for all my crafts

Embroider Landscapes 

Cayce was trained as a painter, but wanted to start a non-toxic studio - so she turned to embroidery, something she enjoyed as a child.

One day she turned a portrait around and realized how interesting the backside was. So she started displaying them that way as well.

Then she ventured back into painting, where she recreated the look of the backwards portraits with gouaches and acrylics.

First of all, stop defacing stock in someone’s store. You’re not clever or saving the planet or anything. You’re making it hard for customers to shop and see the info they need on the label (yardage, weight, dye lot)… You’re making employees spend hours peeling the damn things off, and in some cases, you’re causing damage to the label and or yarn itself. That means loss to the company, which affects employees who probably make minimum wage, you shit bags. You want to make change happen? Contact corporate, you fuckhead. That’s where decisions are made.

Second of all, wool is not murder. Are you fucking stupid? (Obviously the answer is yes). It’s a fucking haircut for a sheep. They’ve been domesticated so long that if we don’t sheer them, it’s bad. Yes, some sheep don’t live in ideal conditions. Got a problem with that? Going to a yarn store and putting stickers on things isn’t going to change it or the minds of customers. For fuck’s sake, you absolute cockwomble, go to the yarn companies. Make them use wool providers that use humane conditions for their yarn, like A LOT OF YARN COMPANIES DO.

And third of all.

You. You precious, empty-headed little shitnugget. You complete and total sawdust-for-brains.

You put your fucking stickers all over acrylic yarn.

There’s no fucking wool in there. It’s all synthetic fiber. Basically, it’s plastic.

It’s because after spending serious £££ on materials, and then HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF LABOR on the creation of the item, with every stitch a prayer of totally focused intent, creating a large display of technical skill - it is then gifted to a non-knitter who does NOT APPRECIATE the work/effort/skill/cost/TIME it took to make it, and in fact thinks you’re a bit weird and making a big deal out of a piece of clothing, and after they go “oh thanks” and shove your creation in the cupboard next to a sweater they got for £15 at an M&S sale, then they never wear your sweater because it’s too tight because when you asked them how their favorite sweaters usually fit they said “I ‘unno” and when you measured them for the fifth time and asked, rather tersely, if they had enough room in the chest, they said “I guess,” and then if pressed they say they don’t really like the sweater design, but then you point out that they were supposed to participate in helping you design it and they say they don’t really care about how things look, and when you say that you tried to match it to their other clothes so how can they hate it, then they say that honestly their mother still buys all their clothes because they hate going shopping, and that they hate all their other clothes too, well. That’s when a sensible knitter goes “Fuck this shit. And you know what? Fuck this man.”

This is what happens when someone posts in a knitting forum “Attack of the sweater curse!” - this is the usual story. It has a rigid plot. It is as old as myth.

That’s when you look at the time you spent and realize, “I could LITERALLY have written the first draft of a novel instead of doing this.” That’s when you go “I could have taken that £200 and bought myself a new wardrobe.” That’s when you go “I could have taken all that intent, all that willpower, all that creative force, and laid down some fucking witchcraft, all right?” That’s when you go “I basically spent 100 hours straight thinking about this bastard while making something amazing for him, and I have no evidence that he ever spent 10 hours of his life thinking about me.”

And “I could spend this time and energy and money in making myself an enormous, intricate heirloom silk shawl with just a touch of cashmere, in elvish twists and leafy lace in all the colors of the night, shot through with subtly glittering stars, warm in winter and cool and summer and light as a lover’s kiss on the shoulders, suitable for draping over my arms at weddings or wrapping myself in to watch the sea, a lace-knotted promise to myself that I will keep for my entire life and gift to my favorite granddaughter when I die, and she will wear it to keep alive my memory - but instead I have this sweater, and this fuckboy.”

The sweater curse is a lesson that the universe gives to a knitter at an important point in their life. It is a gift.

Knitting a sweater for a husband or wife generally doesn’t call down the curse, because the relationship is meant to be stronger than 4-ply.