toasted frozen

Tempted to actually put this on spotify so I can secretly stream it at work...

one thing i am quite grateful to Brian David Gilbert for is the phrase "If you needed ME to tell you that... I'm glad I told you that."

mother, daughter // a sandra lynn and figueroth faeth poem

here’s the contrapuntal poem I wrote as a part of @d20exchange 2025!! ❄️

"I can't be charmed, I can't be thrown into falling in love 'cause of magic. I want to say, just because of the nature of that magic, I recognize your eyes even with the charm turned."

number one rule is get stainless steel shit. stainless steel water bottle stainless steel straw, you dont want that rubber plastic etc shit it grows mold like a mf. turns out that was the main culprit of what happened to me, my reusable water bottle was plastic and it didn't matter how much i let it soak or cleaned it out.

get this either if you can or can't afford the stainless steel stuff and just be really on cleaning it; staw cleaner looks like this:

and get one its mammas the bottle cleaner for your cup:

You put that tablet in the bottle, add hot water, let it fizz and soak for a bit and hey presto, any stains or discolouration or weird little crevices are suddenly removed of their hidden nasty bits.

My niece kept saying her water bottle tasted weird, and she washed it and washed it, and then me and my mum were like GIVE IT HERE and we put a denture tablet in it and added the straw to it and it started fizzing up the straw and all this black gunk started coming out the weird curvy bits of the fitted straw like a Coke-mentos experiment.

It’ll taste slightly minty unless you rinse rinse rinse rinse rinse rinse but that’s not a terrible thing, and let’s face it, denture tablets are for cleaning dentures so, you know, designed to clean things that go in mouths.

(for if anyone so wants to make their own i have never written a pattern before so proceed with caution but you should be fine if youve knit socks before: these are a solid medium-ish sock size, knit in the round, top down using dk yarn in two colors, one held together with a black + sliver sparkly thread.

cuff:

sock 1 starts with black (as the contrast color), sock 2 starts with white (as the contrast color)

CO 52 stitches and join for working in the round

round 1: k2, p2 until end of round

repeat round 1 until desired cuff length (these are ~2 inches)

sock body:

sock 1: k to end of round, continuing to use the black yarn for 8 (ish) rows, then switch to white yarn. knit 37 rows with white yarn, creating a total of 45 rows

sock 2: k to end of round, continuing to use the white yarn for 40 (ish) rows, then switch to black yarn. knit 5 rows with black yarn creating a total of 45 rows

heel:

k 26 stitches, then switch to contrast color. You should be able to not cut the main color yarn, leaving it where it is to be picked up after the heel is finished!! heel is worked across the remaining 26 stitches

r1 (right side): k to end using contrast color, turn work

r2 (wrong side) : sl 1, then p to end

r3 (right side) : (sl 1, k1) to end

repeat r2 + r3 11 times for 22 rows, ending on the right side

heel turn:

r1 (right side) : k15, ssk, k1. Turn

r2 (wrong side)) : sl 1, p5, p2tog, p1. Turn

r3 (right side) : sl 1, k to 1 st before gap, ssk, k1. Turn

r4 (wrong side) : sl 1, p to 1 st before gap, p2tog, p1. Turn

gusset:

using main color yarn from where it was left, pick up 11 stitches along one side of the heel flap, then knit across the stitches left from the heel, then pick up 11 stitches along the other side of the heel flap: place marker if that helps keep track of where these stitches end!

k 26 (these should be the 26 stitches that the heel was NOT worked across,) ssk, k until 2 stitches before beginning of round (or 2 stitches before marker), k2tog

alternate rows between k to end and decreasing rows until total of 52 stitches left

sock again:

knit until 2 inches shorter than desired length!!

toe:

switch to contrast color

r1 : k to end

r2 : k1, ssk, k to 3 st before m, k2tog, k1, sm, k1, ssk, k to 3 st before BOR, k2tog, k1

Repeat rows 1 and 2 5 times total to have 32 stitches total

k to end, then k r2 3 times to have 20 stitches left, with 10 stitches on one needle each!

graft close using kitchener stitch

pattern!!

i used duplicate stitch, reversing the pattern for each sock, using black yarn to embroider on top of the white for both, which made it look neater than white on black would have!! here is the pixel art i used:

(yes this is 53 across and not 52 justttt ignore one pixel have fun and good luck!!)

anyways i hope you very much enjoy your gift happy holidays :DDD