Too hot to blog

Summer is a great time for taking pictures, but less so for sitting on a computer. They keep promising a thunderstorm, but where is it?! All I'm able to do nowadays is lie very still in as few clothes as possible.

Well. That's not exactly true. This week I took a trip to Tallinn for a day, to the city's infamous wholesale craft store Karnaluks, a mecca for all who like to stitch or glue shit together. I went in with a plan and came out with everything I need for the next month, shit-wise:

And for a fraction of the price I would have paid in Finland.

I will show you how everything turns out when the time comes.

Despite the heat I have managed to get some knitting done, too. The second I saw the first pictures of Cladonia (links to Rav), I knew I had to knit it like RIGHT NOW. So I did, with some subtly self-striping sock yarn from my stash.

My dress form is always so fancy.

To my surprise, even though I'm quite happy with it, I really love the versions other people have knitted with very pastel palettes. I'm usually all about the dark and muted colors, but this could be a good pattern for some experimenting, quite like Daybreak, which I've already knitted twice. I'd also love to knit this again in something extra luxurious, something silky maybe.

The echo shawl of insanity has made some progress, too. It looks like some sort of a skin condition right now, but you just wait until it's all finished and blocked!

Then it will look less like a disease.

I also had a bit of a scare recently when the little cat went missing for 29 hours. She is not very bright or capable of taking care of herself so I was beside myself with worry the whole time. When she was found 9 months ago I promised her she would never have to be lonely and hungry and scared again, and obviously I felt like I let her down massively. She had never been outside since so I had no idea how she would act and how to find her.

What eventually cracked the case was this, and I cannot recommend it enough. It's a web page with details about what a lost cat probably does based on her personality. That and many statements from friends encouraged me to keep looking near the house, because a shy and timid cat like her will most probably not stray far. She was finally found hiding on a neighbor's yard, scratched and miserable but all right. I've never been quite as relieved, for a moment I thought I would never see her again. As soon as we got home she was back to her own self.

Normal = unable to decide whether to play with a roll of tape or lick butt.

Whoops!

The last few weeks have positively flown by, I don't even know how. First two people moved out of the house, and I cleaned a lot. Then one person moved in and I cleaned some more. But cleaning is not all I've accomplished, a fact proven by how not clean my room already is. Oh well! On with the show.

Remember this?

Well, it soon turned into this:

It's a mask. A very specific mask, for my día de los muertos -inspired wrestling persona. I constructed it using my face and a well-fitting, cheap carnival mask to model it on. 

First I crocheted two identical circles for the eyes, leaving them thinner next to the nose and the holes slightly bigger than desired.

Second I made a heart motif and kept crocheting around it for a bit. When the heart motif met the eyes (I roughly fitted it both on my face and the other mask every now and then) I sewed all three together.

Third I filled in the nose area a bit, sewed the eyes together and then filled the gap above the nose.

Fourth I filled in both sides of the forehead to form a continuous shape with the eyes and the heart motif.

Fifth I crocheted one full round of sc around the entire mask and one round of shells, leaving a gap around the nose.

Finally I filled the eye holes with shells as well to give it that día de los muertos -look.

It has to stay on during some pretty spectacular moves, so I decided to try my hands on starching.

I first looked into starching with sugar, but decided that I didn't really want to risk it while sweating profusely. Instead I used your every-day craft glue mixed with water in equal parts, the carnival mask and some cling film.

First I lined the inside of the carnival mask with cling film.

Then I submerged the crocheted mask in the glue/water mix and squeezed all the extra starch out.

 Next I spread the wet mask onto the carnival mask, careful to align the eyes and straighten all the edge shells.

Then I let it dry, stretching and adjusting it later when it was less damp and easier to manipulate. You could probably use more glue to achieve a crispier result, but I chose to repeat the starching process to make the mask harder. The more repeats, the harder the results I would imagine.

When the mask had completely dried I zigzagged an elastic band on it, and another one on the first band itself to go over the top of my head. I used these instructions to make two black and two red ribbon roses, which I then sewed on the second elastic band. The length of the ribbon is not very important, it just affects the size of the flower.

Aaand then I took some promo pics. Complete with make-up. They actually came out surprisingly well despite my very limited experience with both make-up and posing for a camera.

Oooh yeah, myspace-a-licious! How I wish my camera had a self timer.

The dress I'm wearing in the picture above is that black lace number from Stockholm.

It has had something extra done recently, too. I took red sequins, an embroidery frame and some black tulle, sketched an anatomical heart on a piece of paper and proceeded to sew the sequins on the tulle in the shape of a heart.

Bling!

Then I pinned and zigzagged it on the front of the dress, trimming the tulle around the stitches. It's very thin so it hardly shows.

And that's only the beginning. Stay tuned!

I also started (and frogged and started and frogged and started) and finished something summery just in time for all the cold and rain. For some reason I had so much trouble with this little waistcoat. Could have been my insistence to knit mostly in the middle of the night, who would have thought! Now it's done, however, and I'm very pleased with it. Worn in the picture over my flowery summer dress with a very generous amount of cleavage, which was actually the inspiration to make it in the first place.

I've also got something in the works out of that mystery!cotton yarn that's been flying around the world. It's already driving me nuts, but will be fucking gorgeous when I finish it. Behold the echo flower shawl:

Impressive, isn't it?

Last night I also whipped together a little owl pillow/pouch. It just needs its drawstring legs and face and it's done.

You see? I have not been slacking even though posting about it has been on hiatus. And this does not include all the work stuff, mainly hats. They will have to be in another post because wrestling practice and figuring out what to knit over the weekend at a friend's cabin awaits.

Thrifted treasures

It probably doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that I like thrift stores. I love looking for, and finding, treasure. Mostly treasure I can turn into something else. I've been obsessed with little porcelain cups and plates for a while, ever since I started my teacup collection. (What, I didn't tell you about my teacup collection yet? You can rest easy, that's a post for another day.) Teacup collection soon spread into a saucer collection, and then plate, teapot, sugar pot and creamer collections... you get my drift. All this has gained more purpose recently when I started picking up pretty candle holders, too.

Take a couple of pretty, similar but not matching plates and saucers, add a bit of epoxy (and fix other broken stuff while you're at it) and you have fancy-pants multi-layer cake plates:

Pretty, no? They're quite sturdy, too. Perfect for mad teaparties.

It's always fun to go thrifting with some actual goals in mind, but equally pleasing to see surprising potential in something frivolous and almost free. Like this for example:

It's a little plastic frame that looks like leather with pictures of what I can only surmise is some sort of a crime family lead by an evil naked baby. To hide the atrocity I went through a collection of old photographs and printed three out on photograph paper.

Now that's what I call improvement! It still needs a bit of cleaning up and perhaps a lace trim. We will see.

In knitting news I started an exciting new project and cast on Roxanne Mystery Shawl from Feministy. Two clues have been released, but there's plenty of time to catch up! I'm not going to spoil by posting pics until the whole thing is done, but if you're curious, you can see the result of the first clue on my Rav project page. Mystery knitting is always fun, I heartily recommend it! Even if you don't like the result you can always gift it to someone who will. I myself intend to like this one, because I lack a nice soft shawl I can wear next to skin, and purple is just my color.

The only downside is that you have to wait for the clues. Hence another project, because I'm going away for the weekend. And what is a weekend away without knitting? Nothing, I tell you, nothing! This one's going to be a present, though, so no links or pics for you! It's another shawl, that's all I'm going to say about that now.

When you have nothing to say, compensate with pictures!

This week has been more about planning things and less about actually finishing anything. Annoying, especially when the not finishing part is because of technical difficulties and indecisiveness. First my new ink cartridge refused to work and I have to wait for a new one. Next I found out that my sewing machine is making a brutal sound even though I've only used it once since oiling it thoroughly. I think it needs to be serviced. After all I got it for my 18th birthday which means two things: first of all it has served me for 11 years without complaint, and secondly I feel really really old.

Say hello.

I better get it to a shop next week because things need to be sewn. Luckily I have another sewing machine I can use for everything my serger cannot handle. This absolutely adorable one on loan from my housemate:

Hello!

Riazan is approaching fast and I'm very conflicted about what I want to wear. I have bits and pieces and none of them go together very well. I already made a pair of Really Big Pants out of black cotton/linen from a thrift store and then I found this gorgeous old curtain here that really wants to become a Bilibin-inspired coat:

Yes, it's woven and the colors are reversed on the other side.

To makes things easier, I also found this pillowcase with beautiful embroidery just dying to decorate a blouse or a dress:

Sometimes the best things also cost 50 cents.

What is even more helpful is that what I really, really want to use that pillowcase for is this apron:

Except that I'm not sure how black pants, a white apron and a green-yellow coat are ever going to live in harmony. Maybe a short-sleeved apron so that the coat gets more screen time? And of course I have this purple coat and hat I made for the last medieval Russian adventure and could easily use:

For the record, I was running a high fever and drugged senseless when this pic was taken

Oh, and my character could also incorporate Chinese and Mongolian elements in her dress. Head, meet desk. Looks like I'll just make ALL THE THINGS and then decide which ones look best together.

Among all these other things I hope I get the printer to work soon because I have a special in mind. Here's a teaser:

Teasers gonna tease.