M making stuff

weaving, spinning, dyeing, painting, woodworking... I like to craft and create and learn new skills

[lil-leviathan]

New warp on the loom! The brown and green are from my big yarn haul and the orange was a gift.

[lil-leviathan]

This is always my favorite step. So perfect and neat. I'm of two minds about the weft though.

On the one hand, if I made the weft like the warp it would make a lovely three color plaid and be a good experiment for carrying two colors at once up the sides.

On the other hand, this will be at my booth for the sale to help grab attention and it would be nice to have a project that I don't need to think about or look at too closely. The cross would still be plaid but the rest could be a single color.

I'll sleep on it! It's very much bedtime

[crookedtines]

Finally bought some dye and have been having so much fun with optical color mixing. I decided to start with cmyk primaries to get some vibrant color options.

So far I've only mixed up the main batch of colors, but I'll split them up and create a palatte of tints and shades once I have access to a scale again.

I don't have any fancy tools and have been blending the fiber by hand, so it's probably best I have a forced break for the sake of my fingers. Once I'm done I should have a very useful set of 57 2g swatches to play with! (Plus 5 more for a set of grayscale swatches)

If I'm still up for it, I might repeat the whole thing with my classic red, yellow, blue primary dye set. For a truly massive set of heather swatches.

[scrixels]

My summer project for myself is to make a collection of 16 of these embroidered thimble rings (called kaga yubinuki), these are my first 2 ^^

[scrixels]

using this as an opportunity to add this link to this post too:

Thank you for coming back to my blog after so long a leave (again).  I plan to update my blog at least once a month but as you see it has be

really clear, written instructions that explain the why as well as the how. there's a lot of beautiful, simple designs on her blog as well!

[scrixels]

those embroidered thimble rings are GORGEOUS!!! how did you make them? :0

the shiiiinneeee, its so prettyyy!!!

tyyy!

I'm sorry, I'm going to infodump about them because I love them! the shine is because I use silk thread!

I'll try to illustrate this this because it's hard to explain, but ngl my photo taking is a bit sporadic so these are all from different projects!

so this is the base of them. a strip of card (if using as a thimble: measure around the middle of your middle finger) with a strip of BIAS CUT woven fabric wrapped around it.

then you need (a) padding and (b) to mark out a (usually even) number of segments. I'm doing 16ths at the moment, but 8 is probably the most common.

I've done a bunch of experimenting different ways of doing both of these, unsure on the best yet tbh! traditionally (a) is silk fibre

the first stitches, basically match up the lines in zigzag patterns. you can get an incredible amount of pattern out of sewing little zigzags. mine and all of these below are silk, but I've also used all sorts of thread, and even used 8/2 bamboo for a bracelet once

look at them.....

the colour..the geometry..

I hope this somewhat makes sense!

[dangerphd]

totally inspired, I am now on my own kick.

I have been stitching a bunch this week, using pliers to pull my needle through doubled up denim, thinking about a thimble-but-not-a-fingertip-thimble:

am two books (both in japanese but both easy to follow along without reading any of by the numbers 😁) and one photo/written tutorial (god bless the blogspot-o-sphere of 2013) in and about to begin stitching!

if (when) I love it I will actually dedicate some of my precious japanese silk thread stash (market souvenir from Tokyo visit) and make a complex one (or twelve 😂)

[dreamsinombre]

Tour de Fleece 2025

This year, I got through what feels like a modest 730.3g! I finished two skeins—a rambouillet chain ply from a breed study and a merino 3-ply from deep stash, coming in at a very relaxed 244.25y of finished yarn total. Most of my yardage is in singles of working through larger amounts of fiber! I didn't spin every day, tried some new approaches and more intentionality with twist and being more aware of it. I also only spun from stash I had already (aside from one bobbin of newer coopworth at the very start of the tour).

*(one unfinished bobbin I was working on up to the start of d&d yesterday is not pictured because it's still on my wheel)

[crow-crafting]

Humble Craft Book Bundle: Embroidery, Sashiko, and Decorative Stitching by Open Road

Learn the basics of sashiko, kogin, thread painting, and more embroidery techniques with this ebook bundle! Pay what you want and support Ma

Check out this Humble Bundle!

It's focused on embroidery, decorative stitch work, and sashiko, with a couple others thrown in.

I just got the collection, so let me know if you want a preview of any of the books!

It looks like it just opened, and has all 17 books or 3 books as options. It looks like it will be open until Tues 23 June 1800 GMT.

At least on my phone, the formatting on ePub gets a little screwy, so take note of that!

[bookshelfdreams]

TDF day -1: results

Here's all the yarns I made! From left to right (/bottom up):

1 - Finnsheep/Alpaca roving 100g/390m. I bought this last year at a tiny spinnery. It's a lovely natural colour - light brown/beige with reddish undertones

The fibre mix was something I never had before and I was a bit sceptical at first because Alpaca and I have never been friends but spinning this was lovely. I just love making woollen yarns. It's unbelievably soft and fluffy, but still has structure and a bit of a rustic feel to it. Hard to describe, I wish y'all could touch it.

2 - Polwarth combed top "summer solstice", fractal spin, 390m/100g

3 - Polwarth combed top "autumn equinox", 420m/100g. This yarn is my favourite 💚

4 - Polwarth combed top "spring equinox", 460m/100g

5 - Corriedale combed top, undyed, 390m/120g - this had surprisingly short staple length for a combed top and for Corriedale. I find that's often the case for naturally coloured wool. This was my least favourite to spin.

The Polwarth is all from @littlebirdinagarden's mystery boxes from last year. All in all I spun about 2030m, which is not bad but less than I know I can do in 3 weeks. I had to go away with my nephew during week 2; I took a drop spindle and I did spin every day, but my output with one of these is ridiculous. Hence, the somewhat mediocre result.

However, I did manage to reach my goals - spin the Polwarth and spin every day - so I'm still happy with the outcome! My first completed TDF. The secret is having fun things to work on.

[skeksis98]

tracking progress on this hanui braid 𓆈

[theherocomplex]

Just over ten months' worth of spinning progress, from first to latest -- at least in terms of my spinning class! I'm pretty sure I'm missing a few skeins, and this doesn't include everything I've spun since class ended in April, but it's so cool to see all of my progress laid out like this!

Now, to get ready for the Tour de Fleece, and to keep practicing with my new super flyer...

[scrixels]

My summer project for myself is to make a collection of 16 of these embroidered thimble rings (called kaga yubinuki), these are my first 2 ^^

[gher-bear]

I know I haven't been doing much beyond reblogs and fandom theorizing (and I'm about to do that again, so sorry not sorry), but I've actually been doing a lot behind the scenes!

These are my two latest spinning projects. The teal/copper is a BFL/tussah silk mix, and the grey/blue is merino/tweed blend/bamboo. I've also been working on knitting a shawl, and I've gotten good enough at knitting that I can at least pantomime fixing a mistake, but not good enough at it that I don't seriously consider the entire project a lost cause for a bit before I attempt the pantomime. My next spinning project is probably going to be a head start on TdF. I've got two pounds of white fiber from the fiber mill my mom works at, and I picked up two pounds of a beautiful brown and white fiber blend from the last local fiber festival. It's gonna take a while, and I'd like to get the project moving.

[sabertoothwalrus]

getting a set of 100% linen clothes is actually really problematic and dangerous because it has made me want to throw out every piece of synthetic fabric clothing in my wardrobe and replace it with more linen

[justgarb]

it's me Boy, I'm the linen fabric, speaking to you inside your brain. Listen to me Boy, leave the Plastic, we don't need her! Come with me and play my games. We'll have Minoan times and Lace! do do do do yeahhh. You need me boy your free will is an illusion

[supertoga]

Now that this project has been delivered to its recipient, I can brag about it online a little.

I made this Elizabethan petal hussif for a friend who received an award for her historical costuming work. Hussifs were often used as sewing kits with spots for all of the notions you need for a project. Wives would send them with their husbands to war with extra uniform buttons and repair supplies. This one has an inner pouch area that can fit a small project or pieces thereof.

My friend likes owls, pomegranates, blurple, and starlight. Hopefully this mashup harmonizes nicely. I worked almost entirely from scraps already in my stash.

I self drafted the pattern, but it's approximated from this write up and Sheila Marshall's book "Elizabethan Needlework Accessories". My library didn't have the book, so I relied on Google images.

This little owl friend is a needle minder by greennerddesigns on Etsy. I chopped up a pin and stuck a magnet on there.

The lucette braided cord nearly thwarted me, but we got there in the end. I opted for fancy silk ribbon for the inner pouch instead. I swear lucette gave me arthritis.

I'm still pretty new to embroidery, so this was a real level up project for me. I used wool felt for the leaves and pomegranates to give them a little dimensionality (and to better hide any satin stitch sins) TIL, embroidering velveteen sucks.

The pomegranates are so crunchy! I fondled them frequently throughout the making of this. But the lattice stitch with tiny gold details is my favorite part.

The laurels are a symbol of the award she's receiving. I don't love how they turned out, but they hold up okay from a distance.

Blue beads are from my local embroidery shop, Country Crafts. Silver loops came from my stash. Owl scissors from onethriftystitcher on Etsy. Wool pieces are from my local wool store Black Sheep Wool.

Overall, I have some improvements to make if I ever do another one, but after some 100 hours of work poured into this little guy, I couldn't be more proud of myself. I hope she loves it and uses it until it falls apart.

[vascarl]

Polwarth, spun very fine, chain plyed. The braid was from Kathy's Fibres.

This one drafted out beautifully, a true pleasure to spin.

I am considering submitting this skein to the Bendigo Wool show.

[wonkywikipedia]

Some recent spins, trying out some stuff while i wait for the second bobbin of the pink to rest.

The pink is a lovely hand-dyed mix of Rambouillet, Tencel and silk that i got at a local wool festival, it appears a bit less red in real life.

On the niddy noddy i have a sample of a Polwarth spiral yarn. I've never spun Polwarth before and its so lovely to work with! Very airy and definitely the whitest wool I've seen so far.

The small skeins are both Romney, spun on the drop spindle and plied on the wheel. The smaller one is a two-ply and turned out a bit too fine for my preference. The other one is chain plied. Its alright but i kind of suck at chain plying

[skeksis98]

thought this hanui braid was going to be far more grey, but really turning out shiny and green-blue-lichen which is great 𓆈

[alanaisalive]

The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.

[iguanamouth]

oh shit

[throughshadow-to-the-edgeofnight]

[alanaisalive]

As the OP of this post, I’m going to threaten that if this gets to one million notes by the 10 year anniversary on 1 June 2026, one year from today, I will get a lower back tattoo of the loch ness bear monster.