#I'm working on a larger project

[shady-tavern]

Ask Box Open

I'm currently fresh out of ideas for short stories and I'd like to write something, feel free to send in requests or prompts if you'd like!

[azadrithaanatheme]

Today I give you some WIPs (and also some silliness - click for better views) as I try to figure out how to actually make comics and also find an art style that I like and can use without it taking ten million hours. Tomorrow? Well, nothing tomorrow actually, because my hand is dying and I'm going to take a freaking break to spend some time with my family over the holiday. But after that? Who knows?

In related news, I'm almost finished writing the first arc of The Crawling Chaos. Chapter one is called "The Graduationing" and includes what might be one of the best Teacher lines ever committed to writing:

As you can probably tell, I'm having entirely too much fun with this.

[chocodile]

An illustration of Bani, my cat who passed away at the beginning of March 2023. She was my best friend. I still miss her every day.

A little writeup/”poem”(?) about her last few years under the cut.

When Bani was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in early 2020, I asked her to make it through the pandemic because it felt like the world was ending and I couldn't lose her, too. And she did.

When we moved to a new state in 2021, we asked her to make it for a while in the new house because I didn't want this happy new chapter of our lives to be tainted with such a painful loss so early on. I wanted the house to feel like our family’s house, not "the house without Bani." And she did.

When she had her first major health crisis in early summer 2022 at the same time I was trying to job hunt, I asked her to make it through me getting settled into the new job, because I was already feeling out of my depth and struggling with the adjustment and needed her support and love to keep strong. And she did.

When she was almost 18 in fall of 2022, we asked her to make it to 18, because I had been telling people for ages that my cat was "almost 18 years old" and I didn't want her to always be "almost 18 years old". I wanted to celebrate her birthday with her. And she did.

When we had plans to leave for Christmas at the end of 2022, we asked her to make it through until we got back, because it would be too impossibly sad for her to pass while we weren't here to be with her. And she did.

When my birthday was coming up in January 2023, I asked her to make it past my birthday, because I wanted to be with her on my birthday. And she did.

The winter has been long and hard and cold and miserable. Earlier this winter, before Christmas, Katie asked her to make it to March. I thought that March was a lot to ask of such an old cat. I wasn’t sure if she had that much juice left in her. I would understand if she didn’t.

But she did. At 18 years and 3 months old, she made it to March 2nd, 2023. But by then she was very old and very, very tired. Katie and I told her it was alright, she’d done enough and could rest now.

She passed away in my arms, on her favorite pillow, with Aunt Katie beside her, in bed, cozy and warm with a tummy full of cheese, just as she would have wanted.

[slugbeaker]

I couldn't stop thinking about an AU where Daniel resorts to gathering vitae again, this time to 'cure' Hazel, after his Brennenburg adventure💫, thoughts all mainly derived from this loadscreen text that tells us that Hazel is still in hospice care by the time the game's story began.

As much as I love Daniel, I don't think he really learned all that much from his experience even in the most charitable ending towards him in which he saves Agrippa. I can very, VERY easily see him slipping back into old ways if it meant saving Hazel. The most he seems to approach viewing torture as bad is when he realizes he himself no longer counts as an innocent so he can't justify killing others to save himself anymore. But killing no good, horrible, bad people to save HAZEL? Now, we're cooking with gas 😀 💀

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 26

someday if i can figure out how the hell people get these things made i would like to do some little destiny & malice acrylic charms. i think those are so fun. and while i mostly want them for Myself i figure that if i DID figure out the process, i should maybe open up the option to anyone else that might want them, soooo...

informal poll: if i figure out how all that works, would any of y'all be into that, and approximately how many of you?

[poison-breadth]

Six Months

[seth-the-giggle-fish]

So I'm working on a test swatch/color test for a sweater and while working on it I've realized that it would be easier for me to knit if I used circular needles so I check my collection of needles and confirmed that the reason I started using these straight needles was because I don't actually own any size 5 circular needles.

I technically have a gift card for Michael's I could order one, but I don't think they carry what I need from a company I want to buy from (Most of my collection was purchased secondhand, and if I buy new I want to make sure it's something I'll love and use and keep for decades)

[sprinklecipher]

Chatter Chess

I designed a knight's tour-type puzzle that I wanted to share with y'all

Basically, the puzzle is to find the route that unscrambles the sentence that's been scattered across the board below:

Standard knight's tour rules apply (allowed moves are based on how a knight can move in chess, and each square is visited exactly once), and blank squares represent spaces.

For good measure, here's a png knight to go with the board:

I'll add the solution in a reblog ~

[thats-how-i-like-it]

/ vent

[bereft-of-frogs]

Do I feel bad about falling terminally behind on NaNoWriMo barely a week in after realizing that really the only way I could ever succeed at a November NaNo would be to fundamentally alter the way I participate in or forego whumptober entirely? Yeah.

Am I SO excited for the next whumptober prompt I'm rewriting? YES.

[loregoddess]

best part of drawing fantasy map: you will have a cool fantasy map for your fun fantasy project

worst part: labels

[charmre]

Looping "relaxing Animal Crossing music + rain sounds" has been a life saver while doing work fr

[manebioniclegali]

^^^ specifically my question has always been after school activities plus homework. Bc you better be sure they're not gonna fix the amount of homework to match the actual time bc that'd be too smart of an idea. And I mean, if it's just one hour, I suppose not much would have to change, but if it's two, then more things should change

it's always funny when a school system suggests doing something for the actual benefit of children like pushing back when school starts so they aren't getting up before the crack of dawn and there's always a ton of people getting all crotchety about how when they were kids... and it's like bro if your childhood was miserable why are you so hellbent on making the childhoods of others miserable too what is wrong with you

[bomberqueen17]

How To Shop For Fabric Online

RIP Joann's. Now many places in the US no longer have a local fabric store, such as it even was toward the end.

There are some good posts going around about where to shop for fabric and craft supplies online, like this one for example. But if you're a beginner-to-intermediate sewist, and the way you've always shopped for fabric is by going to the store and touching it, it can be a hard, even cruel adjustment to suddenly be looking at a photo online and trying to piece together from the inconsistent descriptions what you're actually looking at.

So I'm going to just try to bang together a little primer on What Things Are Called, and how to educate yourself, so that you don't have to do what I did and just buy a ton of inappropriate stuff you wound up not being able to use for what you'd thought. And I will link to some resources that will help with this. This will be garment-sewing-centric but will, I think, be fairly broadly applicable.

The first thing is to look carefully at your desired project. If it is a commercial pattern, it will usually tell you what kind of fabric you need, but it will describe it in not the same words it's often sold under. If it is NOT a commercial pattern and you're kind of winging it, it's even harder. So here is how to start figuring out what you need.

Number one: Knit or Woven?

Quilting fabric is woven. If you are making a quilt, you want a woven. Most craft projects are made with woven fabric-- tote bags, upholstery, you name it.

Many garments are knits. T-shirts, yoga pants, cardigans. It is easy to know, because knits stretch. They can either stretch both ways (along the length and along the width) or just one way (usually along the width); this is confusingly either called 2-way stretch or 4-way stretch. Yes, stores are inconsistent. Look carefully at the description, and they will usually specify-- "along the grain" or "in all directions". Some garments require stretch only around the body-- maxi skirts, knit dresses etc-- while some absolutely need stretch both ways, like bathing suits.

No, you absolutely cannot clone your favorite knit t-shirt in quilting cotton. It will not fit. Most knit garments have "negative ease", meaning they are smaller than your body and stretch to fit. All woven garments have "positive ease", meaning they are larger than your body, unless very firm shaping undergarments are used.

SMALL EXCEPTION: There exist "stretch wovens", which are woven fabrics made with elastic fibers. These will be labeled as such. They are actually harder to sew with than regular wovens because they almost never have their stretch percentage labeled; they are NOT suitable for knit patterns. Avoid them, until you are more advanced and know how to accomodate them, is my advice!

Number two: WEIGHT.

How heavy is the fabric? How thick? How thin? This is measured in two main ways-- ounces per yard (denim is often 8oz, 10 oz, 12 oz) or grams per square meter. But many fabric retailers do not tell you a weight, they use words like "bottomweight" or "dress-weight", and you have to learn to figure out what they mean by that.

My lifehack for learning these has been go to go to ready-to-wear clothing retailers and see if they give the weights of the fabric their garments are made from. (Yes, I learned how to shop for clothes online instead of in-store years ago, because I am fat; some of us have had to do this a long time.)

If you are making a pair of trousers, you need heavier fabric than if you are making a blouse. Do not buy a floaty translucent chiffon to make your work trousers, it will not work no matter how cute the color is. Learn how the different weights of fabric are described, and you will improve your odds of finding what you need.

Number three: DRAPE.

Is it stiff? Is it fluid? Is it soft? is it firm? There are a lot of very artsy words used for this, and you may find yourself puzzling over things with a fluid hand, or a dry, crisp hand, or "a lot of drape", or maybe the listing doesn't describe it at all. This segues neatly into another technical thing, which is the WEAVE of the fabric. There is a dizzying array of words that tell you what kind of fabric it is-- twill, tabby, challis, chiffon, crepe, organza, georgette. And these will give you insight into the drape, and thus into the texture/usability of this fabric, and how suitable it may or may not be for your project.

I know it's a lot to think about but I am now going to give you resources for where to see all this stuff.

Number one is Mood Fabrics, which I can't believe hasn't been in any of the posts I've seen so far. They are a huge store in NYC's Fashion District and yes you can go there, but when I went there it overwhelmed me so much I left empty-handed. But what they have is AN INCREDIBLE WEBSITE. They have everything on there, and what's most important for you, their listings are INCREDIBLY consistent. They have VIDEOS of many of the fabrics, where a sales associate will hold it, wave it, stretch it, and tell you verbally what it is and what it's for, in about thirty seconds. HUNDREDS of these videos.

Whether you want to buy from them or not, go to Mood Fabrics, click around, find their listings, and read them. They will tell you fabric content, weight (usually gsm), often weave, they have little graphics that show you if it's for pants, dresses, shirts. And they have those videos. Look at the listings, watch the videos, and you will leave knowing a lot more about how to look at an online listing of fabric and know what you're getting.

Another really excellent website for this is Stonemountain & Daughter. I've actually not bought anything from them yet (they came highly recommended, but they're not cheap), but their online listings are, again, very thorough and very detailed. They always have a picture of the fabric with a fold in it held in place by a pin, which does more to help you understand the weight and drape of a fabric than any other static image ever could-- that visual, combined with how informative the listings are, has helped me learn to estimate fabric weights on other sites very effectively.

And here is a page that's ostensibly about how to wash silk, but I found it so useful because it gives such a clear image of what each weave/type of silk fabric looks and drapes like. I've never bought anything from these guys either, but this is a good resource.

Learn a little bit about fabric so you know what you're looking for, and you can begin to replace some of that "i just have to go and feel it in person" problem. There will still be trial and error, but you'll have a better starting place at least.

[arcane-strangeness]

sometimes it feels like all my problems would be solved if i smashed my chromebook to pieces with my reinforced Spirit Halloween nailbat and then slept for several weeks straight