Cheklov's Stuff

Last month, I decided to was time for MOAR HATS.   So I went to see momma and her beautiful sewing room so I could efficiently cut out the pieces for some more damn hats. Yay! I have the stuff for two ready to go once I stop being a lazy fucking uncreative bum. Then I went SHOPPING for SUPPLIES!   Above are my handstitching supplies for the aforementioned hats. A nice, heavy silk thread in (you can't tell because my light sucks) white, cream and black. I was so tempted to color match but... even black thread is kinda rare in period so I just said screw it, simple colors are FINE.  Also I gave in and got some marking chalky/waxy not chalk/crayon things. Maybe my hand stitched seamlines will be less atrocious this time.    Next, I got a crapton of PAINT (and paint adjacent supplies) and I guess a RULER which I keep forgetting about even though it's RIGHT THERE. I'm pretty sure I don't have enough black paint but stupid Michaels LITERALLY h...

So, for a looooong time I've been planning on decorating this wooden craft chest I've had kicking around for the better part of ten years, and then filling the damn thing up with largesse and inflicting the resulting craft monster on An Tir's Largesse coordinator (because no way am I presenting this thing directly to whoever the sitting royals are when I finally get it filled - it's taken like two years to get THIS far, so lord knows when I'll actually FINISH). I've actually made a start on the contents - the painted drop spindles and the viking hats are meant for this undertaking, after all. A few days ago the bug to start getting serious on at least finishing out the box bit me hard, and I drafted up an initial plan on how this stupid thing would be painted. Promising, but of course later on I ran into problems and had to rethink this, HEAVILY. So anyway, today I found the chest, emptied it out (incidentally I found 1. my missing grey hoodie and 2. some more f...

So, I'm not sure why this never made it on the blog, but for a while I was making some really nicely ugly 6-panel wool and "linen" viking hats for my SCA largesse chest project. I'll probably get more into that later, but suffice to say, it's been in progress for 2-plus years and is proceeding at the speed these things normally do, for me. Hahaha... *sigh* I don't actually know how period these babies are, but they're pretty accepted as a nice, comfortable and stylish hat at events. I think it's justified based on a Birka find, but that might have only been a four panel hat - I'm just not sure, and I'm honestly too lazy to get into the research again. (I lied, I looked, and yeah, there was a 6-panel hat from Birka .) Mine are... okay, so my wool? In these it's basically an old olive drab wool blanket. It's a nice, ugly color that I could achieve with natural dyes if I tried, and my "linen" is (on hat 1) an old linen tablecloth...

I love cosplay. I really do. Sometimes I hit on just the right character and I can make something that turns out pretty decent.  Sadly, most of the time my procrastination eats my face and things don't turn out the way I'd hoped; see all my incomplete cosplays, alas. I am after all a master of procrastination. However, this year I was originally gonna do one thing, then i was cruising through patterns idly when I saw Simplicity pattern 8971 and I started getting IDEAS. I saw that and wanted to make a Ho-Oh gijinka. BORB. Obviously the pattern as-is is never gonna fit me, and will have to be sized up dramatically to get close, which means it's time to finally make myself a custom dress form out of duct tape, hurrah! So I always build my inital concept off of what the pattern has available - that looked like this: But now I gotta consider what will actually look good with my body, as well as realistic modifications. That involved ...

So I ordered some more mill ends because I ran out. Not quite as many as last time, but still quite a bit - about ten and a half ounces. It'll keep me busy for a little bit longer, which is nice. These mill ends are from GoatsMagosh - they have an etsy , but I found these through Amazon . Stop judging me this is a much better addiction than others I could have. I think between the three packs I got, there is enough for some more of the fire rolags, though obviously not in the same shades. Might be a little low on orange but I have more reds this time. The MVPs of the whole lot are these two dark colored batches - one dark purple, one dark blue - and they are shot through with shimmery other colors. HELLA pretty. There was a surprisingly large amount of pink in this mix, but I do think blue may have won in sheer quantity, though I think red and pink won in shades. Also there is this one crazy blended fiber in there that reminds me of th...

So I've still been making rolags. But I've eventually got to do something with them. The problem is... I am really bad at drop spindle. I'd need a third hand to actually be comfortable doing it, and that's just not something I've quite figured out how to grow yet. But I'm also being really shitty about getting my spinning wheel out of the box, finished and learning how to use it. Recently, I won a 3D printed turkish spindle from the crafting thread I've mentioned in a previous post; I LOVE IT. However, loving it does not in fact make me any better at spinning, it turns out it just makes me more frustrated that I can't produce a nice even single. I've been trying to practice with some rolags that turned out sub-par, colorwise, and so far it's just...a big ole chunky mess. And that's mostly intentional; I'm more focused on trying to get the motions back before I start trying to reclaim any pitiful skills that ...