Scarves would be good. :3

Nice, Kad!

Thanks, KB!

I have to say, it was actually a lot faster to make than I actually thought, so I might make this pattern a lot more. And I may even do the yarn colors the way the pattern suggests eventually instead of using the yarn cakes/color gradient yarns.
XD
But not just yet, since I already started it again in a pastel rainbow yarn...

Okie dokie, since there neither were objections nor other suggestions, September's theme will be


Scarves for everyone! Make one for yourself, your dad, your best friend, or Trisphee's favorite dragon. Show them lousy weather doesn't mean you have to give up on style. Take a bit of sunshine with you wherever you go, or always know what temperature to bitch about. Make it all about lace, autumn leaves, yes even sushi. The possibilities are endless. No matter what you choose, you will end up with a fashionable accessory this fall!

By the way, that's an awesome rainbow scarf, Kaderin! Congrats on finishing ^^

Thank you, Death! I'm pretty proud of it for a first attempt!

Oooh...I should find out Derpy's hogwarts house and make him a HP scarf!

Yay :3 lol

I did that once, I still have a honey badger plush with a tiny Hufflepuff scarf I crocheted lol
Lovely scarf btw Kaderin

...maybe this helps?

I was thinking more like this one. Just to be official. Although that other one is great too! XD
Very Derpy!

Derpy waddles in, grinning. "I A HUFFEWPUFF!" he announces proudly.
https://s26.postimg.cc/7dppvvdkp/tum...c_H1rfeily.gif

yaay! my older daughter is also a Hufflepuff!

i'm a Ravenclaw =)

I'm a Ravenclaw too, I wish the official quiz would tell you what percentage of each house you aligned with, Like am I 75% Ravenclaw and 10% slytherin 5% hufflepuff and 10% gryffindor? I WANNA KNOW!

You mean like this one?

Halfway through knitting a scarf for Derpy, but when I checked back for our favorite dragon's measurements, I wonder whether it's going to be too big. Just to compare... Kaderin, what size are you planning to make your house color scarf in?

so i took the percentage sorting hat test again (i couldn't remember my percentages the first time, but Hufflepuff was the highest, which is kinda weird....) but this one makes sense too:

You Are 35% Hufflepuff, 33% Ravenclaw, 27% Gryffindor, and 5% Slytherin!

You belong in Hufflepuff without question, but your Ravenclaw-esque appreciation for knowledge means your many friends come to you when they need advice from someone with a level head. While you enjoy any kind of learning, working as part of a team is where you truly thrive. You are an excellent collaborator, and understand that communication with others is an essential part of learning and, more importantly, growing as a person.

Your slight compatibility with Gryffindor house hints at an underlying desire for adventure that may manifest itself in a love of travel or trying new things.

Honestly, I haven't even started planning it. I've been working on a dragonfly lace shawl to hopefully wear at a work event next weekend. XP


And, uh....for anyone curious, this is my hogwarts house percentage result:

Still in line with September's theme ^^
Dragonfly lace sounds pretty cool. I need to look into loom knitting again, kinda stopped when I ran out of yarn on the shawl that still occupies my biggest loom.

It's a really pretty shawl, but I'm pretty sure the charts in the pdf file for it are wrong and the YouTube video that basically explains the lace pattern is REALLY tough to figure out because the eoman doesn't explain how the lace pattern sections work at all. She just seems to expect us to telepathically know what she means.
But I managed to figure it out pretty well after a few sections and over an hour analyzing the video and pdf.

Pretty sure I've messed up in a few spots on the shawl already and I suspect that the yarn might be too dark to really show the lace pattern as well as it could, but I'm probably around 1/4 done with it.

Ugh, it sucks when people post a tutorial yet don't explain the important things properly. But at least you got it figured out, way to go! Crossing my fingers for you it will turn out amazing.

Yessss

My results:

You Are ALL THE THINGS!

So, you're 29% Ravenclaw, 27% Hufflepuff, 25% Gryffindor, and 19% Slytherin! You seem to be an almost perfect combination of all four houses, which is incredibly rare – you’re equal in your intelligence, bravery, loyalty, and ambition. As we know, though, the Sorting Hat takes your preference into account...so it looks like you get to choose your own house. Congratulations!

Even worse? It wasn't a free pattern. I had to pay $1.99 to basically end up with a pdf that I will never use because I was able to figure out the basic pattern steps from the brief YouTube video that she made to go WITH the pdf to clarify the lace pattern as well as the increase and decrease of it. And during which, she goes off on a bazillion tangents and talks forever about stuff we don't need to know about because anyone attempting this pattern probably already has a good grasp of the goddamn basics, just clarify the effing information already! I swear, the video has to be like 20 minutes long, but I could have probably explained how the pattern worked in half that time. And much better.

WHAAAAAAT? That's crazy! And pretty cool also!


Ugh....should be asleep...but want to work more on my shawl. Just crossed the half-way point and am liking how it looks a lot more. While the smaller loops that would mimic the body of a dragonfly are kind of hard to spot (because my loom gauge is slightly smaller than recommended for the type of yarn I'm using), the wing loops look amazing! Although with the mostly black yarn, it could be hard to see against a dark dress, so I may have to wear a different one than I was initially planning. Assuming I'll even be working.
*minor rant/bitching begins*
So far, I have heard nothing about what my Friday/Saturday event cleaning and assisting will be, so I left a note on my cleaning task sheet, since that seems to be about the only way to occasionally get an answer from the boss. XP
*minor rant/bitching over*

so i'm testing a pattern a lady on ravelry has made up - it's a shawl, and will certainly post my pictures here too! =)

Guys I'm dying over here. Mom is getting me a Cricut Maker, which I will have to pay back in small payments, but I can't order it until like Friday. I want it now. I'm S-U-F-F-E-R-I-N-G. ; n;

@Trystan: Like she is having you proof read/make it? That sounds neat!


@Kaderin: I'm a rare wizard! And it sucks when people don't actually tell you what is expected of you, especially in a job setting.

Edit: Also this thread is getting so big! Almost 200 pages now!

Yay! Cricut!

And yeah. All I really need to know are a few simple things: A) am I authorized to work extra hours. B) If no, do I clean Friday as normal, do I do other special cleaning on Friday, or do I have Friday off and handle event cleanup on Saturday instead? C) if yes, same badic questions as above for Friday.

That's literally all I need to know.

Why she no tell you simple info like that?!

Because that would be too easy and then she couldn't complain about me not doing stuff? Idk.
Like, she's super stressed out about this event, but she waited until the last possible minute to start planning anything and she isn't telling anyone what she needs them to do.

yep, that's it exactly! =)

Rant inbound kinda hobby related but mostly mental health stuff....

My anxiety and depression are killing me lately. The reason I have so many different hobbies relates to my anxiety. If I have something to do I can drown out my anxiety for a little while and maybe even enjoy myself. So I've slowly dabbled in or dove head first into various hobbies.

However the last week or so I am almost unable to do anything because my depression is sapping my energy, which means I don't want to deal with setting up or cleaning up stuff. Which means I don't do any of my hobbies which means I wallow in a depressed anxious bundle in my bed wishing I could just stop malfunctioning or maybe even just die already.

I think the depression spike has to do with my house and the condition it is in. It's falling apart and I can't afford to fix it and even if I could why bother when it'll just get filled with mom's hoarded crap and end up getting run down again. I'd still have only one bedroom and a small corner of a spare room to house all my hobbies. We have a half finished and insulated garage(as in it's divided into a "finished" half and a gravel floored half with a wall and door between) but the garage is a joke as far as space for me again. I literally have all my garage stuff in about a 4x4 foot section of the shitty side of the garage and the rest of the 20x40 foot building is full of mom's hoarded stuff again. So I guess I feel like the house I live in and have lived in for nearly 17 years is not my home. It's just a shack I am stuck in forever.

Boy, that sucks.

What is keeping you from moving out? Is it a money issue, do you have sentimental feelings towards the place, or does your mental health get into the way of taking the neccessary steps one by one?

Can you maybe make arrangements with your mom if you explain why personal space is important to you? Or find a different harbor for your hobbies (like a fab lab or a knitting café for example)?

Whats keeping me here is mostly financial and mental. I can't afford my own place, if I could I would need to find a pet friendly place, mom can't afford to live here alone, and I am too paranoid to have my own place without my doggo to keep me from worrying "is someone gonna break in and kill me while I sleep?" I also work for my mom (as a home care aide which is doing chores pretty much, paid by the state) and it's easier to live here to work for her than to commute if I didn't live here. ALSO I promised my sister'sI'd take care of mom, which kinda means I need to be here in case anything happens while I am not working.

Short of buying a shed to have a new space I can call my own I'm not sure what I can do for craft/hobby storage and space. There are craft groups at the library but no real places to do crafting that's accessible to public around here too.

I feel like your sister is maybe putting too much on you in the sense that, while it is good to have someone to keep an eye on your mom, it feels like kind of the same situation my parents were in with my grandma. We had to deal with all the health issues and hospital scares and doctor visits and everything and all her (my mom's) brothers would just pop in on holidays and basically just see how good my grandma looked and assume that my parents were just exaggerating about how hard/bad it really was.
It's just kind of shitty to put that much responsibility and pressure on one person without helping out at all.

Tbh, I think a small shed (when you can eventually afford it) would be a nice solution as long as it was 100% made clear that it is for just your stuff, not for your mom at all.

That's damn near what my sister's are doing. They never visit, the never offer to help unless I can help them with something else in return, Holidays I drive mom and I to their place. Mom and I are somehow also supposed to be last minute baby sitters if the regular sitters bail for whatever reason, and often for little to no pay, and while I don't mind babysitting on occasion I hate the feeling of I'm helping them but they never help me and mom.

I don't know how we'd ever afford a little shed for me... I want like an 8x10 or something but 8x10 prefabs are like 1k and I don't know what we would need to do as far as a foundation or whatever. :C

Edit: that's 1k for a kit that I have to put together myself or pay extra to have installed. I just looked at a website that rolls the cost of fabrication into the total cost and it's almost 3k for what I'd like.

Edit2: Got mom to look at therapists and she is gonna make two calls tomorrow to see if she can get in with one of the two she liked to address her hoarding.

Well, that's progress at least. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you that your mom will get a trustworthy and helpful therapist which in turn will also make everyday life a bit easier for you two.

Other than that, what Kaderin said. Right off the bat I don't know a good solution. You could ruthlessly stop helping your sisters from one day onward without excusions, and eventually they should get the hint, but I only recommend that strategy if you feel ready for a few fights and accusations, and in the worst case even a permanent loss of contact.

Maybe it helps if you calmly tell them about your concerns, but yes, people who only ever drop by once in a while may get a feeling you exaggerate on the problem. Invite them to live with you for a week? (They may turn out more like a burden than a help during that time, but at least there's a fair chance they get a taste of how it's really like to care for your mom.)

You could also try asking your sisters to financially help you with the shed. Give them a tour of the house first, and perhaps even a letter from the therapist to explain that even though your mom's hoarding is getting professional help, that's still a longer process and won't result in empty, spacious closets during the next two months. The tricky part here is to make them actually understand why proper space for your hobbies would benefit you and mom (as in, you're able to better take care of all the problems when you do have a safe haven to unwind). They do want mom to have good care, right? If not, they at least care about the quality of their last minute emergency baby sitter - and you'd be better there too if you're well rested and properly... uh, is there a word for "having your fun/entertainment need fully replenished"?

I definitely don't mean to make my sisters sound like awful people but they have lives and kids and just... don't make time for mom or me socially. I wish they would visit because mom was saying she feels like she has no family left besides me earlier yesterday. She is so socially isolated that I worry about how that effects her. I want to see about getting her to more crochet/craft groups locally and see if she can make more friends with similar interests as her. Like for me I get my social time chatting online. Mom is borderline computer illiterate so while she is on FB an in crochet groups there it's hard for her to make online friends. So once again we hit the isolated side of her social life. Besides the hoarding that is my number one concern for her.

I'll definitely take your suggestions into thought but I dunno what I can really do to try and get my sisters more active in mom's life.

IN OTHER NEWS

Mom and I spent the last 2 hours discussing ways to redo the furniture in the house after watching a video on youtube. Basically it was a tour of a crafter youtuber's house and she used her dining and living rooms as her craft room, and had a bedroom serve as her tv/living room. Our house is basically one big living room, three bedrooms a bath room and kitchen. Mom got super inspired and wants to do something similar. I'm all for it because it would help force mom to go through stuff in the house and hopefully clear some space up. We also discussed rearranging her bedroom and de-cluttering it a bit too. Right now my fat butt can barely get into her room the way it is cuz the door hits stuff and won't open wide. AAAANY way it's been an interesting night.

Hey, that's great news! Sounds as if both of you would benefit from such a change, and the house might turn into an awesome hobby cave with a bit of work.

Also mom is gonna try calling therapists today about her hoarding too. The place she went to before didn't have anyone who could do hoarding so I went and googled private non-clinical therapists who take our insurance and found two that were local and promising. Sadly we live in an area that is hugely under staffed for mental health and even regular health care providers.

And today I should be ordering myself a cricut, so that will be fun.

Ooh, cricut is awesome. Wish you lots of fun there! ^^

-heavy breathing- Ordered my cricut. Now to wait until friggen Tuesday. o no

working on dollstuff...

I took the sorting quiz! 8D

"You Are 33% Gryffindor, 29% Slytherin, 20% Hufflepuff, and 18% Ravenclaw!
Like Harry Potter himself, your allegiances definitely lie with Gryffindor, but Slytherin may be a better fit for you than you’d originally think. Your passion for adventure, excitement, and new experiences means that Gryffindor is the perfect place for you. You are fiercely loyal to your closest friends – sometimes even to a fault – and the recklessness and optimism that comes with being a Gryffindor combined with the ambition of Slytherin will ensure that you go far in life.

Your slight compatibility with Hufflepuff house suggests a deep love and appreciation for those close to you, which you may keep hidden for fear of being hurt."

Welp, glad I'm mostly Gryffindor and Slytherin! Though out of the two I would definitely want to join Slytherin.

I always feel like Slytherin was a really misrepresented/villainized house.