Existential Crafting

Anyway I was bitching about how hard it is to come up with feasible planets in Star Wars because sometimes you need a new planet from scratch and sometimes you need to know more about a planet than the 'has jungles, is probably a moon technically' than Wookieepedia will give you, and they're like 'oh yeah I can do something about that'.

So they've written (in Matlab but they swear it will run as a .exe as well and I may be conscripted to embed it as a web tool at some point) a star system generator.

You input what you know about the planet (ecosystem, population, sun colour, does it have liquid water, does it have a moon or moons, is it a moon or moons, temperature averages, atmosphere, you get me) and it will give you the... everything else about the star system, in obedience to real-universe physics. And if you input nothing you get a randomly generated star system.

And I’m like oh I know people who will be into this with a vengeance, and they're not on Tumblr, so this is me seeing who exactly would be keen on, and I cannot stress this enough, a real-physics comprehensive star system generator.

Dandelion Root Coffee

I was inspired to write about the magnificent dandelion today as an earthy caramel-like scent wafted through the house. The aroma of roasting dandelion roots is totally unlike anything I have ever smelled before, and definitely not what I expected (being well-accustomed to the smell of the bitter white latex in the leaves).

I’m a coffee addict: at minimum, I probably drink about half of a pot a day, as do most Scandinavians. I’ve worked in a fairtrade coffee cooperative before, and despite all the best efforts to improve the coffee industry, it is as exploitative and environmentally destructive as ever. Therefore, I am always on the lookout for local and/or temperate-hardy sustainable alternatives to get my bitter fix, like chicory and the Kentucky Coffeetree. I even grow my own coffee plants indoors.

Another delectable option for warm tannic satisfaction came today in the form of a dandelion. I was prepping an area to put in some new trees, so I had to clear out some flora. As I pulled up root after root, remembered tattiehoking’s post about dandelion coffee, and decided to give it a go.

I came to understand today that one of the many benefits that has come from covering the garden in mulch instead of grass has been the sheer size of the dandelion roots available for harvest. The dandelions that grow on the grass plane are wiry and stunted, but the behemoths I dug up in the mulched areas may as well be carrots.

With a little under 2 hours between harvest and steeping, I washed, chopped, and then oven-dried the roots at 100˚ C, turning it up to 180˚ C for the last 30 minutes to roast them. After steeping the resulting pellets for a good five minutes, I topped off my mug with a splash of maple syrup: my Canadian roots seemed to intuit that it was the right thing to do.

The result was a caramel-like brew that is an excellent tonic for the liver and gall bladder, which is also being researched as an anti-cancer medicine. [x] It was truly delicious, which–considering my habits–is bad news for the dandelions in the rest of the local area.

Unsure? Try it before you make it

More:

“Taraxacum—A review on its phytochemical and pharmacological profile,” in Journal of Ethnopharmacology Volume 107, Issue 3, 11 October 2006, Pages 313–323

Dandelion Research, University of Maryland Medical Centre

Uses, side effects, interactions of Dandelion extracts on WebMD

Just in case you forget this exists.

You can browse the most popular ones or search for certain colors, themes, and even specific hex codes!

When you find one you like, you can download a wallpaper swatch of it and also select the specific colors it uses to look at more palettes that use those same ones.

So. Instead of five colours, I have seven greys and blacks, which, if my math is correct, will make the quilt 112”x129” or so; plenty big for even a king.

She’s a massive 112”x129” (as I calculated 🎉) and I put double batting in as requested by the girlfriend.

Used the thread colour “Shadow” to do the quilting and Northcott cotton on the back and the same solid black as the last outside colour for the binding.

Yes, for some reason I don't think they had any Rivercane baskets at this exhibit, the Vinita cultural center is a bit small so maybe that had to do with it? But traditionally Rivercane baskets look like this:

(credit to Lizzie "Nannie" Youngblood and Rowana Bradley, artist unknown for the Chief's Heart shoppers basket)

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

bird 6/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

Please take a look if you need a gift idea. They are truly extraordinary pieces.

The BramblyWoods

Sun and star dress!

I was trying to get rid of some blue scraps, and use the ever beuatfiul blue sun trim (and find a reason to purchase the yellow fire trim) and tada!!!!