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[crafi]

I was curious about what my wage and time, plus materials, would bring the cost of a foundation paper pieced and handquilted king size quilt to...and...

Okay, anyone willing to pay this amount will be enough to convince to make something this...outrageous. it'll close commissions for a year or two, and require frequent breaks so I don't burnout.

$23,800 USD.

$27× 900 hours + cost of materials (batting alone will be $200, 25 yards of fabric will be about what i need, i'll kill several rotary blades with all the cutting, and likely go through at least two spools of thread) = final cost

That amount of money will be what it takes to convince me to make this. If you're willing to pay for one of these now, hmu. I'll make the listing.

If you want just a king size quilt top, that's still $6150 USD. I'll need around 25 yards of fabric, a couple spools of thread (or a cone), and two to three rotary blades. This will take around 200 hours for traditional piecing. Foundation paper piecing will add another 100-200 hours easily because I have to print each section of each block, cut them out, fold along the seam lines, cut all the fabric, sew the fabric to the paper, press each seam, trim, rinse and repeat many times, sew the blocks together, remove the paper (sooooo many pieces), make the rows, and sew the rows together. So foundation paper piecing will bring the top to $11,650. For just the quilt top.

If you're 100% certain you want a king size quilt, and you're able to pay, let me know. I'll put the commission listing up for you, and promptly close commissions until further notice.

Money is good incentive.

[crafi]

Zhao Zhao (Chinese, b. 1982)

Constellations, 2021-2022

Embroidery on silk

[crafi]

i find the knitting tag on here very intimidating to dip into, which is why i try to put just the most absolute garbage projects in there, so anybody scrolling past all these incredibly polished and cool pieces will see my utter dogshit and think, oh, i can do that and keep knitting

[crafi]

U say to urself "i dont need notches, ill know how to orient the pieces when sewing bc i made the pattern" this is the devil speaking. Put notches in ur pattern and cut them into ur fabric. Youll be glad for it

[crafi]

@dnd-apothecary made me a thing for reasons >_>

Help a Lanie pay bills!

Infinity Roses

[crafi]

Rolf Ohst (German, b. 1952)

Amnesia, 2016

Oil on canvas

[crafi]

btw I’ve found these stretches from the WAK blog very helpful when knitting a lot:

Plus make sure to take breaks regularly - and stop if anything starts to hurt!

especially with gift knitting I know it can be tempting to push through it for a deadline, but it’s really not worth causing long term injury. (And anyone knit-worthy should be understanding of that, imho.) Stay well :)

[crafi]

2023 in books

better late than never, right?

2023 was a relatively slow year for me in bookbinding, but I still made 30+ books. (ask me how much time I spent on my other hobbies and it becomes clear why books were fewer.)

A5 books

the first A5 of the year was an entry for a bookbinding competition (which I didn't win), where the theme was climate change. I had a lot of fun putting it together and it was the first time I made an A5 tête-bêche book - I usually do these A6 or A7 size.

this was also the year I decided to start a collection of menocchio fics, which also led to experiments with printing directly onto bookcloth to get titles on the spine

what's fun about bookbinding is that you can Just Make A Book, but you can also Get Ideas And Run With Them with it. which is how I wound up with this black on black book. destiel necromancy fic, because of course it is

going back to something more colourful...Ulysses. not the James Joyce one, the slowburn 00Q one. named for a Tennyson poem.

final A5 book of the year is my Renegade Exchange book, which I bound for Silent Sun Press - a Crowley-centric genfic with outsider POV, so naturally I went for TV!Gomens colour schemes

A6 and A7 books

I started the year ambitiously - in addition to entering a competition, I started my urchin specials project. thus far I've still only bound these first three books for the project, but I plan to do more. first dustjackets as well!

I continued with the no-glue pamphlets and did three

I joined the Tiny Books Exchange, and as a proof of concept - before I typeset an A7 sized tête-bêche - I did a little tête-bêche of the two Temeraire fics I wrote for yuletide once upon a time

then followed of course the Tiny Book I bound for the exchange - my copy (test & proof of concept, bottom), the giftee copy (green, top right), and the author copy (blue, top left)

I typeset a lot more than I bind - I have plans to bind so and so, so I typeset it, but don't always have the time to bind it right away. so I have folders full of typesets ready to go at a moment's notice. this one was typeset a whole year before I bound it

are these paperbacks or just very slim hardbacks? I call them paperbacks as I used 0.5mm boards and they have no spine, but ymmv

this one definitely is a hardback - with slightly thicker boards, a spine, and two fics in one book. I do love those tête-bêches

at my work we have a lot of deliveries wrapped in this nice recycled brown paper that was just going into the recycling bin, and I thought: why not make books out of it? so I played around with it (and my printer) and came up with a neat aesthetic for paperbacks with breakaway spines (using 0.5mm boards)

will I ever stop with the tête-bêches? no. also this one has endpapers made from SEAWEED. how cool is that?

the last A6 of the year is this little collection of my own stories for a tiny Danish fandom. detectives and trauma, but make it about food? yes. food and cooking themed endpapers and cover papers, and the dustjacket has fake coffee stains on it. perfect

and that is all, folks. I did a lot of different styles and types of binding this year, I had fun with it, I learned a lot, and I'm happy with what I've created.

[crafi]

Y’ALL STFU AND LOOK AT THIS SHIT I DESIGNED IN 3 DAYS IN A FUGUE STATE

Final edit:

Patterns live now

[crafi]

it's definitely my predisposition to extreme frugality+redneck engineering, but i'm now obsessed with creating things literally without buying Anything. no supplies no tools no nothing, only the stuff you can just find outside, like Plants, Sticks, and Rocks.

I'm making textiles with nothing but foraged plant materials using no tools except sticks. Nature allows you to do this! There's no rules! I mean okay well maybe there might be some rules sometimes but they're just weak human rules! The plants themselves? They're like "Why sure! You can make yarn with nothing but fibers from the dead stem I don't need anymore, a couple sticks from that tree over there, and your own body and mind! Why not?"

Plants like to give us gifts! And nobody has the power to stop them!

[crafi]

There was much LANGUAGE muttered during the cast-on using this fiddly yarn. But the d*#m hat is done, and now I can make one for my sister. 😁

[crafi]

TINY PRIDE FLAG DRAGONS

Available now in my Etsy shop!  Lesbian, aro/ace & nonbinary options also available — and more!

[crafi]

learned bobble stitch for this pattern, jury's out on if I like bobble stitch. Pattern is January Hat, free on ravelry

[crafi]

Yall seem to like my knitting. Here's a finished pair of socks. I was very good and used stash yarn.

This is also my 10th pair of socks that I've ever knitted.

[crafi]

I made me and my long distance bf little koroks, so when we meet eachother we can help them reach their friend

[crafi]

[ID: photo of a knit lacework beanie in dark purple fingering weight yarn. End ID]

Pattern: Picacho Peak

Yarn: Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock (Molasses)

A present for a friend!!

[crafi]

So my sister wants to start sewing more, because

a. She’s 5′ 11″ and can never find pants long enough for her legs or shirts long enough for her arms.

b. She hates synthetic fibers as much as I do and it’s difficult to find natural fiber clothes that aren’t made of cotton

c. She’s a biologist and would physically fistfight microplastics if given half a chance

So her gift from mom and dad for her birthday was a sewing machine. Not a super expensive one but a good solid serviceable one.

And recently she asked “So where do I GET wool or linen and thread that isn’t polyester” and mom was like ‘go ask your sister’

And I, of course, crashed into the group text like “GET A PEN I HAVE WEBSITES FOR U” and honestly I’m thrilled about this