Church Of Whale Fall

Can't unsee those gummy worm horns. Truely, they make this doll. n_n

Locien & Berry ♥

What are your go-to sites for finding fabric in period prints/colours, specifically cotton? I'm starting a quilt that's going to be entirely of repro or plausible-looking 18th/19th century prints and while I've had some luck with 'traditional' collections from brands like kona, was wondering if you knew of any smaller purveyors I might look at?

Ooh, I don't think I'm the best person to ask about historical cotton prints, since I've never sewn a historical garment from a reproduction print. Someone who's sewn 19th century day dresses would probably know some much better options.

My personal favourite places to get fabric are:

Pure Linen Envy, which only carries linen.

Pursilks, which has a variety of silks, cottons, and synthetics, but they're not historical.

Burnley & Trowbridge, which focuses on historical fabrics and reproduction notions, but have barely any printed cottons.

Renaissance Fabrics, which has a few cotton prints, and some nice silks and wools.

Williamsburg also has some reproduction cotton prints, and Virgil's Fine Goods has a few as well.

However! If you want a bunch of different little pieces and are willing to do some editing, one option is to dig through Smithsonian Open Access, and The Met's collection, both of which have a huge amount of public domain high resolution images of fabric swatches & fragments, including lots of 18th & 19th century printed cottons. Some are pretty stained and ragged, but there are plenty of nice looking ones too. Make a pinterest board for them!

You could make a blank document the size of the printable area of a yard of fabric at 150 DPI, and fill it up with all your favourite fragments (cropped and resized to be the right scale) and then get it printed on a basic cotton on a site like MyFabricDesigns, ArtFabrics, or DesignYourFabric. (Spoonflower is also an option, but they print with inks, and the other 3 I linked use reactive dyes, which are more colour fast and don't make the fabric stiff and crinkly like the inks do.)

I plan to eventually make repeating patterns of some of those swatches, but it's quite a lot of work for each individual pattern, and I think you could get enough small bits for a patchwork quilt pretty quickly of you just arranged them all in one big rectangle.

I don't know if you have any photo editing programs, but if not then photopea.com works, and is one I use sometimes!

BEHOLD

MY NEW SON.

HIS NAME IS LONG LUSCIOUS LEGS

Little Meow Meow

Got Kay's padding done! The belly is just a bit of a legging and stuffing. Her chest is thin foam padding up top (to "shorten" her neck) and the rest is the same materials as her belly. It's all removable, so if I ever want to take some pictures of Amaya again, I can easily swap everything out.

Unfortunately, the only thing I have that fits her right now is the high-waisted pink dress that's a smidge too small for her chest. I'll take more pictures once I get her different clothes.

mistakes and all, here she is 🎉 I'm still working on drafting and sewing her outfit, but I am THRILLED to move on from the face. one thing I really struggled with was the eyes, and in the end I'm still considering making her new ones with what I learned trying to make these. They're obviously a rough fit. As for her hair, I can't stop fussing with it and I'm not sure how to get it just right. Ah well.

‘am i Having A Brain Problem or Being a Shithead’: a short procrastination checklist

aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)

lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)

1) do I honestly intend to start the task despite my lack of success?

yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question

no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.

2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?

yes: next question

no: guess what? this is the real next task

3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?

yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.

no: next question

4) do I know how to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.

5) do I have everything I need to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.

6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?

i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.

i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?

the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?

I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)

i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?

no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead

7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?

yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.

reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.

no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t. 

reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.

8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!

probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.

if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.

hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU

so weightwatchers released an app for kids - a diet app for kids (!!!!) down to the age of eight (8) years old.

this is literally an app that is supposed to have children track their food intake, and their energy output, every damn day, with the purpose of them losing weight. it does before and after photos, and uses this system that is a “stoplight system”, so bad foods are red, medium is yellow and good is green.

when you sign up you have to put in your goal and one of the choices is “to make my parents proud”.

this is basically an app designed to shame children, and indoctrinate eating disorders into them.

what the hell is wrong with people????!!!!

also, apparently oprah is supporting this shit so screw her.

i am so damn mad. this is child abuse, and the weightwatchers cult is making money off of it.

seeing people say shit like “i wish i as born gay” or “i wish i was born a different gender” makes me s o sad bc ill bet you dimes to dollars that person is on the lgbt spectrum but because of ingrained phobias and the way media portrays people like us, it feels like an insurmountable implausibility, when its really not. if you wish you were gay, or trans, or whatever, then like, maybe you should give the introspection a chance. compulsive heteronormativity is real and it can truly make you believe youre cis and straight and that you never need to think more into it than that.

Don’t mind me. I’ll be over here contemplating time and my own mortality.

On May 6, 2005 Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories was released in Europe on the Game Boy Advanced.  Happy 10th anniversary to Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories!