Needles & Nilbogs

 I’m thinking about halloween already. I know it’s kind of early, but I wanted to do something really detailed this year. I’m going to try to be one of the characters from a book series I like, the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. And given that weapons are a no for this, it has to be one of the humans, which means I need a feed interface.  Interfaces clip into the ear, and they can look like anything. I made one with pull tabs from soda cans and some thread, plus the clips off of a pair of clip-on dangly earrings. Yes, I should have been spinning. Yes, I promised myself I’d only spin this month. No, I haven’t been spinning.  On my right ear, showing where to put the clips (it’s not exact) and what the shape looks like Lying on my bedspread The process was pretty simple, although this is definitely a multi-craftual, complicated project. I’m not sure how well I can explain, but I’ll do my best.   To do something similar, you’ll need three of the pull tabs (the thing...

 I woke up this morning to a bunch of texts from one of my group chats buzzing. Two people had spent about half the night swapping drabbles (in case that’s a new term for you — they’re a term for stories, usually fanfics, that are exactly a hundred words long and a complete story) about any number of things (it started as d&d character drabbles, then switched to actual fanfics). Towards the time I woke up, they had switched to shorter stories, challenging each other to get shorter and shorter but still tell a good story. The last one was only 10 words! I’m also reading some vintage crochet and knitting patterns that were written when space was at a premium. They tend toward, well, short and concise don’t even begin to describe them. More like incomplete (sometimes) and requiring interpretation (always).  So I got inspired. Here are a bunch of really short rpgs and patterns. Each paragraph is a new one, and I’ll give a word count for each, based on the word processor I use....

 Happy holidays! I am refraining from pictures of ungiven gifts until next week, but I do have a pattern to share, finally!  This is a very simple pattern (US crochet terms) for fingerless mitts in bulky yarn, although I’ve made them in plenty of other yarn weights and they turn out beautifully. If your hands are a much different size from mine, or you want to use different size yarn, your width should be just barely enough to wrap around the thickest part of your palm (where your thumb attaches) plus 2 stitches for the join, and your length should be enough to go from a little ways down your wrist to just past your finger joints. I tend to cut the last row out of mine because I don’t like being restricted in my fingers even the tiniest bit. These are basically a rectangle of double crochet with a hole in it, although I’ve done patterned ones before (cables are a lovely addition to ones worked in a smooth worsted weight yarn). For smaller yarns, I tend to use a hook of an appr...

 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...

Hi. I really haven’t written much the last few weeks, haven’t I? I’ve been a bit busy, and usually only get a post out by writing it Thursday morning between things I have to do. This isn’t much better, but I have pictures of a bunch of things I’ve been doing, including some vaguely rpg-related things and some yarn things. And I have a pattern — actually, two! I did some very pretty crocheted edgings on some mini-handkerchief-thingies (one tiny handkerchief, one triangle of fabric, and probably some more by the time I actually post this), and they turned out great, so I thought I’d share them. That means this is a nice long post, full of pretty pictures!

I was going to do one more week of the course catalogue for the Auraic Academy , but I’m not really inspired to do something like that right now, so instead I present: Making fingerless (and palm-less) gloves in a tiny amount of time, for fun, if not profit!  This is a recipe more than a pattern, but I’ll share the pattern I used to fit my hands, which I’m calling the Blue Gloves, and you can modify as you see fit.  The reason for this is that I recently had to wear blue for whatever reason and I forgot about it until I’d almost left the house. So I grabbed two balls of blue yarn (one sport weight dark blue alpaca/silk, one light blue acrylic worsted weight) and a size J hook, and I made gloves in the car.  Okay, they weren’t great gloves. But they saved me from humiliation. And I embellished them later (see the flower).  Here’s the pattern. Gauge doesn’t matter — to fit your hand, add or remove a repeat. If you’re adjusting the pattern, then make sure that you add o...

 I absolutely love lace. I like to make it in a number of different ways, I like to see it when I scroll through Instagram or look at patterns, and I like to use it in projects. So, when I promised my mother some coasters back in October of 2020, I immediately went for the size 10 crochet thread, the steel hooks, and a pile of stitch markers. There was going to be lace in my future and it was going to be good lace!

Just a buffer post today because I had side effects of my second COVID vaccine shot until yesterday, so I had to catch up on two days of work and didn’t have a chance to write. I’ll stick this on Ravelry when I have a chance. I’ve made a few of these bags as birthday gifts, hence the name. It’s a fairly simple pattern, made with two colors of Aunt Lydia’s Crochet Thread (or any other size 10 crochet thread).

I finished this a few weeks ago, and I’m finally sharing both pictures and a free pattern for my new favorite shawl (and, hopefully, I might even be able to figure out ravelry posting)! I love shawls because they go with everything, and this one combines rainbow colors, a feathery border, and beautiful drapeiness.