lou-does-things - Tumblr blog

[lou-does-things]

it's missing some backstitching because i couldn't for the life of me see it on the pattern and i laced it into the hoop before i realised but i'm counting it as a finish ok. ok.

pattern is autumn in the alley by fancyfoxglove

[lou-does-things]

People severely overestimate the amount of work that is done by machines generally, but maybe especially when it comes to clothing. If you were to sew your own pants, you'd probably consider them handmade - and you've done nearly the same thing as someone making them in the factory. They just have more powerful sewing machines, and some parts are cut with die instead of by hands.

There's a very cool project that aims to show the amount of labour that goes into a piece - it's called the Human Touch Project. They reconstruct commercially available clothes while having ink and fabric paint on their hands so each time they touch the garment while remaking it, they stain it, visually representing the human labour that went into creating each piece.

"crochet can't be made by machines" went from being a cool fun fact to being a call to action of "so if you see mass manufactured crochet in Target, that was made by a person and they were underpaid and you should boycott it" which is true, it was made by a person, but EVERY item of clothing you own (that you did not purchase from a company using ethical labor) was made by a person being underpaid (at *best*.)

Sewing machines are operated by *people*. Knitting machines are operated by *people*. Yes lots of the process is automated but you cannot tell a machine "make me a t-shirt" or "make me a knit cardigan".

Higher awareness of fast fashion, and the true human labor and abuse behind it, is GREAT, but let's not pretend that the crochet hat in target is THE problem. Every article of clothing in target is the problem. "All clothes are made by people" is the jumping off point here into understanding this issue it's not just crochet it's the whole thing ahhhhHHHHHHHHHH

[lou-does-things]

finding new coffee shops to work in!

goals: finish case study, apply to some internships

🎧 listening: coffee - bts 🎶

[lou-does-things]

What's your IG, if you don't mind me asking? I loved your addition to that post about art, knitting etc. as purely personal hobbies :D Keep it up!

aww thank you ! i've spent a lot of time thinking about the topic the last few days, also in relation to generative AI and what that means for human creativity.

i have two seperate accounts as the art one is part of a larger (art) project about the music i listened to as a teen. For knitting you can find me with the handle tricosui, for the art account it's tollwuetend :)

[lou-does-things]

capitalism sees people two ways - either as a consumer, or as a worker. having a hobby and making things yourself, creating, without a profit motive is unthinkable - either your hobby is consuming (collecting, but also watching blockbuster movies, buying bestseller books), or it is a "side hustle". There's no place for creative expression or just plain fun. You need either to buy or sell.

Since starting an art account on instagram, i constantly get this type of content recommended, the few comments and messages I get are bots asking me if I sell my art (or even worse, if i want to turn my art into nfts). There's no social media anymore, its just marketplaces where individuals are either isolated, or forced to turn themselves into personal brands.

And this slowly but surely seeps into my personal life as well. When I tell people that I knit my own garments, they always ask me if I sell them. And when I say now, they tell me that I should.

"top ten ways to improve your art!" "tips for small artists to get more reach" "how to improve this person's art" "here are some industry-standard art programs to use" what if all of you just died

[lou-does-things]

Embroidery motifs (1900) by Th. de Dillmont.

Published by Dollfus, Mieg & Cie (DMC).

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library.

archive.org

[lou-does-things]

It looks great !! happy that it worked out :)

Today!!!! Is the day that I seam!!

[lou-does-things]

I finished sewing in the last button a whopping six minutes before we were due to leave for our Christmas dinner (I would have worn it even if it didn't have all the buttons) and have been living in it ever since.

[lou-does-things]

What helps is to use some safety pins to pin the two panels together every ten or so rows, like that you can match them up in advance and notice mistakes much quicker. You can also loosely stitch the two panels together with a cotton thread or some other smooth yarn that is easily to remove to determine how the two panels should fit together. You got this !

Excuse how hilariously badly the left is drawn, for some idea of what I'm talking about I took a photo of my work on the right (which shows from 3 onwards, the slipped stitch is behind the work)

So my situation is this - I'm slipping the first stitch of every row as you can see, no problem there, but I need to sew this onto the back of a vest I'm making. And I have avoided sewing for years. So I don't know where I should be grafting the pieces together

[lou-does-things]

Do you mean sewing onto the back on the vest as in like a patch, or do you want to seam it together with another piece of knit fabric? If it's the latter and has the same (row) gauge (as in, each row could neatly correspond to a row knit on the other piece), look up mattress stitch - it will create a completely invisible seam :)

Excuse how hilariously badly the left is drawn, for some idea of what I'm talking about I took a photo of my work on the right (which shows from 3 onwards, the slipped stitch is behind the work)

So my situation is this - I'm slipping the first stitch of every row as you can see, no problem there, but I need to sew this onto the back of a vest I'm making. And I have avoided sewing for years. So I don't know where I should be grafting the pieces together

[lou-does-things]

Current stitching.

Yes I know, this leaf stitch AGAIN. Yes, I know, soft greens and greys AGAIN. Sometimes you have an itch you just gotta scratch over and over.

[lou-does-things]

Got a little something from Regenbogenwolle‘s Autumn update :)

The two pastel-y Polwarth braids will be transformed into a fine two-ply so my sis can crochet herself a crop top!

[lou-does-things]

Bad shot of a pullover I finished recently

Tin roof by yamagara

Yarn is a gradient I picked out of my advent minis from natural fibre arts 2022 calendar

[lou-does-things]

Genuinely so ridiculously happy with how this turned out

[lou-does-things]

My two most recent spins! Both were braids from Apothefaery, the first being a fine merino in the colorway “gathering” and the second a fine wool/silk blend that I got at a wool market and did not have a name on the label. Pretty sure both of these are destined for my loom eventually

[lou-does-things]

[lou-does-things]

The full-on glamor shots for Spurdog Shawl.

Spurdog Shawl.