[craft-quests]

FAQ

What are you doing?

Trying out a new crafts, as and when I get the urge to do so. I originally planned to try something new every month, but that turned out to be Too Much Pressure.

Why are you doing it?

Fun! Also, I have a huge list of crafts I've been saying I want to try for years, and I'm trying to motivate myself to actually do it.

You're doing {insert craft here} wrong!

Probably! These are all things that I'm more or less new to! Feel free to tell me what I'm doing wrong in the spirit of being kind and helpful to a beginner.

Can I suggest a craft you should try?

Nothing would delight me more than to have an even longer list. No, really. Do eeet!

[craft-quests]

I had very good intentions for getting lots of mending done this month, and so far I have mended one (1) item very slowly over three weeks. Whether I will manage a second remains to be seen.

I have done a little darning before, a long time ago, so I had a vague idea of what I was doing. I think probably I could have done a tidier job of it if I had had more practice. I was mending a sock that I had knitted for a friend a few years ago, which had developed a small hole in the sole and a larger hole in the cuff. I used a lightbulb as a darning mushroom, and managed to find the original yarn to do the mending with, which makes the mend blend in nicely, but also made it quite difficult to keep track of what I was doing.

[hellenhighwater]

Look if there is absolutely nothing else you take away from the nonsense I am posting, it's this: Make Art.

Make art, with whatever you have. Use scrap cardboard and tape and build something; doodle in your notebooks, make a beautiful dinner, grow a plant, write, paint your nails. Learn to whittle, to knit, to cut straight lines, to sew, to cook, to run at a problem and not solve it the first time. Learn to try again.

Make things the wrong way.

If it works, do it again, better. If it doesn't, do it again, different. Draw badly. Look at the way the light hits something and try to figure out the colors it makes. Watch the way strangers walk and how the weight of them shifts in motion.

Creating art--beautiful things, ugly things, silly things--is not something that you should be leaving to people who are better at it or can afford the expensive materials or have a deep message or whatever. Do it anyway. Do it worse, do it cheaply, do it just for the joy of doing it. The work itself has merit. The work itself is rewarding. Make art.

And pet your cat.

[craft-quests]

Which craft should I try in April?

Needle felting

Scrapbook / photo album

Mending clothes

Voting ended onMar 24, 2024

The needle felting is a kit to make autumnal leaves that I bought after doing a class at a yarn festival earlier this month. The scrapbook / photo album will be quite hard to show the process of, given that I don't want to share the photos, but I'll figure it out. The clothes are a mixture of handknits and shop bought things that I like enough to mend, and they've mostly been hanging around waiting for attention for multiple years at this point.

[craft-quests]

Tada! I have successfully completed an embroidery project! Ordinarily I believe you would wash it and dissolve away the pattern, but in this case I want to keep the names of the stitches visible.

Here's how the back looked before and after I backed it:

I've made myself a little wrap up questionnaire for the end of every project, to help me reflect or whatever. So here goes.

Would you do this craft again?

Yes! I enjoyed it. I really liked having all the different kinds of stitches, so I think I should probably avoid projects that are mostly just the same stitch over and over again. I think I would enjoy seeing a picture come together, though, so I'll try something more like that next time.

Favourite thing?

Chain stitch and blanket stitch were very satisfying. I also enjoyed basket weave, which makes me think I should mend some of my handknit socks that have developed holes.

Least favourite thing?

Did not enjoy the long and short stitch, although I can see how you could get a cool effect with it.

Anything you would do differently another time?

Probably buy from another seller. I really like the pattern, and the kit came with everything I needed, but it was irritating to not have consistent access to the tutorial videos.

Do you have a next project in mind for this craft?

Yes! I would like to embroider on this bag:

Ideas for which stitches to use are welcome!

[craft-quests]

Sampler update, plus cat. I'm almost done!

[craft-quests]

Blanket stitch is my favourite so far. I had a sudden memory of being shown how to stitch it on the edge of blankets (obviously) by my grannie as a child.

I discovered that if I google the name of the pattern designer and the stitch, I can go straight to their tutorial video on instagram and be allowed to watch it, whereas if I go via their main page it tells me I'm not allowed to watch videos without an account. It's unnecessarily awkward, but it's working, and it allowed me to figure out wtf loop stitch was supposed to be.

[craft-quests]

I really liked french knots! Is that weird? I thought they were, like, the evil embroidery stitch. Maybe it's because I only had to do three.

I can't work out what "loop stitch" is supposed to be. When I googled it, nothing seemed like it would go on the little dashes printed on the pattern. Any ideas, craftblr?

[craft-quests]

@magni-draconum I appreciate your long tags! That makes a lot of sense about french knots.

I did manage to find the right way to trick Instagram into actually showing me the designer's video of what they meant by loop stitch, and it's basically straight stitch but then not pulling the stitches completely tight so that you leave a little... Arch? I guess? Or bump? Of thread.

[thoradvice]

i cannot emphasise enough how much you need to create something. anything. it doesn't matter if you suck. you don't need to monetise it, or make it your career. you can restart an old hobby; you can start from scratch. it doesn't matter. you just need to hold something and be able to say "i did that". baking, drawing, painting, writing, coding, crafts, whatever. make something ! you cannot have all your hobbies be a form of consumption. it's fun, it's great in its own right. but the single best action to make yourself feel better, to calm your mind, to gain self esteem, is to Create

[craft-quests]

I really liked french knots! Is that weird? I thought they were, like, the evil embroidery stitch. Maybe it's because I only had to do three.

I can't work out what "loop stitch" is supposed to be. When I googled it, nothing seemed like it would go on the little dashes printed on the pattern. Any ideas, craftblr?

[craft-quests]

This month, I am trying out embroidery! I got this beginner's sampler from PickAndStitchCo on Etsy. Slightly disappointingly, the promise that I can watch their tutorials on Instagram in spite of not having an account seems to be untrue. I imagine that Meta changed the rules about that at some point. I'm finding it pretty easy to find other tutorials for all the stitches so far, but I do feel like the videos are part of what I paid for. Oh well.

Back stitch is very satisfying, leaf stitch I'm finding kind of annoying. Maybe I'll enjoy one of the other ways of embroidery leaves more. At some point I'll also work out how to fix the little smudgy bit of the circle next to the chain stitch.