Fiber Monday

 

No One Asked For It, But Here It Is Anyway:

Hey, so it's uh... it's really hard to crochet 7644 tiny single crochet stitches when it's super cold (and it's been between 8℉ and 23℉ (-13,3℃ to -5℃) all week), so I haven't got the next part of the Secret Project done yet. 

It's going along, just... slowly. And with very cold knuckles.

Weirdly enough, I can still sew with cold hands, though I do risk stabbing myself with the needle more often that way lol. The difference is probably that when I'm making my draft dodgers, I'm using old towels, which have more loft and warmth to them than smooth, thin cotton thread in single crochet lol.

Speaking of which, you'll need the following if you want to recreate a draft dodger, a fabric tube designed to keep drafts from coming underneath a doorway or windowsill and a necessity in older homes in colder climates:

• An old bath towel
• Two old wash cloths
• Thread
• A curved mattress needle (available in a pack of upholstery needles at places like the Family Dollar stores for the grand price of a single American dollar... aka they're cheap and I'm wordy)
• Scissors (We'll just be using these for the thread)
• Pins (optional, since I couldn't find my t-pins lol)
• Patience & something to sip on when you get frustrated or just to warm your fingers with - I recommend either coffee or tea, since the warmth is very good for cold days and also I overindulge in both lol

Also, you may want a camera to photograph the process, but not one on an older Samsung Galaxy because apparently those die horrible deaths... Yeah, I'm a bit bitter over about 3/4 of my process shots coming out with black lines all across them. And also annoyed that it randomly crashes when I'm at around 50% battery... grumpgrumpgrump...

Now that my crankiness has subsided here is how you do this thing:

Step 1: Fold your towel in half lengthways.

Step 2: Roll your folded towel from the open side so that the ends are hidden inside the roll. Roll as tightly or loosely as you want. Tighter will have a narrower circumference (not great for blocking drafts on doors with wide gaps at the bottom, but great for jamming up against thinner spaces for a more aggressive stoppage), looser will be much floppier and better for taller gaps or places where you need to bend it (say, a window or a particularly poorly insulated section of your room). 

My desperate attempt to show how you roll a folded towel, though it's hard to tell...

It should kind of end up looking like this:

There should be no bound edges showing!

Step 3: Sewing Time! If you have pins, pin your folded edge down along the body of the dodger, then thread your needle. You'll first want to secure your thread at the start however you like (by knotting the thread, making some kind of stitch that knots things, or however you feel most comfortable and/or works best for you), and then start making a... it's called a ladder stitch? I think? I don't actually know.

Make a stitch on one side of the seam you're making, pulling the thread all the way through

Then make a stitch on the other side of the seam, trying
to start it parallel to where you finished off your last stitch!
Tighten your stitches as you go and they should disappear!

Stitch all the way down the length of the seam. Yes, you're trying to connect two floppy rounded pieces together. No it doesn't matter if it's perfect your first time, but at least forcing the needle through one layer of actual towel and not thicker fabric like the bound edges  is really easy, so it's worth doing it this way. I recommend pinning, though I didn't have mine on hand, since if you pin the seam in place, it won't squish and flop all over the place like mine did and that will cut down massively on frustration! Once you reach the end of your long, long seam, secure that end as well.

Something I learned from hand-sewists on YouTube is that you shouldn't have too long a thread or it will get tangled. They're right. You probably don't want your initial thread to be longer than your armspan, and if you're being very cautious, maybe don't make your initial thread longer than a single arm. I went for armspan and it only took two threads to get from one end to the other. I am very short, though, so your mileage may vary. Literally.

Step 4: Let's cover the ends!

This step is optional, but I find it looks nicer if you do it,
since your stitches will stand out a lot on the thinner sections
and the end of the roll is pretty ugly, tbh

First, take one of your washcloths/face cloths, and lay your tube about halfway up it:

As seen here

Then wrap the tube in the cloth:

Like the ferrule on a pencil!

Here's where I got a bit... artsy. You can actually just fold the top over and sew it all together so it's a little bag, but I liked the idea of folding things all creative-like...

Sorta folded the top of the cloth down like a present?

And then crossed those corners over each other

Now unfortunately, all of the images I took of me sewing this section came out with black stripes and bars across them, rendering them useless, but basically I sewed the corners together, then sewed the folded-down hem to the rest of the cloth, then sewed the bottom of the wash cloth to the actual tube itself, making an origami-like cap to the end of the tube!

Repeat the process on the other end, and you have a draft dodger! Or draught sausage! Or whatever you want to call it (door snake? Should I add googly eyes?!)

A completed Draft Dodger!

I will admit, it's not the prettiest thing in the world, and I do worry that the ones I made might lose stitches here & there because I'm not the most confident hand-sewer (which looks like such a dreadful word in print...) but I am assured that they work! I made a smaller one by rolling half of a towel, sewing that into a tube, then cutting off a leg from a pair of torn-out leggings and sewing the cut end shut, putting the towel tube into the legging bag, and tying a knot to keep the towel-tube in place - that one's for a window specifically.

In the future, since I'm getting better at hand sewing, they'll look nicer, but what works works and I won't feel bad about helping someone keep warm! If you live in a cold place with a drafty house and you have some grungy towels you don't mind sewing up on-hand, I strongly recommend trying this out. If you're a strong handiworker you may even be able to machine-wash these without them coming all undone lol!

That'll about do it for me, guys. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them (I'll see them - I get an email when you try to post comments so that I don't get anymore spammers :|)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday - Working Towards Joy

 

In Which I'm Doing My Best :D

It's that time of year when everything I do or think or make or say is an effort towards making someone's holidays a little brighter, and you know as well as I do that it can be exhausting. I have been crocheting nonstop since 6:30AM and that's after about an hour of sleep because I'm a garbage human who may have serious insomnia and an addiction to really stupid YouTube videos. On the plus side, I have finished 2 whole projects - including the most mentally taxing one - and I've started on a commission I was given by a family member and... it's the size of an infant. I'm not kidding. I think I have enough fluff though, so that's not going to be a problem, and the supplies were all... uh... supplied to me.

That being said, I still have a bunch of snowflakes to finish sewing ends in on, soak in OxyClean with my Filet Crochet Panels, and starch (maybe), I have several small plushes to make, and I have no idea what I'm doing 99% of the time.

It's the most stressful time of year, folks, but it's still worth every moment of doubt and every small blister forming on the top of my pinky.

One of these days I should show you all how I crochet, because... I do not do it correctly. Everyone I see holds the hook and project in the same hand and the yarn and project in the other, but not me. Nope. For some reason, I literally cannot make it work the way I see everyone do it, so I hold the hook between my right thumb and middle finger and loop the yarn up over my ring finger like a block & tackle before running it up and over my pointer finger, using the pointer as the means for advancing the yarn.

The way I've described it makes no sense, but some day I'll show you, and you'll probably understand, even if you'll have no idea how that makes anything easier. I will say that I should probably look into a leather thimble for my pinky just based on how the yarn rubs it raw sometimes lol.

Also, I keep dozing while I write or crochet (had to rework one part of the commission four times because I kept nodding off, but now it looks 4x better than it did, so I can't quite complain.

Actually, this brings me to something I wanted to discuss with y'all about my crochet work. Since it is such a big part of my life, and since I really enjoy doing it, I was wondering if, after Christmas (it's already too late to ship anything out for the holidays with how awful the mail is backed up everywhere) anyone might be interested in commissioning anything from me? I'll work on doing some pricing on what I'm willing to do, putting together a catalog, etc, but I think that might be a good supplement to... whatever job I eventually find, and I'm already crocheting a bunch anyway, so why not?

I might get up the gumption to do art commissions, too, but I think I need a few more months practice on that. Don't want you to end up with a potato after you ask me for a dragon, after all lol!

So yeah, that's where I am today - working hard on some large pieces for Christmas!

Hope you're all crafting right along with whatever your craft is!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday - Wafflebag

 

In Which Progress Is Waffled... er... made...

I'm a wee bit tired, as of late. I've been staying up too late, waking up later, and just generally feeling run down and sleepy constantly. I'm 99% sure it's because I'm moving around more during the hours I'm awake, but there's always the worry that it could be a hormonal response or worse - my depression creeping back in. Which would be weird, since this is the most hopeful I've been in a while! My future is open wide, after all!

So I distract myself from my brain not understanding how to person.

And I do that with two things: Entertainment and Work.

For Entertainment, of course, I read (I'm working my way through Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest right now), I play video games, and I watch lots and lots of YouTube videos.

For Work, however, you've seen a lot of what I do. I'm writing a novel (which, let's be real, takes up 75% of my Awake Time because that's what I want my JOB to be!). I draw (both digitally and on paper). I crochet.

And Right Now, I Am Crocheting A Bag!

The bag I'm crocheting right now is done using a basketweave pattern, but because the word "basket" likes to hop out of my brain like a frog from a log, I end up calling it a Waffle Weave bag, despite Waffle Weave looking like this.

Currently, the bag is about 3.5" (~8.9cm) tall, and I'm debating whether to make it a proper bag or to convert it into some kind of zippered clutch. What do you guys think? Purse with straps or zippered clutch?

I'll let you know how I plan to complete this project (if it's a zippered clutch, I'll probably have to line it...), and you'll continue to see progress shots :)

I think that'll about do it for me today - I gotta run downstairs and get some fresh water and maybe a sandwich!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 308: Epic Battle Fantasy 5

In Which I Talk About A New Entry In A Fun Series

I'm pretty sure I've talked about Kupo707 and their Epic Battle Fantasy series before on here - I'm too lazy to check, but it's a fair bet that I have. I really like this series, too,and their latest offering on Kongregate and Steam, Epic Battle Fantasy 5, is a really great addition!

So far, in the series, we've been introduced to the five main characters: Matt the strength-focused swordsman, Natalie the sexy mage, No-Legs the legless cat who may or may not be a demigod, Lance the gunman who may or may not be a straight-up fascist, and Anna the tough and awesome ranger. They've fought dragons, monsters, gods, cats, and each other, many many times. It's been pretty... well... epic!

Every game is basically a soft reset of their universe, with none of them remembering each other (despite the quintet being in every game!) and with the world not really remembering their past exploits. It's kinda like in Legend of Zelda where there's always a hero named Link and a Princess named Zelda but the maps and everything else are pretty varied. And that's true of EBF5, too - combat and travel and locations are all just a little different.

There's teleportation via a few different cat-slimes throughout the world, and when you interact with them, you're taken to a screen between realities where you can warp out to other cat slimes you've already seen. It's useful, but they're not marked on your map, so you kind of have to remember where you saw the cat slime with the tophat and its relation to the cat slime with the skulls behind it...

Teleportation is fairly important because of the gathering quests you encounter in the world. Someone in the tundra wants new socks? You have to go find those socks (which might be dropped by enemies or discovered in random chests), then you have to come back to the tundra and find the guy you got the quest from to return it. This can be a pain (especially before you have all of your mobility items) but it's worth it for the extra skills and goodies they can give you!

Speaking of mobility items, there seems to be one item per area. Ice is slippery, but with the right item, you can walk right across it. There are booster tiles that send you speeding in one direction until halted by a wall or zoomed away in a different direction, but there are boots that let you stop on certain magnetic tiles! There are lily pads and clouds to walk on, and there are gaps to fill with ladders, and there's water to raft across, and it's all very complicated until you realize that you're probably going to find those items in a similar area to the one you're struggling with - probably from the area boss!

And the bosses are pretty darn fun! Mammoths, trees full of mind-controlled cats, alien artifacts, dragons, mechs... the list goes on! In a browser-based Flash game that lasts at least 30 hours, you're going to have a lot of bosses to kill!

But you don't have to just kill - you can also capture underlings and random monsters like in Pokemon - but by dropping a box on their heads instead! That part can be fun, but it can also be frustrating. Some of the monsters just do not want to get in the box (dragons and monoliths, I'm lookin at you...). Some of these captives can even be useful for upgrading your weapons or armor or they might be required for a quest!

And there are tons of weapons and armors for every single character.

Ever wanted to see a cat dressed like a samurai? How about a mage with an elephant on her head? Or a swordsman dressed like a pirate? You can do it! And they can wield weird weapons, too - swords made of ice, guns made of wood, bows made of pipes, and even a skewered hot dog as a weapon! Then there's the Flair - random accessories to boost various stats on your characters!

The battle system is pretty straightforward: You have a team of three with your two other characters in reserve, when it's your turn, you choose whether to attack, use a skill, change your tactics, change your gear, or use an item or run away. It's pretty easy to figure out what's what, since it's all clearly labeled, and the ability to switch gear in combat has saved my butt more than once. It's fun to bash up your enemies or to land that Area Of Effect spell to blast a whole mob, but sometimes I forget to pay attention to which wave I'm on and use a spell with a longer cooldown too early in the fight.

But enough about the mechanics of this game - what's it like?

Well, it's pretty darn fun, to be honest. You control whoever you've put down as your leader while you're walking around the world using either the arrow keys and spacebar on your keyboard or the mouse and right-click. Some things you can interact with will just give you some flavor (like a book telling you more about the ancient cat religion the world is obsessed with), whereas others will be hidden items (yay more snow I totally needed more snow thanks).

The art is lovely and colorful, the combat is fun, the movement is responsive, and the story is engaging, yet silly. Somehow they make the rise of fascism and eugenics funny? It's pretty great.

My only complaint is that it's really, really easy to accidentally start a new game after dying. For some reason, every time I get killed (usually in the Glitch World segments), I end up accidentally clicking "New Game" instead of "Continue" and when you're 20 hours in, that hurts.

I can't even complain about the paywall(s), guys. There are a few areas in the Kongregate version you cannot access without paying for it, but they're optional areas, and you still get some of the optional areas for free! Yeah, it's about twenty bucks to buy the game on Steam, but the free Kongregate version is still hella fun and you can still access everything you need in order to progress. The money helps Kupo707/Matt Roszak keep making these wacky fun games, and I'm all for paying the creators of video games when I can, so I might start buying some of these on Steam as I go along...

I think that'll about do it for me today, guys.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC