.

I note that I'd never used/seen Prism yarn before. It turned out to be roving yarn, which is just one spun(?) thread of yarn instead of two or more pieces of yarn spun around each other. This means that it's soft to the touch, but may pull apart more easily (happily this didn't happen too much) and definitely sticks to itself a lot. Every time I had to pull out yarn because of a mistake, it literally took hours to rip it back out, which is not a thing you usually have take that long in crochet. 

It took me three weeks to make exactly and was quick to make. It took me about 3 days apiece to make each front and the back pieces. The sleeves ended up being more complicated because they decreased pretty quickly in the pattern and my arms are bigger around at the top than 38 inches (that's what I'd do for my twig wrists!). So I ended up doing it in 58 stitches for 8 inches down from the armpit and then started following the tapering down instructions. This worked well. 

It had some kind of twisted rib(?) stitch you were supposed to be doing on the fronts and back, but frankly, I said "screw this" and did it in double crochet because that was easier and I REALLY needed a mindless project to do because January sucks and I can't do anything very complicated these days that isn't "round and round" or "back and forth." My pile of amigurumi? Fuhgettaboutit. The temperature cross stitch? Haven't even been able to focus on tiny stitches.

And then ironically I had to count EVERY stitch on the arm rows because I kept having stitches magically disappear somehow. I didn't have the brain space for this either :P

(Seriously, this was the best of the selfies I got . I finished it last night, left a party at 1 a.m. and I don't think I ever lost consciousness, I'm tired, I could not fake a happy smile for the camera.)

That said, I'm pleased I got it done and it's nice and soft, albeit I don't think I'd get roving yarn again after this. I say this and yet I have 3.5 balls of yarn left out of a kit of 9 (and this is even after making the arms bigger), so now what do I do with that?! I may end up doing some kind of miniskirt or something, I dunno. 

Second layer of the Isabela skirt is done.

Continued from here.

Only took about a month to do this one during show downtimes in the dark. 

Looks great, I think.