#critical yarns

[critterfloozy]

Worlds Beyond Yarn - The Fox

375 yards, sport weight, 2 ply wool

I wanted to do something straightforward for the fox. Nothing fancy - just a wool 2 ply. He's a slightly little guy, but not too thin or fussy. Would make a good hat or mittens.

But.

Here's the thing, he only seems straightforward. If you know where to look, he can have depth. You've just got to ask the right questions.

Fractal spinning is technically not a spinning technique, or a plying technique. It's color management. Take some yarn that's got some gradiations, split it in half (A and B) lengthwise. Then split one of those halves into quarters (B1, B2, B3, B4). Your first half (A) will be one of your strands. Your split half will be another one of your strands, so you have one half of your yarn going through the color variegations slowly, the other half quickly. It creates almost a subtle stripe, prevents long periods of the same color, and looks more random than actual randomness.

So, it's still a simple 2-ply, it just looks a little better. Didn't lie about that.

Next up is Suvi, but really - I'm taking a short break to work on some mending and sewing.

[myheartisbro-ken]

I was gonna make a little 'how are we feeling gay people' joke after watching the finale, but I've seen some of y'all are being really bitter about it, and I do not want that negativity in my life. So if y'all cannot appreciate really cunty storytelling that actually makes sense when you pay attention to it outside of shipping goggles, I have nothing to tell you

[theladyhibiscus]

Not me as somebody who crochets on the reg getting criticisms/unwanted comments about everything I make:

"You always use the same colors" :/

Me: can't help it I'm a thalassophile and therefore I must always use beige, khaki, turquoise, teal, aqua blues, whites of all shades. Let the coastal creations commence!

"Nice bag. You know, that looks perfect to use only for holidays like Easter"

Me: ...my coastal bag is to be used every time I feel like it. What are you talking about.

"Those oceanic colors don't match with your current outfit so don't use it."

Me: it's not about what looks nice TO YOU but what feels right and fun to use FOR ME.

"Why don't you add (whatever) to your creation. It'd look great if you add (whatever). And, how about next time, you actually use a leather bag bottom instead?"

Me: I don't want to.

"You sure can't take a comment or a slight criticism. Why are you like this?" :/

Me: you sure can't mind your business.

"Why are you doing 2 projects at once. Finish one and start the other I don't get it."

Me: oh you sweet summer child ohohoho...you just don't understand the mind of a crocheter do ya?

"You know, if you make something for somebody it sure won't be coastal themed or whatever. You have to try something different."

Me: who said I'm making anyone ANYTHING? They don't want to pay the correct price for a hand-made creation so that won't be happening. Anyway, ONTO THE COASTAL THEMED SCARF!

[idiosyncreant]

SHADOWHAND - 560 yards Sport Art Yarn

Again, images not taken at the witching hour so this is desaturated from full glory but it's a yarn I've been working on for a while!

Doing a Xhorhas/Rosohna yarn has been on my list for a while. The angle of the twist and the way the darker gray is coming across brighter above hides that two of the four skeins have a lot of black/dark gray in them.

The dark gray is carbonized bamboo so unlike the bamboo rayon "silk" that is the sheen of teal in there, it's a matte fiber with a heavier drape.

The skeins are: Xhorhas, Dunamancy, Bright Queen, and Luxon (described in detail on the yarn page). Each have different proportions of light to dark, but the contrast strand only changes occasionally so there's no sudden jump in tone. Like the namesake, despite being tightly color-coordinated, this yarn has a lot of hidden depths.

I build my yarns by creating small batts with hand cards that I sort into a palette and progression. When the two strands come together in a yarn like this there are surprises but one of the things I love about working with just a few colors in different proportions is how much a tiny shade added impacts the color along the way.

This is a fine yarn that I think would pool in an interesting way if worked narrow, but have more gradual gradient in longer rows. One of my favorite ever customer projects used a yarn like this as an inset block in a solid color, which fascinated me!

Originally this post was gonna link to my shop with a Tumblr discount but we had a fire in our basement and I don’t know if any of my yarn is fit for sale anymore 😭 thus the ephemeral nature of beauty etc

[ephemeral-eternity]

Wanted to make a Caduceus Clay plush from Critical Role and after two weeks of redoing the body and making adjustments I finally got it. Now I gotta make his clothes but that should be easier, I hope. Never realized how difficult it is to crochet without a pattern but I am happy with it so far.

[owladaptive]

The real question is: Who is the true Bard class of the McDuck family?

Is it Dewey or Louie???

[critterfloozy]

Knit Beacon!

I knit a beacon for @thelavishgateau It took about a year longer than it should have because:

a. I knit hexagons at first. b. I knit a bunch of other stuff instead of knitting this because I'd knit hexagons at first. c. My local knitting group doesn't meet as often as it used to, so I knit less in general.

The actual pattern is pretty easy - I can write it down if anyone is interested. The purple yarn is cascasde 220 (because it felts well), and the handles are some of the leftover Caleb yarn I have from my shadowgast scarf. I ended up stuffing it with recycled denim from Blue Apron insulation. I wanted something semi-rigid so it wouldn't seem as ball-like, but also something that could get wet and reasonably dry out if the beacon needs to be washed.

(This is also why I didn't crochet it - I needed a tight enough weave that crochet doesn't really lend itself to - and wanted to lightly felt it even more tightly shut)

More pictures of the beacon - Sylvie loved this thing, me holding it in my hand for scale, and pre-handles:

The last thing is that I was in a time crunch to ship these off - I really wanted to get it mailed pre-surgery. So I ended up biking these over to the post office during my lunch break. The only backpack I had that was large enough for the box I shipped this in?

This one:

Thank you NYCC of like 2015 or so.

[crochetwithkate]

Grog, Scanlan and Pike!

[copperhawkthoughts]

Dressed to the Neins - Molly pt 1

He’s here!! Finally! I have been planning and pining for this project for months, and now it is finally Molly Season…

Yarns: Transmutation and Passion from Black Cat Custom Yarn and Okanagan Dye Works, respectively

Pattern: Eyes of Nein cowl, to be released, by me!

[system-stims]

Fearne Calloway

🌱-🎲-🌿-🎲-🍀-🎲-🌿-🎲-🌱

🌱꒱ hi! can we request a moodboard with pale greens, nature, and maybe some dice? For a Fearne Calloway, from critical role introj! :-]

🎲꒱ Anyone not on our dni can reblog

🌿꒱ DNI if you’re a pedophile/variants, proshippers, lgbt+phobe, n*zi, trump supporter, ableist, racist, people who ship incest or pedophilic ships, or others in our dni

[vagueandominousvibes]

Kalh's TotK Knitting Adventure: Part 1

Recently I've been on a knitting binge. My grandma taught me the very basics of how to knit when I was little (how to knit a stitch), and since March I've been teaching myself how to do different kind of stitches, different patterns, embroidering onto knitted fabric, and overall inhaling anything I can learn about it. The results have been an oversized woollen sock with reinforced heel, a pair of reasonably-sized woollen socks, a woollen dress with pockets, a too-small hat, a reasonably sized hat, a sweater with embroidered flowers, a sleeveless turtleneck with spring vibes, and worn and calloused fingers.

With the release of Tears of the Kingdom I've been wanting to knit something themed to celebrate, and I think I've finally come up with a reasonable idea that I genuinely like: a merino sweater with embroideries on the front and back, and possibly some additional decorations.

Planned colour scheme:

+ maybe gold for the additional decorations?

Embroidered pattern on front:

Embroidered pattern on back:

Possible additional decorations:

Of course, this means I've got to translate all of these images into knitting/embroidery patterns. I expect I'll have about 100 stitches across, so the dimension of one of the large embroideries is probably going to be 100 × 100 stitches (approx. 45cm × 45cm).

I'm off to the local yarn shop today to see what they have and what they can order (and when a potential order would arrive), but I'm planning to post updates here (text and photos), so if you want to see how it all turns out, I'll be using the tags #totk and #kalh's knitting adventure!

[idiosyncreant]

DUSKMAVEN - 480 yards Sport Weight Art Yarn

I need to get better photos but the light has been bad after work and I’ve been putting off updating my shop too long, but black always washes out

SO THIS IS ONE OF MY CRITICAL ROLE YARNS

It’s made up of 3 different skeins that have slightly different variegation because my ideal is that I never get bored with colors during spinning and neither does a patron while knitting. They’re titled Raven’s Crest (the temple where Vax goes into the blood pool, which this is themed from), Communion Pool (that’s the most heavily red one, but transitions on either end of the skein to dark so it will join nicely), and Deathwalker’s Ward (for maximum angst you know I had to do it).

Anyway, felt timely with Downfall to at least show this off.

If you’d like to snatch this from the maw of Etsy before I get the truly sexy pictures up I’ve decided to offer a Tumblrina discount: SHOELACES for 20% reduced

Link: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1758651176/duskmaven-480-yds-red-black-grey-sport

Also shipping is free!*

I have one other yarn done I'll post about soon, but future ideas are similarly place-but-key-event+person themed.

[ravendruid]

The Gau Drashari believed in keeping things safe and protecting Exandria. Centuries from now, when their order is shattered, only the last three syllables of their name will remain. The Ashari.

Y'all...

The way I had a feeling from the start that the Grau Drashari were not the bad guys...

Learning that they were protecting Exandria, they possibly got destroyed (I still have a few minutes and one episode to go), and they became the Ashari, who CONTINUED to protect Exandria for centuries to come, is just making me want to throw myself off a cliff and turn into a goldfish because almost a millennia later, they are, yet again, in a way, used for the hubris of wizards (C3E51 - you know what I'm talking about because I'm not over it, nor will I ever be).

[freckled-words]

Fandom Yarn Colors

You know how there are yarns that shift through multiple colours (yes I'm using Canadian spelling hush.)

I'm talking about these...

I typically end up buying these kinds a lot, just cause I find them more aesthetically pleasing than solid colours.

And I was thinking to myself, these would work really good as "mood board yarn" for characters, ya know?

So I wanted to know if there are any yarn colours in particular that make you think of a character/fandom. Hit me up in the comments or DMs.

I'll see if I can't buy the yarn and make some things with them <3 (by that I mean coasters, weird scarves, and lap mats.)

I'm going to tag a bunch of fandoms that I can think of off the top of my head.

[critterfloozy]

Worlds Beyond Yarns - Eursulon

About 450 yards, sport weight, crepe plied. 50% wool, 25% camel, 15% silk, 10% yak

So this one took a ridiculously long time because:

This is three very different rovings I combined together on a blending board.

I got very close to finishing it and then had a surgery that kept me from moving my arms

I was going to try to ply it on a support spindle, but then - I figured out I hated plying on a support spindle without raising my arms.

I plied it on my wheel eventually - only, halfway through, I just zoned out and chain plied for twenty minutes? And because I'd been plying it a completely different way, I went back and unplied it with a drop spindle

So thematically, Eursulon's yarn got wayshadowed a little bit.

Also thematically (but more purposefully) - I decided to go with a little bit of a weird mix for Eursulon, incorporating a little bit of camel and yak into it, and decided to crepe ply it. Crepe plying creates something that's a little bumpy, a little weird, but pretty strong. Also, crepes are like pancakes, right?

It's also sport weight. Might have gone for thicker, but the camel wasn't having it. Still, a good weight for Eursulon, he's probably like being called sport.

Next up: Ame is on the support spindle, but it might take a while. Meanwhile, Opal is going on the wheel.

[learning-owl]

One of the professors at my local college left recently and let students go through his personal library since he didn’t want to bring his books with him. I was lucky to grab up some of these bad boys to add to the TBR. Most of them are just the English translations. I didn’t get there quite fast enough to get some that had the original side by side with the translations. (Not that I could do much with them at my current level lol) Still, I’m pumped about some of these and cannot wait to dive into them.