dawnthread

[dawnthread]

i'm re-blocking the dracula's bride shawl to wear to my cousin's wedding next weekend, and i'm cracking up a little over "the portable karl marx" still being thicc enough to use as a blocking mat weight XD

#god bless my old textbooks #now if only i could get my hands on some doorstopper fantasy novels #let them serve their TRUE ultimate purpose XD #knitblr #knitting #dracula's bride shawl #lace knitting #blocking #dawnposts #karl marx #<- there's one i didn't think would make a feature here XD

[dawnthread]

five gil for a flower? :3

#knitblr #knitting #plushies #bunny plush #ffvii #buster sword #origami #MMMMMMMM HE'S SO CUTE I LOVE HOW HE TURNED OUT #one of his ears is just stubbornly flopping over but i love it #it gives him personality :3 #the sword is a utility knife blade i found on the floor and used a band saw to cut the angle on it #i clamped two little scraps of walnut down around it with glue to hold it in place and used a knife to carve it into sword hilt shape #got green aventurine beads from michaels and squeezed them in a clamp until they popped in half #and then glued two halves on either side #and used 1mm black leather cord to wind up the grip #the harness was done in linen stitch with some scrap brown wool i had laying around #i put a neodymium disc magnet in the little pouch on his back to hold the sword with #it had to be strong enough to hold it THROUGH the knit layer #and it's just hook and eye closures in the front #i left the ones on the shoulder straps visible because i thought it made it look a little more official-soldiery #overall i'm pretty happy with it!! #i can put the bunny pattern link in a reblog/reply if anyone wants it #dawnposts #bunster sword

[dawnthread]

here's a better look at the lil toy buster sword, not too shabby for having been made out of a utility knife blade i found on the floor XD

plus, bonus,

harness in progress :3

#knitting #knitblr #plushies #bunny #ffvii #dawnposts #bunster sword #if you noticed that the blade edge is on the wrong side shhh no you didn't #shh it's fine it's a sakabatou

[dawnthread]

so my local yarn shop was selling little plush bunny kits with a super easy pattern and i got one just for fun and my datemate asked me to give him mako eyes and, well...

i mmmmmmay have gone a little overboard and made him a teeny buster sword to go with it XD

#knitblr #knitting #plushies #ffvii #i'm in the process of making him a lil bitty sword harness with a magnet in it #pics to come when i'm done!! #also if anyone wondered how the tactical combat turtleneck was going i did actually finish it #i just burned myself out hard on crunch productivity #and the thought of going back to adjust the fit gave me psychic damage #but that should be cleared up soon :3 #dawnposts #bunster sword

[dawnthread]

You reblogged a dewy spiderweb photoset the other day and commented you made a shawl inspired by that once. Tell us about that, do you have pictures? 👀

I DO ACTUALLY okay so like here's the thing you gotta Understand about me, i get. Intense. about gifts. and when i had my Defining The Relationship conversation with my long-distance then-friend now-datemate (of now over four years!! i love them so much, i'm so happy :D) it happened in february of 2020, so uh. all of our travel plans were pretty immediately kaput due to covid. which meant that i was getting returns on interest on my pent-up first-meeting-in-person, and it had to go SOMEWHERE

so i uh. might. maybe. have gone slightly overboard making them a courting gift, while we waited.

they'd started using spider imagery for me as an endearment after a while of seeing the kinds of stuff i liked to make, so when i found this pattern on ravelry i got a little obsessed with it because doesn't it just vibe like a dewy spiderweb, though??

i had a good couple skeins of this really lovely llama/silk blend yarn (now tragically discontinued, RIP to juniper moon stargazer) that i had intended to use to make a cardigan for someone who ultimately blacklisted herself from my knitworthy-people list, but that's besides the point, because the POINT IS that i found myself staring at the ~1800 yards of it that i had, and the little jars of vintage wooden beads i'd picked up at a flea market ages ago, and uh. look. they didn't NOT remind me of a cute lil jumping spider when i sat them next to each other, is the thing, and the yarn was SO cozy soft, and uh

it turned out B I G

out of all that yardage i literally only had LESS THAN A FOOT left after the bind-off, so i think i pretty successfully won that round of yarn chicken XD

i ended up going even MORE overboard with gifts when i did finally get to meet them in person, because in the meantime i'd made a cedar box with fancy grain matching to put the shawl in and decided THAT wasn't enough so i packed mugs, looseleaf tea, teaspoon measure, animal tea infusers, a family friend's homemade bread, homemade plum chutney, three kinds of cheese (two of which were from the dairy farm i worked at for a year), a cutting board to put all that on, fancy chocolates from the airport, a worksheet with measurements for a sweater to make them later, and a few other odds and ends, along with pillaging the landscaping around the hotel for greenery accents XD

and the funny part is, the way the room was laid out you couldn't immediately see the bed from right inside the doorway, it's around the corner to the left, so when they walked through the door and saw all this and were like "is this your version of a trail of rose petals leading to the bed? XD" i was like "wellllllll,"

"maybe a little bit yeah :3"

and they just cracked up XD

#web shawl #i didn't put it on here because i'd meant to just do the new stuff i'd knit but #i made that also :3 #it's a lovely pattern a+++

[dawnthread]

Dubh is… secret 🐈‍⬛🌃🖤 A surprisingly nuanced charcoal-purple. Dubh is the color of black hair, the night, raven’s feathers, and coal. Shimmering with blue, purple, and brown undertones in the right light, this colorway offers a subtle chance to stand out on the dark end of the spectrum. You can get this colorway dyed to order on any of our yarn bases from the Dathanna collection on our website!

#oh i am LOOKING #this is such a delicious color

[dawnthread]

after a nice long day of being snuggled up with my knitting and a few good movies, it turns out one skein of rowan alpaca soft dk gives me 5 1/2" of sweater, which is very helpful to know! this yarn is RIDICULOUSLY nice to work with, all bouncy and soft, i can't wait to wear this once it's all put together

i usually don't bother with seams if i can avoid them, but i'm making an exception this time as i've heard it helps impose some structure on the garment and with this being ribbing it could use all the structure it can get. fortunately the front and the back are basically identical up until the neck shaping, so i'm good to just keep on chugging until i get there!

#tactical combat turtleneck #knitblr #knitting #ribbing #ffvii

[dawnthread]

after knitting a swatch in 2x1 ribbing and getting some advice on sizing ribbed fabric at my local yarn store i am OFFICIALLY off to the races on the tactical combat turtleneck, it's gonna be a lot easier than i expected!! ribbing sorta shapes itself, so you apparently don't need to worry overmuch about increases/decreases at the sides

i can get into the math later if anyone wants me to lay out the step-by-step for the sizing, it's pretty straightforward algebra - i haven't gotten it all done yet, but since i don't need to worry about shaping adjustments this is enough to get me started while i work out the length, sleeve shaping, and neck shaping!

#tactical combat turtleneck #ffvii #cosplay #knitblr #knitting #ribbing #turtleneck #dawnposts

[dawnthread]

that cosplay feel when you gaze long and hard at the toned body of an anime prettyboy (with sword)...

... to work out the construction of his goddamn turtleneck.

#ffvii #ffviir #ffvii cosplay #knitting #knitblr #dawnposts #tactical combat turtleneck #god bless modern graphics for being good enough to zoom in and go 'yup that's a 2x1 rib.' #i showed that picture to the lady who runs my LYS and she suggested a 2x2 rib #and i was like 'but ms ellen are you sure that's what that is?' #and she was like 'no it's not but he doesn't have a bustline to deal with either.' #and i was like 'So There Is A Very Iconic Scene Where He Actually Very Does Though' XD #and showed her a picture of cloud in the purple dress #she agreed with me when i said he was a snack lmao #i don't even LIKE turtlenecks usually they make me feel strangled but like #this is a Look and i want it so i'm making it happen

[dawnthread]

taking a break after doing a big fancy project to do a small fancy project!! it's an entrelac trinket bag with beading for my datemate to put their dice in, they picked out the colors AND they found me the little jar for the beads!!

#d&d dice #dice bag #knitting #knitblr #entrelac #entrelac knitting #rowan yarn #dice dice baby #dawnposts #it's taking f o r e v e r with the beading but it'll look great when it's done!!

[dawnthread]

dracula's bride by renee linville // castle of otranto mini-skein set by tea time fibers

happy dracula season, everyone!!

#dracula's bride shawl #knitblr #lace knitting #knitting #dawnposts #dracula #dracula daily #re: dracula #re dracula #gothic fashion #fiber arts #finished piece #finished project #IT!! IS!! DONE!!! #I'M SO FUCKING HAPPY #LOOK AT IT #PERCEIVE IT #BEHOLD IT EVEN #what do you think lads did i do good

[dawnthread]

the last time i visited my LYS, there was a lady at the table who was trying to frog something and getting pretty frustrated with it and i, vibrating intensely in Imminent Puzzle Stim Enrichment, was like "please let me take care of that for you actually"

i didn't finish it while i was there so she let me take it home, i'm gonna drop it back off tomorrow, but it got me thinking - i know most people think that frogging stuff and untangling yarn barf are excruciatingly tedious miseries, but i actually have a lot of fun doing it, and maybe that's something i could make a little bit of pocket change doing, if people took me up on it? when i'm down there i'll ask and see if maybe they'd let me set a basket or something out like "drop off your yarn barfs, tangles, and to-be-frogged items, and i'll fix them for you for the low low price of $5!"

they might already offer that service in-house, i don't know, but it can't hurt to ask!

#knitblr #frogging #yarn barf #dawnposts #what do you guys think - if you could outsource frogging something for a minor convenience fee would you? #especially if it was someone doing it through your LYS?

[dawnthread]

hey, everybody!

no pressure or obligation to act on this, but my family is doing a really cool thing and i'm trying to spread the word about it!

a team of my cousins are preparing to run the berlin marathon together, and they're representing (and raising money for!) two substance abuse and addiction recovery organizations: Release Recovery in new york, and the High Watch Recovery Center in connecticut, where two of my family members currently work. we're all really proud of what they're doing, and i'm trying to do my bit to help out!

i linked my cousin sean's page above, he's come a long way down an incredibly difficult road of recovery so this cause is near and dear to his and all of our hearts. i'd also encourage reading my other cousins' pages as well! sparky's, john's, and katrina's are for High Watch too, while david's and bryan's are for Release Recovery.

if you wanted to send a single donation to be split evenly between them all, though, john has volunteered to organize that through his venmo @John-McGowan-6 to make it easier!!

again, obviously no pressure to donate, i know we're all basically passing the same $20 bill around in circles, but it's a really fantastic cause spearheaded by some genuinely good people in my family and i just want to do my best to get the word out for them - i would super appreciate it if anyone's willing to pitch in!

#reblogging over here too just in case!! #this is my family guys it's a really good cause #if you've liked seeing my work i would really love it if you'd consider chipping in for this!!

[dawnthread]

Hi!! I’m just getting into knitting things like garments (I’ve only really done little things like scarves or hats or toys) so I don’t really understand what blocking is? Or why to do it?

oh, yeah, okay!!

first of all, congratulations on getting into knitting, i hope you're having a ton of fun with it!

second of all, my local yarn shop has a whole article about blocking basics, which is super helpful, but i'll give you my spin on it too

so there's a couple different methods of blocking, but the one i use the most is called "wet blocking," which is where you soak your thing in lukewarm water (with a bit of no-rinse-needed wool wash like Eucalan or Soak, if you have any!) for a while, squeeze it out gently until it's still heavily damp but not dripping, and lay it on a mat to stretch it out and pin it in place to dry like that. this is the method that gives you the most dramatic change in both shape and fabric density, because soaking the knit relaxes the fibers in the yarn and lets you really haul away at it to open up the design, and that's important for lace knitting because basically all lace just looks like a sad yarn lump when it's fresh off the needles. when you block it, though...

this was a past project i finished - see how much nicer that looks?

for lace (and cabling, to a different extent), the way your fabric tensions itself as you do all the texture work makes it scrunch up weirdly, and blocking it is how you get it to smooth itself out and look pretty. for lace, it means you can also get some dramatic shaping going on at the edges that you wouldn't have been able to see otherwise, like those pointy curves in the one up above, or the little bats in this other one!

it's also important for doing fitted garments like sweaters, because it gives you more control over how big the fabric you're making is actually, ultimately going to be.

it's a great safety check against a sweater getting awkwardly stretched out in the wash, because if you knit a test swatch and block it, you get a preview of how the fabric is going to behave later, and use that to inform your sizing choices now. it can also give you some wiggle room on a pattern gauge that you can't quite match with the yarn/needles you're using! if you're trying to do a sweater and your gauge is just a little bit smaller than what they say will give you your pattern size, try blocking a swatch and seeing what it looks like when you stretch it to match the pattern gauge.

if you're doing anything with seams, i would also strongly recommend blocking the pieces before you seam them together! it makes it a hell of a lot easier to get at the selvedge stitch when you start sewing, and it also lets you ensure that all your pieces are the exact size you want them to be before you put them all together. especially if you're knitting with wool (and i think other animal fibers like alpaca?) and you use steam blocking, like they said in the article - that will physically change the shape of the fibers and lock your piece in place at the exact size you want it to be.

i would also recommend getting some blocking mats to do it on? you can just pin it to a towel, it's what i used to do, but believe me, it's SO much easier with a set of blocking mats. you can see how they have those gridlines marked on them, right? that helps you keep track of how your work is lining up with itself, and whether one side is proportionally the same as the other side! it's not crucial, but it's definitely a quality-of-life upgrade.

i have three sets of the hephaestus crafts ones, they come with a box of pins, a tape measure, and nine interlocking foam squares with a 1" grid printed on them that you can set up however you want. they cost about $30, and i've been pretty happy with them, even if one of them did come with the gridlines printed on the wrong side ;P

anyway, i hope this answered your question!! tl;dr,

#knitting #lace knitting #knitblr #knitting advice #blocking #somehow i suspect that this kind of blocking isn't the kind of blocking that most people on tumblr are talking about XD #still though i hope it helps!! feel free to ask anything else and i'll do my best to answer #dawnasks

[dawnthread]

aaaaaand it is BLOCKED!!

all i need to do now is wait a couple days for it to dry, and then unpin it

each one of those mat blocks is about a foot square, for scale - i need to get another set of them, i had to cannibalize out from underneath the shawl body to get the perimeter big enough to pin it all out, i've been meaning to do that for ages and not done it yet

the finished-finished product is getting so close i can taste it

#dracula's bride shawl #knitblr #lace knitting #knitting #dawnposts #dracula daily #re: dracula #blocking #laundry

[dawnthread]

tumblr was being weird about adding more pictures ;P

behold, the bath!

AND WE'RE FINALLY FINALLY DONE TUCKING TAILS IN, GOOD LORD THAT TOOK SO LONG

and without further ado, time for blocking, because all lace no matter what comes off the needles looking like a sad yarn lump XD

this one is actually a lot nicer-looking than a lot of other ones i've done, but it can still use a little help!

we start off with some wool wash:

this stuff is FANTASTIC, they sell it at my local yarn shop - you can use it for anything delicate/handwash, not just wool!! all you do is put a teaspoon in per gallon of water (they say to use cool water, but lukewarm is fine!), and let your stuff soak for a little while! my shawl is pretty big, so i used two gallons of water and 2 tsp of wool wash

i got this lil man at a flea market years ago and i love him, and the bucket was from a tack and feed store! it has measurement lines on the inside up to 8 quarts, which is great for drawing a blocking soak.

anyway! add the wool wash, pour it out into a bigger bucket to mix it up some more,

and put the shawl in for a bath!

[dawnthread]

AND WE'RE FINALLY FINALLY DONE TUCKING TAILS IN, GOOD LORD THAT TOOK SO LONG

and without further ado, time for blocking, because all lace no matter what comes off the needles looking like a sad yarn lump XD

this one is actually a lot nicer-looking than a lot of other ones i've done, but it can still use a little help!

we start off with some wool wash:

this stuff is FANTASTIC, they sell it at my local yarn shop - you can use it for anything delicate/handwash, not just wool!! all you do is put a teaspoon in per gallon of water (they say to use cool water, but lukewarm is fine!), and let your stuff soak for a little while! my shawl is pretty big, so i used two gallons of water and 2 tsp of wool wash

i got this lil man at a flea market years ago and i love him, and the bucket was from a tack and feed store! it has measurement lines on the inside up to 8 quarts, which is great for drawing a blocking soak.

anyway! add the wool wash, pour it out into a bigger bucket to mix it up some more,

and put the shawl in for a bath!

#dracula's bride shawl #knitblr #lace knitting #knitting #blocking #laundry #dracula daily #dawnposts #IT'S DOOOOOONE #tumblr's being weird about images so i'll put my last pic in the reblog XD #WE'RE IN THE HOME STRETCH LADS #STAY TUNED FOR FINISHED-FINISHED PICS SOON