ceb, posts by tag: i made this - LiveJournal

This weekend I have made a thing! Which is neither for Worldcon nor the BSFA, unlike everything else I've been doing in the past 6 months.



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One of the story prompts from Yuletide last year stuck in my head, and I found myself writing Lego noir:

The Danish Connection (2310 words) by molybdomantic
Fandom: Lego - All Media Types, Lego modular buildings, LEGO Detective's Office
Additional Tags: Detective Noir, Baked Goods, cheap plastic imitation Philip Marlowe, perfectly innocent cookie-smuggling operation
Summary: On the mean streets of Lego City, Ace Brickman is on the trail of the shadowy Cinnamon Whirl Crook.

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This was made following watervole's thorough tutorial: http://watervole.dreamwidth.org/tag/tablet+weaving

My yarn turned out to be too thick (especially for my initial aim of a bookmark) and too stretchy. If I try this again I shall get finer, less stretchy/fluffy yarn. Also look for a more ergonomic loom set-up (watervole has made lots of suggestions).

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(April is still pending because the photos are slightly more complex.)

The start of May was Sebi and Carrie's wedding, and the theme was board games. I decided to go as a Carcassonne tile, and I made a quilted tile which doubled as a wedding present. (The wedding was on 1st May but I was still finishing this on the day so it totally counts as May.) The quilting was mostly an excuse to practice free-hand machine embroidery because it is the most fun ever.

Voila front:


and back:


( Detailed images and waffle about construction below the cutCollapse )

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I seem to have neglected to write about the things I wrote for Yuletide, oops. This year's theme seems to have been "fitting in as many allusions to the source material as I can".

A Mystery! Solved (2641 words) by molybdomantic
Fandom: Edward Gorey's PBS Mystery Intro, GOREY Edward - Works</p>

This was my assignment; the canon is a collection of short animations by Edward Gorey for the opening credits of a mystery TV series. I had great fun seeing how many of the elements I could shoe-horn into a story, and less fun trying to concoct a plausible ending, which was quite hard. Not helped by damerell's beta comments which attempted to convert the entire thing into an extended Flash Gordon pun. :-P

"Just because it says READ ME doesn't mean you should" (1650 words) by molybdomantic
Fandom: Nethack (Video Game)</p>

NetHack fic, because how how often am I going to get the chance? The title, and the calendar's helpful mottoes, are all from rumors.tru (which is the source of the minor oracularities). I loved the idea that the Oracle might be lazily repeating aphorisms from an aphorism-a-day desk calendar rather than making them up herself.

And then two poems that I'm quite pleased with:

Survival Is Insufficient (106 words) by molybdomantic
Fandom: Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel</p>

Tell Them What You Know, Little Bird (118 words) by molybdomantic
Fandom: Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants (Song)</p>

The Station Eleven one came first, because the world NEEDS Station Eleven fic in the shape of Shakespearean sonnets and I was just waiting for the excuse to write it. I've got Shakespearean apologies for the roughness of the production (Oh, for a muse of fire &c.), and after careful scanning of the sonnets for typical Shakespearean images I could use I settled on stars. Not as common as flowers but way easier to squeeze in. That rhyme scheme is just how sonnets come out of my head, apparently; they feel wrong without the extra syllables.

Then I saw elisem asking for _Birdhouse in your Soul_ fic, and having been thinking in iambic pentameter all week I found myself with 'There IS a LITtle BIRDhouse IN my SOUL' running round my head and then that had to happen too. (Well, strictly, I tried to banish it, and then I was ambushed by the bees line and *then* it had to happen.)

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A batch of Eastercon jewellery. Excuse the awful white borders, igal seems to have changed and I need to go and find the right option to stop it...

More photos here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~clareb/photos/jewellery/index.html


Half-Persian 4-in-1, love this weave!


Vipera Berius bracelet.



+2 Chromatic Dragon Scale Mail bracelet and earrings.


European zig-zag necklace.


'For The Love Of A Good Robot'


Brass and aluminium loops.


Rainbow chain and pendant.


This weave: http://www.beadsisters.co.uk/library/pages/learnaweave72_crisscross_cuff.htm , which I am NEVER making again, it is evil.

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I've been learning some basic patchwork and quilting with the aim of eventually making a couple of quilts. I went on two courses at Sew Creative in Cambridge, which I recommend. (Their courses page: http://sewcreative.co.uk/cambridge-workshops)

The eagle-eyed will notice from the subtly Christmas-themed fabric prints that actually I did the patchwork course before Christmas. Here are some basic patchwork blocks, made by piecing together long strips of fabric, cutting across them at 90 degrees, then rotating some of the strips.





Put two squares face-to-face, sew along either side the diagonal, then cut the diagonal, to produce two triangles sewn together. Repeat for bow-tie shapes.



And then some quilting. This involves sewing together a "quilt sandwich" of decorative top layer, batting in the middle for warmth, backing layer. Here the decorative layers are replaced with plain white, and I've used dark thread, so that the stitching shows up. First some very basic machine quilting with a walking foot (which grabs the quilt sandwich from both sides so that the layers don't get out of alignment):



Some hand quilting (this takes FOREVER):



And freehand machine quilting, which it the most fun ever. It uses a special foot whih doesn't guide the fabric through the machine at all. Instead you move the fabric about as if it were a sheet of paper which you were moving around under a stationary pen:



Various freehand practice with cartoony sea-themed fabric. (My co-learner was much more classy than me and chose some rather elegant roses instead.) Here's a seahorse:


And an anemone:


And from the back:


The texture of the quilted things is very satisfying. I have plans to make some quilted cushion covers (from some test patchwork blocks I made), and a quilt like this: http://texaslovely.com/strip-flip-ombre-baby-quilt/ (only larger than a baby quilt) and another like this: http://www.hyggeligt.ca/library-quilt-kit-kaffe-fassett/

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These were presents for kabarett, and are illustrations of the elements? (I think) from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Thanks Alex for the excuse to mess around with plastic ;-)



These are shrink plastic cufflinks, using:

• Polyshrink white shrink plastic (which shrinks more evenly than the ShrinkyDinks of my youth)


• 400 grit sandpaper (because Polyshrink doesn't come pre-roughened)


• fine Sharpie markers


• a light box for tracing patterns (at some point I need to refit this to use LEDs, which run cooler and are less fragile)


• my oven, with the door cleaned and the seal replaced so that it keeps its temperature and there's no need to hold the door open to see what's happening


• Ghiant VarnishH2O gloss varnish spray (the theory is that, being water-based, this doesn't make the Sharpie ink run - we shall see how well it lasts)


• cufflink blanks (nothing special about these, except thy were angled which gives you the opportunity to glue the plastic on the wrong way up)


• coarse sandpaper, for roughening the plastic/blank join before glueing


• E6000 glue (for attaching plastic to cufflink blanks)

Herewith a selection of links I found useful, for future reference.

• https://www.etsy.com/teams/7332/etsys-uk-ireland-seller-support-team/discuss/11097997/page/2


• https://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5165830&page=1


• http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=326901.0


• http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=423363.0


• http://talk.folksy.com/t/sealing-varnishing-shrink-plastic-items/6534


• http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=242149.0


• http://www.instructables.com/id/Shrinky-Dinks-and-Doming-Resin/?ALLSTEPS

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... well, mostly aldabra, but other people might be interested too. Especially the Repair Cafe on 31st May and the Skillsfest on 21st June.

http://cambridgecarbonfootprint.org/blog/category/events/upcoming-events/

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The 4rd week of Jan, I finished off lectures for the masters course, and started on the assignments. This is a lot less hectic than last year! I'm glad I'm doing 1 fewer module. Also I (intentionally) dyed a lot of underwear red/purple.

The 5th week of Jan, I made elderberry vinegar (sadly no photos for countryskillsblog.com , maybe next time...). I followed the recipe that Kate recommended at http://www.gallowaywildfoods.com/?page_id=1219 and it was surprisingly easy. The result is very tasty too. Also I took the last of my pending charity shop pile to the EACH shop. Also also I bought and planted out some redcurrant and blackcurrant bushes.

No photos because otherwise I'll wait forever to post this.

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