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I think I've officially settled on Lenka, suggested by @phallicthimble ! The name means light and is of Czech/Slovak origin.

We've uncovered that my family is from that strange nexus between countries where the Carpathian Mountains are. So this feels especially fitting!

MILF (man, I love fiber)

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something something baby shark, right??🦈

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There’s certain hobbies and interests that aren’t inherently conservative or regressive but do attract a lot of people who are those things or worse and when you’re a progressive person involved in those hobbies hearing that someone else is interested in your hobby usually has to involve some “But are you normal about it?” conversations before you get too excited

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I realized halfway through knitting this sweater that i dont have enough yarn, so I improvised a color gradient with some leftover yarn in blue. Hopefully it will turn out nice in full size as well!

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hyperfixation please stay with me long enough to complete the project. hyperfixation do not fade. hyperfixation finish what you started for the love of god

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if anybody wants life advice… making things for yourself is so important. Like I started making myself blankets last year, & they have helped my mental health so much! For many reasons. First off it gives you something to do that isn’t doom scrolling, so whatever you like doing, like knitting, crocheting, baking, painting, etc. if you dedicate time to that it’ll help your brain. Secondly, it has helped me love myself more in a weird way, bc it’s like, I want this blanket that I’m picturing in my head, and only I can make it for myself, & with every stitch I am reminded that I love my future self enough to make her a blanket. & they really help me see a future for myself because as I make them, I imagine future apartments, living rooms, road trips, friends, lovers, pets—just spaces & people I will one day share my creations with. They’re like my insurance policy for a good future. I keep making blankets because I know one day, I’ll have so many wonderful occasions to use them. And it also contrastingly reminds me that I don’t have to wait to make/have nice things, I can make my living space beautiful now even though I don’t love it all the time. It’s just helped me so much. I think more people should do it.

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this messed up vintage cat sewing pattern has tormented me since i saw it & like some other folks have done in that post - i tried my hand at tweaking the pattern to resemble the illustration (and my personal tastes) a little more. i've ended up with this, which i have only tested at a small scale and not this final version exactly (where i have done such things as further widening the cheeks and finalizing the leg shapes.) i bestow it upon you nice folks now 👐

go forth and make weird little beanbag kittens! pls show me if you do!

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I recently finished the Alex Hood. The pattern is by Knitting for Olive and available on Ravelry.

It's so cute. I really feel like a little Matryoshka Doll wearing it! The yarn I used was the suggested yarn, Merino and Mohair by KFO. The yarn combination is super soft and I am really very happy with the overall result. I did do 3 more increase repeats per side to have the scarf flaps be a bit longer - most people on rav recommended it in their project notes.

The pattern is easy enough tbh. My big challenge for me was the kitchener stitch seaming at the back of the scarf and the crown of the head. I posted some instructions recently on how I did it and I'm actually quite pleased with the result! Overall a very successful project <3

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another sweater is done .. the pattern is haze sweater from the knit purl girl and the yarn is studio donegal .. i’m happy with how it turned out !

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Lace work in knitting is just so rewarding. I count and follow the pattern and I’m still constantly amazed to see the lace motif come to life. I’m using Malabrigo Rios Worsted in Primavera. I got it for my birthday and it’s me in yarn form, lol. This is the Sanna Cardigan by Creabea Designs!

Now what’s the best way to block lace motif??

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Semi-niche fiber craft discourse take here but I had to get it out of my brain because it was driving me insane.

“Machines can knit but it’s impossible for a machine to crochet” is NOT TRUE. OBVIOUSLY.

The sentiment behind it is “we don’t have mass production crochet machines like we have mass production knitting machines.” This is the true part.

However, people (mostly crocheters searching for some level of oneupsmanship over knitters for some reason) take that as “crochet has some magical property that makes it impossible for machines to do” when that is just obviously on the face of it blatantly not fucking true because literally why and how would it possibly be true.

If a machine can do the precise six axis movements required to assemble a car, why would that machine be incapable of the comparatively simple movements required to crochet? There’s no magical property that makes crochet anathema to automation. The only reason we don’t have mass production crochet machines isn’t because machines CAN’T crochet, but because they don’t crochet EFFICIENTLY at an industrial scale at the moment because of the difference between the construction of knit stitches vs crochet stitches.

There’s no superiority there. People who uncritically repeat “machines can’t crochet��� despite having every tool available to investigate that claim, including their own eyes on their craft and knowledge of the capabilities of robots, and the ability to literally GOOGLE “ROBOT CROCHETING” and see videos of it right in front of their eyes, frustrate me to no end.

If you see a claim that is really absolutist, but upon some level of thought seems odd, please fact check it before you thoughtlessly repeat it for the sake of winning internet clout in niche rivalries that no one cares about except me.

And for the record, as someone who does both, knitting and crochet are equivalent. They have different strong suits, and if you can learn one you can learn the other. Neither of them is that difficult, neither of them is particularly special, neither of them should be a point of putting down people who prefer the other. If you’re a knitter who wants to make plushies consider picking up some crochet. If you’re a crocheter who wants to make smooth fabrics that drape well, consider picking up some knitting.

You don’t get to flex about your fiber craft unless you’re doing bobbin lacemaking, in which case god bless, that is witchcraft, and you are beyond all of us mere mortals.

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Past me: "I don't need to spend money on cutesy knitting notions. What I MacGyver together is fine."

Current me: "My stitch markers shaped like little cats are the only thing that bring me joy. I would cut off one of my own feet before I gave up the ruler that hangs from my knitting needles."

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yarn has arrived, but the needles i need have not… so close yet so far

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Kitchener Stitch on 2x2 Rib

So I recently had to do some kitchener stitch on 2 x 2 rib. There are loads of resources out there, but for me personally, they often don't work as a quick reference. Like I read the article, I watch the video and then when I sit down I have to scroll about to find the step I am on. Here is what I noted down for me as a quick glance reference:

1st stich (K) front needle purlwise 1st stitch (K) back needle knitwise

1st stitch (K) front needle knitwise & drop, next stitch (K) on needle purlwise 1st stitch (K) back needle purlwise & drop, next stitch (K) on needle knitwise

1st stitch (K) front needle knitwise & drop, next stitch (P) on needle knitwise 1st stitch (K) back needle purlwise & drop, next sticht (P) on needle purlwise

1st sticht (P) front needle purlwise &drop, next sticht (P) on needle knitwise 1st stitch (P) back needle knitwise & drop, next stitch (P) on needle purlwise

1st stitch (P) front needle purlwise & drop, next stitch (K) on needle purlwise 1st stitch (P) back needle knitwise & drop, next stitch (K) on needle knitwise

The (K) and (P) are referencing, what stitch is sitting on that needle facing out.

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This is far and away my most popular work published yet; made last spring for a discord server’s weekly theme, “Cozy.” I’ve decided the caterpillar’s name is Jackson, after the kind old gardener who introduced my sister and I to his summertime pests when we were little. (More like summertime pets, am I right?)

While considering whether to participate in the challenge, I went looking for a tutorial for knitting with geometry nodes (thinking I could make a joke about a granny getting carried away making cozies for everything). But instead, I found Erindale’s tutorial on UV-based procedural knit textures and wanted to test it on something more complex than a square plane. And then there was a tomato hornworm. It was a fun puzzle combining armature, object, and shape key animations to get a slightly hacky knit loop together in a week. The only things I added after the deadline were sound design (self-recorded foley and CC0 nature sounds) and an improvement to the loop of the modified Unsplash image from Matteo Silvestri in the background.

Proudest moments so far: A weaver on Twitter who had tried to learn knitting before, for whom the theory clicked while watching this loop. The surprise of getting an honorable mention in the challenge, and the judge’s heartfelt appraisal of it: “This one is disgusting…but darn cozy.”

Video description under the cut.

Weiterlesen

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Sustainable fashion for the Solar Punk

If you enjoyed this, consider checking out my Ko-Fi for a printable zine version (or just to support my art :))

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I love people who craft and I love learning about other people's crafts because every single one is full of little things that non-practitioners wouldn't notice but others in the craft RAVE about.

Like, I'm a knitter, and before I started I couldn't tell a knit fabric from a crocheted one, and I mostly would appreciate pretty color choices and overall patterns. But now I drool over perfectly uniform stockinette or a good stretchy bind off, and don't even start me on neat floats on the back of fair isle!

Quilters will talk about the binding and stitch choice on a finished quilt, ceramics artists will gush over how a glaze turned out, embroiderers will sigh at perfectly smooth satin stitch, and a woodworker can spot a good join from a mile away.

There is so much more beauty and artistry in the world than we can see on our own.