Crafting and Hobbies

[ShaiNeko]

I finally got a few pictures uploaded to show off my beginner spinning skills.

First, this is some Blue Faced Leicester, dyed a teal blue color. It's from a breed study group I'm in, we spin wool that belongs to a specific breed of sheep each month to learn the characteristics of that breed. This particular mini skein is a laceweight, and it's about 48 yards.

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This is from a breed of sheep called California Red, which is a creamy white color with tiny strands of cinnamony red hairs in it. Some of it has been dyed, dark red and brown. The wool comes to me in what's called a batt. After the wool has been washed, dyed, and combed, it's put on a machine called a drum carder. The drum carder fluffs and separates the fibers while aligning them in roughly the same direction. Once it's full, you have a large, fluffy piece of fiber. This picture shows some of the batt, as well as a spindle with a single strand of yarn spun and wrapped around it.

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Here's the finished yarn. It's a lot bulkier than the one above, and it's about 74 yards long.

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Depending on what I'm working with, I either ply my single strands back onto themselves, or I spin two different single strands that I ply together. For both of these yarns I plied the singles back onto themselves.

In July, there's a big, worldwide internet event call the Tour de Fleece. It occurs at the same time as the Tour de France. The idea is to spin (or knit or crochet if you choose, though it tends to involve more spinners) everyday that the Tour is riding. I'm taking part this year, I get to be a rookie. It should be fun, I've already gotten quite a few new batts and rovings, and I'm going to tackle spinning a kind of art yarn. It's going to be a very nice merino with beads spun into the yarn as I go.

[Pink]

I like making things out of socks. xD
I make all kinds of plushies out of old socks, new socks, and toe socks. I have made a star fish, a circle monster thing, and another monster thing. When I get a new camera I can post up some pictures. :3

[TxCat]

I like making things out of socks. xD
I make all kinds of plushies out of old socks, new socks, and toe socks. I have made a star fish, a circle monster thing, and another monster thing. When I get a new camera I can post up some pictures. :3

Do you have pictures? My foster daughter, Lix, adores sock monkeys and similar creatures. They are, however, hard to get.

[musicalsweets]

My hobbies do not consist of crafting things with my hands. In fact, I am horrible at making things through various artistic mediums such as clay or yarn or cloth.

Instead, I love film-making, and I create many movies in my free time. Currently I make machinimas using the Sims 2. Mainly they consist of music videos to songs that I like. I choose the song based on how easily I can picture a scene in my head, or maybe a basic story that I can imagine. In the future I hope to use CG animations instead of the Sims 2. If not CG, then use a video camera with real actors and use advanced movie editing tools.

I'm beginning to create video walkthroughs for video games, often called "Let's Plays". I am an experienced gamer, mostly in the Japanese RPG genre, and this has become an enjoyable pasttime for me.

Another important hobby of mine, which also consumes most of my life, is playing the flute. I find it extremely important to develop myself as a musician so I can play professionally. I am only a high school student now, but I'm involved in many music programs, such as marching band (my favorite!), madrigal instrumentalists, musical pit, and regular wind ensemble (honors concert band). I may join pep band next year; I haven't decided yet. Also, since I am an experienced flute player (I've played for about 7 years), I play music not required by my teachers. I often find myself playing video game music or my favorite solos from a book I own.

[Valden]

In the winter, I crochet. Nothing fancy, just granny squares for blankets and scarves. I'm trying to teach myself new stitches and blanket techniques from an old book which shows both left handed and right handed ways of doing things but I always lose count of my stitches, they're uneven, and anything but the basics currently looks bad.

Don't let this discourage you! I learned how to crochet a little over a year ago by a volunteer at the center, and my very first project was a very large single and double stitch blanket. I haven't learned how to do granny squares, but I did recently learn how to do a wavyish like pattern for a scarf.

I also don't count my stiches. Tried, got fed up with it, and never did while making my blanket. I'm considering counting the stiches (length wise) and the rows just to see how many stitches it took altogether though. I crochet by sight only, not by counting stitches.

I've already made four belts and a scarf, and am working on another blanket that has several colors within one skeim of yarn. I've also learned how to make awesome long dangly like necklaces with beds with the yarn. And I was just recently told not to cut the yarn first, but to just slide the beads onto all of the yarn, as many beads as I want, so that the necklace will be as long as I want it to be.

When I'm back home on July 1st, I'll upload my images of the blanket and belts and share! I want to sell some of my projects on Etsy, just to make a little money on the side.

[BullRun]

I'm a little niche in my hobby. I like cross stitching video game characters. Right now, I'm doing a huge stitch of about fifteen different pokemon, and it will probably take about a year to complete. The sad part is that I don't even like pokemon! However, the high resolution, bright and large pixel art has combined to make pokemon unbelievably awesome to stitch.
My previous stitches are more odd. My first complete project was a quote from H. G. Wells surrounded by Space Invaders. My next one was a picture of Alex Kidd riding on a balloon, which was my favorite part of a very obscure game. I also made a large stitch of Charizard for my friend.

[Niverdia]

I do a bit of traditional art, always have been drawing but only started putting more thought into it some five years ago and have since then slowly improved, with various ups and downs in-between. Mostly I just draw various fantasy critters and/or birds and, more often than not, use watercolour, so I've had to discard the idea of using any kind of paper that's lighter/thinner than watercolour one, because I usually end up getting it wet at some point anyway.

I consider colouring to be my strongest skill, although I'm far from being really good at it, so I don't know what to think of my things when I generally talk about the fact that I Draw - usually everything I might say about it seems trite and droll, probably because deep inside I know that I'm not really facing it head-on. Perhaps it is also like that because I'm not very good at seeing/feeling proportions and due to studies and my mood disorder motivation has shifted back and forth over time and I often feel lost in this. :tard:

In any case, I've set it as one of my goals for this year to determine in what direction I want to work, what kind of pictures I want to create and how am I going to get there. If my financial situation gets a bit better, I'd like to purchase a tablet at some point, because I'd like to try being able to work with more opaque techniques and having a bit more control over correcting things without investing a fortune in materials which I don't know how to use... yet.

Sometimes I think that while drawing comes hard, not drawing can seem even harder, even if there's still a long, long way to go and I'm not satisfied with my work.

Other than drawing, my crafting skills have always been weak, both due to lack of practice and understanding/having a somewhat subpar fine motor control.

[NKfloofiepoof]

I cross stitch. It's the only somewhat artistic thing I'm good at which isn't saying much since anyone with two hands and half a brain can cross stitch. These are two of my most recent finishes. The pictures were commissioned and drawn by a friend, and I turned them into cross stitch patterns and made them.

Bumblebee bookmark (he went to a friend I met at BotCon 2 weeks ago):

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Megatron bookmark (he was supposed to go to Frank Welker, Megatron's original voice actor, but he didn't show at BotCon, so I still have it):

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He wasn't quite finished yet when I took this picture - he still needed some backstitching on top of his head, the back of his hand, and on the Decepticon symbol. He was finished about two hours after I took this photo.

I need to find a better way to store my thread :tard: I currently use the Stitchbow binder system, and it takes up entirely too much room. I'm thinking of changing to paper/plastic bobbins and keeping them in Ziploc bags sorted by numbers (200s, 300s, etc.). Any other cross stitchers on here? What kinds of storage methods do you use?

[BradTheMad]

That Megatron bookmark is awesome! Of course I'm a huge Decepticon fan since I was five so I'm biased.

[Soleil]

Sol is now dabbling in the candle-making business. Parents think we can make some money off of it so we bought out a company that was going out of business anyway. We're gonna do candles, the wickless warmer tarts, and I'm going to attempt to make some air fresheners (like for cars) to see how those will fare in this weather --- due to the product I'm using they could possibly melt out here in 110F outside weather.