The feral goblin in my head who likes to cause trouble: Hey, hey you know those hearts you like to knit? Think you could make one all thick/3d/like those little candy hearts?⁠ The adult I pretend is in charge: I mean sure, I could do that, I see how I'd do that. But I probably don't actually need to.⁠ Goblin: Betcha can't.⁠ Adult: No, I mean I'm sure I could, all you'd need to do is...⁠ Goblin: LIES LIES LIES I WON'T BELIEVE IT UNLESS YOU SHOW ME AND I WON'T STOP YELLING UNTIL YOU DO AND I CAN GO [...]

I've been thinking about how best to show off all the variations on this stitch, and I decided on basically making what is more or less a sampler. Which mean I spent a not-inconsiderable amount of time over the last little while creating two big, plain rectangles of fabric (because there's not room to fit it all in on one), blocking them, adorning them, then blocking them again. And now I'm going to spend a not-inconsiderable amount of time this week taking pictures of the same. You know, assuming the sun comes out and the weather behaves. Which is a [...]

Should this amuse me as much as it does? Probably not.⁠ Am I going to let that stop me? Clearly not.⁠ Am I the only one smitten? Hopefully not.⁠ Don't worry, the stitching on my stitching phase will pass soon enough (they always do, I can already feel the faint tickle of the next phase on the horizon...it feels like it involves cables). But until it does, I'll be over here going 'ooooooh, pretty, look at this' for the next little while. ⁠ You're welcome to join me!

I mean clearly, two panels of embroidery were not enough. We needed a third. And I shall inflict it on you along the way! As always, I'm not officially making instructional videos, because those are hard and require a level of professionalism and organization that I do not possess! But I can just sort of do it and talk about it as we go along so you see what's going on and get a sense for the vibe, because sometimes seeing how something works makes it look way less scary. You can see that over here on instagram, or a [...]

I think I'm going to stitch on at least one more quadrant of this hat. And I think I might flip the camera on and film it while I do.⁠ Now, as always, I am officially not making a how-to video! Because the distance between the quality of video I would need to create to feel comfortable calling it that and the quality of video I can create with the equipment/software/time/knowledge available to me right now is substantial. And I don't currently wish to do the things that would be necessary to close that gap. So this would officially not [...]

The hat is out on both ravelry and payhip! It's called Explicate, and I can't remember the last time I was this amused with a project. Now let's be real, the knitting on this is pretty mellow. Ribbed brim, stockinette body, pretty little decreases on the top. All the excitement comes from that gorgeous embroidery. And that's what vast majority of the pattern is about. There are dozens of step-by-step photos to walk you through every bit of it from the duplicate stitch at the brim to the decorative stitch on the body of the hat to the (optional) braid [...]

Miss Fizzy would like you to know that she has been testing out the sampler piece I made to show off the variations of the stitch on tomorrow's hat, and she finds it perfectly suitable for light napping. Though to be fair, she is quite capable of napping the most astonishing places (such as on the still wet shower seat or on the precariously narrow top edge of the back of an arm chair or on the dark basement stairs), so she's not a particularly trustworthy source on these matters. Adorable. But not trustworthy. There's still time to donate to [...]

Should we add this in to the embroidery project? I can't quite decide, so you folks get to make up my mind for me... I thought I was done playing with variations of the lovely stitch. I really did. But then I found One More Thing to play with. Because that's what happens to my brain when it's left unsupervised.⁠ ⁠ Now, full disclosure, I really should just stop. The spiffy little thing I've put together to explore this stitch already has versions for two, four, and six colors, each in two different spacings, plus an offset version of each. [...]

On Tuesday, February 1, I'm going to get up, have a cup of tea, sit down at my computer, and take the star book down. Patrons at the Utter Nonsense and Rampant Nonsense levels have until then to download it for free as part of their membership. ⁠ I may bring it back and put it up for sale somewhere when the days start getting short again in the fall. But the days are finally starting to feel longer and the sun is starting to feel brighter, and that makes me feel like it's time to put them away for [...]