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12 frames of animation I made using knitting! I spent a long time on this and I’m so pleased with the results, really looking forward to trying more ‘yarnimation’ in the future. Process video out now too! 🐑

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Drumroll please, it's finally time for the REVEAL OF THE FOXIE!

Look at my pretty baby:

I LOVE this pattern so much - if you want to get your own, you can find it on Etsy, and I HEARTILY recommend, because it's fun, expertly made and easy to follow.

I still have a lot of space above the foxie and I want to add more snowflakes...

...I've been kinda amassing a collection xD

Last but not least, I need to show you the back, because I was REALLY DOING MY BEST to hide all the loose threads so that it looks neat and I think I nailed it:

... I'm honestly not in a little bit worried about using or washing it now - and, just so you know, I MACHINE WASHED it yesterday, because that menace Mr Cat barfed all over the foxie when it was left unsupervised on the table 😑 so yeah, these photos are post-first-washing xD

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FIBER ARTISTS, I want to know what yall do the most so let’s do a demographic poll

I know we are all victims of the fiber art rabbit hole and nearly all of us dabble in more than one craft, so please vote for your MAIN one, the one you do the most, the one you can do with your eyes closed, and maybe share in the tag what else you do! I hope I covered most of the crafts.

REBLOG for sample size!

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Heart Sampler is finally done! by beanzmcgee

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do you think i can cure my depression by making a bunch of these.

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Awesome ‘Possum Scarf // WildlifeRescueNests

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Doggy fur hand warmers are coming along ~ (featuring Skrawek trying to figure out what the heck happened to his friend)

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My Harvey is done 🥰

I stitched this one faster than I thought it would take me - especially since there are so many colour changes and variations on the pergola and flowers.

As mentioned before, the pattern is following a mod retexture by Gweniaczek and this particular pergola is included in Way Back Pelican Town and it is placed next to the cinema. I LOVE THOSE RETEXTURES SO MUCH and I highly recommend them to anyone playing SDV with mods!

I'm going to take small break from the vest, because I got overexcited for my new stitching project (pics soon!). Anyway, this is how the front looks like atm, with messy tree and tower from the back xD

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DOGGY YARN UPDATE! 🐕

I have finally spun enough to start crocheting, so that will be next step.

First photo is freshly spun and unwashed, the second is the same yarn but washed and balled up by hand.

This is my first time spinning dog fur, and it's been challenging, interesting and honestly I'm not sure if I'll do it again.

What I've found through trial and error so far:

1. I was not prepared for how different it would be than spinning wool - the structure of the fiber, how much twist they need to keep together, the amount of grease, the strength of the yarn, etc.

2. It takes more effort to keep the yarn together - the fiber is less frizzy than wool, very dry and needs to be twisted much more tightly. I constantly thought I'm overspinning, but the moment i tried to moderate that, the yarn started to break.

3. Very hard to maintain the consistent weight of the yarn. Just. So. Hard.

4. The dog fur yarn comes out much weaker than wool and breaks much easier. The fraying and unraveling at the ends of the strand is just crazy. I didn't trust the ball winder not to ruin it, hence the balls were wound up by hand. Also, it got very fuzzy after washing.

5. I was a bit worried about the wet dog smell, but honestly, after washing it's very faint, you really need to put your nose in there to smell anything.

I still have some unspun fur left, so I'm going to expriment with it a little later - mix it with wool, dye, and so on.

In case anyone's curious, this is the breed the fur came from:

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I was having writers block and so I took a break and soon enough it was 3 in the morning and I had impulsively sewn together a tiny mouse you’re welcome

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I have recently received another ask about my canvas pulling and since I've been thinking about making a serious tutorial for a while now, I took the opportunity to take some pics and vids while finishing the tree. Do please enjoy :3

1. Why pulling out canvas at all?

Primarily, this is a fantastic technique to apply cross stitch patterns directly to the item you want OR to make patches from old jeans, like this one:

With small patterns I usually don't bother to sew the canvas prior to embroidering, like with the pupper above. In case of the bigger patterns, I usually sew it lightly on the edges just to keep the canvas in one place. The more stretchy the material type is, the more important it's going to be to keep it in place.

2. Why not use a soluble canvas?

I'm sure you can and that they'll be as successful as the regular one 😁 However, as I mentioned in my previous posts here and here, I prefer to err on the side of cheaper, hence the tutorial.

3. Okay. I'm convinced - I even have a pattern embroidered on! What's next?

With small patterns (like the doggo earlier) it's going to be pretty easy. You just pull the threads one by one - preferably starting on the thinnest part of the pattern - and you may not even need the pliers. The fun (?) is with the large pieces, because the canvas has on average quite fragile threads and they like to break. Note - the canvas I'm using and I suppose most of the existing canvas types, will have four threads per one embroidery row. It's usually easier to pull one first and then the other three, bit that may vary when, for example, you managed to pierce the thread during stitching phase earlier 😉

If you were already careful during the stitching, you paid extra attention to embroider EXACTLY between the canvas threads and avoid piercing them at all. There are two benefits to that being extra careful: one, it's easier to pull it out later; two, the stitching gains an extra precision to it (and it looks great!). I recently discover that the round tip needle is making it much easier and if you're interested, there's a separate post about it as well!

On to the process! You can see from the pictures how I started with cutting out a piece of canvas that I can later reuse for something small (recycling is my hobby 🤷🏻‍♀️). I also pulled loose threads from around the tree:

Next part was to clean up the trunk and the grass on the right:

I then cut off the excess to avoid the threads tangling and slowly moved to the sides of the leaves on right and left:

You'll notice that the last photo has the thread pulled halfway through the pattern. That's because on this stage it's usually impossible to simply pull the thread out - even with the pliers it is just going to break off. I use a needle to pluck it from between the embroidery like this:

If you're more of the visual learner, I made this vid that I hope explains the process in more detail. You'll notice that I'm using my fingers and not the pliers here, because it's faster than to switch between tools.

And finally, when you're left with single direction threads like these, it's just a matter of pulling them out one by one.

And that's it! The final product looks clean and neat, AND you will notice that without the canvas beneath it's also getting a bit of volume that looks cool (and helps even out small mistakes you may have made along the way).

Thanks for reading this far! Let me know if there's something else I forgot to explain 😊

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K so not to be dramatic or anything, but there's a free vintage French pattern book available on antiquepatternlibrary so if you like to crochet/weave/make pixel art/tie epic friendship bracelets don't walk- RUN.

It has scenes from aesop's fables! Cherubs doing things! Beheadings! Greek muses! Little farm people! Intricate floral pattern! Goth stained-glass window like patterns! Fun little corner pieces! Eeeeeeeeeeeeee

https://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/html/warm/C-TT008-180.htm

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Hand embroidered, self drafted, birch tree inspired buttonup shirt.

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I freehanded this stitchery in about 7 hours today for a pal:

It was, of course, inspired by this post:

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Okay okay. So...

I thrifted a black dress and four indigo drapes.

I bought three strips of LED lights and strung them together.

I made a dress:

It needs a few small tweaks still, but otherwise it's ready for the winter party 🥳

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This autumn's oak galls haul! 🍂 Now I just need to spin something to dye it with by the time it gets warmer next year.

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Finished a new piece. I think it speaks to my state of mind. Notice the fine details. :)