Merrilee makes

3W4D: Found poetry

2026-04-26T22:14:16Z

3weeks4dreamwidth is celebrating Dreamwidth's anniversary!
Come join in for fun, memes, activities, and more ♥

Here's a meme from this post over at 3weeks4dreamwidth

Put your ~~mp3 player/phone/~~streaming collection on shuffle, and write down the first line of the first twenty songs. Post the poem that results.

I'm not a huge fan of memes, or poetry, but I do want to post more during 3W4D and I do occasionally indulge in found poetry, so here goes. Here's the first 20 songs with lyrics from my 'Liked music' playlist on YouTube Music.
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Spinning

2026-04-25T03:52:03Z

This time of year I start my mornings with some time at the spinning wheel, sitting in the sun. It's a very calming and restorative practice that I'm really appreciating as everything else descends into chaos.

This morning I finished spinning on the project I've been working on, some superwash Blue Faced Leicester that's dyed in blues and greens. I broke up the braids into its separate colours and spun them as little bobbins, to make into a gradient yarn.

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Story rec and art

2026-04-14T03:34:05Z

In my spinning session the other day I listened to Will the Last One to Leave Please Turn Out the Lights? and really enjoyed it. The despair of living under The Idiot, the slow crumbling of society, the recurring phrases, were all great analogies for the world we live in now.

I've recently finished this Life of Colour art board, a etched MDF board which I coloured in with acrylic paint pens. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Now I just need to rearrange the walls of my craft room so I can get all this art I've been making out of the cupboard and put it on display.

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Spinning season!

2026-04-12T04:46:43Z

I haven't posted in a while, I've had a bit of life and a bit of ennui get in the way. But I'm excited for 3weeks4dreamwidth and would like to post more.

This morning I set up my spinning nook and started spinning yarn on my wheel. I've been really looking forward to doing this because I find spinning a really soothing and enjoyable way to start the day. My nook is next to some large north-facing windows where sunlight will pour in later in the year when the sun gets lower. I'm a little early for those glorious mornings, but I figured if I'm so looking forward to spinning, why wait longer? The future is so very uncertain.

Here's my spinning setup.

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Fluff adventures

2026-03-15T20:38:21Z

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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Making stuff 3: Return of the stuff

2026-03-09T20:03:35Z

Since I had my sewing machine out after making the handwoven tops I decided to do a bit more sewing with handwoven fabric. But then, catastrophe.

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National Crafting Month

2026-03-05T20:21:15Z

March is National Crafting Month over on allbingo. I'm going to play along with the given 5x5 grid. Here it is:

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Looming about

2026-03-01T20:37:54Z

I've got plenty of art yarn left to play with after the previous scarf, so lets give this Kromski Weaver's Choice heddle another go.

Here’s the yarns I plan to start with

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Making stuff

2026-02-22T19:18:04Z

(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 )

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Making stuff 2: Electric Boogaloo

2026-02-15T21:30:42Z

A while back I posted about switching my Saori loom back to a 2 shaft and wearing a hot pink prewound warp. Well, it's done! And I didn't take any progress shots of the wearing for some reason. But I wove fabric for 2 freeform style tops. Before I get to that there's a bit of work to do first. When I was washing the woven fabric I noticed a section with some skipped threads.
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Bits and bobs

2026-02-08T18:13:04Z

So it's been over a month since I posted any thing crafty. I've certainly been crafting, I just haven't had any big finishes. I often think of my crafting approach as "kicking the can down the road." Lots of little steps, sometimes without significant progress.
( So here's the cans I've been kicking. )

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Kit time

2026-02-06T20:19:35Z

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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'Straya

2026-01-30T01:48:29Z

Gotta love Australia.

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

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Flash fic rec: Go Bag by Chris Scott

2026-01-27T06:15:11Z

I was recommended Go Bag by Chris Scott from Matt Kendrick's Mondettes newsletter.

Go Bag is a list-based flash fiction that has a real punch to it, a great example of the form. It reminds me quite a bit of Joseph Fasano's Words Whispered to a Child Under Siege, which is another hundred words or so that will rip your guts right out. Words for our modern agony.

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Community Posts - Oct to Dec 2025

2026-01-23T22:54:44Z

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 to the end of the url.)

booknook

everykindofcraft

prototypediablerie

voiceinmyear

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Creature feature

2026-01-18T21:50:15Z

I have two creature features to share with you.

fandomtrees has gone live so I can share that I actually wrote something! I pinch hit for a tree that was looking a bit bare. I haven't written any fiction in over a decade but it's something I want to get into more (yeah, yet another hobby, where to find the time?).

The fic is Taking Flight, a short and almost canon free No Man's Sky adventure about exploring a new planet and making friends with the wildlife.

If that's not your (space) jam, here's a little video of some very hungry tadpoles.

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I panic at plenty other places than the disco

2026-01-14T03:43:18Z

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.

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A whole lotta nothing

2026-01-12T01:27:12Z

My New Year's resolution is to work softer. This year I want to do less, be less, because I've been learning that when I put in less effort things actually turn out better and I feel better. My psychiatrist has also added a mood stabiliser to my mix of anti-depressants and they make me feel a bit dopey, at least while I'm getting used to them. So I've been doing a whole lot of nothing, and even the stuff I am doing is pretty piecemeal. It's hard to get used to.

So I have nothing crafty to share. But I do have a tadpole update!
( These l'il guys are so entertaining )

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Fic - Taking Flight (No Man's Sky)

2026-01-05T06:40:47Z

Title: Taking Flight
Fandom: No Man's Sky
Rating: G
Warnings: None

Summary: A moment on an strange world.

( As soon as the roar of re-entry subsided and the last of the ionised plasma danced way, a steady rain settled, in pinging off the metal roof of the ship in a soothing patter. )

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Christmas - in the bag

2025-12-30T03:26:47Z

My partner and I don't really do Christmas because of our combined childhood and family trauma. But I suspected she'd gotten me a little gift and I was struggling to think of something to gift her in return. Then a pre-Christmas chat at everykindofcraft prompted the idea to make her something.

Partner had mentioned that she wanted to do some cross stitching over the holidays, and I've always wanted to make a cross stitch project bag. So that's what I did!
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From little things

2025-12-24T21:55:59Z

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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A round about

2025-12-17T21:14:27Z

So now I have my loom all set up for a simple brainless plain weave so naturally I decided to change that into hand manipulated lace because I am literally my own worst enemy.
( seriously. )

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Door busting

2025-12-02T02:48:46Z

I have a problem and I decided to try and solve it with sewing.

The problem is this.

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Wrapping up

2025-12-02T02:48:08Z

I've been working on finishing up some long term projects and it feels good to have some small wins.
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Backwards compatible

2025-11-30T20:31:51Z

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 )

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