ihavethemangoes

[ihavethemangoes]

Back to doing character portraits, it’ll probably be a full week before I have another weaving post since I have to warp my loom all over again. These are fun and relatively fast but they do still take me 5-8ish hours. With any luck I can get a few more done before July so I can slap them on my ArtFight.

[ihavethemangoes]

Ridiculously excited to share what I’m up to for my internship. I’m working for the Lithuanian Folk Art Institute and part of what I’m working on is making samples and tutorials to educate people on traditional sash weaving which is hands down the most significant piece of Lithuanian folk art.

This one is tablet woven, although I modified a pick-up pattern (source: Days of Yore - exhibition. Merkinė, county of Alytus, 1935) to work with it. The borders still have four strings per tablet but the pattern portion in the center only has two. I have a wool warp and I’m thrilled that I managed to get some linen from Lithuania for the weft.

[ihavethemangoes]

Finished the shawl! I actually knitted it in like three days flat but I waited to get a picture since I needed to throw it in the washing machine (blanket yarn, it won’t block at all). The lace border is still a little funky but I am very pleased I learned so much.

I still have almost all of the second ball of yarn and I found a cool hat pattern I want to make with it. I fully lost yarn chicken while casting off and was so annoyed that I had to join yarn.

[ihavethemangoes]

First time doing a gauge swatch and yes, after panicking about it being MUCH too small (yes I washed and blocked it) I was informed that technically I did the swatch wrong:

-APPARENTLY you’re actually supposed to knit a larger swatch than the actual gauge because the tension at the edges is very different

-If I measure in the middle of my swatch, 1 inch is about seven stitches which means 4 inches would in theory have 28 stitches and the pattern gauge is 26

-Would very much appreciate a more experienced knitter checking my assumption that actually my gauge is fine and I can follow the pattern normally

Also, those of you who regularly knit sweaters with fingering yarn are insane. It should be illegal to make stitches that small. I am contemplating all of my life choices.

[ihavethemangoes]

Got some FANCY yarn to knit my first sweater! I have a deal with my mother that if she buys the yarn then I’ll knit her whatever she wants — which I know most people don’t do because you’re not getting paid fairly for your labor, but this is a gift and I care more about the actual knitting process and getting to use some expensive yarns.

I will be doing a gauge swatch because as much as I love the energy of just diving in without knowing, this is alpaca which can be very unpredictable. I also have to do at least a little bit of adjustment to the pattern (my mother is very tall) and it would be really nice if I don’t have to do math and can just block it out.

[ihavethemangoes]

It is finished AND I can confirm I can make these for ArtFight attacks!

I’m really relieved that the legibility carries over really well and the ‘pixels’ stay square. It takes longer than a regular friendship bracelet but that’s probably just because the color changes are more complicated.

[ihavethemangoes]

What brand is your collapsible loom? I'm itching to get into weaving but don't have the space for a larger loom or the free time for one I can't take with me out of the house

I’ll do you one better, here’s the link: Folding Tablet Loom

It’s not the cheapest small tablet loom I’ve seen, but the only one I’ve found that folds. Personally I think it’s worth the price, they’re nice and sturdy + they come with all the tablet weaving bits you need to get started (tablets, shuttle, etc.)

The only downsides I’ve noticed are that the edges are a little sharp (but can be sanded down) and if you’re working with a very long warp you REALLY want to be careful that it’s not tangled and is wound on evenly.

[ihavethemangoes]

Have I finished my other knitting project? No. Do I have another knitting project I’m going to start next week when the yarn arrives? Yes. Here’s the thing though:

-I got a pretty decent sized grant from my school because I’m interning with a non-profit organization (which I’ll talk about later because there’s weaving involved). Naturally the first thing I did was splurge on the nicest damn needle set I could find (ChiaGoo, for anyone curious).

-I have two skeins of blanket yarn from like middle school because for some reason I thought it was a great idea to knit a blanket with knit stitch and knit stitch only. In my infinite wisdom it did not occur to me to look up how much yarn one actually needs to make a full sized blanket (it’s like 10 skeins). This was going to get frogged for the yarn anyways.

- I’ve been dying to do some more structural stitches instead of endless repeats of the same colorwork pattern so I figured I have the needles and the yarn and a shawl pattern from Ravelry so why the hell shouldn’t I.

[ihavethemangoes]

A progress update + some thoughts:

-Legitimately feels like a mix of tapestry and knitting colorwork (mostly because of the floats, I couldn’t tell you why floats are frowned upon in traditional tapestry).

-The string ‘pixels’ tend to only be perfectly square when I’m doing a whole lot of color changes and have to be gentler with my tension. Maybe when I get to a section with more plain background I can see it I can keep it even both ways, right now you can see the edges widen the slightest bit.

-The structure is mostly held together by the floats and the warp strings since there’s so many color changes. This also means I learned the hard way that I’ll get a hole if I don’t twist floats in places where the strings never cross over.

-I suspect it will be too long to comfortably wear as a bracelet but that’s okay, I’m doing this as a test to see what the takeup does anyways.

Trying something new! I was looking at some tutorials for alpha bracelet patterns and realized it’s basically just pixel art (as is most fiber arts). I really would love to make my own patterns so I got on a random website and tried my hand at some legit pixel art. I’m going to follow it like a pattern and if all goes well I’ll have a really cool bracelet.

This is also a bit of proof of concept to see if I can make this with other peoples’ original characters for ArtFight. It’ll be a little tricky since I have summer classes in July and not everyone wants to hand over a mailing address to a stranger for a bracelet, but I think it’ll be worth the effort. I also just bought some more beads so I should be able to do the same with beaded bracelets as well.

[ihavethemangoes]

Trying something new! I was looking at some tutorials for alpha bracelet patterns and realized it’s basically just pixel art (as is most fiber arts). I really would love to make my own patterns so I got on a random website and tried my hand at some legit pixel art. I’m going to follow it like a pattern and if all goes well I’ll have a really cool bracelet.

This is also a bit of proof of concept to see if I can make this with other peoples’ original characters for ArtFight. It’ll be a little tricky since I have summer classes in July and not everyone wants to hand over a mailing address to a stranger for a bracelet, but I think it’ll be worth the effort. I also just bought some more beads so I should be able to do the same with beaded bracelets as well.

[ihavethemangoes]

World’s scrappiest bead loom project from a little over a year ago. Somehow in that amount of time I STILL haven’t got around to buying the bits I need to add a bracelet clasp onto it. I also learned that contrast is very important in these designs, the motifs show up pretty well when backlit but are hard to see otherwise just because of the way everything reflects light. It was fun though and I’d still like to make more at some point. Also proof that you don’t need an expensive loom, I literally just found a plank of wood and hammered nails into it.

[ihavethemangoes]

More nonsense for ArtFight! Recently I’ve been trying to play around with undertones and refracted(?) light. Hopefully I can exaggerate it to the point where it makes my painting style a little more unique, I love bouncing light and my digital painting style doesn’t stand out a ton from others’. I can see where I’ve tried it but it’s probably too subtle for others to notice still.

[ihavethemangoes]

Starting the ArtFight grind! In an ideal world I’d like to make new references and rendered profile pictures for all my ocs but there’s 19 on the site and that’s just not happening before July. I’ll be happy with whatever I manage to get done. ArtFight link and explanation below (I suspect the majority of my fiber arts followers have no idea what I’m talking about).

ArtFight is an original character art ‘competition’ that happens every July. Technically there is a winning and losing team every year but it’s rare that people actually play to win. You post your own characters and draw art of other characters on the site as ‘attacks’ This will be my 6th year participating because I both love making and receiving oc art, even if it’s not much (I usually average out about 6 attacks and the same number of defenses).

[ihavethemangoes]

All finished! I ended up clocking in about six or so hours a day for three days. It’s only a yard ish but I didn’t have a ton of warp left anyways and it was finished in time for critique so I’m happy. I might do something fun with the fringe later but who knows.

Unfortunately this is the last time I’ll have access to a floor loom for potentially a long while. There is a loom in the family but I haven’t even graduated college yet so it can’t be shipped to me until I have a stable residence. I did try to get into the advanced weaving class for my final semester but it’s very popular amongst the graduate students so I’m on the waiting list.

[ihavethemangoes]

FINALLY got all my pottery out of the kiln! All of the pieces with the pink glaze were supposed to look the same, but as it turns out they react really strongly with whatever is in the actual clay so it looks wildly different on red versus white clay. Not mad, though! I will also have to sand down the slit in the yarn bowls because it’s too small to get any yarn in but that’s okay, otherwise I’m really proud of them! Nothing exploded or stuck to the kiln shelves so I’ll take that as a win.

[ihavethemangoes]

I’ve been packing up to move back home for the summer and I thought you guys might like to see this. My tablet loom is collapsible! This is literally the only reason I picked it out over the standard tablet looms. I love weaving but I’m still in school so I need something that’s easy to move in and out of my dorm. I looped an extra string through all the B and D holes so the cards won’t move in transport. Unfolded loom pic below. I don’t know what this specific kind of loom is called but I got it from Woodington UK.

[ihavethemangoes]

Starting my final weaving project for class! Some shit came up irl so I have 3 (and a half) days to get this finished instead of the full week I originally had planned. I’m keeping it pretty modular so worst case scenario I just have a lot more loom waste than I would have liked; fingers crossed I may be able to get 2-3 yards. I’d ask for an extension but we literally have no choice but to clean up the school looms on the 6th. It’s slow but I am enjoying the structures a lot.