Knotting String

Knitting and crochet patterns, fiber arts appreciation, and my projects. Message me about commissions.

[artsylizzard]

Crocheted a Rocky and have no one to show him to since it’s 2 am, more photos will be coming bc I’m so proud of my son LOOK AT HIM

[amingledyarn]

Pigeon Purse, a free crochet pattern designed by Emma Manos on Ravelry.

[quixoticanarchy]

[id: photo of a crocheted pigeon whose body forms the bag part of a small cross-body purse, attached to a black strap at the pigeon's head and tail. end id]

[systlin]

In horrid biphobic news, I just got my gorgeous beautiful wonderful book on fabric dyeing with fungi in the middle of fucking February, when all outside is a frozen waste with nary a living plant or mushroom to be seen.

Woe is me. I want to go root around in the woods after mushrooms like a bog witch and see if I can find the ones that make wool go pretty colors.

[systlin]

SIGHING WISTFULLY OUT THE WINDOW AT THE FROZEN GROUND

[iamemeraldfox]

All those colors are possible with mushrooms?! How permanent does the book say they are? Do you need any chemicals to set them properly?

I'm looking at that color palette in awe

[systlin]

Yes!!! All these colors are from mushrooms! She specifically only includes those with good wash and light fastness in this book. All use mordants to fix the dyes, or mostly anyway. Iron, alum, copper, or tin.

The book is BRILLIANT and also covers making the pigments into lake pigments with alum, and then using them with gum arabic to make watercolor paints. I'm not a painter so that's of less interest to me than the dyes, but for other folks it might be very helpful.

[systlin]

WAIT YOU SPECIFICALLY GET BACK HERE THIS IS SO FASCINATING I NEED MORE

[tiffbaxter]

🧡Sweet mother, I cannot weave…🧡 My full drawing of Anglo-Saxon era lesbians for We've Always Been Here artbook along with a look at the progress. (Digital sketch & pencil drawing)

[tiffbaxter]

Shout out to all the #loomheads who are liking this piece. I tried very hard in my research to make it a decent depiction so these tags both make me laugh & very pleased!

[tiffbaxter]

Since a few people have asked me this in a couple of places, I thought i'd answer -

It's not available as a print right now but it will be later in the year, likely October! Sorry for the wait but due to the contract of the art book this is for, I'm not allowed to sell prints/merch etc of the piece until 6 months after the Kickstarter campaign.

TLDR; Please do keep an eye out for a print announcement in October!

[littlealienproducts]

PDF FILES - Luna the Crow Sewing Case - Raven keepsake Pattern by TheWishingShed

[bumblebeebats]

"Don't just throw ripped jeans away, you can repair them using these 10 cute Visible Mending techniques!!" unfortunately my friend the first point of failure for every single pair of jeans i have owned in my life has been the Crotch and Ass. Knees: fine, cuffs: fine; but 3 years in, and all that stands between the world and my astronaut-patterned taint is 0.5µm of denim worn so thin that every squat threatens to tear it to shreds like wet toilet paper. If the Tiktok craft community could figure out a way to resurrect jeans afflicted in such a way that doesn't involve adding a whole ass buttpatch like some sort of inverse assless chaps situation then that'd be great

[mxtomituck]

May I recommend the sashiko family of techniques? I’m not sure if you’ve seen this particular method but it’s one that is likely thousands of years old and is especially good for areas like the inseam or the knees that generally get more wear than other regions:

Many of the visible mending hacks one sees are designed to be aesthetic and not structural, as OP points out, but this technique is different:

1) you’ll notice that the mended area is larger than the actual damage. All of the stitched area indicates where additional fabric is added for strength.

2) the pattern of visible stitching is PRACTICAL in this work. The reason pants wear down along the inseam is that the fabric is constantly being rubbed against the other leg. Here, the stitching is what’s rubbing against itself, and the embroidery will fail first, meaning the fabric underneath will last longer.

3) this technique is very, very simple once you draw your grid, and there are plenty of places online that sell water soluble graph paper that you can sew into as a guide and then wash out.

Please please please don’t give up on home sewing and mending because of content farms - I promise there’s a whole world of incredibly simple and reliable techniques that - while perhaps time consuming - are PROVEN to increase the longevity of your clothes AND give you further opportunities to express your creativity and style!!!

[sorrrowfull]

[urban-homesteading]

Thinking about a girl I grew up with who spun her dog's fur into yarn, then knitted gloves out of the yarn and how all the other kids made fun of her mercilessly for it.

And how she's now used those gloves for over thirty winters and each time she puts them on, she gets to pet her beloved dog's fur even though Ginger is long gone. And how even though her bones have long since been swallowed by the earth, Ginger is still protecting her owner from the cold.

Just an ancient pact, passed down from the earliest dogs that slept beside humans to keep us warm, continuing on for decades after one of their deaths.

[wedreamofdragons]

Super proud of myself for this one, please gaze upon him!!!!!!

Pattern: Anchor the octopus by Humble Child Co. ❤️

[gayingupspace]

If I take up a new fiber hobby surely that will solve all my problems

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’m kinda surprised that nalbinding isn’t as popular as crochet and knitting tbh because it has an even lower barrier of entry tools wise and unlike crochet and knitting it makes fabric that you can cut.

I guess it’s because it’s slower or something.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Nalbinding aka needle binding is when you use yarn and a big sewing needle to make fabric btw

It also has a lot of different kinds of stitches you can do that make different densities of fabric.

Some people even make rugs.

[thewolfwaitsbelow]

I feel like part of it might be casual people are generally aware of the existence of crochet and knitting, even if they don’t know very much about either, but have never heard of nalbinding

[what-even-is-thiss]

Yeah I hadn’t heard of it until recently and I ordered a big bone needle for myself to try it out and that should be arriving soon.

I was surprised that I’d never heard of it though. It’s older than knitting and crocheting and even though it’s been done all over the world it’s super relevant to Nordic culture and my grandmother and I are both into keeping in touch with our roots a bit so I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it.

It seems like the sort of thing that would be popular even if not as popular as crocheting and knitting, considering the low barrier of entry.

[what-even-is-thiss]

You also don’t need a bunch of different sized needles for nalbinding or whatever. The size of the stitch is controlled either completely freehand or by pulling it against one of your fingers. Most people who have a lot of nalbinding needles seem to either have tried out wood, bone, and metal ones to see which kind they liked or they enjoy carving wood or bone and like making their own needles as an extra hobby.

It’s also a lot easier to freehand and adjust as you go than crochet or knitting and you mostly go by inches instead of rows and number of stitches so a large number of accessories like stitch markers or whatever isn’t really necessary.

Maybe the lack of accessories also makes it unpopular idk. People do like collecting things in their nests.

[the-color-of-sound-is-space]

I've been wanting to do so, I cannot find anyone who can teach me, and any books I can find on it are Ass in the Visual Learning department. Otherwise I'd be making the hell outta some nalbinded fabric

[what-even-is-thiss]

I found this channel by a nice man who makes up close tutorials

Happy Needlebinding

I create videos on YouTube to learn people how to needlebind using two fingers and your thumb. Needlebinding helps people to relax, relieve

[what-even-is-thiss]

I thought this would be kind of a niche post to make but I was quickly reminded that I’m on tumblr, the website full of gay people with one billion hobbies.

[what-even-is-thiss]

So my bone needle actually came this evening (yay!) and I’ve started trying this for real. It clicks in my brain way easier than crochet does. I’ve gotta work up the muscle memory but I think I can do this.

The downside as a beginner is that undoing mistakes is more time consuming than with knitting or crochet. You’ve gotta like sew your mistakes out backwards. Disadvantages of making a really sturdy fabric I guess.

I like the feel of this bone needle though and don’t think I’ll be trying the wooden or metal ones.

Also I think I’m gonna have to get good at doing Russian joining if I decide to get good at nalbinding because I don’t have wool yarn and the ends won’t felt together if it’s not at least 50% wool. A small price to pay for using big bone needle though.

Anyways curse of new fiber craft be upon ye.

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

Practical sewing and stitching techniques (Mending holes and altering lengths)

[stitchposts]

ive been embroidering for nearly half my life and it still blows my mind how cheap it is as a hobby tbh. it can be as expensive as you want to make it, sure. I've definitely invested in nicer tools when I had the finances to do so. But relatively compared to other hobbies it's kinda nuts that a splurge on materials is like. 9 bucks for a pack of some of the fanciest needles you can buy. Silk thread for 6 dollars. The industry gold standard thread is the stuff already available at every single craft store in the USA. If you follow exacting patterns that require a lot of color changes it can add up, but those are often projects that require weeks or months of work. Let's say you had 50 color changes and the project uses most of each skein. That's months of hobby-ing right there, for about 50 dollars plus the cost of base materials which is under 10 dollars.

[stitchposts]

#posts that singlehandedly make me want to take up embroidery

heyyyyyy buddy pspspspsppssppsspsp come over here, look at the pretty embroidery just laying there on the ground, you KNOW you wanna go look at it closer, dont worry about the box on the stick over it that part doesnt matter its irrelevant

[severeprincesheep]

"Camelia flowers" embroidery pattern for beginners. Floral wall hanging

[crochethub]

I made a skull. Kinda impressed with myself tbh. by elondria18

[tempered-grace]

mending from last night. started off as darning and turned into a fucked up little star so I added more stars

[farm-paws]

HE’S GAY AND FRIENDLY!

From: ‘Home-made Toys’ The Australian Women’s Weekly, 1960s approx.

[eldritchalpaca]

he's gay and friendly!

(yarn info, pattern thoughts, and extra pics under the cut)

I had so much fun knitting this little guy! I didn't go into it with the intention of making a patchwork elephant but I'm really pleased with the results!

The pattern was very interesting to follow, it was generally intelligible but just not how modern knitting patterns are written. My first attempt at the body piece had to be unraveled because I missed a row and his butt got mixed up with his back leg. Otherwise, not too hard, but if anyone has specific questions about how I interpreted the pattern feel free to ask!

(or any knitting questions really. playing knitting tech support is among my favorite activities)

I decided against making the saddle partially because I ran out of yarn and was dedicated to only using this set of yarn, and partially because I'm proud of my seams at the 4-way color changes and don't want to cover them up.

The yarn is a worsted mini set from my family's yarn dying business, Shelby Strings, in the colorway Geode Cache.

I like the patchwork effect so much that I'm working on writing out an adapted pattern to give out for free at yarn shows! A lot of people like our mini sets but don't know what to do with them, and I think this little guy is a perfect use.

I'm currently working on multiple pattern versions; one that's true to the original but written for a modern audience, and one with multiple colors (along with some tweaks for a nicer time sewing it up and a knit version of the tusks).

I'll be sure to post them here when I'm done, but I couldn't resist posting my perfect baby boy the moment I finished him :)

thanks for reading my ramblings, here's some more pics for the road:

[eldritchalpaca]

AS PROMISED!

here is my gay and friendly elephant pattern document! I've included a transcription of the original pattern, a translation of the pattern into modern knitting pattern verbiage, and notes on how I made my patchwork elephant because he's just so cute and I think everyone needs one.

if you find any problems with the pattern or have any questions, my ask box is open! and feel free to tag me in your elephantine creations! i want to see the world full of friendly gay elephants :)

(also, patches says hi)

[purplepygmyhippos]

Side one of mine is done! Now on to the rest 🐘

[kleinergeist]

After 9 months of work, my Oseberg tapestry sweater is complete!

This was my first sweater knitted in the round, first stranded colourwork project, and my first time steeking. It was definitely my most challenging project so far, and a lot of learning and research was involved. I used a colourwork chart created by the very talented Molly Gifford, which is available for free on Ravelry

For reference, this is one of the fragments uncovered from the gravesite:

Some scholars think that the Oseberg tapestry includes the earliest known artistic depiction of Odin's ravens, Huginn and Muninn. So I added them to the sleeves as a little Easter egg.