#cottonkhaleesi

[cottonkhaleesi]

Bought these absolutely stunning prints from 8pxl and immediately knew they needed to stay together. Fashioning a frame out of a box might be a little low tech for most people when it comes to gifts, but I love the look it creates here, especially once it was covered in wrapping paper!

I am in love with the pearlescent yet still pixelated sheen on everything ✨

[cottonkhaleesi]

It's me boy I'm the box, speaking to you inside your brain. Listen to me boy, ignore the above, we don’t need that mantra.

Come with me, add to your box army, may it ever grow!!!!

Lord, grant me the strength to throw away this box that i'll never use, the courage to throw away this box that i'll never use, and the wisdom to throw away this box that i'll never use

[trashpandacraft]

tag games! i love these.

tagged by: @ellanarose, @disgruntled-lifeform, and @indrid-hot, for which i'm very grateful.

currently reading: i spent many years reading constantly for work (i'm an editor--maybe at some point i should do an intro post) and sometimes have a hard time reading for pleasure, so i often find myself picking through several books at a time.

so i'm reading women's work: the first 20,000 years by elizabeth wayland barber, which is interesting but also frustrating--it was written in the early 90s, and you can tell. she has some real specific (and gross) ideas about gender, beauty, and labour that show up in the text, which makes reading it a lot less enjoyable. she's also surprisingly quick to tell us that ancient people would have thought about things, which is obviously unknowable, and i don't love that, either.

it's interesting enough that i'm still reading, but it's a little slow.

i'm also reading new ways to kill your mother: writers and their families by colm tóibín, and rereading connie willis's the doomsday book, which is my favourite book ever in the world.

favourite colour: blue, with green and purple as very close seconds.

last song: we had the local classical station on in the car on the way home from sheep and wool yesterday (post forthcoming, omg), but i couldn't tell you the exact song, mostly because we were too busy talking about wool!

last movie: we don't watch a ton of movies because i have commitment issues and get a little stressed out by having to commit to two hours of something, so the last movie we watched was the d&d movie. i recently found out that my wife has never seen ever after, though, so i think that's likely to be the next.

sweet/spicy/savory: it's savoury, spicy, sweet for me, though i have to be careful with spicy because i get wicked bad reflux. i'm largely indifferent to sweet, though--i'll eat it if it's there, but would much rather have fancy cheese than fancy chocolate.

currently working on: haha. 😅 ok well. orange jumper for my terrible child, socks for my wife, a shawl for my wife, a little honeycomb brioche cowl that i might rip out (again) because i think i'd like it more at a looser gauge, and some tea towels (on the loom). shockingly, i'm mostly between spinning projects, because i wanted my bobbins free in case i came home from sheep and wool and needed to start spinning immediately. there's one bobbin that has maybe five grams of some lovely gold/red rambouillet on it, but i think that is i'm not planning to ply it, I'm spinning too thin, so i think that's getting pulled out, and I'll either respin it and enough twist that i can ply it, or toss that bit and start over, spinning it thicker this time. and i'm probably about to start seven more projects because if who i an as a person.

tagging: @binchickencrafts, @bronzeagecrafts, @cottonkhaleesi, @yarnandink, and @knittingferns, but only if you want to

[cottonkhaleesi]

Wooooahhhh-oh, we’re half way there~

Wooooahhhh-oh, -

323 rows left!

[cottonkhaleesi]

Ok. Here’s some cats I’ve looked after (+1 I stitched into being) in the past few years.

IT IS INTERNATIONAL CAT DAY!

POST SOME FUCKING CATS!

[cottonkhaleesi]

I loved this pattern too! It was the first sock pattern that didn’t make me want to quit out of boredom. I made mine shorter at the ankle portion and out of mystery yarn from a charity shop and they’ve made great bed socks.

Yours look stunning, I love that blue!

Pattern: Sock Around the Clock by Natalia Vasiliev, free on Ravelry. these have a really fun heel construction!

[cottonkhaleesi]

Had a bit of a week….. fallen into the noob zone with this weaving… it looks good, but let’s just say the tension couldn’t be more out of whack if I’d tried; the outer edges are tighter than a suspension bridge whereas the middle is requiring more weights than I own. Gonna stop whilst I’m ahead and start again….

Then Madame Georgina imported a mouse nest she discovered wholesale. Been chasing these guys around my godmother’s kitchen all afternoon…. At least they’re cute. Rather mice than a mole, or a rat. And at least I get to go home now….

[cottonkhaleesi]

It’s off the needles! Much yelling as I tried to take some pictures. Georgina clearly felt it wasn’t orange enough for her tastes 🐈

[cottonkhaleesi]

The downside of being habitually slapdash is that every now and again I need to do a little upkeep where things stretch/fray/come loose

It’s not onerous but I should start branching out from just differing shiny thread and satin stitches.

[cottonkhaleesi]

Just another 574 rows to go….

[cottonkhaleesi]

Colours definitely not true to life, but done and dusted!

I swear I have to reinvent the wheel every time with French knots. I need three hands!

[cottonkhaleesi]

Absolutely crazy how everytime starting a sock you’re like, that’s far too Smol to ever fit on my foot. It’s just, so tiny. Could never.

And then you’re like: call me Cinderella, it’s a perfect match. 💃🩰🪩

[cottonkhaleesi]

Washcloth tester with mercerised Egyptian cotton that I originally bought for the socks and realised what a silly idea that was.

Forgot how much illusion knitting is a “trust the process” thing. This tester was good; my vision is sound, the pattern I’m cribbing off is for a baby blanket in three panels so after gluing two copies of the chart together in order to get a whole star and cropping everything to the vague dimensions I wanted, it looks fab.

Will say I still think I should go down another needle size or two to get the vertical gauge spot-on and to make these potential washcloths more recognisably washcloth-y and next time I won’t miss out the bit of third star that goes in the blank space either.

[cottonkhaleesi]

Second snail is bigger and less interested in exploring everything but absolutely still a curious lil thing, shell’s too big for them but that’s ok they’ll grow into it eventually.

Pretty sure I have enough left over for one more (cutting the yarn chicken pretty close to the wire though!) Watch this space. 🐌

[cottonkhaleesi]

Today I finished another Christmas present: a replacement set of oven mitts from the falling apart pair that my stepfather will continue to use until they are beyond saving.

Using the last of my grandfather’s tie silk and some neutral coloured scraps and three layers of wadding (two cotton and bamboo and one…not) I learnt my lessons from the previous oven mitts I made, however I am surprised my sewing machine handled all those layers.

[cottonkhaleesi]

Little linen stitch stashbuster Japanese Knot bag in four shades of bamboo and cotton blend!

I am actually getting somewhere with the “use up the stash” initiative