Merrilee makes

Amongst all the exhibition preparations I've been planning for another favourite event that's in a few months - the start of spinning season and then Tour de Fleece! I do fibre prep in the warmer months when it's too hot to hold wool in my hands for hours. Here's what I've been up to.
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March is National Crafting Month over on allbingo. I'm going to play along with the given 5x5 grid. Here it is:

(Yes, I posted these out of order. No, I don't know why. Yes, I will probably do it again).

It's 3 months out from the Canberra Spinners and Weavers annual exhibition and sale and I'm focusing on making stock to sell. I thought I'd include some of my design thoughts and process as I do, not to show off or promote stuff to sell, but to show that I'm just doing dumb stuff until it works. Anyone can do what I do, and more importantly everyone should be out there doing dumb stuff with their hands and their brains. The world is now not only on fire, but filled with creations that can make things but they cannot make at. Because art requires intention, and that's something Al doesn't have (yet). So use your hands and your brains and make things our techno overlords cent replicate.
( I, for one, do not welcome our new overlords )

I love buying craft kits. It's something about the contained project with instructions, all that stuff I don't have to brain. Which is weird, because I've never bought knitting or weaving kits. But, like every other stash I have, I 'm trying to work through my craft kits.

First up is this frankly adorable dinosaur foam clay kit.
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Gotta love Australia.


We are ice free though, so that's something.

goals_on_dw has a goal of Community Thursdays, where people post their activity on communities around DW. I don't have the bandwidth to commit to weekly posts, but I would like to do regular archives of what I've posted around DW. Feel free to explore or comment, or steal the idea for yourself. (Tip: You can find your posts in communities you post to by adding /?poster=[yourusername] to the end of the url.)

booknook

• Review: Arms Race: And other stories by Nic Low
  
• Review: A Chorus, Divergent anthology
  
• Review: Buzzing by Samuel Sattin with Rye Hickman
  
• Review: Library Extension app
  
• Review: Jinkies and Minority Monsters
  
• Review: It Will be Hard graphic/visual novel

everykindofcraft

• Christmas gift - cross stitch project bag
  
• Quilted door hanger
  
• Wrapping up
  
• Christmas stocking

prototypediablerie

• Spin Art #3 - Tornado
  
• Spin Art #10 - Stranded/strung foreign object
  
• Spin Art #2 - Autowrap
  
• Spin Art #1 - Racing Stripe
  
• A new spin

voiceinmyear

• Review: Havoc Town
  
• Dueling podcasts: 13 Minutes and 16 Sunsets
  
• Welcome and rules

You know what's cool and fun*? Puttering around doing life and then getting reminded that we actually, not that long ago, all went through a traumatic, life-altering pandemic.

I was sorting through my storage cube of sewing bits and pieces, putting all the alike bits together rather than having a box of chaos. Then realised that I've apparently been hoarding mask elastic.



There was a wild time in 2020/21 when there were no masks available to buy so people started sewing their own. Including me. That lead to a complete absence of small elastic in craft stores. You could no buy it for love nor money.

And then merely a year later is was on clearance. (Repeatedly, it seems.) And I've been buying it because you never know what fresh hell is around the corner.





*not actually cool or fun at all.

A few little projects to finish off the year.

Back in August I went to a workshop led by a local artist. His art involves embroidering with repurposed textiles, which he uses to express his queer identity. Honestly, as a workshop it was pretty rubbish. The artist gave a 10 minute rundown of his approach and then pretty much left us to it for the next few hours. More of a 'make and take' session than an actual workshop. The organiser did hire a photographer to take photos for a solid half hour though, and splashed the images all over their socials and local newspapers. It felt very performative, like the goal of the workshop was to rainbow-wash themselves rather than provide an actual experience to the people who paid to be there. So I'm really fucking salty about that.

I did finally finish my project through.


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I have a wild plan. I've barely touched my 4 shaft loom this year. I cut a warp off it in the middle of the year that had been sitting for months, and which I'd put on in 2024. I think I just don't have the brain to do anything complicated. So here's my crazy idea: I'm gonna convert it back to a 2 shaft loom for a bit.

I have the parts. I can rebuild her. But it's a crazy idea because it's a truth universally acknowledged that a weaver in possession of a loom must be in wont of a more complicated loom. Going backwards is anathema.

But I have some prewound warps in pretty colours and fancy yarns and I want to weave them into fabric. Cool cool, can't I do that with my loom as it currently is?

Well, yes. But it will be nicer weaving lots of plain weave on the Saori as a 2 shaft.
( Let me explain )