#I'd just need to find the yarns I used for their shoes

[regallibellbright]

This is one of the more bizarre bits of shaping I’ve done, I’d most likely want to tweak on this pattern if I ever do it again and would DEFINITELY do so before writing up a pattern to give to other people, and I am SO glad I wrote this shit down because I have to do it twice, but: Behold!

[ID: Two images, one from the side and one from the bottom, of a crocheted amigurumi’s foot, wearing light blue sandals with short heels. End ID]

It looks a bit wonky from the other side and at the closure - again, would want to refine it if I do it again - but it’s definitely a defined heel. Score one for me.

[firespirited]

I should probably make a scavenging tag to keep tab of this buuuut it kind of goes under the home hacks and multipurpose crafting i've been doing ever since that first 2008 doll streaks with gold embroidery floss rooted using a toothbrush handle with the needle inserted by melting over a candle.

Guess this is kind of my brand. ¯\_(◡‿◡)_/¯

On Friday, I walked Lily briefly and found a big bin bag that was someone's chest of drawers emptied so I sorted it into clothes, recyclable and rubbish put it all in the correct bins and left the clothes and accessories for others to go through after picking out a few gorgeous scarves, a brand-new djellaba in bronze cotton, a lovely stained cream jumper (sweater) that i'm going to dye: it had a snagged loose knit - crochet looking but done by machine - back that just needed re-knotting/rethreading (what ever the word is for when you use tweezers to weave the yarn back through its original pattern and knot it down), a machine knitted snood to frog/unravel, some glitter body lotion and a notebook.

*I found the glue at another bin next to a bunch of tools (including a stainless ratchet wrench 😍 with accessories I couldn't carry 😥) thought I'd grab the glue in case there was a chance you could get some out by using a pin through the top as I'm currently waiting for superglue in the mail. Score: It's not jammed at all.

Loctite powerflex is pricey (€7 for 3g when you can get 20 x 3g liquid superglue for €4) and takes about double the time to set (hold tight and count to at least sixty not thirty) but it is magical stuff: not only does it go where you direct it to, you have a window to wipe off any excess without it leaving damage and it holds really well without cracking on flexible surfaces like vinyl, shoe soles, headphone wires. It's got superglue in it but also some kind of rubber base solution. It's one of those fancy glues you want around for the special stuff while having a backup of bog-standard superglue for basic repairs.

*I keep sleep and symptom notebooks to keep track of any circadian rhythm disruptions, migraines, gastrointestinal issues so I can circle back to a particular food or activity. I'd been using these cute panda shaped accounting notepads and stocked up but as with all things good, they got discontinued. I tried other notepads but it wasn't quite right: it needs to be lightweight, easily replaceable if I drop water on it, as unobtrusive as possible. This merch pocket book with the 5mm squares is just right when unbound into 6.

/// I learned this trick as a kid, someone showed me how different books were bound and how to salvage thrown out school exercise books, remelt crayons, use carbon copy, properly wash brushes... that kind of stuff. I think it was a free summer art class where you turn up and there are all sorts of different people and even if you end up just drawing ye olde square house, you absorb a bunch of history or techniques and get to watch other people: how they sketch, how they observe, I think that was the first time i'd seen cross-hatching and then couldn't unsee it in illustrations. I'm so glad my parents dropped me off at the various council, museum and church free events as a kid: some are really rigid and you get in trouble if you don't assemble the pompom bird exactly as instructed, others are an occasion to bond with some grandpa who'll show you how to whittle or learn and learn. ///

Why not go digital? because you don't want your phone on: you'll forget what you were supposed to do and go down a rabbit hole. Besides, half those things come with weird reward systems that make me feel obligated or guilty, or worse: diet propaganda. So that lil find has me set for the next year, I transcribed my current messy too big notepad into two pages and voilà! (well i still have a couple of symptoms to add now that i look it over)

*After working with yarn for a while, you start to get a sense for the type that doesn't pull apart when brushed or tugged and it's rarer than you'd expect so I took the snood despite not liking the green tinge to the mustardy colour: it doesn't make clawdeen's skin tone pop for example. So it's the right fibre with a light enough base for some dye experiments.

*it has taken forever and it's just a start (50+ more) but I have listed 12 more dolls on ebay!! there are reroots from before I got injured and deglued dolls i'm really proud of. If you're interested, I'd much prefer to sell in bulk to the EU, will happily sell at cost instead of those higher ebay prices and have a ton of doll heads and partially finished projects if you repaint or reroot.

[random-cryptid]

ok so, i made a lil dolly of ms frizzle and now all i can think about is making lil dollies of winnie, mary, and sarah and i am going nuts over it

i think the three of them would love the fact that i wanna make lil dolls of them, especially winnie. like, theyve never had anyone do that to them, so the thought of me trying out something ive never done before just so i can always have them with me would make all three of them melt faster than honey in hot tea

i'd have to ask mary and winnie how the fuck they do their hair like that cuz idk how to draw it, let alone recreate it with yarn shhdhdj. oh! and i'd have to ask sarah if she has any tips for making the clothes cuz i dont really know how to make clothes in general, let alone doll clothes

ik the dolls are gonna look really skrunkly and messy, but i think they'd be super proud of me for trying something new, and over the moon that i chose the three of them to be my muses for it.

YEAH I SAW YOUR LIL MS FRIZZLE DOLL SHE'S SO CUTE 😭😭😭 ALSO PLEASE DO!!!

I think Mary would be climbing walls (metaphorically) too ngl. I believe she's an arts and crafts girly (not as much as Sarah though but definitely does some clothes and such too!) so she would find it especially cute.

I believe I can help with the hair and clothes!!!

Winifred's hair is pretty much the same as Queen Elizabeth I, and this tutorial is pretty easy to follow! Definitely not historically accurate in the techniques but it's the same shape lol. Basically her hair is just two big buns!

Mary's hair however... I can't by the life of myself figure out how her hair works (my hypothesis is that her hair is twisted into shape... Kind of.) apart from her having one tiny braid going along the whole hat shape of her hair.

All the tutorials I've seen for her hair have in common using wires and some sort of cilinder to shape her hair tho!!! This is one of the easiest ones I've seen. (Btw it's crazy to me how this lady has her exact vibe)

Now for the clothes you can check Salvador Perez's Instagram account! (He's the costume designer from the second movie) But if you don't want to scroll too much it's okay I gotcha! Here you have:

• Sarah's sleeves (they're sewn in on the corset!)

• Sarah's corset (you don't have to embroider anything, I think it's better if you use markers instead)

• Winnie's top gown + accessories (basically her full gown is two pieces: the top one, which is the deeper green one, and the under one, which is the one with purple and a lighter green)

• Mary's full outfit + details (this one's just a general idea)

• Mary's corset + sparkles (once again, more of a general idea)

• The Sister's shoes + thighs + undergarments (looove love Winnie's boots ngl)

Making sewing patterns is basically like making puzzle pieces and putting them together, so getting the shapes shouldn't be too complicated! In any case, if you need help with that I can help you out! (Unfortunately I'm no taylor but I'll do my best). You can also look up tutorials for specific things like skirts! (They're actually one of the easiest things to make!)

[anitabyars]

Book description

From USA Today and Amazon Charts bestselling authors Kerrigan Byrne and Cynthia St. Aubin, comes their latest Romcom featuring a quirky cast of characters who represent the hilarious absurdity of life while making you fall head-over-heels in love. This steamy, laugh out loud, opposites-attract small town romance reminds us that we don't have to be perfect to deserve our own happily ever after!

Gemini "Gemma" McKendrick knows just about everything about everybody in Townsend Harbor. When she's not serving on one of the many civic positions or leaping headlong into another hobby, she's hosting the Sunday Stitch 'N Bitch at her yarn and craft shop, Bazaar Girls. With her quirky boutique in big financial trouble, she makes a snap decision to rent out the basement of her cozy craftsman to Townsend Harbor newcomer Gabe Kelly. A man with a past as colorful as his tattoo sleeves, who has become an urban legend since he blew into town. And who better than Gemma, Townsend Harbor's own gossip guru, to answer the rumor mill's most pressing questions? Like whether the silver-tongued mechanic is as good with his hands as he is with a socket wrench.

Gabriel "Gabe" Kelly wasn't born into a family so much as a criminal enterprise. Taught to lift, chop, and rebuild cars since before he could tie his own shoes, he's obliged to pay his debt to society before deserting South Boston for Townsend Harbor, Washington. Surely he can stay out of trouble here, right? He immediately finds the only position an ex-con with prison muscles and neck tattoos could easily find in a town like this, and buys the vintage car mechanic shop from it's retiring owner . Moonlighting as the only tow truck in a thirty-mile radius, he rescues the absent-minded hottie who runs the local yarn shop. But he quickly discovers that a toy-sized car with a dashboard lit up by Christmas isn't the only thing in Gemma McKendrick's life desperately in need of maintenance. Gabe, who is uniquely qualified to diagnose and fix complicated mechanisms, finds his sexy landlord is impossible to figure out. Looks like he'll have to take a peek at her undercarriage to find out what makes her purr before he hits the road again.

Because women of her caliber don't take home guys with his make and model...

But he knows she wants a test drive.

Order link: https://amzn.to/47rIQSV

My Review

5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of the most entertaining series I’ve read in a long time! So many laugh out loud moments, sexual innuendo, secrets and with a great group of strong-willed, independent, women, who all have their own unique problems. These women have bonded together to support each other, any way they can, as they find their way through life…and love! Townsend Harbor seems to be the perfect place with its quaintness and quirkiness for all these characters to blend and live in. This is Gemma and Gabe’s story and I never saw this sizzling relationship coming!!!! And it is an eye opener! Just saying Gemma really surprised me in this opposites-attract romance!

Gemma McKendrick lives in a constant state of clutter and disorganization due to her inability to stay on task for any length of time. Thanks all to her ADHD’s delightful bonus, of body betrayals but also because she constantly overextended herself in Townsend Harbor. But when her father and sister start questioning her, regarding her quirky boutique and its profit margin, she suddenly decides to rent out the basement of her house to Gabe Kelly. The same Gabe Kelly that happened to be the most soul-crushingly beautiful man Gemma had ever met. But when her identical twin Lyra and her fiancé Harrison shows up unexpectedly, and catches her in a rather awkward position, what will her family think of her attraction to the hot bad boy? Her family surely wouldn’t approve of him, if she brought him home for Sunday dinner. But she wants so much more out of life and she was willing to finally reach out and take it.

"If experience is what you want, I'd be more than willing to help you with that. Anything you want to know, anything you want to try, anything you want do. No strings attached."

Gabe "The Babe" Kelly was an old friend of Darby's from Boston, who had made his Townsend Harbor debut in a duet on aerial silks that left neither eyes nor panties dry. A man with a past as colorful as his sleeves of tattoos. Born into a family of criminals, he’d learned at an early age to lift, chop, and rebuild cars. Gabe was full of a past filled with darkness and danger, Southie trash with a rap sheet to prove it. As an ex-con he decides to buys a vintage car mechanic shop from it retiring owner in hopes of staying out of trouble in Townsend Harbour. But when Gemma McKendrick offers him her basement to rent out, he knew he was in deep trouble. Because he hadn't been able to get the image of her out of his head, since the night of Darby's benefit. Which was exactly why he couldn't get tangled up with her. Gemma was sweetness and light, the girl next door with a heart of gold. Until she needed him!

"I'm attracted to you," she said, her voice barely audible above the waves. "Like, a lot. Like, so much that it's basically an obsession”

These two are so…HOT! Sexy, charming and totally head over heels in…lust with each other. Their relationship is so sweet and captivating, I loved watching these two opposites come together and be exactly what the other needed. With Gemma, Gabe was starting to imagine a real future together. But when trouble shows up again, will Gemma and Gabe get their HEA? Or will family cause the end of their future together? You will want to read this one to get all the spicy and sexy details!

I received an early copy and this is my honest review.

[fuesch]

Very early on in the crochet-goggles project I thought that if I have those, I should make the rest of the costume too (although I didn't even know if the goggles would turn out okay and prove making the rest feasible) and pondered how I would go about it.

Buy a thin beanie as a base for a wig, attach grey yarn all in the same length, give it a haircut. I've achieved a haircut (as in not just a trim) on myself before and it looked good, so I think I could do this. Styling the yarn could be a problem though. Bothering with darkening the roots or weaving in darker grey to at least get some streaks is out of the question for the sake of my sanity.

Crochet a black T-shirt and put the whole Rush print on with surface crochet. If I could find yarn that's thin enough, I might be able to use a normal T-shirt. That would save me the work of making a shirt, but then the embroidery would have to be more detailed.

The jacket would be the absolutely insanest piece to put together, holy shit. It would consist of soo many of individually crocheted parts! I'm not decided yet if I would use black or dark grey for the dark parts. I've already looked for yarns, but fully silver ones only exist in very thin width (see the crochet googles), so that one I'd only use for the zippers and studs. For the main parts of the jacket I'd have to use grey yarn that has silver thread woven in. I've only found light grey and dark (I'd prefer a medium one), so I'd use the light one.

The pants have a subtle vertical pattern, so I'd crochet in that direction (in slip stitches, front loop only). This is the best yarn I found for that piece:

The Walkman I'd crochet around a cardboard box, so it would better keep its shape. Use actual headphones, but crochet around the cord to keep the look consistent. Actually, what would be super cool: have the box be openable, so a real music player could be put inside.

The shoes I'd want to have on real soles, but the only crochetable ones I've found are thin, soft and black. I'd use the same grey/silver yarn as for the jacket. For the shoelaces I'd use black yarn with together with the thin silver yarn and, because the grey/silver yarn is so light, for the lighter shoelace use white with silver.

And since doing all this would take me forever and I'd probably never even get to wear it (I have a Tenth Doctor outfit, never really worn, and a tourist!Moriarty outfit only worn maybe twice), but still have a mighty need to make it, the solution is making an amigurumi Peter. Everything would be much smaller, thus sooo much less work, and the shoes wouldn't be used for walking, so I won't need real soles.

[firespirited]

Aside from looking and feeling drained, I've had a nice week.

Still enjoying chilling with Stargate Atlantis even listened to a couple of episode commentaries (the writers have early aughts typical broey vibes though so that's off-putting).

Found a pair of shoes to wear this late autumn as my "vintage" vans mannaz fell apart. After I'd talked about the difficulty of finding shoes that fit me and how many I'd tried that didn't work out, Mum dug up a pair of hiking boots she'd forgotten to send back to dad and said he'd always had the same problem: wide feet with height just behind the toe area as the arch starts. Apparently getting work shoes for his teacher job that didn't hurt was quite a quest. They fit great except for the length so I went online, found the same brand "Queshua" and looked at their hiking shoes of the updated but same series/range. Ordered a male and female model in my size. Only the "guy" shoes fit and they don't have any spring in them like sports shoes do but sports shoes often end up too narrow. I can't risk buying them without going to a physical shop or doing a dozen returns. Queshua from decathlon have a free return from your post box and refund policy. Fantastic.

So basically, I'm elated to have been able to toss out the vans and stick the pastel gradient laces into my new all terrain, waterproof trainers. I'm going to look at their winter models for colder weather. It's reassuring to know there is a brand that tends to fit. I'm hoping to try the thrift store on the outskirts of town one day when the carer isn't too busy but that could be a while (why thrift? Because I generally don't fully know a shoe's problems before I've 'road tested' them) .

I also tried crochet again (every few years I try to knit or crochet from tutorials and it hasn't gone great, you all know I can't think in 3D, so like for the keyboard, it has to be muscle memory and mnemonics) This time I had two different youtube tutorials on half speed and could sort of 'get it' but for the life of me could not properly hold the yarn in the left hand. Mum was around so I sheepishly asked what I was doing wrong. Her first answer was "well have you practiced?" 🙄 (she forgets I'm not the 7 year old who gives up as soon as the dopamine runs out or gets distracted by shiny - i mean i am but I've learned to go back to practicing even if I have to make myself angry or use bribes and limits.) I dutifully produced my series of messed up lines and sat down to show her and she went "oh OK! you're doing it wrong, Here's how auntie Grace taught me" and wrapped the yarn around my little finger, using the middle finger as the main yarn holder and index+thumb to pinch the crochet. Then I had to leave because she kept telling me to "relax my shoulders relax your hands RELAX", I love her but I do not control the muscles when trying to practice a new hard (for me) skill for an audience.

That hands on tip was what made it actually 'take' this time even though I might end up using the ring finger instead. I haven't had much time to practice and made quite a mess of my first attempts at rows with a 3 ply yarn.

Today I was able to proudly show off a 5*30 stitch parallelogram (still haven't got the tension down) of thin cord, it took three tries... but not bad. I'm really hoping I'll be able to grok some more stitches and have something to keep the hands busy that's less taxing on my shoulder. I also need to ask her about auntie Grace, she's probably part of the deaf adult community mum grew up in.

Slowly working towards listing more dolls. You get stuck on junk decisions about whether to bundle, whether to dress them or one of the photos is too blurry and the whole thing stops because there's a missing step or piece. Plan derailed.

I've got incoming which helps with motivation: Elle eedee!!! I didn't click with her the first time then really missed her but now I know how I want to do her eyes. Twilight teens grey for Nicole Steel head (aliexpress 11.11 sales $5) and white.

A Catrine and pink haired Howleen. Catrine is a design I just love and was always put off by the yellowing. Now that I know more about straight peroxide bleaching, I really want another try. I also want to see what happens to that lilac turned grey hair and if it fries or just turns lighter grey, she'll be bald. Their cleaning will be top priority in general but not top on the project list as I have Barbie Marnie who needs just a few more lines of hair to be perfect, a 1/6th BJD to string (need to practice rotary tool sanding and buffing on a damaged barbie before I touch her resin) and probably switching out Jewel Richie's eyes, they're beautiful with the green shimmer details but the visible bevel on the 'baddie' eyes makes them hard to photograph and distracts from looking like a cohesive face. Oooh I might try a line of black acrylic paint first to see if that fixes the issue.

Voilà, big blurb. Not many photos they're all on the desktop. The dogs are happy and well, Lily is a bouncy frolicking 15yo, Talia is learning to be less afraid of the big world and other dogs specifically Gargouille and Elliot.

Talia also threw up in almost every room in the house today, with for her grand finale some raw hide bone she swallowed whole to concentrate on hoarding the other two from Lily. Chihuahuas either have Tardis stomachs or they are mostly stomach because the dimensions of all that came up don't make sense.

Highlights were sharing popcorn with sis and mum on Sunday just chitchatting. Long hot bath to warm legs cold from the inside out. Stunning sights as the sun comes out from behind the mountains: