Calendae Creations

I decided on a slightly gradual transition by adding some more red horizontal lines before switching to orange entirely.

first panel done 🦋✨

Women's Evening Dress

c. 1845

Australia

Working on borders today, which means sampling. I've been sampling constantly during this series. I'm concerned with contrast and readability mostly, so making sure colours and values stand up against each other when it counts, and fade into gentle obscurity when I want them to stand aside.

YARN ACQUIRED!!! as soon as i saw Mothy and the Squid's absolutely GORGEOUS "Inner Fire" yarn, i knew that was 100% what i needed for the Balrog-themed "You Shawl Not Pass," and after a Slight Snafu about Shades of Black, my Much More Appropriately Saturated OPAL arrived today!! i am LOCKED and LOADED and PREPARED FOR SHAWLDOM!!

update!: have made it to the end of the section labeled "CHEVRONS" and now i am onto the section labeled "CONTINUE CHEVRONS" (in which she hits you with a "Read carefully through this section before beginning as multiple steps occur at the same time," which has been making me low-key nervous since the first time i read through the pattern, because it looked Convoluted and Tricky).

fortunately! her instructions for the multiple simultaneous steps are just written unhingedly! it's basically "keep working in the established pattern BUT make it bigger every 8 rows to account for the increases in said 8th row" lmao. i wrote myself out a handy cheat sheet so i have something to check off (because i've been putting check marks upon row completion but. ah. seventy-eight (78) more rows is. too many check marks, for the current printed pattern to withstand).

i could switch to a bigger cable to see her better but i don't wanna

anyway! just finished the fifth "CONTINUE CHEVRONS" repeat (what timing!!), so there's only four and a half left before the contrast color switch. very interested to see how much of the second ball of black yarn i need for this--i'm already going through a lot per row, but there's also only four and a half repeats of the pattern with the contrast color, and that allegedly will use one ball or less also. so! hoping to have some extra black at the end, but We Shall See.

HERE'S THE SCRUNGLYASS HERSELF, FRESH OFF THE NEEDLES, AND HER POT OF STEW (TRAGICALLY POTATOLESS):

*this point on your dash without witnessing THE COMPLETED SHAWL, is what he means by "you shawl shall not pass," here

hello again world!! guess what has been BLOCKED and PHOTOGRAPHED and WRAPPED!! BEHOLD!!

she's 65 inches at her widest and 17 inches from neckline to central point! she is VERY wrappable and wingspanny and cozy!! i'm so pleased with how she turned out! she took two skeins (a skein and a half really) of OPAL and most of the INNER FIRE, and the pattern can be found on ravelry here.

This pearl necklace is available in my shop! It is heavily inspired by the ribbon chokers and pearl necklaces fashionable during the 18th c, and is my own modern take on the idea. It features fresh water pearls hand sewn, alternating between large and small, in a line along a leaf green polyester satin ribbon. It is affixed to a chain and lobster clasp for adjustable fit.

Shipping outside the USA is not currently available through the store, but I can and do ship internationally – just message me about it and pay me directly through paypal or venmo or with a card through my ko-fi, once I can get you a shipping estimate. Any order of 2 or more items from my online store comes with a free watercolour bookmark.

Forgot to mention it, but I got a Tibetan-style supported spindle for Christmas!

It's another Peter Locke spindle; whorl and spinning bowl are bog oak, the shaft is padauk. He had the same combination as a drop spindle a while back and I missed out on it, so I'm super glad I managed to snag the supported version.

This one weighs 30g compared to my Russian-style's 24g and it's fascinating how much of a difference the 6 extra grams and the weight distribution make where the spinning feel's concerned. This one is a fair bit slower and more of a finger workout to get going, but also runs practically forever.

The fiber on it is 1/4th of the alpaca combed top from the 2024 fiber advent calendar I never really got to work with because I was in the hot phase of writing my master's thesis at the time. Alpaca will never be my favorite thing to spin, but long-draw alpaca spinning on a supported spindle is still a heckuva lot less godawful than short-forward-ish on a (Turkish-style) drop spindle. (Neither is difficult as such, but working with only one staple length at a time sure makes the fiber less of a sensory and fiber management-y nightmare. Also wow does this stuff need a lot of twist to hold together; and my Turkish-style spindle is so, so very slow lmao)

I'll ply this stuff once I have a spindle free that I don't dread doing that on, and then... I mean, what do you do with 2x25g of relatively fine 4-ply alpaca in two contrasting colors? I'd say a crochet colorwork headband or cowl, but both of that will need a LOT more than 50g of yarn...

I have a bunch of macrame necklaces with cool pendants in my shop!

I'm officially half-way through the Dorset Horn roving! It drafts pretty fine on my spindle, but I don't know if that's the inclination of the fiber or my general natural tendency toward fineness speaking.

Regardless, it's a springy wool that isn't super soft, but also doesn't have the coarseness I would have expected just looking at the roving. This is very much a nice middle ground in terms of wool and I bet it'd be good to learn drop spinning on.

Here's the start of my Se2se journey. It's such a cool program and I'm enjoying it. Looking forward to spinning and finishing the next half so I can officially apply my sticker to my little passport.

And here's how to get your own passport if you're so inclined.

Spinning complete! It's lovely and squishy--the brown was dyed with black walnuts and the white is natural from the sheep. Since I finished my 8 oz project, I also got to put the sticker in my little passport! Most of the yarn is two-ply done completely on the little cross arm spindle pictured. The small brown skein is the only thing that I ended up plying on a top-whorl to save time so I could get it done and into the dye pot.

Progress! I ended up deciding on a hooded cowl since I suck at keeping hats on my head if they touch my forehead. No pattern--I'm just making up from my favorite parts of other finished things I've seen. The outer part of the hood is gonna be this lovely brown and white plaid from the Dorset Horn - it's squishy as heck and I love the drape. Might need a second layer of lining to shore up the thickness a bit, but we'll see.

Bag

17th century

Silk, weft-float faced satin weave; embroidered in silk threads and gilt strip wound around a silk fiber core in couching and padded couching stitches; looped fringe attached in seams; draw-strings: silk, braid, terminating in tassels, interlaced through holes cut along upper edge; lining; silk, plain weave

England

More new shop listings! I've added a whole new section for things like potholders, dishcloths, trivets, etc. The newest items in it are two blue and white doubleknit snowflake trivets, a yellow and purple doubleknit butterfly potholder, and a bunch of cotton dishcloths in assorted colours.