morning doing finishing some translations & listening to my new playlist 🥀
Three Goblin Art

Discoholic 🪩

@theartofmadeline
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸

izzy's playlists!

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Andulka
Not today Justin
$LAYYYTER
tumblr dot com

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Mike Driver
trying on a metaphor
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JVL
hello vonnie
Stranger Things
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

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taylor price
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@captainbertbeer
morning doing finishing some translations & listening to my new playlist 🥀
So I was recently tasked with a very well loved soft toy Flip the Frog from the 1930s to restore.
He was bought new for my great aunt-in-law when she was 10, and was gifted to her sister's children when they were young. My mother in law has memories of feeding him cornflakes and putting her hands in his mouth, which felt very soft and velvety.
He had been in the attic for a number of years, and had moths get to him. He had lost his eyes. Luckily there are some examples online which show what he was meant to be like!
I approached this project wanting to retain as much of the original plush as I could. I thought about doing a total restoration, but I would end up replacing so much I might as well be making a replica! I wanted to make sure I used fabrics that were sympathetic to the time period, so 100% wool felt and cotton velvet seemed appropriate. The only liberty I took was polyester thread, because that's what I had already.
I researched a lot of plush restorations and best practices. A lot of places recommended only surface washing, but poor Flip was so full of dust and the remains of moths, but his fabric body seemed rather sturdy still, I thought I would take the risk of un-stuffing him to give him a thorough bath. I very gently took him apart and unstuffed him. His stuffing material looked to be kapok. There was lots of moth poop.
I gave Flip a gentle bath with carpet cleaning solution, which is what is recommended for vintage plushies. It's designed to be used on lots of fabrics including natural ones like wool and doesn't leave a residue once it's done cleaning so won't degrade the fabric over time. Loads of grime came out of Flip, as well as some yellow dye from his feet.
Flip then had a good air-dry in the sun. He seemed to enjoy soaking up the sun, he was already looking a lot cleaner.
Flip's eyes (which once upon a time caused my cousin-in-laws nightmares) were particularly gross and moth-eaten underneath. I decided to re-cover the card disks that made up his eyes with velvet cotton instead rather than reuse the old eyes. His original velvet was really bright yellow but had faded over time. I decided to use a fabric that matched his more faded look, I felt the bright yellow would look out of place. I also got some wooden beads and cut them in half and painted them for his pupils, which I glued on.
When it came to restoring his feet, I tried to retain as much of the original material as possible. I enjoyed patching and repairing the felt, I chose a 100% wool yellow felt that was close to his old colour here. Highlights the age of the old parts, I feel like it draws attention to his history and age.
Time to put him back together! I bought some new kapok stuffing because I couldn't reuse the old dusty moth stuff. Luckily you can still get it. I wrapped his metal skeleton in felt so that if it got rusty it wouldn't stain him (he's already a little stained from it rusting). Then I slipped his limbs over the skeleton and sewed them back on!
Ta-daa!! Here's flip looking a lot better, even if I say so myself.
One of the things we noticed when looking at photos of these soft toys is that they seem to have pinkish or white bow-ties and this Flip was missing his! Looking at the character art, I believe they were originally red.
The orientation of the eyes also seems to vary because I think they were prone to falling off and being sewn back on. I chose to orient Flip's eyes close to how they were when I received him, but slightly more vertical to make him appear more friendly.
Flip was a very fun challenge and got me thinking a lot about restoration vs conservation of historical artifacts, he may not be super duper old or rare but I feel like I better understand the dilemmas and judgements that have to be made when working on objects like this!
Super cool, and as someone who did museum studies let me just say that you did an excellent job.
My only comment is a soap recommendation for future projects.
What we often use for cleaning fabrics in the museum setting is called Orvus. It's actually meant for washing livestock, but we use it for things like handkerchiefs and other fabrics as well. It's basically just one component and has very little chance of doing damage, hence why it's used.
Thank you so much for the soap recommendation! That's really great advice and I'm thankful to know what is used professionally!
I believe that carpet cleaner contains hydrogen peroxide which can cause unwanted colour changes (bleaching), but is good for getting rid of dirt staining and in the long run breaks down into water. I did test it on part of his most damaged leg before dunking him, at least!
I'm glad you think I did a good job, I'm very new to restoring things of actual "historical" value, so this was a big learning experience for me. It's a fascinating field and I'd love to learn more about preservation!
Glowing sky (1988) by Viktor Zaretsky
My mind reals at the idea that people couldve been playing music like this 4000 years ago
you can get a good wub out of certain friction drums like the Ukrainian buhay, and a hurdy gurdy'll give you a nice drone. throw them all together and i'll bet you could make some dubstep and rave like it's 1599
There were probably some medieval asexuals that were absolutely insufferable on their moral high horse about it. Like "this modesty shit easy - I haven't lusted over any man ever in my life and only fuck my husband out of duty from God and only so that we have children. I am so much better than any of you hoes."
And some other local goodwife would get sick of this and go "well obviously you don't have time for cock, Maergaret, since you're always too fucking busy choking on your own vanity and pride!" and have a smackfight that progresses into a full-on two-woman brawl in the town square. People gather around to watch this until a clergyman shows up to remind everyone that not only is this kind of brawl between good christians definitely a sin, it's also a sin for everyone who's watching to place bets on who's going to win.
— “suddenly it’s december”, margaux paul
Dead Poets Society (1989) dir. Peter Weir
I'm gonna act!
It's so fucking funny how many people who owned Furbies as children ended up being traumatized by them in some way
“I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, “
- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
gallery walls appreciation post because lately i've been obsessed with them ✶
I don't speak to express my thoughts, I've chosen poetry, music, art and literature as an immortal expression of my soul
Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England
Don’t repost
gentle whispers of the September rain, acquiring dusty, second hand books that will fill all the autumn’s gloomy evenings and walking under umbrella around my campus whenever I can. 🕰🧦☕️
19th century wax seals
foley 💭