I wanted to give a bit of an introduction to why I'm here, what I'm doing and so on.
tl;dr: I like clothes and I'm into sustainability, so I started (visible) mending a few month or so ago. I also crochet, although not as much as I'd like to, and I dabble a bit in embroidery. My goal is to kind of document my journey with these crafts and maybe inspire people to give some of these a try.
I'd also love to talk about all things (visible) mending, crochet, embroidery and fiber arts in general and share the knowledge I have / point people who want to start to some resources that helped me.
I've been into fashion/clothes and styling them on and off for a big part of my life. A few years ago, I also got into sustainability, learning about how buying new fast fashion damages our planet and exploits other human beings, and what may be good alternatives.
This path, inevatibly, lead down to getting curious about mending. I learned basic sewing skills when I was a child, but I never altered any clothes and apart from a few tiny things never mended anything.
However, this year, I wanted to change that. I've heard about visible mending before and I really liked it. I had a pair of jeans when I was a teenager that was patched (by someone else) that was my favourite pair. Unfortunately, I managed to ruin it beyond repair and also grew out of it, but this stuck with me. I always liked to express myself creatively, and in recent years, what I wear has become a big part of that. The idea that by visibly mending my clothes I express my passion for sustainability feels really good (and punk!) to me. The idea of altering clothes that I don't currently love but could love if something about them was changed is also a nice one.
I only darned my first sock a few months ago. My goal with this blog is to share this first darn as well as the progress I make, because I want to encourage other people. You don't have to make perfect mends to be sustainable. On the contrary, mend imperfectly, mend messy, but DO MEND. Even if you'll have to redo it at one point, when you have more skill, even if you don't end up redoing it and instead use that piece of clothing for something else, you still gave it another wear, or two, or three (or fifty) - and that's what this is all about.
I tend to be an extreme perfectionist and it's hard for me to deal with a situation where I'm not perfect at a first try. Surprise surprise, I am not when it comes to mending, or embroidery, or crochet, or anything at all really. But I'm trying to let that go and concentrate on what I achieve rather than what I did "wrong" or imperfectly.
I want to share my messy bits and the things I'm proud of, and I want to update how the mends I did held up. As i mentioned above, I hope that maybe I'll inspire some people to pick up a needle as well. Even if you "only" fix that button or a ripped up seam. Every mend counts!
When I get into altering or even making clothes, I will share those projects too, but that will have to wait a bit since I don't currently have any space to put up my sewing machine and I do simply not have the energy nor patience to hand sew bigger things.
Apart from mending I also crochet. Talking more about that feels like a bit of an overkill here, I'll make a new post for that.
Recently I also started to embroider, with the idea of using embroidery in my (visible) mending and to embellish clothes. Here again I decided on a project where I just start and don't try to be perfect from the beginning on, I'll share more about that as well as my crochet project(s) soon.
I think this should be enough for the moment with the introduction. One thing about me, as you probably got by now, is that I'm really bad at being brief with my writing. I have no idea how often I will manage to make posts on here due to work and life, but I will try to do them quiet regularly, as well as sharing things I see that might be helpful / interesting / that inspire me. I also think I'll probably only write more for bigger projects but also just share stuff I'm working on / finished recently.
Maybe I'll also share other DIYs that are not really crafts/fiber arts related but I think are cool.
This isn't my main blog (thats @merryfromthestars), so if I follow I follow from there.
I'm also always open to questions, discussions etc. so just send me an ask or dm if you want! Just, I might take a moment to answer them, because life and work :) I'm excited to see where this journey takes me, and I hope some people will come along and maybe get inspired.
Sooooo. The initial vision I had for this blog clearly did not work out. Don't look at the time stamps. It's fine.
I do still feel like sharing some stuff about my crafting, so I am reviving this blog - there likely won't be any super detailed posts, but some pictures of stuff I made and reblogs of cool stuff I see (I might have a few drafts saved already)
Since I wrote the above, I did start sewing and knitting, but otherwise I think it's still fairly accurate. I might make a new pinned post at some point.
(I also changed the blog name to fit my main blog bc I have become very attached to that name, but that's neither here nor there.)
This is the second time I've seen a video of this technique and this explanation is so clear! It does use more fabric than English paper piecing (EPP) but you end up with a double sided hexagon so don't have to source fabric for the backing.
I'm doing EPP at the moment but I have a hole punch to make the papers and just use leaflets and junk mail, so it doesn't feel wasteful. I don't think it's difficult either- in the video she mentions it's not for beginners, but I don't have that much experience with hand sewing or EPP and I've been finding it pretty easy so YMMV
I saw this video yesterday and was seized with the need to try it out immediately. Lookit my cute lil' hexagon baby!!
Here is what the backside looks like. OP notes this takes more fabric than paper piecing, but that excess fabric makes it already triple-layered. Besides not needing backing fabric, I don't think you'd need batting for this quilt at all. It's already thick and soft just from folding all that fabric into a hexagon.
Hexagon quilt tutorial video by tiktok user camelscrafts. Method:
Each hexagon begins as a 6" circle. camelscrafts does this by creating a paper template using a compass. According to the video, a 6" circle will create a hexagon that is 2.5 inches tall.
These hexagons are hand-sewn. Thread the needle.
With the fabric right side facing, find the center of the circle by folding it in half right sides together, then folding it in half again (wrong sides are facing). The top of the triangle shape is the center of the fabric circle.
Make a small stitch into the center of the fabric. The wrong side is still facing.
Unfold the circle. There will be a small stitch in the center.
Now the hexagon is created by folding the circle into itself: With wrong side facing, take the needle to one of the edges of the fabric (it doesn't matter which one). Pull the needle through and pull the thread tight. This will fold down the fabric and create an edge of the hexagon. Crease the fold with your finger.
This fold has two corners, one at the top and one at the bottom. Put the needle into one of the corners and pull the thread taut. This will create another fold.
Continue this going around the circle until all of it is folded down, creating the hexagon. camelscrafts notes that the last corner pulled in may be a little bit "wonky" (no precise point in the corner) if the corners were not done precisely. However, that corner is pulled into the back, so is not visible from the front.
The hexagon is now formed. Sew around the folds in the middle of the circle to hold the folds in place. Tie off and cut the thread.
Attach hexagons to each other along the sides. With right sides together, whip stitch the sides together.
oh btw since its pride month heres some knitting and crochet patterns for you. these are all free. note that i have not MADE or TESTED all of these.
so there are a lot of patterns for soft prosthetic breasts for breast cancer survivors, but there's no reason you cant make yourself some boobs:
Ravelry: Knitted Knockers Double pointed needles pattern by KnittedKnockers.org
Ravelry: Knockers (Crochet) pattern by Claudia Barbo
Ravelry: Tit Bits pattern by Beryl Tsang
Ravelry: Quick & Easy Round Knocker pattern by Janet Dawson
patterns for packers:
Ravelry: Perfectly Reasonable Packer pattern by Janet Dawson - this is a pattern i have actually made. i found it really easy to make and to customize/adapt for different yarns.
Ravelry: Soft Packer pattern by Marian Fournier
Ravelry: Trans Masc Packer pattern by Marcy Fank
Ravelry: Knit Packer pattern by Finn Beaton
fun pride themed patterns:
Ravelry: Progress Pride Flag Cutie pattern by Nicola Newt
Ravelry: Transgender Symbol pattern by Sara Allen
Ravelry: LGBTQ+Equality for Shawl pattern by nycraft craftivist
Ravelry: Pride & Trans Pride Flipsy pattern by kawaiicuddlebug
Ravelry: Transitions Trans Pride Cowl pattern by Elizabeth L. Schell
Ravelry: Trans Pride flag handwarmers pattern by Cassian Lotte Lodge
Ravelry: Protect Trans Folks Tapestry pattern by Ashley Gorecki
Pride Flag Knitting Chart! — TINA TSE KNITS
Ravelry: Pride Flag Hearts pattern by Grace Grommes
Ravelry: Pride Headband pattern by Indie Child
Mini Pride Progress Flag Free Crochet Pattern – Unicorn Hideout
Free patterns: Bi Bee, Enbee, Lesbeean – With Love, Feli
things are rough but we will get through it. happy pride month💙
I'm seeing a lot of people tag this with their find later tag, so I just want to say that you can make an account on the internet archive and save the book to your favourites!
(In case it wasn't clear from the post, there are pattern diagrams and full colour illustrations for every design in the book.)
And once you do that, also save Leather Work (1915) by Adelaide Mickel to your favourites. (Some bizarre uploading error has tacked on another unrelated book to the end of that one, so unfortunately it's only 58 pages and not 464.)
instantly enamoured with this bag so decided to make a similar one! i thought the drawstring looked a litlte like barbels, and so I modeled mine loosely on a redtail catfish!
I'd meant to make the mouth opening a little larger than it turned out, but I can still fit my whole forearm in there so I'm pleased.
Swatching time, but 2/3 nice center pull cakes produced a yarn barf...
(I don't plan to hold the three colours together like this, I just wanna figure out if three strands give me the needed gauge)
This is also my first time working with non-superwash yarn and I absolutely love it. It has 45% cotton so it shouldn't be too warm and also have decent washability. But since I learned about the issues with superwash yarn I want to try and use that less, so finding these in my stash was nice.
I did manage to make the stays wearable in time for my party!
It was a spring themed party, so I went for a snow drop flower fairy sort of look. At some point I'm gonna go back and line these stays to fix the terrible frayed state of the insides. Maybe add some boning to the sides so the tabs stop jumping up too. Not now though, I crammed a bit too much of this in 5 days
