This is where I keep track of progress on various arts and crafts projects I’ve got going on. Will try to add pics from completed projects at some point. Main account: rageplacent Ravelry projects: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/Rageplacent
#the museum i worked at had a collection of these baskets!!!#they are like #idk its hard to describe them #they dont look quite like regular baskets they look like so beautiful #anyways check out the Mountain Heritage Center's exhibit on cherokee/rivercane baskets to learn more
Yes, for some reason I don't think they had any Rivercane baskets at this exhibit, the Vinita cultural center is a bit small so maybe that had to do with it? But traditionally Rivercane baskets look like this:
(credit to Lizzie "Nannie" Youngblood and Rowana Bradley, artist unknown for the Chief's Heart shoppers basket)
The basket pictured in the post is likely commercial round reed (with some flat reed), the commercial form of the materials we would use such as Honeysuckle, Buckbrush, or Trumpet Vine. Many Western Cherokee picked up round reed basketry due to lack of supply of Rivercane after the forced removal to Oklahoma.
I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to in regards to this post but I am a tribal member who is posting this and these were taken at our own museum within our own territory in Oklahoma. This information provided is provided by our knowledge keepers and elders.
I am one of these people you talk about being alive, sharing my culture 🙂
I strongly dislike how "some museums have unethical practices, and repatriation of stolen goods should be a high priority when applicable" has morphed into "all museums are evil, and museums are an unethical and untrustworthy source of information by nature."
Girl help the fibercrafters who live in my phone are calling out to me like the sirens of legend, entreating me to dash myself upon the rocks of Having A Yarn Stash
fibe Crafts perfec t hobby for give tumblr user s\omething to do! yarn and fabric very Soft and Comfort tumblr user touch tumblr user do Fibre Craft. Tumblr User Do Fibre Craft. no problems ever with fibre ccraft because very Entertaining and Practical for tumblr user weak of things to do. Afibre Craft yes a place for tumblr user do fibre craft can trust fibre craft for pleasantly occupying tumblr user. friend fibre
this is in excel btw. and this image is exactly half green and half pink. and for each shade of green there is an equal number of "opposite" pink pixels. and this represents a major leap forward in excel macro use by me
the origin of this concept was, oh, what if you were trying to recreate an image as a tapestry? and you had, say, 24 colors of yarn? and you wanted the image to have equal amounts of each color of yarn? how would you effectively use the yarn you had to create the image? you'd have to look at all the colors of the original image, then look at your yarn colors, and find some consistent method for choosing what original colors are replaced with what yarn colors. but then it turns out there's a lot of different rules you could imagine or follow, which produce different-looking images. and you can end up with something like this:
which is cool. and it would be cool to say, find a granny square cardigan pattern with 24 squares, knit these squares, make a sick cardigan. but then i realized i don't know how to knit or anything. and once you accept that there isn't really a clear "application" and this concept lives on a screen, you open yourself up to more possibilities. a la birth of venus.
step 1: python script that looks at the original image and generates an excel spreadsheet the same dimensions (793 x 1322 pixels = 793 x 1322 cells), and each cell is populated with the hex code of the color that appears in that pixel of the original image
step 2: excel macro to generate list of every unique hex code that appears in the excel spreadsheet.
step 3: excel macro to calculate the R, G, B values of each of those hex codes.
step 4: excel macro to fill each cell with the color of that hex code (not necessary, i just like to do it).
step 5: I add in Saturation (the difference between the largest and smallest RGB value) and Lightness (average of all RGB values).
step 6: pick a color palette. i always find myself gravitating towards groovy seventies palettes with warm reds and oranges, so i decided not to do that this time. i looked on coolors and found a color palette that was all dark greens that were similar to each other. there were only like four colors or something in this palette. and to make it truly different from the other project, there should be a small gradient. so i determined the smallest possible change between colors and used an excel macro to color it. i was going to stop here and do the entire image in shades of green (inspired by that guy on tiktok that paints using only one color) but then. idk. i realized the "opposite" of each color was an equally subtly changing pink. so i imagined that the end of this process would be an "abstract" image, with subtle variations of pink and green, that would end up suggesting birth of venus.
so all told, i had 502 unique replacement colors, 251 of which are green, 251 of which are pink. (793 x 1322) / 502 = either 2088 or 2089 of each color.
step 7: find some method for finding the difference between the original colors of the image and my new color palette. I use a method of comparing, R, G, B, S and L:
and you come up with something like this. on the left, those are colors that appear in the original image. across the top, those greens are the colors i'm replacing it with. in blue, that's the number of each new color i have to work with (it's just blue for contrast). and in the center, this pink area, that's a giant spreadsheet with the "objective" difference between each original color and each replacement color. it's pink because i have some conditional formatting applied, ignore that part.
and in this situation, you have some choices to make. in the original image up there, i used a schema prioritizing light and dark--i.e., i looked at the darkest color (pure black) that appeared in the original image, then found the closest replacement color (i.e., the replacement color with the smallest number). then did the same with the lightest color. then the next darkest, next lightest.
but i'm going to do it slightly differently this time. and i don't know how this image will come out looking.
if you look at the "first" green, closest to the left, and sort by smallest to largest:
you can see that these colors on the left are closest to the "first" green i've decided to work with. that might seem odd. i mean, #7F9800--> #00a94f are pretty close, but #A95400 is red. but that's just a difference in hue. really, #A95400 and #00a94f are very similar in lightness and saturation.
and this also calculates the number of times that color actually appears in the original image. that first specific green, #7F9800, only appears twice. but some colors, like actual black #000000, appear something like 46,000 times. and if you add all the numbers in the "frequency" column, it should exactly equal the sum of each replacement color (2088 ish x 502).
step 8: excel macro again. this one is complicated. basically it sorts that first "green" column (column E in my spreadsheet) from smallest to largest. then it adds each cell in the "frequency" column until it reaches or surpasses the blue cell above column E, which for this particular color is 2089. it copies those "original image" colors and their respective frequencies over to another sheet. for the color that surpassed 2089, it splits in two. then it deletes that column E. Then it makes sure "frequency" and "replacement color sum" still total. then it runs again on the new column E, until the whole spreadsheet is used up. and it generates something like:
[color from original image] [number of times that color appears] [replacement color, filled in]
and there's approximately 8000 lines of that.
i have the replacement colors in the order above. starting with vivid green, slowing transitioning to dark green, switching abruptly to bright pink, slowly transitioning to pale pink.
step 9: another excel macro. this one looks at original image broken down into hex codes, then looks at the generated list and replaces each [original] color with the replacement color, that exact number of times.
end result of these macros, following different "rules" of assigning replacement colors to original colors, is this:
which looks different, obviously. but it is the exact replacement colors, and same number of each replacement color, as the original up there.
at maximum efficiency, it took about 20 minutes to complete step 8 and 9. i have a vision of creating a series of these, each time "starting" with the next replacement color, and then making a gif of it. idk how to make gifs though
but then i realized i don't know how to knit or anything. and once you accept that there isn't really a clear "application" and this concept lives on a screen, you open yourself up to more possibilities. a la birth of venus.
@nosferatuplz I am not saying you must do this, I just want you to know there very much is an application for this. It's called "graphgans" and it's how crocheters make stuff that looks like this:
While there are programs that will do this for you, they're imperfect, can't be used for more complicated designs (say, if someone wanted to do a crocheted version of Starry Night) without serious tweaking, and these days there's always the risk that AI was involved. Even if you personally have no moral qualms about using AI, fibercrafters will happily tell you that using them for patterns is bullshit, because genAI runs on probability. You know what the most likely word is to follow any instruction in crochet? A number. Double crochet how many? Chain how many? But genAI doesn't have internal consistency. So it might tell you to chain 18 (reasonable), turn (reasonable), and double crochet 84 (impossible). You cannot generate a usable pattern with genAI.
But as you just demonstrated, being able to do this in Excel and do it well is hard work. You had to do a shitload of conversions, plus you need to understand the basics of how Excel works if you're doing anything more complicated than a very basic knitting pattern (there are people who just use X and O or something similar to plot out knitting patterns, but there are too many stitches in crochet to do that effectively).
So if you want to do a graphgan, and you want to make sure it's done well, and you want to do anything more compilcated than Mr. Fox up there, you really need someone who knows how to do what you just did.
Which means not only is there an application for this...
....people will pay you for it.
How to Make Your Own Binder that Fits Well and Looks Good
A while back I was in need of some new binders and thought hey, I bet I can make one way cheaper than buying it from somewhere (especially cus some of the ones I’ve bought in the past didn’t really fit right). Except when I started looking for a binder patterns online, I was very surprised that I really… couldn’t find many that looked very nice lol. Most of them had really wrinkled necklines, or didn't bind well, or just overall looked weird. A lot of the patterns also required a serger, which I don't have.
So I just said fuck it and made my own pattern! And it ended up being relatively easy! And the binders fit REALLY WELL and are comfortable to wear, even for long periods. The neckline doesn't show under shirts with loose collars, and the bottom hem doesn't gap or stick out. Here's me wearing one:
(plus I was able to make myself 5 of them for a total of like ~$50.)
So I figured I could throw together a guide to help out anyone else who wanted to make their own binder but was dissatisfied with the patterns available!
Disclaimer: This tutorial is going to assume a baseline level of sewing experience, and also will require access to a sewing machine. It is not a complicated pattern, but it will most likely require some tweaking and adjustments after you make the first one. Don’t be afraid to make alterations to make it fit better!
This tutorial is for a gc2b-style half-tank binder. It could be altered to be a full-tank binder, but all instructions will be for the half-tank design.
Materials needed:
Stretchy fabric, probably listed as 'athletic fabric' (I use this kind from Joann’s. Most athletic stretch fabrics should work, look for around 80% nylon/20% spandex blends)
Stiff fabric (I use this shirting cotton because I like how lightweight it is. If you want something a little stiffer with more structure, you can use a cotton or cotton/poly blend twill like this. gc2b binders use twill for theirs.)
Lightweight fusible interfacing (I use this kind) (get FUSIBLE not sew-in)
Fusible webbing like Pellon Wonder-Web (this is technically optional but it WILL make your life easier when you’re sewing - just make sure to get the kind with the paper backing!!!)
“But kiwisoap thats 4 whole kinds of materials, surely I don’t need that many!” Ok sure, you can probably get by without the fusible web and interfacing, but consider: they are both dirt cheap (im talking like $1-2/yard), they will make it much easier to sew the final product, and will give you an overall better-looking result. This tutorial is written with the assumption that you’ll use them.
"How much fabric will I need?" Measure the circumference of your chest below your armpits. Add 6 inches just to be safe. This is the yardage of stretch fabric you’ll need, and should give you enough material to make at least 3 binders without much excess left over. You will need around half as much stiff fabric.
Other supplies:
Big Paper (for drawing the pattern)
Flexible measuring tape
Sewing machine
Iron
Pins
Step 1: Measuring
You will need 4 main measurements for this pattern.
A) Measure the circumference of your chest just below your armpits, then divide the number in half. This will be the widest part of the pattern.
B) Measure from the top of your shoulder down to where you want the binder to end. For most folks, this will usually be around the natural waist (narrowest part of the torso), about 3-6 inches above the belly button. This will be the overall height of the pattern.
C) Measure the distance from below your armpit to where you want the binder to end. This will determine where the arm hole starts.
D) Measure the circumference of your waist where you want the binder to end, then divide the number in half.
So for example, after dividing A and D in half, my measurements are 17", 15", 7", and 14.5".
Next:
Subtract one inch from measurement A - This will help provide some compression. You might need to take it in even further depending on how it fits, but one inch is a safe starting point. I take mine in around 1.5 inches.
Subtract half an inch from measurement D. This will help prevent the bottom edge of the binder from gapping. Again, you may need to take it in more or less, depending on your own body.
Add 1.5 inches to measurement B and one inch to measurement C. This is to account for the hems and armhole placement.
This makes my final measurements
A = 16"
B = 16.5"
C = 8"
D = 13.5"
From here on out, we are only going to be working with the measurements that we have added/subtracted to, NOT the ones we initially took.
Step 2: Drawing the Pattern
You will need a piece of paper large enough to accommodate the entire pattern. This may involve taping multiple pieces together, or using a piece of newsprint, etc.
I recommend folding the paper in half to ensure that you get a symmetrical pattern. However, this means you will need to divide measurements A and D in half again, or else you’ll end up with a pattern that’s twice as wide as it should be!
Also note: the pattern is drawn with the seam allowance built in! You don’t need to add any seam allowance.
To draw the pattern:
Begin with your folded paper. Measure and mark B and C on the paper, and draw a line extending across the paper. These will be your guidelines.
Measure and mark A and D along the middle and bottom guidelines, respectively. Remember, the paper is folded, so you only use half of the measurement for A and D.
Draw a loose curve connecting the endpoints of A and D. If needed, you can also just draw a straight line between the two.
Mark the opening for the neck hole. Depending on your size, it will measure around 6-8 inches across at the top (remember to divide this in half for the folded paper) and about 5-6.5 inches deep. (mine is 6.5" across and 5.5" deep) Draw a curve to connect the two points. This part will take some tweaking and adjusting to get it to look right lol.
Measure the width of the strap - this should be somewhere between 2.5 - 4 inches wide. They will end up about 1/2” to 3/4” narrower once you sew them. Draw the line at a slight angle, as shown.
Connect the endpoint of the strap to the endpoint of line A with a curve like in the diagram.
This will be the pattern for the front piece.
To make the back piece, trace the front pattern, but make a very shallow curve for the neckline instead of a steep one, as shown:
The last piece is the stiff front panel. This is what provides the flattening effect of the binder. To make the pattern, trace the front pattern again. Trim 3/8” in on the sleeves and neckline, and 3/4” to 1” along the bottom. This gives a flatter hem. Then trim the straps shorter by a few inches. This helps the binder lay flatter along the shoulders.
When you're done, you should have 3 pattern pieces that look approximately like this (stiff panel shown overlaid on the stretch fabric to show how it fits together).
NOTE: If you want more compression or just want to make it a bit sturdier, you can add a second panel of stretch fabric to the back piece. Just use the bottom half of the back pattern (from the widest part down to the bottom hem) to cut out another piece of stretch fabric. Attach it to the back piece with a strip of fusible webbing and a zig-zag stitch along the top.
Step 3: Putting It All Together
Once you’ve made the patterns and cut out the pieces of fabric, you should have something that looks like this:
The next step is adding interfacing and fusible webbing. Use your pattern to cut out 3/8" strips to fit on the top of the straps for both pieces, and to the neckline, sleeves, and bottom hem of the back piece, as shown:
If you want to add it to the bottom hem of the front piece, it will help keep that hem flat when sewing it down later, but it's not essential.
If you choose to also use fusible webbing (WHICH I RECOMMEND), you will apply it to the stiff front panel similarly to how the interfacing was applied, ~3/8” strips along the neckline, sleeves, and top of the straps. Cut out two strips for the neckline and sleeves, because we'll use those later too.
Iron the strips onto the front panel as shown:
Once it's on, just peel off the paper, position it webbing-side down on the stretch fabric, and iron it to fuse the two pieces together so everything stays in place while you sew. THIS MAKES IT WAY EASIER TO SEW.
After the stiff front panel is fused to the stretch fabric, you’ll sew the straps of the front and back pieces together, then join the pieces along the sides. Pin the hell out of it to keep everything in place -this type of material is VERY prone to puckering.
When sewing, USE A ZIGZAG STITCH. A straight stitch will NOT WORK for stretch fabric. I adjust mine to 1.3mm long and 3.5mm wide which has worked well. If your machine doesn’t let you adjust stitch length or width, well. That sucks, I don’t really have any advice.
After you sew the front and back pieces together, you can add more fusible webbing to the front panel to help hold the hem down flat and prevent it from puckering while you sew it. Just add the strip, peel the paper off, then fold the hem over and iron it down. This part isn’t really necessary, but it does make the hems look nicer. If nothing else, I would recommend adding it to the neckline.
After that, you just fold & pin all the hems and sew them up with a zigzag stitch, then go over the raw edge at the top of the stiff panel (where we cut the straps shorter).
And that’s it! You’re done! And now you can make your own binders whenever you want!
And hey! If you used this tutorial and wanna throw me a dollar or two on ko-fi, I wouldn't complain.
Knitting patterns: fingerless gloves with cool thumbs
"Coolness" is arbitrary but I was looking for thumb-centric construction, thumb shaping integrated into the pattern very smoothly, and other neat thumb tricks. All links are Ravelry. Feel free to add more!
Poinsettia by Sybil R also on tumblr as @sybilra and inspired this whole post
Green Thumb by Diana Foss
Zimtstern by Sybil R
Mitred Mitts by Sybil R she specialises in these, okay?
Mondrian Mitts by Galina Zapletnuka
Pieces of Eight by Sybil R (photo by cfrischknecht; the original version of this post linked to a German translation of this pattern by a different creator without realising it was a translation)
Montes by Šárka Dvořáčková
Frosted Glass by Lola Johnson
Either/Or by Lee Meredith
Kontrast by Uwe Nawratil
And I've hit the image limit but there are many short row patterns with nicely integrated thumbs such as Mixed Wave Mitts by Sybil R (again) and Ganmil by Heidrun Liegmann.
My sister just told me about a site called freesewing, where you can adjust patterns from your exact measurements and it will "generate" them — but not generate as in what ShitGPT does, just mathematical tweaking of existing patterns, the way professionals would do it if you were going to a tailor. Many patterns also have photos of people posting what they've made, and it seems like it works really well most of the time. I just thought it seemed like a neat site, especially since i saw a lot of example photos with my build that had gotten some pretty good results. That they also don't sell your data is a neat bonus
FreeSewing is open source software to generate bespoke sewing patterns, loved by home sewers and fashion entrepreneurs alike.
Really fighting myself, and now the new neck pain, to get back into sewing. Or making anything. Spending time in my makery lair without napping. I did manage to sew up a fabric project tray experiment the other day, pleased enough with how it came out. It’s the perfect size for my beading mats, and the corners unfold so it can be stored flat.
I’ve been rearranging and organizing so much that it’s hard to get out of that mode, but I do think my latest sewing station iteration might be my best so far. Time will tell, assuming I can motivate myself to actually use it.
Fossil Fibers' discord has started using banana for scale when showing off fiber projects, but I know some of the members are anti-banana, so I'm making them a Banana for Scale amigurumi pattern lol
This is attempt 5 and 6 to get the shape right
5 was too tube, attempt 6 is doing some good things. Switching between a 2 st increase and short rows every 5 rows for a very gradual widening and the slightest curve
LMAO yeeaahhh, I triggered that. The hype in her Discord is real lol
@fossilfibers decided we needed a colorway so people could make banana yarn to their taste for bananas! If anyone wants to spin yarn to make a banana, loooook!
She was also the first to try the banana pattern out, the yarn she pulled out of her stash was a touch orange, Ive been affectionately been calling it the Tiger Banana.
She has a couple of the darker yellow on the right ready to ship, and also a preorder option going!
Sticking it under a readmore but this is how i make my shirts etc for like a fiver's worth of materials. I am far from being an expert btw im just playing with chemicals. also probably do this in a ventilated area or something
You will need:
Bleach (I use thick toilet bleach it's like 80p)
The thing you want to bleach onto (In this case, a tote bag for a friend. usually i thrift old black shirts.) You should do a patch test before any real bleaching -- dab a tiny bit on the inside of a hem somewhere before you commit. I don't show that below because i forgot to do it but you should. You should ALSO iron the thing before you bleach it. So it's flat. Do as I say not as I do etc.
Something to put inside / between your garment and the table (Asda brand weetabix box babyyy)
Paintbrush (Mine is from a multipack from Poundland. I also accidentally left it in bleach last time and it kind of dissolved so I had to cut off the most egregious of the stray bristles.)
Chalk (For snacking) (I'm joking please don't eat the chalk) (I only have big pavement chalk, again, from Poundland, but you can get a good point with a craft knife)
Step one: move the cat
Step two: insert cereal box into / behind the thing you are bleaching.
Step three: chalk on your design. this is the logo of a wine brand i have never tried but i like the snail. It can be super rough or very precise, whichever helps you know where to put your lines.
As you can tell it's easy to move stuff and redo it by just smudging the chalk away, or, worst case scenario, giving it a wash. Though that sucks if you're impatient like me bc you do NOT want to bleach this while it's wet. Once you're happy with your design, smack it around a bunch to take off most of the chalk, so you wind up with a vague outline. I didn't get a pic of this stage but here's what the iasip one looked like:
Step four: Acquire your bleach and put it in the special bleach jar your hosuemates labelled so you would stop drinking normal water out of it. Accept that Nyx hates you for not letting her drink it.
Step five: Go for it man. The bleach is kinda goopy so don't expect it to come out like paint, but it does mean that you can control the line crispness and width quite easily depending on how hard you press the brush down. I find it really helps for stuff like serif fonts.
You can dilute your bleach with water, which can help it get into all the little crevices esp if your fabric is a little bumpy, but do another small patch test before committing to anything on the main piece, because some fabrics absolutely suck up water and your lovely crispy lines will blow out like an old tattoo. don't do it. Unless you want that look, in which case get silly with it
The other weird thing abt it is obviously that you can't see what you painted right away, it takes a couple seconds to show up, so it's a pretty slow process. The fabric will first go darker where you painted, then lighten from orange to a pale yellow over about 30 seconds. DON'T go "this bleach aint shit" and paint over it to make it lighten faster -- overbleaching it can weaken the fabric and make it tear.
Tragic.
Here are some progress shots of the snail! When you're finished, you should wait for it to develop properly, but it depends how light you want it to be. I let the lines sit for a while before doing the details, and then washed it a bit prematurely so they'll stay a little darker. For nice pale yellow you want to wait around an hour.
Step six: drown her
Nice cold water, wash out all the remaining bleach and chalk. I chucked it in the wash for ten minutes because it's a weird shape and size to wash in the sink and I'm a lazy bastard. but handwashing works just as well.
Step seven: revel in your new bootleg merch. You made that. You did that. thrive. go forth and make weird shit.
going to start researching sheep breeds that are like endangered or need conservation and then seek out their wool to use, preferably buying directly from the herders, so i can support them
i found a farm that has Navajo-Churro sheep and sells their wool as roving and yarn directly to the public, along with several other uncommon breeds :) website here
re: your tags, totally fine to reblog!! there's a whole database of farms im looking at now on the Livestock Conservancy website!! here's the link, all you have to do is select "yarn" or "fiber" from this drop down menu
and it'll give you contact info and websites to A BUNCH of small farms selling their heritage breed fiber directly!! you can also look up by animal breed if you want a specific kind of fiber like, say Navajo-Churro
it's AWESOME!! many of these farms seem to be certified by the Conservancy and the Conservancy itself seems to be like a good nonprofit
