I'm getting better at these, and they really are that red.

The easiest way to make a wreath is with 10-20 long, thin pieces of bendy fresh wood shoots at least a foot long, each. The longer the better.

Start the wreath by tying your three longest, straightest pieces together with some wire, leave some wire to spare, then braid them loosely together. Once your pieces are fully braided, use the tail end of that same wire to tie the ends together in a ring. To build it out, stick the ends of your other sticks between your braided pieces, there will be holes since you did it loosely, and wrap them around, shoving the ends back into the wreath to anchor them. Work around your wreath, occasionally bending it into shape until it's as big and round as you'd like it.

Birch, willow and dogwood are all great for weaving.

Red osier dogwood is native to Ontario, it grows in moist low areas, and I only forage a few sprigs from each bush.

I've been doing the bottle one for cuttings for years. The muffin tray ones dry out too quickly for me.

I can barely sew and managed to make a presentable skirt for a costume in under two hours, by hand.

Bonus guide:

In an effort to use up all the felt I've made from projects that didn't turn out (shit I've made,) I cut out random little guys to stuff with lavender and rose petals. They're ugly and they smell amazing

I call this one Higgins:

I saw this while visiting friends in the city.

'Tis the season for shoots. Remember, there are plenty of bendy, fresh stems out there right now and birch is easy to weave as well. And, as always, forage responsibly.

Stumbled across this antique pattern library with some free crafting patterns from book binding to lace making.

Inspired by various notebooks I saw on pinterest and our very centipede-like ship in the game!

I sewed the wings on upside down.

I bought the pattern from https://www.annwoodhandmade.com/ — a site I previously posted here with all her free patterns and project ideas.

Lots of sewing and a few other crafts. I've already made one of her paid patterns — had no idea she had free ones, too. UNTIL NOW.

So I'm sharing with all of you.

I just got a whole bunch of old leather belts from a closing thrift store. In searching for what to do with them, I found this.

I followed this to make by first stained glass — which I will not share. I encourage you to share your projects, though!

One of my teachers plopped this book in my hands today for an assignment, and I immediately thought of this community. Fortunately someone else had already scanned it and uploaded it to Archive.org!

I just started messing around with stained glass after getting a bunch of leftover bits and tools from a friend. Since I have a shit ton of rocks, I tried out the same process on these rose quartz to make charms.

I don't really have specialized materials, so I used copper tape, wire and electrosol solder (lead free.) Not sure if I like the silver so I ordered a black patina to see how that goes.

Flux was my best friend, here..I read lots of info saying lead free solder is hard to spread, but with the right flux it flowed nicely over the tape.

Key points:

• Cheap. Cheap cheap.
• Tent is 10 x 10ft
• It's for a Renaissance Faire

I'm doing the market at my first ever Ren Faire where we're strongly encouraged to do up our tents to fit the theme. I'm basically a swamp witch, so I'm leaning into the whole natural/alchemy vibe.

I already have a tent and fold-up tables, I just need to figure out how to cover the whole thing cheaply and easily enough it doesn't take a lot of time from making stuff to sell.

I have about two dozen skeins of yarn I've dyed various greens, enough different green scrap fabrics to cover the whole top, if sewn together, and off-white tableclothes.

Oh, and everything needs to fit into a car.

Does anyone have any idea for how to swamp-witch it up without spending a lot of time or money? I live in a small, rural town, so local supplies are limited to basics.

I call these "catballs" as well, because they're all filled with catnip for my sweet nightmare baby.

So! Here's how to make a catball. You need:

Wool roving - Sheep's wool specifically has a rough texture under a microscope. The bumpy parts help it lock into itself when it gets tangled up.

A felting needle - These are long needles use to stab the wool together. The barbs along the length help pull the wool fibres into the mass. You can also get reverse barbed needles to re-fuzzify things.

A thick sponge - A firm felting surface the wool woving won't stick to.

Catnip - Dried and optional.

I always start with the "burrito method" where I take a hand-length bit of roving and roll it up like a burrito around the catnip, pulling in the sides as well. I stab that a bunch, rolling it on the sponge to get all sides until it's relatively secure, then I start adding more chunks of wool, wrapping and turning the ball, slowly building up through stabbing until it's solid.

To make the iris, I take a small bit of roving in a different colour to roll and squish it between my fingers until it's about discus-shaped, then I stab that into my ball - careful around the edges to keep it round. At this point I can layer up the iris if it's not thick enough.

I then twist another bit of roving into a loose thread between my fingers, and carefully stab that in, a little at a time, tracing the edge of the iris.

The veins are made with a chaotic version of the thread method, just stab it semi-random and watch the blood vessels form.

Once you master the eyeball you can move on to the banana and the peep.

Just to show the difference material makes when dyeing. All of these went into the same dye bath at the same time and they all started out white or off-white.

I used Rit non-synthetic emerald and kelly green dyes. I have no idea the composition of the yarn, I got a big bag of various untagged cakes and skeins at my local thrift store for five bucks. I'll probably re-do the lighter ones in a synthetic dye bath to see what happens.

Normally I'd unwind yarn to dye but in this case I wanted the mottled look and variance in colour for a faux-moss blanket project.

I make creatures like these with my failed felting projects. I have dozens with no end in sight.

Sashiko translates directly to “little stabs,” a reference to the small, repeated running stitches that define the technique.

Originating during Japan’s Edo period (1603–1868), sashiko began as a practical form of reinforcement. In northern regions such as Tōhoku, where winters were long and cotton was scarce, rural communities relied heavily on hemp and ramie textiles. These fibers were durable but not especially warm. Layers were stitched together with dense rows of white cotton thread, both to strengthen worn garments and to trap warmth between the fabrics.

Over time, these reinforcing stitches developed into geometric patterns—waves, interlocking circles, grids—many of which carried symbolic meaning tied to protection, prosperity, or longevity.

— Quoted from https://www.taylorstitch.com/blogs/archive/fabric-stories-sashiko

I've personally used quite of few of these. Avocado, indigo, blue spruce and mint make my favorite natural colours.

You can just soak avocado pits and skins in isopropyl alcohol to make a deep red/orange ink.

It took weeks of extracting, reacting, waiting, grinding and binding - but I finally have a full palette to last me years.

From the first column, going down:

1. Quartz and Iron oxide, blueberries, recovered green dye

2. Amethyst and agate, avocado, birch bark

3. Iron oxide, cranberries

4. Red Cabbage

5. Beets, kyanite, tumeric

6. Recovered neon green dye and spinach, red roses

I use the lake pigment method to make most of my paints, though it's a little different for blueberries — I soak them in isopropyl instead of water to make dye.

After that I use an acid/base reaction to precipitate the colour out of solution, let it dry, pulverize the resulting hard cake of pigment, and mix with glycerine, honey, gum arabic solution and clove oil to make watercolour paint I dry in pans.

Yes, my muller is a glass butt plug and my pallette is a microwave platter. I'm industrious, not rich.

I think she's beautiful.

Encaustic is an art form using wax mixed with damar resin and paints or pigments to create images. While stunning art can be made using this method, I went the mixed-media route (including a bug caught by my cat) to create this fleshy looking mess. That I love.

I made my own encaustic medium by melting together beeswax and powdered damar resin, which isn't the only way to make the medium, but it is the most popular (from what I read.)

It works! Here's mine: