I like that a tumblr is like a snapshot of your consciousness. It's a record of the things you like, the things you find beautiful or hilarious and there is no real pressure for it be anything more than a snapshot of your thoughts. Avatar credit to heathersketcheroos
I think I'm finally recovering from burnout - after like 3 goddamn years.
and it is coming on as a RUSH of extremely ambitious creativity that I'm not sure I'm actually equipped to execute but I'm enjoying it.
mostly it's been fic that is the focus of the "unhinge jaw, swallow project whole" energy but today it is the quilt project.
on one hand, my first sewing project is a terrible place to go mixed media
on the other hand
the technical sewing ability to create borders like this
is beyond me at this point and the quilting part of that quilt is definitely a machine project.
but my too heavy white fabric is sturdy - almost canvas - if I take crochet cotton and run a line of connections up the side, I can crochet a lace between the hexagons to create a border type of thing
Then I take the whole thing - spiderweb lacing and fabric hexagons and attach it to a solid backing piece so the lacing isn't structural, it is purely decorative
a) I hide the fact that I can't sew in straight lines.
b) I get a more interesting and creative piece without having to rely on fabric piecing.
c) I can rely on a skill I have (joining with knit or crochet) to expand the skill I don't really have (sewing)
I do think the backing is going to be essential here and I don't know how well the lace
Someone else has done it which implies it is feasable.
Combine crochet with quilting to make this vintage-inspired fusion quilt.
I'm imagining mine being a little more "spider web" than the rigid logic of that one. Very fine crochet cotton, and a large guage to create pretty open lacework.
If I can get the gauge and size right, I can make crochet squares that match the fabric hexagons so the pattern drops out to pure lace then picks up again.
The spider web imagery in my head would lean into irregularities in the pattern - the whole thing being kind of imperfect and messy then all tacked down onto a piece of flannel to keep it together.
Crochet cotton is a similar kind of sturdiness to the mistake fabric I bought so it will be texturally similar even as the patterns are different.
I can also get wonky on size with some of the hexagons being larger or smaller because the lace is forgiving and I know how to shrink and stretch crochet stitches to gap fill. Also - wet blocking is magic.
Ok so what if I were to go hard on the spider-webby set up of large gauge open work lace.
Then I dye the whole thing poorly so I get a patchy effect black and purple.
And then I use rivets instead of thread to get the mechanics of quilting (attaching front to back) and the effect of stars
and the end result is like a dilapidated night sky that you find in your grandmother's attic.
hmmmmmm
I'll have to start with a bunch of hexagons with this accidental purchase and then test out binding them together with thread and see what that produces. THen we can get into dye and embellishments.
I think I'm finally recovering from burnout - after like 3 goddamn years.
and it is coming on as a RUSH of extremely ambitious creativity that I'm not sure I'm actually equipped to execute but I'm enjoying it.
mostly it's been fic that is the focus of the "unhinge jaw, swallow project whole" energy but today it is the quilt project.
on one hand, my first sewing project is a terrible place to go mixed media
on the other hand
the technical sewing ability to create borders like this
is beyond me at this point and the quilting part of that quilt is definitely a machine project.
but my too heavy white fabric is sturdy - almost canvas - if I take crochet cotton and run a line of connections up the side, I can crochet a lace between the hexagons to create a border type of thing
Then I take the whole thing - spiderweb lacing and fabric hexagons and attach it to a solid backing piece so the lacing isn't structural, it is purely decorative
a) I hide the fact that I can't sew in straight lines.
b) I get a more interesting and creative piece without having to rely on fabric piecing.
c) I can rely on a skill I have (joining with knit or crochet) to expand the skill I don't really have (sewing)
I do think the backing is going to be essential here and I don't know how well the lace
Someone else has done it which implies it is feasable.
Combine crochet with quilting to make this vintage-inspired fusion quilt.
I'm imagining mine being a little more "spider web" than the rigid logic of that one. Very fine crochet cotton, and a large guage to create pretty open lacework.
If I can get the gauge and size right, I can make crochet squares that match the fabric hexagons so the pattern drops out to pure lace then picks up again.
The spider web imagery in my head would lean into irregularities in the pattern - the whole thing being kind of imperfect and messy then all tacked down onto a piece of flannel to keep it together.
Crochet cotton is a similar kind of sturdiness to the mistake fabric I bought so it will be texturally similar even as the patterns are different.
I can also get wonky on size with some of the hexagons being larger or smaller because the lace is forgiving and I know how to shrink and stretch crochet stitches to gap fill. Also - wet blocking is magic.
i cannot overstate how good it feels to watch older movies where the actors were still allowed to look kinda weird and not be conventionally attractive. like it is genuinely healing
to break up the visual clutter of the quilting project - i got a bunch of white fabric so that I can space it out with blank space more (haven't decided on a rigid pattern or something more scattershot yet but I am committed to the white being important to making something I'll like at the end:
One of these inspo pictures suits my preferences much better.
But I got the white fabric from a different supplier and did not know how to assess from teh thread count or fiber notes if they were the same and ended up with something too stiff and much heavier.
So now I have to go learn the differences between things labeled "quilt cotton"
I checked a book out of the library that is going to make me cry I lot.
And I think it will be good for me.
Like - I lost a family member about a year ago and it kind of destabilized me and I think having a good cathartic cry over a fictional character's grief will be good for me
But it's sitting in the app like a bomb because I know it will trigger a lot of emotion.
I checked a book out of the library that is going to make me cry I lot.
And I think it will be good for me.
Like - I lost a family member about a year ago and it kind of destabilized me and I think having a good cathartic cry over a fictional character's grief will be good for me
But it's sitting in the app like a bomb because I know it will trigger a lot of emotion.
I am reading a book on a pandemic in Ancient Rome and this is my favourite category of research the author pulls out:
There’s another section where he goes into how studies of how the rings of North American Bristol pines can be analyzed to learn things about the climate over the Indian Ocean which correlates with rain in Ethiopian high lands which corresponds with the Nile flooding which impacts how much grain the Roman Empire could extract.
We looked at some trees so we know that the there was a food shortage before the plague started and we know the plague was bad because the ice in Greenland shows that it shut down mining operations.
(there are other sources like government documents and archeological studies of mass graves or coins being minted in different years but that is the stuff you’d expect. I find the extremely niche science angle very pleasing)
I have spent the last year developing this malaise with the state of my life and I’m finally starting to settle.
I’m going through a bit of a “have to do all the things” rush.
New hobby. New reading list. New meal prep routines.
Do everything!
it comes in waves so we ride the wave 🌊 when it arrives.
I have decided I want to know things about Classics and I’ve chosen the late Roman period to poke around in.
I studied European history in university but that was two decades ago and haven’t really read a lot of history since.
I am following my interests of what seems like it might be a neat story. It’s an era I have very little framework for but I know stuff around it. Like I’ve read and seen Antony and Cleopatra. I had a huge Egypt phase as a kid. So much of medieval Europe (especially all the early modern Mediterranean stuff I did in upper years) is built on the bones of Rome.
But I know almost nothing properly so this is me exploring.
This is where my reading list is sitting.
I am enjoying Pox Romana. It is very academic with a lot of discussion of sources and ambiguities. It isn’t too dense though. It’s very readable but not written to be exciting. I’m into books about epidemics and have read a lot of them so it is up my alley just in a different era.
I read the first half of Rome of One’s Own and then got distracted and my hold expired. It is well cited and you can tell the author did the research but it also has this very blogger-tone which I don’t love.
The Darkening Age and Pagans are both about the rise of Christianity and Darkening Age in particular is apparently in a contentious area of scholarship. There are opinions on her interpretations.
it’s all pop history. I’m not going to write a paper or anything but I’m curious to get into it.
Easy as advertised.
My garbage cutting was hidden by the folding.
(the fabric scissors didn’t arrive with the rest of the stuff so I just used my normal craft scissors and I understand my mother’s territoriality over her fabric scissors better now.) which is good.
Even with the dull scissors, it took about the same time as it takes the kettle to boil for my coffee.
I am having issues with uniformity which I will sort out with practice. I might need to make them at the desk and carefully fold them out until I get the hang of the sizing of the little folds.
the creator whose technique I am following did not iron and just sewed them together like this but maybe ironing will help me with the joining (I do want to test that on this swatchy attempt before I get too far in.)
Easy as advertised.
My garbage cutting was hidden by the folding.
(the fabric scissors didn’t arrive with the rest of the stuff so I just used my normal craft scissors and I understand my mother’s territoriality over her fabric scissors better now.) which is good.
Even with the dull scissors, it took about the same time as it takes the kettle to boil for my coffee.
This video makes intro-quilting seem very achievable. Sewing always seems scary. I am not that good at geometry or math but that doesn't look that hard. I am a bit suspicious of "just fold the side down" but I think I could learn it.
I both do and don't love the visual chaos of quilts. Mix and match quilt pieces like this have a very "Grandma's cottage" vibe which is charming but it also is visually chaotic and doesn't really suit my taste. Charming but I can't see it on my sofa.
(I find it hard to make crafts that I don't really like the style of the final product - I enjoy making small loom tapestries as a process but I don't like the way the actual finished thing looks. even technically good ones don't suit my taste so it's a hard medium to enjoy and I worry quilting would go that way for me. Art quilts are incredibly impressive but practically, that would be 10+ years outside my skill range and I'd have to study art and composition to get there. So aiming at that would be a road to frustration. I can aim at grandma's cottage style quilts but I worry I'll just trunk them as soon as it gets frustrating because "eh I don't like it anyways)
Sewing as a skill does appeal. I'd like to be better at it. I learned it as a kid but I've only ever really used it for basic darning (seam came loose or button fell off) or to assemble knit projects.
So quilting would be a good way to build up my sewing skill and my fiddly little dexterity stuff.
Learning something new always makes me feel powerful.
If I don't like the way the project looks in my house, I could make baby blankets for my cousins since they're all so commited to having offspring.
It looks like my entry point would be $40 for 8 variants of quilt fabric, a thread kit with needles and lots of thread colours, and a cutter that is designed to just swoosh woosh circles.
But if I got a straight line cutter or scissors, I could get a little cheaper or if I cut down on the amount of fabric.
I am splurging on the circle cutter because cutting circles is balls when I'm cutting out of paper. I think trying to nail circles in fabric will make me insane.
.....
On further research, the circle cutter is too small for the project I'm imaginingand since the circle edges get folded into the center anyways, they can be a bit uneven. I won't die.
So I've cut it down to $19 for my entry into this project which does not stress me out even if I trunk it a week from now. ANd if I love it, I can buy more fabric colours and discover that this project is actually WAY more expensive than I am prepared for and trunk it for that reason.
(I think if I'm very judicious I can get 9 circles out of the fabric I've ordered. so 9x4 is only 36 hexagons which will all be half the size once I do the fold down technique so I'm going to need a lot of fabric to make something substantial.)
I order 19$ of scissors, thread, and fabric.
the dream is that I find this very satisfying and fun to make and I can sit and make little hexagon shapes and listen to audiobooks.
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
dededos
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart
2087
