Untitled

[o0kawaii0o]

Hero of Time

[3584-tropical-fish]

Finished my geologic time scale scarf! It is stupidly long and works with a scale of 1 row = 5 million years. The colors correspond loosely to the official GSA/ICS colors

[musashi]

Hey can you guys reblog Cheeseburger so he can take a sunbeam nap on lots of blogs. No other reason I just want you guys to see him.

[musashi]

So, Cheeseburger died on November 21st after an unfairly short battle with an unfairly rare cancer that is rarely seen in cats. I only got to spend a month with him after his diagnosis, and losing him has been the greatest heartbreak of my entire life so far. He was my best friend and my soul cat, and he was there for me when I was completely alone, for twelve long years.

I made this transparent PNG the night he died in preparation for one of the many ways I was going to memorialize him--a surface rug in his likeness that I planned on laying directly in the line of his favourite sunbeam. And I uploaded that PNG here, because this is the website where people post their cats.

I was not expecting the reception I got. Many people have pointed out that this post has more reblogs than likes, and how insane that is in 2025 when reblog culture is at an all time low. I didn't even talk about the fact that Burger passed away in the original post, it wasn't a tearjerker reblog bait or anything like that. People just loved Burger that much, in the same way I fell in love with him at first sight. He was such an ugly kitten.

Anyways, it's really special to me that so many people have reblogged my best friend. I made this PNG to memorialize him in a completely different way, and you all wound up doing just that in ways I never even imagined.

Thank you. Wherever he is, I know the sun is shining.

[a999ain]

decaying sanctum

[depsidase]

[sabelmouse]

This fake yarn is supposedly better for sheep.

Aimed at people who don’t know where wool comes from, it’s 100% plastic. Yes, plastic.

So any garment you wash will release microfibres into the sea. It’ll never decompose.

You’re supposed to believe that sheep shearing is violent and cruel. There are imbeciles out there that work in an unprofessional manner while shearing, but that’s not the case overall.

Sheep don’t suffer from having their fleece removed.

Left on, the fleece can become a home for fly eggs and the subsequent maggots which can eat the sheep. Chemical treatments are available to prevent that happening. It’s much better for the sheep, the land and the farmer to avoid chemical use.

Don’t be fooled. Wool is a sustainable material, one we should make more and better use of.

[scrimblobimblobadimbo-deactivat]

Any garment you wash will release microfibres into the sea. It’ll never decompose.

This is very important.

[godesssiri]

And you need to wash acrylic wool garment more often than natural wool. They get stinky way more easily.

[ruusverd]

In my almost-decade of owning sheep, there have been exactly two(2) bad shearers try to start up in the area. Know what happened? The first farm they went to called every other shepherd in the area and said “This guy cut one of my sheep and didn’t think it was a big deal, don’t hire him.” And neither of them ever did business in the area again.

Some farmers are less conscientious than they should be about taking care of their stock, and the occasional tiny nick will happen, but no one is going to hire a shearer who is a) incompetent enough and b) uncaring enough to actually injure the animals to the point of bleeding, let alone the kind of horrors the internet claims.

Also, most breeds of sheep will literally die if they go too long without being sheared. PETA (and let’s face it, most of this anti-wool stuff can be traced back to deliberate misinformation from PETA) doesn’t care if sheep die, they have openly stated that they would prefer every domestic species that can no longer survive without humans go extinct rather than live in “"slavery.”“

Humans and sheep have lived together for over ten thousand years, they’ve been domesticated longer than dogs! Their lives consist of doing whatever the heck they want (for the most part they only want to walk, eat, sleep, play, and make lambs) while being fed and cared for, for the low price of having their hair cut once a year. Why would anyone boycott this natural, biodegradable fiber humans have been using for so long to the benefit of both species, in favor of plastics that are killing the planet??

[underthehedge]

Also loving the “the sheep will be snuggly warm tonight” like… You shear sheep in the spring, when the weather warms up and they no longer need it, and they grow it back for next winter.

[goat-heirop]

Also, you literaly NEED to shear sheep multible times a Year or they fucking Overheat and die in their own wool

[petermorwood]

Twee, deliberate mislabelling which appeals to kind-hearted people who know nothing about how the real thing is produced.

On the funnier side, ignorance about anything closer to nature than a supermarket shelf can result in gems like this one:

Regular yogurt for me.  Thanks.

(As for ignorance, this post is epic and getting more so every time I see it.)

*****

Back on topic.

Shearing’s not skinning and it’s not painful, unless some guy getting busy with a manscaping clipper means he’s flaying himself alive.

Shearing is an all-over haircut, call it sheepscaping if need be though expect some odd looks, and good shearers - as @ruusverd​ said, bad shearers earn a bad rep and soon earn no more money - will leave less nicks on an entire sheep than I might inflict on my face if I forget to change my razor-blade. 

That’s pretty impressive when dealing with a notoriously dimwit animal that doesn’t understand “now just sit still for a minute” and finds “see that open gate, go through it” a difficult concept. (Going through an unexpected hole in the hedge, however, is something sheep do with great ease and willingness, especially if there’s a soon-to-be-ex herb garden on the far side…)

“All warm and snuggly in their woolly jumpers…” Oh puh-leeze. A jumper is a garment which can be taken off and put on as required. A sheep’s fleece is nothing of the sort. Ireland’s just had a heatwave, so which of these two would have been more comfortable the other day when it was 30°C / 90°F in the shade?

*****

But look at the blood! goes the outcry about sheep with red stains. Here’s what that “blood” is. Unless the outcriers believe the front half is royal and bleeds blue, it’s just dye.

Why dye? There are various reasons: to show who owns which sheep in a mixed flock of the same breed, or to indicate if one has been dosed with something, or to mark if a ewe has mated with a ram.

The ram wears a harness - AFAIK not black leather with chrome studs, at least not on any farm near here - which holds a dye-pad on his chest. After he’s done his business, the hopefully-preggers ewe will have a patch of that dye on her rump as in the photo.

Different colours let the farmer know which ram’s been busy if there’s more than one, or with one ram, on what day the mating occurred so they can calculate when to expect lambs. That kit suggests rams get one day a week off…

*****

Besides shearing sheep to stop them overheating, if the weather is rainy rather than sunny they’ll still need sheared to stop them getting waterlogged.

A waterlogged sheep is a top-heavy sheep, and since rainy weather will have made the ground slippery, a top-heavy sheep can all too easily become a sheep on its back - a broad, flat back that won’t roll - unable to get upright.

Sheep internal organs aren’t meant to be upside down and inversion will eventually kill them, if they’re not gutted by a fox first. Crows will have had their eyes long before then.

Forget deceitful propaganda about fake wool, here’s some REAL advice about how to do a sheep a (literal) good turn.

I’ve done it myself, and though she’d already lost one eye - hoodie crows don’t miss a chance - that ewe survived and next spring produced what I was told were two fine lambs. I felt pretty good about that.

I still do.

*****

This is what shearing really looks like, and that’s not the behaviour of an animal in distress or pain. Baffled, maybe, but any human whose haircut started with a judo throw would be baffled too..

The end result is a 12lb / 5.5kg load of insulation which the sheep no longer has to carry about. How’d you like being stuck inside that lot on a hot day?

The “shearing is cruel” fruitloops rely on deliberate lies, gullibility and lack of knowledge. Be aware.

 Or maybe…

[amrv-5]

Does anyone know what to do about the temperature and also the prices

[urfavhatesterfs]

YOU hates terfs

[switchingtogeico]

[captainhaterade]

[stankpasta]

rb if u hates terfs

[official-pussy-posts-2]

Official ‘terfs get out of my house’ Post

[2886beaconstreet]

ao3 asking if i want to see mature content. do i want to see birds in the sky. do i want to feel the wind in my hair and the grass under my feet

[plumslices]

JAR (Joel Arthur Rosenthal) sheep head hair clip

Pearl, sapphire, aluminum, silver, gold

[0bscvr1ty]

This looks like some sort of mysterious spirit that'd you'd encounter on your journey and you must solve three riddles to proceed.

[solarmane]

new fanfic writer who has marked their work completed ao3 only to leave a note at the end saying: thanks for all the support guys if you want to read the rest of the fic subscribe to my patreon :)

me, an elder fandom veteran, suddenly having anne rice flashbacks:

no.

NO.

starting to rock back and fourth.

you do not understand.

you were born into an age of peace. i was there Gandalf. i was there three thousand years ago. i remember the cease and desists. i remember authors hunting fanfic writers for sport. i remember when every fic opened with a disclaimer because we genuinely thought it might protect us.

we do not charge money for the copyrighted gay wizard stories.

do not tempt fate youngling.

step away from the paywall.

that is how you summon the ancient evils.

that is how you wake the lawyers.

[odins-price]

Remember people, this is against AO3s terms of service. If you see a fic that does this REPORT THAT THING!!! These people may not know better or they might, but them doing this has the potential to ruin things for everyone.

[peppermintquartz]

Tell the writer to read the TOS. Writers absolutely CANNOT ask for payment in exchange for fanfic. If they won't take it down ASAP, report it to AO3.

[carriesthewind]

Things suck right now. Who wants to join me in making paper crane chains? You don't need any special tools or artistic talent, it gives you something to do with your hands, and you end up with a pretty chain of paper cranes that you can either hang up, or throw away without feeling too wasteful. And if you do join me, post pictures in the reblogs! :)

Tools you will need: needle and thread, a pad of post-it notes, and sharpies/markers/crayons/etc. of your choice.

[carriesthewind]

You can design your post-it any way you like - you can even draw a picture or write out a text. I usually make a simple pattern with around 6 colors. Start by just drawing a pattern - it can be simple or detailed, random or symmetrical, cured or angled - then add each color, line by line, until you fill the post-it.

[carriesthewind]

How to fold a paper crane: https://savingcranes.org/learn/origami-cranes/

Additional pictures and commentary from me below the cut (skip if you already know how to fold a paper crane).

When fold it into a triangle with the pattern face up (so that when you fold it, you're looking at the back of the post-it). Then, fold hotdog-style with the pattern face down (so that when you fold it, you're looking at the side that you colored).

If you are having trouble visualizing how to fold along all creases at once, start by unfolding the note and the gently folding partway along each crease - it should start to collapse in the right way.

When forming the kite shape, make sure the open sides of the square are at the bottom of the kite. The little triangle at the top of the kite is going to form the body of the crane. The part you are folding will become the wings, tail, and head, so you will need to be able to separate them.

This step - pulling the bottom corner up to the top corner to create a thin diamond - can be tricky the first times you do it. It can help to think about how what you are doing connects to the final crane. You are unfolding one side of the kite and then pulling the top - the loose portion - up to form a thin triangle. This will become the wing. The bottom portion of the diamond is going to become the head and tail.

Also make sure you only unfold and then refold each side individually. It can help to think of this as two symmetrical pieces of paper - a top and bottom - that are connected along the bottom and along the middle crease. Although they are connected, you need to fold each "piece" of paper separately. You can see in the second picture below how the part that you folded up to the top is going to become the wing.

Once you have repeated the process, you have two wings at the top of the diamond, and we will fold the bottom of the diamond into the neck and the tail.

If you are having difficulty forming the creases at this stage - especially because of the size of the post-it - you can use the edge of your marker to press firmly along the fold you want to crease.

Again, it can help to think about how what you are doing is connected to the final crane at this point. The bottom portions of the kite are the tail and the neck, but they need to separated from the wings so they can be flipped up. You are folding the wings in half so that the tail and neck lie flat, one on the bottom, one on top, facing you.

Once the tail and the neck have been flipped up, they need to be folded in half again to form two thin limbs, and the wings unfolded.

To pull the neck and the tail away from the wings, gently pull the top of the neck/tail away, then pinch at the bottom where they connect with the wings to form a crease. Finally, gently pull the wings away from each other, and the body should inflate to create a tiny crane! If you need to, you can gently press down in the center of the body to flatten it. If you want to, you can also shape the wings by pinching the edges or curling the tips up or down.

[carriesthewind]

The first set - more to come tomorrow. :)

[carriesthewind]

My army grows...

[carriesthewind]

I have decided that I am going to make a crane "bead" curtain to cover the awkward little half-window that I never open. This will be frivolous and time-consuming and serve no purpose, other than the idea makes me happy.

[carriesthewind]

Coping by turning feelings into paper cranes.

[carriesthewind]

A side effect of this project is that I am going to accidentally find out how many unique sharpies I own. (For each crane I used a different color to draw the initial design, and I am slowly cycling through my whole stock.)

[carriesthewind]

Unfortunately I succumbed to looking at sharpie sets online and it appears that there are, in fact, colors that I do not currently have.

[carriesthewind]

I've never done gray cranes before, but I really like how they turned out.

[carriesthewind]

BEHOLD MY FLOCK

[carriesthewind]

Complete! This project made me very happy, and I hope it may bring you some joy as well. :)

I used this method to hang the cranes: https://youtu.be/4imAboG66Sg

[smallswingshoes]

Spent an afternoon on these

[sevryn]

I finally finished the pigeon sweater! 🕊️🐦

pattern is by Michelle Tsai

It took a full month and a half for me to finish lol

info about how I knit mine (yarns etc)

I used a bunch of mohair combined with other yarns to get the colours :)

[roostercrowned]

DON’T become even a casual nerd about historical fashion because you’ll start looking at pseudo-medieval fantasy and going “that jacket and those breeches are 200 years apart and reflect extremely different social movements” and “oh no they were NOT making shirts like that prior to industrialization” and “a fly front? in MY ~1500s???”

[ukpuru]

Textile patterns from the Igbo women’s weaving industry at Akwete, now in southern Abia State. National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague.

[thingsfromthedirt]

[headspace-hotel]

There is a lot of information out there about weaving, crocheting and knitting, but relatively little about spinning.

Which is a shame, since spinning is really where the "resource provided by the earth" tangibly becomes "object with a use."

Aspects of spinning, such as the amount of twist and the length of the fibers, are impactful upon the thread or yarn created, but lots of fiber crafters don't get to directly play with those variables...

It is so strange how textile production is so utterly dominated by very few fibers, when so many are possible. Industry keeps coming up with new ways to transform bamboo or something into fibers, which is all well and good, but we have yet to run out of easily usable natural fibers that have worked for thousands of years.

Dogbane—Apocyonum cannabinum—was called "Indian hemp" because it was used by Native Americans for ropes, cords and textiles. It's incredibly strong, soft, and easy to collect large amounts of it. But hardly anybody uses it.

[bookwyrmbran]

As far as yarn construction (twist, fiber staple, ply, draw, etc) goes, may I recommend the Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs (Sarah Anderson) and Yarnitecture (Jillian Moreno)? @dirtypuzzle mentioned SpinOff and Fibershed in the comments and those are great magazines and ways to find local groups as well. I've read some great articles on prepping and spinning flax, hemp, cotton, and silk on there in addition to the more popular fleece/fur/hair fibers.

For those especially I can't over-recommend the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook or the Field Guide to Fleece (Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius.) An awful lot of excellent fiber breeds and species are now unknown, under-used, and in danger of going extinct; Shave 'Em to Save 'Em and the Livestock Conservancy in general are good resources for finding local people working with those. There's a chiengora (dog wool) group on Ravelry that's great, too, and lots of easily searchable info on raising silkworms at home and spinning from hankies.

There really is a dearth of information easily available on most plant fibers, I too would love to see more of it for like... almost everything, really. At a guess, most potentials get ignored at an institutional level because they're a pain to grow and process in bulk, which in turn means there's little if any data on how they stand up to modern washing and drying and detergents. Bast fibers tend to be a pain to prep as an interested individual (and often smelly!) and can be hard on the hands while spinning, especially those with extra long fibers. Even so a lot of people would spin old/new/ignored plants if they didn't have to process raw plant into spinnable fiber. I suspect that and not knowing which plants might be good options are the biggest obstacles to at least hobbyist experimentation.