#I hope that helps

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

i just have one simple question for you why gabriel ultrakill? what is the appeal behind this angel

aaauughhhh uhhhhhauuuuuuu uuuuuhaaaaahhhhuuuugff bhhjjhshhh i nnneeedineed

bite it Bited it

uuuuhhhahhhh WHHAHAHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH GRAHHHHHHHHH

GRRRRRRAHHHHHHHHHGRRRRGGGRRRRRRR

[dailypokemoncrochet]

Hey! Love your work, love this project, it’s super inspiring 😄

I’ve been crocheting for about 8-9 months now and I’ve made a whole bunch of amigurumi from patterns of varying degrees of quality, but the concept of freehand crocheting with no pattern is still just an absolute mystery to me. Spatial reasoning is a real challenge for me and I just straight up can barely visualize anything, so I’m not really comfortable at all with the idea of just crocheting without any kind of plan or guide to make sure that things end up lining up… but I’d like to start at some point, since there’s some stuff I want to crochet that no one else seems to have ever made a pattern for!

I’m sure a lot of it is just trial and error, but like, what advice would you be able to offer for someone who’s comfortable crocheting from a pattern but who has noooo idea where to even start with freehand stuff, please and thank you?

Hi! Thanks!

At its most basic, a lot of amigurumi are the same kinds of shapes (ball and ovoid), and you can use patterns for separate parts to make a different whole. Frankenstein the pieces. For example, head shape from pattern A, legs from pattern B, body from pattern C, etc.

If you can't freehand, I recommend starting by 1) finding a pattern for whatever specific thing you want to make, 2) identifying the parts that you would want to change, 3) find a different pattern for anything that has parts that look like how you would want to change the previous, 4) crochet the specific parts that you need and put them together. For example, you find a Squirtle pattern that's mostly what you want, but you wish the tail or limbs were different, so you find a different Squirtle pattern with the kind of tail you want, and a random turtle plush that has the limbs you want. Crochet all those pieces.

Another thing that might help is if you look at the patterns you have and figure out why they increase/decrease in certain ways and how that is reflected in the finished product, so you can begin to recognize individual techniques for shaping.

More detailed explanation of how I personally freehand below the cut to help conceptualize the process.

For how I personally do it though, I take my reference picture, visualize each part separately, consider how each part would be constructed in the round, and then make them. Helps a lot more if you have a 3D model to reference to see the depth and whatnot, but I'm going to use flat images for this because they're easier to doodle on. Squirtle for example:

Head, 2 arms, 2 legs (slightly different from arms), body, tail.

I'm going to focus on designing small amigurumi since I don't make big ones and I couldn't give much advice on those.

Head would be broken up something like this, maybe not specifically 11 rows based on the actual finished size, but the idea being that you break it up this way. From the top/starting point, make concentric circles going down. In the image, note that I use curved lines and not straight lines to make each row around the same width.

With a quick overview, I know that my magic ring will be 6 single crochets in it as my personal preference, then the next 5ish or so rows will be a little bigger than the previous ones. Eyes will be somewhere in or on rows 4-6. The mouth will jut out near the start of the lower half of the head, and then the whole thing will decrease in size.

Note: Because this is 1) amigurumi, and 2) basically a small ball, you can generally go in increases of 6 (magic ring of 6 sc, 12, 18, 24, etc) when making rows bigger. You can repeat the same number of sc if you reach the widest part and want more length.

At some point (around row 7 or 8 in the ref image), the mouth juts out compared to the rest of the head. For that part, on that row, you could do a cluster of increases, next row(s) would be maintaining the same number of sc, then a cluster of decreases as you make the overall head shape smaller.

Again, I don't make big amigurumi, but I assume that it's the same principles if simply sizing up yarn/hook size. If staying at the same size yarn/hook, maybe imagine even more concentric circles and fewer dynamic changes between rows (like increasing by x stitches every other row instead of every row).

The body would be broken up something like this. It starts off in the whitespace where there is no actual body design showing, because in real life, that's where you would attach the head and it needs to have something there to attach to. One difference from the head is that the body gets wider faster, and then keeps widening a little bit for the middle rows. That means more increases in earlier rows to reach *almost* the widest part, then a small number of increases in following rows to the reach the actual widest part, then decreasing in reverse to how you increased. (row stitch number would be like a mirror 6 12 18 24 32 34 36 36 34 32 24 18 12 6).

Also there's a color change there so around the halfway point of each row you would switch color. Not the exact halfway point because crocheting in the round means the stitches and design slant, so you have to eyeball it or do some tricks for color changing at those spots to mitigate the effect. (I have another post where I talk about that that I'll link here later [link to color changing tips])

BUT actually since this is a shell, you could be a little more lax about switching from tan to brown and vice versa and just crochet a ring of white around the color change line. Or be even more extra and color change from tan to white to brown to white to tan and slip stitch a ring of white afterward between the tan/white change. Technically you could also imagine the rings going the other way with the shell on top so you'd only have to color change once.

The arms are going to be mostly tubular. Magic ring, increase for like 2 rows, maintain that size for a few rows since the width is pretty consistent for the majority of the arm, then decrease to a close and sc some nubby fingers on top afterward (literally something small just like a sc for each finger).

Legs I would work from the bottom because I like to make the feet by crocheting a chain then sc around that (so it can stand flat), increase to width of foot, decrease to ankle (which Squirtle doesn't really have much difference) increase again to general width of leg, maintain that for a few rows, close off. Assuming row 1 here is the width of foot, you would do uneven decreases to make row 2 with the ankle (bigger decreases at the toe part, no decreases around the heel). You could crochet little slip stitch nubs for toes at that part afterward.

Tail is actually just a long thin tube that you roll over itself afterward to make the squirrel-y design. However long you make it, roll it up, then use the yarn end that you would use for attaching to first go through and secure the tail to itself so it holds that shape.

Then it's a matter of pinning the parts to each other and sewing them together.

To summarize: Break down the whole design into distinct parts. Break down each distinct part as if it were made of stacking concentric circles. Crochet accordingly.

[gin-juice-tonic]

convinced that you were somehow secretly alive in the 60s/70s. what sort of secret historical resources and/or time machines are you using to expand your knowledge of decades past

Ha ha, I dont feel I do a particularly great job, but I always find myself getting into googling sprees when I just wanted to post about something simple. I'm always checking if x thing was invented yet, or popularized yet, and I end up learning a lot of new things... So I would say the best way to expand your knowledge is to ask a question about One thing, and let the research take you around in circles to answers you didnt ask for.

I talked more under here but it got long. Im putting it under a read more and bolding key words like an ace attorney game.

As for specific resources I've looked at... hm... I've gone through a lot of the old sears catalogs. There's websites out there that have ones dating all the way back from 1940 to 2017. That can give you ideas about (some) styles of clothes and furniture popular at the time. There's also websites dedicated to explaining certain decades of american fashion. Sometimes I read old popular science magazines, mainly because google books has every single one of them archived and available to read for free...

Youtube has a lot of videos of old advertisements, those are good ways to both get into some pop culture and see societal attitudes. I've watched a lot of infomercials and employee training videos for stan in particular lol. If you have specific places you want to know about you can search for videos of them. Tourism videos work well if its a famous area, if not some people upload their home movies onto youtube as well.

If you really want to, you can read books (or skim books) that were written, or had been popular to read around the time. Or advice/guide books for specific occupations. Biographies of people of different ages are great as well to learn about what life was like more in a daily way...

This is long, so I'm just going to list some things now. Blogs dedicated to histories of certain things (music, sports, gay history, 5 string banjos, columbo, whatever!), TV shows and Movies from the time period you were interested in, old comics, redditors who want to post old photos of their favorite old hangouts, and lastly, you could also just talk to older people. I've bothered my parents asking about disco, I've bothered asking my grandma about pads in the 1950s. Most people like to reminisce or complain about things from their youth lol...

oh. And I almost forgot. I've used Cassell's Dictionary of Slang a few times. Usually just to check if a phrase that I want to use existed yet. But then in the course of my search I end up finding something I think is funny

[asukiess]

i got on tumblr after weeks and miraculous is trending??? what happened

season 5 finale. nathalie is a disaster bi.

oh and everything was resolved after gabriel threw up ash (as per usual on your standard Saturday morning cartoon). and then adrinette got married. but definitely after the whole throwing up ash thing.

[thenightfolknetwork]

Hi im a different annon from earlier but just wanted to ask in relation to theirs what should we do if we think our ask has been eaten by Tumblr glitches send it again or ask about it etc

[OOC] I'd actually prefer if people didn't chase up specific letters or resend them. The issue is that I also just don't have the capacity (or inclination!) to answer everyone's letters.

Sometimes a letter isn't appropriate for the blog for any number of reasons. Off the the top of my head, those might be: it's too complicated to answer well in this format; it's too similar to something already answered here or on the podcast; the subject matter veers into something I'm not comfortable addressing; the writing is otherwise inaccessible (I'm not a stickler for grammar but a lack of spelling and punctuation can make it very hard to read); or I don't think the response will be interesting, either for me to write or for others to read. And unlike the podcast, I can't edit the submissions before I use them!

Also, sometimes I just don't get around to someone's letter for a while for other reasons - I might love the idea and want to do it justice, but don't have time to pay it the attention it deserves, or there's actually been a few of the same creature recently and I want to change it up.

At the end of the day, I neither want to have to explain to people why I haven't answered them, nor want to establish a culture where people expect everything they send to be answered, or answered in a specific time frame. It wouldn't be fair on anyone, myself included.

[scarsyoucansee]

i hate when people talk like that

[whaledocboi]

the girls are fightinggg - pre-canon

(continuing this post, but i added the first one in for more context anyways)

the OCS break into a random warehouse for a mission and a next thing they know is that they're being ambushed by a very unhappy 17~something y.o, who apparently has an entire little flat set up there and is not at all flattered that these strangely dressed people are violating her space

lilith is rude and short tempered (wants to get over w/ this already), camila is also rude and short tempered (they broke into her unofficial home), so they go at each other before shannon and mary could even begin to talk it out like civil people

[sarsaparillaart]

Good morning I was curious if there was any in world reasoning/plan behind the curves that are found in your swords for Diyar. Specifically the curve that is in your Bone and Floral swords and a few others. My guess is it's a motif or something similar to something found in nature since it's showing up so often. Just curious?

Well, it is a motif, but it’s one that’s fairly commonplace to the culture of the Chain and Eastern Diyar as a whole. Most abstract art and pattern work in the region is built from a few basic shapes that can more or less be boiled down to the following categories, though there is obviously a lot of overlap:

Of these shapes the only one with any deep spiritual or cultural importance is the spiral, as it is associated with shell gastrics, but the rest can be found on most modern non-representational art in the region. 

These swords specifically have a pronounced S-Curve shape which does draw from the natural world. There is a large mountain range in the center of the main island of Diyar and as wind and clouds blow in from the East and hit the range, they deposit a large amount of water as they pass over. This creates a rain shadow in the West and a large amount of rivers in the east, from which oxbow and s-curves may derive. There are also a number of culturally significant animals in Diyar that one might describe as serpentine. Eels, annelids, myriapods, and velvet worms are all fairly common and hold varying roles of importance in Diyaran culture. It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume their shape has affected Eastern Diyaran aesthetic tastes.

Most of the time these shapes are a lot more subtle, especially in weaponry as they’re not really practical. The reason why they’re so pronounced in these two swords is because they’re both ceremonial. These swords are pretty much only used in ritual sacrifice during Lunar festivals (of the Milkmoon and Bilemoon respectively) and that only happens once a year for each moon. Practicality isn’t as important as symbolism in this case so long as the sword can slaughter a calf.

Of course, this is all more of a Watsonian explanation for why I used these shapes. A more Doylist reading would be that I drew from Art Nouveau aesthetics and Sub-Saharan African/South Asian weapons for my shape language on a number of these swords. The Floral sword, for instance, draws a lot from the Sengese throwing knife, which has that shape to easily rest on the shoulder (I think. I may be wrong about that, feel free to correct me if I am).

[sillyjokes]

💜: how long might it take for my muse to say “i love you” for the first time?

The Joker might take awhile before he says i love you. He's not a very sentimental character, so it's hard for him to express his love, although you will notice slight changes as his relationship progress with you. Plus I'd like to clarified that the Joker has a twisted kind of love, so he views love a lot different then a normal person would, and when the Joker do actually tell you he loves you for the first time. It's going to be quite sour. He isn't going to be happy about it, because he is being vulnerable in front of someone, but after he will just start saying it. Like 'oh, I just love you,' Now if he is happy about it the first time. Most likely he is manipulating that person. The first time he says it to you. The sentence might be ended with an insult too, so it'll be easier for him to express it. It's hard to explain the Joker, because he's such a complex character, but after reading so many comics, that's what i got, so I added a few touches, so i hope that helps.

[areyoutiredofsparrow]

sometimes whenever i want a boyfriend too much and i feel sad i think about a giant tsunami engulfing everyone and it makes my problems seem insignificant cuz if i had a boyfriend he'd probably not be able to survive it which is quite a good reality check bc everyone is a human after all and a boyfriend wont fix everything bc it is just another human being

[boobpancakes]

all my beautiful moots and their gay male ocs and i'm the feral lesbian chewing on all of them

[totally-not-peter-parker]

Not weird anon that called you handsome!

What color are your eyes?

They're brown!

[anxious-witch]

do u have that pic of npc bojan? the one where he's holding a beer I think? I think it was by Dean but I can't find it anywhere:(

I don't have the og picture but I shamelessly stole this from @seokoilua bc I remembered she posted it few days ago, so you can crop it

[literaphobe]

Yes pwease

“Is she pretty?”

This isn’t a question he expected. He didn’t expect her to ask a question at all, actually.

“Who?”

“Who else?” She scoffs. Weirdly, he could really get used to this. He shouldn’t like it, hates how much he loves this display. “Her. Y’know. The friend you slept next to.”

“She’s beautiful,” he says, because why lie? Marinette’s gorgeous. More than easy on the eyes. He’s not trying to get a rise out of Ladybug at all, not trying to push her buttons in the slightest.

“Oh. Well, that’s just great.” From the looks of her face, it seems like awful information to receive, actually. “Of course she’s beautiful. Why would she not be…”

She seems to take offense at finding all this out, at the fact that Chat Noir did not lie about the attractiveness of his ex-girlfriend.

“Why does it matter whether she’s beautiful or not?”

Like a tree meeting a woodcutter’s axe, this stumps her. Left, up, center, do her eyes go. No matter where she looks she can’t find the right excuse.

“Because…” she gives up with a snap, a twig getting stepped on. “Whatever. It’s nothing.”

“No, really. I wanna know,” he insists. “Hardly seems like it matters. You’ve mentioned—only over and over—that what we’re doing here is a one and done deal. So why would you care if I think my ex is pretty?”

[slashingdisneypasta]

Hello,

I have a question that may be sensitive so do ignore it if you don't want to answer, I am asking out of really wanting to learn and understand. What is it like being aromantic? How can you be aromantic and also like or crush on characters? Or is it because they are fictional so they don't apply? Any way I send you live and appreciation ❤️ If you do respond thank you for helping me learn

I love the way you've asked, so gentle and respectful ^^ Thank you for being lovely! ^^

Its hard to explain. I guess (romantic) love is just not something I've ever really wanted? I mean when I was little I of course had little 'crushes' but they were always villains and I think thats definitely, at least partly, because I know they're not gonna love me in the traditional way back. If a guy liked me when I was like, 6-14 I'd appreciate the attention for a minute but very quickly it felt very wrong 😅 I guess its cuz I don't understand those feelings, my brain does not work that way, and I don't want to be perceived in a way that I don't understand?? Feels uncomfortable??

What I feel for fictional characters is probably more akin to a silly 'squish' (Platonic attraction. Like a crush but you don't want to be romantically involved- you wanna be friends) XD I want them to be friends with me!! But also... ~sexual things~ So like, a queer platonic squish XD

Of course, everyone's experience is different though.

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

ok i'm sorry i just got super confused by your last post, could you kindly explain the whole Christian/abortion/normal person thing before I start picturing horror film lesbians cults (it's ok if you don't feel like explaining yourself, just wanted to try and understand the situation)

So basically this guy sent anon hate to me which I found fundamentally absurd. He was like. Damn it's crazy you talk like a normal person or one of the Lesbians on here who blog about horror films when you're actually Christian. Which is such a dumb message to send because a. Christians ARE normal people and his implication we're not is so weird. And b. It's also so weird he seems to be dividing all people into the categories of "normal," "Christian" and "lesbians who like horror films" which are such random niche categories I find it so funny those are the ones he appears to divide everyone into based off the message.

The abortion thing is separate, basically I'm pro-life and they didn't like that.

But yeah basically this guy was trying to dunk on me for being Christian by saying it's so weird I've like, infiltrated into the website I guess? By talking like a normal person. Or horror film lesbians. Which are such arbitrary categories I find it so funny.