Wynn In The Willows

Pictures, poetry, writing, and whatever comes to mind

[hobbular]

Friend of mine was submitting a job application and discovered that they REQUIRED a photo:

We’re trying to decide which of these is a better option:

or

[nowlander]

[memewhore]

[spleenyz]

[fallout-lou-begas]

[kermittingacrime]

ask and you shall receive.

[gayvampyr]

[gin-juice-tonic]

I know what you're all wondering: "Gin, can you still do macrame right now?" and the answer is yes

These are bags for my niece and nephew. I still need to make a bag strap for nephew's. I tried something new and did a braided strap for my niece's. (It's longer than it is in the photo, a bunch of it is hiding behind the bag.) I like the braided strap because to be honest it just takes way less time.

The nephew's bag is in a new style I haven't tried before. I was kinda worried he'd reject the bag if it was in the same purse-ish style as the others, so I figured a rectangular type would feel more messenger bag ish.

The dinosaur and the smiley face i didn't make. I just put velcro spots on the backs of them, then tied a button onto the bags and put the matching velcro spot on that. I also got them little patches with their initials that they can put on too. The idea is they could swap out the decorations if they wanted.

I did these in 3mm cord instead of 2mm cord like my prior bags. It makes a very big difference in size. I knew it would a little, but I didn't realize how much. Here's a photo of my last bag vs my niece's.

You can see the 2mm one (left) has a lot more knots needed to make it the same size as the 3mm one (right). And the holes in the 3mm one are much more pronounced.

My niece isn't actually very big yet, so I didn't want her bag to be that big, but it came out that way anyway! I guess at least she'll be able to continue to use it as she gets older...? If she wants to, anyway.

[teaboot]

My boss has a new boss who's been dropping in to check on how different sites are doing and I keep introducing her to the clients by going "This is Hank. Hank, this is my boss's boss, she's very important, please tell her nice things about me" and that's my big Autistic secret to professional networking. Letting them think you're funny

[teaboot]

Other fun Professional Hacks:

"Networking" doesn't have to feel like one big huge façade of manipulation and lies. You just find people you like. The things you talk about don't even have to be related, you just gotta find people who you like working with who you might reach out to for questions or projects later.

You don't need to look professional and respectable or like a "real" adult. I like to just show up and make it clear I'm receptive to jokes and quirks and weird ideas, and the people who vibe with that usually come to me.

Introduce people you like to other people you like. Talk them up. You can tell your boss "This is Mike he kicks ass, he knows everything about this place, if you want to know something talk to him, if he ever quits we're stealing him"

I found can't think of a polite or socially normal way to say something, sometimes you can just say it like "I don't know if this is dumb or not but I don't know anything about this. Can you explain what you mean?", or "I was taught something different. Should I change how I've been doing it?". I've never had a negative reaction to this.

When in doubt, ask a weird question. "What's your favorite dessert food" is a p good one. Sometimes folks think I'm childish but at least they know what they're getting into and they know I'm not judging them.

Sometimes when higher-ups approach me with a stiff upper lip I'll test the waters with a "is your job as insane as it sounds" or something similar to remind them that I, a worker performing a role, and speaking to them, a worker performing a role. If they give a stiff and measured answer I stay distant and professional. If their performance cracks and their tone changes or they smile or laugh or give a funny reply I know I can relax and joke a bit too.

I still don't enjoy business stuff outside of the most basic day to day duties of my job and conventions n shit are still pretty draining but learning that other people are also following a script and the performance has room for "yes-and" type improv has helped a lot

[oreramar]

Every time I'm forced by circumstance to hand-sew something, I remember a fairytale I once read. There are lead-up shenanigans as the humble protagonist helps small animals and meets the princess and all that, but in the climax, the princess rigs a contest for her hand by setting her own task: sew her a dress in a single night.

The noble suitors, who have never sewn a thing in their lives, sabotage themselves by their own ambitions: they choose difficult fabrics to work with and cut huge, elaborate patterns and select gems and pearls and beads to sew onto it, and snip such long bits of thread that they lose time detangling their stitches, and ultimately resort to pinning bits together as they run out of time, so that their offerings initially look beautiful and flashy, but when the princess tries them on they stick her with pin ends and fall apart as she moves.

The humble protagonist uses a very simple pattern without embellishments and sews using short lengths of thread (snipped off and threaded for him by little birds of course) which don't tangle and therefore save time. His dress is plain by contrast, but holds together and the princess is able to move freely in it, and so he wins the contest and her hand.

I particularly think about the bit about threading the needle with shorter lengths of thread, needing to tie off more often but avoiding tangles and thereby saving time.

I then ignore that piece of wisdom passed down through who knows how many years and proceed to cut the longest damn length of thread I can manage because I hate tying off beginning or ending knots and I will not subject myself to more of that even if it does mean more tangles along the way.

[fandom-trash-goblin]

we've got a life to love living.

[enki2]

[herbiehero]

The Twilight Zone: Our episode "A Slot Machine Chases You Around Physically" was meant as a cautionary tale about the predatory nature of the gambling industry

The Gambling Industry: We've invented the slot machine that chases you around physically from The Twilight Zone episode "A Slot Machine Chases You Around Physically"

[2mo3cm-man]

That’s a real episode, for anyone who didn’t know.

[soft-lovely]

people

[tipsytabellion]

this photo i took of my gf

[hopegrasping]

Let go of the idea that diy will inherently look shit. All your clothes are handmade you just don't see the people doing it.

[hopegrasping]

One of the best additions that gets my point across better :)

[darqueloaf]

There's a group that makes clothing with ink stained hands to show each time the fabric was touched with human hands to make the garment. The purpose of the piece is to bring attention to the hidden labor of sewists in the garment industry

ABOUT | HUMAN TOUCH

ABOUT

[elfwreck]

To be fair - while all your clothing was made by "a person on a sewing machine," many of those sewing machines

Aren't easily available to you, and

Take a notable amount of training to use (especially, to use without damage to your hands) (Not "months of training." Just. Not "here's the instruction pamphlet; have fun.")

However: The sewing machines that are reasonably available to you, will make clothes you can wear and enjoy wearing. (Industrial sewing machines can sew for 8, 10, 18 hours without breaking down; the one you buy at WalMart cannot. Some industrial ones can sew through 4 layers of denim; you can find a machine that does that but you won't get it by accident and it will cost more. And so on.)

Basic sewing machine - enough to get started making clothes - is under $200. (Industrial machines start at ~$2000 and go up from there.) Super Ultra Cheap version is under $100; not recommended unless you know you'll be able to throw $350 at the hobby in a couple of years when the simple one is just really too limited anymore.

...Anything under $50 (new) is A Gimmick. They're not all worthless but they're very limited. They're more "you can learn how a sewing machine works with this" than "you can make clothes with this." (I mean. You can. But you can make clothes with a needle & thread, too. And while it takes longer, you may be less frustrated than using a $45 "beginner sewing machine.") Some of the gimmick machines are very useful for their specific purpose - they're ultra-portable, or good for repairs, and so on.

But if you are on a very limited budget - less than $50 can get you started on making clothes. And bookbags. And pockets to add to clothes you already have. And hats. Bathing suits, if you decide to get ambitious. (Stretchy fabrics are challenging, esp on a simple machine.)

You can make socks with a sewing machine but I really don't recommend it.

Shifting public thoughts on sewing machines from "every third household has one" to "exotic crafting hobby" is part of how the damn capitalist regime forces people to put up with clothes that don't fit actual human shapes and/or fall apart after 5 washings.

[grison-in-space]

Also, sewing machines are one of those things that is often much better to buy used, because in the old days they used metal gears and now the gears are nylon and don't last as long. If you want to get a sewing machine and dabble, I highly suggest looking on Craigslist or at estate sales for a used one. Mine cost me $30 and would have gone for much more, adjusted for inflation, when it was new. But people inherit sewing machines or want to give them away all the time, so it is very worth checking on the used market near you if you want to get into sewing clothes but aren't sure where to start. You can often get a lot more sewing machine for your buck than if you buy a new one.

[deramin2]

This is all good information, but fails to address why people associate homemade clothing with looking like shit: poor fit.

You can make stunningly gorgeous and fashionable pieces of clothing with the basic straight stitch that used to be the only stitch sewing machines can do. Maybe a little strategic hand sewing just to tack some key points down. Fancier stitches can do some nice things, but they’ll never make a garment look better on you. That’s all in the fitting. Fitting is the real skill.

That’s good news if you’re thrifty because fitting a pattern takes only low cost tools and materials. Straight edges, measuring tape, adhesive tape, children’s washable markers, tracing paper, and cheap test garment fabric. You can get books on fitting at libraries, online archives, thrift stores, magazines, and online tutorials. Personally I’m a fan of In-House Pattern Studios.

Sewing pattern sizes and proportions are not based on actual human proportions, they’re based on standardized pattern blocks that make the sizing math easy. You will not get a garment that looks good by picking a pattern + size and making it without alterations. There’s nothing wrong with your body, and there’s nothing even really wrong with how random the pattern sizing starts as, there’s just no standard body shape to begin with so anything would be wrong for most people.

You need to find what your key measurements are, cut apart a traced copy, and move the bits around so it’s your proportions with your desired ease. There are as many different opinions as there are sewists on what those measurements are, how to move them, and how to figure out if they worked. That’s why library books are helpful to get a lot of perspectives from people teaching you a whole method, not One Neat Trick with no context. I like the In-House Pattern Studio method the best and the most important 80% you can get free with the newsletter signup (she doesn’t sell the information and only sends things occasionally after the initial tutorials).

This is how important fit is: about 4 years ago before top took off literally 10 pounds of boobs but while I was binding, I made a really cool shirt with rainbow skulls and floral collar + placard. I did give it a lot of ease, but never so much that it looked baggy. I agonized over the fit, and it was fit to my body as it was at the time. I ended up getting top surgery like a year after that and was bummed my shirt wouldn’t fit me right. But it did. It fits my body so well even with a smaller chest and still looks very masculine on me.

I’ve also gained a bunch of weight and am frequently very anguished about my clothes no longer fitting. (I don’t care what weight I am, I just want it to stay there.) Most of that agony is that the way our clothes are cut is deliberately hostile to weight changes in ways our ancestors clothes were not, but that’s a different rant.

But! My cool rainbow skull shirt still fits! It still looks good on me. It doesn’t pull in weird places or restrict my movement in ways that set off my skin sensitivity. Because it actually fully fits my proportions. Something no purchased clothing has ever done, and can never do.

People complement it and I get to tell them I made it and they’re blown away. I could have made the whole thing with straight stitches. It’s the fit and creative use of fabric (pattern matching problem solving) that makes it look like it’s a designer shirt.

It’s not the tools and it’s not the machine that make the garment good, it’s having the knowledge and willpower to confront the exact shape of your body and fitting it.

[girlboss-pussy-queen]

sabrina the teenage witch is so unrealistic, no one from massachusetts would ever pronounce aunt as 'ant.'

[massachusetts-official]

Official Post of Massachusetts

[marzipanandminutiae]

this is also an issue in the Handmaid's tale show

"Ant Lydia" June you are from BROOKLINE have some DECORUM

[wynn-in-the-willows]

They're so painfully Californian in that show. It was always a favorite, but when I realized that that's supposed to be massachussets as a kid there was an odd sense of betrayal. It's like when I tried listening to the audiobook for Discovery of Witches and the narrator had such a thick valley girl accent, but she was supposed to be from upstate NY. I get that a lot of actors are from california, but the US doesn't all sound the same. We have so many dialects.

[wizardarchetypes]

one time when I was a barista I was telling my coworker that I suddenly really missed cows. I used to work with cows all the time back home and then I moved away and suddenly it had been four years and nary a cow.

15 minutes later this old guy came up to the counter with his address written on a napkin & he said “me and my wife have a whole herd of dexters and a couple of new calves. come on over any time”

so after work I was like ok fuck it & I drove to the address and I parked at the gate & I walked down the driveway to the barn and this woman was like “oh my husband told me you might stop by! come see our cows” and she introduced me to every single cow. made my whole week.

thank you cow couple

[creekfiend]

Having seen some births now i can say that dog birth is amazing cos they just slip n slide out one after the other like a little conveyor belt. And theyre so little and unformed. And then UNGULATE BIRTHS ... are amazing for the opposite reason which is that 10mins after being born they are filing their taxes. Unless they are goats, in which case they are committing tax fraud instead

[creekfiend]

Goats are what is called a precocial species, which means that shortly after birth they are able to do many thimgs on their own, such as standing, walking, eating, and embezzlement

[prenbyw]

Spoon in the shape of a fish. Carved from some Sycamore I found just outside Wivenhoe, Essex.

[hinako-supremacy]

op i love your fish so much i made it a png

they are now a school of fish

[teaboot]

Posts that prove that despite about 300 thousand years of technological development, humanity at its core hasn't really changed all that much

[romanceyourdemons]

whenever i look into a historical monarch who doesn’t get talked about much and is just kind of a blank spot in my understanding of the historical narrative, 95% of the time what i find is pure white hot blistering capability. a pencil pusher for the ages. a 39 year reign with no more than three hours of sleep a night. there aren’t any good stories from his reign because he systematically caught and stopped all catastrophic good stories before they could start. you shrimply must respect it

[animentality]

[opossum-mypossum]

[neovagina-penisis-evangelion]

When people argue that food from Chinese and Mexican restaurants in the US are not 'real' representations of that culture's cuisine ignore the historical reality that these dishes were developed by diasporic communities striving to recreate the flavors of home with available resources. Such criticism frames adaptation as a loss of authenticity, rather than recognizing it as a sincere and evolving expression of culture by people separated from their homeland.

[ninhaoma-ya]

Too good to leave in the tags

[midnightinthemagicmicagarden]

Edging Towards Something Beautiful

Watercolor On Black Cotton Paper

2024, 30"x 22"

Wild Pink Roses