Agent of Chaos

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this is mind boggling levels of insane. if you've never done needlefelting you can't quite comprehend how fucking difficult it is to not only make things so precise at such a small scale but like, not get the fibers tangled into literally everything else they interact with. and then ANIMATING it??? bro this is witchcraft

@justmossyall

i literally love you guys my other mutual sent me this video as well thank you so much for thinking of me, this is indeed the coolest shit i have ever seen in my entire life

something you don't learn until you get really far into the making and tinkering life is that there's no such thing as "glue" really. there are so many kinds of substances that stick other substances together and they are all very different and if you just go look at the adhesives aisle in the hardware store the packaging never actually tells you anything useful. it's like "this is SUPER T-REX POWER GLUE" and the fine print says "good for use on wood metal and plastic". okay. but WHICH PLASTICS MY GOOD BITCH,

because SURPRISE, there's no such thing as "plastic" either. every kind of wood is basically the same on a chemical level, but the only thing every plastic has in common is "some of its molecules are long" and that is NOT a quality that determines how things stick together.

I just ordered some stuff I hope will permanently stick a circuit board to a steel sheet and withstand temperatures up to 150 degrees. by the way circuit boards are made of epoxy-bound woven glass cloth which is cool as hell but what the fuck do you glue that with? can any of the 12 kinds of adhesives I currently own do that? no of course not. if I want to stick two pieces of acrylic together so hard they become watertight to a depth of 3000 metres I have some shit that does that, but it does literally nothing else.

anyway. once you start learning how many kinds of sticking things together there are, the people at 3M start to seem like witches and I don't know if they're the kind we can trust with that level of arcane knowledge

Can I introduce you to one of the most useful sites from the early web? It’s thistothat.com and it tells you what kind of adhesives work to stick different types of substances together. It looks like it was designed in 1999 with some ads slapped over the top, because it was designed in 1999…. But like most things from the early web, it does what’s on the label: tells you how to stick this to that.

Arcane knowledge my ass, the internet used to be useful about shit.

progress for today on a patch im working on ^_^

These are smocking patterns. If you stitch these patterns into flat fabric and then pull the threads to gather the fabric, it will produce these patterns on the finished fabric. Smocking manipulates flat fabric into three dimensions.

The beautiful fabric that looked like dragon scales on costumes in the tv show Game of Thrones were produced by smocking, by sewing a particular pattern into the fabric and then pulling those threads just the right amount to gather the fabric into that pattern.

The Fish Jacket in all its glory!

I don't know what to say.. I started the jacket 10 months ago. What a journey! I'm so proud and happy!

Thanks for your lovely and kind words and the overwhelming interest! Happy stitching everyone.

bugs!!!!!!!

Note: You don't have to know how to make anything fancy. Just do you know the basics well enough to at least get started?

(Please reblog for a larger sample size)

vt

I hope this posts in order! @twink-on-the-brink​ @gracefulvaudeville​

UPDATE: FIRST ATTEMPT

Him BABY

This post went in an amazing direction

To the folks who is responding to my silly little poll about how y'all are progressing on projects during this holiday crunch with "I don't make gifts anymore because they are not appreciated", I am so very sorry y'all have had that experience.

I sometimes think we all have.

I no longer paint, because as a teen I spent months on a painting for my sperm donor in yet another attempt to bring out of him the father I always wanted. He promptly began criticizing everything that was wrong. Heartbroken, I took it back on the pretense I was going to "fix" it. Years later, after I finally ended my relationship with him; I burned it in a ritual as a final break from him.

I never painted a picture again. Rarely drew.

Having someone not appreciate your gift or are pointedly indifferent to it will shatter your soul.

To all y'all who have experienced this, I am so very sorry. I give to you my sincerest love and deepest hope that none of us experience that ever again.

Also, I am so proud of y'all for protecting yourselves! It is not worth the pain and anger to go through that shit again. I know some of y'all have that deep-rooted guilt because you have heard "but <insert excuse>" your whole fucking life until it just sits inside you giving your internal bully ammo to hit you with. (Especially true when it comes to family.) Let me assure y'all, it's bullshit and it eventually goes away.

To those who are planning to give handmade gifts, may each and every onr bring the kind of joy that sets your soul alight.

I stopped making handmade gifts after one year in which I made for each one of my aunts hand embroidered kitchen sets, I was still in high shool and had started to learn "seriously" how to embroider just to make those gifts, one of them didn't even bring her set home... After that, even if the present itself was not handmade, I always decorated the pakage with something handmade that could be used as an ornament, I stopped after they where all left behind (or even thrown away) for two years in a row...

Needless to say, now my family complains that I don't do those trinkets anymore that made "such a nice package... now they are so anonimous" -.-

I had sort of a reverse thing happening to me. After I knit a beautiful scarf for my boyfriend and he not only never wore it but we broke up three months later, I went on a knitting rampage and made half a dozen scarves I gave to an association making Christmas packages for homeless people and refugees. It was my way to reclaim this craft by associating it with other memories. I did it two years in a row and then made a scarf for my mum last year and now I don’t have this urge to knit scarves anymore.

But I don’t really make handmade gifts anymore because it takes me so much energy I don’t have for a result I’m not even sure the person will like..

Every fun post on here that encourages people to have hobbies/be creative always gets an avalanche of "Some people are poor Karen" type reactions and respectfully, you're all super annoying. I've never lived above the poverty line and this is a list of hobbies I have that were cheap or entirely free:

And lastly and most importantly: Share! Share your supllies, share your knowledge. Surround yourself with other creative people and before you know it someone will give you a pot of homemade jam and when you want to paint your kabinet someone will have leftover paint in just the right color and you can give them a homemade candle in return and everyone is having fun and building skills and friendships and not a cent is exchanged. We have always lived like this, it's what humans are build to do.

And all of it sure beats sitting behind a computer going "No stranger, I refuse to let myself have a good time."

Anyway I'm logging off bc I'm making some badges for a friend who cooked for me and then I'm going to fix some holes in everyones clothes.

Also for any hobby or just life, there's always the Buy Nothing Project and freecycle and Trash Nothing where people exchange things rather than throwing away stuff they don't need!

How I join skeins

Cleeeeeveeer!

It's good to learn, remember, and share stuff like this.

When my mom or her sisters did crochet growing up, their dickhead older brothers thought it was hilarious to snip the yarn somewhere in the middle of the bundle. I suspect mom would've found a trick like this really handy.

Oh, this is a modified Russian join!

Here’s a full one:

1) find the end of both pieces. I’m using an off-white and a variegated green so you can easily see what I’m doing, but this can be used to join any two pieces of yarn that are the same weight as each other whether they’re the same color or not.

2) wrap the ends around each other like this. You don’t actually have to lay them down, I did it for clarity in the photos.

3) you’ll need a needle like this. They’re sold under the names “tapestry needle” or “yarn needle.” If you ever manage to find them made out of bamboo or wood, PLEASE TELL ME.

4) thread the yarn through itself as shown in the video above. HOWEVER, where that video shows strand #1 being threaded into strand #2, with the Russian join you’ll thread strand #1 back into itself, using the wrap around strand #2 as an anchor point. I use my toes as a “third hand” when doing stuff like this, but I’ve also seen people use the heel of their hand or a convenient paperweight or even nothing at all. Whatever will let you create a tight join is what you want to use.

Make sure you get this loop as small as you can.

5) repeat on strand #2. Trim the remaining ends.

6) you’re done! This is one of the strongest joins in crochet and knitting. It’s virtually undetectable in a finished project, and because of the wraparound shown in step #2 it can’t pull apart like a knot will.

Actually, wait…

7) don’t forget to put away your needle! “I’ll just stick it in the ball for later” is a comforting lie. The needle will disappear into the ball and you will never see it again, unless your foot finds it later. Don’t do it to yourself. PUT IT AWAY.

textile

Cultures/periods: Chimu (?) Chancay (?)

Production date: 900-1430

Made in: Peru

Provenience unknown, possibly looted

British Museum

KITTY

The ancient kitty speaks to me. I must stitch him. I’ve tried my hand at recreating the pattern for everyone’s stitching joy:

I just did this, and was delighted to see someone already did their own take on it! Look at us all, across the ages and lands, making the same cat…

And here you have a link to it as a pattern on braceletbook!

textile

Cultures/periods: Chimu (?) Chancay (?)

Production date: 900-1430

Made in: Peru

Provenience unknown, possibly looted

British Museum

KITTY

The ancient kitty speaks to me. I must stitch him. I’ve tried my hand at recreating the pattern for everyone’s stitching joy:

I just did this, and was delighted to see someone already did their own take on it! Look at us all, across the ages and lands, making the same cat...

Weaving goldfish with corn leaves

I had to go buy corn and try this myself

I am literally in the middle of a cornfield. gonna try this tomorrow