This is stuff I do. They/Them I foster animals and used to work in animal sheltering. If you spam like/reblog I love you. I really just reblog stuff I like and occasionally post my animals. I'm well over 18, for those of you with strict following procedures.
Not only is this legit, it’s unbelievably neat and tidy! I’ve done some of the grafting techniques, but I tend to (because *gestures to self*) end up cutting my hands more than the plant material.
Grafting is really common. Most edible fruit trees, cultivated roses, some tomato plants etc are grafted onto a different rootstock as standard- you can control size that way, or make a useful but weak plant much stronger. As long as your two plants are related closely enough and you have cambium to cambium connection (cambium is the thin layer of green under the bark), you can do all sorts of weird shit - like a single tree that gives you plums, cherries, apricots, peaches and almonds.
And layering is fun! Free plants! The plant will sometimes do this itself when a branch touches the ground and starts sprouting roots.
Okokok cool. Chessboard is cute haha. Whys there 3 pawns and no other pieces. Ha ha. Like none even scattered around? Those are just random pieces to fill out the board right? Right?
the passage of time feels unreal. i have many feelings on this film and a lot of things i wish i did differently. but after a long, long time i came to accept it as it is. its gone to so many festivals, including annecy which greatly surprised me, and i cant help but me a little bit proud of myself, even if i think the final product has flaws that i wish i could correct. its alright. i havent animated since i finished this, minus some puppet animation ive done on a show for a job i had. i hope i can return to this medium once more, with another film. i hope i can finish saturn one day, too. thanks
Drawings of a vivid dream I had several years ago about wish-granting dolls.
I am in a small village by a marsh. It's colonial looking, an old fort where one might go to see historical reenactments, but it's sitting empty and used at the moment as a large space for a few artists to live temporarily and explore. It's a bright summer day. Two beautiful women are about to begin my lesson, in what they describe as a very old and important tradition. They are both people I know from real life, one in her fifties who reminds me a lot of an art history professor I had, who would cry sometimes because she was so passionate about her lectures. we'll call her D. and one in her late 20s who we'll call E. They speak in hushed, intense voices. We all wear white linen dresses, something between communion and pilgrim.
I was taking a sunny afternoon walk as a break from my residency work, on what seemed to have become a habitual route there, taking me by a glistening pond encircled by reeds.
I noticed that on this day, E and D were bustling and murmuring by the water. I walked up behind them, trying to see what the activity was. They hushed me and bade me closer to watch.
They were watching buzzing black bugs go inside a flower, and then shutting the flower tight around them with their fingers. The blooms were trumpet shaped, and the hot orange color of marigolds. Their vines tangled just at the water's edge and the trumpets, squash flower size, poked straight up out of the shallows. They explained to me that you held the flower closed until the fly died inside, and then you got two wishes.
It was a very old tradition, dating back to the days the historical village had been built to reenact. I loved this, but was worried that the creature was rare, which they then googled and confirmed. They felt bad, and I felt bad for spoiling the fun. But it was still neat, and apparently they’d gotten their wishes, which was exhilarating. In the dream I thought about how the fly was a perfect little sacrifice. Vulnerable and rare. So, perhaps a little sadly, I did not get my wish.
Later though, we were bored and digging around in the attic of an old lodge-like building. In a chest we found several old dolls--they were very cute and strange. Made of worn linen, very old looking, all yellowed white, much like the stuffed rabbits my mawmaw used to make. But taller, stretched out, with a face like a tapir. (They have charming downturned snouts)
The one I held had a mopey but sweet face and a frilly bonnet tied on its head with a bow. It had glass eyes, which gave it a surprising liveliness. Its body was sort of curved, hunched forward in a way that made it very easy and comfortable to hold against my chest. It was about a foot tall, maybe a little more.
E, D and I each took one. D explained that these dolls were made by the villagers long ago, who filled them with straw and fibers that the black flies from earlier liked, so that they could grow wishes. The flies would lay eggs inside them and the whole doll would be sacrificed when they hatched--they referred to the whole doll as if it was the fly/sacrificial animal. I think maybe they called them gilly flies or gilly dolls.
The other ladies found dolls with old inert eggs in them, but mine had one that was hatching into a fly. I could see it moving through the threadbare fabric on the bottom of the doll, which was so worn it had become gauze like. The eggs were tiny fuzzy little round ovals that the fly wriggled out of like a silkworm pod. They were easy to see against the light brown straw. Mine had just one, left of center.
I asked "Do I get to keep the doll?" and D said "Yes." I giddily held it to my chest and felt an extreme love for it. Like it was a valuable, and my baby, and a favorite stuffed animal. I knew within myself, as certainly as if I had been there hundreds of years before, that freeing this freshly born gilly fly would not only right an old wrong but get me 2 extra strong wishes.
On E's recommendation, I proclaimed “by this time next year, I wish to have 3 more powerful connections than I do now," (I meant emotional connections) and “By this time next year, I want to make 3 TIMES as much art as I do now.” This was always the format of the wish: “By this time next year…” That was the tradition.
I took a sewing needle from E and used it to make a little tear in the fabric on the doll's bottom. They helped me hold the doll. We were excited. The fly spiraled happily away into the air (we were outside in the sun now) and I felt an extreme assurance that these things would come true.
I woke up feeling that the wishes were real in my waking life. And that in some other place, the doll and all was real too.
Really says something about the dire state of offerings for men interested in sewing their own clothes that even searching things like "interesting men's clothing patterns" brings up articles with links to four or five whole websites that primarily offer admittedly nice but practically identical patterns for making button-ups and work pants and maybe a varsity/bomber jacket if you're lucky.
(Branching out into historical costuming for everyday wear is like your one shot at variation, and even then, the ratio of men's to women's patterns on every website is frustrating to say the least.)
Patternmakers as a trans man I am begging you. Give me a little more to work with here.
Like it's also hard if you're buying your own clothes, don't get me wrong, but there are at least more retailers that offer fun and quirky clothes for guys if you do a little digging.
And some of that comes down to print choice, where you obviously have significant leeway if you're making your own clothes, too, but the erasure of men who sew by society writ large has wreaked absolute havoc on the selection of sewing tutorials and patterns aimed at men and people interested in wearing menswear. It is uniquely frustrating to be a man who wants to sew interesting things, not just wear them.
I wasn't expecting this to take off, but since so many of you seem to have resonated (or at least sympathized) with this, I thought I'd offer some links to some of the fun patterns I have been eyeing lately
Twig and Tale on Etsy have a modest selection of slightly more unique men's and unisex patterns, I'd really love to make their Pathfinder vest and Ridgeway shirt, among others
Merchant and Mills have a small selection as well, including their Billy gillet and unisex Landgate raincoat
Wardrobe by Me has mostly basics, but I do like their Ozark vest and utility jacket -- and as a very small trans guy, I appreciate that their men's patterns go down to a 2XS
Thread Theory is one of the places I absolutely have my eyes on for modern menswear -- I'd particularly like to make their Gosling short-sleeved button-up, Jutland pants, and Belvedere waistcoat
Folkwear are absolutely inching into the desperately-needed much more unique zone -- I have plans to make both their varsity jacket and vintage vests, and also have my eyes on their frontier shirts, sailor pants, shirts of Russia and Ukraine, and poet's shirt
Black Snail Patterns does historical clothing patterns ranging from 1700 to 1910; I just nabbed their Victorian/Edwardian walking trousers and lounge jacket patterns the other day
Laughing Moon Mercantile also do historical patterns, likewise I am planning on making their Victorian shirts and neckwear (which has 15 different historical neckwear suggestions included) and Victorian notched collar vest
The Tudor Tailor do 16th century clothing, which might be a bit bold even even for historybounding for most people, but they do great work, and I highly recommend their bias-cut footed hose as well as their excellent books
(Last but not least, I would be remiss not to mention Norah Waugh's The Cut of Men's Clothes, which is a book and not a pattern retailer might be best for slightly more advanced sewers, but I did make a really excellent 1600s cassock using a pattern from it that has gotten a lot of compliments as everyday wear!)
Frustrating as the men's sewing landscape is, there are still some fun things out there, and it's worth the digging! I vote we all make weird clothes and start a fashion revolution.
Cosplay and LARP patterns are worth a look, though the ratio is still very skewed. You need a good eye for what patterns are plausible though, and how to adapt them for different fabrics. That's another part of this problem - you have to be good with patterns to be able to make the stuff but how do you learn the 101 stuff if you have to jump right into pattern drafting?
The state of knitting patterns in this area seams (ha) to be a little less dire, but it's still definitely a 1:20 ratio to the amount of womens' patterns, and way way too many of them say stuff like "Here's a pattern you (presumably a woman) can make for your boyfriend that he won't immediately hate and set on fire!"
"i unfollow if our media interests no longer align" I still follow moots haven't spoken to in years and have learned the entire story of deltarune, mouthwashing, that one ninjago lego show, continuations of media I havent been into since 2018 and many others. I don't need a summary of something I just need Mutual to be insane about it on my dash
these are my mutuals I call them 'advertisement' and 'propaganda' and 'newspaper' and their job is to flood my dash with posts that have no root in my current interests. for enrichment
Hi ma’am landlady. Is there going to be a Calendar for 2026 of Stray Cat J, Menace Cat K, & Chatty Cat M?
I looked on your blog for update/information & I could not find anything. If I missed something I’m so sorry!!
ありがとう！
Yep,yep, she is going to make it and it will be published in the middle of December. It will be shared from her shop as the free DL style as same as the last year!
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