How Dost Thou Faire?

You know that little voice that always tells you that you have way more time to get stuff done than what you think?

Yeah, it's a real bitch.

And it seems to be plaguing my entire life at the moment.

Take my Fade shawl for example.

I started the bloody thing back in May. I had originally intended to finish it for the Destination Yarn open house in July, but that didn't happen.

So then I moved my goal to done before Ren Faire.

That also didn't happen. 

But surely I could finish it in time for the latest pj party?

Nope.

I'm still on section 11. I'm *closer* to the end. But not quite close enough. So, once again the deadline gets moved.

Ren Faire also hit me like a freight train. I had elaborate plans for my costume this year... want to guess what never magically materialized?

Grandma ended up doing practically everything for us, for which I'm eternally grateful.

I did, however, make myself a giant set of horns because why the hell not?

They were a hit, as I had many people compliment me on them and ask for pictures. Not bad for doing them in less than 24 hours.

I didn't actually take any pics of things at the faire itself, but here are a bunch of pics of me and the friendos.

I also wore a shirt this year that....errrr..... worked better with my corset.

Heaving bosoms... heaving bosoms everywhere.

I bought a few little treasures, too.

I also bought a wee little stained glass star, but I forgot to grab it when taking pics.

But lest you feel like you're missing out, I made a TOTALLY ACCURATE REPRESENTATION for you.

See? You can TOTALLY envision it now!

You are very welcome.

John got me this adorable pair of glass owl earrings.

AND FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN OUR TWELVE YEAR RELATIONSHIP HE BOUGHT ME A DAMN FLOWER

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go faint 'pon yonder fainting couch from shock.

Creatively Untitled: A List Post Project

Do you know what D&D actually stands for?

That would be Dead and Devoid of all energy.

It's been taking up so much of my time and energy over these past two- wait, no three... yeah, three  months (we took that long for character creation, one-on-one starter sessions, and me personally working on the campaign setting) that I really haven't been focusing on much else. But we finally, FINALLY have started and from how well things are going, I think I'll be able to take a breather and  actually work on other things alongside this.

So, to get y'all caught up....

LIST POST TIME

*confetti cannons here*

1. First, let's talk about my knitting.

My intention was to have this finished in time to wear to the Destination Yarn open house later this month. Especially because this shawl would feature two different DY colors. 

But after doing the math and having a heart-to-heart with myself... well, for the first time ever, I'm not going to finish a shawl in time to meet my deadline.

I'm surprisingly okay with it. It had to happen at some point and I'd rather it be something that was more of a "this would be nice" thing than a "OH MY GOD THIS RUINS EVERYTHING" sort of deal.

2. I ended up making another moth.

She's quite a bit bigger than my first one. And yes, she does look a little like the Centipeedle in Steven Universe. It was unintentional at first, but as I went along, she kind of grew into it. 

I adore her and she now lives on my lovely new shelf along with my other plushies.

3. I made a mini dice bag for my miniature dice that I use for my crow companion for my character.

Yes, I know that the yarn obscures the cables, but I REALLY wanted to use only scraps for this. It's made mostly with the teeny little bit of yarn I had leftover from Polar Bear in a Snowstorm.

4. We ended up taking both Bethany and Vi with us to Origins last month and it was so much more fun like that. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

5. I'm SUPER friggin proud of this crow painting I did for Lily.

6.  John and I actually did something crafty TOGETHER!

These are traveler's journals we made. And I do mean "we." He did almost all the work on his own! My little crafty goddess heart nearly burst with joy.

7. I've been meeting real life mothy friends and I couldn't be happier. 

8. We've been playing Pokemon Go again. Vi and I have been painting the town yellow.

9. It's actually been a few days since I've started writing this and I'm now on the 5th color of my Fade shawl.

10. I may or may not be planning out the yarn for like a dozen more of these.

11. Yes, that's highly unusual.

12. No, I DON'T know what the hell is wrong with me.

13. And I TOTALLY didn't go off my cold sheep personal pledge and buy another skein of Rios just because the colors were singing to me.

14. NOPE NOPE NOPE TOTALLY DIDN'T

15. 

16. ..............................

17. Damnit...

The Moth-er of All Ideas

Through random instagram browsing I happened to stumble across a few artists who make the most amazing moths and butterflies out of all sorts of crafting materials, like antique linens or embroidery.

I couldn't help but be inspired, so I got my butt over to Ravelry to see about making a mothy friend of my own. Surely there would be some patterns already done up that I could just tweak a little bit?

Nope.

Nothing.

Well, not anything semi-realistic at least. And that's really what I wanted. Not some cartoonish version.

So...

You already know what I did. I made my own damn pattern.

Meet the Jacquard Slate Moth, named after the colorway of Kroy sock yarn I used for him.

Every part of him was pretty much improvised on the fly (heh...)

I started with the wings, making sure I noted where in the color repeats I had started my first one to make sure the second matched.

These were then blocked to their final shape.

The body was done in the round.

I wanted the body to be solid colored, so I had to play with the colors a bit to get them to work out. I'm quite satisfied with it.

The wings were a little too floppy for my liking, so I sewed felt to the bottoms of them.

The legs are black pipe cleaners with more yarn wrapped around them to give it a scraggly appearance.

His antenna are feathers and the eyes are glass beads I sewed on.

You can see here that I was testing out the wing placement.

I wasn't quite happy with it, so I decided to add the little tuft of faux fur to finish him off.

Don't tell the others, but he may be my favorite amigurumi I've ever made.

And I have a feeling that he's going to lead to a whole host of new winged yarn friends.

I know, I know. Having moths, even fake ones, anywhere near your stash seems like an ill-omen and would send any number of my yarn friends into fits. But these ones, I think, will restrain themselves from chowing down on the wool buffet.