littlefoot's journey

Between birth and death there is this great journey of life with many stops and starts, mountain tops and deep valleys. Along they way we make and lose many friends. But along they way we are in constant thought. How much we are thinking, how deep those thoughts go and how varied the selections, will be as varied as the snowflakes that drift on the plains. This is just my journey and my thoughts.

[ladylittlefoot]

It's dreary today in my neck of the woods so I'm looking at the sunny photos taken by one of my nieces.

It was a sad visit home made less so by sitting on the balcony & enjoying the breeze from the river.

#littlefootsjourney

Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.

[knithacker]

We Are All Made Of Stars ... You'll Want To Crochet These Spectacular Swirly Stars To Infinity and Beyond! 👉 https://buff.ly/3nLtSQ5

[ladylittlefoot]

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cz1Ru3EOKku5xcZuO3goyNNmt5ZoII_VH8pYq40/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[nasa]

NASA Inspires Your Crafty Creations for World Embroidery Day

It’s amazing what you can do with a little needle and thread! For #WorldEmbroideryDay, we asked what NASA imagery inspired you. You responded with a variety of embroidered creations, highlighting our different areas of study.

Here’s what we found:

Webb’s Carina Nebula

Wendy Edwards, a project coordinator with Earth Science Data Systems at NASA, created this embroidered piece inspired by Webb’s Carina Nebula image. Captured in infrared light, this image revealed for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. Credit: Wendy Edwards, NASA. Pattern credit: Clare Bray, Climbing Goat Designs

Wendy Edwards, a project coordinator with Earth Science Data Systems at NASA, first learned cross stitch in middle school where she had to pick rotating electives and cross stitch/embroidery was one of the options.  “When I look up to the stars and think about how incredibly, incomprehensibly big it is out there in the universe, I’m reminded that the universe isn’t ‘out there’ at all. We’re in it,” she said. Her latest piece focused on Webb’s image release of the Carina Nebula. The image showcased the telescope’s ability to peer through cosmic dust, shedding new light on how stars form.

Ocean Color Imagery: Exploring the North Caspian Sea

Danielle Currie of Satellite Stitches created a piece inspired by the Caspian Sea, taken by NASA’s ocean color satellites. Credit: Danielle Currie/Satellite Stitches

Danielle Currie is an environmental professional who resides in New Brunswick, Canada. She began embroidering at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic as a hobby to take her mind off the stress of the unknown. Danielle’s piece is titled “46.69, 50.43,” named after the coordinates of the area of the northern Caspian Sea captured by LandSat8 in 2019.

An image of the Caspian Sea captured by Landsat 8 in 2019. Credit: NASA

Two Hubble Images of the Pillars of Creation, 1995 and 2015

Melissa Cole of Star Stuff Stitching created an embroidery piece based on the Hubble image Pillars of Creation released in 1995. Credit: Melissa Cole, Star Stuff Stitching

Melissa Cole is an award-winning fiber artist from Philadelphia, PA, USA, inspired by the beauty and vastness of the universe. They began creating their own cross stitch patterns at 14, while living with their grandparents in rural Michigan, using colored pencils and graph paper.  The Pillars of Creation (Eagle Nebula, M16), released by the Hubble Telescope in 1995 when Melissa was just 11 years old, captured the imagination of a young person in a rural, religious setting, with limited access to science education.

Lauren Wright Vartanian of the shop Neurons and Nebulas created this piece inspired by the Hubble Space Telescope’s 2015 25th anniversary re-capture of the Pillars of Creation. Credit:  Lauren Wright Vartanian, Neurons and Nebulas

Lauren Wright Vartanian of Guelph, Ontario Canada considers herself a huge space nerd. She’s a multidisciplinary artist who took up hand sewing after the birth of her daughter. She’s currently working on the illustrations for a science themed alphabet book, made entirely out of textile art. It is being published by Firefly Books and comes out in the fall of 2024. Lauren said she was enamored by the original Pillars image released by Hubble in 1995. When Hubble released a higher resolution capture in 2015, she fell in love even further! This is her tribute to those well-known images.

James Webb Telescope Captures Pillars of Creation

Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art, created a rectangular version of Webb’s Pillars of Creation. Credit:  Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art

Darci Lenker of Norman, Oklahoma started embroidery in college more than 20 years ago, but mainly only used it as an embellishment for her other fiber works. In 2015, she started a daily embroidery project where she planned to do one one-inch circle of embroidery every day for a year.  She did a collection of miniature thread painted galaxies and nebulas for Science Museum Oklahoma in 2019. Lenker said she had previously embroidered the Hubble Telescope’s image of Pillars of Creation and was excited to see the new Webb Telescope image of the same thing. Lenker could not wait to stitch the same piece with bolder, more vivid colors.

Milky Way

Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art was inspired by NASA’s imaging of the Milky Way Galaxy. Credit: Darci Lenker

In this piece, Lenker became inspired by the Milky Way Galaxy, which is organized into spiral arms of giant stars that illuminate interstellar gas and dust. The Sun is in a finger called the Orion Spur.

The Cosmic Microwave Background

This image shows an embroidery design based on the cosmic microwave background, created by Jessica Campbell, who runs Astrostitches. Inside a tan wooden frame, a colorful oval is stitched onto a black background in shades of blue, green, yellow, and a little bit of red. Credit: Jessica Campbell/ Astrostitches

Jessica Campbell obtained her PhD in astrophysics from the University of Toronto studying interstellar dust and magnetic fields in the Milky Way Galaxy. Jessica promptly taught herself how to cross-stitch in March 2020 and has since enjoyed turning astronomical observations into realistic cross-stitches. Her piece was inspired by the cosmic microwave background, which displays the oldest light in the universe.

The full-sky image of the temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) in the cosmic microwave background, made from nine years of WMAP observations. These are the seeds of galaxies, from a time when the universe was under 400,000 years old. Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team

GISSTEMP: NASA’s Yearly Temperature Release

Katy Mersmann, a NASA social media specialist, created this embroidered piece based on NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) global annual temperature record. Earth’s average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record. Credit: Katy Mersmann, NASA

Katy Mersmann is a social media specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She started embroidering when she was in graduate school. Many of her pieces are inspired by her work as a communicator. With climate data in particular, she was inspired by the researchers who are doing the work to understand how the planet is changing. The GISTEMP piece above is based on a data visualization of 2020 global temperature anomalies, still currently tied for the warmest year on record.

In addition to embroidery, NASA continues to inspire art in all forms. Check out other creative takes with Landsat Crafts and the James Webb Space telescope public art gallery.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[herdaz-deactivated20250625]

what it feels like looking for tunisian crochet patterns on ravelry

[netscapenavigator-official]

The amount of leftists who can't tell the difference between

"You should recycle, but it's not going to stop impeding climate doom"

and

"You shouldn't recycle because it's not your fault the planet is imploding"

is baffling. Like, you're allowed to be mad about greenwashing while still trying to live as sustainably as possible. Buying glassware instead of plasticware isn't gonna stop the planet from falling apart, but it's certainly better than saying "ah fuck it" and supporting the production and landfilling of plastic waste. Even if it's just by a tiny, individual's amount, it's still better than doing nothing. This "all or nothing" mentality that these people claim is tearing apart American politics is quite literally at the heart of their entire belief system.

[meret118]

Climate Crisis Is on Track to Push One-Third of Humanity Out of Its Most Livable Environment

As conditions that best support life shift toward the poles, more than 600 million people are already living outside of a crucial “climate n

Climate change is remapping where humans can exist on the planet. As optimum conditions shift away from the equator and toward the poles, more than 600 million people have already been stranded outside of a crucial environmental niche that scientists say best supports life. By late this century, according to a study published last month in the journal Nature Sustainability, 3 to 6 billion people, or between a third and a half of humanity, could be trapped outside of that zone, facing extreme heat, food scarcity and higher death rates, unless emissions are sharply curtailed or mass migration is accommodated.

The research, which adds novel detail about who will be most affected and where, suggests that climate-driven migration could easily eclipse even the largest estimates as enormous segments of the earth’s population seek safe havens. It also makes a moral case for immediate and aggressive policies to prevent such a change from occurring, in part by showing how unequal the distribution of pain will be and how great the improvements could be with even small achievements in slowing the pace of warming.

[strawlessandbraless]

This is the same exact spot in the Arctic Ocean photographed 105 years ago vs what it looks like today. But sure, climate change is a hoax

[queerbrownvegan]

Mexico hit by deadly heat waves (as well as India and Texas). Canadian wildfires in the background. Did people already forget that Pakistan flooded in 2022? Even if the media moves on, the disasters will stay.

If you have a solution, enact it. If you know of solutions, uplift them. This is our role now.

-qbv

[emmaharwoods]

MICHELLE YEOH & STEPHANIE HSU — at the 95th Annual Academy Awards (March 12, 2023)

[ladylittlefoot]

Black-eyed susans in my yard. #LeJardin #littlefootsjourney https://www.instagram.com/p/CpbU1cROf8AR_rrJYw7LMWfya0rvQe8jSWaQyo0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ladylittlefoot]

It took a while but I did what I wanted. I finished the race. #GateRiver2023 #RunSmidgeRun #littlefootsjourney https://www.instagram.com/p/CpYJyHCuLlIYd19Er3g7cokQOK4Zq39l5LAopg0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ladylittlefoot]

My first race in 3 years. I'm with the walkers this year. #GateRiver2023 #RunSmidgeRun #littlefootsjourney https://www.instagram.com/p/CpXif9MORsOj5T2DMwDemBSLmpWiny7TlWAcA80/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ladylittlefoot]

🎶 Wonders of wonders, miracles of miracles 🎶 ... I made it from drop off to boarding gate in *30 minutes* at JFK. I had a wonderful few days with the family & seeing a few friends. #littlefootsjourney https://www.instagram.com/p/ClhBbFAuHFMBmjygi_cvW6LeYdJ42eIXbWmnHY0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ladylittlefoot]

#Hello45 Pinks & purples are not just for little girls. 😊 #littlefootsjourney https://www.instagram.com/p/Cioa0YkOG14PeC3s90MoKViJzccWqjQOb1jDbg0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ladylittlefoot]

Wanted to see the sunrise 🌅 for my birthday but the Floridian clouds won't cooperate. #Hello45 #littlefootsjourney https://www.instagram.com/p/Cimzk3vuk-jGBH60qiFEMCdTkCtZXPm7SH_g0o0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ladylittlefoot]

Everything that happens in good ole USA 🇺🇸, it brought on itself. Including all the cyber crimes perpetuated against the country, from the stealing of OPM data to ransomware over hospitals and the influencing of an election. "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race" by Nicole Perlroth #AmReading #littlefootsjourney https://www.instagram.com/p/CiAn1nTOK5Q0NzseKqm2A-FFYdiRPK5h62LSDM0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=