crochet and recs and more

Dec. 10th, 2025 06:55 pm
donutsweeper: (Default)
[personal profile] donutsweeper
Not a lot to post about but I want to make one before I forget again or get even more snowed under (I've shoveled every day since Wed and twice a few of those days; I am so so sore and so so tired) BUT I finished my newest crochet project (a blanket made from the last of my Black Friday 2023 sale yarn) it's huge, give or take 50"x68":

Pink, dusty rose and light grey blanket

I was good and didn't buy much more yarn this Black Friday, only a single deal's worth that'll be a blanket for son at some point. I need to make many, many rugs before then because two separate sets of sheets ripped and now my 'to-be-rugged' storage drawer is overflowing. Luckily they ripped right before Black Friday so I was able to replace them with new sets on some very good sales. (Black Friday sales are so weird and you have to be so careful to futz around to get the best deal. Oddly, sometimes that means buying *more* and paying less. In one store I was ordering from the total was $72 and with shipping and tax it would have been $89 but because of deals- free shipping and $25 off if you ordered $100 of stuff- once I added a $28 item the total was $83 after taxes. So weird but worth spending the time futzing about) I also did some Small Business Saturday shopping to support small places and got some neat stuff (a hefty, hard carved spoon for one, I can't wait to use it)

Have two weeks of [community profile] recthething recs (tumblr art from Dracula, MDZS, ACD Sherlock Holmes, and X-Files and assorted AO3 things from BtVS/Angel, MDZS and Under the Skin)

Dracula
- Howdy y'all, I'm Quincey Morris and this is my friend Jonathan Harker, welcome to our unboxing video (hilarious)

MDZS/The Untamed
- sun and moon themed set of portraits (gorgeous WWX and LWJ sketches)

Sherlock Holmes - ACD
- Forever, if you are amenable (wonderful expressions and colors on this)

X-Files
- a tiny space scully I drew before bed (love Scully's smile in this)

AO3 things:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel: The Series
[FANART] The Crochet Buffyverse! by girlpire
Summary: This post is for my crochet versions of the characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series. I'll be doing a bunch of them, so I'll add chapters as I make new dolls. Chapter 1: Illyria (and her pet), 2004; Chapter 2: punk!Spike, 1977; Chapter 3: wizard!Giles, 2000; Chapter 4: Randy Giles, 2001; Chapter 5: Life of the Party Lorne, 2003. (all are utterly amazingly done, there's also links to see each of the amigurumi dolls on tumblr)

MDZS/The Untamed
On Little Cat Feet by deliciousblizzardshark (29k, locked to archive)
Summary Snippet: Wei Wuxian accidentally turns into a cat. Lan Qiren unknowingly adopts him. (LWJ's POV of this is absolutely hilarious as his very proper, always hated pets and mess etc uncle adopts a cat)

Under the Skin
UTS Advent Calendar 2025 by michinarty
Summary: Christmas is coming so let's wait for it with a fanart a day! This is just a collection of small ideas and the advent calendar was a good excuse to turn them into little doodles. So enjoy the fluff (new chapter/work added daily, also being posted to tumblr via this tag, absolutely adorable)

Hope all of you are doing well! :)

Which, you know...

Dec. 10th, 2025 05:24 pm
[personal profile] ebrillblaiddes
"There is no alternative" means "STOP TRYING TO THINK OF AN ALTERNATIVE." Which, you know, fuck that.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/
What if we are somewhat less than absolutely cooked?

althea_valara: A picture of knitting needles, laying on top of many skeins of colorful yarn. (knitting)
[personal profile] althea_valara
Boy am I late with this...

I did a LOT of knitting in a very short timeframe in November, and TBH it pooped me out and I think I'm still recovering. BUT! I successfully knitted a pair of legwarmers to wear to the A New World concert! Here they are:

A pair of cabled legwarmers. Yes, one's bigger than the other.
[Image Description: A pair of knitted legwarmers. They are Aran colored (think natural undyed yarn) and feature a folded ribbed cuff at top, with lazy cables on the body and an intricate cable at the back. One is larger than the other.]

So yeah, this pattern comes in small and large sizes. Small wouldn't fit me, but large was TOO big. I altered the pattern some for my first one, taking some stitches out to make it smaller. Well, I finished it and tried it on and nope, too big. So for the second I took even MORE stitches out of the pattern. This one felt like it fit well, but as soon as I started walking, it drooped.

I didn't have time to reknit them, so I made do with them as is, and used elastic headbands under the cuff to keep them up. That worked well! Also, I shortened the pattern because in the pattern pic, the lower edge was dragging on the ground and I didn't like that. Unfortunately, I shortened it TOO much. I might unpick the bind off and knit them a bit longer, but for now, they work. And no, I am likely not going to reknit the too big one. TOO MUCH WORK.

I also made progress on a hoodie!
Central Park Hoodie November 2025 Progress
[Image Description: a sleeve in progress for a knitted hoodie. It's mostly gray in color and features deep ribbing at the cuff. A center cable panel runs up the middle, in teal.]

At the beginning of the month, I had one cable cross done. Now I have two. So not much progress, but hey, progress is progress.

I also did some work on the Versailles Scarf, a small true lace knitted scarf. I wanted to finish this for the concert as well, but decided the legwarmers were more important. It'd be nice to get this done for Christmas, but with the lack of crafting I've been doing so far this month, it's not gonna happen.




FOLKS! I had a cat for 20 minutes!
A photo of a calico kitty who visited our house for about 20 minutes.
[Image Description: A photo of a calico kitty visited our house for a bit.]

She came up to our patio door before the snow hit, when it was still decent out, and we decided to let her in for a bit, once we closed the bedroom doors. I, of course, was enamored. Mom less so. Being a cat, she did cat things, like scratching at an area rug (mom yelled at her, poor thing, but I can't really fault mom for that) and jumping on the kitchen table to try to get to our Christmas cactus. I kept a close eye on her the entire time she was in the house, so when I saw you going for the plant, I gently picked her up and deposited her back on the floor, because well, I don't know if those plants are safe for cats.

She was inquisitive and explored a lot, and liked to rub against legs. At one point, she was in our living room and started trotting towards the kitchen, so I called out to mom to let her know she was headed mom's way. Unfortunately mom was distracted and didn't hear me, and the cat, being friendly, came up behind her and rubbed her legs and mom almost tripped on her. :(

We considered calling an animal shelter, but due to her friendliness, decided to just let her back outside. Not before she jumped on the table AGAIN, though. I tried to grab her to deposit her back on the floor, but she jumped on the back of one of our chairs, and well, the chair tipped over.

Which means mom has declared NO CATS. :( I had really hoped she'd come around and we could, like, adopt a senior kitty, and my older sister made noise about us doing just that at Thanksgiving, but I don't think mom would be happy with a cat. Alas. But at least I had one for 20 minutes.
rugessnome: bags of dried beans (cooking)
[personal profile] rugessnome
Early this week I made a kind of turkey pot pie stew from leftover turkey, and served it with biscuit mix biscuits with celery seed added to them (to reflect the crust of my mom's Betty Crocker cookbook's pot pie recipe)


Cursory notes on the procedure
Cooked 1 medium onion, chopped, in roughly 2 T oil with a little salt and more generous black pepper, add 2 T flour and cook for a couple minutes, then added four (and eventually a fifth) cups of water, ultimately about 4 tsp Chicken Better than Bouillon, 2 medium carrots chopped, 2 smallish russet potatoes, diced, 6 oz frozen broccoli cuts (alas, some of the stems were a very bad texture due to being fibrous), and 6 oz frozen peas, and about 1.75c chopped cooked turkey.

I think I added 1/2tsp celery seed to a half batch of biscuit mix biscuits, which was not very strong but did come through somewhat.


Today we baked a cran-apple (walnut-less) cake as seen in *Heart of the Plate* (apparently also in Moosewood Cookbook though? I do not know it that well + have never paid a great deal of attention to the dessert section) and I made a couple Indian dishes for a late lunch since I had bought the mixes on a whim and they had recently passed their best by dates* (Plus I had some clearance mini naans that were getting old so needed eaten up).

Both were Rasoi Magic brand, and the Methi Mutter Malai (methi/fenugreek leaves and peas in a creamy sauce) turned out pretty well, although I think I would prefer to add slightly less sugar to the dish than it has (and am curious to perhaps try making Methi Mutter Malai with fresh methi at some point). I am less pleased with my tofu version of their Paneer Tikka Masala--even though the spicing and the tofu seem a promising combo, how I made it was more frustrating (involving shallow frying tofu cubes and experiencing some sticking), it was too spicy-hot for my mom to eat (which I failed to consider when I bought it), and it told me I should add a "cup" of water at the last step, which turned into a really liquid sauce that did not thicken up within anything like the recommended cooking time...

*anecdote: ...a month or so ago I stopped by the nearest Indian grocery and happened to pick up some sort of dried root that was in the spice section to look at the package, curious if I could glean any information about the unfamiliar item. I discovered, however, instead that it had expired by some earlier month in 2023 (maybe even 2022) so decided to bring that particular package to a staff member's attention. I was told that whatever it was was used medicinally, and that best by dates don't mean a lot (which is true!), but in my defense, I do feel that discovering you'd purchased something over 2 years past its best by date (without even being marked down) would be disappointing to most people. I was fine with using these mixes a month or three after their dates, although I wouldn't want to buy one that expired more than a month ago since I don't always get around to using them very quickly, and these contain nuts and milk powder, both of which tend to go strong. Otherwise I don't totally mind using somewhat older spices/spice mixes though yes, they do lose at least some flavor.

**I actually cooked by the mL quantities since my measuring cups have both and my Indian Saffola oats give a cup quantity of water that does not mesh with the mL recommendation at all. But I do think these were more reasonable approximations even if the mL (in like, centiliter accuracy) is probably what's strictly intended.

it's that time again!

Nov. 29th, 2025 09:21 am
althea_valara: Photo of my cat sniffing a vase of roses  (Default)
[personal profile] althea_valara
holiday love meme 2025
my thread here


If you're not familiar with this: you comment on the post with your username(s), and then people ANONYMOUSLY leave comments on why they like you.
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
The new dryer is just fine, except the top is ever so slightly slanted in a way that makes it a bad place to set your dryer balls.

Have I mentioned that especially after Colonoscopy Week I've had more trouble than usual walking? I've been using my cane inside the house for the first time in quite a while, and I'm limited in how much I can carry without (more) pain. It sucks. Belovedest has set up the short ramp against the shortest outside stairs, and while going up it is Bad, going up the stairs without it is Worse. (Both outside doors have stairs.)

I wasn't available to assist with any of the Thanksgiving cooking. Belovedest did it themselves! Including: turkey, the epic tray of dressing, biscuits from the mix, and instant potatoes made the way that erases the taste of Box. (There was also salad available, but there's quite a bit of vegetable in the sausage-cornbread dressing.)

Today we had some roof inspectors. The inspection's free; the quote for fixing things up is *sigh* very much not free.

Holiday Love Meme

Nov. 27th, 2025 06:30 pm
donutsweeper: (Default)
[personal profile] donutsweeper
It's that time of year again!

holiday love meme 2025
my thread here


Everyone go throw your names in the hat so you can get some holiday love too! :)
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