#working from stash

[dinosaurcharcuterie]

10 days ago, I decided I would get started on that linen summer dress with the swooshy skirt I've had all the materials for since last summer. So, naturally, 9 days ago, I did unspeakable things in a text editor software to reformat this free Apex Legends Nessie pattern by Jackalodreams on Deviantadt so most pieces fit on less pages. Then I printed it at 200%, taped the pieces together and... Things got a bit out of hand.

Long story short, I've got a new purse, and it made at least three separate adults who saw it smile squeal in public.

Construction notes after the break!

I think it only took me an evening or two to make, the main thing was getting all the materials. Zipper is from a duvet, all other hardware, eyes included, are 3D printed with PLA. (Pro tip: don't size up safety eye STL files unless you have a way to size up your fabric thickness accordingly.) Patches are mostly from stash, as is the lining (just some random jersey) and belly fabric (basic double gauze). Body is a fuzzy blanket I found on clearance. Tag is a piece of cotton calico with some quick and dirty hand embroidery on it.

Getting the tag, zipper and D-ring caught in the butt seam made me fear for my little Brother sewing machine, so maybe don't do what I did there. I didn't have the patience to figure out something else, and I didn't not want to put in a tag. Still, all the fabric edges are finished, every seam is locked, the patches are sewn on instead of ironed on, so this thing, when empty, should be machine washable at 30°C.

This deceptive little beastie took an entire 400g bag of polyfill to get structurally sound, even with the pouch pre-filled with way more things than I expected would fit. It's a pretty practical size inside for everyday errands. It came out extremely squishy, to the point that I could probably use it as a pillow on a long drive or train ride. The different textures of eyes, patches, tag, body and belly go together nicely.

The shoulder strap was borrowed for about an hour from my wife's purse (thank you, sweetie!) when Hermes smiled down upon us and had us catch one market stall selling fashion straps that was several hours late in packing up and closing. (Lesson learned: drinking a can of Monster before running small errands is a good thing.) Don't have pictures of the new one yet.

It's the size of a medium-large plush, so not ideal for tiny stores while wearing a thick winter coat, but otherwise it did quite well on its first outing.

Just gotta attach the zipper pull with a jump ring, as the sewed on McGyvering I've got right now isn't the most practical.

[fcthots]

cuddly night's after patrol with Jason? 🥰

-🍕

"I know. 'M sorry." He burrito'd you in a fluffy blanket after you got home. Gotham's winter weather is brutal on a good day and your heater broke. You tried to call Jason to fix it four times over the span of an hour after he was already supposed to be home, but the calls rang out each time. You were worried sick about him and freezing to death with no heater.

When he walked into your freezing apartment an hour and a half after he was supposed to, you weren't exactly happy (even if you were so relieved you couldn't form words). Especially after you saw his cracked helmet. He explained to you that his helmet got cracked in a fight and he didn’t think to look at his phone during the hour long debrief in the batcave.

At first, you were a little pissed off, but truthfully it was earlier's fear talking. The fear that something happened and he wasn't coming home and you were worried about the stupid AC while he was out there probably dying in a dark alley somewhere-.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Now, he has you wrapped up in blankets against his chest. He kisses the crown of your head. "I didn’t mean to make you worry."

He runs his finger through your hair and you sigh. "I know. I'm not really mad at you. I was just worried about you."

"I'm ok. I promise." He runs his other hand up and down your back. He won't be leaving your side for a while.

[aardvaark]

im so glad that we never get a clear picture of sophie’s background in leverage & i hope we never do. however i also really like making up various, often conflicting backstories for her in my head. perhaps they’re all backstories for an alias of hers, ones she laid to rest back in season two.

[geeky-nightphilosopher]

🦇Batfamiy (& Friends Sometimes)🦇

*Jason tied up in the Batcave for some reason, surrounded by his family*

Steph: *Walking in* Oh, is Jason having an intervention?

Jason: *borderline joker laugh* Ha! Hahaha ha! That's super funny that you think I can get help! It's too late for that!

[pokimoko]

Hello!! i just discovered your blog and firstly i wanna say that your art is gorgeous! <33 and secondly, if youre still taking requests could i get a lesbian/non binary cheetah? /nf

Thank you! Cheetahs be upon ye!

[awheckery]

I need some help

so. this is hard. here goes:

for the last six-ish weeks, I've had an exceptionally challenging time of things re: my haunted devil body being exceptionally haunted and full of devils, and I have missed a lot of work. a lot of work. might be losing my job soon, in fact, but I'm trying not to think about that.

I'm trying to crawl my way out of the hole, but I have nothing in the bank right now and no money coming in, literally this is a screenshot of my account from today, and it's not showing the insurance payment that put me $50 in the negative this morning.

I have no other savings, my credit card's maxed out, I don't know how I'm going to pay my upcoming rent and my cupboard's down to baking ingredients and canned vegetables, so the sitch is looking pretty gd grim for me right now.

if anyone wants to donate and can afford to be kind, I'm linking my paypal and cashapp below, but I'd prefer to be able to offer something in exchange.

I think most y'all are following me because it is known that I make quilts, but that's mostly a side effect of my true hobby: collecting fabric. (this is a joke. mostly.)

I don't know that I have the energy to commit to making quilts or other complicated goods right now, but I do have a truly massive stash and excellent color sense. I've pulled these curated fat quarter collections as examples of what I have on offer:

this is a very small sample of what I have in my stash; I've been collecting fabrics since 2014, so I have a massive collection of rare & out-of-print fabrics from Moda, Free Spirit, Windham, RKaufman and other brands, a portion of which I've catalogued and uploaded to gdrive here.

that's nowhere near my full collection, it's just a jumping off point of what I've got to work with. I'd put fq bundles on etsy or something similar to make it easier, but the total lack of funds has temporarily kiboshed that idea.

in the meantime, I'm selling individual fat quarters for $2.50 each and curated stash-builder sets of five like the ones above for $15. I'd also be happy to make coordinating pot holders not unlike this one at $35 for a pair.

(pls don't ask me for oven mitts, I don't want to talk about one of my greatest failures)

NOTE: all fabric comes from a smoke, pet and fragrance-free environment, and will not be prewashed. I know that makes a difference to a lot of folks, not just me.

I'm also open to assembling pre-cut quilt & other craft kits, PM me to discuss what you're looking to make and I'll figure out if I can make it happen for you.

I appreciate any and all help more than I have words to communicate, and I know I'm pretty damn wordy! I'm pretty far down in the weeds at the moment, and I need to raise around $1800 in the next ten days in order to pay rent, catch up on my bills and pay for food and medication.

please help out a chronically ill artist and shop my stash!

cashapp

paypal

[caityrose]

Here are some old drawings I don't think I've shared yet!!

[pearl-kite]

Want to see some neat things about how irises grow?

Remember when I dug up and divided ALL of my irises at my parents' place a few years back? And how I ended up with 50 rhizomes, and I had bought 9 more just a bit before that?

Well, my mom wants to try to amend the soil because it's not great. Most of the irises have just been surviving, but not well enough to bloom, and everything else planted in the area struggles similarly. In order to amend the soil, though, I needed to dig them all up.

Again.

I dug up 44 rhizomes this time, which is honestly a bit better than I expected. I knew that not all of the ones I put in were going to survive, but I was still surprised by how many I just dug up today.

Anyway, the learning bit!

So irises aren't bulbs, they're rhizomes. Each year they put up leaves at one end, and over time they kind of end up migrating in that direction. If they do really well at gathering and storing energy, instead of just continuing forward, they'll fork, putting up leaves on two sides and a stalk with blooms in the center. The following year, the pattern continues, going forward from each side of that fork. If a rhizome does REALLY well, you'll end up with a bunch of forks spreading out.

The one on the left has survived, but not gone very far, and the white at the end shows that I accidentally broke some of the old rhizome off when I was digging it back up. It also happens to be a dwarf variety, so the rhizome is smaller to begin with; all my other photos are of intermediate and tall bearded irises with much larger rhizomes.

The one on the right has done well enough to grow forward for a few years, with the oldest of the rhizome at the bottom (still healthy and full of stored energy!) and the newest year's growth at the top. Looking at the rhizome itself, I'd guess that one is about 4 years (which makes sense, 'cause I think I did the splitting back in 2020).

The one on the left bloomed this year; you can see the flower stalk dried out in the center, and the new fork in the rhizome to the sides. Next year, they'll continue in those two directions, and it won't go forward from the stalk any longer.

The one on the right bloomed a few years back, and though it kept growing forward from there, it hasn't bloomed since. The other side of the fork also died off, and it's now only growing in one direction again.

Last but most certainly not least we have THIS beast. This one has bloomed the last two or three years in a row. I honestly can't tell if the guy at the bottom right is part of the same rhizome or another one I planted too close that got subsumed by this monster, because it took ten minutes to get most of the clay off and there was still more. I'll need to actually rinse it off with the hose to really see if it's all one plant or two.

But I'm 95% sure that this guy is going to bloom again next year because of those nubs down along the bottom. They were below the soil, and they're too thick to be new roots, so I'm guessing that's what future growth looks like. Honestly, this guy should probably be divided, but I also don't want to ruin the chance of it blooming next year, so I'm going to put him back in the dirt as is and maybe divide next year after blooming season.

Anyway, irises are my favorite, and I think it's intriguing how they work. I'm hoping that we can get the soil a bit more balanced and that they'll do better after replanting them, because even though I just dug up 44, we only had 4 or 5 bloom this year. They aren't thriving in the soil as-is, because for as long as they've been established we should have had more blooming than that. It was still the best year since dividing them, though.

I've brought a bunch of them over to my apartment and I'm going to try them out in containers, mostly the dwarf varieties I had. ONE of the dwarfs bloomed this year and it was gorgeous, but I'm hoping the rest will do better in new soil with some extra attention.

[heartyearning]

one of our best friends is moving to a different country (which is both true and overdramatic bc we live close to the border and she's moving just over it) & i'm trying to find the perfect bday/housewarming gift (HARD!) & now i'm on the hand-embroidered table napkins train. let's see how quickly i remember embroidery is Pretty Hard Actually ! insp under the cut

COOL THO RIGHT ?!

[maskerat]

GAAAAAAASP holupholupholupholupholup—

c a n w e s e e l o n g q u i r r e l ? ! ? ! ¿ ! ?

I present

THE LONG QUIRREL

He looks so goofy imo, like I don't know what I was seeing when making the pattern but he's not very game accurate....

He's also a bit dirty already because my friends like to toss him around and bully him/j

I'm planning to redo him so he looks more chunky and pillbug-y lmao

[d1gnan]

tiny collection of tiny fight club soaps going (2/3)

[sheliesshattered]

somehow, I don't know how, but somehow sewing machines always know when you're nearly done with a project and pick that exact moment to throw a hissy fit

[laugtherhyena]

Playlist listened to while writing; https://spotify.link/WzxvdTKBCJb

Holy shit dude, the ceo of rei angst wrote some rei angst what the HELL!! We have to kill her guys she cant keep getting away with this.

Anyways im gonna be writing about a lot of these nerds. I just love rei. This is really rushed and I am really sleepy so it is not my best writing.

Also i cannot write teruya so you will habe to ppppUT UP WITH IT.

Warnings for like. Violence and my attempt at writing a breakdown.

-

Rei held the rusty pipe like a baseball bat, swinging for a homerun as she smacked off the head of someone she once knew. Someone who had abandoned her long ago.

The rotting head of what used to be her mother rolled on the ground, sickly green skin squishing against the ground and stared up at her with lifeless eyes.

“I didn’t want to see you again like this,” Rei hissed as her chest heaved, “i wanted to see you staring with regret as you saw your daughter on top of the world. I didn’t want to kill you or see you dead.”

That had been the second time she had run into her zombified mother. The first, she had been a coward, unable to kill her and her father– the two people she hated most, the two people who had abandoned her and left her on the streets.

Where had all her rage gone that time. When had she become soft.

-

Midori clung to Ryutaro with all the strength in her frail body. “My brother,” she whispered, “i saw my brother’s corpse down there. Kakeru… he… they got Kakeru… they killed Kakeu…”

He didn’t say much in return, but he did pat her hand briefly– the only comforting action he could manage while carrying her.

“I see a store up ahead. Let’s stop by there for supplies.” Keisuke pointed out to the leader of the bunch.

Setsuka patted the clown on the back and gave him a smile. “Sounds good, lead the way. Maki, do you need me to carry Yamaguchi for a bit?”

Midori wrapped her arms and legs around Ryutaro a bit tighter at the suggestion, very much attached to the guy who had found her and saved her from zombies.

“I’ll be fine until we reach the stop.” The blonde nodded his acknowledgement to the bluenette, forcing a smile as he struggled to catch up.

The group walked in silence for a bit, the only sounds being the orchestra of distant zombie groans.

“Miss Yamaguchi,” Hikaru said after bit, his tone fatherly like usual, “may I check your pulse soon? And may I check if the swelling on your ankles has gone down?”

“Yeah, that… sounds good. Thank you, Uncle.”

-

Kanata removed the bandages from Ayame’s arm gradually.

“There isn’t any sign of infection, Hatano. Kinjo and Maki are still out, so… uhm… can I get you something to eat?” The surgeon spoke softly as she stared at the sprinter.

“I’m not hungry…” Ayame mumbled.

“Inori!” Tomori slammed the door open, her eyes sunken from lack of sleep, “i think i got bit. Check! Check, please!!”

Kanata bit back a sigh of exasperation and forced out her cheerful smile. “Of course. Where do you think you were bit this time?”

“My ankle. They went after my ankle so I couldn’t run! They’re going to eat me. I’m going to die, aren’t I? Oh, god, I’m going to die!” The cheerleader’s words were jumbled together and practically nonsensical. She grabbed onto Kanata’s shoulders as she spoke, her nails digging into the other’s lab coat and pressing her skin uncomfortably.

“Miss Tomori,” Kanata winced, “please let go of me. I will check your ankle, but I am sure you are fine.”

“I’m not fine!” Kizuna wailed before glaring accusatory daggers at Ayame. “If you… if you hadn't gotten yourself bitten! If you had just seen that bitch for what she is! We wouldnt be doomed! You’ve doomed us all!”

Ayame took the words without fighting back. What had been the point in fighting anymore? Kizuna was right. She had doomed them all.

“Miss Tomori, please… Taira had us all fooled… if Miss Hatano is to blame, then so are the rest of us…” the blonde murmured. “Please sit down so I can check your ankle…”

-

Mindless. Kinji was mindless. His faith had only been able to spare him for so long.

His teeth were decayed now. His skin was green and purple and yellow. His eyes were dull. His cheeks were sunken.

It was incredible that his mind stayed intact long enough for him to bury as many as he did. The only bodies he didn’t put 6 feet under, the only bodies he couldn’t handle burying, were those of the people he knew.

But what was the point?

-

Yuki held his stomach as he choked up and spat out the last meal he had, beans that had barelt even begun to digest.

“Urgh… gross…” he mumbled to himself.

Shinji was away at the moment, scouting out for the next safe place for them to go and likely trying to find his family in the process.

The lucky student fought back envious tears. At least they knew there was a chance that Shinji’s family was alive– they found his mother, Aiko, brutally murdered in the Maeda household. Her corpse was bloated and rotted when they found it.

The sight still haunted his dreams. He couldn’t even keep.meals down since he saw it.

-

Mikako peered into her brother’s lab. He hadn’t eaten in quite some time, nor had he slept.

“Yamato…” she whispered hesitantly.

He spun around with a dart ready in his hand. He only lowered it after he registered it was her.

“Mikako, I’ve told you to leave me alone. I need to find a cure, or no one will be safe.” The inventor turned back to his work and threw a crumpled up piece of paper to the side.

“I’m sure someone else is searching for a cure, Yamato. Why not try to make a vaccine? Some sort of immunity would help while someone else finds a cure.” The exorcist suggested.

Her brother didn’t seem to have heard. That, or he was ignoring her.

“Ah… nevermind.” She straightened her back and spun on her heel to hunt down their other classmates.

For the newcomers, Satsuki was putting on a performance– juggling empty bottles and broken gadgets whilst telling jokes. That could not be safe, but Haruhiko seemed to have his eyes on her.

The bunker door heaved open, and Teruya’s team came in, carrying boxes full of food and other supplies.

“We’re back with dinner!” The merchant shouted.

Mikako rushed over to take the box from him.

“Thank you, Otori, this should be good for at least a week. You and your scavenger team did good.”

He grinned at her and handed his box over. “Thanks! We uh…” he hesitated, “We saw Taira and Maeda… err… Utsuro? On our flight back… they looked like they were heading somewhere… dunno where…”

She bit her tongue and nodded thankfully at him. “Thank you for telling me.”

-

Thats it. Im hungry good bye.

Aw yeah infection Au moment! I do remember you saying a while back that you wanted to write something about Rei in this Au and MAN her part has gotta be my favorite out of these little snippets.

I really like taking a look at how a bunch of the cast is doing, seeing the way you wrote them in those situations was pretty fun! It reminded me how much i like the idea of Setsuka's like group with the 6.5 cast and how Kanata probably wishes she has a degree in psychology to properly deal with Ayame and Kizuna (she may feel as if she's not doing enough for them seing as her kindness can only bring her so far when dealing with their turmoil)

[ellcrys]

my period came a whole week early which means i wasn't prepared for it which means i didn't have advil on me which means i spent an agonizing 3 hours at work this afternoon cursing my uterus while attending the meetings i needed to attend before i could peace the fuck out and go home to IBUPROFEN

[bigboobshaunt]

I am. So angry right now.

[asterdeer]

not to be like “i miss college” even though i do but mostly i think i miss being smart. before depression and life events had chewed up and partially swallowed my brain. just getting to problem solve and think, being Very Into something as the norm. i know being an english major is basically the easiest thing you can be at the undergrad level but i do feel like that was the one and only time in my life where my natural state was actually a pro instead of a con. i graduated with the highest honors and absolutely no one cared but i cared