#i've wanted to try to attempt that since i learned how to crochet (last year) but now i felt i finally Understood how it works so i felt

[strawbebbiesart]

Crochigi (crochet Tigi) 🐅🪴⛵️

[pitiplush]

Hi, I know I've been MIA for a while, but since the news about the cancellation of Shadow and Bone broke I've been sad and I need to let it all out. I've come to think of my blog here like a safe haven, so there's no better place for this.

These photos are of the very first original amigurumis I've ever made (sorry for the first photo, I hastily put it together just for this post because none of my photos seemed good enough). As you can see they are some of the characters of Shadow & Bone: Alina, the Darkling, Inej and Kaz. This was back in 2021, when the show premiered. Back then I had never heard of the Grishaverse, but when I saw the teaser my curiosity was piqued so I gave the books a chance and I LOVED them. After so many years on a reader's block and at a time in my life where I was struggling to get by, I had something new and exciting to look forward to. I loved the show (watched it twice in a row, actually), I loved the cast and I loved everything surrounding the Grishaverse. I even convinced two of my friends to read the books (and I regret nothing) 😂

I was so thrilled I HAD to do something, to create something new inspired by the Grishaverse. At that moment I had been crocheting only for a year but I thought I could try and see if something came out of it. That's how I crocheted Alina, my very first bookish amigurumi. It's not my best work, sure, but till this day I'm so very proud of the result. This was my first attempt at designing an amigurumi, I felt like I was improving my craftsmanship while honouring one of my favourite fantasy sagas. So I kept going, I crocheted the Darkling, made changes to get a better design, started putting more effort into my photos, even replicating the show posters. I kept growing my collection, adding Inej and Kaz and taking fun photos of all of them.

I didn't get far in terms of interactions and likes with them but I didn't care that much, I was just genuinely elated that I was creating something new with my bare hands and that was my priority.

And after them, I stuck to the book amigurumis. Created new patterns and characters, got more involved in photography and photoedition, and strived to do better with each new amigurumi. I got happier too, the thrill to create and share not only my craft but the books I love the most has been the best part of these last three years. And none of that wouldn't have existed without Shadow & Bone, without Leigh Bardugo and her universe, without that amazing cast and all of the writers and staff that have worked tirelessly to bring the Grishaverse to life.

So yeah, I'm heartbroken it has come to this abrupt and unfair end, especially when there was just a season left. In a way it feels like putting an end to a part of my journey as an amigurumi artist, this first part in which I was fumbling to learn and create something new. And as sad as it is, I want to say thank you too. It's not much, but it feels right to use my small amigurumi kingdom and reach to say thank you to everyone involved in the Grishaverse. You've made me unbelievably happy in so many different ways that I have trouble putting it into words.

Thank you as well to everyone who has taken a bit of their time to like, share and leave comments about my Grishaverse amigurumis. You helped me believe in my work and gave me strength to keep crocheting.

I will always remember the first time I showed Alina and the Darkling to my best friends and we talked about how I could crochet the rest, and which ones they wanted to see the most and "omg what if one of the actors noticed your work?????". It will never happen, but imagining the possibility still makes me feel a bit giddy even after two years.

If you've read this far, thank you to you too and sorry for my silly ramblings ♥️ If you love S&B too I'm free to cry together about all of the things we will never see on screen anymore.

P.S.: who would've thought that little me having a crush on Prince Caspian (aka the great Ben Barnes) would have ended in crocheting plushies inspired in book characters??? Not me for sure 😂

[innitmarvellous]

Like last year I tried to compile a rather sad little list of positive (and positive-ish) things and accomplishments of 2024. There really isn't much I could come up with, but better than nothing, I guess? Dunno if it's too early for it, but I can still add to this post if I can think of something else.

- I randomly decided that I wanted to learn to play an instrument & that's why I started with electric guitar in February and added electic bass in Autumn. I'm not particularly good at either of them which often frustrates me a lot, but I still don't regret trying it. Well, not much. I just hate having to deal with expectations aka "oh, so you want to play in a band?". No, I don't, because I started way too late for that and no band needs a shitty guitarist/bassist, lmao. (Oh, and I'm already planning to try and learn the violin next. I'm even worse at that, so there's a lot of fun to be had, except for the people who have to listen to my playing :D)

- I also learned how to crochet, after huge initial frustration. That's a new skill acquired, I guess? I did a lot of crochet stuff over the year, but unfortunately it doesn't feel that fulfilling because I'm not that good and also don't know anyone to gift the finished stuff too. The scarves and shawls are piling up in my wardrobe and it's so frustrating, lol. But at least I could make myself very ugly little HIGNFY and Beatles dolls :3

- I wrote more unsexy porn fics, which might not be good for the readers, but is kind of good for me as it doesn't feel very cringe anymore. Now I only need to find a way to make them at least a little sexy!

- I didn't have one of these massive self-hate attacks for a silly small reason, which was good. Well, I had several small moments, but I hated the big ones way more...

- I at least tried to accept some things about me, like being possibly asexual and getting over the fact that I hate my name. Unfortunately I only tried without much success, but the attempt has to count for something. Since I don't want to accept that I might be aspec I'm just thinking of myself as queer now to avoid having to think about it any further - which is also rather practical for gender reasons since I've got no idea about that either :/ (Although using it still makes me feel like an intruder into queer communities, but the term is useful for me...so a big sorry to anyone who's truly queer. Hope that's a forgivable sin.) And I'm trying to come up with an alternative name I can address myself with in my thoughts, lol.

- I tried to work on my self-acceptance. Again: I tried. Some things happened that made me doubt myself again when I thought I had made some progress, so I'm not really sure about how successful I was. I wish I would just figure out whether I deserve to feel better about myself, that would be a nice start. xD

- I decided to develop a taste of my own. Sounds weird and is something I should have done long ago since I'm fucking old, but...I often watched a show or read a book I didn't like simply because of things like: 'but a comedian I like said that's his favourite book!'. Well, and now I'm trying to tell myself: if our tastes align on something, very good. But if not, whatever.

- I'm still rather insane about HIGNFY and religiously watch at least one episode a day. Also, I had two nice and very long conversations with other fans on AO3 and these honestly gave me such a good time. Too bad they didn't last even longer, but the other people probably moved on to new fandoms and even so, I had a blast. (And of course I'm also still weird about Paul. If anything I got weirder about him. Just look at my fics in case I still haven't deleted them yet! Actually, no, please don't look, but you get what I mean.)

- Not an accomplishment, but I'm kind of happy that I got interested in The Beatles at the end of last year. I read so many books and stuff about them in 2024 and wrote fics and listened to the music (of course) and that usually was a source of happiness, so yeah. That was good :D

[tacthescribbler]

@onemoresketch Oh, gosh. I'm not sure I have an answer for each one, but I'll respond to what I can.

For writing, I've always felt action scenes were easiest to write. I'd like to think I was good at them when I was still writing. For my age, at least. The hard part for me is dialogue. In fact, the best dialogue I've ever written was based on the sass my younger bro and I used to give each other as kids. We had that snarky, back-sass kind of sibling friendship.

Drawing: The hard part is actually doing it. Drawing is the one area where I really let my perfectionism get the best of me. More often than not, I give up before I've even touched pencil to paper. I need to do better about that. Practice makes progress, after all. I'm not sure if any part of drawing is ever "easy" for me, but I do find it less difficult to draw from a reference. I can imitate photos and such relatively easily. Usually.

Crochet: Hm... the hard part for me is developing new patterns. I've only managed it once or twice, with one attempt being trial and error until I got what I was looking for, and then I just math-ed it into being a bit easier. The easiest part of crochet is when I can find a nice-repetitive pattern and just let my hands work, but I also like knitting for that, since I'm pretty basic at it.

Embroidery: Been a long time since I've done any embroidery. I'm not sure I have an up-to-date answer on this one. Hard part used to be filling in with color, while the easy bit was making the outlines of things (especially when I had an iron-on image to follow). Oh, and when I was little, it was hard to keep my stitches consistent. I had a tendency to bunch up the fabric by making some stitches too tight.

Whittling: I have a bunch of supplies for this, but I've not actually tried it yet. I'll have to give an update when I actually make an attempt!

Guitar: I'm a bit limited on this one, but I did take a beginner class back in 2019. The hard part was positioning my hands and fingers correctly on the neck of the guitar without my hand cramping. I'm sure I can get it, if I start practicing again and stick with it. I'm not sure I know of an "easy" part.

Gardening: The easy part is always eating the fruits and veggies that come out of the garden! The hard part, at least in my perception, is canning. My grandmother cans her veggies (I've helped with the cutting once or twice as a kid), and I want to learn to do it myself, but maybe I'm just making it seem harder than it really is.

Cooking: The hard part is motivating myself to clean up afterward. The easy part, of course, is the eating! :P

Jogging: The hardest part is always persisting through a stitch, in my opinion, but I've also got the added challenge of an old neck "injury" that prevents me from running without hip pain. That may sound weird, but if you're curious, look up the phrase "atlas subluxation" and learn about what that does to a person's body over time. The easy part... I'm not sure how to answer that one. I always appreciated how my stress would just melt out of me while I was running. I liked keeping time with music in my ears. In fact, I had a specific running playlist that I always used, to the point that I conditioned myself to want to run every time I hear those tracks. Another quirk of using that playlist was that my steps were always in time with the beat of the music. My run times were dictated by the length of my stride, not the rate at which I took my steps. ==============================================

@makriiii I'm definitely still a beginner myself, and it's been about 4.5 years since I last picked up my guitar, but I'd have to fall back on a few bits of advice that my instructor taught me in the beginner class I took:

If you do nothing else for a practice session each day, practice your finger positions.

Try to get a loud-clear note when picking or strumming. Don't be shy.

Your fingertips will hurt before they start to callous and toughen up to the strings. Don't let this be an excuse not to practice. Keep at it!

This one isn't so much a recommendation as it is just my two cents: My favorite pieces that we initially began to practice were "Whiskey Before Breakfast" and "Arkansas Traveler". They're fun and when you get to playing them faster, they can be a great challenge. My younger sibling (who is one of those people who can pick up an instrument and learn it in about 10 minutes; seriously, they play by ear and, as far as I know, still can't read music) taught me how to play the Val Royeaux theme from Dragon Age: Inquisition. That one is also a favorite! (If you want to check out some of my sibling's music, you can find them on Spotify. My favorite track of theirs is "Dirge of the Empty Tomb")

Uuuuuuuuugh.

Feeling creative but unsure how to channel the energy. Here's a list of hobbies I enjoy, want to start playing around with, already practice to some degree, or have more or less dropped for some reason. Ask me questions!

Writing

Drawing

Crochet

Embroidery

Whittling

Guitar

Gardening

Cooking

Jogging

[sunrisesthings]

Lost in Words

August 23, 2022

I've been getting myself to read these past few weeks to ease my mind from all the happenings around me. I started reading the famous novel " It Ends with Us" by Colleen Hoover and it doesn't disappoint. I finished reading it in a day. I was so invested on it until I realized it's already 5 am when I finished the book. My eyes were hurting so much but that didn't stop me from reading another book of hers the next day entitled Regretting You. Weeks past and I finished another book from another book until I happened to read the first part of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. It was so good at the beginning thus I decided to buy a paperback. I can't buy the original one since I'm broke financially and my mother would scold me if she happens to know that I spend money around a novel instead of academic books ( hematology, clinical chemistry, and bunch of medical related books that I need for this upcoming school year). The quality of the book wasn't good but it was manageable enough for me to read since I constantly have headache nowadays from reading through my phone. The book was so long I'm not sure if I can finished it before classes returns next week. Thanks for my fast reading ability, I was on the half of it.

My mind while reading the story was creating a world where these characters are alive. The Lispenard Street, the apartments they have, streets of New York City and how the four men JB, Malcolm, Willem and Jude, my Jude St. Francis were all alive like it wasn't fictional. I'm aware of how dark, and heart-wrenching this story is, albeit it makes me want to read it more. I needed to stop and close the book for a while when it has a really heavy scene ( triggering ones such as attempted suicides). With these scenes in my head, I always close my eyes for a while to let it all sink in and then I thought of hugging the book as if I was hugging the characters specially Jude. How can a book hurt this much? I can't help to cry at some parts of it and I bet my parents think I'm crazy HAHA.

When I'm on Junior Highschool, reading was my hobby. I got so much addicted to it until it gets to the point that I tried to write some stories. My mind was the happiest place I've been to. I've built hundreds of worlds in my head while I'm reading various books, different stories, different plot lines. I love reading a lot. My parents suspected that the reason behind me having an eyeglass for such a young age is because of this hobby.

I thought that fictional world was better than my reality. In such young age I spend most of my time being drifted away from the present times. However, as time passes by just when I thought this hobby of me would stay forever. I happen to live my life in reality albeit sometimes, I still read novels that my cousin or tita gave me. It suddenly fades away time after time. Until I get to college where I spend most of my days reading, mostly academic books. It drains me and then I thought that I would never ever bring myself to read novels again because my education suck the happiness and pleasure of reading out of me.

Summer came and I didn't know exactly what to do in my life. I usually have hobbies trying to built every summer. Last summer I learned how to crochet, this summer I thought I want to learn how to play piano but money was tight I don't have the guts to bought myself one. It was one night where I found myself interested with booktoks (a community on tiktok where they recommend bunch of novels to read) and that sparks my enthusiasm to read, again.

I don't regret it. It's so expensive yet a fulfilling one. I get to travel again. I get to go places, meet people and empathize with their pains. I love this feeling a lot in fact, it makes me feel alive.

However classes will come by next week and I'll be so busy again. I don't have any resentment against my course. I'm grateful of finding the way back to my old hobby where life seems complicated yet ecstatic.

I would love to have people whom I can talk books with. I would love to have someone where I can share my thoughts with the book I am reading, who would read my book recommendations so that i can have a conversation with them. One who will recommend to me as well and I would read it and think about the person who recommends it asking myself "do they also feel the same pain or happiness while reading this just as much as I feel?"

It would be amazing to have that kind of person. I really wish I've had the chance to meet those people someday. Anyway here's the list of my future reads, I don't know when will I have the time to read this again but I'm hoping I could buy some paperbacks of it in the near future.