Trying knitting again

I felt like making something out of a skein of Noro Matsuri yarn (it's a somewhat thin yarn made of a lot of smaller strands woven together rather than spun). I decided that the texture wasn't cut out for crochet, so I'm knitting with it instead. I've done a bit of knitting here and there, but consider myself a crochet fan for the most part. Knitting feels a bit like going from using Linux to using a Mac--like I've crossed over to the shiny, elegant dark side :)

Most recent thing

It is a bracelet that EATS YOU.

Also I want to play with acrylic paint some more.

Update

I haven't stopped crafting just because I haven't posted here in a while. I should be asleep, but here are some quick pictures/links.

Gift for some friends' commitment ceremony--doesn't photograph really well, but it's some sterling silver with tiny purple bells on an earring.

Working on that made me realize, hey, sterling silver is NEAT. I made this with the leftovers from the present and an old watch movement from my steampunk-ish stash of stuff:


Then I bought more silver on the internet (from monsterslayer.com). So far I've made one more thing, and hope to make many more:

(I'm not sure if this picture shows it very well, but the color of the hanging pearls really echo the color of the watch movement jewels, which makes me happy.)

I was helping a friend pick out colors to paint his room with, and was inspired by the paint chips:

(these are bangle-style bracelets, in case it's not easy to tell.)

I'm also working on a new version of a hat I made a while ago. It will probably end up on etsy. I love the yummy colors Noro yarns have! I wish this blue and green one had changed a little more quickly--it will just be green on the very top. But I think it will still be cute. I was carrying it around as a fidgeting-thing to social stuff this weekend, but I think I'll mostly just work on it on the subway now. I think this hat was prompted by Susannah's mom needing me to make her a hat to wear to her trip to the Netherlands--I finished it in just a few days (but sadly forgot to take pictures--I will when they return).

OK, that's it for now. Sleep for me.

More stuff

OK, I lied about not being as excited about polymer clay. I bought this awesome pasta machine device.

And lo, it is awesome, and makes sheets and tiles of clay an easy thing. I made some dinosaur scale pendant thingies. Interference powder is neat! It makes things shiny! The first set had the interference powder brushed on before baking, and then I added a clear acrylic glaze. For the second set, I mixed interference powder and translucent liquid Sculpey and painted it on before baking. It seems to have turned out slightly less glossy.

So, sewing. I got out my Singer and played with a silk shirt from dollar-a-pound. I was kind of fixated on making gathers. This was annoying when the thread decided to break and stuff, and I got kind of frustrated with my early attempts. (Though the frustrated/screwed up fabric looks kind of cool in retrospect, and maybe will be used for something else later). Then I realized that silk + water = wrinkles.



I sewed a few lines of running stitches, gathered with them, ran the whole thing under water, and twisted it as much as possible and let it dry. Then I pulled out the gather stitches altogether, leaving tiny holes and lots of pretty wrinkles. I folded up the ends around some ribbon to make a pretty, modern-looking choker thingy (which doesn't look good on me, but would look amazing on someone with a long, graceful neck). I think I'm proud enough of it that I'll add it to my etsy shop later this weekend.

Because I'm totally not that distracta--oo, look, a shiny!

Thinking about smaller fabric projects too. Sort of tempted to get some silk remnants and some pearls and combine them in interesting ways to make some kind of ruff/choker or something. But I think I will play with the shinies I have first.

Edited to add: found an unwanted bracelet of peacock-colored freshwater pearls that I'd made a year or so ago. Cannibalized! And I think I have a couple of silk shirts in one of my bags of Dollar-A-Pound finds... too bad it's bedtime now :/

...yep. Totally a new crush.

I keep squeeing over Gibbous and this amazing German website and thinking about the fabric. I think the activation energy for this project is going to mostly be related to putting the foundation layer/waistband area together. That feels a little bit like work (which is why I haven't started tonight, along with the fact that my sewing machine is loud and it might not be nice to run it when our upstairs neighbors might want to be asleep). The other ideas I'm having, though, just feel like play. Draping and patching and collaging fabric to attach to the base in an interesting way. And I know there will be frustrating moments and mistakes, but my ideas don't require perfection.

...Um, yeah, I don't think I have a point beyond "this project idea is shiny and I'm being obsessive about it. *end of post*