Lolita Crochet: Warm Weather Gloves (Online Patterns)

Hello, readers,

With previous posts in this series, I’ve lamented that it’s been harder than expected to find lolita and loliable crochet patterns. That was not the case when it came to looking for glove patterns! To make the blog posts more manageable, I’ve had to split the gloves into cold weather-appropriate and warm weather-appropriate super categories, and further split warm weather gloves based on the pattern source.

This time I’m focusing on warm weather gloves, specifically ones with patterns that are available for free or for purchase online. Gloves suitable for warm weather will require a very good fit, tend to be lacey designs, and are typically made with crochet thread or fine yarn (and the associated tiny hooks). I’ll say right off the bat that the fingered gloves will all be advanced-level patterns, and even the fingerless gloves will be intermediate-level patterns, just by nature of warm weather gloves. These are patterns I aspire to make, but am personally not ready to tackle yet.

After the dearth of gothic lolita-appropriate patterns from the last two posts, I’m so excited to be featuring patterns for lace gloves. The patterns below are all well suited to lolita fashion as a whole, regardless of substyle.

All images below were taken from the pattern’s page on Ravelry (linked in the adjacent text), and the copyrights belong to their respective owners as specified on the Ravelry pages, not to me.

Vintage Gloves

There are so many patterns for vintage crochet gloves available online, for free. I tried to select ones that felt substantially different from one another as a general sample. I also only chose patterns that had linked projects to prove to myself that people can actually follow the vintage instructions, which can be a challenge.

Lace Gloves by Smart Crochet Magazine

• Free pattern available here.
• 1950 pattern.
• Size 50 crochet thread.
• I like how crisp the all-over design is on these.

Summer Gloves #1168 by The Spool Cotton Company

• Free pattern available here.
• 1943 pattern.
• Size 30 crochet thread.
• I like the flared cuff on these and how it gently comes in to form wrist area before flaring out again for the hand. Many of the other patterns have a defined break between the base of the hand and the cuff.

Crochet These Gloves for Summer by Australian Women’s Weekly

• Free pattern available here.
• 1945 pattern.
• Size 40 crochet thread.
• I’ve used this stitch pattern before, and I think it’s pretty for the amount of coverage it provides. It’s less net-like than many of the other patterns in this post.

Pearl Gloves by American Thread Company

• Free pattern available here.
• 1954 pattern.
• Size 10 crochet thread (bedspread weight) held double. These gloves are so much thicker than the other vintage glove patterns I’ve linked.
• They also have more coverage than any other gloves in this post, so maybe these would be good for spring and fall weather (or if your summers are just generally cool).

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Japanese Charted Gloves

LACE GLOVES “JANUARY” by Tomoko Yokoyama

• This is a modern pattern, so that should make it a bit easier to follow. There are also pictures of the in-progress gloves, and I always find that reassuring.
• The written pattern is only in Japanese, but there is also a Japanese chart, with Japanese-English symbols. This should be pretty easy to follow along if you can read crochet charts.
• The frilly pineapple cuff is pretty cute. I don’t typically like pineapple motifs, but I think it works well in this glove.

Lace Gloves “Lisa” by Tomoko Yokoyama

• These gloves come from the same designer as the “January” gloves above, so I would imagine that they have the same level of support that those gloves do.
• The written pattern is only in Japanese, but there is also a Japanese chart, with Japanese-English symbols. This should be pretty easy to follow along if you can read crochet charts.
• These gloves have a more geometric feel and are slim against the wrist, so they might be more your speed if the frilly cuff of the “January” gloves isn’t to your taste.

Fingerless Gloves

Fingerless Gloves With Flower by Lyubava

• I like the scalloped edge on these ones, in addition to the separate thumb sleeve.
• The flower motif is added on after the rest of the glove is made, so it would be easy to leave it off for a less bulky glove.
• These gloves use fingering weight yarn instead of crochet thread, so this pattern might be worth a shot if you have difficulty working with thread.

Opera Sleeves by Shiri Mor

• Free pattern available here.
• The pattern picture is unfortunately blurry, and it’s really hard to really see the details here. I’d recommend looking at pictures of people’s linked projects to get a better idea of what these gloves look like.
• The floral motifs are connected by netting, and some people in the linked project pages have extrapolated this idea into making shawls with the same technique. That might be a really neat way to make cohesive accessories.
• I haven’t tried to make this pattern myself, but it seems like you should be able to make these gloves shorter if you did not want these to actually be opera-length.

Wrapped in Lace Fingerless Bridal Glove by Kirsten Holloways

• Free pattern available here.
• This is probably the easiest pattern in this compilation, so it might be a great first project if you’ve never worked with crochet thread before.
• Besides being fingerless, these gloves just have a thumb hole, so you make these gloves by making a rectangular pattern instead of needing to work in the round. The ribbon at the wrist seems to be used to get the gloves to fit snugly, which means it’s probably more forgiving with the fit. The flower is also worked separately and added on afterwards, so you can always skip that if it gives you trouble.

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Stay prim,

Raven

These are all the posts in my Lolita Crochet pattern round up series.

Bags and Purses ⚜ Berets ⚜ Boot Cuffs and Boot Toppers ⚜ Warm Weather Gloves, Part 1 ⚜

Tracking Knit Picks Yarn Sales

Hello, readers,

If you’ve looked around this blog before, you’ll know that I really love making long-term posts that I come back to and periodically update. This will be another one of those. I’ll be tracking the yarn sales from Knit Picks (edit: not both Knit Picks and We Crochet) for the foreseeable future to help me time my yarn purchases. Since I’ll be doing this work anyway, I figured that I may as well publish my findings to maybe help some of you, too.

Rather than tracking the yearly Big Sale in November myself, I’ll instead just link to Chem Knits’s blog, where she does a thorough job of that tricky task every year.

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August 2022

July 2022

• Christmas in July Promotion
  • 15% Off Sitewide
  • Excludes books
  • July 30 – July 31
  • Sale required a code at check-out; it wasn’t automatic.
• Clearance Promotion
  • Save an extra 10% off clearance
  • July 21 – July 24
  • Sale required a code at check-out; it wasn’t automatic.
• Palette Box Promotion (continued from June)
  • 25% off (emails only mentioned Forest and Ocean, Mountain and Desert colorways)
  • June 30 – July 3
  • Sale required a code at check-out; it wasn’t automatic.
• Summer Yarn Sale (continued from June)
  • Up to 60% off over 1800 yarns
    • A July 14th email said 30-40% off over 600 yarns, but a July 21st email said the original up to 60% off over 1800 yarns.
  • June 16 – July 24

June 2022

• Palette Box Promotion
  • 25% off (emails only mentioned Forest and Ocean, Mountain and Desert colorways)
  • June 30 – July 3
  • Sale required a code at check-out; it wasn’t automatic.
• Summer Yarn Sale
  • Up to 60% off over 1800 yarns
  • June 16 – July 24

May 2022

• Brava Promotion
  • Buy 3, Get 1 Free (mix-and-match allowed between sport, worsted, and bulky)
  • 20% off Brava mini-packs
  • May 26 – May 30
  • Sale required a code at check-out; it wasn’t automatic.
• High Desert Promotion (Game Day KAL)
  • 15% off High Desert Worsted yarn
  • May 21 – May 28
  • Excludes bare High Desert Worsted yarn
  • Sale required a code at check-out; it wasn’t automatic.
• Treat Yourself Sale (Mother’s Day)
  • 20% off yarns, tools, and books
    • Later email promo specifically advertised wool, cotton, and sock yarns as being 20% off
  • May 5 – May 8
  • Excludes Clearance and Value Packs
• Aloft Sale (continued from April)
  • Save up to 30% on all Aloft yarns (sold and hand painted)
  • April 21 – May 1

April 2022

• Aloft Sale
  • Save up to 30% on all Aloft yarns (sold and hand painted)
  • April 21 – May 1
• Multicolor Stroll Sale
  • Save up to 60% off on Strol Tonals, Tweeds, Gradients and Hand Painted lines
  • April 7 – April 17

March 2022

• Felici Sale
  • 30% off all Felici yarn (fingering and worsted)
  • March 10 – March 24
  • Excludes all bare yarn
  • Sale required a code at check-out; it wasn’t automatic.
• Sock Yarn Sale
  • 10% off all sock yarns
  • March 24 – March 27

February 2022

• Red, Pink, & White Yarn Sale
  • Save up to 40% on more than 300 yarns
  • February 8 (or earlier) – February 10
  • Color-based sale of red, pink, and white yarns. Lots of cream colored yarn was also on sale, and some sale yarn definitely looked more orange/purple than red/pink to me.
  • Bare yarn was not included, despite it being white or cream in tone.
• Flash Sale! Wool of the Andes
  • Save 15%-25% on all Wool of the Andes (includes Sport, Worsted, Bulky, Superwash, Tweed, and Roving)
  • February 22 – February 27
  • Excludes all bare yarn

* * *

Big Sale 2021

• This is the first Big Sale during which I purchased anything.
• Chem Knits’s yearly post: 2021 KnitPicks Big Sale – Predictions and Tracking the Awesome Deals!

* * *

Big Sale 2020

• Chem Knits’s yearly post: 2020 KnitPicks Big Sale – Predictions and Tracking the Deals!

* * *

Big Sale 2019

• Chem Knits’s yearly post: The 2019 KnitPicks Big Sale – What are the best deals?

* * *

March 2018 – March 2019

• The Closest Knit did one full year of tracking sales on her blog, and it’s what inspired me to publish my own tracking. Her blog has been the only useful result that comes up when I’ve tried to Google past yarn sales.

Big Sale 2018

• Chem Knits’s yearly post: The KnitPicks Big Sale is Here!

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Stay prudent,

Raven

Lolita Crochet: Boot Cuffs and Boot Toppers

Hello, readers,

It’s been unexpectedly difficult to find lolita and loliable crochet patterns. Considering how good crochet is at making lace and lacy things, I would have thought for sure that loliable patterns would be pretty common. This series of posts is my attempt to fix that problem.

This time I’m focusing on boot cuffs and boot toppers, which actually has me pretty enthused. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen burando boot toppers (although leave me a comment if I’m wrong), so this seems like an excellent way to use crafting skills to make something unique to your wardrobe/style. It’s the start of the cold part of the year here where I am in the Northern Hemisphere, and boot cuffs/toppers seem like a great way to make some warm and cozy crochet that isn’t a big project like a blanket or a sweater. This time, there are actually a few options for crochet patterns with gothic lolita vibes! Hooray!

All images below were taken from the pattern’s page on Ravelry (linked in the adjacent text), and the copyrights belong to their respective owners as specified on the Ravelry pages, not to me.

Subdued

‘Mulled Wine’ Boot Cuffs by The Stitchhikers

• This pattern listing also includes a pattern for a matching pair of fingerless gloves.
• The little scalloped edge would look really cute and subtle poking out of a pair of boots.
• These are subtle enough that you could easily wear them with non-lolita looks if you live somewhere too cold for lolita in the winter, but still cute enough to add a little something special.

“Effie” Bow Boot Cuffs by Elizabeth Willits

• This pattern is essentially a plain boot cuff with a crocheted bow added on top. This should be a pretty quick and easy pattern as a result that still makes a visual difference. Make them in many coordinating colors!
• The way the bow is made lets it flair out appropriately on the ends without being too bulky in the center, like crochet is liable to be if treated like “normal” fabric. I’d say this bow would be a good one to use in other applications beyond this pattern, too.

Victorian Boot Toppers by Kristie Snively

• It’s a little hard to see in the all-white sample, but this boot cuff has a couple of different intermediate techniques in one pattern, like puff stitches and picots. That should make for a nice change of pace between the repetitive ribbed cuff and the decorative top.
• Like with the “Mulled Wine” boot cuffs, I think these ones are both detailed enough and yet subtle enough to look at home in both lolita coords and “normie” looks, which could let you add lolita touches to more outfits, even in the cold.

Granny Stripe Boot Cuffs by Raquela Sgro-Gibson

• Free pattern available here.
• The buttons are optional, but I do think that they look really cute.
• Many beginner crocheters learn the “granny stitch” fairly early on, so this pattern might be a good one to learn new techniques with (like the ribbing for the cuff or the edging) while still being able to incorporate familiar stitches.

* * *

Textured

Rich Textures Boot Cuffs by Rich Textures Crochet

• I really love bobble stitches, so I think this one is delightful.
• The pattern actually has two variations: one with a bobble stitch cuff like the picture and one with what looks like a popcorn stitch cuff, which is less prominent.
• These boot cuffs also are much longer/taller than most of the other loliable patterns I found, so they would probably be a good choice if you’re primarily looking for warmth rather than frill in a boot cuff.

Lestat Inspired Lacy Boot cuff by Manda Proell

• Free pattern available here.
• This lacy cuff looks perfect for gothic lolita, even without being named after a vampire.
• Unlike most of the other boot cuffs on this list, this one will actually cover up the top of your boots. That can be a real advantage when you’re working with plainer or not-that-loliable boots because you need real boots to deal with the cold weather. This can cover up the top edges, which is often a problem spot with using offbrand boots, with a nice detail.

Victorian/Steampunk Ruffled Spats by Rhonda Rowley

• Free pattern available here.
• This is the first of the spats designs I found, and is more “filly” than the other.
• There are over 80 projects made from this pattern on Ravelry, so you can easily look through those to get inspiration for color combinations or maybe find tips and tricks if you’re having difficulties with the pattern.

Lace Boot Cuffs, Layered and Ruffled by Lace N’ Whimsy

• This is the second of the spats designs I found, and it is the “lacier” of the two. They look practically decadent! Perfect for gothic lolita.
• The pattern pictures show this being used as a cuff for a tall boot, but I think that looks like a terrible idea. They’re much better looking as spats.
• From reading the project notes from someone who bought the pattern, it seems like there isn’t a lot of support in the pattern for improvisation or modifications you might need. Going off of that, I would not suggest this as your first project following a pattern. Maybe wait until you feel like a fairly advanced crocheter comfortable with making adjustments to a pattern before buying this one.

Colorwork

Sweetheart Boot Cuffs by Stitch11

• These are some classic little hearts with a nice scalloped edge. They’d be especially useful if you were going to make a Valentine’s Day coord, as February is generally miserably cold and wet.
• As a side note unrelated to the pattern, do you see how the top edges of these boots in the picture just scream non-lolita, even with the cute heart boot cuffs peaking out of the top? That’s exactly the problem that the Lestat Boot Cuffs above can cover up and eliminate.

Flower Top Boot Cuffs by Susan Wilkes-Baker

• This is the first of two very similar flowery boot cuff designs. The patterns use different methods to make the flowers and the ribbing, so they are different on a technical level. I’ve included both in case you have a preference for one method or the other.

Tulip Boot Cuffs by Kirsten DeSchover

• This is the second of two very similar flowery boot cuff designs. The patterns use different methods to make the flowers and the ribbing, so they are different on a technical level. I’ve included both in case you have a preference for one method or the other.
• This pattern also contains the instructions for how to make a matching mug cozy, which could be quite cute.

* * *

Stay warm,

Raven

These are all the posts in my Lolita Crochet pattern round up series.

Bags and Purses ⚜ Berets ⚜ Boot Cuffs/Boot Toppers

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice: Homemade Crackers

Hello, readers,

This is just a quick post to share a recipe I just tried with great success! I used the “Homemade Crackers” recipe from Kitchen Joy Blog.

The video below is from her YouTube channel showing the process.

I made the following changes:

• My dough only took 1/3 cup of water before forming into a ball.
• I added the crackers into the oven for 10 minutes without checking on them because I know my oven tends to under bake things a little.
• I let the crackers cool on the hot pan, and that really made a difference in their crispness compared to taking them off the pan while they were still hot.
• I didn’t top them with melted butter or salt when they came out of the oven.

I was also able to use some of my adorable cookie cutters to make cute crackers!

The crackers taste buttery, but not overwhelmingly so. It’s somewhat like a club cracker, which were my favorite snack-type cracker from the grocery store. The crispy, crunchy texture is very important to making them seem like crackers instead of plain/bland cookies, though, so rolling them thin and getting them to toast is important.

I made as many cute shaped crackers as I could, and then I just rerolled the dough and cut rectangular crackers out of it to use it all up.

My mother got my partner and me a food processor for Christmas 2020, so this recipe was very quick and simple to make. We never buy crackers, so it’s great that I’ve found this recipe so we can have crackers whenever we could use them.

Sometimes, stay simple,

Raven

Love Letter to My Domestic Machines

Dear readers,

I’m in love with a dream of what the past was, who I might have been, and what life could be. Every so often, I need to take some time and remember to be grateful for these glorious post-19th Century machines that work in my place and let me have a day-to-day life that is nothing short of prosperous.

Here is my love letter to these machines. I hope writing it will help me remember that I am so thankful to have them in my life.

Washing Machine, you save me from so much physical labor. You use whatever detergent I throw at you without complaint. The only times you didn’t wash clothes correctly were when one of us humans added too much detergent for the load size. I literally cannot imagine a life without you waiting for dirty clothes down in the basement. My mother taught me how to use washing machines before she would let me anywhere near a stove, so operating you was likely the first chore I ever learned. I’ve read a few articles and abstracts saying that you’re a quiet hero of women’s liberation. Thank you for your ubiquitous presence in my life.

Dryer, you’re a tricky one to take care of. I want to free you from all the excess lint you likely have inside, but that’s more involved than any maintenance I’ve done on anything else before. In the meantime, I won’t scold you for sometimes taking more than one cycle to dry our clothes and bed linens. I made some wool dryer balls to help you in your tasks, and I think that they must be more pleasant to juggle than the spikey plastic balls we used before. Thank you for always being ready if I need something to dry in less than two hours.

HVAC Systems, you do a lot of work all year round without a rest. Even in the spring and fall, when we open the windows and temporarily stop managing the temperature, we still have the fans running at least once every hour. Furnace, you keep me from freezing. Air Conditioner, you keep me from overheating. Blower Fans, you keep the air in the second floor where I sleep from being stuffy and thick. Smart Thermostat, you let me keep the relevant portions of the house heated and cooled the way I need them to be. I no longer need to guess what temperature in the area around the thermostat will translate into a good temperature for me on the other side of the house. You all keep me so consistently comfortable, I don’t even know how good I have it. Thank you for working together to spare me the endless effort of needing to keep a fire going in a hearth.

Hot Water Heater, I don’t give you enough credit for letting me enjoy warm water directly out of the tap. When you broke in March 2020, I lived without you for a few weeks. The water we had was ice, ice cold without your tempering influence. Thank you for working again. Heating up water on the stove and transporting it to the tub to have a bucket shower was neither fun nor quick, and I appreciate that you allow me the luxury of not having to do that anymore.

Dishwasher, how I adore you. You were missing from my life for nine years, and I never learned to adapt to your absence. I just despise washing dishes, and you just pick up the slack so perfectly. You are smaller than standard and were much more expensive because of it, but you’ve been such a blessing. Both your racks are safe for “top rack” only items, and your upper rack can adjust in height so we can wash more in you at once than might be supposed by looking at you. You tell us when you’re running low on rinse agent before we run you and save us from having poor results. Thank you for washing glasses that are too small for my partner’s hands. You save him from getting more potential wounds while washing glass. It always feels like the day didn’t live up to its full potential if I don’t run you.

Stovetop and Oven, I think my favorite thing about you is that you are fueled by natural gas. It really helps to calm me down when I get worried about power outages that we can use you as long as we have a lighter. Thank you for being in the Habitat for Humanity Restore when we arrived needing a stove. Besides food, you have heated up untold gallons of water that we’ve used to make tea on a daily basis. Thank you for just turning on at the twist of a knob and providing me with cooking flames without needing to be minded all through the day.

Fridge, you have been so good to us. You are one of the few major appliances that came with the house that is still in good working order. Thank you for never giving us headaches and for keeping our food fresh. I can fantasize about having a pantry full of preserves all day long, but each of those jars would have to be stored within you the second they were opened. Thank you for making it possible to eat fresh salad greens and meats several days after purchase.

Chest Freezer, you’re a modern marvel. Thank you for being in our lives and hugely expanding our freezing potential. You give us flexibility that we didn’t have before you, and you let us now stock up on those delicious seasonal goods that we want to have access to all year long.

Blender, you’ve been a true hero of our kitchen, taking on the jobs of several specialty tools. Milkshakes, frozen fruit smoothies, hot soup purées, quiche, and hot sauce have all been possible because of you. You are not as convenient for soup as an immersion blender, nor as powerful as a food processor, but I hope I never forget the lesson you taught me that sometimes “close enough” really is good enough.

Slow Cooker, I love you. You were the house’s Christmas present a few years ago, and I will buy another of you instantly if you ever break. I don’t want to be without you. It was a difficult thing to find recipes that understood how to use you well without turning everything into an accidental soup, but you cook us amazing food now that we’ve found the good recipes. Thank you for saving us so much time standing in front of the stove. Thank you for letting me contribute to cooking dinner on the days that I work late.

Bread Machine, you have been such a great birthday present. You have been a major helper in our struggle to cut down on our food waste. I don’t know why I suddenly wanted to be able to bake bread in 2019, but it has been a great adventure since. You are letting us experiment with whole wheat flour now, and it is so wonderful to be able to make bread precisely how we want/need it to be without being dependent on what is available in our grocery stores. Thank you for letting us have bread roughly three hours from when we remember that we need it.

Ice Cream Machine, what a luxury you are. I can hardly believe that you’re in my life, but you were an early birthday present this year. Thank you for having a compressor and letting us have ice cream about 40 minutes after we decide we want it without worrying about freezing a mixing bowl. When we get more adventurous, you’re going to let us make some flavors we can’t find from commercial ice cream. I was totally blown away last time I had to pass by the ice cream section in a grocery store, because it suddenly had no appeal. Thank you for freeing me from a compulsive desire I didn’t even know I had. Thank you for letting us make wine slushies and frozen yogurt, in addition to ice cream and sorbet. Thank you for being so ludicrously fancy. Thank you for making these frozen desserts feel like treats again, instead of just something else that we toss in the shopping cart.

Pasta/Noodle Maker, thank you for giving me a way to eat pasta without having to store all those big boxes of dry pasta that were overwhelming our pantry. Thank you for allowing me to make chickpea pasta and whole wheat pasta when I want. You let me make a choice over my food that I just didn’t have when buying pasta from the store. Ours was a whirlwind love affair, an uncharacteristically quick turn around from me learning that you exist, to wanting you, to finding you used for sale on eBay and purchasing you. I splurged and got new aftermarket shaping discs for you, so hopefully you can supply the entire breadth of my pasta and noodle needs. Thank you for being the petite model with a noodle capacity sized for two people, because it’s helping us slowly learn to portion our food better.

Rice Cooker, I don’t know if we would ever eat rice without you. You let us cook jasmine rice, basmati rice, and quinoa without thought or effort, and you never burn it or cook it unevenly. Thank you for your presence in our meals, and for never giving us trouble when we need you.

Microwave, I know I talk a lot of game about wanting to not rely on you anymore, but you’re still on my counter and you still reheat my food quickly when I just want to warm up an individual portion. Thanks for continuing to work while I take the time to learn how to stop relying on you. I think you’ll be on my counter until the day you simply don’t work anymore.

Aerogardens, you are nothing short of amazing. Thank you for finally helping me grow plants after years of trying and failing in balcony gardens. Basils, lettuce, Swiss chard, dill, resina calendula, cherry tomatoes, and hot peppers were all grown in 2020 thanks to you. I’m convinced that it’s my success with you that contributed to the conversion of some of our front yard into garden beds, the planting of certain perennials in our yard, and emboldened us to try harder in the community garden in 2020. Thank you for just working the way you said you would. You bring magic into my home. Thank you for being the grow lights that my darling coffee plant needs. Thank you for having lights that look white while we’re in the same room as you!

Roomba, you are the easiest machine to anthropomorphize. My silly, darling Bumble, thank you for the entertainment as you keep my floors clean. Every single day when I empty your dust bin, I’m so grateful that you found and removed so much dust, grit, and cat hair from our home. I don’t know how many days without you running it would take before I could visually tell the difference, but I know that I can tell by feel after even one day of your absence. Thank you for being so very easy to dismantle and clean. Thank you for being so well-designed that you just fit under all our furniture that’s elevated off the ground. Thank you for reliably taking care of a task every morning that once felt overwhelming to me.

Convertible Stick/Handheld Vacuum and Shop Vac, thank you both for being there for me when I need you. I might not use you every day, but my home would be so much worse off without you. It’s wonderful to see what an impact you have on an area, especially you, Shop Vac, who I call in on all the big jobs like vacuuming up sanding dust from our floors during the refinishing process. Honestly, I don’t think I could get results as good as yours with a broom and dustpan, even with unlimited time. Thanks for coming out to tackle areas that would be too far gone without you.

Sewing Machine, I bought you my sophomore year of college. How many yards of fabric have passed under your foot? You helped me create so many lovely lolita skirts and Halloween costumes. You helped me make face coverings when I needed to make them for myself, my friends, and my family in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. I want to use you more, but my back gets too uncomfortable too quickly for long projects. When my craft room/wardrobe is set up, you’re going to get a place of honor (and hopefully a dedicated table that will be more comfortable to sit at). Thank you for existing and sparing me the horror of hemming the sides of curtain panels by hand.

Serger, you came at just the wrong time in my life. It is entirely my fault that I don’t use you more. I’m at a stage in my life where I would like to elevate my garment construction practices, and you will be so handy in the future when I sew again. Thank you for waiting for that time. You’re such a marvelous Christmas present.

Circular Knitting Machine, you’re just pure fun. You let me make knitted tubes to much faster than I could ever dream to do by hand, which lets me do magical things like make a full ruana in a week and a hot water bottle cover in a day. Thank you for being so reliable for me, especially as you’re considered a knock-off. Thank you for having 48 needles that make playing with ribbing patterns so easy. Getting you for Christmas was very much like getting a new toy in all the best ways.

Stay grateful,

Raven