#fiber arts

[creativitycache]

Link OP has goes to her instagram, here’s her website/shop link

pansy rugs by chelslikescats

[omittedharpy]

My two most recent crochet projects - I’m very proud of these, particularly the one on the left (which took so much planning and trial and error), because they're my own designs!

I'm most of the way through writing a pattern for that one, but I have stalled out on finishing it unfortunately :/ - maybe someday

[crochetwizardman]

There's a concept I try to convey to other crochet artists

You are never going to get paid for the amount of time you put into the piece. Best you can generally sell anything for is Materials x3

That enables you to pay for the yarn, and 2 more of the same thing you sold, so you can support your yarn addiction.

"But Gilligan you're only making $2.50 an hour!" I WAS GONNA CROCHET ANYWAY BITCH! Any income is better than yarn sitting around while you wait for a magical unicorn buyer who's gonna pay $500.

I know, it sucks, I put hours and hours into making those slippers. The yarn cost like $5 and I can squeeze maybe two pairs out of it. 5x3 =15, round it up to 20 and that's how much someone will probably buy them for. Again, I was going to crochet anyway. Because the devil says so.

Crocheting isn't my job it's my hobby and I'm good at it. Don't ruin it for yourself by trying to monetize it.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

when am rich won’t tell anyone but there be signs (hold every single wool sweater am knit with silk mohair)

[knitting-ace]

First ever sweater just needs its sleeves!

[badstitched]

I'm very happy to announce that I will be campaigning again this year for Trans Lifeline, providing a cross stitch pattern to raise funds for this awesome organization to continue providing helpline services, resources, and microgrants for the trans community.

Transgender Day of Visibility is Monday, March 31, 2025.

Please stay tuned for the campaign to begin Friday, March 28th, and tell your friends!

[aerialsquid]

I made a crochet Wizard Lizard with a pompom tail that looks absolutely nothing like the pattern for it but I do not care. He is chonk. What do I do with him.

Pattern is here:

[sweaterkittensahoy]

If you wanna lose several hours figuring out what that yarn was for by going through every single digital pattern and every single digital pattern book and magazine you have, and then realize you truly do not know what the fuck that heavy worsted in the knitpicks order was for, and then need to FIND a use for it, you definitely want all those PDFs.

(I crocheted the dog a sweater, if you're curious.)

if you love downloading pdfs you are likely to never use again you have GOT to get into knitting

[knittedkikwi]

Y’all, I bought a loom a few weeks ago and it’s been one of the best decisions of my life! It’s just so weirdly satisfying. I’m not doing anything fancy yet, but jut the fact that I’ve gone from all wavy edges and inconsistent spacing:

To slightly better edges but still inconsistent spacing:

To nice and neat edges and even lines just makes me so happy. There’s visible progress!

I’m sure I still have a long way to go. I want to go buy some books about it that I think will help everything make a bit more sense. Plus it would be nice to have some reference material that doesn’t require an internet connection. It’s just really satisfying that I’ve come this far this quickly. Now it’s just a question of can I stay that consistent and work faster. That first six inches of scarf took me an hour because I was really focusing my movements. I’m trying to build up muscle memory like I have for knitting, you know?

[queer-ecopunk]

I have a new favorite bracelet pattern

[the-eccentric-eclectic]

Hey kid, look at me.

I want you to T-pose. Turn your right thumb up and your left thumb doen and look at your right thumb. Move your arms up and down a bit until you feel a nerve running from your armpit to your palm. Now turn your right thumb down and your left thumb up, and look at your left thumb. Keep your chest facing forward and your shoulders back. Move your arms again until you feel that nerve again. Keep alternating between these two for a minute, or look at each thumb thirty times each.

Now sit down. Put your left hand firmly under your left buttock, palm down. Keep your shoulders back and put your right hand over the crown of your head, very gently pulling it to the right. Do this for thirty seconds, then do it again but with your right hand under your right buttock.

These are stretches for the nerves in your arms, and are very good for people who sit behind a computer a lot, or fibre artists, or you name it. Do them daily. They will hurt in the beginning, but keep doing them, even after the pain has gone, or it will return and you'll have to start all over.

[queenofzan]

I would like to add in that some forms of weaving are pretty portable, such as backstrap weaving, tablet/card weaving, and small band looms. These are better suited for narrow weavings generally, but I'm sure the addition of bending (especially making things lighter and/or more portable, as we see air nomads did) would make that a little more flexible.

I also wonder how much you could develop fine control of airbending by manipulating yarn just with the air...were there airbenders who could weave without a shuttle? without something to create the shed? were there airbenders who weren't super powerful but had excellent fine control and multitasking just. air-weaving without fucking looms?

(And yeah, depending on how bison fur/hair works [such as how much of it IS hair versus fur] you could get at LEAST three types of yarn out of it. I've petted some yaks, sheep, and goats, and honestly the yaks weren't that much coarser than the sheep and goats. Factor in the almost certain undercoat and I'm sure there are parts of a sky bison that are comparable to cashmere. And, since they're ENORMOUS, even a small section of coat that is precious baby soft is going to produce quite a lot more than a single goat could.)

I think there's also something to be said about Air Nomads trading for things like shelter, food, or tools with, if not spun or woven fiber, then sacks or bundles of fur to spinners! A single bison is going to be producing A LOT of fur, especially in shedding season as we see, and if you can keep that collected and hand it off to a spinner, they're going to be pretty happy to let you and your giant herbivore hang out or come back to visit. I'm sure there were spinners in the atla world who were despairing when they heard the Avatar was back, WAS an airbender, DID have a sky bison...and didn't seem to be trading or selling the fiber. If nothing else, the novelty would make it desirable to work with!

ANYWAY you cannot convince me that the air nomads didn’t have any sort of trade good based on the flying bison and aang just didn’t have the time or safety to make and sell any of these while trying to stop ozai. they probably did so much spinning just because drop spindles are super transportable, it’s something to do while flying long distances, there’s always a weaver somewhere willing to buy yarn, and there’s always, always large amounts of shed fur just. around. look at how much came off of appa that one episode. so much fur

so three things happen the summer after ozai is defeated and appa starts shedding in earnest again

aang starts spinning and selling yarn because that’s What You Do and he’s clinging REAL HARD to every possible air nomad tradition because, well, who else will remember these things?

toph hears about this and scruffs him before he can sell too much because she’s a merchants daughter and holy shit aang do you understand what you’re selling?? yarn from the last known sky bison! the avatar’s own spirit guide!! spun by the avatars own hand!!!! what are you doing aang!!!!!! she has to drag katara in at this point because aang is real unhappy with the idea that his normal flying bison yarn of, uh, questionable quality is being sold to exclusive high class weavers so they can make shawls for filthy rich nobles for baaaaaank just on the basis of his name. this isn’t how the monks did it :/ and he doesn’t WANT a lot of money anyway! he’s a monk!! he only asks for what he needs to survive!! anyway katara manages to talk toph around to donating most of the money to reconstruction efforts, charities, and orphanages and convinces aang that having an emergency fund is a good thing and he should keep something. aang accidentally ends up with a reasonably full bank account and is really confused about how that happened, why it’s there, and what he’s supposed to do with it

there is a real weird period of time where it’s In Fashion for high noble ladies to have shawls and scarves dyed the same color as aangs clothes (because that’s how you know it’s made with special avatar yarn!) or have images of appa woven into them (can you imagine a shawl that’s just a full length body shot of appa?? amazing) and all the earth kingdom nobility are just rocking green and orange like nbd. weaving decorative shawls with slubby yarn becomes really in fashion, too, because aang is not great at spinning. he’s 13 and it’s boring, ok?

BONUS sokka is just. so mad. you could have been making bank with appa the whole time we were scrambling around the planet aang? do you realize how much more food we could have had? how many more hot baths?? how could you betray me like this

(probably the air nomads also did a lot of weaving but it was mostly the pregnant nuns and the really old nomads so it’s a little off aangs radar. and does aang eat cheese? it never comes up in series but I would also believe that the nomads made a lot of air bison cheese and bison butter tea)

[systematictangle]

I have the best friends lol. Look at this lovely cross stitch piece a friend made me!

EDIT: I have been informed that the pattern is by @shitpostsampler ! Thanks to those who let me know!

[saja-star]

a phrase that kinda bothers me when talking about women's historical roles in europe is "cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children." you hear it so often, those exact words in the same order even. and once you learn a little more you realize that the massive gaping hole in that list is fiberwork. im not an expert and have no hard numbers, but i wouldnt be surprised if fiberwork took up nearly as much time as the other three tasks combined, so it's not a trivial omission.

it's not a hot take to say that the mass amnesia about fiberwork is linked to the belittlement of women's work in geneal, but i do think there's a special kind of illusion that is cast by "cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children." you hear that and think "well i cook and clean and take care of children (or i know someone who does) and i have a sense of how much work that is" and you know of course that cooking and cleaning were more laborious before modern technology, but still, you have a ballpark estimate you think, when in fact you are drastically underestimating the work load.

i also think that this just micharacterizes the role of women's work in livelihoods? cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children are all sisyphean tasks that have to be repeated the next day. these are important, but not the whole picture. when we include all kinds of fiberwork—and other things, such as making candles or soap—women's work looks much more like manufacturing, a sphere we now associate more with men's work. i feel like women's connection to making and craftsmanship is often elided.

[heavymead0w]

Forever finding new holes in my mom's favorite sweater