Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

It's an entire outfit now

I bought about 5 balls of yarn to make the Hibiscus Skirt, and only used about half of that. So I decided to use the rest of it up to make a matching top. Which ended up being crocheted rather than knitted. 

I was going to follow this pattern, but I could NOT get the gauge and ended up basically making up my own (figuring out how many to crochet around the boobs, but otherwise following the same style of pattern. Which worked.

And then I STILL had some yarn left, what to do with it? A friend of mine gave me her copy of "Crochet Adorned" and thus I brought it to the theater and started crocheting flowers to sew onto the top. And then I had enough left to make one more flower (albeit with a few other shades of pink) to add to the skirt too.

 

 

Hibiscus Skirt

Pattern found here. I wanted to make a cotton skirt, I found the right cotton yarn, there you go. I did it shorter than the 23 inches said in the pattern (knee length seemed quite enough already) and put in a drawstring instead of elastic since heck if I know where the elastic is.

I also finished a work in progress during the Ravellenic Games, so that's another medal, I think! 

Now this needs a tank top to go with it...with the remaining 2.5 balls of yarn I have left. 

 

What to do with a one off ball of yarn you don't know what to do with

(a) Knit some I-cord for awhile.

(b) Cast on something like 14 stitches on each side and then six stitches in the middle that are done in stockinette the whole time. Switch knitting and purling every 4 rows or so on the edges to make some kind of stockinette ridges. Leave the middle as stockinette the entire time. .

(c) When you're about out of yarn, sew the middle column together into a column, make sure you've got the I-cord placed in the middle when you do it. 

(d) Pull the drawstring to scrunch it up a bit into a frilly collar. 

Because I finished this during Shrek rehearsal and I'm sick of my pandemic hair, here's a new wig you haven't seen before.

Flare the collar up.

Fold the collar down. 

What do you think about things?

I am now a member of Gagnamagnið’. Followup from here and here. 

(Remember, this is an 8-bit thing, knitted. It's not gonna be super accurate.)

(In other news, god, I'm so sick of my flat pandemic hair and it's natural color. I did this in blonde because I'm most frequently blonde. In a few weeks after my play is over and I'm released from the "don't make sudden hair changes" contract.....) 

Sacramento Center for the Textile Arts Yarn Bombing

Followup from here:

Saw it in person!

Link to organization here.

The rest of the pictures are below the spoiler cut:

Sontag shawl

I've wanted to do a sontag shawl (i.e. "What You Saw On Outlander") for awhile now. This is a bigger one than I was intending on doing, but I made this for an upcoming play in which I need to very quickly convert my costume from 1970 to a flashback in 1918, hah hah. I needed something large to cover up my tie-dye, so there you go. 

This is the size small--I originally started making the medium and then was running out of yarn about 3/4 in, so I pulled a lot out and redid it smaller. Probably all for the best because even the small is huge. Honestly, I don't think this is flattering, but the point of it is to cover up my top, so...oh well.

(I'm wearing this to the online Clockwork Alchemy con, hence the hat.)

More Arne and Carlos Easter eggs

Followup from here.

I found "Arne and Carlos Favorite Designs" in the library--yes, I was actually physically in the library--and they had 8 more Easter egg patterns. I continue to not be terribly good at these, but oh well.

 

 

Love Across The USA

I thought this sounded like a fun thing to do, speaking of yarn bombing.

On a related note, while I was looking for spots to put the last two:

(a) I got a call from someone asking me to donate yarn bombs to another event in a few weeks.

(b) I went to an area that has an awesome yarn bomb and encountered the lady who did the garden there. She said friends of hers made it. 

Yarn bombing a car

Have you noticed it's yarn bombing season lately? I keep seeing things all around for that topic. 

Anyway, this is the story of our biggest yarn bomb ever.

So we attended an event called "Spring Spark," a drive-through Burning Man-ish event in which people wore costumes and displayed their art cars, fire poi, etc. They encouraged dress-up and car decorating. My friend Dawn was quite inspired by this and volunteered her car for such. I volunteered a lot of my knitted/crocheted goods, including what remains from my sea project, some silly hats, my Christmas tree apron, etc., which Dawn sewed to blankets and tied to the car once we got to the event. Dawn also crocheted loopy fringe to hang off the car doors. Jenny contributed the tie-dyed mask for the front of the car and the Wonder Woman on the back. 

More pictures from the event are below the spoiler cut.

Two rainbow sweaters

A friend of mine loved the rainbow sweater, so I made her another one. Hers is on the right. 

Slightly smaller and since she's taller than me, the rainbow band is farther down.

Hopefully she likes it--I made it without meeting her in person, hah!