Me and My Life @catherinevongro - Tumblr Blog

Pet peeve of the day is the way many fiber artists use "carpet wool" as a catchall derogatory term for any wool that is coarse and scratchy, with the implied meaning carpet wool=garbage wool. That is not what carpet wool is.

Carpet wool, as the name implies, is a term for the wool from sheep specifically, intentionally bred for centuries to produce wool that is ideal for carpets (historically meaning rugs or, less often, heavy outer blankets, not just carpet like the modern stretched kind stapled to the floor.)

The ideal fiber for an item that is going to be put on the floor and walked on needs to be durable and easy to clean, therefore each strand needs to be long, relatively thick (yes, that means coarse,) and not prone to easily felting.

What it DOESN'T need to be is particularly "soft." The long fibers will make a smooth enough surface to not irritate the soles of your feet and you're not generally going to be wearing a rug right against very sensitive skin all day where you can feel the prickly ends. "Carpet wool" breeds, also known as longwool breeds, have wool fibers that perfectly meet those criteria.

A rug made from wool from a hair sheep or some meat sheep that is coarse but also brittle and short is going to wear out and fall apart ao quickly it's not worth the effort to make it. Therefore, despite being coarse and "scratchy," it is NOT CARPET WOOL. Use that for stuffing pillows or compost it for fertilizer.

A fine, soft, Merino rug is also going to be a felted, pilled, worn-out mess in such a short time it's not going to be worth the effort to make. Save that for a beautiful lace scarf that's going to be directly against the skin of your neck all day. Judging by what's best for rugs, Merino is actually the "garbage" wool.

Anyway, humans spent millenia developing different fibers for different applications, and also words mean things and don't mean other things. Can we please stop calling Lincoln or Wensleydale wool "garbage" because it makes scratchy socks and can we also stop calling Katahdin or Dorper hair "carpet wool" please.

Also, the sheep that grow the wool are absolutely rocking the look.

Imagine telling these lovely Wensleydale ladies their hair isn't glam!

hollowboobtheory

ok but like. there are two different types of privilege. there's type a "everybody should have this, but some people don't" and type b "nobody should have this, but some people do"

there's having parents who can pay for your application to any college, and then there's having parents who can bribe your way into any college. there's owning your own home, and then there's owning 50 houses and getting rich off hoarding a vital resource. there's not fearing for your life whenever cops are around, and then there's being the cop and being allowed to murder anyone at any time.

idk i just feel like that's an important distinction to make.

stevishabitat

👆👆👆

0v9

A truthberry might make you tell the truth... But a lieberry? A lieberry will loan you books

mechanomorphic

queer muppet moments i would make happen if i was in charge of the muppets:

the electric mayhem (minus animal bcs hes their kid) arent a polycule, theyre monogamous. but specifically they break up and date each other one at a time. they have a chart.

animal is genderfluid. this is mentioned exactly once bcs kermit calls her he and she starts yelling "SHE/HER!" kermit corrects himself and the show goes on

rizzo made out with gonzo once but he still considers himself straight bcs gonzo is not a guy, he's a whatever. gonzo agrees with this

uncle deadly dated tim curry. it did not end well.

actual emotional scene of gonzo talking about how he feels abt gender. no jokes.

kermit: no matter what, gonzo is still gonzo, and we're always going to support gonzo no matter what gonzo decides- gonzo: kermit. i still use he/him

statler and waldorf wedding episode. theyre divorced by the next

beaker trying to ask bunsen out on a date. in the end it turns out bunsen thought they'd been dating for years.

miss piggy hanging out with drag queens

related, miss piggy starting to present butch and kermit being Really Into It. hes embarassed abt it

pepe begins a story with "when i was a little girl...."

janice decides to start using just she bcs "like, i could never be her"

rowlf mentions having a husband. even kermit is like "??? since when??!"

actually i change my mind. genderfluid animal is mentioned a second time when dr teeth is calling for instrument and mic checks, he turns to animal and yells "animal! pronoun check!" "HE/HIM" "alright!"

irisbleufic

Swedish Chef neopronouns: bork/bork/bork

delphinidin4

In all male environments, such as mining camps or navy ships, it was common for men to hold dances, with half the men wearing a patch or some other marker to designate them as the “women” for the evening. (x)

My alma mater, Wilson College, was a women’s college, and I know that they used to do this, too. A lot of the dance events that I go to nowadays there are more women than men, so similar steps are taken to make it easier to find a partner. At contra dances someone brings a bag of pre-tied ties, and women who are acting the part of men in that set wear a tie (it’s really necessary when you switch partners to know that yes, you ARE supposed to have ended up with this person!). At swing dances women often lead other women, and I’ve known a number of men who were learning to follow and would ask other men or women that they knew could lead to lead them. No clothing designation needed there, however. :)

sartorialadventure

To clarify: in swing dance, you dance in partners, and that’s usually it. So as long as one of you leads and one follows, you’re fine. And in fact, in swing, they have switched from calling them “men” and “women” to “leads” and “follows”. It’s more complicated in contradance because you are in partners, but those partners also dance with other partners and you keep dancing with more and more people. So it’s often really helpful to have some kind of visual indicator of who is dancing the “men’s part” or the “women’s part”, especially if you’ve got a lot of beginners who might accidentally end up in the wrong place in the dance. Thus the neckties. :)

catherinevongro

We do the same thing in square dancing.

There are 4 couples - 4 "boys" and 4 "girls" and there are a lot more single women learning than single men, so it's pretty common to have a necktie, or a badge that says "boy" (or (wo)man).

Something I've been seeing more often is tucking in part of the square dance skirt for an indication you're dancing left.

I'll often either tell people in my square, or make a note of who's the boy (and it's good to know where everyone is in your square anyway).

What's really fun is when your dancing partner also can dance both sides, then you switch throughout the dance!

rylandgraces

there’s a friday ass vibe about this wednesday boys keep your wits about you

catherinevongro

I have the next 5 days off, so maybe that's why

#I'm MOVING!!#so that means a ton of packing!

thestuffedalligator

I’m going to level with you. I have listened to The Devil Went Down to Georgia for most of my life. We were a country music household, this was a staple of my childhood along with Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, and that one Chipmunks country album.

I have no idea what “Fire on the mountain run boys run/The Devil's in the house of the rising sun/Chicken in the bread pan picking out dough/Granny does your dog bite no child no” means and at this point I’m too scared to ask.

dementian

For once I can be of assistance.

Each of the lyrics comes from an old-time hickory song for fiddles, and is a lyric from that corresponding song.

"Fire on the Mountain" --> "Fire on the Mountain, run boys run"

Fire On The Mountain - Fiddle Player POV

"The House of the Rising Sun" --> "The Devil's in the house of the rising sun"

House of the Rising Sun

"Ida Red" --> "Chicken in the bread pan peckin' out dough"

Ida Red - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

"Granny Will Your Dog Bite" --> "Granny does your dog bite? 'No child, no'."

FTC #149 Granny Will Your Dog Bite

And for your furthered education, The Mountain Whipporwill.

Mountain Whippoorwill (aka How Hillbilly Jim Won the Great Fiddler's Prize)

impossiblepackage

this is the key part of the song, that a lot of people miss. people have this misconception that the contest between Johnny and The Devil is about who is the better fiddle player. but it isn't. its about who is the better fiddler.

in a time before things like radios and record players, every time you heard music was because there was somebody in the room with you playing an instrument. and many, many, many social events involved dancing, which requires music. so, if you're planning any kind of gathering in the american south or appalachia, you need to find a fiddler. and the fiddler's job is to play music that everybody knows and likes and can dance to.

the mistake The Devil makes in his bet with Johnny is that he misinterprets the contest as being about technical ability, so he has this big flashy song. he plays fast and impressively with a band of demons playing unfamiliar instruments in unfamiliar rhythms. he's definitely more skilled at playing than Johnny, and thinks he has it in the bag.

but Johnny wins because the contest is about being the best fiddler. the song uses these lines mentioned above as a shorthand for saying that Johnny is playing these songs. Johnny launches into a set of the most popular songs, played well, and that's what gives him his big win. A good fiddler knows all the hits, and can read the room to know what to play next. The Devil loses because he completely fails to read the room, and doesn't know the right songs.

teaboot

I was debating pre- and post- smartphone existentialism with an older gentleman today and he stopped part way through and said “Why are you a security guard? Why aren’t you teaching this at some college somewhere?” And I didn’t know what to say so I went with “Well I used to make art but nobody pays an artist”

teaboot

I want to invoke thought and wonder and introspection and encourage the passions of every soul I meet forever and ever and dig until I find the glorious potential for creation and experience and joy in every single one but unfortunately I must pay rent and so I stand, a meat shield, an NPC with unlockable dialogue

oojamaflip-whatchamacallit

#capitalism brain tells you that anyone interesting must fight to the top of their interest#and precludes the possibility of everyone everyone everyone already being interesting

naamahdarling

I lost a needle I liked in my pincushion so I decided to get a strong magnet and see if I could pull it back out.

I pulled out 68.

I very rarely sew.

This was my grandmother's pincushion. How many were hers?

autisticnightfury

Finding a 68 needles in a haystack pincushion

naamahdarling

Where you would expect to find needles!

AND YET.

(I jibbled out some more so we are at 71 and I can feel at least two more in there by sweeping the magnet across. Now hunting for my strongest one.)

somethingusefulfromflorida

tomato is perfec t size for put needle inside very soft and comfort needle

featherwurm

A friend suggested 'a mimic that eats needles' and I got the most vivid mental picture.

depsidase

xenosaurus

vaguely working on a vampire comedy about a group of vampires dealing with the death of their sire, not because they're mourning him, but because they're rapidly realizing that a lot of the Vampire Rules were him just straight up fucking with them

xenosaurus

what do you MEAN we can go out in the daytime, he just didn't want his neighbors to notice that he had half a dozen twinks in matching outfits hidden in his basement???

xenosaurus

YES it’s about the stark absurdity of looking back on an abusive situation you thought was normal YES it features a scene where a bunch of vampires in anachronistic formal wear try a ton of off-brand sodas from the dollar store to see which ones make them puke

xenosaurus

Original rule: vampires cannot eat and must consume the blood of the living

Proposed theory: vampires cannot eat solid food but otherwise go wild

Results: Carbonation Bad. Pudding counts as a liquid. Vampires can be deeply, horrifically lactose intolerant.

oysters-aint-for-me

there’s a used bookstore in rural western massachusetts (the montague book mill) whose motto is “books you don’t need in a place you can’t find” and i just feel like that summarizes tumblr too

oysters-aint-for-me

posts you don’t need on a site you can’t search

goldengirlsgifs

THE GOLDEN GIRLS 2.05 — Isn't It Romantic? — 08.11.86 Betty White as Rose Nylund Lois Nettleton as Jean

shipperwolf1

1986!!

dovewithscales

Golden Girls was so incredibly progressive for its time and not even slightly afraid to be loud about it. They talked about queer people, about race, about ableism, and they made it central and overt. They talked about things that mattered, and they never punched down, and they were allies off the stage too.

dovewithscales

Reblogging this again to add some context for anyone who may not know. In the 80's, being outed as gay could get you blacklisted in Hollywood. It ruined people's careers.

Bea Arthur and Betty White both suffered damage to their careers for standing up against racism and homophobia. Back in the 50s Betty White hosted a variety show that was canceled because she featured a black dancer and doubled down when they told her to stop.

tinyyellowflowers-blog

Once I was doing fieldwork with someone from Europe and said “careful, there’s a rattlesnake over there.” And she rushed over like I’d said there was a quetzal.

tinyyellowflowers-blog

I said “Ma’am please, we’re three hours from a hospital!” and she said

1.) I don’t understand how that can be

2.) But I’ve never done fieldwork from a car before (!!!) so I’ll take your word for it.

3.) Did you just call me ma’am? Like a cowboy?

tinyyellowflowers-blog

We drove through the Los Angeles megacity together — and at one point were stuck in traffic.

“Heeeey”, she said, like someone gently broaching a topic I should have noticed, “Why does the lane next to us have diamond shaped symbols on it?”

That is! A subtle and friendly way of asking why we’re sitting in traffic when there’s a carpool lane Right There! I laughed and pulled into the lane and started driving.

Unfortunately. That isn’t what she was implying, she was genuinely asking. So we were stuck in traffic, she asked about what was clearly a breakdown or emergency access lane, and I laughed and started driving in it. She was Alarmed.

“Hello! Excuse me! We can’t drive in this lane! No one else is driving in this lane!!”

“Oh! I should have said — this lane is for people with more than one person in their car.”

“That is RIDICULOUS. You are lying. You are lying about what this lane is for and we’ll get arrested! (ma’am it’s fine but if it weren’t it would be more of a “ticket” situation) we’ll get a “ticket”! (Ma’am again it’s fine but were it not I alone would get the ticket) because that IS NOT the purpose of this lane. That is a RIDICULOUS lie.”

“I’m sorry, I should have said — I thought you were being subtle about my oversight. Please observe the carpool sign.”

“I don’t know what a carpool is and I don’t believe you.”

“How about you look at all the cars stuck in traffic and see how many have more than one driver, and if there are at least five I’ll get back into the traffic jam.”

“FINE!”

(With dawning horror) “none of these cars have more than one person in them.”

“I know.”

“None of these cars have more than one person!!”

“If you weren’t here I’d be right there with them.”

“OK but there was no train to where we needed to go.”

“There’s no train to where they needed to go either.”

“HOW.”

tinyyellowflowers-blog

Later that day:

“I know McDonalds and Burger King sell Burgers, but what does Wendy’s sell?”

“Burgers”

“And Sonic?”

“Burgers.”

“Jack in the Box?”

“Burgers.”

“In’n’Out?”

“Look, It’s burgers all the way down.”

tinyyellowflowers-blog

She hopped off a plane, went camping on Catalina with her husband and his lab, and then I showed her a rattlesnake, dragged her through heavy brush, took her (food) shopping in Beverly Hills, illustrated American car dependency and love of burger, and threatened to shoot someone trying to break into our hotel room. (I did not have a gun) She speed-ran the US American experience in eight days.

tinyyellowflowers-blog

I really haven’t had to pretend to have a gun that many times!

We were staying in a cheap hotel, she was coming out of the shower wrapped in a towel. Someone shoulder-slammed the hotel door and popped the lock open and started fumbling with the security chain. I snarled “GET AWAY FROM THE DOOR, I HAVE A GUN.” and the person left.

She was WAY way WAY more concerned about me traveling with a gun (ma’am I do not have a gun) why would I SAY I had a gun if I couldn’t back it up? (Ma’am to get him to stop trying to break in) But why would he THINK I had a gun? How would that even work? Please tell her where I keep the gun. (Ma’am I promise there is no gun.)

The debate continued through my call to the front desk and our packing and being protectively escorted to our car by a young man who I could absolutely take in a fight. (“What is she mad about?” “I told the guy I had a gun.” “Smart! Maybe you should get one if you’re gonna travel like this!” “Haha yeah” “So why is she mad?” “She thinks I have a gun.” “WHY WOULD SHE LIE ABOUT HAVING A GUN?!?!”)

It doesn’t help that my day to day commitment to the bit is HIGH so it’s reasonable to assume that I’m not always being totally honest.

the-buzzard

That European woman has the survival instincts of a newborn

neph3lee

That European woman grew up and lives in a place where she never has had to worry about being too far away from a hospital or not being able to afford healthcare, never been in a culture where having a gun was normal, likely knows that having a gun on you makes it more likely to be harmed in a physical confrontation (because the people in front of you will not hesitate to escalate the violence) or even be harmed BY your own weapon, and has never experienced a motel. I can easily imagine being in her shoes and thinking in the moment "oh my god I thought this only happened on scripted TV shows like NCIS or Law and Order, I'm going to die right here right now". She doesn't not have survival instincts, she has logical expectations of safety and comfort given that she thought she traveled to a first world country, and even has a guide.

I love this post, I think it's terrific writing, well paced, and really funny story. It's also genuinely concerning and frightening that this shit would just seem like, normal, to anyone who isn't on TV for a special documentary.