Needles & Nilbogs

 Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Americans! And happy Thursday to everyone else, wherever you are! I’m grateful, this year, for my family, my friends, my yarn, Star Trek, and my rpg stuff. And other stuff, but that’s irrelevant now. Anyways, I’ve been very busy lately, but I did find time to try a project.  I used to make handprint turkeys, while I was growing up. And now, I figured out something else. An embroidered handprint turkey!  It’s a fairly simple project, perfect for kids as well as adults. You will need construction paper (or some other kind of thicker paper; I don’t recommend regular printer paper, because it won’t hold up to embroidery), embroidery floss (or any other kind of thicker thread for decorative work, like perle cotton, craft cord, or multiple strands of colorful sewing thread held together), a tapestry needle or other wide-eyed needle with a dull point, scissors, and a pencil. You may also want a sewing pin to punch holes, cardstock and glue to...

 I have a minor obsession with the Murderbot Diaries books, in case that’s not clear to anyone. And I needed a ship for a d&d game last week. So I drew a preliminary sketch of ART/Perihelion (the ship MB is somewhat friends with, depending on your feelings about what exactly friendship is) as a kind of guide for what the players would find. Then, of course, the players went elsewhere, and I didn’t use the map after all.  However, I did add to it, and then redraw it nicer so it looks like an actual schematic that ART would have. Because I could, and I was bored, and I was forced to sit through a very boring presentation yesterday. Also, I’m sharing it because it’s nearly Christmas season, so a lot of my crochet work is presents, which I’ll share after Christmas when it’s not a spoiler.  The whole thing Logo on the top left. Transcript: Deep Space AI Division, Est. CR 2371. Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland.  Close up of the front part of the ship. Th...

 Taking the day off for Veterans Day, apologies for not getting this out earlier! Have a safe and sane day! 

I’m calling today a wash in the writing department. Here’s the first batch of really badly edited halloween costume photos. I was Lady Blackbird from the game of the same name, and spent all weekend answering the inevitable “who are you?” questions with varying levels of specificness. Least specifically, the answer was “I’m a steampunk lady,” followed by “I’m a relatively obscure character from a fairly obscure role playing game”, followed by the most specific answer of “I’m Natasha Syranni, aka Lady Blackbird, from the game of the same name”.  I made the jacket — it’s red heart impeccable, in whatever the dark red is called, and made from my own pattern, with an edging in a gold acrylic yarn. All in double crochet, except for some shaping on the neck and the crab stitch edging. Worked with an H/8 hook.  The gloves were from a lovely pattern I found on ravelry, and are in two colors of Malabrigo Mora. I made the reticule to match, with just the simplest bag pattern I could com...