#options beginners

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Now that I know more about writing, I'm upset at all the writing advice that urged new writers to find the one best way to write stories, when they should be telling us to play with writing techniques like toys.

Don't tell us to avoid certain points of view! Don't box us into the one currently popular prose style! Let us play and see what effects different techniques achieve, so we can learn the best ways to make use of them! Give us a whole ton of possibility instead of one cookie-cutter template!

[strayrainbow]

Gordon says from the river to the sea Palestine will be free

Resources

Don't forget your daily click 😇

[pianokantzart]

Pardon my lack of art and overall absence lately. I have been caught up in a little side project, and since I just recently reached my progress goal I figured now was a good time to show it off!:

I have a winter greenhouse on my parents' property that, ever since I left home, got completely abandoned and taken over by weeds since it never had a proper floor to begin with. My brothers helped me clear the weeds and put down the rock, but I laid out the new lawn fabric and built that pond wall on my own (it's neither the sturdiest nor the prettiest thing in the world, but it does the trick of keeping the pea gravel from being kicked into what is eventually going to be a pond.)

A few more things I'd like to do before I once again leave home:

Add more stone (probably just a few Home Depot bags here and there to even things out)

Staple that back flap of the pond tarp back into place (you can see the wood where it's falling away)

Use some weedkiller around the edges to keep all that bermudagrass from creeping back in.

Transport some of the old tools & gardening pots back into the greenhouse

But yeah!!! I'm excited for when I can settle in, get a pond pump installed and actually get some stuff growing :D

[sheliesshattered]

It's been almost two weeks since my last sewing update, but I have been making progress on a couple different projects, thankfully. I mentioned in my last post that I was hesitant to cut into a king-sized 100% linen bedsheet that I've been hoarding for 10+ years. I knew I wanted to make an apron, but I also knew that it wouldn't take up anywhere near the whole sheet, and I had the thought that I might be able to get two projects out of this one sheet (and the remnants of the matching fitted sheet) if I was careful about how I cut out all my pieces. Possibly a gathered tiered skirt/petticoat, along with the apron.

I measured the two long sides of the flat sheet that had identical ~1.25" deep hems, and I found that each side was 112" or just over 3 yards long, not counting the top and bottom hems. That meant if I did side seams, I could get a 6 yard wide bottom tier for the skirt and not have to do a hem at all, just use what was already there. Not the widest hemline on this kind of skirt (I have a purchased skirt with a 25 yard hem, and years ago I made a 26 yard tiered skirt out of muslin), but with this heavy weight linen it felt like 6 yards at the hem would be plenty.

Gathered tiered skirts are really just rectangles and a bit of simple math. Since the sheet's side hem determined the size of the lowest tier at 224", I figured I would do 2-to-1 gathers and make the next tier up 112" wide, and the third tier up 56" wide. A fourth tier at that 2-to-1 gathering ratio would have been only 27" wide, which wouldn't have fit over my hips, so the skirt would have 3 tiers.

I'm a short girl at not quite 5'2" and I like to wear my skirts pretty low on my hips for spoonie comfort issues, so after measuring a purchased skirt whose length I like, I decided that between 30" and 33" inches in total length would be ideal. With three tiers that length could easily be divided into tiers that are each 10"-11" tall. I added a half inch for seam allowance (but no hem allowance on the lowest tier, since I was re-using the existing hem) to get the exact measurements for each of the pieces I needed for the skirt.

I was able to tear most of my pieces, since the linen bedsheet was nicely on the grain and tore relatively cleanly, thus saving my hands from cutting all those long pieces. I had meant to cut the top tier at 14" tall so that I'd have room to turn under a nice thick waistband too -- and then I totally forgot and cut it at 12" just like the middle tier, lol. I was able to get one of the middle tier pieces and both of the top tier pieces out of the remains of the matching fitted sheet, so I only needed one middle and two bottom tiers from the flat sheet. That left me with plenty of flat sheet left over for the apron, but I'll talk more about that in my next sewing post.

With my pieces all cut out, it was time to start the most annoying part of making a gathered tiered skirt: gathering all those tiers. I'm trying to sew with cotton thread more often these days, but for the gathers I switched back to polyester thread just for the strength. For the two bottom tier and two middle tier pieces I ran two lines of gathering stitches along the top edge, placed pins to divide each panel into quarters, and got to gathering and pinning.

With tiered skirts I really prefer to work from the bottom up, so that I'm always attaching a gathered piece to a completely flat piece of fabric, and save side seams for last. So the bottom tier pieces got gathered up and attached to the middle tier pieces, then the middle tier got gathered up sewn to the top tier.

Since I accidentally cut my top tier pieces shorter than I'd meant to, I did play around with adding a separate waistband for the top tier to be gathered onto. But I couldn't do a full 2-to-1 gather if I wanted the waistband to pull on over my hips, and the waistband made the proportions look weird, like the top tier was too long. So I ended up cutting the waistband off after I sewed it and actually shortening the top tier even a little bit more. After turning under the top edge to enclose the raw ripped edge and then turning under 3cm (~1.2") for a waistband casing, that top tier ended up being about 9" tall, and the proportions of that look much better for some reason.

Before I sewed the side seams, I decided that this skirt needs to have pockets, of course. I knew I was planning to do French seams to protect the raw edges against unraveling, so I put the pockets in with a French seam as well.

With the pockets in place, the next step was to do the side seams (including the pocket bags), being careful to match up the height of the hem and each of the tiers so everything was nice and clean and square. Then I was able to turn under that waistband casing and sew it in place -- my original plan had been put in three separate channels for narrow elastic that would result in a bit of a faux-cartridge pleating look, but actually getting the elastic strung through there turned out to be more of a pain than it was worth, so I ended up picking that out and just using a single 1" wide elastic band in the waistband casing instead.

And with that, the skirt was technically wearable, and with some fabrics I might have been happy to leave it there. But the raw ripped edges at the seams between each of the tiers worried me. I've had well-loved sewing projects just shred after many wears and washes because I left the seams unfinished, figuring I would be the only one to see the inside. Ideally I want this skirt to be in my rotation for years and years, so I decided to make the effort to finish those seams too.

My original plan had been to cover the raw edges inside with 3/4" herringbone twill tape. For some reason I was convinced that I had a bunch of it left over from a Wasteland Weekend project from 2018, only to discover that I actually only had ~3 yards left. So rather than ordering more and waiting for it to arrive (and then inevitably having some of that left over too), I decided to just make some 3/4" tape from the linen sheet itself. Since this whole skirt is rectangles on-grain and the tape wouldn't have to go around any curves, I made the tape from on-grain rectangles too, rather than bothering with proper bias tape.

With the hem and the waistband already cleanly finished, I just needed tape to cover the ~3 yard seam between the bottom and middle tier and the ~1.5 yard seam between the middle and top tier. I tore nice straight strips, trimmed off the frayed edges, and ironed the raw edges under to give me that 3/4" width. It's three layers thick in the middle but only 2 layers thick on the sides, since it isn't a proper double-fold tape.

Then it was just an issue of pinning it over the raw edges inside the skirt -- first from the inside in roughly the right place and then from the outside to make sure it lined up with the seam well.

I stitched-in-the-ditch from the outside right where the gathers met the next tier up, and then went back and did another line of stitching just slightly up from that, using the width of my machine foot (~1cm) as a guide. That covered all the raw edges inside and reinforced the seam, and gave it a nice neat appearance from the outside.

It also had the added benefit of behaving almost like cording on a corded petticoat -- the gathered seems have a lot more body and stiffness now than they did before, which gives the finished skirt a really lovely lofty structure.

The whole skirt ended up being about 31" long, right in that 30"-33" length I had originally aimed for, and when I wear it low on my hips where it's most comfortable, it just brushes the tops of my feet.

My plan is to wear this mostly under other long skirts and dresses, more as a petticoat than a skirt on its own (tho it is heavy enough and neat enough to be worn on its own, if I want). That lofty structure from the seam finishes adds a lot of floof to my other long skirts, just barely peeking out the bottom of the purchased green skirt I originally measured to figure out the length for this one, and hiding completely under my purchased 25 yard burgundy skirt but giving it enough extra volume that it doesn't drag on the ground quite so badly.

As the colder weather sets in I'm sure this will get a lot of wear under skirts and dresses (including the several dresses I'm still planning to sew in the next couple months!), but even now in the last heat of summer it's quite comfortable to wear, since it's linen. Jack commented that it seemed like a lot of work for a skirt that won't be seen (and it did manage to remind me how much I dislike gathering long lengths of fabric), but as long as it's functional and gets used often, I feel like all the effort was worth it.

While I was putting this together, I also cut out and started assembling the apron project from the same bedsheet. Even with all those pieces cut out, I still have enough linen left over for at least one more, maybe two more projects. Next up I'm going to get to all the finishings on the apron (which will be getting its own post once it's done) and keep trucking along on the handsewn eyelets for the Lengberg Castle Bra-thing. And once those two are done, I think I just might be ready to finally start on all the dresses I want to make with my new fabric.

[simmyfrobby]

recently went to a nearby used bookstore that had an extensive poetry section that i looked through but can’t find anything that really click with me. i know you already post poem recs (which are super helpful and appreciated!!) i was just wondering if there are any poetry book/collection that you would give to someone new to poetry as an introduction of some sort?

hi yeah of course! i have made a few rec lists in the past which i will link, but if you're kinda new to poetry id recommend starting with something along the lines of Natalie Diaz, Paige Lewis, Kaveh Akbar or Chen Chen. don't immediately go for the collected works but start small.

(Averno by Glück could be a nice way in. the book tells the story of persephone and demeter. the whole thing builds gradually, it borrows lines from earlier poems and it has a very satisfying conclusion. one of my first real poetry loves.)

i am currently going through a Carl Phillips phase, so you could join me in that if you like. i've also recently discovered and fallen in love w Eve L. Ewing's work and i know Richard Siken's Crush got a lot of people into poetry, so that could be places to start!

some links:

fave poets poetry books dog poems specifically hockey poetry recs a collection of poems i love just in general

i got started on making my edits sortable by poet but couldn't really figure out a good way of making that work (too many links for one post rip). the idea is that if you like a poem, maybe see whether there's anything else by that poet & maybe you'll like that too. if you like several of this poet's poems maybe its worth looking into buying one of their books :)

general rule of thumb: the modern stuff is easier to get into. the old shit also rocks ofc, but maybe build up to some of that if you find that Byron etc doesn't immediately resonate. if you want to start reading names your mom will recognise: try T.S. Eliot

and if all else fails: padraig

[hinamie]

may i ask what tablet and art program you use please? i’m trying to improve my art and also figure out what works for me :))

i use the wacom cintiq pro 24 and clip studio paint pro !

((((I also have a faq btw ! /nm just a psa bc i get this a fair amount)))

[likealizardyousay]

joining the trend ehehe

[witch--tips]

🪭 WITCH TIP 🪭

An obvious option to represent the element of air that I rarely ever see mentioned: Fans. A ceiling fan on your room, or a small electric fan that could sit in a purse, or a hand fan (you can make your own with paper), or a fan you keep on your desk, or a box fan in the window, or a standing fan upstairs, etc.

[coquelicoq]

I just saw the post on the alt codes you memorized and got so excited bc you are the first other person I heard of who also memorized alt codes! For me, it’s bc I started learning Old Babylonian and there is no keyboard with all the diacritics I needed to transcribe them, so I decided it would be the easiest to make myself an additional vocabulary deck to learn the alt codes (that I needed to create my Babylonian vocabulary deck). How have you memorized your alt codes?

omg that is awesome. i have so many questions for you. what are the babylonian alt codes??? or did you add them yourself? (can you add new alt codes? seems like you should be able to, since it's possible to add keyboard shortcuts, and alt codes are really just a type of keyboard shortcut.) i can see that cuneiform signs are in unicode but i can't find any alt code lists that include them. or are you transliterating babylonian into the latin alphabet with diacritics?

another question did you memorize codes for every single one because holy shit there's like hundreds of cuneiform signs according to wikipedia???? that's wild. i can see why you would need flash cards! me i only know probably fewer than 20 total and i just learned them over the course of several years as they became necessary. it's very hard to write a french sentence without é è à and ç, so i'm sure i learned those first, plus ù which is in one very common word that means something totally different if you leave off the accent (où/ou), then probably i had to learn ê â ô and î. but actually you can get pretty far avoiding the other accented letters in french, so i might have been in college before i learned the rest of them lol. somewhere in there i learned the spanish accented letters, but those are mostly right next to each other and there aren't very many of them, so that was easy. i never learned the capitalized accented letters because it's acceptable in french to leave accents off in uppercase (except the cédille, which i know is somewhere in the 120s so i can get there eventually if necessary). initially i look up the number but then over time it gets encoded into muscle memory as i keep using the letter organically in sentences.

most importantly though: how is the old babylonian is it fun it sounds fun

[bf-rally]

felt like i was going crazy yesterday trying to set up a login system for this website 😭 it was like i was back in college again!

[blurred-honey]

I’ve started learning embroidery and had to do my good pal the skull

[thesockghost]

It climbs out of the stinging cold liquid. It managed to swim onto the beach……..it doesn’t remember anything.

It doesn’t remember it’s name, it’s friends, it’s family, not even it’s own name…..

The sandy forest sprawls out in front of it, The trees seemingly marking a path. It can’t make out anything past the trees and leaves.

[hmatrading0]

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[braceletofteeth]

tag someone you want to know and/or some of your besties.

I was tagged by @fourth-quartet 😊 Thank you!!

favourite colour: Gray but I'm currently in a brown phase

last song: I've got recently reacquainted with Beginner by AKB48 😄

last series: The Kidnapping Day. It was a lot more wholesome than the name suggests.

last movie: Saw X (surprisingly also a lot more wholesome than you'd expect????)

sweet/savoury/spicy: Sweet :3

currently watching:

Koisenu Futari

Chains of Heart

The Golden Girls (season 1)

Love in the Air (2nd rewatch)

other stuff I watched this year: Not listing all of it here (I've never watched so much stuff as I did in 2023), but I'll mention the ones that I enjoyed watching the most from each month so far (*not including rewatches):

JAN: Wednesday

FEB: GAP

MAR: Not Me

APR: Tick, Tick... Boom!

MAY: Utsukushii Kare

JUN: Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938

JUL: Takin' Over The Asylum

AUG: Marry My Dead Body

SEP: Utsukushii Kare: Eternal

OCT: The Sandman

shows I dropped this year/didn't finish: I barely remember the ones I watched till the very end 🤡 But ok, let me see...

Eve (dropped after one episode; Rich People and their Rich People Problems™, I think was the reason)

A few straight GMMTV shows that I didn't really catch the name (I. Well. I just. I just couldn't make myself give a fuck, ok 😔)

+ Currently deliberating whether or not I should drop Chains of Heart. All the subtitles I've found are lacking in terms of coherence, and the story itself is already not the most straightforward, so I can only hope I'm understanding what's going on at all? 😀 And I'm also not feeling the main couple from either the present nor the past (? I suspect they are the same (but I may never know))... HOWEVER, I like the acting of the main, and the Thai scenario that is not Bangkok for once. That's always refreshing. And sometimes the cinematography is pretty too... Decisions, decisions...

currently listening to: Back for More by TXT & Anitta (I went after the link for it and distractedly searched for "banger" instead of the title 😆)

currently reading: Codename Villanelle (it's a small book but I'm. ..struggle)

current obsession: I'm not obsessing over anything at the moment 😟☹😫 Have been too busy with mundane adult life problems (therefore, as you can imagine, I'm just about going up the walls here :))

tagging: @eatprayworm @thisautistic @hyp-no-tic @visualtaehyun hi 👋

[impzone]

knight-likers what’s your feelings on mordhau vs chivalry 2? i’m trying to pick one to buy

[pallases]

watching dungeons and dragons honor among thieves. been saying it for ages but i Gotta get in on this