TV-Inspired Sock Series: Fitz (and a preview of Simmons)

My best craft skill is knitting. I frickin’ love knitting. My favorite thing to knit is socks, and I’ve always had overambitious designing goals. I can do garments well enough, but socks are all about pattern and placement and last time I tried to make up stitch patterns it ended in disaster, frustration, and a pile of frogged yarn.

I had an idea in 2013 to do an X-Files inspired sock series for the 20th anniversary. Lazybutt that I am, I obviously didn’t make it in time. But then, on top of that, I decided to do a series inspired by Agents of SHIELD because, guys, seriously. I am pathologically obsessed with this show. I had ideas for every character except Simmons because Simmons-inspired art always takes me forever to strike a balance between practical and pretty. Fitz, however—well, remember that sweater I was so enamored with? Turning that into a Fitz-y sock was the first thing I wanted to do.

The intention is to have all the socks inspired by male characters be socks that are masculine enough that I can make a Men’s version of the pattern as well. I adore these socks! Ugh, such a success.

Now, by the time I had finished the first Fitz sock I had formulated exactly what I wanted to do for Simmons. It took a lot of trial and error, a lot of frogging, and some serious calluses, but I got it worked out. I only have one finished, but here’s my Simmons-y sock. (And yes, I keep wearing one of each like a pair.)

Next on the docket after the second Simmons sock is (surprise, surprise) Ward. Patterns forthcoming eventually!

A Few Pillows

It’s been awhile, guys, but I’ve been crafting away! Here are a few of the things I’ve been working on. I made a new SHIELD pillow (round and very fluffy) in honor of Season 3 (which, holy crap, guys, holy crap, Season 3). I tried to take just the circle bits of an orange peel and make a 20″ circle out of that, but the first time I tried it it was like 18″. I re-did it, but then I had a random giant orange peel. The office manager at work has been after me for months to make her an Alabama pillow and that seemed like a perfect use of both my orphan orange peel and the extra bits of dead body pillow that I had lying around. Mostly, check out those eagle claws! Applique booooss.

Now, of course, I’ve got three pillow requests in from coworkers and have insisted on charging for materials, if not labor. I don’t like these people enough to keep doing crafts for them!

Trust Cap: Completed!!

It took six months and more hours of actual work than I’d care to count, but my Trust Cap quilt is done! I’m super-proud of it. I’ve spent the past week working on it from the time I got off work until the wee hours of the morning, but it’s been worth it.

And now, to wrap up in it like a burrito and get down to my Agents of SHIELD re-watch.

Here are some detail shots. Sorry about the lighting—my apartment is not the best on sunlight. There are a lot more photos from various states of completion in the project tag.

The thing about taking the fruits of your labor to work is then everybody wants stuff.

My super-cool pillows resulted in a lot of awe and plenty of requests. My work-bestie asked for both Green Lantern and The Flash. And since I love challenges, quilting, and perfectly recreating pop culture things in craft-y form, I was like “challenge accepted!” These are both modified Drunkard’s Path blocks simply arranged to form circles. The one for the Flash is the original template size for a 13″ block out of EQ. The Green Lantern one I made the quarter-circles an inch larger. Then I pretty much just up-sized logos until they were the right size and traced them off of my computer screen onto fabric for applique. The process is not that complicated, but the results are pretty cool. Sharp points—both inside and outside—are plenty hard, though!

The weirdest thing about this project was that literally the only DC fabric I could find was Wonder Woman, and that was a lucky break. Not even Batman? Come on, guys! I may be a Marvel Girl, but it’s getting creepy when the only stuff you can find is Marvel.

The Woman Woman fabric is cute though.

Giant Fluffy Cap Shield

So, my chair at work is possessed by Satan. Or a poltergeist. Or something. It is one of the most uncomfortable chairs I’ve ever had to sit in for 8 hours straight. The “ergonomic” shape is some kind of torture device disguised as a chair, and the arms are just straight up hard metal with no kind of covering. I squirm a lot. I don’t sit in a chair like a normal human being. This situation was untenable. I made the Dodgers pillow to try and fix some of that, and my Marvel logo TV Hugger has ended up as my “save my wrist from irreversible carpal tunnel damage” desk pillow. But that damn chair was still trying to murder me. I needed something giant, fluffy, and not designated for my TV emotions. That is, I needed something new.

I loved the wheel pattern I made for Cap’s shield in my Trust Cap quilt so I figured I’d give a round pillow a try. Behold, Cap’s shield! Saving my body from a slow death one fluffy hour at a time. Sidenote: my work chair is now 100% covered in pillows. I also got the star way better on this one than on the one from Trust Cap. Live and learn.

Bed Sheet Curtains (Mostly) Done!

I still need to hem them but here are the curtains in all their glory. I used the fitted sheets as well. I pulled out all the elastic (which I don’t recommend unless you are insane or need a very patient, calming project) and then I pulled out the corner seams and opened them up. Then I decided to go for length and cut off the sides. Then I hemmed the sides, cut the flat sheet to match, and made the top bits for the curtain rod. This resulted in some pretty skinny curtains, especially the sets that were Twin and Full (the fancy ones in the centers), but that was why I bought the solid sheets as well. Together, they look awesome and cover the windows more than adequately. Not a hard project, just a long one. Lots of seam ripping, pinning, and sewing long straight seams. I think they turned out nicely. Further decoration for my apartment is forthcoming. Just not presently. I’m too tired.

Bed Sheet Curtains

Okay, who (besides me) actually believed I would really truly go on a craft hiatus? Probably no one. Ah well. My new apartment has huge windows which I love. But all of my previous curtains won’t even cover them. So I went out shopping for some curtains. Curtains are expensive. Like $20 per panel expensive. I thought maybe I’d make some but even fabric on sale was going to set me back $100+. Cue me walking down the clearance sheet aisle and spotting those insane floral/paisley neon sheets for $9. The other sets came shortly thereafter, once I was like “hm. Sheets are a lot of fabric. Those are cheap. I have a sewing machine.” They’re all in the wash and it’s too late at night to start now, but this is my project for the week. Looking at my windows right now, the solid sets may have been overkill. But they’ll make a pretty frame, anyway.

Desk Pillow, a la Long Distance California Dreamin’

I know I swore off crafts for a while but it occurred to me that having something to rest my elbow and wrist on at work would help. I took my SHIELD pillow in to give it a try and ended Friday with an arm that almost didn’t even hurt. Huzzah! The (minor) problem is that my SHIELD pillow is both huge and slightly less than professional. So far, my biggest projects at work have been related to the Los Angeles Dodgers. I love baseball, the Dodgers were literally my first ever baseball game, and I have a strange and unhealthy fixation on Los Angeles, so I figured that if this qualified as “for work” it would neither violate my craft hiatus nor my incestuous MLB allegiances. And I could take it to work without feeling transgressive. This whole project took me eight hours tops and 98% of it came from Trust Cap scraps. It’s also possible that I stuffed the homemade pillow form way too hard, but we’ll see how it goes on Monday.

Enforced Hiatus

Yo, my lovelies! So, I made it to my new abode and I started my new job. It is 100% staring at a computer all day which means a lot of typing and mouse work etc. Unfortunately, in my previous job, the repetitive motion of lifting and lowering a piece of glass over documents for like, idk, nine months straight with intense speed pretty much destroyed my right wrist. Even so, I kept using knitting and sewing as my relaxation which just made it worse.

The combination of not letting it ever get better with this new horribly un-ergonomic set up at my new job has rendered my wrist practically unusable. So I’m going to have to take a break from crafts for a while and give it a rest. I’m not happy about this because I have a ton of projects in the works and nothing is as relaxing as hand quilting or knitting a pair of socks. But it is what it is. I’d prefer to have a usable right hand for the rest of my corporeal existence.

I’ll be back and crafting as soon as I can, I swear. If nothing else, come winter I’ll be begging to sit under my Cap quilt while I quilt it. (That’s the hardest blow of all: I’m so close to finished with my Captain America quilt!) For now, stay crafty mis amigas y amigos! I’ll see you on the other side.

(If any of you would like to scream about Agents of SHIELD, please don’t be shy.)

The Sweater That Haunts My Dreams

So, last year when Agents of SHIELD sucked, I was sticking around for two dorky science goobers and for them alone. In an unrelated vein, I tend to get very distracted any time there is knitwear in a movie or TV show that I’m watching which means Fitz is a constant fixation all on his own. The episode where they went to SHIELD Academy (“SEEDS,” for the record) featured Fitz wearing a sweater that had these massive unbelievable cables. Unbelievable because they were like 10×10 and laid completely flat. What sorcery is this. Screencaps, closeups, and intense staring did nothing. I couldn’t get a good enough look at the sweater to satisfy me. It’s haunted me for more than a year. This episode is also the only time that he ever wears the thing. This one-off amazing sweater from Agents of SHIELD was constantly nagging at my mind. I took to calling it “Fitz’s sweater” despite him wearing other cardigans more often. This one. This was the one. This was Fitz’s sweater.

I have found Fitz’s sweater. Which is good, because at some point I was willing to murder to get a better look at the thing. I can’t reconstruct how or why I ended up on a site called “Tyranny of Style” or why I decided to read “FitzSimmons Style on Agents of SHIELD” given that I actively avoid behind-the-scenes stuff and interviews. But there I was. And there was that glorious, transcendent, magical cardigan.

 

This is the “Ted Baker Jowalk Cable Cardigan,” link that doesn’t work to Bloomingdales, link that does to Amazon. Sold out everywhere but probably cost a million dollars.

Look at this monster cable:

I will figure this out of it kills me. It basically looks like a 10×10 that starts in the middle, adds one more cable stitch on each row as you go up, and uses a twisted stitch on the cable crosses to make the defined diamond pattern. I MUST EXPERIMENT.

Additionally: the expensive designer clothes that characters wear on TV always amuse me. Really? Your outfit costs more than my entire paycheck? Okay.jpg

ETA: I just discovered that the reason I don’t read interviews, especially with Henstridge or De Caestecker, is that I keep making keening noises and shouting “I COULD EAT YOU WITH A SPOON.”