Argyle Adventures

Hello hello! Today I come to you with a finished project: my argyle lace shawl! It's been knit, it's been blocked, and now it's ready for the spotlight! I've already introduced this project and shared my work in progress pictures, so let's cut to the chase and get to the main event, shall we?

Lovely, isn't it? I really couldn't be happier with how this shawl turned out. The argyle-esque pattern works so well in lace, and I love the way it looks in this color yarn, too! It drapes beautifully and looks good open in front or held closed with a shawl pin.

I will say, the shawl is a lot bigger than I imagined it would be. Its wingspan is probably close to six feet, though I haven't measured it precisely: that's a lot for a triangle shawl! When I put it on, the point at the bottom reaches to the back of my thighs! It's definitely a full-coverage type of shawl, and given that the yarn is alpaca, it should prove to be quite warm in the fall months. I think that doing one fewer repeats of the main lace pattern would also make a good shawl that's just a bit smaller. 

My final verdict on the pattern itself is a bit mixed. Although I love the way the shawl looks when it's done right, it was tricky to figure out what "right" meant given the instructions. As I mentioned before, the pattern starts out with a vague comment on how the chart only shows "half" of each row, and that seven stitches are omitted from each row. I also had some trouble with the bind-off instructions, though when I went back to figure out exactly what I had trouble with, the instructions seemed clear enough. I'm not sure whether it's a case of hindsight being 20/20 or me misreading something the first time through. In either case, though, I'd recommend putting in a lifeline before attempting the bind off. You never know when your dad is going to sit on your project and pull out 30 stitches! Overall, I'd recommend it only to practiced knitters who already know their way around a shawl pattern. That way, you'll be able to make sense of murky instructions without tearing your hair out. 

Now that this big project is out of the way, I want to make a smaller item or two before moving onto the next big thing. And I do have to get started on the Taako costume as well. So many crafts, so little time! Join me next week and I'm sure to have something new to show you. But until then, stay crafty!

This is Halloween!

...Or this will be Halloween, anyway. It's still a ways off. But in my annual tradition, I've begun thinking about the holiday far too early.

I had a lot of ideas for this year's costume. If I wanted to stay low-key and wearable all day, I could try for something like Carole King. I've been told on multiple occasions that I look quite like her, and so all it would take is a bit of 70's fashion to complete the look. If I wanted to go bigger, there were plenty of pieces of media that I enjoyed this year, and might want to pay tribute to. I could play to the classic fantasy and be an elf or fairy. I could be Cecil from Welcome to Night Vale. I could even dip my toe into some of the anime series I've enjoyed lately, like My Hero Academia, or Mob Psycho 100. There are so many options!

...and then I learned that the creators of The Adventure Zone would be going on tour in my area in the fall. They'd be doing a show near me mere weeks from Halloween. Of course I had to get a ticket. I've never been to one of their live shows before, but the recordings make them sound like great fun! And the recordings also reveal that many of the fans come in costume.

Ah. Well. Decision made, then. I'm not going to go in a year-old costume when I could make a new one of a different character. The only question was: who?

There are many excellent choices of character for cosplay in TAZ, especially now as they're wrapping up their second season. I did Aubrey Little of their second season last year, so this time I felt like it would be fun to get back to season one with some classic Balance characters. I conferred with other friends who were planning to go to the event in costume and settled on Taako for my cosplay/Halloween costume.

Taako Tacco. The elven wizard member of Tres Horny Boys. This is going to be fun.

I love Taako. He's such a ridiculous character in many ways, and yet he has a lot of depth to him that comes to the surface in tense moments. Between that and the off-the-walls outfits he's sometimes described as wearing, I know this will be a fun ride!

Okay, back to business: what do we need for the costume? True to TAZ tradition, not much information is given about the characters' physical appearances. Taako is an elf, so we can assume he has pointed ears. We also know he has a wizard hat and the umbrastaff (an umbrella that doubles as a concealed wand). That's about it. In one arc he wears a skirt, and in another, we know he wears a robe and jacket combo, but other than that there's not much to go on. Therefore, we have pretty much absolute freedom on how to design this costume! I took a dive into the ample fan art for inspiration and set to work sketching out my concept.

And there he is! I could've gone more flamboyant, but I wanted something that could reasonably be thought of as practical adventurer's gear. Taako, Magnus, and Merle get into a lot of hairy situations, after all!

Now for a summary of all the items needed:

• Black boots with salmon laces
• Blue jeans/pants
• Light blue button-down shirt
• Blue capelet with red lining
• Bureau of Balance arm bracer
• Red umbrella (umbrastaff)
• Salmon corset-belt with embroidered details
• Black wizard hat with embellishments
• Long blonde wig
• Prosthetic elf ears

Whew, that's a long list! Fortunately, not everything has to be made by hand. I already have black boots and blue jeans, and I can acquire a red umbrella and a button-down shirt fairly easily (though I might try to make the latter just for fun). The wig will also have to be purchased. 

That leaves the capelet, hat, bracer, belt, and ears to make. All I can say to that is I'd better get started!

P.S. Sorry for putting this post out later than usual. My parents just got two puppies (miniature poodles), and I've been helping to take care of them. They're a lot of work! But they're absolutely adorable as well, so you can't really stay mad at them. 

Prideful!

Hello everyone! As you may be aware, it's Pride Month, and I wanted to celebrate with a craft. I actually had this idea a year ago, but it didn't materialize in time. Fortunately, June comes around just about every year, so I had another chance to make it happen.

I like sewing, and I like making the most of my scraps. Oftentimes, this means stuffed animals. This time, I used my collection of vibrant fleeces and felts to make a veritable rainbow of little friends!

Little mouse friends, to be exact! I don't usually care for mice roaming around my home, but I'll make an exception for these guys.

They come in every color of the rainbow, and then some! I love how each one is a bit different, even though I cut them from the same pattern. Just like people, the mice have their own quirks and unique traits!

Green Mouse was willing to be a model so you all can see the details of the construction. The pattern comes from the book Countryside Softies by Amy Adams. She's got a whole host of adorable, scruffy-looking critters to sew. I'm seriously considering making a set of animals in as many pride flag palettes as I can manage! Maybe that'll be my annual pride project.

For now, I'm going to get back to my ongoing projects. It's about time I start thinking about Halloween, too...

Well, until then, stay crafty!

Argyle Lace Adventures

I think it's high time for an update on this particular project. For those who don't remember, I started a lace shawl using the pattern Argyle a few months ago, right in the middle of one of the busier times of year. Why, you might ask, would I attempt this? That's a very good question.

...Moving on.

Naturally, I had to bench the project when other obligations got too much, but I've since picked it back up. Like any top-down shawl, the rows have gotten longer, and longer... and longer...

Needless to say, it's been slow going for a while. I finally finished the main pattern, though, which is exciting!

Like any piece of lace, it's not much to look at before blocking. It's good to keep that in mind while selecting your yarn: some fibers are harder to block than others! Acrylics in particular can be difficult to block, so be careful about trying to knit lace with those.

I tried to get an idea for what the lace will look like when completed and blocked by stretching out a section. It seems to be coming along nicely! I really like the idea of using lace stitches to make something reminiscent of the colorwork argyle pattern. Hopefully, it'll turn out just as good as those traditional patterns.

I still have the edging to work, though, so I'll get on that. Until next time, stay crafty!

Spun and Woven

Hello hello! This week, I bring to you a fun project I did for a friend's birthday. (And since I know you read these, hi! None of this stuff will be news to you!). Anyway, she recently began to learn how to spin by hand, and was making yarn out of some lovely navy blue wool. The finished product was lovely, in my opinion: maybe a hundred yards of roughly bulky weight yarn. As with all first spinning projects, though, it was a bit uneven in spaces (thick-and-thin is how it's marketed, I think). Uneven yarn is a bit difficult to knit with, so she wasn't sure what to do with it.

Enter me, with my ridiculous penchant for learning as many crafts as possible. I don't much enjoy knitting with thick-and-thin yarn either, but I have learned that it's excellent for certain other crafts: namely weaving. It adds a wonderful texture to woven fabric, especially when paired with smoother yarns. I proposed an idea: I would take her yarn, add some store-bought yarns to the mix, and weave her a scarf as a birthday gift. She agreed, and so we set off to find yarns to complete the set!

Now, I mentioned before that this handspun was navy blue. This is broadly speaking correct, however it doesn't tell the whole story. The wool reads as solid blue at a distance, but upon closer inspection, it has strands of lots of different colors mixed into it: reds and yellows and greens. In order to use other yarns, they had to work well with all of the colors present. It was a bit of a challenge to find something that worked, but we eventually settled on a color palette that played to the handspun's strengths.

The leftmost yarn is, of course, the handspun. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't capture its color very well, but you can see the nice chunky texture it has. The right two yarns are the ones we picked out. The magenta was selected as a stark contrast to the handspun, both in texture and color. It plays off of some of the redder strands of fiber in the handspun. These two yarns were to make up the warp of the scarf, running in striped up and down its length. For the weft, we needed yet another contrast. I tried to find a matching color yarn that would blend in, leaving the striped as the major design element, but we had no luck with that. So instead of matching color, we settled on a very thin light grey yarn. Being a neutral, it worked well with both the previous yarns, and the thinness would make it disappear somewhat in the weave of the fabric. The sections that did show would really pop, though, adding another layer of interest to the scarf's design. Or so I hoped. Nothing to it but to do it now, eh?

After all the yarns were assembled, I got to work warping the project. Rather than simple stripes, I placed the majority of the handspun towards the center, and graded out with the magenta yarn towards the edges. I think it looks a little nicer like that. Then it was just a matter of weaving: it's all just a plain weave, so it went fairly quickly. When all was said and done, it looked like this!

I rather like how it turned out! I hadn't expected the grey weft to show up so much more on the handspun than the magenta, but it makes for an interesting design element, no? When in doubt, claim that you planned it like that all along! It's in my friend's possession now, in any case (and I hope you like it!). I really do like the texture of the handspun with weaving. Maybe I should do some more spinning and then weave with it...

Ah, but that's a matter for another week. For now, I'll take my leave. Stay crafty, everyone!