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olderthannetfic · 7 months

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This might be an odd or personal question, but could I ask how you started knitting and where you started as a beginner? Or what would you recommend? I’ve tried to join clubs and groups irl, but there’s so much drama and gossiping. When I said I didn’t want to take part in that aspect, they started ostracizing and gossiping about me. Any websites, yt channels or books you’d recommend for a beginner?

Haha.

My friend, this does not even register on the scale of deeply personal or odd questions people have sent me.

I've been trying to remember exactly how I started and why (like, even before this ask). I think it was on a family vacation to Scotland the summer before I started college. That would have been in 1999.

I taught myself from one of those awful 90s pamphlets with the line drawings. They're a nightmare compared to being able to see someone do the motions in person or even in a video. I had some awful plastic needles and no guidance on yarn and just knit with what I found at some shop there. Do not recommend!

I achieved what I wanted during college, which was to make a nice cable-knit sweater that I still wear, and then I got frustrated with crappy acrylic yarn and drifted away from knitting until a year or so ago.

The fact is, I basically didn't do beginner projects. I moved straight from making one rectangle to making grandiose sweaters or whatever else struck my fancy. (But if you want to know, I was using Viking Patterns for Knitting and a bunch of Alice Starmore books, all of which you can still buy.) I know plenty of people who did it this way, but you certainly don't have to.

And you definitely don't need to learn from a terrible 90s printed pamphlet!

Luckily, nowadays, you can find a tutorial on just about anything on Youtube. I enjoy watching the technical and historical types discuss quirks of knitting you might not think of without years of practice or research.

Roxanne Richardson is great, for example.

Look for somebody old, not wearing a lot of makeup, and not talking about their indie dyeing/yarn business and you'll avoid most of the clowns who learned to knit five minutes ago and now want to be knitfluencers.

When I want a super simple technique tutorial, I usually end up looking at either Nimble Needles or VeryPink Knits. I find her super annoying, but her tutorials are spot-on. Norman's voice is much more soothing and I just enjoy his presence more, but both of them have good ultra close-up shots of what they're doing (which lots of vloggers don't because it requires special equipment).

I'd just figure out what kind of finished products you want to use knitting for and then find patterns and tutorials geared towards those.

Cables are relatively easy. Stranded colorwork requires a fair amount of physical coordination and some people find it rather difficult at first.

Circular needles are far more popular than traditional straight ones for people starting today.

Cotton yarn is relatively less nice to knit with than wool for most people, but it tends to be the natural fiber available at a low price point from major retailers.

Picking up general tips like that by watching various youtubers will help you pick a project that won't be too painful to work on.

People who naturally knit loosely should consider grippy bamboo or wooden needles. People who naturally knit tightly should consider slippery metal ones.

My biggest piece of advice is that you're usually better off with something "hard" that you actually like rather than a "practice" project you don't care about, at least after you've made like one rectangle to practice doing a knit stitch at all.

Finding community can be hard, and yes, some crafting hobbies are infested with drama.

But if you just want to know how to knit, you're way better off with some video tutorials and a nice pattern you like.

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merovingian-marvels · 10 months

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Tablet weaving

Tablet weaving or Card weaving is a weaving technique used for belts or trims. Instead of weaving on a loom, a certain amount of yarn lengths are placed through cards, with the yarn being tightened between a post and the weaver's own body. The pattern being created by turning the cards in a certain direction.

Tablet weaving has been around since the Iron Age, with the oldest examples being found in Hallstatt, Austria dated around 1200 B.C. (3200 years old), and was commonly used in European dress until the Viking age (1000 A.D.). The use later declined with mass produced textiles on big looms being more and more common. Scientists have no idea how patterns were invented or taught to new weavers. No examples of written patterns exist from this 3500 year time span.

Image copyright and content:

Hallstatt and Dürnberg textile remnants, Regina Hofmann-de Keizer

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vintagerpg · 1 year

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H. Beam Piper’s Space Viking — this is the 1977 Ace edition, fronted by a typically fantastic Michael Whelan painting.

Gotta admit, when I first picked this up, it was as a joke because the title struck me as fairly hilarious. However, it is actually extremely good! The title sets expectations — the novel is a sprawling interplanetary science fiction yarn concerning war, politics, murder and revenge that maps broadly to the action of Viking saga. It is a very different sort of book, really, but I think it kind of rhymes with Poul Anderson’s Broken Sword in a funny kind of way?

I also didn’t know it at the time, but the novel is also a huge, direct influence on Traveller. It takes place among the Sword Worlds, each named for a famous sword from Earth’s legends. There is a ship named Beowulf. There’s a strangely feudal empire, though it is rapidly decaying and falling into disarray (anticipating the Imperium’s shattering in MegaTraveller and its ruin in New Era, and the emergence of…Star Vikings).

#RPG #TTRPG #Tabletop RPG #roleplaying game #D&D #Dungeons & Dragons #H Beam Piper #Space Viking #Traveller

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comfortabletextiles · 9 months

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Sooo, my last stash Tour was 2 years an 1 month ago, and I think it is a good time to do it again (no I am not procrastinating, totally not)

Spinning fodder

What left the stash:

Almost everyone on here got turned into yarn, except the pink one, that is still a roving and the the bunch of fiber in the right bottom corner. That will be plushy stuffing in the future

What stayed: I have SO MUCH of the south German Merino and linen. I'm not Shure if I'll ever be able to spin it 🤣

And what is new :)

Black mini batt with some glitter. Onion dyed batts. Ouessant/something mix, rolags by @swords-n-spindles 💛 some mohair and silk cocoons

Aaand a black white roving, 4 different colors of cotton, two braids of linen and a hand dyed super wash Merino roving

(not pictured the test sets for fine and luxury yarn)

Yarn, bought:

Most of the bought yarn is used (especially the white ones , or thrown away (dye mishap) ore only partly used.

What is still here:

This greenish yarn gets its own pic, it is so gorgeous, and I have no idea how much I have, what is in there, and what to do with it. (What you can't see is the absolute beautiful shimmer it has. There is ether some mohair or silk in it) the only thing I know about it is, it is gorgeous and my phone still sucks at portaging green

Then some hand dyed bought yarn from the phoenix socks and the socks for my older brothers family, a set for a sprang bag I bought this year, bits of yarn without much use, some cotton I bought for tablet weaving at the beginning of COVID in Europe, 100g of 4ply I also bought this year (I forgot for what, but I think I'll make a plushie with it) and some 2ply wool yarn I bought for weaving

And the yarn I bought on the Viking fair (not pictured, I'm running out of space 😬)

Now to the hand spun stuff!

What left:

Top turned into a lovely cardigan, and the bottom right green got gifted to a dear friend, bottom left is being used right now to be turned Into a hoodie

The other three are part of a very messy and warm sweater (the pink is also a Barett for my niece)

What is still there: cat yarn, Test scrabs, mini skeins (the two skeins on the bottom right are used)

What is new:

Tdf yarn from I don't know when, and all the spin along yarns so far (July still missing...)

3 skeins of south German Merino 4ply and a bunch of lace yarns I still have

Also not pictured: the steam experiment yarn and some bits and scrabs (I'm out of space for pictures)

I wasn't aware how much stuff I still have! I problay can go without buying anything for 2 years 😅😅😅 I also have way to much yarn where I don't know what to do with it...

#stash #stash tour #i should remeasure some of those skeins #stash tour 2023

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dailyadventureprompts · 1 year

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Doesnt the Skyscour Clan feel like the sort to follow the Revolation Tyrant Mnyull? Or, rather, ride at his front...

Imagine the days leading up to impact, portals tearing onto unsuspecting planets, ships descending from the silver void, legions of untold number raiding whole wildspaces.

Then they suddenly scatter, with or without their prize, the star vikings and astral war boys clear out as if smoked like bees.

Only days, if even that, are given to the raided few before a cosmic armageddon makes impact.

Campaign: Shore of the Silver Sea

As this eagle eyed reader mentioned, there’s been a trend in my writing over the past few months, seemingly unconnected occurrences that herald something great and cosmic, the emergence of a new campaign to launch your parties from the beach of the mundane into the vast and wondrous depths of the astral sea.

Our Story begins as many do, in the aftermath of a great storm: With the party having only a few nights past taken shelter in a portside tavern known as the Long Walk, waiting out the rain and the wind in the traditional manner: sitting by the hearth with the other patrons as they listen to the old salts spin yarns. One of those patrons was fellow of the royal botany society, who was more than happy to hire the party on as guides and escorts as he explores and documents the flora of the coast. This intrepid ( if a bit tepid) expedition rapidly heats up as the party stumble across a hidden cove and the fresh wrecks of two ships, one civilian, one royal navy, cast far from the sea and left without survivors.

This discovery leads the party to getting caught up in a silent tug-of-war between the navy and a secretive faction of smugglers, with one wrong decision ( likely them filling their packs with plundered goods) ending the party up on the wrong side of the law. On their way back to town however, the party watch as a light falls from the sky over the barony, forever changing their fates as they return to a realm that’s been touched by the stars.

Early Game

One of the tall tales told by the sailors at the Long Walk was of a marauding reaver king who invoked the ire of the sea god, who in turn brought down a wave so mighty that it smashed the reaver’s fleet to splinters and buried him in the rubble of his own castle. Buried so they say.. along with all the treasure he had taken from raiding richer ports... and while the story is likely exaggerated... it wouldn’t hurt to go take a look, would it?

Strange rumours trickle in from the hinterlands, odd folk on the roads, sightings of unnatural animals, talk of a cave where whispers of the past and imagined tomorrows dance. All of these threads will lead the party to a meeting with a potential mentor, an old lighthouse keeper who holds the mystery of the stars and stands against the cold cruelty of the void. Perhaps he can shed some illumination on the party’s current struggles

The star’s falling has caused chaos in the region’s capital: an arson spree, the baroness forcefully conscripting oracles, sightings of a dragon out in the wilderness. Trekking along with a professional hunter, the party discover that they are not on the tale of some feral drake looking to move into new territory, but a full dragon who seems to be purposefully searching the region with the help of a masked rider.

As it turns out, the dragon and rider are travellers from the astral sea, pilgrims following an omen from the goddess of guidance and starlight. They followed the star across worlds until it landed in the barony, and was eventually misplaced by a hapless young man rounded up by the baroness’s agents shortly after becoming an accidental oracle and asking the party for help earlier on their travels. Reuniting the star with its chosen seekers grants the party a vision of the future, of an attack they will not have time to avert.

Mid Game

Hollowed out by eons of immortality and war, a clan of astral elves has ripped open a portal and begun raiding the original port city the party started their adventure in, snapping up goods and taking hostages. Here is a decision point: should the party rush to save the innocents before help can be raised, they will be overwhelmed, taken captive and hauled away to the raider’s stronghold. Should they rally their new allies and arrive in force, they will be too late, and will have to seek out another means of travelling beyond the reaches of the waking world.

In the latter option, the party will find themselves portalling to Lydestrum, a city of glass floating in an eternal gyre of mist and wind, and the hub of their outerworld adventures. Here they might begin their search for the pirates by seeking rumors at the alien filled docks, make an alliance with local powers by helping to wrangle some storm-tossed architecutre, or simply sign on to a spelljammer ship and begin to learn their space-legs.

The bright maiden Urania is not the only goddess at work among the stars, for as the party explore the city they hear the name and see the handiwork of Nyx, Mother of Primordial Darkness. Catching a night blessed thief is enough to earn the party Nyx’s attention, who decides to rope the party into a little wager involving her astronomic counterpart and the disaperance of a sacred lantern before an imporatant voyage.

After meeting an artisan who can make marvelous weapons out of light, the party end up getting snared in local politics after this new friend is kidnapped from their shop. The trail leads them into conflict with blackmarket dealers from the plane of exiles and getting mixed up with the glass city’s political powers.

Tangling with the astral sea’s criminal element may have just paid off, as the party have managed to snag themsleves a star-chart pointing to what just might be the haul of a lifetime: The long abandoned manor of an archmage hidden in the vastness of the silver sea. What they find instead is a labyrinth of nightmare and splendour and fungus, which just might hold power and secrets that will aid them as the campaign closes.

One of the expeditions sailing out of the star port has its aim on discovering the much speculated origin of an eerie signal coming from a haunted nebula. As luck would have it, this happens to be a regional base of the elven pirates who attacked the party’s homeworld, who destroy the ship they’re travelling on, capture their companions, and leave the party stranded in the frigid barrens of a meteor field. Searching for shelter, they find the origin of the signal: the partial wreck of a long abandoned jammership still attempting to deliver its message. With a little elbow grease and some ghostly aid, the party can take this ship as their own, bring vengeance against he pirates, and begin hunting for the villains who set this all in motion.

Late Game

The party’s enemies are not simply slavers and pirates, they are recent converts to the following of Mnyull the revelation tyrant, a god of interplanetary conquest. He has tasked the rabid immortals with the reunification of their long scattered army, and the reactivation of the ancient weapon they were once tasked with guarding, a labour to which many including the party’s old friends have been put to work. If Mynull’s plan comes to completion, whole systems will be forced to submit, and if the party can bring evidence of this to their allies in Lydestrum, they may just have a chance to fight the pirate fleet on equal terms.

Fighting an army is one thing, defeating a god is another, and so the party are counselled to seek out the great celestial sage who makes weapons at the star-goddess’s behest. Therein the party must undertake a sea-spanning quest to gather the materials necessary to withstand their struggle: Venturing into shadowed vaults within the core of a moon-sized forge, seeking out the most dangerous and beautiful of lights at the edge of known space.

The Revelation Tyrant cares nothing for the fate of his pawns, merely that victory is achieved in his name, and so has planted the same vision of supremacy into the Skyscour elves as he did the leaders of Lydestrum. The idea of a weapon that could strike far away worlds, tribute and glory delivered by subjugated neighbours, a threat to that glory by a challenger from afar and the need to strike before that challenge is made. No matter who wins the battle, Mnyull benefits from the outcome, as the leader of the victorious force will be struck by further visions and ascend as the Tyrant’s physical avatar.

The Party will be hunted, possibly by former allies, into the depths of wildspace, unable to return home lest they single out their humble world as a target for the weapon. In that lonely and desperate moment the goddess will appear to them: Nyx, merciful but resigned will offer them a shroud, a means of hiding their world from Mnyull’s sight and sparing themselves the conquest others will doubtlessly suffer provided they give up sailing the astral sea forever. Bright Urania offers them a chance, a divinely ordained heading to slip back around their pursuers, back past the fleet they helped to provision and the weapon they ensured would be completed, and right to the foot of the tyrant’s throne. It is only a chance though, no guarantee they can pull it off without loss and sacrifice, no guarantee that they will win in the end.

We all know what the party will choose, Nyx does too, and when the heroes jet off to go on their suicide mission they’ll do so with the ancient goddess working from the shadows to turn aside the eyes of wary sentries. She’s had a cold, dark vault beyond the boundaries of reality picked out for Mnyull for quite some time. She just needed him to make the mistake of incarnating himself in one place so she could stick him in there all at once.

Art

#10 points to anon for paying attention #your note keeping would keep you and your friends alive in one of my games #dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #5e #spelljammer #campaign #Campaign start #sailing #astral #low level #mid level #high level #deity #nyx #prompt postage #Adventure Compendium

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