Haley Does Stuff

basically an old lady with spikes glued on. follow for knitting, LARP costume/propmaking, and weird pillows. maybe some other stuff.

[haleydoesstuff]

not that I post often on here, but that’s likely gonna drop down to “never” tomorrow. don’t much see the point in posting about creativity on a site that only supports a particularly narrow kind of creativity, and doesn’t seem to have any interest in competently executing even that. they’ve decided it’s better for their bottom line to ditch “””female-presenting nipples””” and algorithmically police art? they’re welcome to it, I guess. I’ll be over...somewhere else. somewhere that doesn’t flag pieces of plywood as “potentially sensitive content”, much less anything that contains *gasp* actual bosoms.

I’ll probably post here once more if/when I get a blog started somewhere else, and delete this one some time after that once I’ve transferred all the content I want to keep. In the meantime, old stuff will still be here, and new project photos can be found on my ravelry account.

...

hey @staff? nice job breaking it, hero. I don’t even post nsfw things! I’m mostly a knitting blog! but I sure am willing to stand on principle, against both incompetent machine learning AND puritanical content policies. bye now!

[haleydoesstuff]

Berroco Ultra Alpaca has become my go-to Big Scarf Shawl Thingy yarn - it’s a nice yarn both size and feel-wise, and it shows details really nicely. This pattern was intended to make a cowl/poncho kind of thing but I wasn’t a huge fan of the shape so I skipped the grafting and just made a shawl/big squat scarf.

Pattern is called Heartwood, ravelry project link here.

[haleydoesstuff]

g o a t m a n

ravelry link here

[haleydoesstuff]

I made a Big Elaborate Lace Thing! it’s so big! and so lacy!

ravelry project link here: weirwood shawl

[haleydoesstuff]

banner for VERY IMPORTANT DECLARATION OF WAR

[haleydoesstuff]

SPOOKY ORB

(EL wire duct taped to a hoberman sphere)

[haleydoesstuff]

SCIENCE GUN

(drugstore super soaker  + spray paint + acrylic paint for texturing + a michaels lampshade + EL wire)

[haleydoesstuff]

but it wasn’t a rock...it was a ROCK MONSTERRRRR

(goodwill button-down covered in rock texture spray paint plus small boffer rocks with fabric threaded through them and then sewed down into the shirt. mask is from Spirit Halloween.)

[haleydoesstuff]

one of my old roommates left a mattress topper in my apartment and I turned it into a bunch of rocks using my best Cake Boss Layered Bullshit Carving Techniques

[haleydoesstuff]

I just wrapped up an event at the LARP I write for, so I’m queueing up a bunch of pictures of projects that either couldn’t be posted before the event because they were spoilers, or which were finished close enough to the event that I hadn’t had time to blog about them beforehand.

First, we have a collection of “keys” from the tabletop game I play. The characters can access some kind of dream world through my character’s bedroom, and she had to make a key for each of the party members so they could get in. She’s a wannabe avant-garde artist mall goth so these took the form of some squirrel bones strung on a ribbon with beads and bloody chicken feathers from an encounter with An Enemy. I decided to make as close a version of that as I could with the supplies I had so I could give them to all the players in the run and uh. here we go!

[haleydoesstuff]

I’ve been trying to find the right project for this yarn since Rhinebeck - it’s a very woodsy superwash yarn that is soft and squishy and probably would wear through immediately if it were socks

So I found this! I love how the sort of ivy trellis like pattern works with the yarn.

Ravelry link to project here: folia

[haleydoesstuff]

hello friends I am here to break a long tumblr absence with the FIRST LOOK at this hideous goatman sweater that I have just completed

better pics once I have purchased and attached buttons but for now consider it a PREVIEW OF THINGS TO COME

(hopefully also coming soon: some more pictures of things I made for the LARP I’m running, which is what has been eating my brain + soul for the past couple of months

[haleydoesstuff]

the last post’s adorable tiny cousin: the nerf gracefire (unpainted look here)

I did basically the style of paint as the dauntlesses, but kept the cocking mechanism unpainted because the way these guns work it seems like the paint would be at a high risk of just scraping off.

Doing 5 of these at once, I got pretty comfortable with a couple of techniques I think are pretty cool:

- the brown wooden-ish part, which I started with a dark brown base, lightly painted over with a dry brush coat of plain brown. Then I painted wood-grain patterns over them with the same plain brown with a fully wet brush. Then, once the other layers dried completely, I went over the whole thing with a thin layer of black and smudged it around with a paper towel to blend/antique it.

- the faux leather part begins with a dark background (in this case, the gracefire starts with a dark grey grip so I didn’t need a base layer, but for the next set of dauntlesses I’m painting I’ll definitely start with a black base coat). Then I mixed red and black paint and got this weird sort of dark pink color, which I did 2 coats of (which didn’t quite cover everything, which is why the base layer is important) Then I did a dry brush layer of red for highlights, followed by a layer of black that I painted into the creases of the grip and then wiped off with a paper towel to add dimension.

[haleydoesstuff]

Two Nerf Dauntless blasters painted for the LARP I’m writing (here’s what they look like before paint)

black acrylic paint: still cruise control for #aesthetic

[haleydoesstuff]

Recent knitting project: plain ol’ vanilla socks to replace some of the older wool socks I’ve worn holes through but haven’t bothered to get rid of before this.

I am still astonished at how wonderful Kroy Sock yarn is, especially given it costs like 6 bucks a ball at Michaels and a ball makes approximately 1.5 socks.

[haleydoesstuff]

Snowdrift Hat

Note: the stitches can get VERY tight because of the cabling every row, even if you don't ordinarily knit  tightly, so you may want to go up a needle size or use thinner yarn to compensate.

For yarn, I used:

- Caron Simply Soft for the black

- Red Heart Super Saver for the white

- Noro Kibou for the variegated

- Red Heart Super Saver and misc. stash yarn for the 3-color gradient

I used size 6 needles for all examples, which was perfect for the Noro and Caron and WAY too tight for the RHSS

Stitch abbreviations: FC: Insert right needle into front of 2nd stitch on left needle and knit. Leave on needle. Knit first stitch and pull both off left needle.

BC: Insert right needle into back of 2nd stitch on left needle & knit. Leave on needle. Knit first stitch and pull both off left needle. Pattern: CO multiple of 8 sts (I used 64 for a small hat and 80 for a larger one). Join work and PM. Base row: K1, *P2, K2 to last 3 sts, P2, K1. Continue rib for 6 rows or desired base height.

Pattern setup row: *K1, P1. FC, BC, P1, K1* around

Row 1: *K1, FC, K2, BC, K1* around R2: *FC, K4, BC* around R3: *K2, FC, BC, K2* around

Repeat rows 1-3 until desired height is reached, then repeat row 1 once more.

Begin crown shaping: dec row: *k2tog, K4, ssk* around

(R1: K1, FC, BC, K1 around R2: FC, K2, BC around) repeat 3x, then repeat R1 once more

dec row: *k2tog, K2, ssk* around

R1: *FC, BC* around repeat 2x

dec row: *k2tog, ssk* around

Break yarn and thread through remaining stitches. Draw tight and weave in ends.

Ravelry link here

[haleydoesstuff]

my other big WIP: the wierwood tree shawl because I guess while I’m knocking off firsts I might as well go all-in on fussy lace nonsense (the peacock shawl I did awhile ago was...much less complicated than this. it’s exciting and kind of overwhelming. SO excited for the end result though.)