Posts made by surreality

@Auspice Gah. If I had one laying around, I'd send it your way. Sadly, both of the ones I had got destroyed over the years.

Gorgeous black crushed velvet -- hey, cut me some slack, it was 1991! -- one my mom made me as a HS graduation gift? Someone "borrowed it for the day" stole it. I caught them with it 5 years later! ...and they gave it back! ...pinned together with bleach spots and missing the antique clasp that had belonged to my grandmother gone and 'replaced with this newer thing I should be super grateful!' AUGH.

My father threw the 100% imported Italian wool one I spent hours sewing by hand into the dryer 'because wool smells like wet dog when it's damp'. It maybe would have fit a small dog by the time it came out... (OK, heartbreaking as it is, it was funny watching him be all 'look, I don't know why you're crying, it's FINE!' as he tried to snap-flip 'unfurl' it and it stopped at toddler size. He shook it over and over like he was expecting more cloak to fall out for a good minute with an increasingly confused look on his face. 25 years later this is at least a little funny!)

My cloak luck is Greek tragedy levels of bad, or I would offer to help somehow.

@Auspice Cloaks are pretty straightforward. Is there someone in the crafting group where you are you could maybe work out a trade with? If you pick up the fabric, and they make the cloak, maybe you make something for them with their materials? Some things would be a huge ask, but a basic cloak is definitely something within the realm of 'reasonable request to put out feelers for a trade' about, unless you have something super fancy or elaborate in mind. (Even some of the things that look super fancy and elaborate aren't a huge complicated investment of effort, fwiw.)

Also: dammit, the cat had JUST let me finish boxing and bobbinating one of each of the colors I do have (most are just one, but still, doubles get to live in a box) before mom called and was like '...I shouldn't tell you this, but... ' re: coupon.

Ours always looks like a wasteland. The sad thing is that I know they had just restocked this week, and that poor section, omg. My inner fussbudget just wants to sit on the floor sometimes and put things where they belong until they tell me to leave every time I see it.

I grabbed one each of the 'odd' flosses they had in stock (a few color variations, a few light effects) and one each of 'whatever y'all've got from 0-500', which... was not a hell of a lot all told. I am a super sucker for variegated stuff, though, so I keep looking at the darice/iris bulk pack (ETA: this one -- https://www.michaels.com/ombre-embroidery-floss/10622000.html -- because some of those colors look super neat!) to order online at some point. I keep hoping they'll get it in store so I can at least squint at it, but they never do. (The Prism tie-dye one has some neat multicolor ones, if you like those. Dyelots vary greatly, though.)

@Macha Our Michaels is annoyingly conveniently located right by Bed, Bath & Beyond and Target and Trader Joe's.

They chose wisely re: location.

(Our AC Moore is like... half an hour away around nothing else we need more than twice a year tops, so... )

@Auspice I love the 40% off pickup and do it a lot, too. They are a nightmare on floss, though, unless it's packs. Their inventory is ten miles off accurate for the one near here, and I've had 2 week waits while they order a thing they were supposed to have while I sit there twiddling my thumbs. Like... they supposedly had black aida today! They had NO AIDA today. (Especially irritating 'cause the paint we got is pretty iridescent metallics and I wanted to try to do some background texture on some to play with.)

ETA: also, they're... not really paying attention at that one. That's how I ordered the etoile tin, for instance... and I was really lucky because they'd hung the '35 new colors' tin on that post... and put that in the bag instead. I was so lucky I caught that before we left.

Crafty people alert: Michaels has a '20% off your entire purchase including (most) sale items' thing today.

All strung beads are thus 70% off. Yeah. (I pretended the bead aisles did not exist.)

Filled in some floss gaps, but not a whole lot of them really. 'This coupon is good for a whole bunch of small inexpensive items' isn't a usual offering, so...

...uhm. Between my mother and I, we learned something new: once their registers hit XXX(?) lines (item line... then there's the discount line, etc.) they go haywire and have the register equivalent of a hissyfit of beeping and 'fuck you I am not working the rest of this day fuck you fuck you fuck you AND the manager AND your little void codes, too!'

(Funnier: between the two of us -- she also bought beads and such, I got some paint in addition to floss, so lots of small inexpensive items with the additional line for the discount... it was barely over $100, most of the $ for the paint we're sharing.)

Actual conversation as we left:

Mom: "It's weird that their registers have a hardcoded line limit."
Me: "Is it? ...or is it weird we've never hit it all these years, until now?"
Mom: "I don't know if we should be proud or ashamed of ourselves yet."
Me: "Both is good."
Mom: "Both is good."

(Mostly, this is a heads-up if anyone else wants to take advantage of that coupon since it's just today, but the conversation was too funny to not share. In fairness, we do both craft things to sell, me for a living, so, uhm, we spend a lot at Michaels any given year.)

I tried starting off October Faction twice and it wasn't catching with me, though I can't pinpoint why. I will doubtless try again once done with Sabrina, though. I know I'll get through it eventually, since even if it's just 'running in the background while I do something else', it's exactly the sort of show I normally go for, and I haven't seen it yet.

@Auspice said in The Crafting Thread:

It's my happy crafting place

I feel that way about this thread in a lot of ways.

I legitimately do not care if I am mad at someone outside this thread or they hate my face or whatever normally, crafty-sharing spaces are like sacred ground and we're all the cast of Highlander. (We have more sharp pointy things than they did, anyway.) I am overjoyed to see what people are doing/making/planning like this every frickin' time.

It is genuinely refreshing and every single post someone makes in this thread makes me smile and get all excited no matter how crappy any given day has been otherwise.

@Macha There's one in Rhinebeck (pretty sure that's still a thing) and there's one near D.C.

I've been to the southerly one a couple of times; it's really wonderful.

There's one in Massachusetts somewhere I think, that's newer? Not sure if that kept on or not.

I did the D.C. area one and the Massachusetts one with the dye teacher and another dyer one year. Sooooooooo dangerous to the budget. Would recommend both, for sure. Haven't been to Rhinebeck, but I keep hearing it is more or less fiber heaven.

@tek I am not sure if she still does it, but there is a great knitting teacher who was doing retreats for a while in Barton, Vermont (which is a really neat little town I love to bits). She lives across from the woman I was studying dye stuff with.

Not sure if the dye folks did end up retiring or not, but they were behind Cherry Tree Hill Yarns, and they also run/ran DBNY. (They work HARD, seriously. Mind-blowingly hard.) They aren't open to the public, but if they have any knitting/knitting + dye/dye retreats, they are genuinely fantastic and worth the trip. Super amazing people, and insanely talented.

@tek That place is amazing. If for whatever reason you're in -- or even near or going through -- that area, it's worth going in if you want to become very broke, very fast (but come away with a lot of great deals in the process). It's nowhere remotely near us, but when I was going back and forth to Vermont for dye stuff, we made a point of stopping there on the way back once. I have literally had dreams about that place ever since.

"MOMMY TWO-LEGGER IS WINDING MAGIC STRING AND I AM FASCINATED AND NEED TO REGULARLY POUNCE HER DESK AND HANDS FROM THE BACK OF THE CHAIR AND SCATTER ALL THE MAGIC STRING EVERYWHERE!" - Tama Gothsbane McDaintysnoot

....I really thought I could do all the DMC in a day, I really did. But, welp.

@tek Absolutely sure I'm not alone in saying: if something like this ever happens, please don't hesitate to reach out in any way you feel comfortable, even if it's just to vent or hear somebody confirm that the crap going on is not OK. A damn is officially given.

@saosmash Seconding silverfox here. There are some things totally worth getting banned over, in my book. Ripping a hole in a racist, sexist jerk who thinks they're being cute and funny while being actively cruel and intending harm is one of them.

(The one forum I've ever been banned from was an 'abortion debate' forum that asked me to join them since I helped mod on on livejournal for years. Turns out it was a trap site, like a lot of the trap 'crisis clinics' out there. Am I sorry I got banned for blowing a mile wide hole in the person who said 'who cares what some <lesbian slur> <sexist slur> thinks?' NOPE. Not even the littlest teensywee bit. More like 'point of pride' almost twenty years later.)

@KDraygo I think there's definitely room for some anime style PBs. For instance, some of the card games that are done in a painted anime-inspired style are absolutely realistic enough to mix in with most else. (I forget the name of the card game I'm think of at the moment, but it has a ton of neat imagery.) For fae creatures or monster forms or similar, it's prime image hunting ground, too.

Throwing a chibi magical princess as a main image into a WoD game where everyone else has photos, though? Nnnnngh, plz gawd no. It's also really awkward re: apparent age there, as much of this specific style of chibi imagery looks very child-like even if the characters are supposed to be adults. This tends to be the kind of thing I personally notice or take issue with, for both the 'age' issue and the mental jarring of it. (I'd have the same problem with someone throwing a photo PB onto an anime game where everyone is using anime style pics.)

I have the dorkiest reason ever for having gotten into the 90s+ era Trek. I have a fairly uncommon RL first name. Once in the wee hours of morning, flipping channels, there was a "Wait, <my RL name>, stop!" from the television, so with a spectacularly baffled expression on my face, I did. It was TNG. I was thereafter very glad I did, since other than catching a few of the old animated ones on Sunday mornings as a kid, I'd never seen any of it.

Seeing where it's been going in recent years especially gives me much joy. bored pretty much nailed why, so I won't repeat it, beyond a 'yes, allllllll of that'.

Holy crap. I stay out of the politics forum since this hobby is, for me, as much 'a space away from having endless arguments about real world politics' as I can manage. (Guess who is totally alone with their husband in our families in being 'the blue staters' in terms of perspective, even if all of us live in blue or purple states, yeesh.)

This sort of thing? Convinces me how right a choice this was. Holy crap on a cracker. So incredibly not OK. I probably would have gotten my own ass banned shrieking all hell at him if I'd seen that shit.

Good things:

• FINALLY finished this antibiotic. (That was a looooooootta horse pills.)

• OMFG we found one that actually works, and I can tell people this, so they will stop prescribing Bactrim (which totally doesn't work, hasn't for over 15 years, and just makes my skin tear right off with any bandages/tape, making any infection significantly worse instead of better). This is a super huge deal, since I had a minor bad childhood reaction to penicillin that got it labeled 'is allergic to'. This is a far-flung branch of the same family and has no adverse reactions at all, so they feel confident they can use it, and similarly far-flung things, moving closer if needs be to check over time. (Also, they seem to grok that things like 'life-threatening organ failure is too important to worry about a minor 12 hour leg rash'. It may have taken them decades and that extreme situation a few years back to come to that conclusion, but this is me not complaining now that they finally have.)

@Lemon-Fox I have an appointment on the 5th, so it's already in the works. Holding out until then I can do. It isn't fun, but I can do it.

There are certain things I just don't like to see, let alone be subject to, and they're pretty inescapable in life at the moment.

The past handful of days have required far, far too much medication and meditation and deep-breath-calm-blue-ocean for my liking to keep the flashbacks and panic attacks under control.

It's easier when it's a case of 'this, too, shall pass'. Most things do. I've given it quite some time, but it isn't passing; it is getting worse instead.

I can't keep this up forever, and odds are good I can't keep it up much longer. There's not really an option B, though. (Well, there is, but thankfully my brain hasn't been going there anywhere near as often as it was for a few years, and that is not an easy fight, either. That option really isn't acceptable and I have gotten better about reminding myself of that. It's still going there a lot, but not more than once or twice a day, and briefly when it does, which is a huge improvement.)

This blows.

@tek Alllllll the in the world. (As an indie dyer, this warms my heart.)

I have some of the acrylics and such, but I tend to use them for things that will take a pounding: blankets that will be sat on/washed a lot, cat beds, dishcloths that'd be ruined fast with something else.

I am more or less a sucker for ANYTHING with gradients in fabulous colors, which is why 'goddammit, I need to learn to spin' happened.

For years, my mother and I both collected various, random fiber art skills and tools and supplies between us. We said this was totally OK, everything's fine, because neither of us actually did any spinning yet.

Welp.

At least we're honest with ourselves that we're totally ridiculous now.