Katie's Musings

An EDS-er, Irish dancer (WUSR senior lady), research tech, procrastinator (this went 4.5 years without being updated), and avid reader and writer of fanfiction.

[canagadoodles]

My account is still blocked from searching/tags/etc on my business blog @foundfamilyadventurecrafts so I'm posting this here. There's something very bad happening with Small Business, Tech, and Amazon. What else is new?

Links: Bobo Design Studio for Updates & Submitting Information

Arrows Aim Greenhouse + Chroma Rex are putting together a complaint with WA State Attorney General's Office + Templates for complaints / opt out

Articles:

Amazon's Buy For Me Information Page

Reuters Article

Ars Technica Article

Business Insider Article

[friday-tea]

Hey, that's us and a bunch of our friends! This whole thing SUCKS so bad and we're pissed. We've intentionally not listed our products on Amazon for the 15 years we've been in business. We're ready to join a class action lawsuit and kick some ass.

[april]

ⓘ Tip If you feel unfulfilled by how you spent your time today, you can stay up late to try to combat the sense of dissatisfaction. This will ensure that you feel even worse tomorrow.

[shamebats]

Tiktok post by @ wynunlimited.

[foldingfittedsheets]

As part of a birthday gift I made a repeating pattern for my friends of their cute little cat Hime. I just refreshed it, and she's looking so cute.

You can find her in my Redbubble on stickers, shirts, socks, all sorts of cute shit.

[thickness-protection-program]

So just so we're all clear ICE straight up murdered that woman in broad daylight and the government is calling HER the terrorist

[thickness-protection-program]

So just so we're all clear ICE straight up murdered Renee Nicole Good in broad daylight and the government is calling HER the terrorist

[thickness-protection-program]

So just so we're all clear ICE agent Jonathan Ross straight up murdered Renee Nicole Good in broad daylight and the government is calling HER the terrorist

[sodomit]

"Why not make female heroes more feminine so girls know you don't have to be masculine to save the world" is misguided. The target audience of heroic adventure genre is not children who actually save the world in a literal sense, it's children who want a cathartic outlet for the struggles and injustice they face. And one of the most common types of injustice that many girls and children assumed to be girls are subjected to is forced feminization.

[anarchistmemedistro]

[keebiecoo]

we have to start telling little boys they don't have to be masculine

[socialistfremenist]

[knithacker]

My Grandma's Doilies Are Not a Joke

When will art institutions finally pay respect to our foremothers’ artistry?

This all day long … Elena Kanagy-Loux's article is right-on. I myself have made it a point in recent years not to share any content that glibly uses the phrase, "not your grandma's " because it's a) lazy and b) dismisses the real fact that grandmothers and older textile artists have worked hard to keep craft traditions alive and evolving, not to mention their immense skills. We should be thanking them and looking to them for inspiration, not mocking them. via @hyperallergic ❤️

[sweaterkittensahoy]

When I started crocheting regularly as an adult, it was in 2004 when "Not Your Grandma's" was supposed to be the height of coolness, and it pissed me off so much and still does because I learned from my grandma. Every stitch I make is my grandma's. Why is it so fucking important to disconnect my grandmother from my art? And why are we trying so fucking hard to instill the idea that our grandmother's way of stitching was less cool or interesting or engaging as how we do it?

Sean's grandma passed this year, and I am now the very proud owner of some really lovely embroidery and crochet pieces for the house. They're not uncool or silly or stupid. They're useful items that were made beautiful by the patience, care, skill, and talent of a woman. Who was younger than I am now when she made at least some of them (there's a whole set of table runners that just scream hope chest).

And these items are USEFUL to boot. That blanket? Keeps you warm. Those doilies? Keep grime from building up under the lamp and sticking to the table.

I'm not immune to the "Huh, silly thing people used to do" take, for the record. I've only recently realized that maybe our grandmothers' (and parents' in my case bathrooms) have fuzzy toilet covers and fuzzy floor mats because it catches all the goddamn toilet paper fuzz in the air, and it's faster to vacuum the fuzzy toilet lid cover and rugs than it is to dust all that goddamn paper fluff off surfaces and then sweep it up and hope half of it didn't end up back on the shelf.

But also, all of the crafts mentioned in the article were about making a home more beautiful. The home was the woman's sphere, and it was her job amongst many to make it an attractive and nice place to be. And in treating fiber arts like you must get away from your grandmother's influence, you are treating the home she built for herself and her family as dismissible and not worth respect.

In the end, it comes down to the dismissal of skilled labor because it was a woman doing it at home. Even if that work kept the family fed (lacework has saved a lot of lives in particular). Even if it kept the family warm (slippers, blankets, jackets, sweaters, mittens, scarves, hats), even if it kept the family house neater (how much dust did those doilies soak up so it was easier and faster to clean the whole house?), even if it kept the family looking respectable (my grandmother once darned my mother's canvas band shoe than buy her a new pair; favorite story). Even if it kept the family safe (potholders and hot pads).

Because this skill was used to help a family and done up in popular styles of the time, it's devalued and ignored. When, in fact, all it takes for any of those items to be of the moment again is usually just a color update.

[jessikast]

No one else in my family wanted a huge floral alphabet cross stitch which my great-grandmother had done. It's been getting dusty in a storage room for years, and people seemed surprised when I not only wanted it, I LOVED it. It needs some TLC, and I feel so honoured to get to work on this - to spend time finding the right colours, learning about textile conservation, repairing stitches that have frayed or come loose. It's a continuity with my heritage, in a very tactile way. A lot of the needlework I do is *absolutely* "not my grandmother's", because there are amazing modern designs available now, and also I quite happily do a project For The Pun, but I also have a bunch of my grandmother's LITERAL patterns, and I love it.

[cyclesofsaturn]

When I first started doing cross stitch, and people figured out I wanted to do more than a single kid's-first-starter (that I'd put in time out for 20 years, after bby!Titan stitching a full row to my shorts), my grandma gave me ALL her supplies and patterns - MINUS the birthday flowers pattern. That one she held onto, because all grandkids had their own birthday flower on her kitchen wall, and she was continuing this with the hoped-for great-grandbabies (there was one at the time).

Some of her pattern stash isn't to my taste, some I've had a friend ask for copies, some I've got on a list of future projects. Some just feel like home.

When she passed last year, two of my cousins were freshly expecting, and were worrying about how they could continue the tradition. Their mothers didn't cross-stitch anymore and they didn't know what had happened to Grandma's patterns.

Well, after great-grand #4's flower was done, Grandma had told me to go grab the pattern book out of her sewing box, because in her mid-90s she said it was too hard now, between her arthritis and her eyes (she'd been cross-stitching for ~80yrs at this point). GG#4's not being finished until the little one was a toddler, instead of done and framed before baby could sit up on their own, annoyed her. Also her hands and the eye strain.

At the reception after the funeral, I went around to all the cousins and told them I had Grandma's flower pattern book, that if they were interested I'd be happy to make flowers for the next generation, or give the patterns to their moms so it could continue as a "Grandma" tradition, or give everyone copies to make themselves. Everyone immediately nominated me to make the birthday flowers for the family as it grows. They were grateful and relieved, and one cousin confided she just found out she'll be having twins this spring.

Now, I can't actually start the patterns until the niblings are born, but I'm expected to make 4+ this year. These are my grandma's patterns and my cousins were devastated to think they were lost.

"Not Your Grandma's," my foot.

[technofeudalism]

[technofeudalism]

yeah i’m gonna have to disagree. if you’re not from here and you don’t have family here, do not come here. don’t come to the united states. they are gearing up to deport people from foreign countries to Guantanamo Bay without even notifying their home government. as in like… citizens of the United Kingdom.

the post means what it means. it doesn’t mean come to the largest city in the country with a police force that is extremely, extremely violent and as well equipped as most normal countries militaries or come to a state with a coastline. that is, in fact, probably the riskiest thing you could possibly do.

do not come to the united states. there is nothing here worth dying or being sent to a slave penal colony for.

[yaoiblackmold]

Im sorry but it is so funny how people outside of tumblr view us. Like why are the tiktokers treating tumblr like some professional ass website you need to do extensive prep before you begin posting on. And the follower farming advice is so fucking funny to me when this is the website where people actively hate getting new followers

[bigwizardhat]

obsessed with the woman at the dmv who replied with a firm “no” when asked if she wanted to be an organ donor but when the clerk asked “do you want junk mail? we sell your name and address to companies” she paused and gave a very thoughtful yet decisive “…yeah”

[tuna-core]

damn is this a new era of tumblr fake stories

[bigwizardhat]

is it truly that difficult to believe that some people are just bizarre

[bigwizardhat]

out of all the responses from ppl that have never been outside i’d say this is my favorite. like have you never just been in a room with other people that are speaking

[liberalsarecool]

Republican war on women is very real.

Gutting research is pure evil. The misogyny within First Felon is pure poison.

[republicanidiots]

Gentle reminder that Republicans who don't object to these changes are complicit in every single struggle for breath and life lost.

[indouscurse]

i need pepple to understand that in the first place leather has always been made from the byproducts of butchering animals for meat, otherwise the skin is just tossed and unused. there were some companies farming for leather for a while, particuarly alligator leather, but those were not the norm. peta did so much harm in their campaigns against leather as a concept (its not unethical. yoi get the skin when an animal dies. thats why most leather clothes in the usa are cow leather, bc thats the biggest meat animal here) that its almost impossible to buy anything "leather" that isnt made of plastic that it so fragile and shitty that the very Thread Holding It Together rips the fibers apart. it will last for maybe a year two if youre lucky, and wont biodegrade and was made out of something that isnt naturally occurring in the first place and is one of the biggest causes of pollution globally

[indouscurse]

i do not care if you personally think nobody should slaughter or eat animals, it is Going to happen anyway. you cannot be so obtuse thst you think making more plastic that causes pollution endless damage to the animals you claim to care about so much is better than omnivorous human beings eating other animals and using their bodies completely.

[liberalsarecool]

Once you admit capitalism is a problem, the answers and alternatives are easier to digest.

Too many people are afraid to admit capitalism is killing us and destroying the planet.

[wordsofdiana]

The best part about being asexual is knowing that you will never be honeypotted. I often picture myself as a mark in a James Bond movie who has information or something and Daniel Craig saunters up in his sexiest tux to seduce me and I’m just like “No thank you” no matter what he does and then he has an existential crisis and walks away in a daze then sends in Moneypenny cause maybe I just like women and I’m like “hey girl, no thanks” and send her away as well and they just never get the information. I am an immovable plot piece without even knowing it. Sorry James but I defy the tropes of your genre.

[thesuperheroesnetwork]

Happy International Asexuality Day to everyone except James Bond.

[noodles-07]

"it's all in your head" correct! unfortunately I am also in there

[toskarin]

one of the more bleak things to acknowledge is that if you pirate literally all of your music and then set aside a spotify subscription's worth of money each month to spend on a single pay-what-you-want album, it would almost immediately amount to you supporting those musicians more than streaming does

[toskarin]

pirating all of your music and then buying a hat or something four times a year still makes you pull significantly ahead of the person who streams thousands of songs every year. it's not really a fair or good system for anyone

[imsobadatnicknames2]

What a good post to reblog on bandcamp friday. Remember that any money you spend on albums on bandcamp today goes 100% to the artist.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

I saw a lot of people reblogging this with my addition two days ago and now I'm afraid some of them might have thought it was bandcamp friday that day lol. So for anyone with post timestamps turned off: I made that addition on Friday March 7th 2025. Bandcamp fridays always fall on the first friday of the month (when they do them) so the next one should fall on April 4th

[lensdeer]

The next Bandcamp Friday is on May 2nd, 2025! You can use this page to check how long until the next one :3

The remaining ones this year are:

May 2nd

August 1st

September 5th

October 3rd

December 5th