Howdy there friends!
I'm charlie and I'm an avid knitter, mostly socks and shawls, but I dabble in most aspects of fiber crafts! Hoping to get into yarn spinning next year if circumstances allow. My other less intense hobbies are gardening, violin/piano, reading (mostly history), and board games.
I'm non-binary, they/him pronouns. My journey has been a lot of self doubt and imposter syndrome, but I'm extremely lucky to have the best wife/best friend I could imagine.
Omg!! I love an infodump in general, and that one was specifically my jam, aaaaaahhhhhh I love that you know so much about this fiber!! I'm so excited for you to dive into that spinning, hot damn is that gonna be fun!
And that pattern..!!! I was absolutely in love with it, and then I read this excerpt that was part of the inspiration
I couldn't love it more and am seriously considering changing my username, it might be time to leave ill-tempered sea bass behind and embrace hen wife.
That shawl!! The lacy border and back panel are just to die for, I can't get over it. So beautiful!!
I don't have any craft projects going right now; I dropped everything to build a Poultry Palace this spring in the hope that I'd finish it before the birds arrived June 28. I didn't succeed on the timeline, but it is finally finished, and I'm getting life back in order to try to make other stuff again. I started a painting a couple years ago that I'd like to finish, I've got drinking glasses to etch designs on, and I have a pile of old shirts I'd like to eventually turn into a quilt.
And your knitting has reminded me that I was learning to crochet once upon a time, and maybe once I get back on my ADHD meds, I should try again! I started a baby blanket while pregnant - that child is entering junior year of high school on Wednesday. 😂🤦
I didn't grow much in my garden this year, just enjoyed the perennials. I was attacked by a swarm of ground-nesting yellow jackets while mowing last year and have PTSD that makes yard work difficult. I'm also allergic to hornet stings (and bees), so it's dangerous in addition to being scary. I've made huge strides though, and with the combination of working on that and having my little birb buddies around, I'll be able to garden again next year. We've got chickens and guinea fowl, and the Internet tells me that people stop having ground nesting hornets after they get guineas, so 🤞
We're considering going nuts on blueberries in the future and scaling back all other attempts at food production until our soil has been drastically improved. We have very dense clay soil that is pretty acidic and have struggled to grow most things. Tomatoes go ape shit but then catch fungus, but blueberries are just unstoppable here.
I've completely lost track of where I was heading or if there were more things to talk about! 😂🤦 and I'm running out of time. But omg so lovely to meet you, I'm so excited about your spinning and your shawl and hope you post pictures of your work!!
Do It!
We used to keep chickens, I absolutely loved them and hope we can start again. They all had their own little personalities and quirks, there were friend groups and rivalries, so cute.
I'm making the shawl for my wife, she also fell in love with the description of a Hen Wife and identifies so much! The lace portion is really nice too because it's both charted and written, so it's how I learned to read charts as well, lol. Very approachable pattern!
Glass etching is cool! I feel you on those old projects, especially the baby blanket, lol, I too have one of those. 😅 One of my friends had a kid going off to the same college they went to, so I quilted all of their old college shirts into a twin size quilt for their dorm, that was really fun even if it was all kinds of tedious getting everything lined up.
I didn't know that was even a thing, those are terrifying!! When I was a kid I hit a seed tick nest mowing the lawn and it took me years before I would even go back into the yard. Much solidarity, and congrats on your progress! I hope your birb buddies get lots of yummy snacks and clear out the pest! Our chickens ate everything, it makes sense to me they'd be able to help with those.
Same, oh my gosh, my side neighbor has a field of wild blueberries and they go wild every year. I let them grow across the fence line over the summer until the berries come in and then prune them back in the fall, lol. Free blueberries!! They're so low effort, highly recommend.
Same! I'm so glad there are fellow gardener/crafters on Hexbear. :cat-trans: I don't know if we have a crafting com but I'll probably throw up a thread in chat or something when I finish my next project. I'd love to see what you're working on!
Almost everything I've learned about animal fiber has come from this phenomenal book, The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook It makes a really good coffee table book, and I like to flip through it for inspiration sometimes.
That book would make an awesome gift for a friend of mine, thank you so much for the recommendation!!
I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing your projects in chat!! I'll have to dig up something to post.
So happy to meet you! :cat-trans:
Same! And that's a good idea, I have a few things I've made for myself that I can take pictures of and post. I usually give everything away and I'm not good about taking finished photos, lol
Very happy to meet you too!