Merrily We Dabble On

Dryad 🌻 they/she too many interests, not enough time, time to be bad at all of them my little corner for fiber arts, journaling, mending, beading, nail art, beekeeping, and whatever else strikes my fancy

[dryaddabbles]

Hello, I'm Dryad, and welcome to my cozy, creative corner of the internet!  I've been making in various ways since I was very young, but much like my mother before me, I've never been able to stick with just one interest.  I dabble!

Drawing, sewing, crochet, and photography have been with me since I was very young, and in the last decade I've picked up mending/embroidery, journaling, spinning, nail art, and knitting among other things, not to mention all of the things I would still like to try like weaving, food preservation, beekeeping, and woodworking!

I'm looking to more consistently document my work, thus this new blog was born. Feel free to reach out here, on ravelry, or my main @cyberneticdryad.

Happy learning!

[dinomoder]

More progress on my paleoart embroidery piece 🪡

[bronzeagecrafts]

Next up in my „let‘s empty my woolee winder bobbins“ journey: I started some hand carded merino/angora bunny but wasn‘t happy with the thickness I‘d chosen, so I decided to ply it with a spool of Rico „Crazy Paillettes“ that I got back in 2024 at Munich Knits and didn‘t really know what to do with. It looks super cute!!

[dozydawn]

nzjo, 2007.

[neshamama]

Sampler, silk embroidery on linen foundation, c. 17th century, England

[oreramar]

Every time I'm forced by circumstance to hand-sew something, I remember a fairytale I once read. There are lead-up shenanigans as the humble protagonist helps small animals and meets the princess and all that, but in the climax, the princess rigs a contest for her hand by setting her own task: sew her a dress in a single night.

The noble suitors, who have never sewn a thing in their lives, sabotage themselves by their own ambitions: they choose difficult fabrics to work with and cut huge, elaborate patterns and select gems and pearls and beads to sew onto it, and snip such long bits of thread that they lose time detangling their stitches, and ultimately resort to pinning bits together as they run out of time, so that their offerings initially look beautiful and flashy, but when the princess tries them on they stick her with pin ends and fall apart as she moves.

The humble protagonist uses a very simple pattern without embellishments and sews using short lengths of thread (snipped off and threaded for him by little birds of course) which don't tangle and therefore save time. His dress is plain by contrast, but holds together and the princess is able to move freely in it, and so he wins the contest and her hand.

I particularly think about the bit about threading the needle with shorter lengths of thread, needing to tie off more often but avoiding tangles and thereby saving time.

I then ignore that piece of wisdom passed down through who knows how many years and proceed to cut the longest damn length of thread I can manage because I hate tying off beginning or ending knots and I will not subject myself to more of that even if it does mean more tangles along the way.

[theenbyroiderer]

Happy Nonbinary People's Day!

Some pics of my patch vest, with enby rya rug patch in pride of place. And also a pic of my ace of spades patch, because pretty proud of that one.

[caramellataa]

by me

[brookiecrafts]

Let's all look at my neon-as-hell sock wip 🌈

[batbetbitbotbut]

Yeah, yeah, all the textile and fibre arts lead to each other, we all became trapped here long ago.

The danger zone is when they lead out of textile and fibre arts, into agriculture and woodworking and smithing and beyond.

[justgarb]

I should build a warp weighted loom

[dryaddabbles]

Started trying to chain ply my singles on my wheel. Did not go as well as the last batch. Started undoing my work, proceeded to have my single lose too much twist and pull apart. Went to bed mad about it but decided on a couple solutions to try.

Too bad I slept on my shoulder wrong and now can't work on any of my fiber processing crafts. =')

[saltsparkle]

Not my official "post for this yarn, specifically", but it turned out really pretty pre-wash. Photobomb by Chel, who enjoys her summer concrete time.

[ofchaosgoddess]

i love spinning so so SO MUCH

[bookshelfdreams]

Immediately had to start spinning the pond lilies

Look at this. Green and pink is simply the best colour combination in all its variants.

Obviously this fibre wants to be a fractal spin. I'm gonna do a 2-ply to get some decent meterage; I split it 1:4.

Corriedale is one of my favourite wools, and combining it with silk is a stroke of genius. Look at that shimmer 💖

Typical for Corrie, the wool was an off-white prior to dyeing. The darker hairs are still visible if one looks closely. I love this, wool should not be too uniform, it is grown by living creatures.

Makes it look so alive 😊

[bookshelfdreams]

So much variation in the green. Fascinating.

[bookshelfdreams]

Plied, washed and dried!

I took my shiny new yarn out to photograph it in the sunlight, to capture all the different colours of it

About 620m/150g

[dryaddabbles]

pictures about a month and a half apart but finally finished these pink singles, so on to getting these bobbins chain plied and on to carding the bag of wool my dad's coworker graciously gifted me♡

plus a bonus picture of my cat hanging out with me on the balcony:

[skeksis98]

the two spindles of singles, tracking progress on this hanui braid 𓆈

[madebykyra]

Behold my Bee Dress, as photographed on my trip to Italy. It was a happy coincidence that my dress this year thematically aligned with my vacation plans!!!