club Artificer's Crafthall

[Artemis Prime]

16 minutes ago, fitnessgurl said:

Are you on Ravelry?

I'm pretty sure I have a Ravelry account...haven't used it in ages. My work computer doesn't like videos, but I'll try to take a peek at it tonight when I get home.

[Anim07734]

Pictures of my current project:  making a mold to hold my fiancee's dragon eggs in the treasure box I made for them.  First step is making a rough version, which can be cleaned up and used to make the negative/mold that will be used for the final product.

 

 

Hoping I used the right amount of spray foam to fill the mold without exploding it.

 

I forgot to get pictures of the eggs themselves and the wooden form before wrapping everything in plastic wrap, so I'll try to do that when I open it up tomorrow night.

[foxinthenorth]

11 hours ago, Anim07734 said:

Pictures of my current project:  making a mold to hold my fiancee's dragon eggs in the treasure box I made for them.  

WHAAAAAA THATS SO COOL!!!!!!

[fitnessgurl]

I think this looks better...what do you think?

[Anim07734]

9 minutes ago, fitnessgurl said:

I think this looks better...what do you think?

I know next-to-nothing about knitting, but it looks good and the pattern is  consistent throughout, so I'd call it a win.

[Artemis Prime]

Look's great, @fitnessgurl! You definitely have the twist going.

 

On my barn front, I've been crunching numbers to figure out how much the shell is going to cost me. So far it looks like things are going to fall in line with what I thought they'd be. I do think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy plans, though. I let my dad talk me out of it originally because he's built enough barns to know what he's doing without them, but that's taking the figure-it-out-as-we-go approach, which would get the job done, but it makes it hard to figure out materials ahead of time. With plans, I can place a bulk order for lumber without worrying about getting way too much or not nearly enough. 

[Anim07734]

So after 3 attempts at making my initial foam form, I thought I had a good one:

 

But not so much:

 

It did give me some insight into what was going wrong (that weird bubbly extrusion appeared the day after I tried opening it up), and after some research, I have a plan forward.  The foam I'm using (Great Stuff spray foam) needs water to cure; normally just the humidity in the air.  I've been wrapping everything in plastic wrap to keep it from sticking, and ending up with pockets of uncured foam.  So I'm going to dig out some scrap fabric (which was the end goal for the finished surface anyway), and lightly wet it down with a spray bottle before adding the foam.

 

I just have to get the mess above cleaned up and back to the starting point first.  Pic of what that looks like, since I forgot to get that picture at the beginning, but remember before I ruined it.

 

 

[Manarelle]

On 1/23/2021 at 2:21 PM, Anim07734 said:

It did give me some insight into what was going wrong (that weird bubbly extrusion appeared the day after I tried opening it up), and after some research, I have a plan forward.  The foam I'm using (Great Stuff spray foam) needs water to cure; normally just the humidity in the air.  I've been wrapping everything in plastic wrap to keep it from sticking, and ending up with pockets of uncured foam.  So I'm going to dig out some scrap fabric (which was the end goal for the finished surface anyway), and lightly wet it down with a spray bottle before adding the foam.

 

I just have to get the mess above cleaned up and back to the starting point first.  Pic of what that looks like, since I forgot to get that picture at the beginning, but remember before I ruined it.

 

That pocket explosion thing happened to me with my first attempt at Mjolnir... there's a "stain" on my treadmill tread where it exploded out 2 days after I thought it was cured. Good luck on round 2 - your fabric plan sounds solid. 

 

Unrelated... I ran across something called cosclay today. have you ever worked with that? If it's truly clay, it might be a bit heavy for cosplay, but I've never heard of it before. 

 

On 1/22/2021 at 10:14 AM, Artemis Prime said:

On my barn front, I've been crunching numbers to figure out how much the shell is going to cost me. So far it looks like things are going to fall in line with what I thought they'd be. I do think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy plans, though. I let my dad talk me out of it originally because he's built enough barns to know what he's doing without them, but that's taking the figure-it-out-as-we-go approach, which would get the job done, but it makes it hard to figure out materials ahead of time. With plans, I can place a bulk order for lumber without worrying about getting way too much or not nearly enough. 

 

Some projects lend themselves to plan as you go... I'd think a living space would be much nicer with up-front plans, as you say. Can you buy like pre-made plans you can browse through, or is it more of a "talk to an architet and get them drawn up" type thing? 

[Artemis Prime]

37 minutes ago, Manarelle said:

Some projects lend themselves to plan as you go... I'd think a living space would be much nicer with up-front plans, as you say. Can you buy like pre-made plans you can browse through, or is it more of a "talk to an architet and get them drawn up" type thing? 

We've got a pretty solid plan in place for the barn, floorplan-wise. The material list is where I'm running into problems. I know what I need to get started, and then I'll know what I need for the next step at that stage, and so on, but if I want to place a bulk order for lumber, I need to know up front how many board feet I need for the whole project (also helpful for estimating costs.) The problem is, I can't find any plans online that match what I'm going for and the cost of custom plans sort of cancels out the cost-savings of bulk ordering lumber. Luckily, my neighbor has a barn very similar to what I'm building (I've spent a lot of time over there, it's no coincidence my idea of what I want matches hers so closely). I've been keeping my distance because she's an older lady and I have a slight risk of covid exposure at my work, but I talked to her this weekend and she told me to stop over whenever I want to measure the barn, since we don't need to have any contact for that. So for now I think I'm skipping the plans and going with my giant 3D model across the road.

[Anim07734]

42 minutes ago, Manarelle said:

Unrelated... I ran across something called cosclay today. have you ever worked with that? If it's truly clay, it might be a bit heavy for cosplay, but I've never heard of it before. 

I haven't heard of that one.  And skimming their website, I'm not sure why it's "cosclay."  They have no examples of it being used in costumes, just a bunch of models and replicas.  I can definitely see uses for it in cosplay, but that doesn't seem to be the intended purpose.

 

My fiancee has been using foam clay for the stuff I can see that being useful for, though I haven't done any projects where I've wanted to try it yet.  It air dries, which is both advantage (no baking required) and disadvantage (limited working time), and ends up the same consistency/density as craft foam.

[Anim07734]

Making progress on the egg holder.  Got a decent form to try making the negative, though the fabric I picked didn't end as solid as I hoped:

But on the plus side, that made it easier to remove the weird bulges I don't want on the final product.

 

Switched to vinyl for the first attempt on the negative:

I'm happy with it as a first try, but there are some flaws I'd like to correct before moving on.  The big one is a large air bubble in the furthest egg (you can kind of see the outline), but there are also some unsightly lumps that I'd like to smooth out.  Need to see what I have around the house to clean up the form more, then redo the negative.

[Manarelle]

On 1/26/2021 at 9:57 AM, Anim07734 said:

My fiancee has been using foam clay for the stuff I can see that being useful for, though I haven't done any projects where I've wanted to try it yet.  It air dries, which is both advantage (no baking required) and disadvantage (limited working time), and ends up the same consistency/density as craft foam.

 

Oh yeah; I used I think an off-brand of that to make the tail for Taboo. Definitely a useful tool, although I learned it can still unbalance and deform during the drying stages. Ah, well. 

 

On 2/1/2021 at 11:01 AM, Anim07734 said:

Making progress on the egg holder.  Got a decent form to try making the negative, though the fabric I picked didn't end as solid as I hoped:

 

Quite an improvement over the first tries. You got amazing detail on the egg patterns. 

[Manarelle]

Got one side of the wings moving. 16.5 hours, NOT including time learning programming languages. 

 

https://i.imgur.com/xPiUIK1.mp4

[Manarelle]

Wing updates: they're surprisingly light and reasonably comfortable. 

 

[Anim07734]

I convinced my fiancee to let me use wooden animals for table markers at the wedding instead of numbers, but we weren't able to find enough before AC Moore closed.  Finally got the bandsaw my Grandpa gave me 3 years ago setup and decided to try my hand at making them.  Here's the first 3 I finished tonight:

 

They've since been sanded and glued, so they look cleaner and should take paint better.

[Artemis Prime]

How's the artificing going? I feel like I've been doing a lot of work with nothing to show for it on my barn, but after lots of dirt moving, I finally have corner posts!

 

[Anim07734]

Coming back from wedding/honeymoon/etc hiatus and figured I'd post some of the stuff we made:

 

I bought all the swords, but painted them and made the scabbards myself, plus made my outfit (center with the greatsword) and helped my squire/ringbearer make hers (far right with the shield).

 

Wife and her matron of honor made all the bouquets.

 

My wife made all the center pieces and goodies for the thank you bags.  I made the Halloween tree behind our table.  We also made custom games for the cocktail hour, including Cosplay Bingo, Fandom Trivia (to improve your table's dinner initiative roll), and a Drink Dungeon choose-your-own-adventure to pick from our favorite drinks.

 

And we each made our own reception outfits.

[elisanns]

I've taken up making scented candles in the last year. Today I got a chance to try making a blood orange scented one...curious to see how it will turn out in the end! Here's everything still melted down.

 

[juliebarkley]

It is almost Coworker Gifting Season and I am making washcloths this year. I just finished the pattern I'm thinking of making:

 

 

The gauge is loose, so I need to drop down at least one needle size, and I accidentally grafted in knit and not purl, but other than that, what do you think? Good washcloth? Good coworker present? It was kind of a fun one to make, so I wouldn't object to making more of them...

[Jupiter]

21 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

It is almost Coworker Gifting Season and I am making washcloths this year. I just finished the pattern I'm thinking of making:

 

 

The gauge is loose, so I need to drop down at least one needle size, and I accidentally grafted in knit and not purl, but other than that, what do you think? Good washcloth? Good coworker present? It was kind of a fun one to make, so I wouldn't object to making more of them...

 

Oooh, pretty! 

[Manarelle]

On 11/11/2021 at 7:12 PM, elisanns said:

I've taken up making scented candles in the last year. Today I got a chance to try making a blood orange scented one...curious to see how it will turn out in the end! Here's everything still melted down.

 

How did it turn out? The husband insists that blood oranges taste different (which is hilarious because he can't differentiate apples), but I can't really distinguish them from regular ones much. 

 

On 11/15/2021 at 9:41 PM, juliebarkley said:

The gauge is loose, so I need to drop down at least one needle size, and I accidentally grafted in knit and not purl, but other than that, what do you think? Good washcloth? Good coworker present? It was kind of a fun one to make, so I wouldn't object to making more of them...

 

Honestly, if I received this, I would want to use it as a decoration, not a washcloth, but definitely good present! 

[elisanns]

2 hours ago, Manarelle said:

How did it turn out? The husband insists that blood oranges taste different (which is hilarious because he can't differentiate apples), but I can't really distinguish them from regular ones much.

To be honest, the candle scent was a bit weak. I need to make another one and add a bit more I guess. In the bottle it smells great...but mostly like a normal orange.

[Chesire]

I'm playfully working on convincing a bunch of knitters that  crochet is worth considering as a craft, if they look beyond the basic granny square of the seventies.  They all loved a lace wrap I had made.  I thought step 2 of my plan would be a knit-look project, so this hat.  I like it but I've decided that knit-replicating is not a route to continue.  It doesn't highlight crochet's strengths and there are much better ways to do that. 

 

Knit-look fair isle style crochet hat. 

[juliebarkley]

On 1/22/2022 at 5:54 AM, Chesire said:

I'm playfully working on convincing a bunch of knitters that  crochet is worth considering as a craft, if they look beyond the basic granny square of the seventies.  They all loved a lace wrap I had made.  I thought step 2 of my plan would be a knit-look project, so this hat.  I like it but I've decided that knit-replicating is not a route to continue.  It doesn't highlight crochet's strengths and there are much better ways to do that. 

The sort of thing that could convert me, a knitter, is something crochet can do well that in knitting is challenging. I learned (and promptly forgot) how to crochet so I could make play food. I regularly eye up amigurumi and shirt ideas with attached fancy lacy bell sleeves or cool inserts. It's probably easier to make fancy lampshades and parasols and other things of non-standard shape too.

[Chesire]

3 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

The sort of thing that could convert me, a knitter, is something crochet can do well that in knitting is challenging. I learned (and promptly forgot) how to crochet so I could make play food. I regularly eye up amigurumi and shirt ideas with attached fancy lacy bell sleeves or cool inserts. It's probably easier to make fancy lampshades and parasols and other things of non-standard shape too.

absolutely all of this.  I've made some cute amigurumi for a few kiddos in my life.  The quick nature of the projects is so appealing.  And just like that you've reinvigorated my want to make a parasol.  That's on 'the list' now!